The basic idea for this one-shot has been in my head for months, but after BOFA I wasn't really in the mood to write about Tauriel for quite a while. But now I had to get it out of my head, even though it differs very much from the original draft.
This is a BOFA-AU, more book than movie verse, so no Ravenhill, just one wide battlefield.
(Trigger) warning: canon character death, death wish, blood
Fading light
The sun is setting, slowly making its descent while still fighting to stay just a bit longer, and she wonders how curious it is that, despite everything that has come to pass, this will never change. The sun will rise and fall time and time again, heedless of what happens below its gleaming light. It doesn't matter to the sun and moon that life is short in Middle-earth.
She stumbles across the field, fighting the nausea that threatens to overwhelm her whenever her gaze falls onto yet another mutilated body and praying that please, please, don't let one of them be him. She repeats that prayer in her mind as she forces herself to look at the broken shapes littering the blood-stained ground; she prays and hopes and tries to shut out the noises around her. She can't afford to listen to them.
She has always thought that it was the battle cries, the sounds of blades cutting through flesh and hammers breaking bones, the screams of dying warriors that show the horrors of war. Now she understands that, more than that, it is the silence that follows.
It isn't silence, not really. The screams and cries have long died with those who, mere hours ago, were full of life and spirit. In their stead she finds muffled sobs as father finds son, low moans as yet another soul is carried away, and whispered syllables as last words are spoken before the end. It is an eerie silence, one that strains her heart and makes her want to scream herself just to fill this void.
From time to time she recognises a face. She never slows her steps.
And then, all of a sudden and with no warning, her breath catches in her throat. She is standing close to an enormous warg, the beast lying dead with its throat slit, and slowly she turns her head.
At first she sees only one, the light shade of his hair standing out against the dark ground. She chokes, slowly approaching him, taking in the blood on his torn armour, the hand that is still gripping the hilt of his stained sword, and the wide, open eyes.
She knows, then, before even taking her eyes off him, because where one is, the other will always be found.
His other hand isn't clutching a weapon. Instead it is held by someone else's hand, a hand that she knows, has touched, and now not even the thought he didn't die alone offers any consolation.
She falls to her knees next to him, yet she doesn't dare to touch him, her hands instead hovering above his body for fear he will disappear. She looks down onto his battered body, noticing the small cuts and bruises on his still handsome face and the blood staining his sleeve and chest. She chokes as she perceives his right leg, a bloodied mass of torn muscle and broken bone beneath the remnants of his boot. She understands then what the warg's last act has been, one last act of evil before the end. He would never have walked again.
His face is turned towards his brother. Tear streaks are visible on his cheeks, silvery lines standing out against the dirt and grime, and she supresses a sob when she realises that he wasn't the first to go. He must have been alive long enough to go through the nightmare of losing what he has always held most dear. More than the physical pain he must have gone through, it is that thought that finally makes her cry. She touches his cheek and lets the tears fall onto his chest.
It takes a moment for her to notice what is wrong.
She gasps quietly when she finds his skin warm against her palm. It should be cold, but no snowflakes have settled on him as they have done for the fallen warriors on the field.
"Kíli," she breathes, unable to remember any other words. Her mind is blank as her shaking hands run down his body. Warm blood stains her fingers as her hand comes to rest above his knee, from where the liquid of life slowly, yet steadily, runs into the ground that is already soaked with blood.
Hastily she rips a piece of cloth from her tunic, taking deep breaths to ease the shivering of her fingers. Where there is life, there is hope.
She wraps the cloth around the wound and pulls tight. The bleeding stops as she ties the knot.
"Don't."
She flinches, for a moment being unable to breathe, and she almost doesn't dare to turn her head. A hand on her arm, light and trembling.
"Kíli," she whispers again, shock weakening her voice, and she gazes at him through tear-filled eyes. "Kíli."
Her hand is still securing the knot that holds the bandage in place, but the other finds his, grasping it more forcefully than necessary. He won't go anywhere.
He watches her, never taking his pain-clouded eyes off her, and there is something in those dark irises that makes her heart clench in fear when she ought to be glad to find him alive. His chest is rising ever so slightly, his eyes are open, but there is no life in them.
"My leg," he rasps, "I can't feel it. It's -"
He pauses, breathing in and out and almost breaking her hand in the process. He screws his eyes shut as if he could thus shut out the brutality of it all, and when he opens them again he doesn't look at her but at the still form of his fallen brother next to him. A silent tear forms in the corner of his eye, which keeps lingering there when he turns his head and looks at her again.
She can see the ragged shards of his broken soul in his eyes. They are empty, as empty as the blue ones of his brother in which the last rays of sun are being mirrored before they, too, will fade like the whispers of youth on a battlefield.
The Lonely Mountain is looming in the distance, a huge, black silhouette against the darkening sky. A home. But he will never walk in its halls, he will never run through its corridors or hunt in the woods. Never will the crown of Durin be worn by his king, and never will he find the missing piece of his soul again that has been lost on this field.
But still her senses are screaming against what her heart is trying to tell her.
"You're home, Kíli," she says, "you're home. You belong here."
"I belong with my brother."
The words are but a whisper, strained and laden with grief. He lets go of her hand for a moment, before he lays it onto her right hand instead. She can feel it all, his bloodstained hand on the back of hers, the soaked through bandage beneath her palm, the cold breeze on the back of her neck and the despair clawing her heart. There is still time. Help will come.
"Tauriel," he speaks, and for a second or two her name hangs in the air, a name that she has known for hundreds of years and that yet sounds so different when it is him who says it. "Will you save me… one last time?"
His voice is small and tired, heavy with unshed tears, and as their gazes meet there is a silent plea in his eyes that tugs at her very heart. She understands, although it scares her, for it's something she never wanted to understand, something that hurts her more than anything ever before. A spark of fury stirs in her chest, for how can he ask that of her, how can he cause her this agony? But the spark diminishes before it becomes a fire.
One last time.
The cloth is slippery between her fingers, but her hand is calm, steadied by his touch. The knot gives way far too easily, almost as if it had waited impatiently for this moment.
The blood is warm on her hands.
Their gazes lock as she holds his hand. She knows the other is still tightly gripping his brother's, letting him guide him to the other side, the halls of their fathers. His eyes become clouded, but before his eyelids drop close she can see it.
A small light appears in them, for just the smallest of moments, and his lips curl to an almost invisible smile.
The light fades, but the smile remains as his eyes close. Tears are falling onto his body, freezing where they mingle with the blood, and tiny snowflakes tumble onto his chest that has become still.
"Quel kaima, melamin."
The sun has set at the horizon, the land is dark and cold, and she knows that he has gone where she will never follow. But he is not alone.
There will come a time when she will weep, when she will despair.
And eventually, there will be a time when she will move on, she promises him as she puts a small stone into his hand.
"Amrâlimê."
"Quel kaima, melamin." = Sleep well, my love. (Elvish)
"Amrâlimê." = My love. (Khuzdul)