Chapter Text
The Begetting Day celebration had lasted long into the night — silver lanterns hung in every corridor of the Woodland Realm, laughter spilling from balconies, golden wine flowing like the river beyond the gates.
Prince Legolas had crossed into his Majority. Not yet full-grown, no, but recognized now as a young lord, no longer a child. He bore his new ceremonial braids and forest-green mantle with stiff grace, cheeks still soft with youth, but eyes beginning to mirror his father’s ancient calm.
From the outer columns, Calethor watched.
There had never been a single moment before this — no sign of corruption, no thought unseemly. He had served diligently, and had guarded the royal wing with loyal silence for centuries.
But that night...
That night, in the great halls, his view on the prince changed significantly.
And when Legolas returned to the celebrations, to the high dais for the final toast, his goblet was raised for something much less pure.
Once the prince bid his father a goodnight, he passed through the crowd of warriors and courtiers, the firelight catching on the prince’s cheekbones, his eyes alight from praise and wine and warmth.
Calethor’s gaze lingered again.
Too long.
“Beautiful, isn’t he?”
Calethor stiffened slightly. The voice beside him was low, unhurried, but not unkind.
Thoronthel stood just behind the column, arms crossed, his expression unreadable beneath the soft torch-glow. “I mean,” Thoronthel continued, not looking at him, “you’ve been watching him for a while now. Admiring the braids? Or thinking of your own youth?”
Calethor turned his head, just enough to meet the other’s eyes. His tone was mild, even faintly amused. “Hard not to look, when the entire court is. He draws light to him. Like his mother did.”
Thoronthel hummed, a quiet sound between agreement and skepticism.
“Aye. He does. Still. Be careful where your eyes fall, Calethor.”
There was a pause—short, but not silent.
Calethor blinked. His spine straightened.
“I—” he began, then shook his head, forcing a faint scoff. “Just thinking how quickly he’s grown. Seems only yesterday he was weaving through the gardens, chasing dragonflies.”
Thoronthel made a quiet sound. It might’ve been agreement. Might’ve been nothing.
“Mm.”
He moved on, disappearing back into the mingling press of wardens, guards, and guests.
Calethor remained rooted for a breath too long.
His throat felt dry. His heart—too fast.
‘Fool,’ he thought. ‘What are you doing?’
He exhaled slowly, forcing his hands to unclench. Then turned away from the dais, keeping his eyes anywhere—anywhere—but where the prince had gone.
But something had already taken root.
And it would not be so easily cut down.
…
..
.
Weeks Later
High-Commander Feren found the papers first. Hidden behind a loose stone in the guard barracks. He was not looking for them, not truly. A patrol report had gone missing, and a search uncovered a scroll tube that did not belong.
Inside: notes, thoughts, sketches.
Nothing vulgar. Nothing criminal.
But wrong.
So wrong.
Moments recorded that should never have been noticed. “Prince passed by again at dawn. The new braid suits him.” “Training tunic damp at the collar — steam from breath?” “He looked tired today. Still beautiful.” “Just once…I’d like to wipe the swear from his brow just once.”
And at the bottom of the pile, a charcoal study — the prince from a distance, kneeling by the stream, sleeves rolled. Peaceful. Vulnerable.
Feren said nothing aloud. But his face went pale.
There was no signature, no name to reveal who these belonged to, so he searched. Even as the place he found them in stayed empty. It was his duty to keep the prince safe, even from his own men.
…
..
.
Feren rarely walked the southern barrack hallway — a narrow corridor used mostly for storage. But a report of loose mortar had brought him here at the end of his shift. He paused by the far wall where the complaint had been noted, running a hand along the uneven stones.
There — a faint line in the wood panelling. Not a crack. A seam.
He tapped it once. Hollow.
Carefully, he pried the panel loose. A slight creak, dust falling like memory.
Behind it, in a cramped recess, was a small satchel bound in worn leather, bearing no sigil. No initials. No dust on the flap.
'This has been opened recently...'
Feren looked over his shoulder — the hall remained empty.
He untied the satchel.
Inside were papers. Dozens of them. Folded letters on handmade parchment, delicate in script. None were addressed. Most began only with breathless invocations: Beloved. My sun. My perfect starlight.
Feren huffed, rolling his eyes. Looks like one of his men has become a lovestruck fool. Hiding unsent love letters at work.
