"Tauriel!"

Tauriel braced herself just in time to catch Morwinyon when the girl hurled herself into her arms.

"They did not find her," Morwinyon said, barely audible where she had buried her face into the crook of Tauriel's neck.

"I know," Tauriel murmured, cupping the back of the child's head. If Morwinyon grew any taller Tauriel might not be able to carry her at all, let alone one-armed, but for now she managed. "I am sorry. I could not find her either."

No one had expected her to find Laeriel. She was young and relatively inexperienced, but no one had objected when she presented herself for the search, and after all she had found their last camp. She still felt like a failure here, where she could feel Morwinyon shaking infinitesimally and trying not to cry.

"I am sorry, Tauriel, I looked away but a moment!" The elf who hurried out to them was younger than Tauriel by quite a lot but still older than Morwinyon. He had probably been set by some official to keep an eye on her.

Morwinyon stiffened and Tauriel let her go. The princess stood straight, chin up, and levelled a look at the young man, whose expression now seemed taken aback.

"Your assistance is no longer needed," Morwinyon informed him, clinging to Tauriel's hand for all of her apparent self-possession.

"That is all very well, Mirwen, but I was asked-"

Morwinyon's chin rose even more. "You were asked to look after me while my family was away, but Tauriel is here now. You may go."

Tundir blinked and looked at Tauriel. She was almost afraid that would be a mistake – it certainly would have been with Thranduil – but she realized that Morwinyon was looking at her too, with that particular tilt of her head that meant the girl was asking for verification.

"I have her," Tauriel told him. "Legolas will most likely come looking for both of us later, at any rate – it will be easier if we are in one place."

Morwinyon nodded shortly and turned her back on Tundir. "Do you know when Legolas or my father will be home?"

Tauriel had meant to dismiss the young man with a little more grace, but she was distracted by Morwinyon's question and by the time she looked up again he had left. "I thought you wanted friends."

"Not Tundir," Morwinyon said. "He speaks to me as if I were a child."

"Morwinyon," Tauriel said, "you are a child."

"I am not stupid," Morwinyon replied irritably. "I understand what it means, that my mother is missing, and I understand that it is serious. He should not feed me platitudes. And he should not call me Mirwen, when I have asked him not to."

Tauriel blinked. "Only Tundir?" she asked carefully, wondering if there was some different reason for Morwinyon's irritation.

"Everyone else is willing to call me what I ask them to," Morwinyon said.

No different reason then, and nothing Tauriel had to worry about unless she decided to worry for Tundir's career as a babysitter. She did not. "I believe he is trying to be respectful."

"He is not succeeding," Morwinyon snapped.

"I only said he was trying, dearling, not that he was succeeding. You need not speak to him at all if you do not want to."

Morwinyon shook her head and buried her face against Tauriel again, clutching at armor and tunic indiscriminately. Someone took Tauriel's bow for her so she could kneel down and hug Morwinyon properly. She could not tell the girl that everything would be all right – Tauriel liked to learn from others' mistakes, and anyway her relationship with the princess was founded on near unflinching honesty – but she could and did let Morwinyon hide her tears from everyone else and croon a half-remembered lullaby from her own childhood.

Thranduil found them later. Tauriel had persuaded Morwinyon that moving to a bench would not impede their view of the palace entry or Legolas' return, and they sat there. Morwinyon had braided and unbraided Tauriel's hair until she got each section perfectly correct. Thranduil eyed the braids for a moment, and Tauriel blushed. "I didn't want to stop her," she mumbled.

He shook his head and sat beside them on the bench. "They suit you."

Out of the corner of her eye, Tauriel saw Morwinyon beam. Much to Tauriel's relief, the princess swung around on the bench to sit between her father and Tauriel, though she took Tauriel's hand again.

"Thank you, sir," Tauriel said.

The three sat in silence for a while before Morwinyon began to nod off.

"Time for bed," Thranduil said, standing. "Say goodnight to Tauriel."

Morwinyon sat straight again. "I am waiting until Legolas returns."

"Mirwen-"

"My name is Morwinyon," the princess said, sounding far too self-possessed for her age. "And I am waiting for my brother."

Something flickered across Thranduil's face – fear, maybe, or shock – and Tauriel noticed abruptly that Morwinyon was sitting like her mother, back ramrod straight and chin up. She wore an expression Tauriel had seen on Laeriel's face fairly often: eyebrows raised ever so slightly, mouth set, eyes narrowed just enough that the recipient would feel as if they were being inspected inch by inch. It was not a look that went with obedience. It was a look that made Morwinyon look more like her mother than ever.

