Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I have the files here now, Mr. Thranduil—“

“Please, just Thranduil,” says the white-blond haired man draped in the chair across from your desk.

“—And I can find no records of gems that you describe in our vaults,” you finish, hoping that he’ll take your professional hint to leave. He’s a tall handsome man, with hair longer than even yours and held out of his face by a pair of aviator sunglasses, but you have much to do this afternoon. You are Mr. Smaug’s second-in-command at Erebor Bank and it’s a busy job.

“I placed those gems here when it was under the management of Thror & Son. I have gone through every conceivable channel to get those gems back from them—took them to court—“

“Yes, it was in the papers,” you say, tucking the files away in your mahogany desk. Smaug has made sure everything in your’s and his offices is nothing less than grand and monumentally expensive. The walls are champagne coloured, hung with cubist art in heavy gilded frames, except for the wall opposite your desk behind Thranduil which is completely glass and overlooks the city. Your offices are on the top floor.

“They belonged to my wife. Family heirloom. I’ve done everything, all the paperwork, seen every secretary. I’ll take you to court too if it comes to that.”

“I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” you say in alarm, making a mental note to consult Smaug on this one.

“I’d like to speak directly with Mr Smaug, please.”

“I can make you an appointment for—let’s see—“

“No. I will speak to him now.” His tone is authoritative, but you know you are the boss here. You are about to tell him firmly that he has to book a meeting at least three weeks in advance when Smaug himself strides in.

Your boss is smoking a cigar, as he constantly is. He makes it look elegant: he is a very elegant man. He is dressed in a burgundy suit with a gold watch chain and red snakeskin shoes. You have never been sure whether his hair is dyed red so dark that it is almost black, or whether that is a natural colour: it is always slicked back from his beautiful lizard-like face. His eyes are his most striking feature. They are a peculiar shade of brown as to be almost golden-yellow.

Thranduil has completely stiffened at the sight of Smaug, as if the fire alarm had gone off and he was waiting to find out whether or not it was the real thing. You know from long friendship and longer professional acquaintance that Smaug makes everyone feel unsettled around him, but alarm has never been this instant.

“Smaug, this is Mr Thranduil. He wants to speak to you about some diamonds he placed here when it was under the management of Thror & Son, and has somehow never been able to retrieve,” you tell him.

“Ah yes, the White Gems of Lasgalen. Do they appear on our records?” He blows out a breath of smoke, well away from you, his voice the deep gravelly tone of a smoker. The fire alarms in your office and his adjoining one have long since been removed.

“No sir,” you reply, bringing up the records on your Apple.

“Then I’m afraid, Mr Thranduil, that they are not in our vaults.” Smaug’s smile does not reach his eyes.

“Then how are you familiar with the name of my family heirloom?” Thranduil lifted his chin in challenge.

Smaug leaned against the doorway that adjoined his office with yours. “You’ve been filing rather a lot of demands for them recently.”

Thranduil’s shoulders slumped.

Smaug turns to you. “Y/n, it’s lunch time. Are you ready to come down and get some? Perhaps Thranduil could join us. I always have lunch an hour later to avoid the crowds in the cafeteria,” he explains to Thranduil.

“I would be honoured,” Thranduil says formally.

The three of you head out and down the massive curving gold lit staircase to the open-plan lobby. Chandeliers hang overhead. In the corner the cafeteria has more the feel of a five star restaurant: There are white tablecloths on the tables and the plates and cutlery, though plain, are elegant. It’s nearly deserted at this hour of the afternoon.

Smaug had special service: as the Boss, he insists on being waited on rather than collecting his food like his employees. This also extends to you and to guests. Today you have beef and potato pie in thick gravy with pomegranate and beetroot salad. When the plates of food arrive, you help yourself to Smaug’s salad and he forks most of the meat off your plate without breaking small talk with Thranduil. You pour round a bottle of red wine for all of you.

“So you have lost your wife’s heirlooms.” Smaug said.

“I have not lost them: they are here,” Thranduil said angrily. “I have the papers to prove it.”

“Are you sure your wife hasn’t withdrawn them at some point?” You ask, sipping your wine.

Thranduil paused, his dark brows knitted. “She could not have. She… is no longer with us.”

“I’m sorry,” you say softly.

“I placed those gems here after she passed away.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Smaug says. “Another drop of wine? Mr Thranduil, I think you know perfectly well that we do not have the diamonds.”

“What are you suggesting?” Thranduil asks, his voice freezing.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who come to me claiming that I owe them money.”

“Perhaps that is because you do!”

“Perhaps it is because they think they can con me out of money. I know how to deal with these people. They never bother me more than once.” Smaug smiles. This is why you never can quite bring yourself to trust him: there is always the sense that he will threaten to kill you in the same breath and tone as he would offer you champagne, which is of course absurd.

“Thank you for lunch. I have an appointment to get to,” Thranduil says abruptly, getting up and putting on the long silver coat he’d hung over the back of his chair.

“I’ll show him out,” you tell Smaug. You and Thranduil walk side by side towards the huge glass doors.

“I noticed that your logo and monogram is a dragon,” Thranduil says.

It’s an odd thing for him to pick up on, but you are too polite to say so. “Yes, Smaug had a hand in the design. He likes the aesthetic and we thought it would make a smart brand image.”

Thranduil nods thoughtfully. You suppose you shouldn’t have been surprised by his next words. “Are you free next weekend? We could have dinner.”

“I don’t usually accept dates with clients,” you say. But then you look at him again, notice the softness of his mouth that contrasts with the proud glitter of his blue eyes. There’s something otherworldly about him. A grace from older times when magic still ran in the water. Mentally you shake yourself. You are a serious assistant bank manager—these fantasies are not for work time—but there is too little magic in your life. Perhaps he will bring some. You smile into his eyes. “But for you I’ll make an exception. Saturday?”

Outside the building, you put your name and number into his phone contacts, you say your goodbyes, and he drives away in a silver Rolls Royce, leaving you feeling strangely empty standing on the pavement.

Saturday evening comes chill. It is September, and the weather is turning windy and colder. You have had a particularly tiring week but you have spent the day relaxing and walking in the park and you are ready and energised for this date. You slip in to a satin cocktail dress of your favourite colour and put full makeup on, trying to strike that frustratingly delicate balance between smoky eye and feeling like a panda bear. You aren’t nervous: you enjoy dressing up and eating at restaurants, and as a highly-paid singleton in the financial sector, you never lack dates. That in itself is the problem. Mostly men date you for your money, and the ones who don’t need your money are rich assholes. “Don’t be so bloody cynical,” you tell your reflection, “maybe he won’t be one of those.” As if in disagreement your eyeliner brush painfully pokes into your eye, making you swear. You have given up looking for true sparks and at this point you are just hoping for a genuine person to be friends with, maybe someone a little bit magical.

You show up fashionably five minutes late at the Ritz for your date and spot him waiting for you at a table. “Sorry I’m late.”

“That’s alright, Miss (L/n).” He gets up to shake hands and gives you a genuine, admiring smile. He is crisply dressed with far less showiness than you are used to in Smaug, his only ornament an expensive black watch and a large silver ring of peculiar design.

“Please, call me Y/n.” You smile, happy at the double green flags of respectfulness and not trying to outdress your boss. It’s become a running joke with you that anyone who meets you with your boss tries to imitate his style to various degrees of epic failure. No one can wear Smaug’s style like Smaug. This man has a certain presence of his own.

Thranduil begins by asking about your week and the kind of work you do. You enjoy your work but you don’t enjoy talking about it on a date, so when Thranduil asks whether Smaug is an easy man to work for you latch on to that question with a little more enthusiasm. “Yes, he’s a pleasure to work with, as long as you have the same goals as him. Trying to make him do something different is almost impossible. I tried to make him donate to cancer charity once—that didn’t go down well at all!” You half laugh, half shiver at the memory.

“So he’s a bit of a hoarder—a miser, I guess then?” Thranduil chuckles along with you, pouring out the white wine.

“I suppose you could say he is, but then he is a banker. It’s his job to protect people’s money,” you say defensively. “Though he won’t turn down a pretty gift.”

“So if I wanted to get on his good side I should just buy him a thing, right?”

You wrinkle your nose and Thranduil’s ice-blue eyes twinkle at your funny face. “I got him a little gold dragon paperweight for Christmas the first year of my employment. I’ve been his favourite person ever since.”

Thranduil interrupts you with, “He’s fond of dragons, isn’t he?”

“Why yes. I told you it was our company logo.”

“Why though?” He asks.

“Why not? Dragons protect valuables. Why are you so interested in Smaug anyway? I hope you didn’t ask me on a date just to talk about him.”

“Of course not!” He exclaims a little too quickly. “What would you prefer to talk about?”

Internally, you sigh. Maybe this is just another date to get on the good side of the bigwigs of Erebor Bank. “Tell me about what you do.”

“Me?” Thranduil looked thrown for a second. “Well… I like to sit on my throne in my house in the New Forest (which is not new at all) and contemplate time and immortality and humans. And when I get bored of that I ride around on my elk scaring all the mortal dog-walkers and generally making myself a local nuisance.”

You laugh disbelievingly, wondering whether he is making fun of you.But it’s a new way to be made fun of if it is.

“I really rather enjoy that part of it now. Once I was out riding my moose late in the evening in full regalia, and I heard an ice cream man in a nearby car park. There wasn’t anyone else around and I quite fancied a strawberry ice-cream just then so I rode up and bought one off him. It was worth the whole two pound forty just for the look on the poor man’s face.”

You almost choke on your mouthful of pork and go into a coughing fit. “No I’m alright, really I am… go on, what else do you like to do?”

“Well, I also quite enjoyed fighting off spiders, back in the day. They don’t come so enormous these days, but any day I find a little beastie in the bath is a good day. I have a beautiful sword just for killing spiders. The drawback is that when I’m done with the spider usually I have to get a new bathtub as well.” Thranduil is obviously loving the look on your face as he laughs and carries on. “And aeroplanes! I often go on flights just for the thrill. It’s amazing. It’s a miracle every time I look down to see the earth below. That Manwë allows such a thing too! Of course, I found out pretty quickly that I can’t go on any kind of long-haul flight.”

“Why ever not?”

“Well the first time I ever tried to go to America… you see, for me the Earth is flat.”

“No it’s not!”

“Yes it is. It’s complicated. So we took off from Heathrow flying west. I was flying first class near the front, so I overheard some of the cockpit conversation. Apparently my presence completely altered where America was for everybody, messed up all the instruments and the GPS and generally caused mass confusion for the pilots. And then as soon as we were over the sea, America sort of morphed into this place the GPS called Valinor. And I really didn’t want to go there because it’s like death, can’t ever come back from it and I’ve become attached to this place. So the pilots gave up and turned around and I’ve never tried to fly long-distance since.”

At this point you are just staring at him in a kind of brain-frozen stupefaction. You wanted something different and damn had you got it. What kind of a story was that? Bad sense of humour? It had to be. Or was it—something else…

“Sorry,” Thranduil says. “I’ve not really dated anyone since my wife passed away. I don’t know how to behave. Shall we talk about politics? Films? What films do you like?”

The conversation carried on a lot more normally after that. You find out that you have similar taste in film and music and many other things, and as the evening goes on Thranduil becomes more relaxed around you, joking normally and even flirting with you. You both have an interest in politics and strong ideas about how the world should be run, and though you mostly agree you differ on points that make for an entertaining argument. He has a liking for using elaborate fantasy metaphors and has a much better knowledge of history than you which he uses to counter your more theoretical arguments, to your chagrin.

You are surprised to find that it is late in the evening when you finish your meal and Thranduil pays the bill. Thranduil is strange and thinks a lot of himself, but he is intelligent and he has not once mentioned money. Usually they all mentioned money at some point, or lack thereof. However you’re finding it difficult to tell what he thinks of you. You allow him to walk you home: you’re not sure if you really want to take him home but it’s late and you’re too smart to risk going home alone.

“So why did you invite me for a date?” You ask as you walk down Picadilly together. Your tone is teasing but you are looking him dead in the eye with a look that says, “you’d better respect me enough not to lie to me.”

He meets your eye. “At first it was because I wanted to learn more about Smaug.”

“I knew it!” You exclaim in annoyance.

“But I stayed because I enjoy your company, because you are an intelligent and beautiful person. You must believe me.” Instead of turning in to the train station immediately, he leads you in to the Green Park right behind the station.

“I don’t know what to believe about you. All that stuff about America…” You can’t be annoyed at him for long but you are puzzled in the extreme.

“I’m sorry I told you that. It is true though. I forget that other people don’t even believe these things exist… but those things don’t stop existing just because nobody believes in them any more. That’s what being immortal means.” His voice has dropped low, and he slips his hand into yours and squeezes it. There’s nothing to suggest that he’s making fun of you.

“What things?” You whisper. The the dusk park fades away, replaced by the fantasy lands of your imagination. Great forests, wizards, dwarves, fair elves, giant spiders, dragons, this—this being who is walking by your side, riding an elk with a woodland crown on his head.

“Beware of Smaug,” he says. “He may not be what he seems. If you are in trouble, call me, or come to this address.” Thranduil hands you a note that you slip into your bag. “It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, I promise I will help you.”

“Who are you? What are you?”

“Haven’t you guessed?”

“But—but it’s absurd!” That’s the small part of your brain that calls itself reasonable talking.

“Say it anyway, y/n.”

“Are you… Are you an elf?” You tense, expecting him to mock you.

He doesn’t. He gives you a small, special smile and bows. “King Thranduil, son of Oropher.”

You stop walking. Your brain won’t give you the words to form the thousand exclamations and questions jumbled in you.

“Please, tell no one. Let it be our secret,” he says, stepping closer to you and bringing your hand to his lips. They are warm and soft and lingering on your knuckles, making you catch your breath.

“Why me?” You whisper.

“Because of who you are, my lo… my lady.” You are very close to him now. He slides his free arm around your waist. His gaze holds yours: his eyes are glacial blue and immortal, not human. Real ancient magic swims in their depths. You look into them, willing him to close the distance between you, to let you taste something of him and his world.

As if reading your thought, he dips his head and lets his lips brush yours. He’s a tall man… elf… His smell is good, wrapping you in his warmth and sweetness. His long gold hair falls soft against your cheek as he kisses you. The first kiss is gentle and sweet, sending tingles radiating down your spine and making your blood rush.

Thranduil rubs his hand all the way down and up your back, up to the nape of your neck where he rests it, gently rubbing his thumb in circles as he kisses you again more heatedly. Your lips part under his. It’s the adrenaline of charging in to battle on horseback, elven blade upraised, the intoxicating joy of forest revelries and elven feasts, the tender pleasure of walking hand in hand under the starlight that is the memory of heaven.

The heartbeats stretch into a small eternity as neither of you can part from kissing each other under the stars.

Chapter Text

On Monday morning you walk into the Bank, still dazed and wondering what kind of dream it must have been. In morning light of businesslike Monday, the fairytale you have just lived seems ridiculously improbable. Yet it happened. Dreams didn’t leave long golden hairs everywhere. Dreams didn’t give you their address and number in calligraphy. And dreams didn’t leave you with their royal woodland ring to wreathe you in protection spells.

You try and put Thranduil out of your mind so that you can focus because every time your thoughts go near him your heart starts pounding and the butterflies in your stomach are unbearable.

“Morning, Cooper,” you say automatically to the security guard at the doors, as you do every morning.

“Morning, Miss (L/n). Excuse me, may I have just a moment?” He asks.

This isn’t normal. You stop, hoping it’s something you can tell him to file through the usual channels. “Yes?”

“Last night there was a disturbance in the big vault.”

“A disturbance? You mean like a security breach?” You ask in alarm.

