Kili stirred in his silent, peaceful slumber, breathing heavily as raw energy still filled the air. He remembered being overtaken by the raging darkness, and the realization that his last breaths were soon to pass. There was chaos, the panicked face of his brother, and a vague awareness of the pungent rotting stench of orcs, permeating from every direction, closing in. The pain overpowered his senses, a wrenching in his leg, a burning radiating from deep within his chest. And then, as his death was upon him, he had seen her face. Tauriel, his elven jailor from the halls of Mirkwood. Her red hair shimmered, catching traces of idle candlelight, sparkling like a ruby as it fell in ribbons around her graceful shoulders. Her face, a mask of both concern and hope, lit from within like a wayward angel. His angel.
She started to whisper in an unknown language, staring into his face in her concentration, slow and measured, but with an underlying urgency that even he could sense. And as her form began to glow, more brilliant than starlight, the grip of despair washed over him like a tidal wave. This could not be his elf, so radiant and divine, praying in earnest for his safe return to the living. For how could she have found him? And why would she have come?
Ready for his journey to the afterlife, a low sob choked in his throat, as the realization of never seeing her or any of his family again settled in. His thoughts turned to the cruel twist of fate that could bring a thing of beauty, a chance at love, into his life, only to rip it away with the setting sun. He mourned for the infinite space that had been forced between them, and as the pain began to subside, and his mind to quiet, he couldn't help but turn to the vision before him. Perhaps this beautiful creature that had been sent to him in her visage enjoyed a secret knowledge that he did not.
"You cannot be her," he forced out in a strangled whisper, and the stranger moved cautiously to the side of the table he rested upon.
"She is far away. She is far, far away from me."
But as the shadowy figure moved closer, her form and features did not change. He shook his head almost imperceptibly, convincing himself of the truth that he felt he must accept.
"She walks in starlight in another world," he lamented, and then, holding back a sob, "It was just a dream."
Then suddenly, a desperate need filled his mind, to know what could have been, had he not been called to leave this world. He reached for the impossible maiden's hand, interlacing their fingers as much as he was able in an effort to impress upon her the urgency of what was to follow.
"Do you think, she could have loved me?" He finally managed, but at that moment whatever strength he had left fell away, and he slipped into the darkness, his question left unanswered.
Legolas had returned, and knowingly, as always, waited for Tauriel outside just a short distance away. When her emotions overwhelmed her following Kili's delirium, she stepped from the lake house gracefully into the night, only half surprised to see him there staring silently into the stars. She approached with soft caution, trying to gather the words to explain herself, but a childish observation, "you waited," was all that she could muster.
Then he turned to look at her, uttering the words that she had been dreading for many years.
"My love for you, is a burden I must bear, even if under the weight of it I can hardly rise. It is wide, immense," he raised a hand to her cheek, "and so deep, that I fear I will not survive if I attempt to drop it."
She reached up, gently gripping his wrist and slowly leading his hand away, still holding his sorrowful eyes in her gaze. Her words came softly, but with no less intensity than his own.
"An encumberment so crushing, mellon-nin, eventually has to be let go of."
The realization of her rejection stung in places he hadn't known existed, and he ached as though something inside him had been broken and remade. Fear, anguish, jealousy, hopelessness; they flowed across his features as a river over rock, the smooth, strong stone beneath the current unmoved, and yet forever altered.
A deep and humbling sadness bloomed within her chest, but she turned away, resolute in her convictions. She loved him dearly, and her entire being buzzed with the guilt of this betrayal, but the truth remained, unchanging and absolute: she could not be his. So she left him there, moving soundlessly back down the length of the dock, faltering only for a fleeting moment before opening the door and stepping back inside.
As she re-entered the tiny shack, the tempest in her mind began to subside, and suddenly there was a moment of unflinching clarity. Her eyes fell upon the archer, and to her own amazement, she realized that she had come here for one reason and one reason only. She needed to save him. Hunting orcs, protecting the wood, they were paper thin excuses. Whatever had blossomed between she and the dwarf was larger than doubt, more powerful than long-held prejudice, and greater than their differences. There was no explanation for why or how these feelings within her existed, but they simply did, and she could no longer deny them.