Chapter Text
“There is a rumor.”
It was a winter morning in Dale, and the cold lay heavy upon the city, seeping even through stone and timber. Frost silvered the windowpanes, and the light that entered was thin and pale, as though the sun had grown wary.
A fitting day to speak of threats that seemed only to grow, of their never-ending disputes with their neighbors, of how the Anduin yielded less with each passing day, and what might yet be done to save the crops. In Bard’s sitting room, his advisers and counselors were gathered, as they had been with increasing frequency of late. Cloaks still clung damply to their shoulders, and their voices were kept low—whether from habit or unease, it was difficult to say.
“What rumor?”
“It is about the elves. Or—more precisely—the Elf.”
Bard let out a low sigh, and it seemed to linger in the cold morning air. Of course. It would be the elves. But his grievance was not with their kind. Not with their people. It rested, sharp and singular, with Thranduil alone.
“We thought you needed to know. It may concern Dale as much as it concerns Mirkwood.”
“What is the rumor—and why is it of such importance that it must be brought before this council?”
“The Elvenking is fading.”
“That… cannot be true.”
Bard spoke before the meaning had fully reached him, before the weight of it could settle. The words came too quickly, as if denial might hold them back— but already something in him had shifted. Already the ache was there, rising slow and certain, like a tide he could neither master nor refuse.
“I have heard that it is,” the adviser said, his voice almost brittle with formality. He was one of the first, the ones who had stood closest to Bard when he had first taken the crown, and who still lingered in his shadow, whispering counsel or caution. Bard forced his face to remain still, to hold the calm of a King unmoved by the tides of rumor or fate. He would not let them see the ripple beneath the surface, however little. He told himself it did not matter, that the news was no more than wind through the halls of Dale, and that it affected him neither one way nor the other.
“What else have you heard?” he asked, frowning, unease darkening his expression. “I did not know elves could fall ill.”
“They do not, Father,” Bain said, calm in a way that felt older than his years. “Not as we do. “A brief pause. “They fade.” His eyes never left Bard’s. “From grief, or sorrow,” the young man continued. “It is usually the illness of the heart, rather than the body. At least, that is what the old legends say.”
The word lingered between them, fragile and heavy all at once. It should have been nothing—just a sound—but it carried centuries in it. Eldar did not wither like mortal men. Their bodies did not betray them, did not fade with time. But their hearts—those could break. And when they did, quietly, without witness, something in them began to let go.
“And how do we know this to be true?”
“We do not—until we see it with our own eyes.” Bain gave a small shrug. “I would suggest you pay our neighbors a visit.”
“Perhaps,” Bard said, though the word felt uncertain even as he spoke it.
Perhaps it was time he and Thranduil met face to face again. Or perhaps it was not. The memory of Thranduil came to him then—sharp as starlight on frost, beautiful in a way that had never been easy. Bard’s chest tightened. Not quite fear. Not quite regret. Something in between, and no less troublesome for it. He did not trust the pull of it—the way his thoughts circled back, again and again, as though drawn by habit rather than reason. Seeing Thranduil again might solve nothing. More likely, it would only complicate what had already gone wrong. He knew that. And yet— The thought refused to let him be. What if he is truly fading?
The snow fell softly beyond the window, each flake a pale rune drifting through the air—silent, fleeting, as though bearing words the world had long since forgotten. Bard watched them settle, one by one, until the white lay unbroken. Then he turned away.
“Send word to Mirkwood,” Bard said.
The words came sharper than he meant them to, and for a moment, he felt them linger in the air between them, as if they had weight. More than command. More than the moment required. He felt the familiar imbalance then—his temper turning outward when he could not face himself—settling tight and unyielding beneath his ribs. And still, the thought of the silver-haired Elvenking would not leave him. It came unbidden, vivid enough to unsettle—the memory of light in pale hair, of a presence that had always felt too near, even at a distance. It found that quiet fracture in him and pressed there, where pride and longing had once met, and broken open. So many years had passed, and still the pattern held: he, left to gather what fragments he could of what had once been whole; Thranduil, distant as starlight—untouched, unchanging, beyond his reach. And now, perhaps… fading. Bard drew a slow breath, as though steadiness might be chosen, as though the past were not a living thing that moved quietly within him.
“Send word,” he said again, more softly.
An answer came from his neighbor the following evening. The message was not sealed in parchment alone, but borne in person by a messenger—a dark-haired elf who met Bard’s gaze with a look edged in equal parts suspicion and unease.
“King Thranduil awaits your arrival,” the elf said, brushing the road’s dust from his sleeves. He carried himself like one who would rather be elsewhere, and not by a small margin. “When will you set out?”
“Tomorrow.”
In Thranduil’s letter, it was said there was a council presently gathered—elven lords, and even Gandalf among them—and that Bard would be more than welcome to attend. He would have sent for him sooner, the letter noted, but Bard had not been returning his letters. So, in time, he had ceased trying. Bard pretended the words did not sting. He gave his answer shortly, holding back the sharper reply that pressed at the edge of his tongue—unspoken, and yet no less keen for it.