Thranduil cleared his throat, nodded, and left.

Tauriel was not an expert on father-daughter relationships, but she did not think retreat in the face of your daughter's resemblance to her mother was the best tactical decision.

Morwinyon watched him walk away, back even more rigid.

"You could go after him," Tauriel said. "Or ask him to come back."

"Is that your adult opinion on what I should do?"

Tauriel eyed her young friend, wary of the sudden undercurrent in her question. "No," Tauriel said finally. "I am offering options."

Morwinyon deflated, letting her head fall against Tauriel's arm and tucking her own arms around Tauriel's. "I chose the option that lets me stay here with you and wait for my brother."

So they stayed on the bench, even when Morwinyon fell asleep, curled against Tauriel's side like a kitten. Tauriel herself nodded off, waking briefly to find herself spread across the bench and hearing the murmur of conversation between Morwinyon and Legolas. Something pillowed her head, she thought hazily as she fell back to sleep, secure in her friends' presence.

She woke completely some time later. Her arm was all pinpricks and needles when she tried to sit up, and a heavy weight she identified as Morwinyon's head kept her from using it properly. The prince and princess of Mirkwood sat on the ground, leaning against the bench, fast asleep. Legolas' head rested against Tauriel's thigh and his arm was slung over Mornwinyon's shoulder, keeping her from sliding off the slope of Tauriel's arm and to the ground.

Tauriel very deliberately bent the leg Legolas rested against. He woke with a start before he toppled entirely over.

"You were asleep," he explained in response to her raised eyebrows. "Morwinyon was not far off, and I was tired as well."

"We all have beds, Legolas," she said dryly as she very carefully moved Morwinyon to the ground instead of dislodging her as she had Legolas.

He shook his head. "She did not want to wake you. And, too, I am half convinced she slept better here than she has anywhere else of late."

Tauriel rolled her neck to work out the kinks, wincing at the succession of cracking noises, and sat up. Her pillow was a makeshift affair of rolled cloth that she realized with a start of surprise was Morwinyon's overrobe. Legolas shrugged when she looked at him.

"She had already put it there when I arrived. I did not want to point out that it was too thin to do much good, since the alternative was nothing anyway."

"The alternative was apparently my limbs," she retorted. She had not been focusing on Morwinyon's clothes yesterday, so she examined the garment as she shook it out.

Thranduil liked pretty things, and though Laeriel's tastes had run more to armor or plain trousers and shirts for herself she had admitted that he always looked handsome in whatever he chose for himself. She had thus, according to Legolas, given Thranduil charge of the children's clothing until such time as they took interest in their things themselves. Legolas had apparently taken charge early: Morwinyon cared less even about what graced her body than her mother did. Tauriel had heard Laeriel tell Thranduil once that he should take it as a blessing, for at least one of his children would be dressed as he thought they should be.

Tauriel had to admit that the overrobe was beautiful, with its dark blue and silver shot threads, woven so finely as to be mostly invisible save for the graceful swirls of ocean foam near the hem and stars sprinkled about the chest and arms. She noted with amusement that they were in the forms of true constellations, and that Morwinyon's own namesake star featured prominently and contained a tad more silver than the rest. The workmanship would be wasted if it were worn with dark colors, but over the extremely pale blue dress Morwinyon was currently rumpling unforgivably it would stand out like a beacon.

It was also completely impractical daywear, even if it was sturdier than it looked. The dress, along with the rumpling, had several grass stains and a few spots of indeterminate origin, and Tauriel had drooled ever so slightly on the robe. She wiped surreptitiously at the corner of her mouth -

And woke up.

Tauriel stared up at the sky, keeping the dream close. It was real, at least as far as she could remember. Later that day she had taught Morwinyon to throw a knife to keep her occupied, and then she had sat vigil by Morwinyon's bedside so that when she woke - and she did, often - she would not be alone.

"Dreams again?" Fíli asked from across the remains of their campfire. He was little changed in the sixty-odd years since he had declared that he was done with the mountain and they had snuck out a side entrance, save for a few more scars.

"I don't have anything else to give," he had said. "I already gave my life and my wife and my brother and my uncle."

Tauriel could not argue the point.

Now she said, "Good ones, this time."

