This is an authorized sequel to trulyunruly's The Same Night Sky on AO3: archiveofourown dot org /works/3946570. It's a fantastic fic that ideally really ought to be read first, but the Cliff Notes version is that Thranduil seduced Tauriel because she reminded him of his wife, then had an internal freakout the next morning and kicked her to the curb. (Seriously, though, go read it. It's amazing.)

Like everything else I write, this is ballooning into something much longer than I had originally anticipated. I'm hoping it won't wind up entirely angsty, but you never know. (It's funny; I love these two, yet I've tortured them both in almost every fic I've written them into.)


Unsurprisingly, things change.

No longer does Tauriel seek out Thranduil's company – she actively avoids him, save for her weekly reports. She is never anything but deferential, but he watches the hurt in her eyes turn to hatred, a loathing so intense that he half wonders why she does not abandon her post and leave the Woodland Realm. But no – her sense of duty, he knows, is stronger than her personal feelings.

What is worse, however, is when that cold hatred shifts to cool indifference, to utter, scarcely-disguised contempt. No matter how heated their arguments become – and some of them are quite heated indeed – her gaze always remains detached, without even a modicum of respect. The only reason he has never taken her to task over it is because he knows he deserves it. What he did was unforgivable, and even he knows it.

They continue like this for the next twenty years, and she spends ever more time out in the forest, hunting the spiders and evading him. She starts remaining out there for days or even weeks upon end, sending her lieutenant to report to him, so that she need not even look upon his face.

Her coolness twists like a knife in his gut, because part of him – a stupid, irrational, impossible part – has hoped she would return, that he could try to explain, should he somehow manage to find the words. Tauriel has ever been stubborn, however; he could give her a Silmaril and still she would never forgive him.

The situation grows ever less endurable, but things come to a head when the Dwarves are captured, when she meets Thorin Oakenshield's youngest nephew.

After decades, she smiles again – truly smiles, while the wall of ice that encases her heart cracks visibly. She'd smiled at Thranduil like that, once, though there had been an innocence to it that was absent now. The knife in his gut twists deeper, because he knows he has no right to be jealous, yet jealous he is, shockingly so. He wants her back – wants her smile, that simple affection in her eyes, but that opportunity has long been lost.

He does not know what he will do about the situation, but the matter is soon taken out of his hands: the Dwarves escape, and Tauriel follows. She must know that doing so will result in her banishment – she intends to leave and never return. She is lost to him now in body as she has been in spirit since that terrible morning, and he curses himself for the very worst kind of fool. He is not better off alone, does not want to be alone, but the only one he would have with him can scarcely stand the sight of him, and has finally left him entirely. And he has none to blame but himself.

When word comes of the dragon's death, he knows he must march upon Erebor. Perhaps retrieving his wife's jewels will ease the ache in his heart, though he doubts it. Still, he must try. He gives word that Tauriel is banished, though he does not know why. She would never return anyway. She will stay with her Dwarf, if Oakenshield allows it; if not, the pair will likely strike out to make a new home elsewhere.

His heart is ice when he leads his host to Erebor, but it nearly fails when he learns that Legolas and Tauriel had have gone to Angmar. He wants to follow them, to drag them both back by the hair if necessary, but he cannot – he is king, and he had duties that cannot be shirked.

But when Mithrandir is right – when battle truly does find them – he wants to. He wants to retreat to his halls and never leave again, but he cannot – not until he knows the fate of his son, and the elleth that he has realized, far too late, that he loves.

He takes his rage and pain and fear out on the orcs, slaughtering them with greater savagery than is his wont, until he sees Legolas in the fray – Legolas is safe, so Tauriel must be as well. They can leave now, before any more Elvish blood is spilled. Or so he thinks.

Tauriel must be mad, to block his path armed only with her bow – her bow, which is aimed not at his chest, but his head. This is not grandstanding, not an idle threat; he knows, in this moment, that she is willing to kill him. And that hurts, hurts so much that he can do nothing save lash out at her.

"There is no love in you," she spits, her green eyes like poison, and oh, how wrong she is. She is wrong, and yet he has never given her any cause to believe otherwise.

The betrayal in her eyes when he snaps her bow only cuts him deeper, but worse, so very much worse, is the fact that there is no surprise. Still, he cannot stop himself. "Are you willing to die for it?" he demands, the tip of his sword rested at the hollow of her throat, and her eyes, so filled with hate and rage and grief, say, yes.