If he had been capable of sleep, he might have found rest that night—something deep and untroubled to steady him before the road to Mirkwood. But Bard did not sleep. And perhaps that alone was reason enough that he and Thranduil must, at the last, come face to face. So that nothing should remain unspoken between them. Given time, Thranduil would have perceived it. And Bard—Bard must in the end have spoken. There would be no escaping it. And the thought of that hour—when understanding should at last take hold, plain and undeniable—pierced him more keenly than any blade.
He could have endured anger. Even scorn. But not that. Not the change that would come upon his countenance when knowledge settled. Something colder than disdain. Revulsion. That he had not the strength to meet, not then.
Only a handful knew. Bain, of course. There had been no avoiding that truth. Some things could be hidden from the world, worn thin beneath careful habit and silence—but not from those who stood too near, who watched too closely. Past a certain age, concealment became impossible. So he had told him. Not all at once, and not without reluctance, but enough. Enough for the boy to understand what he truly was—or what he had become. A creature not wholly of this world. One who did not sleep, nor hunger as other men did. One who endured where he should long since have perished. An abomination—even among his own kind. A vampire, and still his soul had not left him. It clung, blind and stubborn, as though it did not understand it had no place in him anymore.
He was not Bain’s father. Not by blood, nor by any rightful claim. He had found the boy years ago, in the first uncertain days of his wandering through Middle-earth—small, desperate, and hunted by orcs. He had not meant to interfere. This was not his world, and its dangers were not his to answer for. And yet—he had stepped forward. After that, there had been no clean way to turn aside. It was then he came to understand something stranger still: that here, beneath this foreign sky, he could endure the sun. Its light did not scour him, did not lay him bare as it once would have. This realm, in some quiet and inexplicable fashion, seemed to permit him. Or at least, it did not cast him out. So he stayed. And the boy stayed with him.
Lake-town had not been chosen so much as come upon—a place of shifting waters and uncertain lives, where a man might arrive without a past and remain without question. People saw only what they could name and were content with it. They assumed what was simplest: that he had always been there, that the child was his by blood, that nothing beneath the surface was worth the asking.
“You should tell him, Father.” He was no longer a boy, though not yet fully a man—standing on the narrow edge between the two, like something caught in the light between worlds. “He may take it better than you fear.”
“What if he does not?” Bard’s voice was low, nearly lost to the hush around them. Bain’s gaze did not waver.
“Then you will know.” He held there a moment, as though the truth of it needed no adornment. “Could it truly be worse than this life you live—” his voice softened, but did not falter, “—with all its silence, its shadows pressing in upon the heart?”
Bard looked away, seeing the young man he had raised—not quite a boy, not yet an echo of the man he would be. Perhaps Bain was right. Perhaps it could not be worse. The wind moved through the quiet house, carrying the faint memory of lives lived and lives lost. He had endured a long while—perhaps as long as Thranduil himself. And yet he had loved only once in all his existence. Once, long before he had come to settle near Mirkwood—before he had met a sharp-tongued stranger who had looked at him as though nothing in him could be hidden. Only later had he understood that first love had been no more than a beginning—a preparation for what would come after.
He arrived in Mirkwood at first light, in a temper that clung to him without clear cause—sharp, restless, and not easily set aside. The forest received him in its usual hush, as though it neither welcomed nor refused him, and that, too, set his teeth on edge. And yet, this place was part of why he had stayed. It reminded him, in ways he did not care to name, of the woods he had left behind long ago—left because he could not bear to remain.
So he would see Thranduil again. Whatever lay between them was not something he could outrun forever. Sooner or later, all unfinished things came due. Still, the thought of facing him—of those eyes, that voice, the unspoken weight of memory between them—sat uneasily in his chest. And yet, he had come.
It seemed that, rather than a formal council, this was something else entirely—a gathering of friends, unofficial and unbound by ceremony. Those assembled in the sitting room had come together not only to speak, but to remember, and perhaps, for a little while, to forget. It did not feel nearly as formal as Bard had expected. Thranduil, for one, wore no crown. Elrond was dressed in something that came perilously close to a nightgown, as though he had been roused from bed and brought—somewhat unwillingly—into the sitting room. And Gandalf was wearing slippers. They seemed glad to see him. Or perhaps they had already begun to make a dent in Thranduil’s wine cellars, even at this hour. It was not an impossibility.
“King Bard.” Thranduil was smiling.
Bard stared a moment longer than was proper, his attention caught not by the expression—rare enough—but by something stranger still. Thranduil’s hair had been cut. It fell now only to his shoulders, pale as starlight and unbound, framing his face in a way that softened it, stripped it of something ceremonial and distant. It made him seem—Bard searched for the word and found none he liked—young. Not in years, for there was no youth left to give an elf such as him, but in bearing. Less guarded. Less untouchable. More… reachable. A chill slipped beneath Bard’s ribs. What in all the world had happened? Elves did not cut their hair. Not for fashion, not for comfort, not for war. Their hair was time-made visible, a quiet testament to centuries endured. There were tales—half-whispered among Men—that their strength lay in it, though whether that was truth or superstition Bard could not say. Still, the act itself— It was unthinkable. And yet here it was. What would compel an elven king to shear away such a thing? What grief, what vow, what violence? —or what hand?
