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Another winter crept down from the North, quiet as breath on glass, and Bard felt it stir restlessness in his bones. Five years had passed since the mountain echoed with the cries of war. Peace had settled over the Valley, but it was a brittle thing—thin as ice at the year’s edge, always threatening to crack.
Dale had been rebuilt, board by board, dream by dream. A labor not of pride, but of survival. The work had worn grooves into men's hands and shadowed their eyes, yet still they toiled, still they rose each morning to meet the cold. He had led them, not because he was a King, but because someone had to. Sometimes he wondered if that was all he had become—a man who carried on simply because there was no other choice.
He had walked to the King's Hall at first light, rising from another dream—the same one that returned night after night. He was no closer to understanding it.
“Look closely,” Bard said, his voice low but tightly drawn, as if louder words might fracture something delicate in the room. “The forest has crept past the agreed line. He’s moved it. Deliberately.” His finger traced the edge of the map, then tapped once, hard. “Thranduil is claiming ground that is not his. And he does it as though the trees themselves obey only his will.”
“Because they do, Father,” Bain said quietly, masking unease beneath practiced calm. He did not look at Bard, only at the map. “Perhaps it’s time you spoke with him. It’s been five years since your last conversation. “A pause stretched between them. “You need to ask him directly. There may be more to this than you know."
“Maybe it’s time,” Bard said at last. He had known this day would come—when he’d have to face Thranduil, to speak not just of borders, but of the things left unfinished between them. He stared at the map, but his thoughts were far from it. He had put the visit off for years—always with reason, always with restraint. They had not parted on friendly terms. Not truly. And though Thranduil had extended the invitation more than once, gracious and formal, Bard had refused each time. Politely. But not without meaning. His thoughts wandered back to that night—the night Laketown burned.
“You should have stayed.” The words came low and rough from Bard. They stood amid the ruins—stone blackened, rafters split, the scent of ash still clinging to the air. “You shouldn’t have abandoned us.”
Thranduil turned slowly, as if the truth of the words required no reply—only the quiet grace of a bowed head.
“I stayed as long as I could,” he said, his voice stripped of courtly flourish. He looked little like a King now—cheek marked by a long, unhealed gash, hair pulled back in a careless knot that spoke more of exhaustion than vanity. His black tunic fluttered in the wind, silver armor catching light but offering no warmth. “We suffered too many losses. We were outnumbered. My people would not have borne it. You know nothing of Elven politics, Lord Bard.”
“No,” Bard said quietly. “I may not know the intricacies of Elven courts, my lord Thranduil…“…but I know a thing or two about loyalty. And friendship.”
With that, he turned and walked away, the echo of his steps swallowed by snow and silence. He did not look back. Looking back would have undone him.
“Father. “Bain’s voice pulled him back from whatever place his thoughts had wandered. “You need to speak with him face to face. He hesitated, choosing his words with care. “These are darker days. The attacks are growing—we won’t hold long on our own. We need to learn how to defend ourselves. And the Elves… they can teach us.”
“You’re right. I’ll go.”
They newly rebuilt King’s Hall had only just been finished a few weeks ago. Bard had argued that he needed no grand chamber to settle disputes about who had stolen who’s goat or broken fences. But his advisers had insisted. The people needed a symbol—something solid, enduring. Something that looked like hope. The walls bore no tapestries yet—only pale, bare stone, still faintly streaked with the soot of what had come before. High windows let in the cold morning light. It filtered through imperfect panes of glass, scattering soft, fractured patterns across the flagstones below.
Five years had passed since the Battle of the Five Armies. A tentative peace had settled over Dale and its bordering lands—a peace fragile as frost, beautiful, but thin. And now, often, it was broken. The orc raids came in waves—small at first, scattered. But they were growing bolder, testing the edges of that hard-won calm. They came from Dol Guldur and Gundabad, like smoke curling back in through the cracks. Azog was gone, but the dark forces that stirred behind him were not. Without a single warlord to rally them, the orcs moved in splintered bands, feral and desperate—but not without purpose. They were testing the land, testing the men and elves who dared to rebuild it. And Dale, reborn but still healing, sat exposed—rising from ash with walls not yet strong enough to hold back what was gathering in the dark. Bard had known for some time now that he would have to meet with his neighbor. It was no longer a question of politics or duty. The orc raids made the choice for him—soon there would be no holding the borders without aid.
Still, he delayed. It wasn’t because of the way they had parted—not truly. Words had been sharp, yes, but there had also been understanding in the silence between them. No, it was something else. It was the memory of what their meetings had stirred. Those quiet, charged hours before the battle—conversations that had wandered too far from tactics, lingering looks that had said too much. The last evening before they marched to the mountain still lived in him, tucked away like a letter never sent. And perhaps it was that—what had almost been spoken, and never was—that made the thought of facing Thranduil again so difficult.
“Is that all you’re wearing?” Bard asked, arching a brow at the thin silver mesh draped over Thranduil’s tunic. It clung close to the contours of his frame, more ornament than armor to Bard’s eye.
