A/N: it's been quite some time since I last wrote something for this fandom, doesn't mean I stopped loving it. So, what can I say? I wasn't expecting Kili, Fili and Thorin to survive because I knew the movie would be canon-verse, but fuck did it hurt.

I'm not one to cry at the movies, but I cried a river and there was no barrel to save me from drowning in my own tears. That much it pained me to watch them die, in the book at least you're like happily reading and then boom, they're dead, no pain inflicted because you don't know how they effing die. But now I know (thank you, Jackson).

So this is, basically, me still not being okay with their deaths.

Disclaimer: were it mine, they wouldn't die.

The stars didn't shine that night, or any night after the Battle of the Five Armies.

Tauriel went back to Mirkwood, as a commoner. King Thranduil had been kind enough to let her go back after banishing her, and she was nowhere near of turning that offer down. It wasn't queer to see her pacing back and forth in front of that single and awkward cubicle of a cell; with Legolas away and her poor social abilities, not to mention her pain, she became isolated from everything and everyone.

Just one more time.

One more time would have been enough.

Spiders, Morgul poisoned shafts, Morgul poison itself… Name it, she had saved him. But not from that orc, not from Bolg. That scene played over and over again inside her head, and every single time she saved him. It was when hope crawled its way inside her heart that she forced reality back into her brain and changed her alternative ending for the ever moving picture of him dying, exhaling his life away.

Then, when no one watched, Tauriel cried. Had she not been paralyzed by surprise and fear, had she been faster, perhaps she could've saved him. She still wanted Kili to fulfil his promise, she wanted him to come back to her.

Ilúvatar…

Manwe…

Varda…

Anyone, just bring him back…

Thorin Oakenshield's cousin, Dain, had not stayed in Erebor. The mountain served as a tomb and Durin's sons rested there, all three of them. Tauriel often wondered what would've happened if they had survived. Call it wishful thinking, but she didn't see a future where their survival could bring any harm.

So Tauriel made up her mind and willingly abandoned Mirkwood, this time Thranduil didn't promise a merry welcome back; and she didn't really care. She set out for the place where the sages now presumed Cuiviénen had been or would be.

Her kin had been born there.

It was a sacred place, and perhaps there the Valar would listen to her prayers. With each passing day, by horse or by foot, her hope grew weaker; her only remedy was to coax herself into thinking that there was nothing left to lose by trying. The world they now lived in was far from being the Middle-Earth the Elves of the First Age had once known, the lands were uneven; but she still stepped lightly as ever and put her mind to rest in the paths of the Elvish dreams of yonder, sleep wasn't really a necessity. And in her situation it was a relief, for when she slept nightmares would creep back in, like the sun was bound to rise from behind the mountains every single day, she couldn't avoid them.

When she ran into orcs she killed them mercilessly. She saw Bolg's face in each of them, and either by arrow or knife they perished. She would be forever grateful to Legolas for getting rid of that miserable maggot, yet there was a part of her that would also wish forever to have been given the chance to finish him herself.

She wouldn't deny it, she was a vengeful creature. And she wanted vengeance just as much as she wanted Kili back; her blood went cold when she acknowledged the fact that she was most likely to live forever without getting either of those.

Then she'd twist the knife further in. Tauriel could feel the blade sliding in between the bones of her ribcage, through her lungs and then aiming to pierce her heart.

Why can't you get you want? She'd ask.

And answer almost immediately because both love and foe are dead.

Sometimes her jaw trembled and her eyes watered, foreshadowing a breakdown she wouldn't let herself have out in the open lands. Mirkwood was far, far away… Erebor, Esgaroth… all of them were leagues away from where she was now standing, the second she abandoned the only home she'd ever known she promised she wouldn't let tears cloud her judgement.

Tears, Tauriel thought, are going to be shed when I finally reach my destination and find my cause was as doomed as it seemed or proved to be successful. Not a second before.

On her way, she met Men and other Elves. None of them delayed her and were kind to her; Men, she gathered, because they were fascinated with her, many of them said Elves didn't wander those lands and were a rare view. And her kin because they were exactly that: just like her.

In all truth the only delay she suffered was the one she inflicted on herself. She got lost. And how could she not? She was heading to a place that didn't exist, if it could be put into words, she was travelling to a memory. North, West, South, East… it didn't matter, no map could help her. Tauriel would only know she'd gotten there when she got the feeling she had.

She might as well have aimed for Aman, just as impossible.

Days turned into months and perhaps months became years, Tauriel reached a point where keeping track of time was just a whim, folly even. For all she knew she looked the same, Tauriel only noticed time was taking a toll on her when the soles of her shoes were completely destroyed or her clothes were worn out. Every now and then she'd get a horse, but as her journey went on those occasions hardly ever presented.

