The summons came before Legolas could finish his evening meal.
A servant appeared at his chamber door with the kind of careful neutrality that meant trouble. "The King requests your presence, my prince. In his private chambers."
Not the throne room. Not the council chamber. Private chambers—where Thranduil conducted the conversations he didn't want witnesses to remember.
Legolas set down the bread he'd been forcing himself to eat. His stomach hadn't recovered its appetite yet, but the healer had insisted on nutrition. Spiritual exhaustion apparently depleted physical reserves in ways that required mundane solutions.
"I'll attend him shortly."
"The King specified immediately, my prince."
Of course he did.
The walk to Thranduil's private quarters took longer than it should have. Legolas's legs still felt uncertain beneath him—not weak exactly, but disconnected from the usual effortless grace his borrowed body possessed. Every step required conscious attention that should have been automatic.
Guards flanked the entrance to the King's wing. They stepped aside without comment, but their eyes tracked Legolas with an intensity that confirmed what he'd already suspected: everyone in the palace knew something had happened in that glade. The prince had performed magic that hadn't been seen in ages, and now the King had summoned him for questioning.
The door to Thranduil's chambers stood open. Legolas entered and found his father standing at the window, staring out at the corrupted forest with an expression that revealed nothing.
The room itself was surprisingly modest for a king. A large desk dominated one corner, covered in maps and correspondence. Tapestries depicting ancient glories hung on the walls—the fall of Doriath, the Last Alliance, events so old they'd passed from history into legend. A fire burned low in the hearth, casting shadows that danced across Thranduil's profile.
"You wished to see me, Father."
Thranduil didn't turn around immediately. He let the silence stretch, a tactic Legolas's memories recognized from centuries of audiences. The King used quiet the way other rulers used threats—as a weapon, a probe, a way to see what his subjects would reveal when given space to fill.
Legolas waited. He was too tired for games, but he could at least refuse to play them badly.
Finally, Thranduil turned. His eyes moved over Legolas with clinical precision, cataloguing every sign of weakness—the pallor that shouldn't exist on Elvish skin, the slight tremor in hands that should have been steady, the way Legolas was carefully not leaning against anything despite clearly wanting to.
"You look terrible," the King observed.
"The cleansing was costly."
"So Tauriel reported. In considerable detail." Thranduil moved away from the window, circling his son with the slow deliberation of a predator examining prey. "She described light that shouldn't exist anymore. Magic that the greatest of our loremasters have declared lost beyond recovery. And you, my son, wielding it as if you'd trained for centuries."
"The cost suggests I haven't trained nearly enough."
"The cost suggests many things." Thranduil stopped directly in front of him. They were the same height—one of the few physical traits Legolas had inherited cleanly from his father—and meeting those cold eyes took every scrap of will Legolas possessed.
"What I witnessed today," Thranduil continued, "hasn't been done since the Elder Days. The Eldar who walked in the light of the Trees could have managed it. A handful of their descendants, perhaps, in the early Second Age when that radiance hadn't yet faded from Arda entirely. But you, Legolas? My son, who has shown no particular aptitude for such arts in three thousand years of life?"
The question hung in the air between them.
"Where did you learn this?"
Legolas had prepared for this moment. Had rehearsed answers until they felt natural on his tongue. But standing here, in the presence of an ancient being whose perception ran deeper than any human could understand, the lies felt fragile.
He used them anyway.
"The corruption pressed against me," Legolas said, meeting his father's gaze without flinching. "In resisting it, I found old paths. The forest itself remembers what it was—I merely listened."
Thranduil's jaw tightened. The micro-expression was the Elvish equivalent of a human slamming their fist on a table.
"The forest taught you. First Age light-weaving. Through... listening."
"When something is dying, it reaches for salvation wherever it might exist. Perhaps I became available in a way I wasn't before."
"And why would you become available now? After millennia of unremarkable capability?"
The question cut close to truth Legolas couldn't reveal. He let silence do the work of consideration, as if weighing how much to share.
"The Shadow presses harder each year," he said finally. "Perhaps desperation opened doors that were previously closed. Perhaps I simply hadn't tried hard enough before."
"You hadn't tried." Thranduil's voice dripped with disbelief. "My son, who has trained in every Elvish art our realm possesses, who has led patrols and fought battles and served this kingdom for thousands of years—you hadn't tried to develop abilities that could save our forest?"
"I didn't know they existed. Not until they emerged."
Another long silence. Thranduil's eyes never left his face, searching for cracks in the story, for tells that would reveal the deeper truth. Legolas kept his expression steady, letting Legolas's inherited composure carry him through the scrutiny.
"You are not the son I raised."
The words landed like a physical blow. Not because they were unexpected—Thranduil had been building toward this conclusion since the morning after the transmigration—but because they were true in ways the King couldn't possibly understand.
Legolas let the silence hold for a moment. Then, drawing on courage that felt borrowed from somewhere deeper than his current life:
"Perhaps the son you raised could not do what must be done. Perhaps that is why you are failing."
Thranduil's expression flickered. Something crossed those ancient eyes—pain? Recognition? Rage?—and vanished before Legolas could identify it.
"You speak boldly for one who cannot stand without trembling."
"I speak truthfully. The corruption has spread for centuries while we retreated and maintained tradition. If bold speech is what saves our forest, then tradition can accommodate it."
They stared at each other across a distance that felt much larger than the few feet separating them. Father and son—except Legolas wasn't really his son, and they both knew something was profoundly wrong with that relationship even if they couldn't agree on what.
Thranduil turned away first.
"Continue your work," the King said, his voice flat. "I am granting permission for additional cleansing attempts when you have recovered. You will select zones carefully, document your methods, and report your results directly to me."
"Thank you, Father."
"I am not finished." Thranduil's back remained turned, his attention fixed on something Legolas couldn't see. "Whatever you have become, whatever secrets you are keeping—they will emerge eventually. I have learned patience over millennia that dwarf your existence. I can wait."
"I understand."
"Do you?" Now Thranduil did turn, and his expression held something Legolas hadn't seen before—not suspicion or cold authority, but something almost like grief. "You were my son, Legolas. Whatever you are now, you were my son once. I remember the child who ran through these halls. The youth who took up his first bow. The warrior who rode to battle beside me against enemies we barely survived."
He stepped closer, close enough that Legolas could see the lines in his father's face that immortality hadn't quite erased.
"If any part of that son remains—if anything of who you were survived whatever changed you—know that I would welcome his return. But if not..." Thranduil's voice hardened. "If that son is truly gone, and something else wears his face, then I will discover it. And my response will be appropriate to the threat."
Legolas couldn't think of a reply that wouldn't make things worse. He bowed instead—a formal gesture that created distance, that acknowledged the threat without accepting it.
"I am still your son," he said quietly. "Different, perhaps. Changed by forces I don't fully understand. But still yours."
Thranduil waved dismissal. The gesture was sharp, final, cutting off further discussion.
Legolas left the chamber on legs that somehow kept moving despite everything they'd been through. The guards watched him pass. The corridors stretched endlessly toward his quarters. And behind him, in the private chambers of the Elvenking, his father stood alone with doubts that would never fully resolve.
I just established dominance, Legolas realized as he walked. The thought was almost absurd—the transmigrated consciousness of a dead software developer, holding ground against an ancient Elvish king whose power was the stuff of legend.
But he had. He'd spoken truth to authority and hadn't flinched. Legolas had never managed that in three thousand years of trying.
Maybe being something new had its advantages after all.
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