Disclaimer: I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit.

Warnings: Major character death. From the perspective of the dead, rather than the living. Yes, that's probably a bit of a spoiler, but I'll bet you've guessed it anyway, or would fairly quickly.

Semi-graphic descriptions of bloody wounds (but no graphic descriptions of how the wounds were obtained). Suicide, betrayal, murder. So, quite a dark story in some ways, and yet, probably not quite as dark as the warnings make it sound. Just think of it as a sort of ghost story. Or a murder mystery where it's the victim trying to solve the crime.

Note: Not a Legolas/Tauriel romance. I'd go as far as to say it may not be entirely kind to Tauriel's character, but I don't think I villainized her either. A single action she committed in the movies has rather drastic and, some may believe, unfair consequences. Of course, some may believe I wasn't harsh enough.

Story

"Legolas."

The youth to whom that name belonged turned around, but there was no one there. Legolas continued to turn in a slow circle, staggering slightly under an overwhelming sense of disorientation. It was a rare feeling in an elf and he didn't like it.

He didn't know where he was. No, he did know. These were his father's halls. This was his home. He didn't know why he was there, though, in that particular hall. Hadn't he been somewhere else entirely only a moment before? There had been a party, with music and dancing and laughter, and then someone had called his name and he had turned to look and now he was somewhere else and he couldn't remember how he got there or why. Nor could he see who called him. He couldn't even remember whose voice it had been, only that he felt he knew it.

It was very disconcerting, not least because he recognized the place where he stood, and he had no reason to be there. It was a quiet place, with trees among stone pillars and hundreds of white flowers, tucked away in every corner and filling vases and scattered upon the ground. It was a remembering place. It was a place for the dead.

Now was not the time to remember the fallen, it was the time to celebrate the living. Sauron had fallen, the ring of power was destroyed, Aragorn was crowned king, and Prince Legolas had returned home. There was a great feast, in honor of their victory, in honor of his return, in honor of the guests he had brought with him, for all these reasons and more. All the fellowship had been invited, and all but Mithrandir had accepted. And even the wizard had shown up in the end, after following his own path, just in time for the party. Legolas's father had welcomed them all, surprising even Legolas in his treatment of Gimli.

"You are why my son has returned to me?" Thranduil had asked.

"I am," Gimli had answered, gleaning the king's meaning at once, "And he is the reason am here to stand before you. Many times over have we proved ourselves brothers. Many times over have our lives been in each other's hands."

"Then I welcome you Gimli, son of Gloin, for you have returned to me a treasure of more worth than any to be found in my entire kingdom."

His father then said as much to King Aragorn as well, and to the hobbits, though they tried to tell him it was all the other way around, and it was only Legolas who ever protected them. Thranduil, being ancient and wise, saw through that well enough to the truth. Legolas was glad, if a bit embarrassed at being referred to as his father's greatest treasure. Then Thranduil had wanted to have a word alone with Gandalf. Something about him and Elrond deciding that a young warrior elfling was the best choice out of all the elves in Rivendell for a suicidal mission across Middle Earth? Particularly when that elfling, only barely past his majority, had only gone there in the first place to deliver a message.

"Oh…ah…you really need to speak to Lord Elrond about his choices in the fellowship. Oh look, is it time for the fireworks? I'll just go set them up…"

Gandalf had made a rather quick exit and that had seemed the signal to start the feast. To Legolas, it did not start a moment too soon. Being talked about as a treasure had been embarrassing, but at least that had meant his father was going to accept Legolas's new friends, odd assortment though they seemed. Being whispered about while half of the fellowship tried to work out why Thranduil seemed to be referring to their great and formidable warrior friend as an elfling, that was almost too much. He did not want to imagine the teasing they would start if the truth were explained to them. Perhaps he could pass it off as the way fathers always see their children as, well, children?

And so the feast had begun, with Legolas at his father's side and his friends from the fellowship as guests of honor. They had drunk wine, and feasted, and there was music, and stories. Legolas had friends among the elves as well, of course, and they wanted stories of his travels.

What could have addled his senses so completely to leave him standing alone in the Hall of Mourning when only moment before, it seemed, he had been rejoicing among good friends? There had been wine, of course, more than enough to addle even an elf's wits, but Legolas had not been drinking so heavily as that. What else then? Enchantment? Some drug added to his drink? But what could touch him here, in his own father's court? And who would seek to harm him, now, after the war was finished and done, and their own people were the victors? No, there could be no malice in what had happened to him. He must have drunken more than he intended, and now the party was long over and wine had stolen some of his memories, and he only just awakened from sleep. In the Hall of Mourning. In clothes that, now that he looked down upon himself, were not his own.