“Well, yes,” Thranduil replied evenly. “It’s the finest elven steel—light as breath, strong enough to turn a blade.”
Bard gave it a slow, unimpressed once-over.
“It looks like a fishnet. I’ve seen nets with tighter weave, and they were meant to catch trout, not swords.”
For a heartbeat, Thranduil said nothing. Then the corner of his mouth twitched—just slightly. Not a smile, not quite. But close enough. And Bard, watching him, knew he’d meant for that reaction all along.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Thranduil said, his voice light. “It may not look like much protection. But I don’t intend to let anyone get close enough to test it.”He met Bard’s gaze evenly. “This isn’t my first battle, my lord Bard.”
“I only seek to see it not to be your last,” Bard replied, dry. He stepped closer, hands half-raised as if already regretting the impulse. “Here—let me help you with your fishnet.”
Bard stepped forward without a word. His fingers found the clasps at Thranduil’s shoulder—silver and finely wrought, delicate as thread. The elven steel was cool to the touch, etched with runes he couldn’t read, too light and beautiful for something made for war. It shimmered faintly in the light, like dew catching morning sun. But it wasn’t the armor that unsettled him. It was the quiet. The stillness between them, drawn tight like a bowstring. Thranduil stood close, close enough to touch. The calm mask he wore so often had slipped, leaving behind something younger, something raw. His face held no command, no crown. Just a kind of vulnerability that had nothing to do with fear of dying. It was the fear of being seen.
Bard didn’t speak. He fastened the clasp carefully, as if it mattered more than it should. As if it could hold something together. There was no space between them now for formality or distance.
“I do not dismiss your care.” the Elvenking said at last, his voice lighter than the moment called for. He glanced over Bard’s armor, adjusting a strap with the air of someone trying not to appear doubtful. “And I expect you not to die, either. Stay close to me tomorrow?”
“I’ll need to stay close to my people,” Bard said, though he tilted his head, as if chasing away a thought too vivid to hold—the Elvenking clad in little more than silver mesh, light glinting over bare skin beneath. “But yes,” he added, voice steady, “I promise to stay alive. It would be a shame to end this conversation so soon.”
He walked home alone after the meeting. Around him, murmurs from the crowd rose and fell like distant waves—nods and bows exchanged with practiced ease, a ceremony Bard barely registered. He noticed how some women’s eyes lingered a moment longer, their lips twitching in secret smiles, barely held in check. He was not interested, though. His interests lay elsewhere, and he felt as though they knew. Yet it did not stop them from trying. The faint scent of winter pine from nearby wreaths mingled with the warmth of woodsmoke curling lazily from chimneys. So the time had finally come. He could no longer delay it. It was time to face the past—to face Thranduil—and to speak his truth at last. No matter what reaction it might bring, he could no longer be afraid.
He rode to Mirkwood a week later, the weight of the coming meeting pressing quietly against his thoughts. Two days before, he had sent a herald ahead—an envoy bearing word of his arrival. The reply had come swiftly, carried on wings of Elven messenger: the Elvenking awaited him, prepared to receive his visit.
He left Bain in his place, old enough now to govern in his absence. One day soon, his son would have to take his place. No matter how long Bard had tried to delay it sparing Bain the burden of rule—the time was drawing nearer with every passing day. He had been a good King to his people—or at least, he tried. He had done the best he could. Yet kingship had never been in his blood; he had worn the crown out of necessity, not design. His son, though—Bain—would make a finer one. Bard could already see it in him: the hunger to govern, the sharp, strategic mind constantly turning, already planning the next move against the enemy.
But not yet.
With that thought heavy on his mind, Bard became aware of the forest shifting around him as he neared Mirkwood. The air grew thicker, the shadows deeper—alive with a presence he had come to know well. The Woodland Elves appeared just as uncertainty began to creep in - he no longer knew his path forward; hooded and silent, they surrounded him, longbows lowered in a clear gesture of peace.
“King Bard,” one of the archers spoke, letting the hood slip back from his head. “We are here to escort you from this point on. Come with us.”
Bard obeyed following the Woodland Elves deeper into the forest. The trees here grew taller, the air was cooler, filled with the scent of moss and pine. After some time, the trees began to thin, revealing the grand entrance to the Elvenking’s Halls. Carved into the living wood of the oldest trees, the Hall’s doors rose tall and wide, their surfaces etched with intricate designs of leaves, stars, and ancient runes glowing faintly in the dim light. He had expected the Halls to be beautiful—how could they not be, fashioned by the hands of one Elf who haunted his thoughts? But he had not expected them to feel familiar. As though he had walked these corridors once in a forgotten dream. As though he were not arriving but returning. The sensation unsettled him. Bard tried to shake it off, to root himself in reason. Yet the feeling clung, quiet and persistent. In the end, he let it be. There would be time enough to make sense of it later. For now, he allowed himself the silence, and the stillness, and the aching beauty of the place.