The sight shakes him; he cannot kill her then, even had Legolas not intervened. The rage in his son's face is almost more than he can bear – something breaks in him then, something he had not known was there until it shattered.

They leave him – Tauriel to find her Dwarf, and Legolas in open disgust. He finally has what he so mistakenly thought he wanted. He is alone, alone with so many years of regret.

He must find them – he cannot let this stand, not without at least trying. Tauriel will be with her Dwarf, and Legolas will no doubt be near.

He is near, and the open mingling of grief and contempt in his expression is almost more than Thranduil can bear. It is no surprise that he will not return to the Woodland Realm; if he makes for the north, and finds the son of Arathorn, perhaps some good can come of this.

That leaves only Tauriel – Tauriel, whose anguish nearly shatters him. He understands her grief all too well, and so knows there is little comfort he can give. All he can do is tell her that he was wrong, that her love was real, no matter how brief, and stay with her while the Dwarves collect Kili's body.

She ignores him, staring only at her lost love, until he is borne out of her sight. Then her eyes flick to the edge of the cliff, and dread grips him.

"No," he says, seizing her arm before she can take more than a single step toward it.

"Get your hands off me," she snarls, shoving at him, but he does not release her. Her eyes are wide and wild, twin wells of fathomless misery, yet rage still burns within them.

"This is not the answer, Tauriel," he says, shocked at the desperation in his voice. It feels as though crystals of ice have settled in his throat, slicing razor-fine.

"It is faster and easier than fading," she retorts. "I have nothing, Thranduil. Now let. Go."

It is the first time she has called him by name since that morning, and it takes him a moment to realize why: she has taken her banishment to heart. In her eyes, he is no longer her lord. Perhaps he has not truly been in years.

For once in his life, he has no idea what to say. He wants her to come with him, wants to erase the last twenty years, but Time and Elven memories do not work that way.

"How I have failed you, Tauriel," he says at last, still not releasing her. She is trembling with exhaustion, he can feel it in her arm, but he knows her – she will not stop until she falls.

"Yes," she agrees flatly, "you have. Now let me go. I will sail, if my jumping offends you so."

It is better than suicide, and yet….

And yet. He cannot bear the sight of her pain, the level of heartbreak in her eyes, the bright, sharp shattering of her being.

"Come back with me," he finds himself saying. "I would fail you no longer."

Now she does manage to jerk away from him, staggering over the icy stone. "How dare you?" she hisses, her voice breaking. "I do not care if you are king, Thranduil – you have no right to use anyone as you did me. I owe you nothing, and certainly not forgiveness. And you can never repay what you owe me." She storms past him, though at least she makes for the door rather than the cliff's edge.

"Tauriel…" he calls, but she does not look back.

He should follow her, he knows. He does not trust her not to harm herself, but the rage and grief and hurt and hate in her eyes will not allow it. Still she hates him, but he can see the weariness in her very fëa. She is tired, has been growing tired for years, and this has been the last straw.

So he stands, wreathed in despair, knowing the deaths of his people are his fault, caused by his greed. He stares at the blood left by Oakenshield's nephew without really seeing it, until a piercing, terrible scream rends the frigid air.

That startles him, dread gripping him anew. That was a cry of shock, not of grief, and he knows, knows he should not have left Tauriel on her own. He races through the maze of corridors, some slippery with blood both red and black, halting when he spots a cliff beyond a yawning, empty doorway.

He does not want to look over the edge, but he has to, and what he finds wounds, but does not surprise, him. Tauriel's broken body lies so very far below, surrounded by a crowd of Elves and Edain and Dwarves.

Thranduil cannot leave her thus, though his knees are half ready to give out beneath him. Shockingly bright blood pools around her head, creeping through the snow, soaking her hair. He hurries down, down steps that seem endless, shoving the onlookers – including the new King Dain – away.

"Tauriel," he whispers, kneeling beside her and pressing two fingers to her throat, feeling for her pulse. "Tauriel, you cannot leave. You cannot follow him."

A pulse is there, but it is thready and weak. He cannot know yet what damage has been done to her body, but at least she is alive, however battered and bloody and mired in grief, even in unconsciousness. "Tauriel, you must stay," he says, touching her face, willing her unseeing eyes to look at him, but he knows she would not, even were she capable.

