The meeting had ended an hour ago, yet Thranduil remains by the window, unmoving. The long drape of his silver robe pools on the carved floor like water around a statue. Outside, Mirkwood stretches in twilight—dense, ancient, beautiful in its gloom. But his gaze is turned inward. He is not looking at the forest. He is seeing something far beyond it.

You’re seated at the edge of the great oakwood table, fingers still curled from where you gripped its edge during the discussion. His advisors had spoken of territory lines, of unrest to the east, of ancient treaties breaking like dried leaves in the wind. You’d watched them speak in voices like distant thunder—measured, deliberate, endlessly calm.

And then, you’d spoken.

You’d tried to help. Offered a simple solution—just a suggestion, really. A different trade route. A revised treaty. A compromise.

But no one had acknowledged it.

Not until now.

“You are quiet,” you say softly, standing.

He doesn’t look at you, not yet. The moonlight limns the side of his face, catching on the pale gold of his hair, turning him into something half-spectral, half-divine. His silence stretches, taut and unbroken.

You move closer. “I only meant to help.”

“You did,” he says, at last.

But it is not a kindness. Not this time.

His voice is low, heavy, as if dragged from a place beneath centuries. “But you cannot.”

You blink. “Thranduil—”

“You are mortal.” His words are smooth but sharp, like a blade wrapped in velvet. “You do not know the history behind these borders. You do not feel the weight of a thousand winters pressing down upon your shoulders.”

You go still.

He turns to face you then, and it almost hurts—the way he looks at you. Not with anger. Not even with disappointment.

But with sorrow.

“You will be dead,” he says, “long before the ink of any treaty has faded. These matters span lifetimes. You have only one.”

You swallow hard. “So I’m not to speak? Not to try? I know I’m not like you. But I love this realm, too. I care—”

“Caring is not enough.” His voice rises only slightly, but it cuts. “You do not understand what it means to carry a forest on your back, to feel it breathing through you, dying by inches. You speak of aid, but you cannot comprehend the cost of choosing wrong.”