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The sound of hooves on the cobbled courtyard made Legolas drop his wooden practice sword mid-swing. He knew that rhythm—the measured, heavy gait of his father’s elk, the way it always slowed just before the gates.
He was finally home.
Legolas scrambled toward the arched doorway, heart pounding. He’d spent days watching the horizon, counting every patrol that returned without the king. The other warriors had given him tight-lipped smiles, ruffled his hair, told him, Soon. But none of them had met his eyes.
The courtyard air was thick with the scent of damp earth and trampled grass, the aftermath of rain. Thranduil’s elk stood motionless in the center, its flanks streaked with mud and dark sweat. Legolas barely noticed. His gaze locked onto his father, still mounted, still clad in armor that gleamed dull under the overcast sky.
Legolas had seen his father return from battle a hundred times before, but never like this. Thranduil’s armor, usually polished to a mirror sheen, was dull with grime and worse. A long gash ran across one pauldron, deep enough to glimpse the silver beneath the blackened blood. His circlet sat crooked, strands of pale hair escaping its grasp like frayed threads. But it was the way his father held himself that made Legolas’s throat tighten—stiff as a statue, yet trembling faintly, as if the slightest touch would shatter him.
"Ada!" Legloas called, voice too bright, too hopeful.
Thranduil did not dismount. That was the first thing Legolas noticed—that and the way his father's gloved hands remained curled around the reins, knuckles straining the leather. The second thing was the silence. There were no triumphant horns, no clamor of returning warriors; just the hushed murmurs of the household staff gathering in doorways, their faces drawn. The anxious clatter of hooves shifting shot through the yawning silence.
"Ada?" Legolas tried again, smaller this time. His bare feet skidded on wet stone as he darted forward, but the elk sidestepped with an uneasy snort. Thranduil's gaze finally flickered downward, and Legolas recoiled at what he saw there. His father's eyes were hollow, the way the great halls looked when all the torches had been extinguished at once.
A hand reached down—not to lift him up as it always had before, but to press against his shoulder, holding him gently, terribly still. "Legolas," Thranduil said, and his voice was a thing cracked open. It wasn't his name itself that made Legolas's stomach drop, but the way it was spoken: the way one might speak a prayer before an avalanche.
Behind them, a healer rushed forward with bandages. Only then did Legolas see the blood seeping through the plates of his father's armor near the ribs. Thranduil waved the elf away with a sharp flick of his hand–his other, tightening on Legolas's shoulder.
The elk shifted again, its great antlers throwing faint shadows as it turned its head—away from Legolas, as if ashamed. That was when Legolas saw the second saddle. Empty. The smooth leather straps hung loose, and one of them was torn nearly in half, the frayed edges dark with old blood. His mother's saddle.
Legolas's breath hitched. His fingers twitched toward the empty space where she should have been, but Thranduil's grip on his shoulder tightened abruptly, as though he could physically stop the realization from crashing down.
"Ada," Legolas whispered, not a question anymore but a plea. He looked up, eyes wide and bright with dawning horror. "Where is—"
Thranduil dismounted in one stiff motion, his armor creaking like old tree branches in a storm. He landed heavily—too heavily for an elf—and for a heartbeat, Legolas thought he might collapse. But then his father straightened, taller than ever before, his face a mask of something terrible and calm.
The courtyard stones were cold beneath Legolas’s feet, but he barely felt them. His fingers curled into the hem of his tunic, damp from where he’d wiped his palms after practice. The silence stretched like a bowstring pulled too tight—until Thranduil exhaled, slow and shuddering, as if his lungs were full of broken glass.
The elk lowered its head with a wet, rattling breath, antlers scraping the ground. Legolas reached out without thinking, fingers brushing the creature’s sweat-darkened neck—then froze. His fingertips came away smeared red.
Not mud. Not mud at all.
Thranduil’s hand caught his wrist before he could wipe it away. His grip was iron, but his thumb brushed once, gently, over the pulse point beneath Legolas’s skin, as if reassuring himself the boy was still whole. “Inside,” he said, low and rough. The word wasn’t a suggestion.
Legolas's breath hitched again—small, wet sounds he couldn't control, like a wounded animal trying to be silent. The red on his fingers glistened in the weak afternoon light. His father's grip tightened, not painfully, but with a desperation that made Legolas's bones ache.
“Ada–”
"Inside," Thranduil repeated, and this time his voice broke on the word. The hand on Legolas's wrist slid down to encircle his entire hand, swallowing it whole. Legolas let himself be pulled forward, his bare feet stumbling over the uneven stones. He didn't look back at the empty saddle. If he didn't look, maybe it wasn't real. Maybe she was just delayed—maybe she'd ridden ahead on another elk, maybe she was already in the halls laughing with the weavers, maybe—
The great oak doors groaned shut behind them, sealing out the light. The sudden darkness made Thranduil's silhouette waver like a candle flame in wind. Legolas blinked rapidly, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but his father didn't move toward the torches. He stood motionless, breathing too carefully, as if each inhalation cost him.