He was dressed all in white, a dazzling white that almost made his own skin seem dark in comparison. The cloth was light and airy; trousers, a long and sleeveless shirt, and a robe over that that ran to his ankles. On his feet were white shoes of the same material with thin leather soles that perfectly molded to his foot. The design and lightness of his suit reminded him more of night clothes than anything he'd choose to walk around in, except they looked too fine for merely sleeping in. The white cloth was embroidered with white and silver threads, beautiful designs to represent his house, his kingdom, and even his friends, for that bit on the sleeves of his robe was dwarvish symbols unless he was very much mistaken, and not something an elf would likely include. The design was so light it was almost unnoticeable, like a shimmer and an idea rather than an accent to his clothes, yet the closer he studied it, the more detailed and intricate it proved to be.

He was also wearing a circlet upon his head, one that proved to be of white gold when he took it off to look on it. It was like no circlet that he owned, and crafted to resemble a wreath with white flowers and green leaves. The leaves seemed to be made up of emeralds. Like the rest of his new clothes, the design was light and delicate and understated but intricate. Having nothing better to do with it, he put it back on his head. His hair, he noticed, was tied back in the same warrior braids he always wore to battle.

Not knowing what else to do, Legolas gave up on puzzling out how he got there or why he was dressed as he was and decided to try and retrace his steps. The silence of the Hall of Mourning followed him, his own footfall as silent as an elf can make it. No other footsteps did he hear, nor voices, nor any noise that was not the sigh of trees. He passed no one. Not when he left the Hall, not when he went up some stairs and then down, not when he stepped up to the very doors of the banquet hall, where surely someone should have been standing at attendance. He pushed the doors open himself.

The feast was still laid. The instruments were lying in wait of their musicians. The candles were lit. The chairs and cushions were placed about the room in attendance of wearied partiers.

There was not a single soul to enjoy it.

"Adar?" Legolas called into the room anyway. "Gimli? Aragorn? Pippin, Merry, Frodo, Sam? Gandalf?" And he might have gone on, to name elf friends long known, but the pervading silence of the room weighed down upon him, and his voice faltered.

He walked his father's palace and there was no one there but him. No one in the bedrooms, no one in the kitchens, no one in the cellars or the waiting halls or the throne room or the gardens or the library or offices or any room he thought to look in. Not even in the dungeons or the storage rooms or the cellar. He was alone, and yet, the palace did not feel unoccupied. It was not like walking through a ruin; candles still burned, fires looked tended to, items lay about as though someone had just been using them or were about to. It felt more as though, in every room he walked into, all the occupants had just left.

"What enchantment could this be?" Legolas asked, "To steal away everyone except for me?"

In the end, he returned to the Hall of Mourning. It was where the enchantment had started. Perhaps it was where it would end. And if nothing else, the Hall was not quite as abandoned as other rooms felt. The trees still grew there, and the flowers. Legolas could feel the life in them. Something else lived.

He approached a tree and laid his hand on it, only to jerk it back. The tree was sorrowful, as though in mourning, but that is not what caused him to flinch back. It was as though there was an invisible wall between his spirit and that of the tree that repelled him. He could sense its life and its sadness but could not touch it as he should have been able to, and it did not seem to feel him. What could cause that?

"Legolas?"

This time, when he turned, the speaker was still there. He stared at the other elf in surprise. Of all the elves he might have met in this strange and empty world, the former captain of the guard was not one he might have expected.

"Tauriel?" he said in return, not sure whether it was she or if this was some strange spirit taking on the face of an old friend. It did look like Tauriel, though her choice in clothes were as odd as his own. They were the garb of a warrior, but in white rather than the usual green and brown. Like his own clothes, they were covered in silver symbols, faint but intricate, but unlike his own clothes hers were more worn, looking almost gray in places, though the overall impression remained that of a brilliant white. Most disturbing were the signs of wounds. There was a small tear surrounded by a red stain upon her chest, much as one would find in a person pierced by an arrow to the heart, yet that couldn't be because such a wound would be fatal and here she stood. The cloth at her wrists was torn to shreds as well, and stained red. Finally, there was a cut upon her neck. For some reason, Legolas found that wound uglier than the rest, though it was small, hardly more than a scratch and not of the same fatal nature as that which marred her chest and wrists.