The archers led him through winding corridors, their steps soundless on the polished stone. Light filtered in through high arches, catching in delicate carvings and drifting down like mist. Eventually, they emerged into a spacious chamber that opened to what resembled a practice ring. There, Bard caught sight of Thranduil—mid-spar with an opponent, his movements precise and fluid, a blur of silver and sinew. This time, not even a glinting mesh guarded his form. No armor. No pretense. Just the Elvenking, unshrouded and dangerous, as if he had nothing left to hide. Bard stopped mid-step, arrested by the sight before him. If he had come all this way for nothing more than this—watching Thranduil move like moonlight made flesh, striking with elegance honed into lethality—he would have left content. His heart thudded once, low and sure, as if answering something long denied. Then, suddenly, they were alone. The other elf vanished from the ring as if he had never been there at all.
Leaning lightly on his sword, Thranduil turned to face him, calm and poised. He looked younger somehow, changed in a way Bard couldn’t place at first. Then he noticed it—and gasped.
His hair.
The Elvenking’s silver hair, once long enough to catch the light like water, had been shorn just past his chin. Cropped clean, it no longer fell like a mantle of moonlight down his back. Instead, it framed his face drawing the eye to the sharp line of his jaw, the high bones of his cheek. It made him look fiercer—like a blade honed to a finer edge. And yet, in that starkness, there was something tender too. Something startlingly bare. Strangely mortal. Bard stared, struck silent.
“Elves can cut their hair once in their lifetimes when they mourn something,” Thranduil said instead of offering a proper greeting. “Or someone. It will grow back—slowly.” He paused, then added, almost absently, “The second time, it will more likely stay the length that it was cut.”
“Who are you mourning, Lord Thranduil?” Bard asked as he stepped down the shallow stairs, boots soft against stone. He came to a halt in the center of the ring—just inches away now, close enough to see the faint sheen of sweat on Thranduil’s brow, the way his breath came calm and measured. “Or what?” he added, more softly still.
“Lost love, perhaps?” Thranduil said with a shrug so casual it might have passed for indifference—to anyone other than Bard. Then, after a beat, he tilted his head, gaze settling on Bard like a blade. “You?”
“My Lord,” Bard said with a soft sigh as he stepped closer, “you could have come to see me first. “His fingers reached out almost instinctively, catching a short lock of Thranduil’s hair and twisting it gently around his finger. “It suits you,” he murmured, voice low, almost hesitant. “You look… younger. Less like a cold King, and more like someone who feels the warmth of being human.”
“Yet I am not,” Thranduil said eyes flickering with something like pain. “That’s part of why I’m drawn to you. Elves and men… so different. You feel everything more intensely. I am pulled toward your light, even knowing the scorch is certain still unable to turn away. I am enthralled by the feeling, you know.”
Of course Bard knew. Just like he was certain he hadn’t come merely to discuss the orc raids—or for any simple visit. He had come to confront the unresolved—whatever name it might take—between them. The silence grew heavier with each passing day, making it harder to live, harder to breathe with so much left unsaid. He had come because he could no longer bear the distance. Even the narrow span of inches felt intolerable now. Bard was surprised he’d endured this long—surprised he hadn’t reached for him the moment their eyes met.
“Do you still have the fishnet armor?” He asked softly, stepping even closer, his hand finding the contours of a face he’d only touched in dreams for far too long.
“Somewhere,” Thranduil murmured, leaning into the touch. “I can find it, if you wish.”
“I want to see you in it. Tonight. Just that—and nothing else. I’ve imagined it for five years.”
He wasn’t sure if this was the beginning of something or the breaking point. But whatever tomorrow brought, he could no longer pretend. The ache had outlived its silence.
“You could have asked sooner,” Thranduil said, a glint of amusement beneath his composure. “Your wish will be fulfilled.”
Bard didn’t answer at once. His hand lingered at Thranduil’s jaw, thumb brushing the edge of his cheekbone—delicate, reverent, as if still unsure the Elf before him was real. The silence stretched, thick with the things neither of them had said. And then—slowly, without ceremony or permission—he leaned in. Their foreheads touched first. Breath mingled. A heartbeat. Another. And then their mouths met—quietly, finally—like a promise long delayed rather than broken.
There had been a few quiet years of friendship between them before the Battle of the Five Armies—meetings by the lake, conversations that lingered longer than they should have. Each of them had been more prepared to face a dragon than to admit they were falling in love. Then there had been moments before the battle—intimate, raw—hovering just shy of crossing that invisible line. They teetered on the edge of truth, not quite brave enough to name what already bound them.
It took five more years for one of them to gather the courage to cross that distance—to finally face the truth neither had dared speak. What might come next was hard to imagine—too many unknowns, too many obstacles. It wouldn’t be easy, that much was certain, for more reasons than they could count. Yet the thought of not being together at all—that was a burden far heavier to bear.
But all of the thinking could wait until tomorrow, Bard decided. Tonight, it would be just the two of them—finally. A bed sized for two in Thranduil’s chambers. A quiet supper by candlelight. And many hours spent savoring the sight of one Elvenking in his fishnet armor—just for Bard alone.