Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Legolas took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the crisp, rain-kissed air of the forest. The scent of damp earth, budding leaves, and fresh grass curled around him, easing the ever-present tension in his shoulders. Mirkwood was his home, his heart, but it was also a gilded cage—one he longed to escape. Out here, beyond the watchful eyes of courtiers and his father’s unyielding gaze, he could breathe.

Yet, even as he sought solace in the wilds, a familiar ache coiled within him. What was the point of his rigorous training if he never got to wield his bow in defense of his people? While others fought and bled, he was meant to remain behind, protected rather than protector. But that was not his way. So, whenever he could, he ventured beyond the borders of his father's realm, scanning the lands for threats unseen, dangers unspoken.

Today had been like any other patrol. The forest hummed with life—birds trilling in the canopy, foxes threading their nimble paths through the underbrush, a herd of deer grazing in a sun-dappled clearing. The soft rush of the nearby waterfall beckoned him, and a small smile tugged at his lips. He had always loved that place. Perhaps he would stop by, drink from the cool spring, and rest beneath the whispering trees.

His mind was so wrapped in thought that he nearly missed the figure beneath the falls. A flicker of motion caught his eye, and Legolas froze, heart lurching.

A man stood beneath the cascading water, his back turned. Midnight-black hair, soaked and gleaming like raven’s feathers, spilled over lean shoulders. The rivulets of water traced the curves of a finely sculpted body, gliding over smooth, sun-bronzed skin marred by faint silver scars. One, in particular, caught Legolas’s eye—a deep, pale line that ran from his back, over his hip, and vanished beneath the water’s surface.

Legolas inhaled sharply, his stomach coiling with something unfamiliar and unsettling.

At first, a foolish thought entered his mind: Was he one of the Eldar? The way he moved, the grace in his posture—it felt otherworldly, like a being crafted by the Valar themselves. But then Legolas saw it.

His ears.

Round. Blunt. Mortal.

A sickening jolt shot through him, freezing his limbs as his mind reeled.

A man. A human.

No. No, it could not be. And yet, the undeniable truth burned in his eyes. He felt his heartbeat thundering in his ears, his breath coming too fast, too sharp. Elves did not love lightly. And they did not love beyond their kind. A love bound to mortality was doomed before it even began.

Horrified at himself, he jerked his gaze away, heat rising to his face. He had been ogling a stranger. A man.

His stomach twisted tighter, and for the first time in centuries, dread clawed at his heart.

Elves loved once, and once only. Their hearts were bound to their chosen partner for eternity. If this feeling—this pull—was what he feared it might be, then he was doomed to heartbreak. A human’s life was but a flicker of candlelight compared to his own. And yet… something in him ached to know more. To speak to this man. To understand why fate had led him here, why his eyes refused to stray from the sight before him.

No. This could not be happening. It was impossible. A cruel jest by the Valar themselves.

A sharp sound suddenly pierced the quiet clearing.

Legolas's head snapped up, heart hammering against his ribs as he reached for his bow. His keen eyes darted from shadow to shadow, searching for the source of the disturbance. But when he looked back to the waterfall—

The man was gone.

Vanished. As if he had never been there at all.

A chill ran down Legolas's spine, colder than the spring rain, colder than the steel of a blade against his throat. He moved swiftly, searching the ground for footprints, for the slightest sign of movement. Nothing. No displaced pebbles, no wet tracks leading away from the pool. Even the air felt undisturbed, as if no breath but his own had ever existed here.

His stomach twisted in something dangerously close to fear.

That night, long after he had returned home, the emerald eyes of the stranger haunted his dreams. He saw them in the darkness, gleaming like the stones buried deep in dwarven halls, vibrant and full of something he could not name. They followed him, burned into his mind, whispering of something he dared not name.

One hundred years later…

The Prince of Mirkwood walked through the royal gardens, the soft glow of twilight casting long shadows upon the stone pathways. In his hand, he held a delicate silver chain, from which an emerald pendant dangled—a gem that mirrored the eyes of the man he had glimpsed but once, a century ago.

He had scoured markets, spoken to elven jewelers, searched among his people for a stone that could capture the depth of those eyes. But none had sufficed. Until, on a fateful journey, he had encountered dwarven merchants on the road.

The negotiations had been tense, barbed with insults and laced with mistrust, but in the end, he had secured the gem—at great cost. No amount of gold or silk had felt too high a price.

And yet… it was only a stone. A hollow echo of what he had lost.

He had never spoken of the stranger to anyone, never voiced the yearning that had taken root in his heart that day beneath the waterfall. For how could he? His people would scoff at such a notion—that an immortal elf could fall for a fleeting human, and after only a single encounter. Love, they would say, could not be born in the span of a heartbeat.

But they were wrong.

Legolas lifted the emerald, letting it catch the last golden rays of the setting sun. His fingers tightened around it. He had not spoken the name aloud, not even to himself. But in his dreams, in the quiet of the night, he whispered it.

"Eldamir."

The star jewel.

The man who had stolen his heart, only to vanish like mist on the wind.

As the stars began to emerge in the sky, Legolas leaned back against the trunk of an ancient tree, staring into the vastness above.

Humans did not live long. A hundred years was a lifetime to them.

A long time…

Too long.

The realisation settled over him like a shroud, heavy and inescapable. If the man had been mortal, then by now… he was surely gone.