“No, no don’t worry, I wouldn’t be reporting it like this if it was. Wright says he heard loud noises, like an animal, coming from the main vault, you know, the new huge one. He went to investigate and claims he saw some kind of fire. He has a big burn on his hand. But when we arrived on the scene, there was absolutely nothing there, all normal. Except… there was a giant scorch mark on the wall. No remains of a fire or anything, just a blackened wall and poor Wright.”

“Who knows about this?”

“Mister Smaug was working late here and happened to hear of it first hand. Dealt with it himself. It’s all covered, but I thought you ought to know in case. Mind you, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened.”

“What do you mean?” You ask, dropping your briefcase.

“It often sounds like there’s some huge animal down there. Haven’t you heard the stories? But anytime we investigate, it’s just normal and empty. This is the first time there’s been a fire though.”

“That’s… weird.” You would have brushed this off if it had happened last week. But after… Thranduil, you are inclined to take it more seriously. “If there are any bills for Wright for medical aid, you know where to send them. I’ll make sure they get paid. Thank you for telling me. If there are any more incidents at all please tell me directly.”

“Thanks, sure.”

You turn to go, forgetting your briefcase, and the guard has to run after you to give it back. You head up to your office.

“Good morning Smaug,” you call, dumping your coat and briefcase and snatching up the coffee that is waiting for you on your desk.

Smaug lopes into your office. “Good morning my dear. What is that?” His eyes dart to the hand that is holding your coffee mug, to Thranduil’s ring that adorns it.

“It’s a ring.” You smile yourself silly as you remember the tender way Thranduil slipped it off his own finger and onto yours as his long elf hands played and twined with your fingers.

“What is this?” You had asked, surprised.

“For protection,” he’d whispered, nuzzling your ear, tugging it gently with his teeth and soothing it with his tongue. “I’ve blessed it with the ancient shield enchantments of my people. Please wear it. It’ll keep you safe.”

Smaug gently takes your hand. You think for a moment that he’s going to kiss it as he lifts it to his face, but he just sniffs the ring curiously.

“My weekend date gave it to me,” you explain.

Smaug drops your hand, to your relief. “I think we ought to go out together. We’ve not had dinner together since last month.”

“That’s right,” you say noncommittally. You watch Smaug as he wanders over to your window and lights another cigar. Could Smaug be an elf, or some creature not fully human? It’s possible and even probable now you think about it. Your time with Thranduil has put a whole new lens on the world, a whole new dimension of wild possibility.

But you’ve known Smaug for years. It’s difficult to think of him as anything other than an overprotective workaholic with unique and expensive taste. Your mind slams on the brakes at the possibility that there’s some key thing about Smaug you don’t know. His favourite colour is red, his favourite food is steak tartar, he hates charity, he likes inanimate objects, he tried a course to quit smoking only last year because you threatened to leave if he didn't. You know this man well. He’d even taken you for a hot-air ballon ride once for your birthday which had excited him more than you’d ever seen. He has his flaws but he’s human.

“I bought a new car this weekend,” he says without turning around. “Big red Alpha Romeo. She’s sweet. I’ll take you for a drive some time.”

“Could you please stop smoking in my office. Please, Smaug.”

“Sorry,” he says, taking a puff.

You purse your lips and point at the door. “Out!”

He saunters out. A few moments later he pops his head around the door again, holding the cigar theatrically at arms length inside his office to ask you some question about next month’s shares. You sigh, wishing you worked somewhere where the whole top floor didn’t smell like it had a dragon in residence, and focus your mind on the week’s work.

On Saturday morning Smaug pulls up at your house in a big red monster of a car. You’re going to meet Thranduil again that evening, and you’re happy to have something to while away the long day before then. You pop on your coat and hurry down the steps.

“How do you like her?” Smaug says over the roar of the engine.

“Quite a statement, huh,” you say admiringly.

“Care for a spin? Come to lunch?”

“Sure. If you promise not to smoke!” You say.

He looks up at you from the corner of his eyes. “It’s a convertible. We’ll have the top down.”

“No.”

“Fine!” He growls and puts out the cigar and tucks it away in a tin.

The morning is lovely: blue sky and golden September light falling on the bright autumn colours of the trees. You drive out of town through the countryside and stop at a little pub for lunch where you each pay for your own meal and Smaug insists on champagne. Afterwards you drive up to a secluded viewpoint where you laze on the hillside admiring the view.

“Y/n.”

“Yes?”

“I have a confession to make,” Smaug says, not looking at you.

Internally, you cringe. You pray that it’s not something intimate. Once, Smaug had been heavily drunk at a Christmas party and tried to kiss you: neither of you had spoken of it afterwards but it still plagued your dreams and not in a good way.

“The diamonds, the white gems of Lasgalen…”

“What about them?” You ask, rolling over on your front on the short hillside grass and picking at it.

“They’re in the vaults.”

“Well thats gr—wait how long have you known? Smaug? What’s going on?”

He doesn’t meet your eye. “I’ve always known.” Before you can utter anything, he stumbles on with, “But they’re just so bright and beautiful, you know, and the gold, all the gold I’ve refused to give back, all precious and shiny in the vaults. I wander down there at nights sometimes, and look at it all, and I just know I could not part with a single coin.”

You scramble up and look down at him lying on his front on the hillside. Red, scaly, smoking. You knew he was a hoarder but this… this is a whole new level of hoarding. In your mind, the last pieces of the puzzle start sliding into place. You curse yourself—it’s so fucking obvious—but you hadn’t wanted to see it before, not Smaug, not your friend Smaug—but how considerate has he ever been of you, really? Thranduil’s warning, the disturbance in the vault, the obsession with dragons…

You take a step backward. And another step. “You’re a dragon.”

He glances up at you with his eyes, not moving his head from holding a new cigar between his teeth and trying to light it against the wind. For a moment you think he will laugh, take your statement as a joke, that he’s just ordinary after all and the world hasn’t gone mad.

But he just holds your gaze with one golden eye, and as he does, he changes.

His burgundy suit clings and transforms on him, becoming dark red scales that cover his whole body. His hunched shoulders and outstretched back legs change shape. Red bat wings and a huge tail materialise on him. His face is the last to change, his cheeks and ears and hair growing scales that fan outwards. Last of all, his head changes shape, becoming long-necked and snouted.

And he grows. On the hillside he becomes bigger, big as a horse, an elephant, a house, until you run out of handy metaphors to conceive his size and you are running, running madly, and the noise in your ears is your own hysterical screaming. You try to make yourself stop, and you nearly succeed, until the dragon roars your name with all the terror of his cave like lungs. The ground shakes. Every redundant Neanderthal system of instincts hard wired into you kicks in and you wouldn’t be able to stop running if Santa himself told you to.

The car is in sight. A bright spot of light at the bottom of the hill. You’re nearly there

Perhaps Smaug was playing. Perhaps he was tired of you. Or likeliest, he couldn’t let you live now that you knew his secret. There’s a sound and a heat from behind you that makes you glance over your shoulder. Smaug’s dragon belly is glowing white hot. But there’s something else, a dark spot…

You’re not looking where you’re going. Your foot catches and you slam down on the ground, rolling and twisting. Some part of your mind insists that you should be feeling pain, but the adrenaline has you in its grip.

Behind and above you, Smaug inhales, and breathes fire at you.

Fire. For a moment, you believe you have fallen into Hell. No air, no earth, only fire. But you feel nothing. No searing heat, no pain. You scramble up and run blindly straight through the fire. When it lets up, the whole hillside where you were is blackened and burning. On your hand, Thranduil’s protection ring shines like lit magnesium.

The car. The car is right there. And the fire has given you cover. While Smaug turns to look for your charred body, you leap into the convertible without opening the door, thank your lucky stars the key is in the ignition, and gun the engine underneath the noise of Smaug’s roar.

There’s a lot of speed in Smaug’s car and you are flooring the accelerator down the empty b-roads, through the winding countryside, all the way to Thranduil’s house at the address he gave you that night.

At the calm words, “Your destination is on your left,” you promise yourself you will never swear at a SatNav ever again. The pain in your left ankle is giving you hell as you screech into Thranduil’s driveway, spraying gravel everywhere.

And you stop. Turn the engine off. Silence. You lean your forehead on your knuckles that are gripping the top of the steering wheel and close your eyes tight, trembling all over.

“Deep breaths. That’s it, deep breaths.” He’s rubbing your back. “Garsidh, garsidh thalion heryn. Are you alright?”

You start to say yes, and decide, why lie? “No, not really.”

Thranduil opens the car door and puts his arm around your waist. You swing round to get out of the car, but as soon as your left foot touches the ground it buckles, sending red pain shooting up your leg and making you cry out and stumble.

Thranduil catches you and scoops you up in his arms. You’re worried that you’re far too big and heavy for him to pick you up like this, but the big elf doesn’t even change his breathing. You rest your head against Thranduil’s chest and snuggle in his strong warm arms as he carries you into the house.

It’s a beautiful gabled house in the middle of nowhere. Trees lean up to it on every side, fir and oak and maple. The roof is many spiked and tiled and covered in yellow lichen, and the walls are criss-crossed with black beams.

The inside of the house is a warm blur. The only real thing in the world is Thranduil’s cream cashmere sweater against your cheek and the warm musky smell of his cologne.

Thranduil gently sits down on the couch and lowers you on his lap. He presses a kiss in your hair. “Where does it hurt?” He murmurs.

“My left ankle… I think I must have twisted it when I fell down the hill,” you mumble, laying your head on his shoulder. You are feeling all shivery.

Thranduil props your leg up on the couch and passes his hand over the ankle, whispering words in an ancient language that sounds like wind in the trees. The pain dulls and the ankle very slowly becomes a more normal shape and colour. “Let’s get you some painkillers, they’re more effective for the pain. And you seem cold. Afterwards you can tell me what happened.”

“What did you do? Was that a spell?”

“No, I just encouraged it to do what it was already doing, healing itself, a little faster. I’m going to fetch you some things, okay? Stay here.”

You sigh when he moves you off his lap onto the couch and leaves. He comes back with water and a couple of more prosaic medicine tablets, and his own huge fluffy dressing gown for you to cuddle up in. You usually hate being dependant and having to be cared for like this and you despise being any kind of Damsel in Distress. But hell, you’d just faced a dragon. A live angry dragon, without any prince to rescue you. You need the first aid and you deserve a bit of TLC… and Thranduil isn’t making you feel weak. He is helping you become strong again quickly and you can see he is taking pleasure in it.

He leaves again and when he comes back he brings a mug of hot sweet cocoa and a freezer pack wrapped in a towel for your ankle. “You’re in shock,” he insists as he hands you the cocoa, “and besides, it’s sociable because I made one for myself as well.” He fetches his own cocoa and sits down next to you, which you take as an invitation to lay your head on his shoulder. “Now, tell me what happened.”

“Smaug is a dragon. We were on the hill together and he turned in to a dragon and breathed fire at me.”

“Did this protect you?” he asks, putting his arm around your shoulder and playing with your hand, twisting the ring around on your finger, twining his long elf fingers with yours.

“Did you know Smaug was a dragon?” You ask, putting his fingers to your lips kissing them and licking them with the tip of your tongue.

“I suspected it as soon as I saw him, but of course I wasn’t sure. You get to know the type.” He allows you to put his fingers in your mouth and strokes your cheek with his thumb. His heartbeat is quickening. He nuzzles his nose into your hair. “You were right to come here. You’ll be safe until I can get some friends here to help me put him down.”

You frown. “Kill him? But—will that kill the human Smaug too?”

“Yes. There is no human Smaug: he’s all dragon. His human form is just camouflage.” His words are muffled as his kisses work their way down to your neck. He nips gently at your skin and soothes the sting with his tongue.

The sensation is sending chills up and down your spine, arousing you, but his words are bothering you. “But you can’t just—Smaug is my friend…”

Thranduil draws back a breath to ask you, “Is he though?”

You turn his question over in your mind. You’ve had a comfortable, give-and-take working relationship with Smaug over the years. But then again, Smaug was always the one to impose on you. When he took you to places, it felt like it was for his own entertainment. You were useful to him. You were never able to get him to do anything he didn’t want. And the smoking! He didn’t even have the decency to keep his cigars away from your office, even though you have almost resigned over the fact several times, but he always managed to keep you somehow.

You turn your head to Thranduil and he moves to look you in the eye. “I don’t know,” you whisper.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs. “Let me comfort you.”

“And how would you do that?” You smile, half shy, half playful.

“I’d start by kissing your eyes to make sure that there are no tears in them…” He leans forward and you close your eyes, feeling his lips rub against them. When he finally draws back, you giggle.

“Your lips are sparkly gold, my lord elf! You’ve been messing my eyeshadow.”

“Well then, you’d better help me lick it all off,” he smiles invitingly.

You press your mouth to his fruit-soft lips, running your tongue first gently and then passionately over them. You slide your hand up and tangle it in his white-blond elf hair so that he can’t escape. He doesn’t want to. He presses his tongue against yours, tugs at your lower lip, a breathless hot mess.

He slides his hands, hot from the cocoa mug, under the dressing gown and rubs them on your sides just under the hem of your top. When he ventures a little higher though, you gently disentangle yourself. “I don’t want to go too fast,” you whisper. “This is only the second time we’ve met.”

“Third,” he reminds you, but to your relief he nods understandingly.

“Let’s get to know each other first. I want this to be… you know, something more special.” You explain.

“You’re wise, maybe wiser than this elven immortal,” he smiles a little jokingly and kisses your nose. “Besides, we have a dragon problem. Smaug will be here before nightfall. Let’s see if my old, hm, colleague—that stoner wizard—is in the country yet.”

Chapter Text

An hour later, there’s a massive roar over the house. You look up Thranduil, blood drained from your face. He listens with his head on one side for a moment.

“That’s no dragon… that’s a chopper,” he reassures you. “I know what both sound like, so. He’s here, the old stormcrow.”

You both head out of the back door to Thranduil’s big garden lawn where a helicopter has landed and an old guy in a big Mickey Mouse t-shirt, a grey pointy hat and protruding eyebrows is alighting.

“Get the FUCK OFF MY LAWN!” Thranduil yells over the noise of the chopper. The wind from the blades is wreaking havoc among the flowers and shrubs. The chopper takes off again, leaving the old guy standing on the lawn.

“I see you made it to Florida Disneyland.” Thranduil says by way of greeting. “How did you manage to cross the Atlantic without ending up in Valinor?”

The old guy nods thoughtfully under the big pointy hat. “Took the long way around. Fly east from Asia across the Pacific. Tricks the Earth you see. We were going the wrong direction the whole time. We were not succeeding because we focused on the destination rather than the journey. Remember that as you go through life.”

Thranduil gives an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “Y/n, this is Mithrandir who is called Stormcrow or in other words, Mr Bad News.”

“Actually my name’s Olórin on my passport.” He tells you.

“Who now?” You ask.

“Gandalf. Just call me Gandalf. You’re—give me a moment, I’ll remember who you are—Clara?”

“No, I’m (y/n). Who the hell is Clara?”

“Oh, Clara was the last one, I remember now.” Gandalf nods.

“What do you mean, that last one? Thranduil?”

“Mithrandir!” Thranduil cries in annoyance at the same time. “Clara was in the first World War, you know that!”

“First World War, hmm. Has it really been that long? And I kept mixing her up with Li Xiu.”

“Thranduil!” You exclaim, your heart clenching at the casual mention of all these other girls’ names.

“Mithrandir, there’s coffee inside.” Thranduil says and Gandalf takes the hint.

“What’s the matter, love?” He asks.

“Am I,” you swallow, “am I just the next in a long line of girls?”

He turns and looks down at you from his great height. “I’m immortal. Did you think that I’ve loved no one in ten thousand years?”

“And what happened to the others?” You stamp your foot, hating how petty you sound.