"Tauriel?" he said again, having taken the time to look her over and try to process how she came to be there or how she got her wounds. She stared at him in return, her expression assessing and calm, though he could see contrasting emotions in her eyes: perhaps sorrow, perhaps fear, perhaps merely surprise.

"I did not look to ever see you here," Tauriel said, seeming to find her tongue at last. "In fact, I hoped I would not, even if it left me cursed for an eternity." Legolas didn't know how to answer those words. He had no idea what she meant by them. Finally, it was Tauriel who spoke again.

"You were betrayed."

"No," Legolas denied immediately. He did not know what had happened, but he could not imagine something so dark. Not now, with the war over and the dark defeated.

"It's written on your soul," Tauriel said. "Even as I bear my wounds that killed me."

"You are dead?" Legolas asked, startled and sickened and horrified all at once. "When? How? Was it an arrow?" He found himself reaching to touch the wound at her chest, the one that certainly looked fatal but that he had discounted because she did not stand as one hurt, but he stopped short of touching her.

"You were not told of my death?" she asked. He only stared with wide eyes, one hand still stretched towards her. "I left a letter for you. I suppose your father chose not to pass it on. It is well. I think I meant to wound you with my final words, though I didn't know it at the time. I was in pain and lashed out. This heart wound that you now see, it was invisible then. Soul wounds often are."

Still confused by this talk of souls and death, Legolas nonetheless found he started to understand. This was a vision. His own spirit now walked in a spirit realm where Tauriel was trapped. Perhaps this was his chance to free her to walk in the Halls of Mandos.

"Your love for the dwarf," Legolas said. "I understand it now. I, too, have a strong friendship with a dwarf, and I do not look forward to the day I must be parted with my mortal friend. Is it your love that so wounded you?"

"Your father tried to warn me. I did not understand. My time with Kili was brief, but our love was real, and his death was a wound I could not bear. It was not the killing blow, however. I thought I had lost everything. The respect of my king and all the kingdom, for I had defied them. The death of my love. And a centuries long friendship with a prince who neither understood nor wanted to."

"I stood at your side," Legolas answered, confused. He could see she had been in pain, but surely she didn't believe herself so friendless! "I loved you as though you were my own sister. I grieved when my father told me you had chosen to leave, to leave without saying goodbye."

"I did say goodbye," she whispered, looking as pained as Legolas had ever seen her. "I did, and it was wrong of me to say it as I did. It was wise of your father to keep it from you. I was in pain and I wanted to share that pain with others. I would have made you feel as if my actions were your fault. I know you too well, Legolas Thranduilion. I knew what words would wound. I was a child, lashing out at the world for wronging me, and pretending I myself had done no wrong."

"You wrote me a letter before you left?" Legolas asked. He still didn't understand. Was this really Tauriel before him, wounded and in pain, and speaking words that his own heart rejected as untrue? He could not imagine that this was the Tauriel he knew, that he had long years of friendship with, who was practically raised alongside him as a baby sister. Tauriel had never, in the entirety of their friendship, acted to hurt him. Tease him, perhaps, but never maliciously, never to wound. That was not who Tauriel was. She was the elfling who followed in his shadow as they trained. She was his comrade in arms, his shield sister as they faced the darkness together. A part of her had imprinted upon his very soul, a love so deep he had, for a time, almost mistaken it for the love one might feel for a wife. It was a love reserved for family.

He had never once doubted her. He did not doubt her now, and this wounded spirit's talk of soul wounds and hurtful letters confused him. She stared him in the eye, then raised her hands, showing off the wounds at her wrists.

"I wrote the letter before I died," she said. "And so my actions left these wounds upon my soul."

"You cut your own wrists?" Legolas demanded, utterly shocked, but he could not deny the sight before him.

"No," she answered. "The wounds of the soul are not literal. No arrow pierced my heart, and no blades took my wrists. I was a warrior to the end. I wrote my letter and I left, alone, to fight my final battle against the creatures of darkness. I did not intend to survive, and I didn't."

"Then, if you died, why did you not journey to the Halls of Mandos?" Surely these are not those Halls?"

Tauriel didn't answer at once, but she suddenly looked aged. Not as mortals age, but as the immortals age, as though the weight of long years rested heavily upon her. By elf standards, Tauriel was still quite young, younger even than Legolas himself. How did she come to look so aged?

