A mate and I were talking last night about Kili and Tauriel, and it somehow led to me writing this until all hours of the morning. It's my first proper one-shot and the first thing I'm uploading here, so be gentle with me please. Any constructive criticism would be appreciated, and I'm sorry if there are any mistakes, I've only looked over it once :)
EDIT: Thanks to the lovely review from JasmineRaven, I've fixed up the errors. Thank you again!
From the first moment he saw her, Kíli knew that Tauriel was something special. Her hair had shone like forge fire in the suffocating darkness of Mirkwood, and her eyes. Oh, Kíli could get lost in those eyes. Sparkling, ever sparkling, like the purest of emeralds. She was a welcome beacon of warmth and light after nothing but gloom and darkness for what felt so long.
At the time, Kíli had been sure that it had been the arrival of the giant spiders that had eventually pulled him from his delirious haze, but he found himself wondering if he'd ever awoken from it when she appeared, all blazing fierceness and twirling blades. Surely nothing so beautiful, so pure, could survive in such a place. Surely she was nothing more than a vivid fantasy.
She was almost blinding in her beauty, and he could do nothing more than stare as she flung her Elven dagger into the face of an oncoming spider, and Kíli felt his heart give a definite twang.
It was a foolish thing, nothing more than indigestion, he reasoned as him and the Company were escorted through the stifling murk. It was the lack of food, yes, that was it. Nothing more. She was an Elf for Mahal's sake, an ELF. Uncle Thorin would die of shame, and his father would likely roll in his grave if they knew what… feelings were being stirred in the pit of his stomach at the thought of an Elf maiden.
But these thoughts did nothing to sway what in his heart he already knew.
Then, trapped behind bars in the halls of the Woodland Realm, they met again. Kíli heard her before he saw her, despite her footfalls being as soft and quiet as the patter of rain in the dense, echoing silence. His friends— his brother —stopped shouting long ago. They were all resigned to their fate, including Kíli. It was alone in that silence that he took out his token.
His mother had given it to him before they'd left Ered Luin, as a reminder of what both he and Fìli had promised her: that they would return to her. Kíli felt a pang of pity for his brother, whose token— his twin swords, also given to him by their mother —would no doubt be in the possession of the Elves now. He wondered in what Fìli would find solace in this place, if not in his token.
It wouldn't matter in the end. Kíli couldn't to see Fìli or himself fulfilling their promise anytime soon, and his heart felt heavy with the knowledge that now their mother would truly be alone. Dìs was strong, but after losing their father, Kíli didn't want to imagine what losing her brother and both sons in one blow would result in. It wasn't a place that any child would want to put their mother in, but there was little to be done against it now. Like Ori has said, they were never going to make it to the Mountain now, let alone find their way back to their mother.
Then, by the will of a Hobbit, they were free. He would have liked to pretend that he'd given the pretty Silvan elf no thought as they'd made their escape, but as much as Thorin would hate to hear it, that would be a lie.
Kíli had… felt something talking with her. Her eyes, though incredibly green and beautiful beyond anything Kíli had ever seen, had been cold in the forest where she'd found them. Hard as marble and as unforgiving as a tempest. But listening to his tale of the Fire Moon, her eyes had filled with wonder and come alive. It had almost been enough to make his already tender heart burst.
Looking back, Kíli thought maybe that was the moment he'd truly fallen in love with Tauriel, but such things were hard to pinpoint, and didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things. All he knew for certain was that he and her, though from warring races and kin, were one and the same. She longed for adventure, to see the world beyond Mirkwood, to walk in the stars, and Kíli wanted to give it all to her. A voice in the back of his mind that sounded alarmingly like Thorin tried to remind him that she was an Elf, and that the best he could ever hope for between them was mild contempt. But another voice, a voice that sounded like Autumn wind and chiming bells, urged him to try.
But an escape was hardly the time to do such a thing.
The next time he saw Tauriel, he was only half conscious and dying from a poisoned orc arrow. He was delirious and the room was been spinning horribly. Voices and faces began blurring together into a perfect picture of nonsense, and Kíli could feel himself slipping further and further away from his friends and into Mahal's hands.
The pain was unbearable, and he heard himself cry out as if from afar. Then all at once, the pain seemed to ebb away. When he opened his eyes, she was there. Close enough to touch yet so far away. So very far away.
His angel, bringing him back from the brink of death with strings of gentle Sindarin. The words, though meaningless to his ears, were beautiful in their simplicity and flowed from her lips like water, easing his pain and washing away his delusion long enough for him push against his fever and finally break it.