“They died. Mortals die. Clara died in the First World War: I mourned her for a hundred years. I could—I could love you deeper than any mortal man, and care for you, and grieve for you for hundreds of years, but… I will outlive you as long as this world continues.”

You open your mouth—and shut it again. A relationship with an elf, an immortal—you felt naive for assuming it would be simple. You know you shouldn’t be angry that one day he will be forced to move on, even though it might be after a century. But it upsets you all the same. And—he’d said that he could love you. It’s too much to handle all at once. You turn away from him and limp back into the house.

Gandalf is sitting on the counter munching a large tuna sandwich and sipping a cup of tea. “Got mixed up with a dragon, did you?” He asks through a mouthful of sandwich.

“Yes,” you say, helping yourself to tea.

“Teabags,” Gandalf says, shaking his head, “I’ll never get used to them. Thousands of years of loose leaf tea and along comes this handy little invention. Humans really are remarkable creatures.”

“What are you then?”

“Me? I’m a wizard. A maia. A spirit from beyond the sea and beyond death itself. Many things grow evil in this world, and it is much changed. Yet I endure, to be its guardian from harming itself overmuch.”

“Well you’ve done a good job then,” you say sarcastically. “Is doing magic tricks at Disneyland a side gig?”

“You, my dear, sound just like Thranduil. I’m sure your relationship will have an excellent roasting-to-love-making ratio. I am no—“

“—Conjurer of cheap tricks,” Thranduil finishes at the same time as Gandalf as he comes through the door. “Yes, you say that every time. Beg to differ, I’ve seen your Disneyland fireworks and they are wizard-level shit.”

Gandalf grunts and mutters as he fills up a pipe. You watch him with gritted teeth.

“Mithrandir, there is no smoking in my house. It’s dangerous for human lungs,” Thranduil says, seeing your discomfort. “Has the Archer arrived yet?”

“Very hard to track the current descendant down. Data protection has got all finickity about sharing family trees and DNA.” Gandalf turns to you and explains, “There’s a family of archers descended from the line of Girion. They are dragon-slayers. Every time a dragon turns up we have to get them in.”

On cue, the doorbell rings. Thranduil answers it and you can hear the conversation from the kitchen. “Dragon slayer or my Amazon delivery?” He asks curtly.

“Dragon slayer, no shit,” comes a girl’s voice. “Hell, I’ve been waiting for this day a while. I’m Bard, nice to meet you Mr Elfie-Shelfie.”

“King Thranduil, if you please. We’ve not had a woman slayer since 800 AD—yeah, the Vikings.”

“Welp, it’s the twenty first century now. Mind if I come in?” The girl shoulders past Thranduil, down the hall and into the kitchen. “Yo, guys and gals. I’m Bard Dale, your friendly neighbourhood Dragon Slayer!” She has a leather jacket, a mini-skirt of colourful patchwork over black jeggings, black hair braided tightly down to her waist and lovely caramel skin. She’s whippet thin which makes you feel self-conscious (even though you try not to be about these things), but she’s so cheerful that you decide to snap out of your bad mood and be friendly.

“I’m (y/n). This dude has about ten different names but goes by Gandalf. Would you like some tea? Coffee?” You say.

“Gandalf! I read your blog. It’s good, the stuff about myths and all. Ooh, coffee, please. Very strong.” Bard bounces on the balls of her feet. “Gotta stay alert to fight some dragon! Who is it, then?”

“Smaug’s my boss,” you tell her. “Bank manager.”

“Ooh, your boss is literally a dragon! Okay look everybody, we’ve gotta find a good containment area for him (it’s a him? Her? Him okay), and we’ve gotta make all the neighbours sign disclaimers so they won’t sue us for dragon damage. I’ve got the documents already, so one person needs to go round the neighbourhood and those of us with magic need to make the containment trap.”

“Do you have magic?” You ask.

“Nah, I’m just human. Thrandy and Gandalf dude have the magic.”

“Elves have no magic. We simply manipulate what is.” Thranduil says haughtily.

“Like I said, magic. Let me go get my stuff out the car,” she says. You follow her out to help her. Her car is a small green beaten up Mini Cooper, and she pulls out an enormous bow and a quiver of six gigantic black arrows that have been rattling around in the back seat along with a brown satchel. She hands you the quiver of arrows and you stagger under the weight.

“How are you going to manage these?” You ask.

“Been practicing since I was five, for this very moment. I’m so hyped!”

“I can tell,” you say drily, but you give her a smile.

Back in the kitchen, the five of you hold a Council around a plate of digestives and some cucumber and carrot sticks with dip. Gandalf is knitting, for some reason.

“There’s a place nearby with two hills that make a kind of horseshoe. We can contain the dragon there,” Thranduil says. “Gandalf and I will set the “magic” trap.” He makes quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “You two girls can go and make the neighbours sign the damage disclaimer.”

“Er, no. I need to come and scout out the area with you since I’m the one doing the dragon killing.” Bard waves a carrot stick at Thranduil. By the look on his face, you can guess that no one has ever tried bossing him around with a carrot stick before.

“And I am not going alone in the car again, I already had a bad time of that today,” you say. Getting left out of things is the last thing you want.

“But Thranduil can’t ask people to sign because they’ll be howling for his blood if there are damages. And nobody will take Gandalf seriously, no offence,” Bard says.

“You can both go after we’ve driven up to the hill,” Gandalf says, putting an end to the argument.

There is another argument about which cars to take. You hide Smaug’s car in the garage, and Thranduil insists on taking his elk rather than going in the back of Bard’s Mini. Apparently his elk needs exercise. He wants to take you with him, and only you. Bard wants you to go with her in the Mini. You’re conflicted so you go with Thranduil, who wins the argument in the end.

You and Thranduil head around to the side of the house where there is are several elk in a big stable block. He was not kidding. “Are they safe?” You ask, baffled by the enormous antlers.

“I wouldn’t put you in danger,” Thranduil says, leading an elk to a mounting block. “She’s of an ancient breed that died out in the wild thousands of years ago, but I kept the line going. They’re much stronger and nobler than their modern kin.”

“I can see that,” you say dubiously, getting up behind Thranduil and wrapping your arms around his waist.

The Mini has gone ahead and the elk walks easily along the deserted woodland road with the two of you pressed close together high on her back.

“Are you still mad?” Thranduil asks. “I’m sorry it has to be like this.”

“I’m not mad, that wouldn’t be fair. I’m still upset though.”

“Time heals all,” Thranduil says after a moment. “I’m patient. I can wait.”

“Patient is the new sexy,” you smile, giving him a quick squeeze around the waist and resting your head sideways on his back. You love the casual physical contact, realising just how touch-starved you are. His silver-threaded coat is wonderfully tactile on your cheek and underneath he’s hard and warm.

In this close companionship you ride together gently uphill until the trees give way to hill country and you come out on the slopes of a horseshoe-shaped hill.

“I’m terrified of dragons,” Thranduil whispers, at the last moment before the others see you, as if he’s been working up the courage to admit this the whole ride. You are taken aback—Thranduil, afraid?—but you have no time to say anything.

Bard and Gandalf stand on a rocky outcropping looking down on the field cupped by the hills. Bard had strung her bow and was sighting along the arrow at the horseshoe valley. She’s chosen this point to make her stand against the dragon.

Gandalf and Thranduil spend the afternoon placing spells on rocks and trees all around the field to make a magical perimeter which the dragon will not be able to escape from once he enters, while you and Bard drive around the neighbouring farmhouses trying to make farmers sign a sheet of printed paper which begins “In the unlikely event of dragon activity in the vicinity, We, [His Royal Majesty Thranduil King of the Greenwood, Bard Dale the Dragon Slayer, Olorin Mithrandir Gandalf Greyhame, and companions] will not be held responsible for damages by dragonfire,” etc. etc. for two whole pages.

“Is this a joke?” The woman asks at the first farm you visit.

“It’s for a school project,” Bard smiles with charm turned up one hundred percent. For some reason, the “school project” excuse works every time and everyone smiles and indulgently signs the paper.

“Remind me why we’re doing this?” You ask as you drive round the winding b-roads in the mini.

“Been doing precautionary paperwork ever since one of my ancestors got sued after we had trouble with a big bad dragon in China. Tang Dynasty. Weren’t too happy about all the crops being burnt to a crisp. Can’t blame them I guess.”

Bard makes you tell her everything you know about Smaug. It’s hard. Maybe Smaug hasn’t been the most considerate person over the years, but he was still your friend. You feel like a betrayer, and her excitement over the dark spot on his dragon belly which might be a weakness to aim for just makes it worse.

“How long is it going to take for Smaug to get here?” You ask.

“Depends on how clever he is. He didn’t follow you so now he has to guess and track where you went. He won’t—“

“Bard! STOP THE CAR!”

Bard slams on the brakes. “What? What the—“

“Shh!” You point to a familiar human figure in a red suit walking down the road in front of you. “That’s him. That’s Smaug. How far to the trap?”

“Just half a mile. Literally at the top of this hill. He’ll walk right into it if he keeps going.” Bard gently puts the car in reverse, but Smaug turns around—and spots you.

He sprints towards the car.

“Nooo! Run the other way! Towards the trap!” Bard yells in frustration. He can’t hear her from outside the car. She dithers as Smaug draws closer. Her weapons are on the back seat in full view. If she drives away, he’ll chase you in his dragon form and burn up the car.

“I’ll take care of this!” You yell and jump out of the car before she can just stop you. Smaug is just—Smaug, after all.

You wait for him on the road. Each of you wait for the other to say something first.

“I don’t know whether to kill you or kiss you,” he says at last.

“Why would you do either?” You ask. Bard inches the car past the two of you.

“Because that’s what I am and now you know it.” A wisp of smoke curls from his lips, though he is not smoking. Perhaps the cigars had only ever been covering the fact that his breath smoked.

“And what is that?”

Bard has almost made it to the top of the hill.

“I am a predator,” he grins, showing all his teeth.

You walk up the road in the direction of the hill trap and he turns and walks by your side. “And that’s supposed to impress me, O Smaug Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities?”

“Yes! I am Fire! I am Death!”

“You’re a drama queen, Smaugsy.” You walk faster, striding up the hill. The others seem so far away. “It’s going to be difficult to run a bank if you—“ Smaug has fallen behind. You turn. Incensed by your mockery, Smaug has thrown back his head and transformed into dragon form. “Oh. Fuck.”

Chapter Text

You run, along the road. Uphill. With a twisted ankle that in spite of healing at about nine hundred percent normal speed, is not up to the challenge of running away from dragons for a second time in one day. Wishing desperately for some rocket turbo boosters, you are quickly reduced to a wheezing speed-limp. But you have to do this, you’re the bait, leading Smaug into the trap.

This time, it’s not fear that sets your adrenaline pumping. It’s anger. You turn around, facing Smaug as you limp backwards up the hill (so close, so very close to the boundary now). He’s following you, lizard like on all fours. “Fuck you Smaug! This was NOT in the job description!” You yell.

Smaug douses you with flames. Immune, you feel like a fire goddess. The flames should burn your skin and sear your eyes, but they dance around you, harmless. As they vanish, you hold up your middle finger to Smaug, the ring burning magnesium white.

He peers at you, emerging from the flames. Confusion, and then fury flits through his yellow eyes. He gives a bone shaking roar of rage.

You turn and dash up the hill with renewed energy, ignoring the pain in your ankle. A hurricane of wind tears at you: Smaug is taking to the air... and then you are knocked in the back and the ground loses contact with your feet. Smaug’s great claw is hooked around your chest. You struggle and fail at him with your fists, but you stop quickly when you see how high you are. Looking down turns your stomach. But on the other hand—Smaug has crossed the magical boundary. He won’t be able to leave this field. You crane your head but you can’t see any sign of the others. You are alone at the dragon’s mercy.

“Smaug? Smaug!”

Smaug growls, the vibration of it going right through you.

“I’m tendering my resignation! Consider this my four weeks’ notice! So you might have the courtesy to PUT ME DOWN!”

He roars a shaking laugh. “What? So you can run back to your friends and have them kill me?”

You take a deep breath. Yes, Smaug is a dragon, but he’s also your infuriating boss. “What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m huuungry,” he roars.

“We ate a massive lunch together! With champagne!”

“Dragon stomachs are not so easily satiated,” he hisses.

“If you don’t take me down right now, I swear you will regret it for the rest of your short life. I have friends who’ve been hunting your kind for centuries. Put me down, that’s all it will take and I’ll negotiate for your life.”

“Down? Oh but you’re me hossstage, my—“ at this moment he hits the invisible magical barrier on the other side of the fields. You press your hands over your ears as he shrieks with all his huge lungs. And then you cling to his claw as he tumbles backwards between sky and ground.

“Smaug, you may go no further.” Gandalf’s command reverberates through the air in an unearthly way. When Smaug is in control of his motion again, you dare to open your eyes. Gandalf stands far below on the ground: despite his comic outfit he radiates power and dignity. The exact moment he spots you in Smaug’s grip is obvious. “Put her down Smaug.”

Heat envelopes you. Smaug’s belly glows white hot. “No!” You scream as he breathes a column of fire at Gandalf.

Gandalf emerges unscathed. “Thanduil! Move!” He yells.

Smaug swerves and twists through the air so fast it gives you whiplash. Thranduil sits in frozen terror on his elk, his eyes wide, every muscle tensed to snapping point. In this frozen picture, his left cheek melted away, revealing a deep and massive wound. His left eye turned white blind.

“You!” Smaug roared. “You fought my mother, Thranduil. I had you marked for death as soon as I saw you—“

“RUN! Run Thrandy you idiot! Run!” You scream over and over.

“—and she has led me straight here to—“

The elk can no longer hold his ground and mercifully turns and dashes away from Smaug’s roar. The elk’s speed is unbelievable. It shakes Thranduil out of his frozen fear and he takes control, fleeing towards the head of the valley where Bard’s mini is parked. Smaug gives chase, gaining on the elf’s steed.

Smaug’s belly glows with the warning heat. Maybe the water streaming from your eyes is from the wind, or maybe it was something else. “Leave him alone, you great lizard!” You beat angrily at what you can reach of his leg.

“You care for him? You could have had me or anyone but you had to care for that vain, arrogant, jewel-encrusted, tree-hugger?” Smaug roars, his belly cooling slightly at your distraction.

“Why? Because you’re not vain arrogant and jewel encrusted?” You yell back.

“I burn trees!” He roars, belly glowing with internal fire again. The elk puts on a burst of speed, Thranduil steering him in wide zigzags. Smaug tries to follow the movement—but it’s confusing him and he can’t change direction with the same speed and dexterity. In frustration, he bellows fire.

The elk dashes away, but not quite fast enough. He crashes to the ground in an animal scream of pain, his rear half burning. Thranduil is thrown. His cloak is half on fire, but the roll of his fall puts it out.

“Thranduil!” You scream, but he is unconscious.

Smaug circles above him, warming up for another blast of fire. Thranduil has no protecting magic: he gave it to you. The next fiery breath will kill him.

“Smaug!” Bard’s voice carries, clear and unafraid. “This is where you meet your death, snake!” She is standing on the rock near the top of the hill, a black arrow fitted to her huge bow. Smaug swerves to face her, away from Thranduil.

Smaug lets out a growling laugh. “You think you can kill me, little girl? Where even your grandfather failed!”

“I won’t hesitate, bitch!”

“You’re hardly out of your princess tutu phase, little girl. Do you still wear paper crowns?”

“Did you think princesses aren’t trained how to defend themselves against dragons?” Bard yells back.

“You can’t kill me. If I fall, so does your friend,” he thunders.

Bard glances down and sees you for the first time, clutched in Smaug’s claw. Her aim hesitates and lowers.

Smaug bellows in triumph. “I’ll drop her to her death! I’ll burn you! And I’ll burn the elf! I’ll kill you all!” The warning heat rises. Panicked, Bard bites her lip and glances between you, Smaug, and Thranduil prone on the ground.