Some days or nights, when not even her mystical traits could save her from becoming tired, Tauriel opened her bag and fished out a small blank book, along with a plume and ink. There she drew her own maps, took notes of the lands surrounding her, wrote down which berries and plants could be eaten and which were poisonous. Slowly that book became her own treasure, along with Kili's rune stone, which she always kept close to her heart when it was not being gripped to death by her hand.

Oh Tauriel… you have forgotten the sound of your own voice.

And it was true.

She hadn't talked to anybody for so long she believed possible her throat to have magically grown spider webs in her vocal cords, so whenever danger wasn't nearby, and in order to keep her sanity, Tauriel took to singing.

"Ask me not where I'm going,

for I'm carried by the West Wind to a place I have only seen in dreams.

O wandering wind,

you see me walk in empty lands,

under no Moon where the stars no longer shine.

Soon the green grass will turn into sand,

and I'll be left with nothing but my empty heart.

For my foes took everything I ever wanted, that I refused to love,

O great Eru up above…

Help me find who I'm looking for."

One particular night she was bathing in a river she couldn't possibly know the name of, it resembled the Anduin and it ran swiftly down the hill, when she got an odd tingling inside her chest. It tickled. Something told her she needed to go uphill as fast as her legs allowed her, and so she did. Barely managing to dry herself up and putting her clothes back on, Tauriel hid her belongings under the roots of a big tree that grew by the Anduin-like river and sprinted to the top of the hill that was so desperately calling out for her.

Her lack of breath should've embarrassed her, by the time she reached the top she was panting, heaving.

But there she was, she knew deep in her gut she had reached the place she'd started that journey for. Without further ceremony she dropped to her knees and started her litany.

Eru…

Manwe…

Varda…

Ulmo…

Hours. For hours she tried reaching them but to no avail.

"Please! Please! Just… please listen to me…" then tears fell. Ulmo would've been proud of her, no other elf could produce that much water. When Tauriel was on the verge of falling asleep, she realized she had called out to all the Valar except to the one Vala who could actually help her. Or understand her reasons at the very least.

"Aulë…"

She needn't say anything else, for she got an answer.

Like if he had been waiting for her to say his name, Tauriel felt Aulë's touch and then she was lost in light and stars, nature and water… It was hard not to be aware it was all a dream, but it felt so real Tauriel shivered. The first thing she saw was what she presumed was Manwe's throne, next to it, beautiful like no poem or legend could ever describe was Varda.

The great Manwe appeared then; he sat down and waved his hand at someone Tauriel presumed was behind her. Unaware of her body, Tauriel thought she had gone down on one knee but couldn't warrant her life on it. Then she noticed someone was standing beside her.

"Tell me, Aulë, what is this all about."

"This daughter of Eru Ilúvatar is in great pain, I am sure you're not oblivious to it. I brought her here so you could listen to her."

"And why do you care?" Tauriel didn't dare look up.

"Because I feel the pain, too. We share this grief, for it is the loss of three of my most beloved creations that also pains her."

That sentence was followed by silence.

"You're not allowed to have favourites." So he did know what Aulë was talking about.

"But I'm allowed to be fair and to appeal at your sense of justice. I once made the mistake of making decisions on my own without asking for permission, and I won't do it again. That's why I'm here, that's why she's here. The everlasting quarrel between the Naugrim and the Elves might have finally reached its end, union and friendship at last."

"Speak."

This time Tauriel knew Manwe was talking to her.

And so she did. She told him everything.

Manwe didn't respond, he instead told Aulë to come closer, same with Varda. Then Ulmo appeared, along with Yavanna… she could hear Yavanna say she's in love and just as Tauriel was slowly coming back to reality, she noticed they were having a council. They were actually considering what she had respectfully asked of them and what Aulë had wordlessly requested.

Tauriel snapped back to reality with the next blink of her eyes, and she was alone. No Valar. Still she didn't leave. If she left at that point she was sure she'd never get the answer she longed for; so she looked up and for the first time glanced at the night sky with new eyes, it was only when she was trying to locate constellations that she realized she had met the Valar…

"Tauriel."

Sang a voice in the wind and she closed her eyes.

It was all black and spotless, but she knew Aulë was there.

"We won't bring them back. It is not our place to decide who lives and who dies; those decisions belong to The One. Now, there will come a day when alliances will be needed, darkness still wanders Arda in many forms. And it is in favour of peace and the great love Eru Ilúvatar has for his creations, just as much as I love mine, that he has granted us this unique chance to go back, undo what has been done; and perhaps, make it better. For all I know I can't assure you the outcome you desire, but the opportunity is granted. The days will go back, the Sun will turn and the Moon will go back on a path that's already known. Back to that faithful day you will go, and hopefully this time you will save them."

The next time Tauriel opened her eyes she was watching Kili, Fili and Thorin going up Ravenhill.

I am no Tolkien, but I am the writer of this fic and if I say Eru and the Valar support this, they do. I also say this will have perhaps three parts, four if I feel confident enough to write an epilogue.

Review? :)