Without thinking, Bard found himself stepping forward, drawn as though by some quiet, unseen thread. He did not notice the glances exchanged around him, the subtle stillness that settled over the room. He reached toward Thranduil— —and halted, his hand faltering in the space between them before he drew it back. What was he doing? No one remarked upon it. No one spoke. The others, with practiced ease, turned their attention elsewhere, as though nothing at all had happened. Yet such familiarity could not pass unnoticed. It could only mean one thing—that Bard knew the Elvenking far better than any had ever supposed.
“Friends,” Thranduil said, as he rose. “We will speak of this again tomorrow.”
“Of what exactly?” Elrond raised an elegant eyebrow, a wine goblet still in his hand. Bard had been right. So this was that kind of council.
“I would prefer not to wait for the end of this tale,” Gandalf said, rising. His goblet, Bard noticed, was nearly empty.
“It will have to wait, Mithrandir,” Thranduil said, not quite concealing a smile that bordered on the affectionate. “It is only local Mirkwood gossip. Anyone here can tell you.”
He wore a loose tunic of pale silk, simple enough to seem almost careless, and all the more striking for it. There was nothing of the ceremonial king about him now—no crown, no rigid formality—only something quieter, more private. It drew the eye despite itself. Silence settled once the others had gone.
“Are you truly… fading?” Bard asked at last.
Thranduil’s gaze did not waver. He did, however, set back a loose strand of hair behind his ear—the gesture unguarded, and for that reason all the more disquieting. He frowned. And Bard felt it then, low and certain—the old, unbidden pull of it. To go to him. To lay that line smooth beneath his hand, to set his mouth there until it eased, until it yielded into something gentler. Something that had once, for a time, been his to draw forth. He had done so before. He had not forgotten. He held where he was.
“Is that what it took,” Thranduil asked quietly, “for you to come? Word that I was dying?”
“Yes.” There was no use in denying it.
“I am not dying."
Bard’s gaze lingered on him.
“Your hair?”
Thranduil gave the slightest shrug, though something wry touched the corner of his mouth.
“A bad wizard,” he said. “It is a long tale.”
“So I gather.”
Relief surged through Bard, swift and almost dizzying. He let out a breath he had not known he was holding. All was well. Thranduil would live.
“You, on the other hand, are looking well.” The Elvenking moved nearer, slow and unhurried, circling him with a measured grace that felt less like movement and more like intent. “You have not aged a day,” Thranduil said, his voice lowered. “Have you changed your mind—about what you wanted?”
Bard met his gaze and did not look away.
“You left before I could answer,” he said. A brief pause. “So I think you will never know what it was I wanted.”
He should have felt satisfaction at the sight of Thranduil struck so, some small, bitter vindication for all that had passed between them. Yet the feeling did not come. Or if it did, it faltered, hollow before it could take root. What answer had he truly expected, after all these years, after all that had been left unsaid and left to rot?
“Are you tired from traveling? Would you rest?”
The King said it instead, smooth as ever, his features slipping back into that familiar, careful stillness—the mask he wore as easily as breath. But it did not settle upon him as it once had. Not now. Not with his hair shorn, his brow unadorned by any crown. Now Bard could see the seams of it.
“Yes,” he said. “I would rest.” A pause, just enough to steady himself. “Will someone show me to my room? Your halls are a menace—too many corridors.”
Thranduil exhaled, the sound soft but edged, as though he were indulging a stubborn child he had neither the patience nor the right to correct.
“I was hoping,” he said, quieter now, “that you would sleep in mine.”
“It is not my intent to make matters difficult,” Bard began.
“Is it not? You are making this anything but easy. You do not return my letters. You refused to speak to me after the battle ended. I had to spread a rumor of my untimely death just to draw you to me. I did not know what else to do. Is what I have done truly so horrible?”
“It is not only about you, my lord,” Bard said, a quiet sigh escaping him. “We never had the time to speak of what passed between us—nor to decide what it was meant to be, or what it could become.” His gaze dropped, voice tightening just slightly. “Of course, I understood there was someone in your life before this… whatever this is between us.”
“And I would give it up,” Thranduil said softly. “All of it—if you would only let me explain. If you would give me time.”
“There is more than just you,” Bard said, though the words came slowly, as if he mistrusted them even as he spoke. “That is where we have gone wrong.” He fell quiet for a moment, gaze turned somewhere distant. “You were not honest with me. Not at the beginning.” A faint breath, almost unsteady. “But neither was I.”
“Perhaps things will be easier in the morning,” Thranduil said, more quietly now. “Clearer, for you to see. You should sleep, King Bard. You have traveled all night.”
Bard did not answer at once. He stood there, as if the silence itself had weight, then turned at last and came toward him—slowly, deliberately—until the space between them was almost nothing.
“That is the trouble,” he said, and the words were low, stripped of any pretense. He held Thranduil’s gaze, something restless and unguarded beneath it.
“I do not sleep.”