"She is leaving," Dain says, with a startling amount of compassion. "I know that look, as do you, I'm sure. Let her go."

"No," Thranduil snarls, gathering her into his arms. "I will not lose her, too." Except that he already has lost her – lost her twenty years ago, when he drove her away with such agonizingly efficient cruelty. "You cannot leave, Tauriel," he whispers in Sindarin. "I was wrong, I was so wrong, and even if you never forgive me, I cannot bear for you to die. There is something for you here, Tauriel – something, anything, but you cannot go to Mandos. Not yet, not like this."


Well, this is not a thing Dain would ever have thought he'd see. He – and every other Dwarf – has always thought Thranduil heartless, but there is nothing heartless about him now. Never has Dain seen such panic and desperation – this Elf lass, who Kili had loved, and who had evidently loved him in return, also evidently means a great deal to Thranduil as well. Whatever the story is there, it is no doubt worth hearing – though Dain doubts it is a pleasant one.

Thranduil lifts her, as carefully as if she is made of spun glass, bearing her toward the Elven healers' tents. Dain could tell him it is pointless – those who want to die always find a way – but even to the Elvenking he cannot be so cruel. Not when those unsettlingly pale eyes are so very stricken – he's taken a wound to the heart, has Thranduil, and it may well prove a fatal one. Strangely, Dain can take no satisfaction in it. Death in battle is one thing; death by despair is something he can wish on very few people, and not even Thranduil is one of them. He genuinely hadn't though the Elvenking capable of such anguish, and witnessing it is one of the more unnerving things he has ever seen in his life.


Do not die do not die do not die. It is a mantra, repeated in Thranduil's head until it is almost incomprehensible. Tauriel's fëa is connected by a very few tenuous threads, its light dimming by the moment, and he has no idea what to do. She is right; she has nothing to hold her here. Her love is dead, her best friend gone, and she hates him. She has no reason to stay, but he is too selfish to let her go. Always he has been too selfish, when it comes to her.

"You cannot die, Tauriel," he whispers, though he doubts she can hear him. "I will help you sail, if that is truly your wish, but Mandos cannot have you." Though of her leaving is nearly enough to break him, because though she hates him, though she has avoided him for the last twenty years, always he has known she was there, feeling her presence even when he cannot see her.

The healers' tents are unfortunately crowded, and reek of blood, the coppery scent nauseating. Somehow, the sweet aroma of crushed athelas only makes it worse.

There is a single empty cot, though, and he deposits her on it, as gently as he can. The blood from the wound at her head has smeared his armor, soaking into the fabric of the tunic beneath it, the red terribly bright. He grabs the arm of a passing healer, Ríniel, yanking her to a halt.

"Help her," he orders, but there is desperation in his tone – desperation, and soul-crushing guilt. Tauriel is pale, so pale, her face as white as the skiff of snow outside, her eyes closed now.

The healer's dark eyes widen when she takes in Tauriel's myriad contusions, the blood that had soaked her tangled hair. "My lord, what happened?" she asks, reaching for Tauriel's left wrist.

"She jumped," he says brokenly. "She leapt off the top of Ravenhill."

Ríniel's eyes widen yet further. Fading is unfortunately not uncommon, but an Elf taking their own life is vanishingly rare, and only done out of complete and total despair.

Someone must have overheard him, for a whisper travels through the tent, even as Ríniel crushes athelas into a bowl of hot water, her hands unsteady. Tauriel has been regarded as a traitor, but now some, it seems, some wonder why she had done it in the first place.

"Perhaps she sought death by the King's hand," someone behind him murmurs, between wet, racking coughs.

"Why?" someone else whispers. "That is not like her at all." Faelon, that is his name – he has been a guard for some three hundred years, one of Tauriel's favorites.

"She has not been like her – not for the last two decades. I do not know what happened to her, but she grew…cold. Surely you noticed."

"Of course I did, but I would never have thought she would try to take her own life. I knew she was cold, but I did not think her so…broken."

Thranduil shuts his eyes, and tries to shut out their words. He knows full well why she is broken, and it is a secret he can never confide in anyone.