"You deserve good dreams," he said, and they started packing up their camp. The Men here had stopped looking askance at the elf and dwarf who slipped in and out of their villages, leaving food or healing or helping to hunt down orcs. This close to Mordor, it did not behoove them to question kindnesses.

Sometimes they even recovered those the orcs took.

Morwinyon walked along the edge of a narrow canyon, enjoying the breeze and the lack of childcare. No one had come with her: once the twins were finally asleep Kíli had barely made it to his bed before he fell asleep, and Dis had not been much better for all her experience. Morwinyon, who needed less sleep, fared better, but the crying grated on her more sensitive hearing. She had needed a break, and Dis had waved her tiredly from the house.

The Blue Mountains were not deserted by any means, but the dwarves who had lived with Dis had certainly deserted the Blue Mountains. It was Dis and Kíli and Morwinyon alone now, with the twins.

Morwinyon was not sure how to feel about that, but she knew how to feel about the signs of orc that she saw. For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she should go back. She was completely healed now, though, even if her hair had grown in white in some places and her scars would be forever evident. She adjusted the eyepatch she wore and told herself that she would need to know more to properly warn Dis and Kíli, and began to track.

Ten minutes later Morwinyon crept over a ridge and winced at the sight that awaited her. There had definitely been orcs in the area, and they had left bodies. Two of them, to be precise.

"Surely you were not alone," she murmured to herself, after she had ascertained that the orcs had moved on. She stood over the corpses, hands on hips, and one…

Morwinyon had never thought much about her elf senses. She could tell when someone was married, and if someone was an elf (or part-blooded, she supposed), and she could presumably tell when someone (else) was pregnant, but those were not conscious things. They also only seemed to apply when the people in question were among the living, which meant the man on the left, who was definitely Dunedain, still lived.

Morwinyon picked her way down the steep slope, keeping an eye out for trouble, and lifted the Dunedain into her arms. He was not that heavy. She took him back to Dis.

"I'm not a nurse," Dis informed her when Morwinyon dragged the unconscious Dunedain home. The words were sharp, but her tone was absent: she was already turning to sort through the stock of herbs and ointments she had bullied Morwinyon into expanding with what she remembered of Tauriel's medic lectures.

Morwinyon smiled at her mother-in-law as she and a bleary-eyed and just-awakened Kíli went to put the Man into her bed – it was the only one big enough – saying, "At least we have not brought back another elf?"

Dis snorted loudly enough that Morwinyon could hear it in the hall.

"He won't bleed out," Kíli told his mother when she entered Morwinyon's room. "Morwinyon wrapped him up pretty well, and he isn't bleeding inside or anything."

"Do I tell you how to shoot things?" Dis demanded.

Kíli mouthed, 'yes,' but he waited until Dis passed him so only Morwinyon could see him do it. She barely contained a chuckle.

Now Theron, looking much better if somewhat older for the fifty-nine years that had passed since then and still spry enough to hunt orcs with the rest, said, "Sometimes, Morwinyon, I think you like danger."

Morwinyon smiled crookedly at him. "Sometimes you are correct."

"I don't like danger," Kíli muttered. The rangers around them laughed, and Theron passed him a wineskin.

The Dunedain were a welcoming people, when approached correctly. Morwinyon, Kíli, and Dis had approached with a recovering Theron, Tauriel and Angion slung over their backs, and the clan had shrugged over the dwarves and fussed over Morwinyon, who Theron had easily called 'cousin'. She was still unsure whether they assumed she was Dunedain herself or if they simply did not care that she was an elf. It seemed rude to ask.

"Just don't die before you finish teaching my girls," Burin said. "Alia is determined that they'll learn Quenya."

"Last night I was supposed to live to finish telling the tale of the silmarils," Morwinyon protested. "Before that, you wished to know of Elros. You exhaust me with these tasks."

"There is much to be known about Tar-Minyatur," Helan said solemnly, but she laughed with the rest when Morwinyon flicked her fingers in dismissal of the King Name.

Morwinyon had never asked if dwarves took different names when they became kings. Would she still have called Fíli by that name, or would she have had to get used to something different?

"Tari and Nion certainly like to hear of him," Kíli said. "I don't see the appeal, myself."

Morwinyon was about to protest that Tari, at least, liked better to hear stories of her namesake when Caro's horn sounded a little to the west. Almost as one, she, Kíli, Theron, and the rest readied their weapons and moved out to assist.