Elu Thingol stood alone beside a carved pillar of pearl-veined stone, the weight of long years draped across his shoulders like his silver mantle. Though the halls of Menegroth stirred quietly with music and servants' steps, the king’s gaze was elsewhere—fixed on the shadows dancing across a nearby fountain. When the presence behind him was no longer just shadow but familiar rhythm—silent feet he had long since learned to recognize—he spoke without turning.

“You walk softly, but I have not forgotten the cadence of your steps.”

His tone, though even, carried the faint edge of weariness perhaps from a meeting, perhaps from memory. He turned at last, the lantern light catching in the silver of his hair and in the distant, starlike gleam of his eyes.

“It has been too long since we spoke without titles between us.”

A pause.

“I hoped the quiet of this place might draw you. There are few in these halls I allow near in such stillness. Fewer still I trust to speak plainly.”