A sharp pain lanced through his chest, unlike any he had ever known.

He had waited too long. Hoped too long. And now, he would never know.

The stars above blurred as he blinked rapidly, willing the ache in his heart to be silenced. But it would not. It never would.

A love lost before it had even begun.

And now, lost to time itself.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

The wind was restless that night, whispering through the trees as if carrying a message from long-forgotten ghosts. Legolas moved through the dense forest, his footfalls soundless against the damp earth. The ache in his heart was a familiar companion, yet it had grown quieter over the years, buried beneath duty, battle, and the passage of time.

And yet, fate—cruel, relentless fate—was not finished with him.

He saw them first. The emerald eyes. He froze.

Glowing through the mist like lanterns in the dark, piercing him from across the expanse of a small valley. His breath caught in his throat.

It was impossible. It had to be.

The man—the man—stood at the edge of the clearing, untouched by time. His black hair still shone like raven’s feathers in the moonlight, his face just as sharp, just as young as it had been that day beneath the waterfall.

And then, Legolas saw it—the wound. A dark stain seeping through the fabric at his shoulder, slow but steady. Blood. His blood.

Legolas’s stomach clenched. His heart thundered in his chest.

The sight of the injury—tangible, real—brought a crushing certainty that this was no phantom. This was flesh and blood. This was real.

Legolas felt his blood turn to ice. This could not be. The man was human. A mortal. He should be dead. He had to be.

For a hundred years, he had returned to the lake. Every year, without fail, despite knowing the truth. Despite knowing that the man he had glimpsed for only a moment was gone. The man who had stolen his heart away was dead. His mate, the one he had never truly had, was gone. It had started as denial, then desperation. And finally, a cruel tradition he could not break. Searching for a ghost, for the shadow of something he had never truly held.

But now—now he stood here. Real. Breathing. Bleeding. Alive. 

For the first time in centuries, fear rooted him to the spot. Was he looking upon a ghost? A wraith of memory? A fragment of longing made manifest? A wretched hallucination born of guilt?

Then, the man smiled.

A handsome smile. One that made Legolas’s heart lurch—painful, desperate, hungry.

A casual, oblivious smile, as if he were not shattering Legolas’s world with his very existence.

"Hey there," the man called, lifting a hand in greeting.

The voice. The warmth in it. The sheer, casualness of it all. It felt so alive.

Legolas staggered back a step, breath hitching violently. His heart pounded against his ribs, fighting against the cold grip of disbelief.

And still—the wound. The blood. The growing stain, ignored, unnoticed.

The accent was strange, Legolas realised dimly, his mind grasping at small details in a futile attempt at reason. Even in the common tongue, his words carried an inflection unfamiliar to Legolas’s ears, something detached from the lands he knew. A foreign tongue. A foreign man.

No. No, this was wrong.

“You…” The word barely escaped his lips, hoarse and full of something dangerously close to grief. “You should not be here.”

The man blinked, tilting his head, and oh, that was adorable.

“What, here? In the woods?” He gave a small, sheepish laugh. The sound lodged itself in Legolas’s ribs, digging in, refusing to leave.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. Bit lost, to be honest.”

Legolas barely heard him past the roar in his ears. His fingers twitched towards his bow, but what use was a weapon against this? Against something that should not exist?

His mind scrambled for an answer, a reason, a lie that made sense. But no matter how he twisted it, no matter how he searched, only one truth remained.

This was not possible.

This was not real.

And yet, the blood did not lie.

His pulse thundered as he took in every detail. The man was dressed differently now—no longer bare-skinned beneath a waterfall, but clad in strange, unfamiliar fabrics, dark and well-worn. His posture was easy, relaxed, but his movements spoke of readiness, of someone accustomed to battle.

A cruel, chilling thought slithered into his mind.

It is a ghost wearing his face. A trick of the forest. A shade of what you lost.

He swallowed hard, chest tightening to the point of pain. No, he was never mine to lose.

The man took a few steps closer, utterly unaware of the war raging behind Legolas’s eyes. “Are you okay, mate? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Legolas let out a sharp, humorless laugh, though it sounded more like a breath of disbelief.

A ghost.

That would have made more sense. That would have been merciful.

Instead, he was looking into the eyes of a man who should have turned to dust a century ago.

“I know you,” Legolas finally forced out, his voice tight with barely restrained emotion.

The man blinked again. “...Do you?”

Legolas’s breath shuddered. His gaze traced every inch of Harry’s face, drinking in what he had never been allowed to memorize. The pale skin, the way the moonlight caught in his untamed hair, the oddity of the scar carved into his brow—a wound, a mark, a relic of something ancient and powerful.

And still—the blood, the evidence.

“You are wounded,” Legolas seized the excuse, desperate for anything to hold onto. “Come with me. To my halls. Elves are rather good at fixing things. I insist that you must rest.”

The other hesitated, then gave a small, awkward smile. “I could fix it u—”

Legolas clenched his teeth. “I insist.”

Silence.

The green-eyed man looked at Legolas, from his beautiful green eyes to his, looking into him, studying him, trying to read him, perhaps.

A heartbeat.

Another.

Then, the green-eyed man nodded. “That would be… very nice of you.”

Nice.

The word was a mockery.

But he was here. And Legolas would not—could not—let him slip away again.