The dragon was dead.
She had heard muffled cries from inside a house in flames and had run inside to find a child curled up in a corner, coughing and crying next to her unconscious mother. Tauriel had put the woman over her shoulder and taken the child in one of her arms before running to safety. The little town was burning and crumbling, people running and evacuating as many as they could with their worn out boats. Tauriel was handing the unconscious mother over one of the fishing women when she saw the beast falling, sinking into the lake with a thunderous splash. The sky filled with steam all around them for a few seconds, and she feared Smaug's fire was rising strong as ever from the water.
Her fears were unfounded. The father of the children she'd saved, Bard, had managed to finish the task his ancestor started in Dale long ago, or so said the cries she heard in the distance. A wave of relief and joy passed through all those who had survived the attack; men and women hugged Tauriel and cried and kissed her in a convolute explosion of feelings, while she tried to cross Laketown. Tauriel wondered where would all those people rest and what food would they eat and how many children would have no home and no parents to go back to. She crossed the bridge that separated the town from land, miraculously intact, towards where she had instructed the dwarves to go.
In the rocks closest to the lake she saw the little company of children and dwarves and she allowed herself to stop worrying about all the things that would need to be done in the following hours when she saw Kíli, standing on one leg with his brother's help. He looked pale and she could see him trembling slightly, still weak from the poison in the Morgul arrow; yet he was smiling as she approached them. Tauriel thought of the people who had hugged and kissed her in their happiness and for a moment imagined herself lifting Kíli from the ground in her arms, touching his face with hers.
"They say your father killed the dragon" she broke the news instead, glancing at the human children, who started laughing with relief. "Are you all unhurt?"
"Aye, we managed to get here in time to see the dragon burn the town" replied Fíli, clearly resenting being away from the fight.
Still he had carried his brother away from danger, in the same way he had stayed in Laketown when the rest of the dwarves had left for Erebor. Tauriel looked at the two brothers, so different and yet so fierce to protect each other. The children were still celebrating, the dwarf healer looking at the lake, the noises from the town reaching them distorted. Tauriel looked at Kíli.
"I will need to take a look at your leg"
Kíli was strangely silent while she cleaned the wound. They were a little apart from the others, and Tauriel saw with satisfaction the bright red blood in his leg, all signs of poisoning disappeared.
"You are healing well" she spoke softly. "Soon you will feel like that arrow never wounded you".
"I wouldn't wish that. It will never be like before it touched me"
Kíli looked straight into her eyes and Tauriel's hands stopped moving, resting delicately on his leg. She could see him struggle for words and she wished she could touch his face as easily as she cleaned his wound.
"Don't you wish you had not been hurt?"
Kíli considered her words for a moment before raising his head to look at the sky. Tauriel looked too and saw the moon and stars shining appearing and disappearing behind clouds of smoke.
"I saw you, Tauriel" he replied at last. "Your voice called me, telling me to stay in the light. Oh, your light!".
Kíli looked at her, the intensity of his gaze making Tauriel shiver. She had doubted in her chase after the orcs and had tried to convince herself she would have done the same hadn't he been wounded. Now she realised how much she had wanted to see him safe and dared admit to herself that her motives had been more selfish than she had thought.
"You have a promise to keep," she whispered while she took one of his hands in hers, smiling at Kíli's widened eyes "and you never finished your story about the trolls, you know".
Tauriel didn't have any name for what she felt when his fingers brushed her skin or for the way her ears felt warm when he said her name. Not yet. What she knew was that she had never known someone as full of wonder and love for the world as herself and that she felt safe and alive and excited just to hear Kili's stories and to hold his hand. There would be time for everything else, she thought as she held his fingers tighter.