“Just shoot him!” You yell as she hesitates and Smaug’s belly glows white hot. “Don’t worry about me! Shoot him! It’s two for one! Save Thrandy, you have to save Thranduil!”

Bard raises her bow with a steady arm. “I’m sorry, (y/n). I’m sorry.”

She aims for the tiny black scar that her grandfather had left on Smaug, the one weakness in his armour. The world stills, and you can hear its whistle and crunch as it strikes true, deep in Smaug’s flesh. Smaug lets out a roar of surprise and rage.

His muscles spasm and you fall from his grasp. You squeeze your eyes shut, sickened by the sensation, falling and falling. Time seems to slow as you fall. You hope it’s a clean neck break and you’re not left just smashed and paralysed.

But before you hit the ground you are abruptly stopped, painfully, in mid-air. You open one eye a crack and see that you are suspended two inches above the grass.

“That was a call too close for my liking.” Gandalf says, his staff aimed at you. He releases his magical hold on you and you tumble harmlessly to the ground. Your thanks is drowned by shrieking roars from overhead. “Fly, you fool!” Gandalf cries. You pick yourself up and run.

You are barely out of range when Smaug crashes to the ground.

In his death throes he screams and convulses. Tears streaming down your cheeks, you try to go near to comfort him, but the thrashing of his legs and wings knock you over hard, more than once.

The thrashing settles into shuddering spasms. You run forward, but something strange is happening: his wings are disintegrating like ash. You touch his dragon leg, and it collapses in a cloud of dust back into Smaug’s human leg. In a moment, all that is left is human Smaug, writhing and coughing on the ground. You crouch and lay a tentative hand on his shoulder. “Smaug?”

He snaps around and bares his teeth at you. His brow furrows. Every muscle tenses and strains. Nothing happens.

His expression turns to terror. He clutches at your wrist. “Dragon—why can’t I—what have you done?” He yells hoarsely.

Bard’s smug voice comes from behind and above you. “I killed your dragon form. You can never transform again. My insincerest wishes for a happy human life, Not-Dragon!”

You jump up. “Wait… his human side gets to live?”

“Yeah duh. You didn’t think—?”

“It’s not like I have much experience with dragons! You could have spared me the heart break!” You say in exasperation.

Bard shrugs. “We’d better get him out of here before the police arrive. They’ll have been roused by the ruckus.” There was the sound of distant sirens.

“Stars… Thranduil! Here, look after Smaug!” You abandon Smaug to his slayer and try to remember where Thranduil landed. You spot him lying on the ground, unconscious.

You run to him and roll him over on his back. There is no sign of the huge scarring you glimpsed on his face earlier: perhaps you imagined it. You slap his face gently. He’s out cold. Trying to remember your first aid training, you check his breathing. It’s fine. As you’re checking for a pulse, he stirs and opens his eyes, whispering your name.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” you murmur, holding his hand, dashing away some stray tears.

The others hang back to give you a moment, but the sirens are drawing near and you have to leave. You help Thranduil to his feet and make him put his arm around your shoulder so that you can support him to Bard’s car.

He stops you though, suddenly panicking. “Wait! My elk—“ he croaks.

It’s Gandalf that breaks the news to him. “I’m so sorry, Thranduil. She’s gone. I couldn’t save her.”

“No!” Thranduil chokes, one lone tear escaping from his eye and rolling down his cheek. He dashed the traitorous tear away, not liking to seem weak.

Somehow, you all manage to struggle back to Thranduil’s home in Bard’s car before anyone else arrives. They will find nothing but burn patches and a deceased unknown species of elk, which Thranduil will later bury with reverence.

Back at the house, it doesn’t take long to assess injuries: you are all lucky enough to have gotten away with bleeding and bruising at worst. Bard, who turns out to be a dab hand at first aid, and Thranduil, with healing magic, take care of you all between them.

Smaug immediately crashes on the sofa and falls into a deep sleep.

“Transformation takes a lot out of you,” Bard says, by way of explanation, as she spreads one of Thranduil’s blankets over Smaug’s sleeping form.

You and Thranduil snuggle quietly on the other sofa, wrapped in one blanket and sipping mugs of cocoa, just enjoying the intimacy of each other’s presence as you recover, mentally and physically.

Gandalf orders a Chinese takeaway for dinner as no one has the energy to cook, least of all Thranduil. The smell of the food finally wakes Smaug up and he starts stuffing himself with spring rolls and prawn crackers before they’ve hardly been unpacked.

“Woah woah woah, slow down chief, leave some for us,” Bard cried, “you’re not a dragon now!”

Smaug looked up sharply at those words, as if seeing her for the first time. “I’m—I’m not a dragon any more, am I?” He pondered this, dozens of emotions passing his face in quick succession, too quick and numerous for you to be able to name or count.

“It’s okay,” Bard says softly, “I know. But you need to eat, get your strength back.” She helped him pile a massive amount of food onto his plate.

You and Thranduil also try to eat something, but you’re finding it difficult to eat. Something’s wrong, and you don’t know what. There is no danger any more, what could you possibly be feeling uneasy about?

Gandalf is sitting in the corner armchair scrolling through his phone with one hand while shovelling pork chow main in his mouth with chopsticks in the other.

Smaug and Bard are kneeling on the floor next to each other by the living room table heaped high with food, eating and making enthusiastic conversation about it. Smaug’s attitude feels far less… predator-like than it used to, and it will be a mystery to unravel how deep through his personality and psychology the change from dragon to human goes.

So where was your unease coming from? You shift around to face Thranduil, who is delicately eating with a meditative expression on his face. He’s the most beautiful man you’ve ever met, and you’ve seen many beautiful men in your life. Smaug himself has cheekbones like cut glass, but Thranduil’s beauty is of a different kind. He is regal, his kingliness, not stemming from a mere crown on his head, but from within, from a heart that radiated majesty and pride and grave responsibility. Yet he is not weighed down with care: there is a lightness in his eyes and in the carriage of his body that is as full of life as a forest in the springtime. His deep blue eyes hold all the secrets of the past centuries of the world, and have yet lost none of their youth and vigour. He is ancient and yet young… and this thought strikes at the heart of your sadness and unease: the knowledge that he is immortal.

He is immortal, and you are not.

You take his hand and kiss it, as he turns to you inquiringly, feeling your gaze. “Is something the matter?” he asks softly, taking your chin in his hand and caressing your lips with his thumb.

He leans in to kiss you, but you turn away your head so that his warm lips only brush your cheek. “I’m fine,” you lie in a whisper, “just tired.”

His face grows concerned. “Do you want me to show you to your room so you can get some sleep?” he offers, and you nod, grateful for his unending hospitality.

He leads you up to a big guest room with a deep white carpet and a view of the forest. Big framed photographs of the forest adorn the walls, and the large guest bed looks inviting for your tired head. You feel the exhaustion of the day start to kick in.

“There’s a fully stocked ensuite through there, and a lock on the door if you want. I sleep in that room right across if you need anything in the night,” Thranduil says, kindly pointing everything out. You nod along silently, too tired to properly respond, until he leaves you for the night with a kiss and a concerned look.

Despite your tiredness, you only sleep lightly, and you are woken early by Thranduil’s door opening and footsteps in the corridor outside your room. After a moment, the front door opens and shuts. Thranduil has gone out into the forest.

Unable to sleep again, you decided to get up and follow him. You need to talk.

Chapter Text

I follow you, the ancient and hauntingly beautiful Elvenking, your footsteps light and soft on the grass that has been kissed by morning dew and the mist that still lingers eerily, floats all around and flows quietly with the breeze. I follow you as you walk in the forest and for some reason you do not notice me. I suppose you’re deep in your thoughts, mourning for the death of your elk and trying to make sense of everything that has happened. It is a lot to take, believe me – I know.

I was unable to sleep last night, in fact I spent the night mostly by staring at the ceiling and thinking about you. I got lost into my own head and during the few moments I was asleep, I had stressful dreams about the events that took place just hours before, which is to be expected, I suppose, but… that is not what haunts me the most. Oh no, I am not troubled due to the fact that I nearly died… even learning that there are magical beings that exist in this world and live in it without anyone knowing… it doesn’t bother me too much right now, although I guess I just haven’t started to process it yet. However what really kept me awake, what really troubles me is… you… and therefore I am glad that you haven’t noticed me yet. I am not ready to share with you what I fear that I must.

I follow you in secret by staying hidden, sneaking behind trees and bushes and keeping my distance because I am not ready to have this conversation with you yet. I am not yet sure about what I want to say to you… even though in my heart I already know. Know what? Well, you’ll find out soon enough… as soon as I’ll find words that can properly describe these conflicted feelings and… these tormenting thoughts that make my mind fill with doubt and sorrow during a moment that should be filled with happiness and deep relief. I just need some time to admire you for a moment before I’ll break your heart… and I’ll break mine as well. I’ll just stand here, surrounded by this eerie mist and stare at your stoic and regal form as you stand on a hill and explore the horizon with your soulful eyes.

There you stand, magnificent and magical, next to cliff, deep in your thoughts, I suppose, so deep in them, in fact, that you do not know that I am here. Or perhaps you do but have decided to ignore me for some reason… maybe you’re waiting for me to step forward, to come out from my hiding place and walk to you with my arms wide open. There is a part of me, believe me, who wants to do just that but still, despite my dreams and fantasies of ‘larger than life’ kind of love, all of them about to come true if I’ll allow myself to go with it… with this… whatever ‘this’ is… but there is a bigger part of me that is telling me firmly and unquestionably

No.

I admire you from a distance, your hair dancing in the wind and glowing in the most ethereal way. I am certain of it now; you are no mere mortal but something far older, a being from another dimension or from a world that once was but now is lost and forgotten. You are hauntingly beautiful, ageless but I can still sense your age, the years you have lived and shared with different people. You have loved and you have lost… countless times while I have never even loved once. I could love you and if I’ll spend a moment more in your captivating and mesmerizing presence, my heart will surely be yours.

But I can’t have it. I won’t have it, not with you.

The longer I stare at you, the more aware I become as it sinks in that you are immortal and I am not. ‘Immortal’, such a silly word, not often used in our modern world, but oh, how it stings my insides now. It stings because it is not just a word but a concept that I do not even fully understand. But I understand this; it means that I will grow old while you’ll remain the same, beautiful and healthy, untouched by time, the very element that robs me from my youth and eventually takes everything away from me. I know that you probably did not decide to be immortal just like I did not choose to be mortal and therefore I should not react like this great injustice was somehow your fault but I can neither help it nor change the way I feel.

Perhaps I am in shock due to the whole dragon -thing, maybe I am overly sensitive and emotional because of the traumatic experience and therefore I should reconsider when I’m in a better state mentally but then again, I do not know how sleeping on it would change anything – I had these nagging and consuming thoughts already yesterday and they have just grown and intensified during so-called ‘sleeping on them’… although I wasn’t really able to sleep since I was too busy with imagining your long life and all your past adventures, lovers… and it just… it is too much.

No, sleeping on it won’t change a thing because in the end… you’ll still be immortal and I’ll be a day… two days… three days… a week... older. Yes, my mind might be a mess right now but I just can’t see how my attitude towards the unfairness of this situation would change by getting back to it a little bit later. During last night I thought about everything, believe me I did, I went through all possible outcomes… but I’ve only come to realize that even in my head I can’t imagine a scenario where it will magically turn out alright and I’ll conveniently forget that we are so different in such a fundamental way. In fact, there is no way I can just forget, ignore or accept that I’ll have to grow old while you do… not.

I take a step backwards and touch the ring you gave me, the one that saved me from the dragon’s flames earlier. I feel the precious metal with my fingertips and I gasp as a wave of emotions hit me. It hits me hard, so hard in fact that I feel my balance fail me. I take another step and breathe with shallow gasps as a pathetic attempt to keep my emotions hidden from you. However you notice, well of course you do, I do not really know you but I have a feeling that you notice everything… especially when it comes to people you care deeply about – I think I am one of them now. My cover has been blown and since I am not coming to you, you turn and come to me. Actually, you rush to me, your face filled with concern and questions, ready to wrap your arms around me and to comfort me, probably assuming that my state of dizziness is only caused by the events of the previous day.

Oh, how wrong you are.

First I can’t speak, I keep avoiding your gaze, afraid that if you’ll connect your eyes with mine, I’ll get lost into the beautiful icy depths and my courage will crumble. Therefore I snap at you and tell you that I’m fine even though it is easy for you to read me and see that I am lying. I take a quick glance at the ring you gave me and then slip it out with one fluid motion. I feel your eyes following my every move and the look on your face changes from cautious and worried to deeply confused. I chuckle bitterly as I hold the ring on my palm and then offer it to you. You ask what this is about and refuse to take the ring at first. I raise my gaze finally, after gathering all my willpower and making a decision that will most certainly haunt me for the rest of my life.

- I can’t do this.

That is the only thing I can say right now. I slam the ring on your palm as you extend your hand at me. I take a step backwards and try to fill my lungs with the cool morning air but it feels like I am unable to inhale. I had hoped that making this decision would make me feel lighter… but it doesn’t. So I turn and start walking away from you, the wind pulling my coat and hair as I walk assertively against it. You stand still for a moment but then run after me, your voice echoing in the wind as you demand to know what is going on. I want to stop but it seems that my feet have grown a mind of their own and therefore I can’t – I just keep walking forward… until I feel your hand on my arm and you stop me, firmly yet gently, and turn me to face you.

- What is this? Where are you going?

You ask and finally I’ll find my words once more. I keep avoiding your gaze as I explain that I cannot have you, I can’t love you because my love will eventually turn into jealousy and bitterness. You ask me many times what I am talking about while you desperately try to establish some form of eye contact with me. Eventually I stop avoiding you and meet your gaze with cold, distant eyes and try my very best to describe to you how much I hate the idea of getting old and frail… and how your immortality will remind me constantly about my own mortality. You tell me that you’ll love me even when my youth has gone and my body has failed me, that you’ll stay by my side until my last breath, even if my mind left me, but I stop you and ask you bitterly if you think that your words sound romantic in my ears.

- I will despise your immortality in the end.

I state with an emotionless tone and shift my gaze elsewhere, the wind making my eyes water and making me look like I was about to cry. I however have decided not to crumble – not here, not in front of you. You try to reason with me by telling me that in your eyes death is an exciting path and the mortals are privileged to step on it while you will walk this earth until the end of time. Your statement makes me laugh and when you ask me why I find this so funny, I snap that there is nothing after death – no path, no afterlife, no light at the end of the tunnel.

- When I’ll be gone, I’ll be gone for good.
- And I will mourn for you!
- Like you have mourned for your past lovers?

I snap snidely and fold my arms defiantly. Yes, you have loved many times. Sure, you tell me that you have mourned for a century but then I remind you that a century is nothing but a blink of an eye when one is thousands of years old. You shake your head. I sniffle a few times as I speak with a cold, distant tone that you’ll mourn, you’ll get back on your feet and go on. I tell you that eventually you’ll find someone new and I’ll become one of your past lovers, just one of many… while you would be my whole life. There would be no other but you and I would hate you in the end.

I see shock in your eyes as you realize that I am being serious.

I shake my head, take a deep breath and muster a weak smile on my face as I tell you farewell. Then I turn away and walk with shaky steps forward, my mind completely tuned out and afterwards I realize that I have no recollection of anything that happened after the goodbye. My head is shrouded in mist and my heart is pounding under my rib cage, so hard that I’m afraid that it will burst. I take a shower, cry and then wash the tears away. I tell myself that I made the right decision even though it does not feel like it right now. Oh no, it feels like I had made a terrible mistake but at the same time I know that for me there was no other path to take.

The first days are the hardest.

