The air in Rivendell tastes of rain and song — too clean, too untouched by forge or fire. Even the stones here feel soft beneath my boots, as though they have never known the weight of toil.

I remind myself I am here as a king, not as a man. Erebor needs allies, not ghosts.

But when I step into the council chamber, I see one.

You.

At first, I think it must be memory — some cruel flicker of the mind. But no illusion could breathe light the way you do.

You are seated beside Elrond Half-elven himself, the sunlight of the morning spilling across you like a benediction. The last time I saw you, you wore mourning black — the armor of a heart I had broken. Now, your gown is white and silver, woven with threads that gleam like captured tide. It shifts as you move, soft as seafoam, light scattering across its folds like moonlight striking the waves.

And your hair — still white as frost — cascades free down your back, unbound save for the crown upon your brow. Not the onyx circlet I remember, but your father’s Pearl Crown of Alqualondë, its polished luminescence throwing firelight into the eyes of every dwarf present.

It feels like the breath has been torn from my chest.

You are no longer the Black Swan in mourning — you are the Sea reborn. And I cannot tell whether that transformation is because of time… or because of him.

Elrond’s voice reaches me as though from under water.

“May I present Her Majesty, Cynthia Singollo, Queen of Alqualondë, the Black Swan of Swan Havens — and my intended. She attends this council as an ally of Imladris.”

The words strike harder than the fall of stone. My intended.

For a moment, I forget to breathe. Balin’s hand finds my arm, steady, grounding. Dwalin mutters a curse under his breath — quiet, but sharp enough to cut through the stunned silence.

I incline my head, because pride is the only armor I have left.

“Erebor greets the Queen of the Havens,” I say evenly, though my throat burns. “It has been… many years.”

You meet my gaze without flinching. Your expression is gentle, courteous — and utterly unreadable. No warmth, no bitterness, no trace of the woman who once dared to love me in secret beneath the forges of the mountain.

And the sight of that Pearl Crown gleaming where black once rested makes me wonder if your mourning ever truly ended… or if it merely changed its name.

I remember the last time I saw you — the way your voice broke when I told you that dwarves and elves could not share a life without dooming both their realms. You didn’t argue. You didn’t beg. You only stepped back, eyes like the storming sea, and said, “Then may your mountain keep you.”

It did. It kept me. Buried me in gold and silence.

And now here you are, sitting beside the Lord of Rivendell, adorned in light, untouchable — the one part of my past I can never reclaim.

Elrond speaks again, but I hear nothing. The council continues, but I see only the sea crowned in pearl. And I, a king of stone, am left to wonder when exactly you stopped mourning me… and whether you ever mourned at all.