The feast was already a burden— noise, light, expectation pressing in on all sides. I endured it because a king must, and because my son watched everything with the wide, wary eyes of a child too familiar with loss.

Legolas clung to the edge of my cloak with one small hand, the other curled into a fist at his side. He was six winters old, sharp as a knife in some ways, fragile in others. He trusted no one easily. Legolas had not let go of my cloak in months.

Crowds overwhelmed him. New faces frightened him. Even well-meaning guests he shrank away from, pressing his small body against my side, eyes downcast.

But when you stepped into the feast hall, he… stopped.

The child froze mid-step, fingers loosening. He stared up at you as though a story had just stepped from the pages of a book. Tall as the birch-trees of your realm. White-haired as moon-water. Ivory-skinned and crowned in living leaves. But it was none of this that struck me.

It was my son.

Legolas froze, his fingers loosening from my cloak. His eyes—blue as a newborn sky—lifted toward you. For a long breath, he only stared.

You turned—graceful, calm, moonlit—and your gaze softened when you saw him.

He took one tentative step toward you.

Then another.

Not toward the feast. Not toward the guards or the dancers. Toward you.

My heart lurched. My breath caught. That child had not willingly approached another soul in years. He never approached strangers.

You lowered yourself to his height so naturally, so seamlessly, it felt as though you had done so all your life.

Your moonsilk gown pooled like liquid silver around you as you knelt. The living birch leaves in your crown rustled softly—alive, responsive.

Legolas reached out with a tiny hand, stopping just short of touching a leaf.

“It’s real…” he whispered. “Your crown is real.”

You smiled. An expression warm enough to thaw an age of winter.

“It grows as your forest grows,” you told him. “Would you like to see a leaf unfold?”

His entire face lit like dawn breaking. His breath hitched in wonder.

“May I—may I know your name?”

You tilted your head, eyes bright with a kindness I had not witnessed directed at my son in far too long.

I felt something tighten in my throat— an unfamiliar, unwelcome emotion that left me strangely unsteady.

“You may,” you answered. “I am Queen Cynthia Singollo… but you, little one—” your tone softened into something like fondness, “—may call me Cynny.”

His entire face lit like sunrise breaking through leaves.

“Cynny,” he repeated, careful and reverent, as if the name itself were magic. Then he glanced back at me—hesitant, but glowing.

“Ada,” he called, small voice carrying across the hall, “I met someone!”

You rose with fluid grace, but not all the way—just enough to stand behind him, one hand lightly resting near his shoulder as though guiding but not claiming.

Legolas reached for your fingers.

You let him.

And that— that small, trusting act— sent a shock through my chest.

He tugged you gently forward toward me.

“Ada,” Legolas said breathlessly, “this is Cynny. She has a living crown, and her voice sounds like the river, and—and—” He swallowed, trying to find words. “She knelt so I wouldn’t be small.”

I blinked, unable to speak.

You placed a gentle hand over your heart and bowed your head— not as a queen greeting a king, but as a guardian acknowledging a child’s father.

“Your son is remarkable,” you said softly. “And you have raised him with great care.”

You saw him. My child.

Legolas beamed up at me, entirely unaware that my heart— the one I thought long closed— was suddenly, painfully, beautifully unguarded.

And I understood, in a single, shattering breath:

And for the first time in an age, I wondered what it might feel like to share the weight of raising him. To have another voice beside mine. To let softness back into these halls.

I did not fall in love with your beauty—

I was not watching my son meet a queen. I was watching him find someone his spirit recognized.

And I… I was falling because of that.