No, perhaps he can – perhaps he has to. She will never accept his aid, but he can send her to Galadriel. The Lady of Lórien will judge him harshly, but she will aid Tauriel. If anyone still upon this shore can, it is the White Lady.

"Stay, Tauriel," he says, brushing the blood-sticky hair back from her brow. "Stay, and I will take you to Lothlórien, and you need never think on me or the Woodland Realm again."

He can feel Ríniel's startled look, and knows that would only feed the whispers, but he does not care. He has wronged Tauriel, completely and utterly, and he will not let the potential for ugly rumor keep him from making whatever reparation he can. Really, he ought to throw himself off Ravenhill, because he cannot deny he loves this elleth, and he has destroyed her.

Come with me, he thinks, he wishes, he dares to hope, even as he knows it will never be. Knowledge of her hatred has cut him every single time he's seen her since that accursed morning, and her indifference has been worse, but some deluded part of him has always hoped she would one day forgive him, that she would someday look at him as she once did, before he was such a fool. He has always known it is vain hope, but it has nevertheless been there.

But all he can do is sit, Tauriel's cold hand in his, watching her face grow ever paler even as Ríniel works over her. Perhaps Dain is right – she is leaving. Even when the bleeding stops, her fëa dims.

She would not welcome his intrusion into her mind – not if she were to know that it was him. He does not have Galadriel's precision, and nowhere near her strength, but all older Elves have some mental abilities. He dares not speak to Tauriel, dares not let her hear his voice, aloud or within her mind, but he sends her love, carefully nameless and formless. Were she awake, she would scorn it and him, but perhaps, in her unconsciousness, it may anchor her. Knowing that she is not entirely alone may tether her fëa more strongly.

Thranduil knows he cannot have her, but neither can Mandos. The only one he will give Tauriel to is Tauriel herself, because no one else deserves her.


Tauriel dreams.

She is still dimly aware of pain, both in her heart and in her body, but it is very dim – merely an echo, a memory. Soon it will flicker out entirely, and she will pass into Mandos' care. He is said to have great ability to heal both mind and fëa; perhaps he can undo the tangle of hurt and contempt and anger that has lurked in her heart these last twenty years.

Perhaps he can make her forget.

Not Kili – never Kili. Being parted from him will always hurt, but it is a clean pain, and she could never wish to forget their love, however brief it was. And someday, the world will end. Someday, they may well be reunited. She has something to hope for, even if it does not lie upon this shore.

That thought brings her peace, and warmth, and a sense of love without source or shape. She hurts, but the worst pain, the one that has gnawed at her for two decades, is absent. Maybe, finally, she can truly rest.


Tauriel sleeps the entire way home, borne, like so many others, on a litter, but she breathes. Thranduil makes sure of that. Though he travels up and down the line of wounded, always he returns to her side, and does not care that the whispers spread.

Her distaste for him is no secret among the Guard, and he knows it, for he has kept his ear to the ground there. He has never heard of her speaking against him, save to call him ill-tempered (which a great many have, and doubtless will in future), but her aversion is nevertheless common knowledge. His hovering at her side now surely looks incredibly peculiar, and will rouse his soldiers' curiosity even through their grief, but he cannot bring himself to care.

One they have returned to the halls, he is forced to leave her, for like it or not, he has duties to attend to. He must arrange care for the families of the fallen, and the funeral ceremonies. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, for their deaths are his fault, the price of his greed. They fought and died not in defense of their land, not to stem the tide of evil, but for a box of gems with meaning to him alone.

How can he ever face Anameleth now, after all he has done? He has wasted his people's lives, he has destroyed Tauriel out of deliberate cruelty, he has driven their son away…she will never forgive him, and nor should she. His life is and forever will be in ruin, and he has none to blame but himself.

Except that he knows, deep in his heart, that he will never get the chance to face her. After the terrible way in which she died, even Mandos could never fully heal her; she is lost to him until the end of the world, her battered fëa in the care of death's keeper. Perhaps, by then, he will be worthy of her forgiveness – but he doubts it.

Tauriel will never forgive him, either, and the pain of that is sharper and more immediate. But her, at least, he can aid – he can heal her in body, and take her to Galadriel, who can heal her in mind and fëa. In Lothlórien she can rest, and then be passed to Elrond, who will help her to the Grey Havens.

