RETURN TO ME

Chapter 1

He opened his eyes, and saw stars.

At first he had no idea what they were. The deeper parts of his mind were aware of the cold and dark that surrounded him, the dampness under his back, the chill that seeped into his nose and froze the breath that emerged. He blinked, and once satisfied that he had blinked properly – he had eyelids, they worked, and more importantly, he could see – he made a larger effort to move. His muscles ached, a deep grumbling agony born of ages of disuse. His mind considered this and relented. He flexed a finger here, wiggled a toe there, and waited for his body to wake up as his mind had.

The smell of wood, of wet earth, and the soft damp under his fingertips – he was probably in some kind of forest, or wood. There were shadows curving above him, branches like arms reaching to the sky. Far above them, the stars shone a cold blue. Something stirred in his chest, but he wasn't sure what it was.

The little man sat up slowly. There was nothing around him except the trees which stood silent. The twilight was barely enough to illuminate his surroundings, but he knew he was alone. With a grunt, he struggled to his feet. His arms and legs were weighed down by armour – armour? in a forest? – and his neck felt the weight of a massive helmet on his head. With fingers still asleep he forced it off; it clanked to the ground and hit something by his feet before bouncing to a stop some distance away. The minor exertion left the little man panting. He stared at the thing by his feet, glowing dimly in the twilight. It appeared to be a shield of some sort. The sigil on it looked deeply familiar to him. Why couldn't he remember it properly? The wood, unmoving and silent, still appeared to him as though through a fog. His head ached, and he couldn't decide if the helmet was to blame. He wondered how long he had been asleep. Then some deeper part of him wondered if asleep was the correct word.

A distant bark startled him. He gasped and made a strangled noise; his vocal cords had been slow to awake, like the rest of his body. Still, the sound was loud enough to reach the edge of the trees, before the silence swallowed it up again. The little man held his breath.

The bark returned, multiplying in volume and intensity. The little man looked around in panic for a place to hide. A light had appeared in the distance; it seemed to accompany the barking. He took up the shield, wondering desperately how to escape on legs that could barely move. There was no time to run, even. The light was upon him.


"Tauriel."

Sunlight was streaming in through the window. Tauriel covered her face and turned away from it.

"Tauriel. Get up."

She ignored the voice. Part of her wondered if it was her conscience talking, but she ignored that as well.

A pillow landed on her face. She batted at it ineffectually. There was a sound of curtains being drawn, and a low, exasperated muttering. Tauriel took a deep breath and raised herself on her elbows.

There at the foot of the bed stood a very tall, very annoyed elf, holding her clothes in one hand and a wooden fork in the other.

"Good," he said. There was acid in his voice. "Finally." Before Tauriel could respond, he threw the clothes at her. "Get dressed. There's breakfast." Then he turned and stalked to the door.

"Feren," Tauriel croaked.

Feren stopped and gave her his best getting-real-tired-of-your-shit look.

"I can't, Feren," she murmured.

He snorted. "Here we go again. I swear, Tauriel, every damn day – "

Tauriel glanced at her bedside table. Propped up on its surface was a penciled portrait, framed in oak and silver. Even now, the face of the dwarf that smiled back at her struck a chord of agony deep within.

"Not today," she whispered.

Feren followed her gaze to the portrait and fought the urge to roll his eyes. Instead he drew towards the bed and sat down next to Tauriel.

"Please try," he said quietly. She couldn't look at him. There was such resignation and exhaustion in his voice that she felt even more horrible. Feren stroked her cheek gently. "Please try," he repeated. "It's been 500 years."

"499, actually," Tauriel whispered.

Feren sighed. "Yes, all right. 499. How about going outside today? Just for a moment or two? The lilies are beginning to bloom. They smell wonderful." He sniffed the air. "Can you smell them?"

Tauriel sniffed the air as well. "Feren… that smells like something's burning."

Feren leapt off the bed. "Blast it! The bacon! Get dressed, you," he threw at her, before tearing out the door.