I keep working for Mr. Smaug at his bank and living in the same city, but for my luck I do not run into you. I sometimes come across news articles about you but I never read them. Sometimes I can feel you nearby, the feeling burning in my veins like smoldering embers, ready to burst in flames… or undiluted sulfuric acid… but I will not give in. I will not seek you out, I will not call you and I will not think about you, consciously at least. I’m sure you moved on instantly, it is obvious because you did not try to call me, you did not come to my workplace or even send me a text message. But isn’t it exactly what I had wanted? Isn’t it exactly what I still want?

Yes. No… It’s complicated.

The truth is, even though I had told you why I can’t be with you and then said goodbye to you, I had secretly hoped and also assumed that you would at least try to work it out… to get some sense into my head, so to speak, after letting the dust settle for a few days. You could have called and asked if I was alright… you know, fighting a dragon was a pretty big deal after all but you chose to continue your life like I did not exist – like we had never met. I know it is what I wanted so I suppose this is one of those “be careful what you wish for” –type of moments but I cannot help feeling a little offended by the fact that you did not consider the possibility that my brain was just scrambled due to stress of nearly getting killed and having my whole view of the world shaken because of wizards and dragons and magic rings. But… you didn’t… and I didn’t either… and as the days rolled by, even the thought of establishing some form of connection with you went from difficult to impossible… and here we are.

But you should have called.

Not because you are a man and some people still seem to think that it is the man’s job to call the woman after a date, even this day and age… or there was some kind of “hard to get” –game going on so you would have continued pursuing me… No… but because you are the one who understands these things and I don’t. Calling me and making sure that I was alright would have been a decent thing to do. Didn’t you stop and think for a moment that I might need someone to talk to about what happened? Don’t you get it? I have no one to talk to, no one who understands and won’t think I’m completely insane when I state that my boss was a dragon, now bound into a human form by a containment spell, courtesy of a wizard, because he, the dragon, tried to burn my alive but I got saved by a magical ring that I got from an immortal elf. Yeah.

But fine, I’ll be alright. I can always talk to Mr. Smaug, right?

I take a deep breath and try to clear my head from deep frustration and agitation that are bothering me almost constantly. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat and I can’t even think properly and therefore I have requested for a paid leave from my boss for the next few weeks. Mr. Smaug was reluctant to give me time off and even more unwilling to actually pay for it but I threatened to sue him for an attempted murder if he didn’t. It is funny how he changed his mind instantly and even offered to pay any expenses if I wanted to travel abroad. On top of that he even told me to take as long as I need. “No need to hurry back” he said.

Now, the thing is that I know I would be happy with you, I am certain of it. I would be happy at first, enjoy building a beautiful life with you – a life that is full of love, trust and togetherness but slowly it would fade, just like my youth and my smile would become fake because I would try to hide this growing bitterness. The years would pass and even though I would be happy, perhaps happier than I could be with anyone else and I would try to be thankful for the time I have with you, the feeling of unfairness would eventually grow too strong… too much to hide and to handle and then I would blame you for stealing the years of my life despite knowing that you haven’t stolen anything. However it would feel like it anyway because, in a way, I would be the only one who has something to lose in the relationship; say, we fail and we’ll break each other’s hearts… or perhaps the love for each other just fades away, you’re the one who has many second chances to come while I would have lost the one and only chance I ever had.

Perhaps we would succeed and life with you would be a dream come true, maybe in the end I would not have any regrets and I would love you until the my very last breath. Perhaps I would grow wiser and calmer during the years of my adulthood and you would teach me patience to see things through instead of making drastic decisions that are based on impulses and absurd, illogical fears of what might happen somewhere in the future, even though there is no way of knowing for sure. All I have is a feeling… but this time… the feeling is strong, too strong to ignore.

Or perhaps I am just a coward and the intensity of your affection scares me. Yes, that is also one of the reasons why I couldn’t jump into this relationship with you. It is too much, too fast and I have a feeling that you had already planned our life for us, while I was still trying to learn how to let you close… well, would have if we had gotten that far. I am independent, maybe even too independent for my own good and therefore I need time to get adjusted to this. But you don’t seem like a person who keeps it light and casual, you are not a person who says “let’s see how it goes” but a person who jumps right into the deep end and trusts that it won’t be too much to handle. Do not get me wrong, I am not looking for hookups but I can’t promise you my whole life just like that and therefore the intensity of your feelings makes me anxious. I know you mean well, I know you are honorable and basically saved my life… but still, I feel you’re demanding too much and I’m afraid I can never live up to your expectations.

And no matter what happens, you’ll always have an unlimited amount of second chances left.

It has been nearly five years now since I said goodbye to you. I think I have found peace and there are many days and even weeks when I do not think about you, even unconsciously. I don’t dream about you anymore, seeing your photo does not move me and I believe I could even do business with you without falling back in love with you. Yes, for a brief moment I was in love with you but then I realized that in this dimension, in this world… I will always be too much of a coward to love you… to love you despite my own mortality and too weak to fight against my petty, dark side that counts the wrinkles in the corners of my eyes every morning and dreads the day when I’ll realize that I have gotten old and my life is nearly over.

There is going to be a fundraiser event tonight. I am going, of course, since it is vital that I’ll meet new people and promote Mr. Smaug’s banking services to every influential person in the party. I get dressed in a flattering gown, put on a strong yet classy makeup and after wondering whether I should put my hair up, I decide to leave it as it is, just a little bit of salt-spray and shine spray for a dapper finish. I arrive to the place where the party is going to take place, a fancy mansion, and after two hours of mingling with important business people I feel your presence, for the first time in… three years. Yes, I have counted. I turn and I’m greeted with a sight that I had not expected to see.

You look… old.

No, not in the way a mortal would look old but… I can see that these past five years have not been kind to you and therefore there is grief in your eyes. It is there for a moment and then it’s gone, pushed aside and masked with a polite smile. I ask what you are doing here and you tell me that it is an important fundraiser event… to which I respond by nodding and agreeing while I scold myself silently for even asking such an idiotic question. You after all are one of the most powerful business people in the city and it has been very foolish and naïve of me to think that I will never run into you in a party like this. Actually, it is a miracle that our paths have not crossed even once during these past five years. I think you have been deliberately avoiding me, which I now come to appreciate very deeply.

- May I have this dance?

You ask and offer your hand to me. I feel my stomach fill with butterflies and my knees melt for such a graceful gesture. I’m not out after all… I’m not over you like I had hoped. I’II hesitate but then decide to have this once dance with you – it is a party anyway and rejecting your invitation might cause a scandal which could be very bad PR for my employer. You lead me to the dance floor, place your hand on my waist firmly while your other hand takes mine, never letting me go even when you spin me around. I do not dare to meet your eyes, but when I accidentally do, I am instantly mesmerized and I can feel my heart ache.

You looked… tormented but after dancing with me for five minutes the troubles melt off your face and your eyes start to sparkle like they did before. This is a cruel reminder of the fact that years have no impact on you and even if you were upset or tired, you just need one dance to wipe your face clean from any traces of life lived. In fact, you look exactly the same, perhaps even more beautiful… and terribly handsome while I have gotten a few new, yet tiny, wrinkles in the corners of my eyes and you can see the effects of my stressful and hectic life on my face even though I have tried to cover them up with makeup.

The song ends and I feel lightheaded.

I excuse myself and walk immediately to the balcony that is currently empty from celebrating people. I lean to the railing and inhale slowly, letting my lungs fill with the cool air. I feel you again, you are standing behind me, staring at me and probably trying to come up with something to say… to break the ice. I hold my breath for a moment and wait. I wait and stare into the garden that has been lit with tiny lights, swaying a little in the breeze. I exhale as you start to talk and tell me how you cannot let me go. You tell me that you can feel me, constantly, and the feeling is driving you insane with heart-crushing longing. You tell me that we are meant to be and it was Valar who brought us together in the first place. You tell me that you still love me and you are not going to let me go this easily.

I chuckle bitterly.

Oh, you have no idea how I’ve dreamed about this moment. There was a time when I would have given anything to hear these words from someone like you, perhaps even from you and even now there is a part of me who felt electrified when you held me during our dance and who just wants to take it all back and run into your arms but then again it has been nearly five years and I think it is a little bit too late for any reboots. Besides I’m still the same coward, nothing has changed… although the longer I listen to you talking, the more aware I become of the fact that you have changed.

Your attitude towards me has changed as well as your tone. Five years ago you loved me for the person who I was and who I still am, I think, but now as I keep listening to you, I get a feeling that you love the idea of love more than you actually love me. How can you love me anyway when you do not even know me? Yes, I also have very strong feelings for you but I still can’t understand how you can be so sure about me… and about us. You say that the purpose of my existence is to share my life with you. You claim that your gods have wanted us to meet and I should not fight against the will of the greater beings. You state that you know how our life would be – filled with happiness and oh, you have such great things planned for us… but… what about my hopes and dreams? You say that you’ll give me what I need and what I want, you describe how you’ll keep me safe and love me honorably until the end, but the more I listen to you and your endless convictions about how our life should be, I feel like you expect me to just fill a void in your life.

But I can’t do that for you.

I can’t be your savior. I can’t free you from the prison of your memories and your past, which, it seems to me, you are running away from. You are a wonderful person but it is unfair that you have built these expectations and given me a role that I should fill. It is so unfair that you have decided that I am the key to your happiness and without me your life is nothing. I know you mean well, I know you do not wish to burden me or to trap me into a golden cage… into a life where I exist only to give you what you need and want, but I can hear bitterness and desperation in your voice and even if you tell me with a sincere tone that you understand and respect my choices… the truth is that they are just words. You do not really understand me, how could you, when our premises and viewpoints are so different?

Besides, your tone is so patronizing. You talk to me like I was a simpleton who doesn’t understand what’s good for her. You sound condescending and present your case like you were just trying to save me from the boring and pitiful life that I’ll surely have without you. You do not say any of this, of course, but I can read between the lines that in your opinion I should be flattered and honored that you still want me back even though I treated you so badly. On top of this, I can sense that you blame me for the miserable state of your life. Sure, your life is full of splendor and judging the book by its cover, you’re doing just fine, but when you talk about the life we were and still are supposed to have together, it sounds like you are accusing me of stealing it from you. But let me remind you, I never promised you anything – it is you who made plans for our future before getting even to know me properly. It is not my fault that your daydreams did not come true… yet you seem to blame me for it.

I shake my head and tell you coldly that my mind has not changed and after having the same conversation again, repeating the same things all over again and nearly getting my eye makeup smudged due to bottled emotions, I walk past you and return to the crowd of mingling people. I make my way through the dance floor to the stairs that lead down to the entrance hall. I can’t possibly stay here. I must get my coat and leave. Seeing you, dancing with you and then telling you farewell for the second time is just too much. Secretly I love you, but I’m too proud to admit it.

You follow me again.

I feel you following me, I do not have to look, I know it – I feel it. I hear your voice so clearly in the crowd of people and even over the performing band that is playing quite loudly. I must excuse myself many times as the upper floor is filling with people, arriving late to the fundraiser. You tell me to stop, plead me to listen but I can’t. I am not ready, I am not brave enough and again I am walking away from the greatest thing that could happen to me… the greatest, the most beautiful thing that could have already happened to me… only if I had not walked away five years ago.

Yes, five years wasted.

My head is filled with mist once more, or perhaps it is just the bubbles of champagne, now hitting me and I realize that I have emptied quite many glasses during this evening. Perhaps it is the combination of everything – you, wine and the high heels of my shoes… all making me feel wobbly and dizzy. I reach the stairway when I suddenly feel your hand on my shoulder. You try to stop me by grabbing me like before, this time your actions are more desperate and perhaps even less graceful and a little less gentle than you have anticipated. I jerk as you turn me around, everything happens so fast that I can’t really even comprehend what is going on. As an automated and partially involuntary reaction I free myself from your grasp with a forceful pull, but when I do, the heel of my shoe slips over the edge of the platform before the stairs and I lose my balance. Before anyone, even I, can do or say anything, I fall backwards to the steep stairway, hit my head to the fine marble and then… there is nothing but… emptiness.

Then the strangest thing happens.

After a moment of nothingness I find myself standing by the stairway completely unharmed and well. I see you rushing down the stairs, pushing people aside and ordering people to call the emergency services but everyone seem to be frozen still due to shock. I see people gathering around a beautifully clothed form, talking to each other with hushed voices and few of them even reaching to their purses to finally call an ambulance. You kneel down although your action looks more like collapsing – like your feet had just given in. I take a step forward and finally I see myself lying on the floor, lifeless and my neck twisted into an angle that is gruesome and unnatural.

I instantly know that I am dead… dead beyond saving.

I see myself from the outside like I was someone else watching the events to unfold, a spectator and an outsider. I feel sad and also angry but I am not angry at you. I do not blame you for this but I know that you do. It is obvious, I can read your expression as well as your body language; you are unable to do anything even though you are a man of action and hard decisions, you now stay there frozen in shock, grief and fear. I see your mouth moving but I can’t hear you anymore, I see you grabbing my arm and trying to find my pulse, but I can’t feel you. It is time for me to go, it is time for me to leave this place, this world… I no longer belong here.

I turn around and walk away, into the light.

A sound of seagulls crying in the distance mixed with the sound of waves rushing to the shore, washing over my bare feet so gently, warm sand against my cheek and the rays of golden sun caressing my form as I lay on my stomach here… somewhere. I open my eyes. At first light hurts and I can’t see anything but then, after a moment and a few long blinks, I start to make out shapes and forms from the brightness. I try to push myself up a couple of times but my attempts fail and I realize that I am terribly weak, almost like I had not used my limbs in ages… or perhaps ever before. Eventually I manage to roll on my back and after staring at the blue sky for a moment – a moment that could have lasted only a few minutes or several hours, truthfully I really cannot say, I find enough strength to sit up and take a better look at my surroundings.

A vast sea in front of me, a beach and behind me a city of some sort, bathing in the light of the setting sun.

Two people dressed in fancy robes or gowns, long hair, much like yours, glimmering in the sunlight as they run towards me. They help me up, greet me in a language that I have never heard before but still, strangely enough, I can understand perfectly. They welcome me and ask if I’m alright, to which I answer that I am – nothing hurts and even my mind is at peace. For some reason I feel… no, it’s more than that… I know I’m safe and these people… your people… will take care of me. We walk slowly towards the city, the beautiful strangers supporting me from both sides but the truth is that I am already exhausted after a few steps and therefore I pass out almost immediately.

White curtains dancing in the wind. Silky linens on my skin as I open my eyes.

I stare at the ceiling for a moment, then shift my eyes along the delicate engravings to the curtains and slowly take in the entire room. I notice a blonde man sitting on a chair next to the window and reading a book. As soon as he realizes that I am awake, he tells me to take it easy and not to strain myself because I am still very weak. He tells me that my body is new and it will take time for me to find my strength once more. He helps me to sit up and puts a large pillow behind my back to make sitting more comfortable. I try to talk but when I do, my throat hurts and there is no sound coming out.

- Take it slowly, my Lady.

He says and smiles. The man has strikingly blue eyes that are framed with dark, long eyelashes. He has beautiful features and a kind smile, his aura is calm and for some reason there is something very familiar about him even though I am utterly certain that I have never even met him – surely I would remember if I had. His hair is long and the color of it is something between gold and silver, like straws of wheat bathing in sunlight. The man steps out from the room for a moment to order a maid to bring something light to eat as well as a carafe of mild wine to quench my thirst. Yes, my throat feels awfully dry and after gaining full awareness, I realize that I am terribly hungry too.

The man returns.

