AN: I have been waiting to write this fanfic since we first heard that Tauriel existed. Obviously it's taken a few turns since then, as we learned more about her and as the movie re-awakened everyone's 17-year-old Legolas fangirl, but for the most part this is going to be about Ladies Doing Stuff.

Spoilers: The entire canon, really.

Disclaimer: You know how many times I've typed out that I don't own this stuff? I don't. But it's a lot.

Rating: PG

Summary: How Tauriel of the Woodland Realm became Tauriel of Middle Earth.

Legolas stood on one of Minas Tirith's many promontories and looked out over a city bathed in starlight. The Enemy was gone, defeated, and while the Mirkwood Prince knew that his heart would never be completely easy now that he had heard the gulls cry on the shores of the sea, he was as still and as content as he had ever been.

Below him, the city slept a well-earned slumber. Only a few torches gave light to the Night Watch, marring the silvery starlight with sooty orange. The White City was quiet at last.

Though he could not see the forest he called home from his lookout, it was very much in his thoughts. Somewhere beneath those great boughs, he knew that his father strove against the remnants of the forces of dark. Surely, soon there would be word.

"Will you not go to you sleep, my lord of the Greenwood?" said a voice from behind him. It was almost familiar, but not quite.

"I do not require it, my lord Steward," he said. "And now that the sky is clear, I find enough rest in looking at the stars."

"You must have been an interesting traveling companion," Faramir said. He rested his gauntleted hands on the battlements and looked out over his city.

"It was an unusual combination of people," Legolas admitted. "I do not think we will see its like again; there will not ever be a need."

"And yet you will elves to Ithilien," Faramir said, "to dwell alongside the Men I bring with me."

"And one dwarf, in all likelihood," Legolas added.

"Elves and dwarves," said Faramir. "Who would have guessed, when the Enemy drove your people apart, that his malice would also serve to bring you back together, to fight against him as allies on the field of battle?"

"I had not considered it in that light," Legolas admitted.

"You did not think peace would come?" Faramir asked.

"I knew it would," Legolas said. "I saw it begin."

In the dark of night, the elf prince's eyes were bright with starlight. That emanation unnerved the best of Men when they saw it in the Lady of the Golden Wood, or in the Lord Glorfindel, but in Legolas, it was a spark that promised warm hearths and safe keeps against the careful watch of night.

"When the great wyrm was slain?" Faramir asked, looking to the North.

"Before that," Legolas said. "In my father's dungeons."

It seemed an odd statement, and even in the dark, Legolas could see the puzzlement on Faramir's face.

"An elf-captain, a friend," he explained, an expression of old feeling on his visage that could not be adequately given words, "softened her heart to a dwarf prince there. I did not know it then, as I was still caught up in my father's preconceptions, but that is when I saw the beginning of peace."

"Does your lady ride to war as mine does?" asked Faramir, ever the discerning eye.

"She does," Legolas said. "But she is not my lady. She is my captain, and my friend. We have both left our forest and been changed by the leaving, but our paths diverged long ago.

"Perhaps not so much," Faramir said after a moment. "You have softened your heart to a dwarf as well."

"I shudder to think of my father's opinion of that," Legolas said ruefully. "Gimli is of Durin's line! And a lord of Erebor! And yet I do not wish for my heart to harden again."

"No more will his, I think," Faramir said. "Together you will make such marvels as to rival the great dwarf and elven craftsmen of old."

"I do not think we shall make anything so fine," Legolas said.

"Fine things got us into this," Faramir said. "Rather I meant good things, of practical use."

"That we shall do," Legolas said. "The King of Men has returned, and for the love we bear, we both shall serve him all his days."

"My father would have words to say on that matter as well," Faramir said. There was a new grief in his voice, and an older one was well, but both were healing.

"The world is new," Legolas said. "And we must be new in thought and deed, or the old perils will return."

"Indeed we shall," Faramir agreed. "Do you think that in your heart there is room for the Steward and his wife, that we may all serve the new days together?"

Legolas took his hand and smiled. Above them, the stars sang a new song.

TBC...