It was not Tauriel's voice, in the end, that answered Legolas's question. A voice came from behind him, a kingly voice, full of hidden power and wisdom.

"The elf maiden called Tauriel was given a penance," said the voice. "For she dared a deed that is unforgiveable, the greatest offence an elf might commit."

Legolas turned.

He knew his father's halls well. There was no doorway behind him, and yet, there was a doorway now. It stood open, and beyond it was light and the distant sound of voices and music, not unlike the sounds of a great feast. Standing in the doorway was a man, or at least the figure of a man, tall and stern. There was something about him that made him hard to look at. He spoke again.

"Legolas Thranduilion, Prince of the Greenwood, a member of the Fellowship, seasoned warrior, and Friend to all of the free races," said the man, his eyes roaming over Legolas as though reading his life's story. "You are not meant to enter my Halls, yet here you stand."

"I do not understand, my lord," Legolas answered, because he didn't.

"No, my child," said the man, his voice surprisingly gentle, for all his face remained dispassionate and stern. "You would not. Well, I will not keep you long from entering, for there are those who long to greet you."

"But I'm not dead," Legolas answered, and then felt very foolish to have said it. There was every indication that he was, in fact, standing before the Halls of Mandos, somehow, and therefore the powerful seeming man before him was, in fact, the Vala Namo, known more commonly as Mandos. If Mandos himself was telling Legolas it would soon be time to enter his halls, then surely Legolas had to be dead. Yet, how could death have come so suddenly that Legolas himself had no memory of it happening?

"Child," said the Vala, "I do not make mistakes. Your spirit now stands before me, your mortal wounds imprinted upon your soul. You are dead."

Legolas did not know how to react to this. He turned to look once more at Tauriel, who was now staring at the ground, as though to avoid looking at either of them. The red of her blood stood out starkly, and Legolas looked down upon himself once more, but still saw no sign of any wounds. His clothes remained whole and white from top to bottom.

As though answering the question Legolas hadn't asked, Mandos spoke again.

"The wounds of betrayal are not seen on one's front."

With great effort and even greater misgiving, Legolas turned his head about to try and see his own back. Twisting his body, he could see no wound or tear on his cloak, nor the backs of his legs when he swept the cloak aside. Even his great dexterity could not allow him to see his own back, but there he did, at last, see the first sign of what Tauriel, and now Mandos, had spoken of. He could not see the wound, but there was a red stain, just barely visible when he twisted his neck as far as it would go.

Startled, for he felt no pain to suggest a wound, he brought his hands around to feel for it. He found the cloth of his back stiff and damp, and in the middle, but slightly to the left, there was a long tear. Beneath the tear his skin felt…strange. He withdrew his fingers quickly and was surprised to find they weren't wet with blood, for it felt as though they should have been, and yet they were dry and pale and showed no sign of what he had just touched.

"I was stabbed?" Legolas asked, still not quite convinced that this was real and that he was not trapped in some strange vision, or nightmare.

"The wounds of our soul are not literal," Tauriel told him again. "You bear the mark of betrayal. You were killed, or you died, through the actions of one you trusted."

"I don't remember dying," Legolas said. If only he could remember what had happened, perhaps this would begin to make sense! Yet his memory still ended at the feast, and he could not imagine anyone there to be the cause of his death.

"You would not remember," Mandos said. "You are not deserving of the memory."

"What do you mean, not deserving?" Legolas demanded before he could think better of speaking thus to one of the Vala, particularly this one who had the power to allow him in or cast him away. "What did I do that was so horrible?"

"You misunderstand, child," Mandos answered, his voice not angry but that of an instructor correcting a student. "You are not deserving of the memory because you are not deserving of punishment. I hold the memory for you. I remember all."

Legolas did not know what to say to that. He thought he needed that memory so he could make sense of what had happened, and at the same time feared what must have been a very horrible occurrence if the memory was kept from him. In the end, he turned his thoughts away from himself, and instead concentrated on the fate of the other dead elf present.

"And what about Tauriel?"

"She has been dealt with as she deserves."

Legolas turned to look at her again. She was still staring at her own feet. She looked small, and very young, and ashamed.

"Do you punish her for causing her own death?" Legolas asked, wanting desperately to do something to help her and not knowing how. If Mandos were so cruel as to deny her for that, then Legolas wasn't sure how he might respond. He had followed her when his own father had her banished. Would he do so when the banisher was a Vala? It was not Mandos who answered him, however, but Tauriel.