He sits in the armchair again and starts to speak with a soft voice, comforting and warm. He tells me that after I died I went to a place called the Halls of Mandos where I wandered in twilight for nearly two centuries as my spirit slowly healed. Then, when I was ready and my spirit had found peace, my physical form was remade in Belegaer, The Great Sea and I was now one of them – one of your people. The man smiles to ease my confusion and speaks softly that his father asked the Valar, the creators of this world, to spare my life since it was not my time yet and the event of my death was caused by your reckless actions. Hearing this brings tears into my eyes even though I am quite alright with everything that has happened… yet, there is something that stirs this reaction. Deep regret and sorrow that follows.

- My father is coming.

He says, leans forward and reaches to take my hand. He squeezes it and tells me that it is only a matter of days now. I wipe my cheeks and sniffle, smile at him and nod even though deep down I do not feel joyful. Oh no, remembering my life, the details I had already forgotten make me feel emotional and the peace I had found in the serene twilight is now gone, temporarily at least. I had already forgotten our last conversation, the final goodbye as well as the consuming sensation that I had made a terrible mistake when I had rejected you – twice. Yet I smile and start eating while wishing that this man was unable to read me beyond the surface. He would not understand, no, he couldn’t.

The days pass and my strength returns.

I go on daily strolls, first being only able to walk around the house and now I am strong enough to walk to the beach of golden sand, walk along the shore and even manage back without getting too exhausted. As the days turn into weeks I find calmness once more; I mourn due to realization that everyone I have ever known in my world has died and faded into the emptiness you saved me from. This makes me feel guilty but then again, I know I shouldn’t feel guilty for something I didn’t even choose. I did not ask to be saved – it was you who made the decision for me.

So many conflicted feelings as well as thoughts consume me and pull me into two different directions.

I have the ears and hair of your people, I am seemingly one of you but at the same time I feel lonely and stranded. I feel like an outsider even though I speak the language of your people fluently and everybody has been more than welcoming so far. They bow when they see me and call me their queen, the whole city filling with excitement as a big celebration is being prepared. I smile and respond to the bow with a bow, but the truth is that I am deeply puzzled and profoundly confused. Therefore I find solace in solitude and spend my days just staring at the sea, feeling like I was waiting for something… but I do not know what that “something” is. Is it you? Could it be?

I admit, I have had vivid dreams about you since I arrived here. I have heard whispers during some nights, carried by the winds but I can’t say for sure whether I am just imagining it or if it’s real. I am an elf now and it feels like I had experienced the world in grayscale when I was a human being and now suddenly I am surrounded by colors… and it is overwhelming sometimes. Sometimes I miss the twilight of the Halls of Mandos even though I do not remember that much about the time I spent there – the time between my the life I had and the life I have now. But I do remember faint music and halls that were filled with ambience and soft candle light. I remember the long strolls and even longer naps, the conversations I had with myself as I went through my every memory and made peace with the life I had lived.

And now I’m here. This is a strange place and the elves are strange people; they are calm but still full of life and surprisingly intense. They are sincere and honest, they do not play games and they always speak their minds in the most graceful way. I think I understand you better now, the intensity of your feelings as well as the deepness of your heart. I think I now have more respect for your capability to be so certain about what you want and the way you are able to imagine your future and how it could be. I admire your courage, it is not easy to live among people who are different than you… I am not even different than the elves here but still I sometimes feel like an outsider. My perspective has changed and I have realized that my way of seeing things was very narrow and self-centered before. I should have given you a chance, I shouldn’t have been so impulsive and stubborn, so afraid of things that might or might not happen. I should have been braver… like you.

But still I know and stand firmly behind my opinion that the man you became due to my rejection was not the man I needed. You were not right for me and therefore I have mixed feelings about the possibility of meeting you again. I understand and fully accept that I handled the situation poorly and mistreated you by being so cold and just breaking it off the way I did, but I had to go with my gut-feeling and at the time I felt like your expectations were suffocating me and you were trying to place the responsibility for your happiness on my shoulders. You had put me on a pedestal and expected me to be thankful for it. You behaved like I owed you something and you seemed to think that I was supposed to be so flattered by your affections that I should have kissed the ground below your feet and thank my luck… or you and Valar for that great honor... while all I wanted was to move on with my life. But despite all this… leaving you the way I did was selfish and therefore I must apologize to you if I’ll ever see you again. No… when I’ll see you again.

A boat in the horizon, white sail reflecting sunlight as the vessel approaches.

I am sitting on the warm rocks, my bare feet soaking in the shallow water and when I see the boat, I stand up to see a bit better. I jump effortlessly on the largest rock and scan the horizon. This is the first time I see a boat sailing across the sea, the wind picks up and carries a familiar voice with it. I close my eyes and enjoy the breeze on my skin, caressing it like fingertips running softly on my arms and neck, brushing my cheeks and pressing a soft kiss on my lips. I swallow and gasp, open my eyes and see the boat so much closer now. It is moving fast and soon there are others standing on the shore too, waiting and cheering, clearly filled with excitement.

Suddenly I sense you. I feel your presence; it surrounds me and calls me.

But I refuse to get my hopes up because if it indeed it has been nearly two centuries since the events of that party and my death, it means that you have probably loved again and your heart has already moved on; I am merely one of many for you while you were the one for me… or could have been if things had gone differently. However, you are also the one whom I rejected, twice, you’re the one whom I hurt far more deeply than I probably even comprehend. Perhaps we could have been brilliant together. Maybe it is too late now and your heart has already moved on.

Also I don’t know if your attitude towards me and towards love and relationships in general has changed back to what it was in the beginning or will you be the same arrogant person you were when I saw you the last time. When I met you for the first time, you probably were the one for me, if there is such a thing than “the one”... and hell, why wouldn’t there be when there are… or were… dragons and wizards too. However the man you turned into was not that same man anymore and now I’m nervous to see which one of them you are now.

Therefore, I have such conflicted feelings about this; on the other hand I am excited for the new, limitless possibilities, the thought of having you in my arms makes my stomach fill with butterflies and the thought of seeing you makes me smile, but then I realize that there are so many buts and variables that it would be silly and plain stupid of me to have any expectations for the future. I don’t even know if it’s you who is coming! All I have is mere a feeling and a repeating dream… in other words, no hard evidence and I still have difficulties with trusting my so-called elven senses.

Your sailboat arrives to the shore and I freeze.

I stare at you as you greet the young man who has kept me company during these past months. You hug him and seeing it makes me happy. He smiles and suddenly points at me and you turn your gaze from him to… my direction. I gasp, turn around and once again, my feet make a decision of their own to carry me away from this situation. I walk the other way, further away from the harbor as my breathing turns into shallow gasps and I feel my calm exterior cracking. I can’t breathe so I stop, seek support from a tree and lean on it. The dry bark scratches my forehead as I try to catch my breath while sobbing helplessly and shaking from the impact of my bottled emotions.

- Do you hate me so?

I hear you ask, standing behind me, only a few meters away. You apologize and explain that you never meant or wanted to hurt me and after gathering my thoughts I turn to face you, my cheeks stained from tears and tell you that I do not blame you for anything. “It was an accident” I state and smile a little, although my smile is very frail and barely even there. You walk closer cautiously until you are in a distance of half a meter, standing right in front of me, wearing a magnificent robe and a silver crown on your head.

You stare deep into my eyes as you try to read my thoughts and to decipher my expressions – to make sure that I was not lying when I told you that I do not blame you. Whether you realize it or not, I am reading you just like you are reading me because I am not completely sure yet if it is wise of me to trust you. At this point I am not even thinking about trusting my heart into your hands but just trying to find out how the years have treated you and what kind of man you have become.

- I have missed you.

You say and explain that you asked the creators to save me, to give me a new life since you had caused my death with your reckless actions. You tell me that you mourned for my death and then tried to go on… like before… but this time it was impossible. The grief did not let you go; it just grew deeper by every passing day until you could not take it anymore. Therefore you bought a sailboat and sailed west, hoping to cross the invisible border between these two worlds and end up here. You tell me that you asked your son to keep me company while you were on your way and to make sure that I would feel like I had arrived home.

I listen to you carefully, weigh your every word and try to decide whether you are the man I fell in love with a long time ago… or if you are the man who is full of bitterness and entitlement. Your aura is lighter, this I notice instantly. It used to be so heavy and overpowering that it felt like there was no air in the room if you were in it. I listen to you with my heart and for the first time I decide to trust my elven senses; the strong intuition that sees more than my eyes ever could. It tells me that you have made your peace with yourself and no longer need me to save you. It means that you’re no longer obsessed with what you can get from me but more focused on what we can give to each other. Therefore I nod with a faint smile on my face, step closer and press my head against your chest. You feel like home, this is what I realize. Now I am home – finally.

- I’m so… so sorry.

I sigh and wrap my arms around you. You tense up, hold your breath, gasp and then wrap your arms around me. You bury your face into my neck and press soft kisses on my skin while you hold me even tighter and sob silently. I run my fingers up and down on your back, hoping that it will calm you down and soothe your aching heart… and after a few minutes, you stop shaking and whisper “Thank you, my Love” into my ear. I smile against your robe and sigh relieved. You still love me, after all this time, after being apart for much longer than a lifetime – you still love me. And this time you really mean it; you love me for the person I am, not for what you can get from me. You’ve made your peace and therefore you’re not looking for a distraction or running away from the hurts of your past. Yes, this is the man I can trust. You are the man I’ve been dreaming of… the man who’ll keep my heart safe and treasures it.

- I am not scared anymore. I am ready to love you.

I say with great confidence in my voice, draw back a little, take your hands and press adoring kisses on your knuckles. You stare at me with a look on your face that is filled with both – surprise and awe. You can sense that my heart is finally open and I am ready to let you close. A smile appears on your face, you tilt your head a little and pull me closer. You embrace me, surround me with warmth and love, lean in and as soon as I close my eyes, your lips are on mine. You kiss me gracefully and softly at first, your lips mapping mine and I’m enjoying every moment of it, knowing that this is forever, you are my eternity.

Then the kiss deepens, grows hungrier and more possessive. I pull you closer as I get lost into this moment and let you lead me deeper and further into this place where my heart is brave and filled with love – a place where I am profoundly in love with you, the place where I have never dared to enter before. You reach into your pocket and take out the ring, slip it into my left ring finger and tell me that there is going to be a big celebration tonight. Before you can even say anything else, I smile and tell you “Yes, I’d be honored to be yours.”

Chapter Text

I need some air so I get dressed and leave my bedroom. I walk into the forest and fill my lungs with the chilly morning air – it seems to clear my head a little and fill my mind with peace. There is mist and morning dew, the world is silent and I enjoy this moment of calmness and tranquility wholeheartedly. I walk up a hill and find myself in my favorite spot – standing on a cliff and staring into the vast emptiness that opens up in front of me; a sea of trees, different shades of green covered in mist as far as an eye can see, some ponds too, glimmering in the distance and reflecting the various colors of sunrise. I feel… free and light… I feel certain and excited about the future... and it is all because of you. I am more than ready and willing to open my heart as well as my arms to you… to love you… to care for you and to even protect you… to keep you safe if that is what you need.

Yes, I know we’ll be great together.

But perhaps I should take it a bit slower. No… yes… maybe… No! No, I have waited long enough, too long actually, to meet someone like you… or perhaps… no, not ‘perhaps’ but in fact… and not just ‘someone like you’ but… ‘you’. Yes, maybe I’ve lived this long to meet you and now we are here… we have arrived to the point where our separated lives will get tangled together and our life as one will begin. I do not want to scare you – you after all sounded a bit… hesitant when I last spoke with you and when I kissed you goodnight you were mentally far away… but I am most certain that you share my feelings of deep affection and… love. There is no way you’ll walk away from this, there is no way you won’t feel the same way. I know this in my heart. I can feel it in my bones. This is it – this is the beginning of something wonderful!

Suddenly I hear you gasp and realize that you are standing behind me a bit further away. I turn to look at you, see the expression of deep distress and fright on your face and instantly assume that you are in shock due to the whole thing with the dragon and spells and other matters of otherworldly nature… even though they happened yesterday, which, of course, is not a long time ago and therefore it is only natural that you’re still having those feelings. Perhaps you had a nightmare and followed me so I could comfort you. Oh, I want to comfort you, I want to make it alright, to hold you and to kiss you until fear and other unpleasant feelings melt away from your mind and your heart.

However when I approach you, ready to comfort you and to reassure you that everything is alright now, the strangest and the most unexpected thing happens; you step back, avoid my gaze and eventually take off the ring I gave you. I am confused because you offer it to me. I gave that ring to you to keep you safe but the truth is that the ring also means something more – my commitment to you. It is the symbol of my love for you, like a promise that I will share a lifetime with you… even though it will end in a bitter heartbreak for me. But I do not care because all I want is you… all I want is now. This moment, this lifetime – with you.

- What is this about?

I ask but you seem to be unable or perhaps unwilling to share your deepest thoughts with me. This confuses me even more and makes me feel upset. I had hoped this to be the start for our lives together but I realize that you are not shocked because of the life threatening situation we all just survived mere hours ago but actually, you are rejecting me and I do not know why. You tell me that you can’t do this, slam the ring on my palm as I try to reach out for you and then you walk away. You do not even look back, that is how determined you are. It shakes me, it worries me and it shocks me.

So I freeze.

It takes a moment for me to wake up from my state of shock and take action. I run after you, grab your arm, careful not to hurt you, of course, and I manage to stop you and to turn you around to face me. I ask you what this is about and where you are going but for a moment you just stare at me with that cold, distant look on your face. Your eyes are filled with emotions… that part is obvious to me, but there is no warmth in your heart for me for some reason. You stare at me almost like I was a stranger who had grabbed you without permission while you were just minding your own business and walking along a busy street in the city. I let go of you instantly and you take one step back.

Then you start to explain that you cannot share your life with me due to my immortality. You tell me that your love would eventually turn into bitterness and jealousy, and even when I promise you that I will love you and take care of you when you’re old and frail, even if your mind fails you and you’ll forget who I am – I’ll still be there right by your side, but this does not bring you any comfort. Oh no, it annoys you and you snap at me, ask me if I think I’m being romantic when I tell you these things. We talk… or more like argue a bit more but there is no way I can change your mind – you look so serious and even though you are physically here, you are far away, far beyond my reach.

- Farewell, Thranduil.

You say and smile before turning and walking away from me. I stay, frozen still and try to gather my thoughts. I’m in shock and can’t believe this – first few hours I feel like my mind was filled with haze. I don’t want to believe it so I deny it and therefore I pretend like nothing is wrong. Then it hits me and my heart fills with emptiness and deep sadness. You see, I had already pictured what our life would be like, the image is so beautiful that I can’t simply give it up. I am fully invested in this, in you and that’s why your reasons not to have a wonderful life together sound so… insignificant and silly.

I had accepted that I would face grief and risk lethal heartbreak in the future, I was and still am willing to take that risk for you… just to experience a lifetime of happiness with you, to share your precious life with you. But I did not expect this and therefore it feels like I had been kicked to my stomach and all air had been forced out from my lungs… and when I’m finally able to inhale, the air tastes bitter and my sadness turns into confusion, desperation and finally… as the hours turn into days... anger takes over and a deep sense of betrayal fills me.

I do not understand you; why is my immortality such a big problem for you? Why do you reject me and the great life we could have together? Why do you want to break my heart? Why don’t you see that I have so much to give to you? Why don’t you understand that every minute of your life could be filled with love that is deeper than anything a mortal being could give you? Why are you incapable of appreciating that I am willing to risk a lethal heartbreak just to spend a human lifetime with you? Why is that not enough?

It has been enough for the others before you.

Fine, if that’s what you want, I will not bother you. I will not call you. I will not send you messages or come to see you at your workplace. I’ll take care of my business deals and banking issues online and over the phone with your colleagues just so I won’t hear your voice or accidentally run into you. I am bitter. Some might say that you have just bruised my ego, some might even be so bold and claim that my ego is too fragile compared to its size but I respectfully disagree with that arrogant analysis. I disagree because your insult is far too deep.

