The cool spray from the Forest River felt good on Tauriel's face as it cascaded through the lower caverns of the Elvenking's halls. She closed her eyes, drawing strength from the timeless, relentless fall of water through ancient stone. She supposed she should get back to the revelry above, back to the glow of starlight and the merriment of celebration. Still, though, she was unsettled. It does not seem right to bury our prisoners in darkness while we are dancing and laughing elsewhere.
The sharp snapping of stone upon stone caught her attention as she passed the cell imprisoning the youngest of the Naugrim captives; the black-eyed archer she had rescued from the spiders, and who had so rudely and cheekily invited her to search him. He was tossing a flat, polished agate and catching it, and at her approach he froze, suddenly self-conscious and defensive. He had a dark wildness about him, like a feral thing caught in a trap.
"The stone in your hand," she said, keeping her voice even. She didn't want him to think she was accusing him of anything. I am not here to rob him of his last bit of comfort. I know how I would feel to have my own bow taken and to be locked in the dark. "What is it?"
He glanced at her again, his dark eyes flashing like the stone in his hand, and then he looked away, his scowling face grim. "It is a talisman," he solemnly intoned.
The deep shadows inside the cell feathered across his face and his wild hair, pooling around him like dark magic, and Tauriel thought with an unpleasant jolt that perhaps his bravado earlier had been purposely meant to lull her into underestimating him. Is this some Naugrim magic he has? Have I made a grave error by not searching his pockets and by allowing him this trinket? The sounds of revelry above were barely discernible above the roar of the river, and Tauriel recoiled slightly, sudden worry clouding her thoughts. I am alone down here. He could enchant me and no one would know.
The Naugrim was looking at her, his face intense. "A powerful spell is upon it," he went on, glancing away and shaking his head in pity. "If any but a Dwarf reads the runes on the stone..."
Tauriel's mouth had gone dry. I have made an error in judgement...if he is in possession of...
He suddenly thrust the stone toward her, the runes in full view of her unprotected eyes. "They will be forever cursed!"
She gasped, startled backwards by the force of his gaze. He held the stone towards her for a moment, his face illuminated among the shadows by the golden lamplight before he retreated back into the darkness. Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that even if he spoke the truth, she could not read the writing of the Naugrim. She was unhappy and embarrassed with herself to realize that she was trembling inside. Unnerved, she turned abruptly, stepping away from the bars.
"Or not," she heard him say, a hint of the same jovial tone he'd used when challenging her earlier creeping back into his voice. She snapped her head back towards him, giving him a hard look. What...This impertinent...
"Depending on whether you believe in that kind of thing." His scruffy, unshaven face broke into a smile, and the shadows fled from him. He chuckled, his eyes sparkling. "It's just a token."
He is teasing me. Her annoyance and irritation dissolved into relieved amusement. Here he is a captive in the dark, and even so, it is he who has the upper hand. She laughed at herself grudgingly admiring his grit.
"A runestone," he admitted, growing serious and running a thumb lovingly over the carved surface of the stone. "My mother gave it to me so I'd remember my promise." His expression had become warm and vulnerable in the soft light, and Tauriel knew that she was seeing him for the first time. He was not the marauding trespasser that had invaded their forest, nor the leering, disrespectful ruffian she'd brought down here and locked up. This was who he was, this sweet-eyed young man, trapped in an unfriendly place far from home.
She stepped closer to the bars separating them. "What promise?"
"That I would come back to her."
The words sent a pang through her. She tried to smile, but his dire predicament suddenly made her heart hurt. She dropped her gaze to the floor, staring at the eons-carved stone beneath her boots. Thranduil was not speaking in jest when he said that he would keep them here for...
"She worries," he went on, his troubled expression showing that he knew his mother had every reason to worry. He tossed the runestone again and caught it, slipping back into his armor of carelessness with practiced ease. "She thinks I'm reckless."
"Are you?"
He shrugged, tossing the stone again while looking at her and giving a cavalier shake of his shaggy head. "Nah." The trinket flew past his waiting hand, clinking through the bars beyond his grasp, and tumbled towards the edge of the pathway and the waiting abyss.
No! Without thinking, she stepped forward, trapping the stone safely beneath her boot. She could hear him leap to his feet behind her, anxious, she imagined, that his runestone...his most precious thing...might be lost in the rushing water far below the path. Carefully, with sure fingers, she retrieved it, lifting it into the light to better see it.
She was surprised that it was not as black and lightless as it had first appeared. Beneath the polished surface and the sharp lines of the Dwarven runes were hidden colors, catching the light and rippling inside the stone's depths like the aurora that glows over the mountains of Ered Mithrin at night. The warmth from the Dwarf's hands lingered in the stone, and it seemed to be almost a living thing as she carefully turned it over in her fingers.
"Sounds like quite the party they're having up there," he said, breaking the moment with a carelessness she could tell he didn't feel.
She glanced around at him, savoring the warmth of the stone against her palm. "It is Mereth Nuin Giliath," she explained wistfully. "The Feast of Starlight." She paced along the path absently, looking skywards, imagining the beauty of starlight shining through the forest canopy far above. "All light is sacred to the Eldar. But Wood Elves love best the light of the stars."
"I always thought it is a cold light," she heard him say, almost to himself. She turned to see him standing at the bars, gazing past them with the look of someone half-dreaming. As if he was seeing the glory of the night sky she kept inside her own heart. "Remote," he murmured distantly, fixed on her face. "And far away."
"It is Memory," she explained, wanting him to understand. "Precious and pure..."
He was looking up at her through the bars, his eyes on hers, and Tauriel saw with a start that like the runestone she held in her hand, his eyes were not just dark, polished orbs. They were filled with depth and warmth and forever and they shone in the darkness of his prison. How they shine...they are like...
Her heart twisted inside her again as she found the intensity of his gaze suddenly unbearable. Glancing down at the stone in her hand, she held it out to him. "Like your promise," she barely managed to say.
He reached to take it, and when his callused fingers brushed her palm, it seemed that a thousand ripples of silver light sparkled across her skin.
...like starlight.