𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬

𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘱 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴

Oropher was convinced, with the rigidity of his beliefs, that he had chosen his stance hundreds and hundreds of years before that moment.
His decision had been carefully considered, pondered in the silences of the forests, forged over centuries like a river carving rock, unhurried but determined.
He believed that the Sindar, his people, were a purer race, deeply rooted in the woods and ancient traditions, keepers of unwritten laws, far from the power games that had inflamed the courts of the Noldor. They were independent, proud in their autonomy, bound to nature and its cycles, and Oropher had always been proud of that.

The great Elven King would never have accepted being subordinated by the Noldor, not even to Gil-galad, as conscientious as the High King was and half Sindar.
Oropher saw in Noldor blood an unstoppable force tied to war, weapons, and pride: a power both fascinating and terrible, often the source of great tragedies. Those warriors, brimming with knowledge, also carried jealousy, ambition, and misfortune, and the divisions they had sown in times past, the shadows they left behind, had never found a place in Oropher's memory or heart.
Peace had not always existed, even before their arrival in Middle-earth, and Oropher reminded himself of that from the day he lost his wife.

Time, however, had run its course. Migrating to what is now the Great Woodland Realm, the Sindar immediately found great harmony with the Silvan elves. Their lifestyle gradually diluted the influence of the Noldor that had once permeated part of his people.
The result was exactly what Oropher had wanted: free elves, able to move through the trees like leaves, living in harmony with nature, unshackled by politics and power. That was how it should have been from the start.
It was a freedom Oropher's heart had always longed for, a fragile yet perfect balance between knowledge, tradition, and autonomy.

Yet now, all his empire of convictions, of mental palaces built with effort and centuries of experience, trembled before what he least expected: love.
Not the passion of courts or warriors, but something subtler, more powerful, and more terrifying in its unpredictability.

The love for his own son's happiness.

Love that, for the first time after millennia of certainty, left him uncertain, without guides and without pre-laid paths.

Oropher, "The Great Leader of the Sindar", "The Ruler of the Woods", the elf who had always measured every gesture and word with centuries of wisdom, for the first time did not know what to do.
The laws of nature, millennia-old traditions, and the pride of his ancestors: all seemed to waver before this new force, sweet and devastating at once.
The awareness that his son's future was tied to that happiness confronted him with dilemmas he had never imagined.
For the first time in ages,
Oropher felt fragile.

In contrast with the will of the Valar he had followed and admired.
He could not now understand if they were sending him a message,
and whether his son was the medium.

A week had passed without Lasgalen truly realizing it.
The days had flowed like leaves carried by the wind, and only on the first day of the second week did she really feel the passage of time: she was seated at the table with Daenor, Cerweth, Faolan, and Maiwe, the now well-established group after days spent together. The bond with the three strangers had naturally deepened through light conversations, sudden laughter, and small gestures of complicity.
They had become almost a little travel family, each with their own flaws and virtues, yet united by an invisible thread that the forest and time had woven around them.

Despite the shared time, the two Silvans had not neglected their duties. The elves of the Woodland Realm had a different conception of time: the night was a thousand times more alive than in Lindon, pulsating with sounds, rustles, and glimmers that the untrained would never notice.
Darkness did not instill fear; on the contrary, if you knew how to listen, you could perceive more life and movement than on an ordinary day, and often the light hidden among the branches was more intense than the pale light of an overcast sky.
Thus, when the two were on guard by day, they spent time with the Noldor by night, and vice versa, blending their experiences into a continuous cycle of learning and observation.