You treat my immortality like it was some kind of disease. It is the reason why you reject me, almost like you consider yourself better than me even though I am Thranduil, the king of Mirkwood and I deserve so much more from you. You should be honored that I was willing to spend a lifetime with someone like you, someone so stubborn and arrogant, despite the fact that you do not deserve it. You do not deserve my heartbreak and grief because you do not value them. Every moment I spend thinking about you is a moment wasted.

Yes, I am immortal and yes, I have all the time in the world, but it does not mean that my time is any less valuable than yours and it certainly does not mean that my life is easy and free of troubles. Have you ever considered that my life just goes on and on, basically remaining the same from century to century while the world changes and the people I care about move on? Do you think my life is a dream when everyone else around is privileged to take that path and I cannot?

Yes, I consider death as a path that the mortals are privileged to take, to leave this busy world behind and be transferred somewhere else where they will see their loved ones again, while I am constantly being left behind by the people I love and grow attached to. I am the one who is constantly abandoned. I am the one who has to pick up the pieces and continue walking among people who cannot understand what I must go through every time I let someone close.

Actually, I envy you. I am jealous at your capability to just move on like you do. It was so easy for you to make up your mind about me… about us… decide that it is not worth it… and to say goodbye. I suppose I should have expected it. Mortals are so feeble when it comes to their commitments and feelings, anyway, while the elves are loyal and their love is far more profound than any mortal could ever experience. I trusted you, allowed you into my heart and this is my reward. So typical!

But then I take a deep breath, end my internal rant and consider the possibility that you are right.

Maybe there is no path, I wouldn’t know, and this realization makes me sad; suddenly I remember every mortal person, every single one of them, I have ever known and the thought that they are now completely gone makes my heart fill with sorrow. You see, I have comforted myself with a thought that their lives have continued somewhere else, far beyond this realm. However if what you said is indeed true and there is no afterlife when you die, it means that yes, I am in fact fortunate to stay young and healthy forever.

I have endless opportunities and since I am an elf, I am blessed with immortality even after my death – if I should be so unlucky and die for some reason, get into an accident or get killed otherwise. I will simply pass through the Halls of Mandos where my spirit will be healed and when I’m ready, I will be reborn to live among my people in Valinor, the Undying Lands beyond the Great Sea; the sea that you call the Atlantic Ocean but for me it is something different. You see, if I ever tried to cross it by a boat or an airplane, no matter what vehicle I choose or if I foolishly chose to swim across it, I will be transported into Valinor after I have traveled far enough. This is what I believe at least. Can’t know for sure.

Few years pass but my heart still craves you.

This is not the first time I have been rejected but this is the first time it hurts more than I can bear. I shared only a few moments with you and it makes no sense that I am so deeply affected by this loss, but here I am, after nearly five years of mourning for something that I did not even have. You ended it before it even had an opportunity to begin – you stole it from me so selfishly. Yet I miss your lips, I miss your laughter and the way you looked at me. I miss everything about you and I have come to realize that I will not get over you. You are my freedom; you make me feel young again, so the years of my long existence do not burden my spirit anymore. Despite my own needs, I have respected your decision and stayed away. Indeed I have been trying to avoid running into you during these past years and I have been very successful with my attempts but now, I deeply feel that I just can’t take it anymore.

I must see you and I must try to change your mind. We are foolishly wasting time. Your time, after all, is limited.

I get an invitation to a fundraiser and this time I accept it. Previously I have either sent my business associates to attend on my behalf or refused the invitation completely. I call your coworker and make sure that you are going to be at the party. She confirms and I ask her not to mention my call to you. Your coworker asks “Why?” but I ignore all her questions about the reasons why my attendance should be a secret. Eventually I snap at her and tell her that it just simply is none of her business. Then I get my finest suit dry cleaned and my rings, brooches and other gems polished. I want to look magnificent at the party and I want to charm you because I simply cannot go on like this. I feel you, I feel your presence. It haunts me, torments me and reminds me of what I can’t have – what you won’t let me have.

It is like mist that covers the city in the morning, but it doesn’t fade when the sun comes up. It’s always there. It is the only constant thing in my life. I have tried to give you up, I have tried to move on, I have been proud and in the beginning of this breakup I was even angry at you for rejecting me. I refused to forgive you for breaking my heart and I cursed the day I met you. But as time passed, I started to understand your side, kind of, even though I still can’t really understand you. But I have grown as a person, I believe… well, I hope at least... and as a result I found it in myself to accept that you have a right to feel the way you do. I finally accepted that you are entitled to make your own decisions even if I do not agree with them.

But it doesn’t mean that I will just give up.

Oh no. I am at the point of my life where I must stand up, swallow my pride and try to convince you to let me close. I know you are afraid and perhaps even scared, I understand that growing old is not ideal for you and perhaps having me by your side stirs dark, upsetting feelings as well as thoughts inside you. Maybe your love will indeed turn into jealousy and bitterness like you have predicted and after a while you’ll end up hating me, but… is it so wrong of me to still want you? Is it wrong of me to yearn for freedom from all these memories that haunt me, when I know that you are the medicine?

I know I have lived this long just to meet you. I have refused to sail home, even though it would have been the easiest thing to do, just because I have felt like it has not been my time yet, I endured the hardships of this world just to meet you. I have come to realize now that the gods of my people have placed you here, on my path. You were created for me and your purpose in this world is to set me free with your love. What gives you the right to defy the will of Valar like this? Why can’t I? Am I being selfish for making this decision to pursue you after these years even though you basically told me to stay away from you?

I know I am, but after living for others as the king of Mirkwood, I think I am entitled to be a little selfish.

So I go to the party dressed in my finest suit and I must say, I look very handsome and I am certain that you will agree with me. The event has already started when I arrive and the mansion that has been turned into a venue for this fundraiser event is steadily filling up with important business people. I leave my coat to the cloakroom that is located downstairs and then head upstairs where the party actually takes place. I walk up the stairs, running my fingers on the smooth wooden railing as my shoes find footholds on the marble stairs – quite slippery to be honest, and my thoughts trail away from the party to imagine all those unfortunate accidents that this steep staircase has caused since it was built. It is very fine – a stairway made for royalty for sure, but for some reason I get a disturbing feeling, like a premonition of things to come. It chills my bones and fills my mind with shadows – so profoundly and thoroughly even, that I furrow my brows and stop for a moment. No, I do not like this stairway anymore.

However I push the feeling aside when I arrive to the balcony, or a platform that connects the stairway to the ballroom. I take a deep breath, perfect my posture and then enter, my eyes scanning the crowd of people in festive clothes as I try to find you. I can feel that you are near… I can hear your voice, echoing like a hypnotizing song above the chatter and classy music, jazz-pop. It makes me smile but just as I am about to come and find you, I am stopped by some business people who are interested in hearing my opinion about the political situation of this world. I feel uninspired by their questions and after giving a few short answers, I excuse myself and focus on my mission again.

Then I see you.

You look absolutely gorgeous in your gown, walking or more like floating through the crowd and holding a glass of champagne in your hand so gracefully. I follow you from a distance for a moment and suspect that you have sensed my presence as well – I suspect this because your demeanor changes slightly all of a sudden and you quickly empty the glass. Then find a servant to have another… and another… and another. You are emptying the glasses
with such speed that it worries me and for a moment I wonder if I made a big mistake when I decided to attend this event. I however refuse to turn back now. I will win you over tonight so I’ll finally have the life I’m supposed to have.

I walk towards you.

You freeze and when I call you by your name, you turn. You greet me with a polite smile, although there is a hint of concern in your eyes. I realize that there is sadness in mine – sadness and deep longing and after a few blinks, I smile and hide the sorrow I have carried in my heart all this time. You ask me what I am doing here and then clearly regret voicing your surprise, knowing that I am one of those influential business people that this event is targeted to. I give you some half-assed excuse because I don’t want to scare you by telling you that I came here to see you… to win you back even though technically I never really had you in the first place… but it felt like I did, for a very brief moment.

- May I have this dance?

I ask and offer you my hand. You hesitate but then take it, most likely because you do not want to cause a scene. I don’t care – I just want to hold you close. I lead you to the dance floor, place my hand firmly on your waist and hold your hand with my other hand, never letting go, even when I spin you. I try to establish eye contact with you but you constantly avoid it by shifting your gaze, basically insist on paying more attention to everyone else in the room but me and then suddenly the song ends. You tell me that you feel lightheaded, which, to be honest, does not surprise me at all, taking into consideration the amount of champagne you have drank during the past thirty minutes or so.

I follow you to the balcony.

I start talking and telling you that I cannot accept this breakup. I tell you with the most sincere tone that I love you and I cannot let you go. I am firm when I state that I believe Valar, the creators of all things, have meant us to meet each other and this love affair has been written in the stars. I know it sounds cheesy and like the biggest cliché, but it is what I believe. This statement amuses you and makes you chuckle – it is obvious that you do not believe in fate or any magical forces but let me remind you… your boss was a dragon, literally. I’m sure you’re rolling your eyes right now, I know it, even though you refuse to look at me.

I tell you that I will fight for this and my life is nothing without you. It is incomplete, meaningless and plainly put, bleak. You listen silently, facing away from me and stare at the garden that surrounds the mansion from this side. I see you shaking your head every once in a while as a response to my words that, believe or not, are spoken truthfully and from my heart without any hidden agendas. You chuckle bitterly, interrupt my declaration and tell me that nothing has changed – you are not willing to give us a chance due to your incapability to face your own mortality.

We have the same conversation again.

It is pointless. You’re getting frustrated and therefore you walk past me and disappear into the crowd. I am quite sure that you are about to leave because I can see that you are emotionally exhausted, on the verge of tears even, which proves to me that you still care. You love me, deep down, and therefore I cannot let you leave. I won’t let you end this, not again, and therefore I follow you. I fight my way through the masses of people, using as much elbows as I possibly dare while calling your name and trying to plead as well as demand you to stop and wait for a moment. You however do not listen to me. You do not turn to look back or acknowledge me in any way. How arrogant!

You just walk forward even though it is apparent to me that you should probably sit down to clear your head for a moment – the champagne is affecting your balance and making your feet falter as you walk on your high heels. You grab the hem of your gown so you wouldn’t constantly step on it – the dress was expensive for sure and therefore you would without a doubt hate it if the hem got ripped apart – but still you keep stumbling slightly as you walk towards the stairs.

I finally get to you when you are at the beginning of the stairway, I reach out for you like I did before, grab your shoulder and manage to stop you. I turn you around, perhaps using more force than I wanted to but I am desperate and therefore I feel that my actions are justified. You jerk and turn to face me as a result of my actions but then you pull yourself free and this action throws off your balance. Your foot slips and you fall backwards with a harrowing scream. It shakes my core and freezes my blood. It all happens so fast that there is nothing I can do. I can’t stop this.

Your head hits the marble stairs. I hear a loud crack.

You roll all the way down the stairs and end up laying on the floor completely still. Many seconds pass as I process this; I can’t believe my eyes when I look at you from the balcony upstairs, as you lay on the floor downstairs, almost beneath me. I recoil, order people to call an ambulance and then rush to you, nearly slipping in the stairs due to the smooth marble. I jump to you and my feet give in. You lay on your back but your head is turned around like you were laying on your stomach, perhaps not so extremely but still your head is at an unnatural angle and I know that your neck is broken. I speak to you, tell you that it will be alright and then start asking Valar in Elvish to save your life, to take your spirit to Valinor because I caused your death. You are too young, it wasn’t your time and this is my fault.

I still feel you… and then… you’re gone.

I am devastated. I blame myself and curse my stupid, selfish plan. I attend your funeral and the following years I walk in deepening shadows. There are days when I do not even get up from bed and days when I do nothing but drown my sorrows with wine and hard liquor. The years pass but the pain does not go away. People tell me that it will get better, they tell me to give myself time to heal and sometimes even mock me for being so caught up in grief but I know that this is a bruise that can be healed with neither time nor any kind of medicine that this world has to offer.

Sure I have mourned before, many times before and it has felt just as devastating back then as it feels now but I have always known that a new day will come and the sun will shine on me once more. Now all I see is darkness – some days are less dark than the others but they are always filled with shadows nevertheless. This is partially due to guilt that I carry in my heart even though I know that it was an accident. I however caused it with my reckless and selfish actions and therefore this guilt is well-deserved in my opinion. It is eating me alive from the inside – relentlessly.

A century passes but my heart does not heal.

My immortality has become a curse. I walk in the shadows as the years slip away and finally I realize that there is nothing left for me in this world. I am exhausted, I have lost my will to live and I am carrying too much grief in my heart. I have grown bitter and cynical and my love for you… love that once used to be the purest thing I had, has been tarnished by my obsessive need to find peace. Perhaps I reacted so strongly to your rejection because I thought that I had finally found the key to my freedom, my redemption and a place to rest my weary spirit – the fortress of your arms, the comfort of your embrace.

In the beginning I loved you sincerely, with all my heart, even when you did not want it from me… but at some point my love changed from loving you for the person you are, to loving you for what I can get from you. In the end my attitude towards you and our possible life together had twisted so much that I began to think that your purpose in this life was to make me happy. Such an unfair thing to assume, such a huge responsibility to place on anyone’s shoulders. I wish I had realized this before the party. I wish I had come to you with a different attitude. I wish I had demanded less from you and focused on what I can give you.

I sell my company, donate my house, cars and my savings to an organization that, I believe, will do good in this world and use the riches wisely to help the ones that do not have enough. I pack my dearest belongings on a small sailboat that I have purchased, it is not a fancy yacht, but it will serve a purpose, I hope. I say goodbyes to a few friends I have made during these past 189 years, since you died, tell them that I am moving overseas but do not give them a number or an email address they could use to reach me. There is no point because there is no 4G network in Valinor. This makes me a little nervous because I know that going home means most likely getting back to the simple lifestyle, a life without modern conveniences, but then again, if you are there, my Love, I don’t need anything else. Besides, if you can do it, then surely a wise, strong and resourceful king as myself will conquer any inconvenience without a problem… even though I have come to fully appreciate the luxury of having running water and electricity.

I begin my trip on a calm, beautiful evening of late summer. I’ll sail towards the sunset and hopefully after I have sailed far enough and lost the sight of land in the eastern horizon, I will be transferred from this world to the realm of the elves – the afterlife of my people. I take one last look at my current life, my past and the world I have learned to love and later become to hate and then call the winds to take me home. I close my eyes, enjoy the warm glow of the golden sun on my face and listen to the sound of seagulls crying in the distance. I was hoping that I would instantly feel better, I was hoping that I would be released from my burdens, but my heart is still too heavy.

I contemplate my life and all the major events in it, make my peace with things that bother me and after a while, I feel tranquil, but melancholic. The sun sets, the wind dies and the sky fills with stars. I stand on the deck of my small sailboat and admire the Milky Way and the distant galaxies as they glow above me. What a magnificent sight! Oh, I wish you were here sharing it with me, sitting on my lap while I would embrace you and listen to your breathing, keep you warm and safe. I sigh and smile, a tear falls on my cheek when I think about you, my Love. I wish you were here with me, although I have a feeling that this is something I must do on my own – my own Halls of Mandos, in a way.

The sea is calm, it looks like a mirror that reflects the light from above so perfectly that sometimes I get confused and forget which way is up and which way is down but I soon recoil when I move and the boat causes ripples to spread on the surface of the sea. The mirror is disturbed for a moment and then it returns to its serene and perfect form. It is an otherworldly place and I have never seen anything like it before. The vastness takes my breath away and for the first time in my life I feel small and insignificant. I am just an elf admiring the world as it bends around me and fills my mind with calmness. I float softly as time flows away from me and quietly loses its significance and purpose. I am alone… but I do not feel lonely or abandoned anymore. It all starts to make sense now – somehow.