He would have placed it back, but it was hidden in a place which he was obligated to examine the contents of—besides... He was more than a little bit curious himself.
He scanned the contents, his brows slowly knitting.
"You looked at me once. I think. Or maybe I imagined it. The dream is better — you never looked away in the dream. You never tried to leave."
"Your guards are liars. Last night I stood so close I could hear your breath catch in a dream. I wonder what you saw. Did you know I was there? I didn’t touch you. I never do. Not unless you force me to."
"They talk to you like they know you, but they only see your crown. I see what’s underneath. I see what you hide when you think you're alone."
'Was this... About Thranduil?' The High-commander thought as he read.
"Sometimes I crawl beneath the floor just to hear you move. I know which board groans when you shift in sleep. I lie there and count your breaths. You breathe slower when you’re afraid. I like that sound."
"When you smiled at the captain, I couldn't breathe. I carved his name into the wood until my hands bled — over and over, until it stopped looking like words. Then I burned it, slow, so he’d vanish properly. But I forgive you. Of course I do. You don’t need to say sorry. Just don’t do it again. Don’t give pieces of yourself away. They don’t deserve to look at you. Only I do. Only me. I’d rip the world apart before I let them take you from me."
The tone shifted as the pages progressed. Earlier notes were reverent, even poetic — the latter ones became fragmented, obsessive, punctuated by erratic crossings-out and rewritten lines that tangled over themselves.
Then came the sketches.
- A hand holding a bowstring, trembling slightly.
- The same figure repeated: standing beneath moonlight in the training yard, or alone on a balcony — sometimes robed, sometimes armour-clad — but always alone, and always watched.
- A page with dozens of disembodied sketches of royal eyes—
Thranduil's eyes... No... Nono, Legolas' eyes. Some open wide, some looking over a shoulder, some shut — as if in pain. A few are scribbled out violently, torn through the page. With a caption at the bottom: "Why won’t you look at me??!?!?!!!?" - Legolas with his mouth sewn shut. His lips are stitched together. His teary eyes are wide, pleading. Above it: “No lies. No rejections. Only silence, where I can love you.”
Multiple sketches showed the prince asleep; from different angles, but the poses are too specific — drawn from life, not imagination. Another, unfinished, placed the prince beside a faceless companion, the outlines suggestive of someone trying to draw themselves in — then violently scratched out.
Feren could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
There was no name. No signature. No proof.
But the intimacy of these images — the access implied, the fervour — it was too much.
When he turned from the wall, the captain’s instincts had already taken over.
This was not merely affection.
This was fixation.
And it was happening inside the Guard.
That evening, Feren spread the evidence across his desk. His breath was shallow.
The sketches. The tone of the notes. The pattern of attention — always from the same position, same timing. The stream below the west balcony. The north-facing training courtyard. Places only accessible to the Outer Royal Watch.
He sifted through duty rosters.
Of the twenty posted guards assigned to those routes, only one had stood all four locations in the past moon.
“Calethor,” he whispered.
The writing matched incident logs. The same hand. The same flourishes on his capital letters.
Feren sat back in his chair.
He had trained Calethor himself, centuries ago. He remembered when the younger elf had been quiet and loyal, eager to serve. He remembered sparring with him. Trusting him.
He closed his eyes and let the weight settle.
Then, quietly, he took the papers and brought them directly to the king.
.
..
…
Thranduil’s chamber was dark at this hour, lit only by his fireplace. The king stood alone near the window, the forest canopy a black sea behind him.
“You would not have disturbed me at this hour without reason,” Thranduil said, turning to face his most trusted friend.
Feren placed his findings before the king.
“I hoped I was wrong.”
Thranduil looked at what Feren had placed on his table, picking a piece of parchment up.
“You are rarely wrong. Speak plainly.”
Feren hesitated. “I believe Calethor has become... unwell. Obsessed. He has been documenting the prince’s movements. Sketching him. Writing thoughts that should never belong to a guard. To any elf.”
Thranduil’s fingers were steady, but the air in the chamber grew colder as he read and scanned the papers that Feren had handed over to him.
“How do you know it was him?”
“The hand matches duty records. Patrols confirm his posts — each moment captured on these pages could only be seen from his stations. No one else had the same visibility. No one else has his hand.”
Silence.
Thranduil read every line slowly… Then again.