Legolas tugged at their still-joined hands. "Ada, you're hurt—"
The hand around his squeezed once—too hard, then immediately loosened, as if Thranduil had startled himself with his own strength. "Not my blood," he murmured, though the lie tasted bitter even as he spoke it. Some of it was. Most of it wasn’t. The distinction hardly mattered now.
Legolas stared up at him, eyes wide and glistening in the dim hall. The boy’s lower lip trembled, but he bit down on it hard, the way he did when trying not to cry during archery drills. Thranduil had always praised that stubbornness before. Now it carved something hollow beneath his ribs.
Thranduil didn’t remember climbing the stairs. The corridors blurred—tapestries of forgotten battles, the flicker of torches that seemed to dim as they passed—until his boots struck the familiar grove-patterned tiles outside his chambers. The door swung open before he touched it, some half-remembered spell responding to his need. Inside, the air smelled of cedar and cold hearth ash. He’d left the windows open; autumn leaves had drifted across the threshold, brittle as old parchment.
Legolas’s fingers twitched in his grip, small and cold as a bird’s feet. The boy hadn’t spoken since the courtyard. Now he hovered on the threshold, staring at the tangled skeins of yarn still piled beside his mother’s abandoned embroidery frame. A half-finished mallorn leaf gleamed in the gloom, the silver thread snarled where she’d last tugged it taut.
Thranduil released Legolas’s hand only to kneel before him, armor creaking. He didn’t trust his voice yet, so he spoke with his hands—cupping the boy’s face, thumbs brushing away the first traitorous tears before they could fall. Legolas shuddered but didn’t pull away. His breath hitched wetly against Thranduil’s palms.
"Look at me," Thranduil managed, though his own vision swam. The words came out wrong—not a command, but a plea. Legolas obeyed, eyes wide and dark with understanding. Too much understanding. Thranduil had seen that look on fresh recruits after their first battle. He’d never wanted to see it on his child.
Legolas’s fingers curled into the fur lining of Thranduil’s cloak. "She promised," he whispered. The words were barely audible, but they struck Thranduil like an arrow to the gut. Promised what? To return? To teach him that new stitch? To watch him spar next week? The specifics didn’t matter. She’d broken all her promises now.
The circlet slipped from Thranduil’s brow with a soft clatter. He barely noticed. His arms encircled Legolas, pulling the boy flush against his chestplate. The metal was cold, the edges sharp—hardly fit for comfort—but Legolas clung anyway, small hands fisting in the bloodstained tunic beneath. Thranduil pressed his face into the boy’s hair and inhaled the scent of sunshine and bruised grass.
Alive. Whole. His.
A sound escaped him—half sob, half growl—and Legolas flinched. Thranduil cursed himself silently. He’d sworn never to frighten him. But the boy surprised him by pressing closer, his own thin arms wrapping around Thranduil’s neck with surprising strength. "I’m here," Legolas murmured against his collarbone, as if he were the one offering comfort. As if he knew Thranduil needed to hear it.
The dam broke then. Thranduil’s shoulders heaved, his breath coming in ragged gusts that stirred Legolas’s hair. He didn’t weep prettily like the minstrels sang; this was ugly, gasping grief, the kind that left his throat raw and his face streaked. Legolas held on through it all, silent but for the occasional hiccup against Thranduil’s skin.
When Thranduil could speak again, his voice was wrecked. "She fought bravely." The words felt like shards in his mouth. He should say more—describe her final stand, how her blade had flashed like lightning—but the images burned behind his eyes. Not yet. Not for the boy.
Legolas nodded against his chest. "Did she—" His voice cracked. "Did it hurt?"
Thranduil’s grip tightened. He remembered the arrow protruding from her ribs, the way she’d smiled at him even as her fingers slipped from his. "No," he lied smoothly. "She went quickly."
The boy sagged in his arms, relief and grief warring in the way his fingers clutched and loosened at Thranduil’s cloak. They stayed like that for a long while, tangled together on the floor, until the last light faded from the windows and the chamber grew dark. Thranduil only stirred when he felt Legolas’s breathing even out against his neck—exhaustion had finally claimed him.
Thranduil didn’t remember rising from the floor. One moment he was cradling Legolas against his chestplate, the boy’s breath warm and even against his skin; the next, he was standing, Legolas’s weight settled against his hip like he was still a toddler. The armor made it awkward—cold metal pressing into the boy’s ribs—but Legolas didn’t complain. His head lolled against Thranduil’s shoulder, eyelashes fluttering with exhaustion.
The king’s chambers were too large. The bed, carved from a single massive oak, had always been a shared space—laughter tangled in the sheets, whispered arguments over council disputes, his wife’s hair fanned across the pillows like spilled moonlight. Now it yawned emptily, the covers too neat, the air too still. Thranduil hesitated at the foot of it, Legolas’s slight frame suddenly heavy in his arms.