It looked so like her, this angel that saved him. From her silken hair to the creaminess of her skin, pale as milk. She was shrouded in light, ethereal and glowing. But it was not her, could not be her. Tauriel was far away… far, far away from Kíli. She walked in starlight in another world. Tauriel could not be here with him.
Later Fìli would tell Kíli that the bumbling idiot in his semi-conscious state had said all of this aloud, but he could not find it in himself to be sorry. If she was there, if it was true that she'd followed them since their barrel escape, maybe that meant something. Maybe— maybe —she too had felt that something between them. A flicker, a murmur, a promise of what could be.
Then the dragon came, and things became considerably harder.
Lake-Town was laid low by Smaug, and by morning those who had survived the dragon fire had found their way to shore.
Óin, Bofur and Fìli went about salvaging what they could from the wreckage in preparation for their trek to Erebor where they would meet the others, and all too soon he had to leave her again.
Fìli and the others were calling for him to hurry, but he couldn't. He didn't want to leave her. He never wanted to leave her again. In the short time he had known her he'd found something he could never have expected find, let alone in the middle of Mirkwood Forest. Kíli could see the vulnerability in her eyes, the soft quiver of her chin, and it was in that moment that he knew for certain that what he felt was no fleeting fancy so commonly found in the young of heart. This was it. This was all he would ever have. And he would give himself to her completely, if she would have him.
He slipped the cool green-black stone into her palm. He had to show somehow that no matter what happened when he turned to find his friends in the Lonely Mountain, that he would return, even if in the end it killed him.
Kíli lugged the boat into the water and on his brother's orders rowed with the others. But he couldn't stop himself from gazing longingly at the shore where his angel stood, as beautiful and shining and fiercely strong as the very first moment he'd seen her.
He would return to her. He promised that to himself and to her.
It was in the midst of battle that he heard her voice on the wind, and he was sure he'd imagined it. His brother laid dead among the ruins of Ravenhill, his friends were most likely dying in a battle that they could not win, and his uncle was nowhere to be seen. It seemed almost appropriate that in his greatest time of need that it would be her voice calling to him like a phantom on the wretched breeze.
It was only when he heard it again that he realised it was not a phantom at all.
He called her name, but to no answer.
Kíli hacked his way through orcs with a ferocity that on some deep, primal level scared even himself. He had to find her. He could not lose her. Not after Fìli. Not when he had already lost so much.
Orcs were everywhere, as far as the eye could see. For the life of him Kíli could not see a flash of green or red anywhere, and his heart quickened in fear. Orc after orc he killed, but to no avail. Tauriel was still out of sight and out of reach.
His heart ached with grief at his fallen brother, whom he had loved most and would miss dearly till the end of his days, but Kíli could not let even that stop him when the consequences for doing so were would be so devastating. Kíli took comfort— however small it was —in knowing that if it had been him who was dead and Fìli who remained, that Fìli would not let his death weaken him. It would empower him and push him to do what needed to be done. Kíli would not let his brother's death be in vain. Erebor would be reclaimed.
When he found her, his heart stopped in his chest.
She was bruised, battered and beaten, cornered by an Orc of terrifying size. She laid in pain, her face set in a grimace and her hair staining the snow around her like blood. Kíli found himself being pulled towards her, like a ship following the beacon of a lighthouse to find it's way home.
He battled the great orc, swiping and dodging and slashing with a madness that flowed thickly in his veins. He had to defend her. She couldn't leave him now, not when it had only just begun. He would fight in the name of his brother, in the defence of the only one he would ever love, and in the name of his friends, wherever they were, whether dead or alive. And he would protect Tauriel even if it cost him his life.
But the orc was strong, and Kíli soon found himself fighting a losing battle as it snatched him up. Kíli watched with a sort of detachment as Tauriel— his Tauriel —leapt at it, pulling away the spike aimed at his chest with desperation. But she was injured, and the strength and brutality of orcs was unquestioned. It threw her aside, and plunged the spike deep into Kíli's chest.
Death… was not what Kíli had guessed.
Time seemed to slow down, and across the snowy ruin he found her eyes. Uncut emeralds, swimming in tears and drowning in a sorrow that he could feel being mirrored in his own. Her mouth opened in a cry that he could not hear, and he felt the chill of a single icy tear run down his cheek.
In the growing white haze Kíli could see his brother, his blue eyes bright, and another. His father. They called for him and opened their arms.
The stars in Tauriel's eyes one by one died out as the world was lost in iridescent light, and Kíli fell into the arms of his kin.