He said nothing for a long time. His jaw clenched. His shoulders stiffened. His eyes — distant at first — slowly darkened like clouded ice.
When he spoke, his voice was low, dangerous.
“He wrote of my son as if he were prey.”
Feren said nothing.
“Did he speak of this to anyone?”
“Not that I’ve found. I will question the others discreetly. But if these were his private writings... perhaps they were never meant to be seen.”
“Then he should not have hidden them in my walls,” Thranduil snapped. His composure cracked — just for a heartbeat.
“He was sworn to us,” the king whispered, too quiet for even Feren to hear clearly. “Nearly a millennia ago…Sworn to me.”
He moved forward, and Feren instinctively bowed.
“Bring Calethor,” Thranduil said coldly. “Do not let him touch the prince again. Not with voice, nor eyes, nor shadow.”
“My lord…” Feren hesitated. “Should we inform the prince?”
“No.”
Silence.
“He must never know that one of mine could look upon him and think him so… exposed. I will not let him carry that.”
And that was the end of it.
Calethor was taken at dawn. Not in chains — Thranduil would not allow his son to see such a thing. The trial was held behind closed doors. The verdict: execution, for betrayal of sacred trust.
The hall was silent.
Not courtly-silent, as it was during formal addresses. This was the hush that fell just before something terrible happened — when all breath was held, and no one dared to shift their weight for fear the sound would be heard.
A single figure knelt on the cold stone floor, bound and bowed. His tunic hung in tatters. Bruises bloomed across his cheek and throat, and blood darkened the corner of his mouth—where he had bitten down, hard, trying not to scream.
Above him, Thranduil stood like something ancient and wrathful, robed in black and silver, his gaze glacial. He did not need a throne to rule. The silence bent to him. The very air recoiled.
Flanking him, guards in silverleaf armour stood unmoving. Watchers. Witnesses.
When he spoke, his voice echoed—not loud, but cold. Clipped. Measured. Every word weighed like a blade.
“You spoke his name.”
He descended a step. The chain on the prisoner’s wrists clinked faintly.
“You thought you would go unnoticed. That your filth would remain hidden. That you could watch him and rot in silence, and no one would know.”
The man raised his face—slowly, as if the effort cost him. Not pleading. Not defiant.
“I never touched him.”
Thranduil’s head tilted. A terrible, elegant motion. His eyes were lightless fire.
“You dreamed of touching him,” he said, voice low and venomous. “You trespassed in thought. You shaped him in the dark with your words. You sketched your hunger onto paper and called it harmless.”
He took another step. The guards did not move, but every onlooker flinched as if the hall itself had turned to ice.
“You watched him,” Thranduil breathed. “You watched my son.”
A murmur rippled through those gathered.
The Elvenking’s next words fell like frost: “That is enough.”
The hall fell into silence again.
Legolas was not present. He had not been told.
Thranduil raised one gloved hand. The executioner behind the prisoner stepped forward.
“You are not executed for desire,” the King said quietly. “You are executed for treason. For imagining the Prince as yours to claim.”
The executioner’s weapon followed Thranduil’s hand. The blow was quick, clean, final.
The silence did not break until the body was taken away.
Only once the hall emptied did Thranduil sink — not to his knees, never that — but into his throne, one hand raised to press his temple.
He was shaking.
Not from rage, but from the knowledge that he had missed it. This filth had lived among them. Had smiled, bowed, worn the green of the palace guard. Had walked the same halls as Legolas.
“What else have I failed to see?” he whispered aloud.
His advisors dared not answer.
He turned his face away, eyes shadowed with something too heavy to name.
That night, he ordered a full purge of palace records, guards rotated, private quarters watched more carefully. No one questioned him.
And still, when he lay awake, it was not the execution that haunted him, but the question that followed:
If one servant could imagine such things… how many more simply never spoke aloud?
And beneath that:
What if Legolas had noticed… and said nothing?
He did not sleep.
The palace changed after that.
The warriors grew cautious. No longer did they greet the prince with easy familiarity. Where once Legolas had shared soft jokes with his guards, now they stiffened when he approached. They bowed too low. Spoke too little. Smiled too rarely.
And Thranduil — he watched all of this in silence.
He had acted swiftly to protect his son. But in doing so, he had placed a wall between Legolas and the very people who once made his world warm.
And the princeling didn’t even know why.