He couldn’t bear to put him down. Not yet. Not in that hollow expanse. So he sat first, armor and all, the mattress groaning beneath his weight, and arranged Legolas against his side like a second skin. The boy murmured something unintelligible, fingers curling instinctively into the fur of Thranduil’s cloak. His knees drew up, small and vulnerable, the way he’d slept as an infant.
Thranduil’s hands moved without thought—unbuckling his pauldrons, letting them thud to the floor, stripping away the bloodied outer layers until only the soft linen undershirt remained. Legolas stirred when the cold air hit, blinking up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Ada?" His voice was hoarse, frayed at the edges.
"Sleep," Thranduil murmured, pressing a palm to the boy’s forehead. The skin was warm, alive beneath his touch. He needed that proof like he needed breath. "I’ll be here."
Legolas’s fingers tightened on his sleeve. "You’ll stay?" The question was too small, too fragile. It made something in Thranduil’s chest fracture.
"Always." The word came out rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat, tried again. "Turn, little leaf."
Legolas obeyed, rolling onto his side with the pliancy of exhaustion. Thranduil shifted behind him, curling his body around the boy’s smaller frame—a living shield. His arm draped over Legolas’s waist, anchoring him. The position was familiar, though it had been years since Legolas needed guarding from nightmares. Thranduil had forgotten how easily his son fit against him, like a sapling sheltered by an older tree.
Legolas’s breath hitched. Thranduil felt the exact moment the boy pressed his face into the pillow to muffle a sob. His own throat burned in response. He should say something—offer comfort, promise vengeance—but all words felt hollow now. So he pressed his lips to the crown of Legolas’s head instead, letting the gesture speak for him. I’m here. You’re not alone.
Thranduil counted Legolas’s breaths—each one shallow at first, then deepening as exhaustion pulled him under. The boy’s fingers slowly uncurled from his sleeve, his body going slack against Thranduil’s chest. Only then did Thranduil allow his own rigid posture to soften, his spine curving like a bow unstrung. He pressed his forehead to the back of Legolas’s neck, inhaling the scent of sun-warmed grass and the faint metallic tang of the courtyard’s horror still clinging to them both.
A tremor ran through him. He clenched his jaw against it, teeth grinding until his skull ached. But the grief came anyway—a slow, insidious tide that filled his lungs, his throat, the hollows behind his eyes. The first tear fell soundlessly, soaking into Legolas’s hair. The second traced the bridge of his nose before disappearing into the pillow. Thranduil didn’t wipe them away. What was the point? The dam had broken in the courtyard, and now the flood would have its way.
He wept as silently as he’d fought battles—no heaving sobs, no gasps. Just a relentless seep of agony, as if his very fëa were leaking from his eyes. His arms tightened around Legolas instinctively, then immediately loosened when the boy murmured in his sleep. Even now, even like this, he wouldn’t risk disturbing him. The child had lost enough today.
Somewhere beyond the windows, the Greenwood murmured, leaves rustling in a language older than grief. Thranduil focused on that sound, clinging to it like a lifeline. The world still turned. The trees still sang. And here, in this terrible new reality, his son still breathed against him. He mapped the rhythm of Legolas’s heartbeat with his palm, the steady thump beneath small ribs a counterpoint to his own fractured pulse.
The pillow beneath his cheek grew damp. He thought of her hands—how they’d woven those very pillowcases centuries ago, fingers quick and sure around the silver needle. The memory seared him. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that only made it worse. Now he saw her laughing over tangled thread, saw her braiding Legolas’s hair by firelight, saw the way she’d kissed his brow before riding out. Always so certain of her return.
Legolas twitched in his arms—a nightmare fluttering at the edges of sleep. Thranduil pressed his lips to the boy’s temple, humming a fragment of an old lullaby she used to sing. The notes wavered, off-key with grief, but Legolas settled anyway, sighing into the curve of his father’s body. Thranduil swallowed the next sob before it could escape. It lodged in his throat like a shard of glass.
Dawn found them still entwined. Gray light crept through the windows, picking out the dust motes swirling above the bed. Thranduil hadn’t slept. He’d counted every one of Legolas’s breaths, memorized the way the boy’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheeks, tracked the slow relaxation of small fingers that had fisted his shirt all night. His own body ached with exhaustion, but the thought of moving was unthinkable.
Legolas stirred first—a slow, sleepy stretch that ended abruptly when memory returned. Thranduil felt the exact moment it happened: the sudden stiffening, the hitched breath, the way small fingers dug into his sleeve anew. He braced himself.
"Ada?" Legolas’s voice was muffled against his chest, thick with sleep and unshed tears.
Thranduil brushed a strand of hair from the boy’s forehead. "I’m here." The words came out graveled from disuse. He cleared his throat. "You slept."
Legolas blinked up at him, eyes red-rimmed but dry. "You didn’t." A statement, not a question. The boy’s fingers traced the dark circles beneath Thranduil’s eyes with solemn precision.
Thranduil caught his hand, pressed a kiss to the knuckles. "I will." Another lie, smooth as silk.
He doubted he’d sleep properly for decades.