And then she will be gone, forever out of his sight and his reach, and he will be alone. How could he ever have been stupid enough to think he is better off that way? His heart is stone, yet still it trembles – the world he has known is lost in shadow, and though its slip into darkness has not wholly been his own doing, he has certainly helped it along its way.

When night falls, he goes to Tauriel. Though Eldar sleep far less often than Edain, few things weary them so much as grief; as a result, there are none about to observe him.

Her color is better, at least, no longer a deathly pallor, but she lies with her eyes closed, and that is almost too much to bear. It is rare that Eldar close their eyes outside of death, and her breathing is so slow and so soft that he rests his fingers over her pulse, reassuring himself that her heart still beats. Someone has brushed her hair, and it lies across her pillow like a river of flame – such hair is proof of a heritage none would want, and so he has never told her of it. At least he has spared her that, if nothing else.

He does not know what she dreams, and will not violate the sanctity of her mind to find out. Instead he takes her hand, her fingers chilly, and gives her a sense of warmth, and safety, and the love he was too much of a fool to admit he feels, even to himself. He has taken far too much from her, but this he can give, silent and unseen. She will wake to pain both spiritual and physical, but for now she rests, in all the comfort he can give her. Tauriel must know that she is loved, even if she can never know by whom.

Her hand is still too cold, and so small compared to his own. She herself is small by the standards of the Eldar, yet it has never hindered her. Thranduil wants to wrap her in his robes, in his arms, to keep her safe from the peril and pain of the world, but she would never let him. Not now.

"Rest well, Tauriel," he says quietly, brushing the errant strands of fiery hair back from her brow. "I swear you will not linger thus. You will go to Valinor, to your family. You will heal – you will be as you should be, as you would be, but for my foolishness. I am not better off alone, Tauriel; I knew it that morning, and I know it now, and I am sorry I hurt you so. The fault was mine, and yet it was you who suffered for it. I…"

He falls silent, pressing the back of her hand to his brow. He thinks of the elleth she was before, bright and curious and alive, her fëa filled with light, her eyes with an innocence whose destruction he has caused.

"I wish you would stay," he says, the words little more than a whisper. "I wish I could somehow earn your forgiveness. I wish I had…" It is pointless to wish, he knows, and yet he cannot help it. He cannot tell her he loves her, not even when she cannot hear him; the words stick in his throat. Instead he sends it to her, from his mind to hers, and the furrow between her brows eases. This he can do for her, and will do, until she is well enough to travel. He cannot comfort her while she is awake, but when she wanders in dreams, he can give her all she would not consciously accept from him. It is nowhere near enough, but nothing would be.


When Tauriel wakes, she is strangely calm.

If she dreamed, she doesn't remember it, but the pain of all she has lost is not the sharp, glinting thing she would have expected. But then, she can tell she has been fed a great deal of poppy; her head feels floaty, and the bed beneath her seems to rock a little.

She is alive. Why? She is alive, and she is home – Eru knows she has spent more than enough time in the healing wards over the centuries. Such a fall should easily have killed her, yet here she is, warm and clean and well-tended, and totally, infuriatingly alive.

That fact makes her vaguely, muzzily angry. With all their wounded, the hundreds who would have surely been in need of care, why would someone go to all the effort of saving one who obviously wished to die? She is a traitor, and she'd wear the title proudly if asked, for the king she betrayed had not deserved her loyalty in twenty years.

Perhaps Legolas decided to stay after all. He would strive to save her, traitor or no, but she will not thank him for it. Eldar are difficult to kill, but even within the healing wards, there are numerous things that can be repurposed as weapons, should one feel the need. Finding one will be easy enough.

When she tries to sit, however, her vision blurs, and she nearly cannot manage it. She finds that she is desperately thirsty, and wonders just how long she has been asleep. Not that it matters.

Her room is small, as are most in the healings wards – it holds a bed and a nightstand, and a long, narrow, polished counter of dark oak, upon which a healer would array whatever tools she needed. It's cozy, and warm, smelling faintly of bittersweet yarrow, and she has a fleeting moment of guilt, for whoever finds her will be in for a nasty shock.

