The gates of the palace stood as he remembered them, tall, ornate, and alive with enchantments that shimmered faintly in the fading light. He paused there, his breath catching in his throat, as if crossing the threshold would break the fragile spell that had carried him this far. Centuries of torment had left their mark on him, his once-golden hair was streaked with silver, his frame leaner, his eyes shadowed by the weight of memories he would never fully shed. Yet here he was, stepping back into the kingdom he thought he would never see again.

And then, there you were.

He hadn’t dared to imagine this moment. Not like this. He’d thought of you, of course, in the endless nights when pain was his only company. He had dreamed of your face, replayed the last time he’d seen it, your wide eyes filled with fear as the captors dragged him away. That memory had haunted him more than anything else. And yet, somehow, it was different now. Seeing you in flesh and blood, no longer a memory, but a living, breathing part of the world he had fought so hard to return to, undid him.

He stepped forward, each movement deliberate, as if he were still unsure whether this was real. The years had not touched you, not in the way they had ravaged him. Your beauty was timeless, your grace unshaken, but your eyes told a different story. They mirrored his own pain, his longing, his disbelief. And beneath it all, the faintest glimmer of something he had nearly forgotten, hope.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. What should he say? Apologize for leaving, when it was never his choice? Thank you for waiting, when he knew the cost of such devotion? Explain the agony of those years, when he barely understood how he had survived them himself?

Instead, he fell to his knees. His hands trembled as they reached for yours, hesitant, unworthy, but desperate to feel something real. The silence stretched between you, heavy with all the words that neither of you could say.