Tauriel watched him go, clutching her dress in her hands. It was a proper Elvish gown, the kind the female royalty wore. Thranduil had had it made, along with many others like it, when he left for Valinor and left Mirkwood to Tauriel. She would have been content to stay on her own, but Thranduil would not hear of it, and so appointed Feren to stay with her. Poor Feren. She had tried, begged, pleaded, even secretly arranged for Elros to kidnap him on the eve of their departure and take him along, but it had come to naught. Feren's loyalty to Thranduil, and possibly his own pity for Tauriel in her state, in the end outweighed the desire he might have had to return to the Undying Lands. Now, all of Mirkwood lay empty, except for the two of them.

Tauriel stroked the fabric of the gown in her lap. It was a beautiful shimmery green, the kind that matched her eyes. It was delicate and lovely, and she hated it. She hated gowns, for one thing, because they forced her to behave more like a princess and less like the warrior she was. She wished they had used more colours besides green. Centuries of the same colour had rendered her delight in it somewhat strained. It would have been nice not to resemble a grasshopper quite so often. But it didn't matter to her, really, whether she was a warrior or a princess, whether she wore gowns or a uniform. Nothing really mattered to her, not anymore.

She looked at the portrait again. There he was, that adorable face, that sunny smile frozen perfectly in strokes of graphite on parchment. She could not read dwarf runes, but she knew what these said. She had traced them over so many times, whispered the name to herself so often that she wondered if somewhere, somehow, he could hear her.

Outside, the birds had begun trilling. Now that Feren had rescued his bacon, the room filled with the scent of honeysuckle (Thranduil's favourite) and jasmine (Feren's idea) and hydrangeas (a gift once from Legolas, when he still gave her gifts and cared if she was dead or alive). It had been almost a month since she had gone outdoors. She didn't want to hear birdsong, or smell flowers, or feel the sunlight. She wanted to disappear into darkness and hope to find him in it. There would be no more flowers, or birdsong, or sunlight for her beautiful boy.

Tauriel looked at her gown, then at the window. No sunlight would ever match Kili's smile.

"For you," she said to the portrait. "This day's for you."

Then she threw off the blanket, and struggled out of bed.


Somewhere else, on the floor of a similar forest, another little man sat up with a gasp.

For a moment he held his breath. His lungs, unused for centuries, strained to release the air. The muscles in his chest tightened, and the pain ironically pleased him. He exhaled heavily, and took another few deep breaths. It felt as though all around him, the world was waking up. There was sunlight on his skin and grass under his palms, and crisp spring air in his nostrils. He had never felt so happy to be awake.

Awake. Was that the correct word?

The little man looked around him at the forest. It was filled with a hundred shades of green, and brimming with birdsong, but there was a tension in the air too. The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. He had no idea what was hiding in the trees, watching him.

Very carefully, he began to get up. This was a difficult decision given the general state of his legs and their refusal to cooperate, but after several attempts he made it to his feet. His body was leaden with armour – armour? in a forest? – and a shield lay on the ground beside him. The sigil on it glinted in the sunlight, stirring memory deep within. He struggled with the thought before giving up and sinking again to his knees. He had no idea where he was, nor how he had come to be there, but the sign on the shield had begun dredging up things in the past, long forgotten and left unspoken, and the chaos in his mind would soon overwhelm him.

His lips moved to speak – his mind wanted them to – but the initial sound of his voice, long silent, was now merely a croak. "Whoo," he whispered. It was simply the hiss of air escaping. He swallowed and tried again. He wasn't going to give up. "Whoo," he said, slightly more determined. The sound of birdsong began to taper off, as though the birds too wanted to hear what he had to say.

"Who – am – I?" he said. The forest around him gradually fell silent. His question seemed unanswerable.

Then, in a burst of golden memory, he saw in his mind's eye a mountain. Journeying, long journeying; companions, faithful friends whose laughter he could hear but faces he could not see. The flame of dragon-fire, screams of death. A king, standing proud and tall with a crown upon his head. Who were they? What was he? The king smiled at him and stretched out his hand. Fili.

The little man's eyes flew open. He felt his chest tighten, his eyes burn with tears as the memories rushed through his mind and threatened to drown him in sorrow and loss. And then he remembered something else, like a fist of iron closing around his heart.

His brother.

"Kili," he whispered. "Where are you?"