"My crime is far more severe than that of an elfling throwing a temper tantrum, for all I behaved as such. My wounds are justly awarded, and it is not for the wounds of my wrists, or my heart, that I must pay a penance."

There was only one other wound that Legolas could see. It was small and pitiful, something that should have healed in a day, perhaps even in an hour, though there were no signs of such healing. The cut at her neck shone red with blood. Legolas still thought it an ugly wound, though he could not say why.

"How did you receive the wound upon your neck?" he asked. Tauriel didn't answer for a long moment, and Mandos didn't answer for her. Finally, she raised her head and looked Legolas directly in the eye.

"I raised my weapon against my kin," she said. "For this, I have the mark of a kinslayer. Had I acted and released the arrow, the mark would have been a full slash across my throat, and I would have been banned forever from the Halls of Mandos. As it is, my crime deserves punishment, and so I am here, until the one I wronged comes to release me."

Legolas didn't know how to answer those words. They made no sense. When had Tauriel ever raised her weapon against an elf?

"You yourself were witness to the deed," Mandos said, his voice startling as it came unexpectedly from behind, no mercy or kindness in his words, only a kingly sort of power. "I thought you, yourself, might be judged deserving of her fate, for you intervened on her behalf, yet I see now no such mark upon your soul."

There was only one event in Legolas's memory that matched their words.

"You drew your arrow upon my father," Legolas said. He remembered that, of course. It had been a horrible moment. Even knowing that Tauriel would never have released the arrow, it was uncomfortable to see it aimed at his father. And it was painful having two people he loved be at odds. He had sided with the one who had seemed to him to most need it, for Tauriel was the one who stood alone.

"I did," Tauriel answered, her eyes never leaving Legolas's. They were filled with pain and guilt and regret. Her voice was gentle. It was the voice she used when she feared her words would cause him pain.

"You would not have released it," Legolas said. He was absolutely certain. Tauriel closed her eyes. Mandos answered for her.

"And it is for this belief that you yourself do not share her mark," he said. "But there is no mistake. She drew upon her kin with intent, even if only for a moment. There is no greater crime. Her penance is just."

It's not, Legolas wanted to scream. He wanted to stomp his feet like an elfling and demand that Mandos look upon Tauriel with kinder eyes, that he see how she hadn't meant it. He wanted Tauriel herself to deny the words of Mandos. Because they could not be true. Tauriel looked pained, and everything in Legolas said to comfort her, and yet he found himself rooted to the spot.

"You did not intend my father's death," Legolas said, and it was meant as a statement but it came out almost as a question. Tauriel did not answer the question. How could she not answer the question? He knew her, as well as he knew anyone, and he knew she didn't have it in her to kill his father. Thranduil was practically a father to her as well. When Tauriel still didn't answer, he turned again to face Mandos.

"She would not have released the arrow," he said again, something inside of him desperate for the Vala to hear his words and agree with them. "Must she be punished for all eternity when she acted for love of another?"

"She will be released when the one she has wronged comes and agrees to release her."

"Then it may as well be eternity, because my father is immortal."

"That would have been so," Mandos agreed, "If not for the betrayer. It won't be long now."

Those words were like ice to Legolas's heart. His father was soon to die? Who was this betrayer? Who had killed Legolas? Who now went to kill his father? Was there any way to stop them?

"My father cannot die!" Legolas exclaimed, everything in him crying out to act and prevent it from happening, though he didn't see how he could from within this spirit world. "Who would kill him!"

"An old wound," Mandos answered, "Reopened anew. It will not be long. You will enter my Halls together."

Well, that, at least, didn't sound so bad. If his father had to die, at least death wouldn't be a separation. The ice in his heart began to recede as the shock of Mandos's dire announcement faded. Legolas had not wanted to die, nor did he want his father dead, but going together was not so evil a fate, and there were many he would delight to be reunited with. His mother would surely be there, and his grandparents, and many old friends taken by the darkness.

And surely Tauriel would join them. He felt shaken and unsure of her after hearing what that wound upon her neck meant, but his love remained and he did not wish her to wander lost forever, not for a brief lapse in judgement which she would never have followed through on. Surely she never would.

When a fourth person joined them, Legolas was almost looking forward to the reunion. So it was rather a shock when the elf who stepped into the courtyard from the shadows was not his father at all.