The only breakable thing in the entire room is the large green lamp on the end-table, and her shaking hands wrap it in a sheet before she smashes it onto the floor, so as to muffle the noise. There's something dimly satisfying in the muted shatter, in the feel of it splintering apart beneath her hands. It is nice, for once, to be the one doing the breaking, not the one being broken. The stinging scent of lamp-oil joins that of the yarrow, strangely pleasant, though it leaves a bitter, astringent taste at the back of her throat.

Without the lamp, the only light in the room comes from the crack beneath the closed door, but it is enough. Her trembling fingers unfold the sheet, seeking the largest piece of glass: it is sharp, so sharp that just touching it cuts her left index finger. It will open her veins as effectively as any of her knives, and it will be mere minutes before she stands before Mandos. Thanks to the poppy, it will not even hurt very much.

She doesn't hesitate when she presses the glass to her wrist, but she does not get the chance to do more than that. Ríniel, curse her, chooses that moment to open the door, and Tauriel all but drops the glass in shock. The poppy has slowed her reflexes, too; the golden-haired healer snatches the shard from her hands before she can do anything more than jam it down into her wrist. It will not be enough, not if the damned healer is determined to save her, but the sight and feel and scent of the blood that wells up from the wound calms her, even as she aims a drunken kick at Ríniel. She will not be saved this time – she doesn't care what she has to do, or to whom.

"Tauriel," Ríniel gasps, flinging the glass away. It has cut her fingers, too, badly enough that she has to wrap them in the green fabric of her skirt. "Tauriel, what are you doing?"

That is, she thinks, an incredibly stupid question.

"Finishing what I started," she says flatly, her voice hoarse from disuse, even as she paws through the sheet in search of another useful shard. The fabric is soaked with lamp-oil, and it burns where it touches the cuts on her hand

Her attempt at retrieving it lands her on the floor, and agony explodes through her head, shockingly intense, washing her vision grey. It lights a fire in her ribs and left shoulder, so intense that she screams before she can help it.

Ríniel leaps forward, trying to grab her, to restrain her, but Tauriel is having none of it. Injured she might be, but she is a warrior, and Ríniel is not, and she is not at all afraid to hurt the healer. If she has her way, she will soon be too dead to imprison, so it does not matter who she hurts, or how badly.

Kicking, however, is rather difficult in her soft ward-shift, the skirt much longer than her customary tunics, and her bare feet aren't helping. Still, she takes Ríniel down with a well-placed elbow to the kidney, even as the pain from all her myriad wounds nearly blacks her out. Hot, coppery blood smears along her arm, staining the shift, and she falls again when she staggers for the door, hunting her impromptu weapon. Thanks to the poppy, her legs feel heavy and useless, her normal dexterity eroded away, leaving her able only to grope.

It cuts her fingers when they close around it, but she lets out a triumphant snarl. The blood it draws makes her grip slippery, but it will work.

Ríniel grabs her ankle before she can bear down with it, yanking her knees out from under her. She doesn't lose the shard, however, because it impales her palm when her hand hits the floor. She can scarcely feel the pain, not when everything else hurts so much, but the blood feels hot and alien.

Snarling again, Tauriel rolls, her free foot making solid contact with Ríniel's jaw. That breaks the healer's grip, and Tauriel staggers to her feet, out of reach, wrenching the glass from her palm. Her heart thunders in her ears as her lungs fight for breath it seems they cannot properly draw, her chest burning as though she has run the length of the forest.

Her reprieve, however, is short-lived. Others have come running, no doubt drawn by her screams – all healers, not warriors.

Well. If they try to stop her, they will regret it.


Thranduil is brooding over funerary preparations when Feren, pale and disturbed, burst into his study.

"My lord, Tauriel has woken," he says, a trifle breathlessly. "Ríniel caught her trying to take her life again."

Thranduil feels the blood drain from his face, dread gripping his heart like an iron vice. "And?" he asks, rising.

Feren winces. "She attacked Ríniel. And Sadronniel. And Iólel."

The dread's grip intensifies, dropping like lead into the pit of his stomach. He is out of the door in an instant, all but running to the healing wards. Even injured, the healers stand little chance against her, unless she faints from exertion. He should have anticipated this, should have realized she would be just as suicidal upon waking as she was when she jumped.

What he finds in the healing wards is utter mayhem. Ríniel and Sadronniel both lie unconscious in the corridor, which is smeared and splattered with a worrying amount of blood. Iólel, her face white with pain, grips her left arm, which is bent at a truly unnatural angle.

