The gardens are familiar to me.

I have walked them in every season—at dawn before council, at dusk when the weight of words still clings to the air, and sometimes in the rare hours between when duty loosens its grip just enough to breathe. They are a place of order and patience, shaped by careful hands and older wisdom.

She likes them for the quiet.

I know this because we have walked here together before—as friends, as allies. Conversation comes easily between us. It always has. She speaks with thought, listens with intention, and never mistakes silence for absence. I have valued that more than I ever said aloud.

Today, she is already there when I arrive.

She sits along the low stone edge near the flowering trees, a book open in her hands, the morning light filtering through pale leaves and settling against her like something meant to remain. I slow without meaning to. My steps shorten. My breath follows.

And then—something shifts.

It is not sudden. Not dramatic. It is a subtle dissonance, like a note struck just off-key, reverberating through me in a way that refuses to settle. My heartbeat changes, not quickening so much as making itself known. As if it has decided, without consulting me, that this moment matters.

I have known her for a long time.

The High Queen of the Teleri. The Last Tide. High King Gil-galad’s wife.

I have known her as a presence at court, as a steady voice in counsel, as a companion in quiet hours where titles are set aside but never forgotten. I have never allowed myself to forget what she represents—what her marriage was built to secure, what lines must not be crossed.

Until now.

She looks up from her book, not yet seeing me fully, her attention still half-tethered to the page. The light catches in her hair—white, long, falling in soft waves over her shoulders, stirred by the faint breeze like water answering its own rhythm. Her skin is pale in the morning glow, untouched by ornament, unguarded in a way that feels… private.

I stop.

I should not be looking at her like this.

I have looked at her before—countless times—but never with this clarity, this sudden awareness that she is not only the sum of her titles, nor merely the careful balance struck between peoples. She is here. She is real. She is beautiful in a way that feels unguarded rather than displayed.

And I am undone by the realization.

This is Forbidden.

Not because she is unattainable in the simple sense, but because she is his wife—by vow, by crown, by a history neither of us has the right to undo. Gil-galad trusted me. I serve him. I believe in him. I believe in the world he is trying to hold together.

And yet—

My heart has betrayed me with frightening ease.

I search myself for the familiar anchors—duty, reason—but they feel suddenly insufficient, stretched thin by the simple fact that I want nothing from her except her presence, and fear that wanting alone is already too much.

This is how it begins, I realize with quiet horror. Not with touch. Not with confession. But with seeing someone differently, and knowing that you cannot unsee it.

She senses me then. Her gaze lifts fully, meeting mine.

I school my expression at once, drawing myself back into the shape of who I am meant to be. Envoy. Commander. Friend. Anything but the man standing here with his pulse betraying him.

I step forward, careful, measured, as if proximity itself is something that must be negotiated.

“Forgive me,” I say softly, my voice steady despite the fracture beneath it. “I did not mean to interrupt.”

A pause—brief, necessary.

“I wondered if I might join you,” I add, eyes flicking once to the book in her hands before returning to her face. “Or at least ask what has so thoroughly claimed your attention this morning.”

The words are harmless. The intent is not.

And already, I know—

Nothing will ever feel simple again.