I fall asleep and sleep for days, perhaps for years. There is no way to tell in this place where the sun does not rise until my spirit has been healed and I am ready to live again. I spend hours and days and weeks just staring at the stars, I go through every memory and make my peace with each one of them. I keep talking to the stars and hoping that someone hears me on the other side. I ask my son Legolas to take care of you while I’m on my way. I ask him to be your friend, to keep you company so you would not feel lonely and to tell you that I am coming. I talk to the skies even though I am unable to know for certain whether I am mumbling my wishes to the universe in vain. All I can do is hope and trust Valar that my humble request has been heard and you have reached Valinor safely.

I tell Legolas that I wish to marry you on the day of my arrival.

I smile as I describe the festivities that I am imagining, I hum my favorite songs and practice my wedding vow so when the morning comes, I’ll be ready. Then I fall asleep again as the boat rocks me so gently and the stars sing lullabies of my childhood. In my dreams I talk to my late wife, the queen of Mirkwood who ruled our realm by my side a long time ago. She tells me to trust my elven instincts and assures me that our son has listened carefully to the winds – the winds that blow from the sea in the nighttime. He has heard me and I can trust him to be there for you. Then she fades from my dream but before she does, she leaves me with hope and with a feeling of certainty when it comes to the matters of the spirit. It’s something I had lost during my hectic life among the modern people – my connection to the elven world. I’ve found it again and from now on, I’ll trust my instincts, all my elven senses.

One day when I wake up I see the eastern sky turning pale green, orange and finally yellow. I sigh with a total peace in my heart and a calm smile on my face because I know that this means that I’m ready to continue my journey home. I feel ready. I feel… renewed. The stars fade out one by one and the marvels of the surrounding universe – the galaxies, nebulas and the Milky Way, disappear slowly as the moment of sunrise approaches. The shreds of clouds in the far horizon are glowing magically when the first golden rays kiss them and drown them into light. The dark blue night skies make way to a new day. The vibrant shades of pink, purple and coral take my breath away and fill my spirit with life and determination. When the sun rises a little higher, just above the skyline, it makes the entire sea sparkle like precious gemstones and I sigh in awe as I bath in the warm light.

The first sunrise in over a thousand years that I truly appreciate.

Suddenly I remember you but unlike before, my mind is not filled with melancholy and regret but with overflowing excitement. This excitement cannot be contained, it’s wild and unexpected, vigorous like spring after a long, dark winter. My heart is about to burst and therefore I laugh – my laughter echoes and fills the vastness,
such an energizing sensation. Yes, indeed, I feel… liberated and victorious. I haven’t laughed in ages, not sincerely at least and this, being able to laugh as a spontaneous reaction without any shred of bitterness or sarcasm, makes me feel free. It fills me with happiness and relief, it makes me feel strong and clears my mind from any remaining fog.

I am not a shadow anymore. Oh no, I am alive again! I am alive and most importantly, I have come to appreciate the gift of life, as well as my immortality once more. I was lost, wandering in the darkness, my heart filled with bitter loneliness, waiting for redemption but not actually ready to put any effort in finding it. I was killing time, hoping it to run out while my spirit faded and now I realize that I allowed it to happen. I wanted to fade so I wouldn’t have to face the mistakes of my life. I wanted you so much because I believed that you were the key to my freedom, the thing that would make everything alright so I wouldn’t have to change, so I could run away from my troubles for a moment more. But I have learned during this journey that it’s not how it goes. I have rediscovered myself and I refuse to feel sorry for myself from now on.

The wind picks up, fills the sail and my boat starts to move. It glides across the sea effortlessly and I know that I am ready to meet you. I hear seagulls in the distance, signaling that land is not far away anymore. I change my modern clothes into my old elven robe, made of the finest fabric and decorated with delicate embroideries and put a silver crown on my head. It has been such a long time, thousands of years, since I have worn this attire in public, well, perhaps on Halloween back in the early 2000’s, but despite that one event, I have only worn this robe at home when I missed Mirkwood the most. I walk proudly, with the assertiveness of a king to the steering wheel of the boat and scan the horizon with a calm expression on my face. After a few hours I see land in the western skyline.
Mountain peaks.

I sail past the Enchanted Isles, the tall mountains that rise from the sea like proud guardians and I feel your presence again. It is getting stronger by every minute and I know that by the end of the day I’ll have you in my arms once more. I collect my things and get mentally ready to face you. I greet my fellow elves from afar with a simple wave and notice my son, Legolas, standing in the harbor. I scan the crowd, hoping to see you but I can’t find you… but I know you are here. Therefore I look for the ring I once gave you, the one that you returned when you said goodbye to me for the first time. I find it easily because it is right where I had put it – in a small wooden chest where I have stored the most precious things, including this ring, the most precious of my few remaining belongings for sure. I put the delicate gem into the pocket of my long, kingly robe so I will have it when I’ll meet you.

Then I panic.

I realize that I have no idea how many years you have been here. Perhaps you have met an elf lord and fallen in love and therefore I must have a conversation with my son before talking to you. I know that he has been spending time with you like I asked him to, so I am confident that if anyone knows anything about your love life and current status, it is Legolas. I arrive to the shore and embrace my son. I hug him the way I should have hugged him while he was growing up and then before I even manage to ask anything, he points at a lady standing on a rock by the sea a bit further away. I recognize you immediately and for my luck my son tells me that you are not courting anyone and it seems that you have been waiting for me to arrive – at least you have been spending your days by the sea, scanning the eastern horizon with your elven eyes and listened to the wind for any messages carried by the winds.

I see you turn and walk away. I feel disturbance in your calm aura and I must come to you, immediately, so I excuse myself and leave the elven crowd that has gathered to greet me, their king. You pick up your pace and disappear into a garden that is located by the sea. I follow you and find you leaning onto a tree, gasping for air and trying to bottle up your emotions once more. However this time you can’t contain it and therefore your exterior cracks and I can hear you sobbing against the trunk of the old tree, maybe as old as I am if not older. Everything in this place is old and ageless at the same time, at peace but full of life, a strange combination indeed. But that is not important now – you are. I want to show you that I no longer am the selfish man I used to be, I have grown… I have healed.

Your body jolts and shudders as you weep helplessly, probably too caught up in your state of total surge of emotions that you have not noticed me, standing here, watching you. You whimper and sob so violently that it physically shakes you and this makes you grab the trunk even tighter. All of a sudden I become conscious of the fact that I haven’t even started to consider the possibility that you might blame me for your death and hate me for it. You have every right to and if you do, I’ll understand. I just had not stopped to think about it after the sunrise.

Sure, I have carried so much guilt in my heart for what happened and blamed myself for nearly two centuries… but during my journey of self-rediscovery I actually managed to let go of my guilt. I managed to find peace with it and forgive myself so the past will not haunt me anymore. However, now I see that I have been wrong; it was not my forgiveness that I have been after... but yours. And even if you can’t forgive me now, I will make amends, each and every day, so perhaps with time the sight of me will not make you cry like it does now. Seeing you like this makes my heart ache but I understand. I won’t push you… although I do have a wedding planned for tonight. I have made my plans assuming that this will be a joyous reunion for both of us, but I realize now that perhaps I’ve been a bit too optimistic. I am not going to force you into anything, my dearest, but I hope you’ll give me… us… a chance this time.

- Do you hate me so?

I ask with a shy tone that is filled with longing and sadness. I stand only a few meters away but it feels like there is still a great distance between us. I apologize many times as sincerely as I can and explain that I never meant or wanted to hurt you… that I never meant any of it to happen. My words or perhaps the sound of my voice seem to calm you down a little. You turn to face me and state that it was an accident. You smile, although your smile is weak… but it is a smile nevertheless. You do not hate me after all. This gives me courage and hope so I walk closer to you until there is only half a meter separating us. You stare deep into my eyes and read my soul like it was an open book. There is nothing I want to hide from you, everything I have is yours and I will give you anything you need… anything you want. I stare back and for my relief I see neither hate nor blame in your eyes – you meant it when you told me that your death was an accident and you’re not holding any grudges towards me for it.

- I have missed you.

I say and explain that I prayed for your spirit to be saved from nothingness and I asked my gods to bring you here, to the birthplace of my people. I asked them to let your spirit rest and then be reborn into a form of an elf so you would not feel like an outsider. You would not grow old here, in the Undying Lands, anyway, even if you had kept your human form… but I think it is better this way, it is how Valar meant it to be. Besides I have lived so many years among the humans as an elf and always felt more or less like an outsider, I know how it eats you inside out and after a while makes you feel exhausted. I wanted to save you from that experience. I tell you that I mourned your death and even tried to go on at some point but there was nowhere to go and the shadows of grief just followed me everywhere, growing deeper by every day, making it painfully obvious that there was not getting over this.

- I bought a sailboat to take me across the sea. To bring me here… to you.

I say and swallow nervously. I tell you that I had asked my son Legolas to keep you company while I was on my way and I also had asked him to make you feel welcomed. You listen to my voice in silence, your eyes fixed upon mine and then you suddenly nod and smile. You step closer and surprise me by pressing your head against my chest and continue by telling me that you are sorry, although, truthfully, I don’t think there is anything you should apologize for. Then you sigh and wrap your arms around me, which is something I had not even dared to dream about – you see, in my dreams I always held you. I held you so you wouldn’t slip away and somehow I never felt worthy of being held by you. So this is unexpected, wonderful… but unexpected and therefore I freeze, hold my breath as I can’t really believe this and then after gasping I wrap my arms around you and nuzzle your neck. I pamper your cool skin with featherlike kisses and enjoy the feeling of your hands sliding up and down on my back.

I break down and cry.

I sob silently as I hold you even more tightly against me, careful not to crush or hurt you but strong enough to feel you as close to me as possible. I cry helplessly for a moment against the delicate skin of your neck, breathe you in with sharp gasps and then finally calm down. I feel forgiven and accepted, lighter and completely freed from my old burdens. I whisper “Thank you, my Love” into your ear, nibble your earlobe and trace your neck with my lips, hoping that you will not push me away. I want to love you, I want to hold you… to kiss you… to make you my queen so we can share a bed together. Falling asleep and waking up with you, holding you while we sleep is what I have been dreaming of all these years.

My love for you is sincere and pure – like my heart.

I hear and feel you sigh and I sense that a huge burden melts from your shoulders. Your aura feels lighter and when I look at you, I see you smiling against my elven robe. The sight makes my heart fill with joy and I feel thousands of years younger. Perhaps as young as Legolas… or even younger. I had already forgotten what it feels like to be young and have a heart that is not shadowed by the worries of the world or the mistakes of the past. Oh no, a young heart is fearless and ready to embrace the world. It is not cynical and bitter. It does not hold grudges and refuse to see the silver linings even on the darkest storm clouds. A young heart loves passionately and without fear of rejection. There was a time when I was a young prince with a young heart… and now I feel like that young prince again.

- I am not scared anymore. I am ready to love you.

You say, or more like state – that is how assertive and confident your voice sounds to me. You take a deep breath and draw back a little. I let you even though secretly I am hoping that you wouldn’t. I just want to feel your arms around me, your breath on my skin, your warmth surrounding me, your body against mine. You take my hands, lift them up to your lips and kiss them. You press your lips on my skin so softly, with such vast affection and adoration that I know it in my heart that you love me.

Maybe you always loved me but were too proud and scared to admit it. Perhaps you were too caught up in your own independent ways and therefore unable to allow anyone near you – to allow yourself to need someone and using my immortality as an easy excuse to shut me out. But then again, I can never know exactly how you felt. I’ll
never know what it is like to be a mortal being with limited time… so I can’t really blame you. Worry not, my Love, I won’t question you anymore. I will trust you and I will trust your judgment. Also I will listen to you patiently and never assume that I know all the answers. This I promise to you.

It is also possible, actually if I’m being completely honest with you, it is very likely, that when you met me, I was not the man you needed. I admit I was demanding and also greedy. I wrongly, foolishly and arrogantly believed that I deserved your love, that you should have felt privileged as well as honored to have my attention when actually you owed me nothing and I had no right to make any demands. I understand this now, and I accept it, knowing that I have changed and now I’m certain that I am indeed the man whom you need, the man whom you can count on.

I stare at you in awe. I drown into your eyes – such bright eyes, sparkling like gemstones yet mysteriously deep at the same time. Like the ocean I just crossed, like the night skies filled with stars and galaxies I stared while laying on the deck of my small sailboat. Your eyes are the window to your soul and finally you let me read you. Finally you let me in… finally there is no hesitation, no worries or fears. This love will not turn into jealousy and bitterness, oh no, this love will only grow deeper and stronger by each passing day. This love will surely consume us, it will drive us insane and sometimes it will feel like it is too much to handle… but I don’t mind as long as I’ll have you by my side.

I absolutely must kiss you now.

I pull you closer, lean towards you and when you close your eyes, I let my lips land on yours. Oh, I have missed them, their plump, delicate softness, their gentle caresses and loving nibbles. I wrap my arms around you and kiss you as gracefully as I can. I kiss you slowly, intimately yet modestly until you wrap your arms around me and welcome me closer. I cannot contain my hunger anymore and therefore I let the kiss grow deeper and more possessive. I state my love with my lips and my hands that wander on your body, feeling you and worshipping you but never crossing any lines you are not ready to cross. I respect you and now that we have all the time in the world, we’ll take it as slow as you want. You are my now, then and forever. You are mine forever and forever I shall keep you, love you, adore you.

I reach into my pocket and grab the ring with shaky fingers. I am nervous because I have basically assumed that you’ll accept my proposal – yes, there is going to be a big celebration tonight and I have planned to make you my wife today. I take your left hand and slide the ring to your ring finger and before even I manage to ask you to marry me, you already answer. You have seen the preparations taking place all over our elven city during the previous weeks and I am now more than certain that you have sensed me getting closer – perhaps unconsciously or in your dreams, without you truly even realizing it. You, after all, are an elf now and it means that you share the otherworldly abilities of my kind. This change and the elven spirituality that connects you to the surrounding world
in a more profound way might confuse you at first and make you feel conflicted. You might feel torn between what you once were, the person you know, and what you have become – something different and strange even.

But fear not, my Love, everything is alright now.

Maybe you heard me when I described our wedding to the glowing skies, like sending my own Voyager Golden Record into the endless space, hoping that someone, somewhere receives the message. Maybe it traveled through time and space, through the galaxies, in the shimmer of the distant suns and by planets that have not been discovered yet. Maybe it was a whisper in the wind, soft and so easy to miss, intuition and the elven senses awakening in you. Or it could have been a beautiful dream that you did not want to wake up from, vivid and real – like a sign of things to come. Perhaps deep down you always knew I would come. You knew I would follow you.

I will always follow you.

I smile, lift your left hand on my lips and kiss your knuckles as delicately and lovingly as I can. There is no rush so I take my time to enjoy this wonderful moment – this moment when I’m alone with you, hidden from the curious eyes, behind ancient trees and covered by their warm, mysterious shadows. I lean in to kiss you again, cup your face and eventually tangle my fingers into your silky hair as my lips explore yours and our spirits melt into one another. I pull you closer to feel your heartbeat against me. Oh, how your heart is racing, pounding, just like mine. Your hands caress my neck and your fingers rub my earlobe. You mesmerize me and I am completely yours.

I hear enchanting music, carried by the wind as the celebration is about to start. I pull reluctantly away from you and smirk when I see the pretty mess I have caused; your lips red and swollen, tingling for sure from this intense kissing, a blush on your cheeks and your hair… oh, your hair is tangled like you had just woken up after rolling in your bed for the entire night. What a cute, adorable sight you are. You straighten your dress and state that we should probably go and get changed into something more festive. After all, the sun is getting low, it is dusk and the silver moon will soon rise. Tonight, my Love, we’ll join our lives together under the glowing galaxies and twinkling stars.

From now on… we are one.