
Malekith said nothing. For a time, he merely sat stared at her, his eerie blue eyes aglow in the dimmed light. Eventually, his gaze fell
“You should be,” he said quietly, and then he sighed. Always the ambitious optimist. He used to rely so heavily on that, cling to it when he couldn’t find his way out of the dark. Now, those darkened corners of his brain lived openly, and her long-standing outlook felt as alien as his pointed ears.
“My apologies for disturbing you,” the Dark Elf said finally. He stood then, shoulders rolling back as if to physically push away the darkness that followed him so frequently. A pause followed as he headed past her, out into the sweeping hallway she’d constructed in their shared space. Before doing so, he paused and looked at her again, in her eyes, filled with age and her unwavering determination. May she never lose it, he thought, but aloud, said only: “As you were.”

