"She went that way, my lord," she grits out, jerking her head down the hallway.

Given the noise issuing from that direction, that much is evident – startled cries, smashing glass, and a distinctly masculine grunt of pain. Thranduil races down the corridor, uncertain he wants to know what is at the end of this, and what he finds is this:

Tauriel has reached the staging-room, the first area for the most dire of emergencies, and felled three more healers and two injured guards. The shattering glass seems to have come from the bottle she smashed over Belegorn's head; he has pieces of it in his tawny hair, and blood drips down his temple as he lies slumped on the floor.

Tauriel herself is covered in it, her shift dyed in uneven patches of red and rust. Her face is flushed and feverish, her hair a fiery tangle, and while she might wish to die, her green eyes burn with life and determination.

She just might be the loveliest thing he has ever seen.

But she is bleeding, too – her pale arms smeared with gore, and he does not know how much of it is hers. She has to be stopped, before she actually succeeds at her goal, but in truth, he isn't sure how.

Her eyes, her molten, forest eyes, find him, and she freezes. Hatred fills them, so hot and so sharp it physically hurts, twisting deep in his gut.

"You," she hisses. "This is your fault, isn't it?" Her voice is so hoarse that it all but gives out halfway through the sentence. "You've taken almost everything from me, Thranduil – must you really take away my death as well?"

Not until Ravenhill has her loathing ever been so overt, and even now it startles him. Startles, and hurts, and for once his pain must be visible, for Tauriel smiles, slow and cruel, spitting blood from a split lip.

"Good," she says flatly. "Perhaps you will have some shadow of understanding. Now. Go. Away."

He does not move, and cannot speak, and her eyes narrow. "You are not my king," she snarls, stalking toward him, but her steps are uneven and unsteady, "and this is not my home, and you have no say at all in what I do with my life. Now get out of my way."

She shoves him, hard, leaving bloody handprints on his silver robe, and he lets her – but he does not leave her path. He can't, not when she is so very close.

"Tauriel, no," he says, as gently as he can, but he is careful not to touch her.

The sound of his voice seems to enrage her, and before he can blink, she launches herself at him, and he finds her hands around his throat, their grip surprisingly strong. The force of it is enough to send him staggering back against the wall, if only for a moment, cracking his head hard on the stone. His instinct is to grab her, to fling her away, but still he forces himself not to touch her. He doesn't know what she'll do if he does, and it isn't as though she can truly hurt him. Not in the state she's in now.

"Will this make you kill me?" she demands, her fingers digging into his windpipe, as though she means to tear it from his throat. Perhaps she does.

Perhaps he should let her.

No, he thinks, trying to ignore the stinging pain of her nails as he grabs her wrists, as carefully as he can. His lungs are already burning, but he doesn't want to hurt her, for all she's hurting him – she's drawn blood, he knows it, feels the burning trails she's scored across his skin – but she is so injured already that it cannot be avoided.

Her grip does not want to break, but of course it does under pressure. He can see her grit her teeth, smeared dark with blood, against the pain, but she doesn't cry out – instead she kicks his knee, hard enough that he hears something click. That will hurt later, once he has enough time to feel pain. He cannot afford it right now.

Thranduil can't help but cough, as soon as the pressure has left his neck, his throat on raw fire. He knows she will only hurt herself attacking him if he does not let her go, but he doesn't want to. He never wants to – not to Galadriel, not to Valinor, and certainly not to Mandos.

In the end, he doesn't need to. It is a miracle she has retained consciousness this long, and finally, it gives up, leaving her limp and still.

He kneels, very carefully, still coughing, feeling a hot trickle of blood on his throat. Even in sleep, Tauriel wears an expression of abject misery, and Thranduil cradles her in his arms as he lays a hand on her face, sending her warmth, and love, and a peace he does not feel.

What is he to do now? This will only repeat itself each time she wakes, unless he finds some way to stop it.

And he has no idea how. But something must be done.

He cannot allow this to happen again.


Because, you know, I needed yet another multi-chapter fic going. Apparently I'm a masochist. The line "[his] heart is stone, and still it trembles" is actually from Javert's Soliloquy in Les Miserables. I was listening to the soundtrack yesterday, and I thought it fit. (That's where the title of the fic came from, too, because I am shit at coming up with titles for things.)