Kili aimed at the monstrous spider before him. He hit it twice, and it finally crashed to the ground on the third hit. "Fili!" he yelled, seeing his brother wielding his war hammer against another monster.
He heard a clicking noise behind him, and turned to face it, loosing an arrow the moment he had aimed. It thudded into the unnatural face, but before Kili could so much as draw again, something jabbed into his neck, and he fell limp, spinning and bouncing as he fell.
If Kili had thought Mirkwood's air was a drug, he changed his mind now. The world seemed to shimmer before his eyes, growing ever whiter, in strands and layers of criss-crossing glitter. His head seemed fuzzy, and he couldn't string words together.
He couldn't move.
Time passed, and Kili felt no better. He could hear noises, mostly clicking, but could not tell what was happening, nor could he see.
Suddenly, he was moved. The webs tying him up thrummed and bounced, resisting the interference. With a sickening snap, his feet suddenly fell, and he hung there, unable to react, as the web pulled on his hair and his weight hung from his neck.
Suddenly, he was falling, and this time he kept falling, bouncing off something strung between the trees like a sun-damaged trampoline. Finally coming to rest on the forest floor, Kili struggled to free himself.
Weakly, he managed to move, but as he got to his feet, he found himself face to face with a giant spider. Fumbling for his sword, he thrust at it, but his aim was off, and the spider easily knocked his broadsword from his weak hands.
"Kili!" a desperate shout came from a distance away, but Kili had no attention to spare for comforting his brother. Indeed, as he lay on his back staring up at the monster, it was all he could do to keep out of its grasp.
Suddenly someone appeared in the clearing, arrows flying and knives stabbing expertly at the monsters, as if he had been born fighting the beasts. Four or five were taken out efficiently, but as his unexpected rescuer fought off another, yet one more appeared in front of Kili. "Throw me a knife!" he shouted, crawling away from the beast. "Quick!"
"If you think I'm giving you a weapon, you are mistaken," a distinctly feminine voice said, before turning around and throwing, with deadly accuracy, a knife into the face of the spider which had been menacing Kili. He had barely grasped the idea that he was not going to die, before the female warrior was lifting him to his feet, and dragging him towards the other dwarves, apparently now captive.
As the adrenaline wore off, Kili found it harder and harder to maintain consciousness. First his coordination utterly vanished, and the elves finally gave up forcing him to walk, instead picking him up and carrying him like a child. Soon, though, Kili was unable to even guess what was happening, for the world seemed to spin about him, and all sound was muffled. He did not come to any real consciousness, until he heard Fili cursing, and he looked up, finding that he had been set on his feet in what seemed to be an underground cell.
Elves were searching his companions for any remaining weapons, and as Fili was shoved into a cell, yet another knife was taken from him. The female elf who had rescued Kili was closing a barred door in front of him, and he wondered why they weren't searching him. When she answered with a raised eyebrow, Kili realised he'd spoken aloud.
He leaned against the door, using it to anchor himself upright, as the spider's venom continued to wreak havoc with his system.
When the last of the elves left the dungeon, Kili let go of the bars, falling to the floor with a painful grunt.
.
The next thing Kili knew, he was being hauled upright. Panic filled him, and he struggled vainly, but it was fruitless, for he was weak and the elves who grasped him were strong, and simply lifted him from the ground to carry him away.
Where they took him Kili could not say, for it was all he could do to manage to keep his eyes open.
He was placed on his feet on a raised platform, and facing him, sitting on a high carved oak throne, was possibly the most impressive creature he'd ever laid eyes on. The Elvenking? he wondered.
"Why do you not eat?" the king asked, and Kili blinked at the strange question. What?
When Kili did not answer, other than to sway alarmingly, requiring two guards to catch him before he fell, Thranduil climbed down from his throne. "The others tell me that you are starving in the forest, only passing through. I think otherwise. And yet, when given food to eat, you have not so much as touched yours, though already you sway from lack of nourishment. Would you really rather die than speak with me?"
Kili did not understand, though he could tell that the elf was speaking in Westron. Food? Had there been food? Kili did not remember anything since being locked up.
Thranduil frowned at Kili, noticing his vacant eyes. He stepped forward, taking Kili's face in his hand, examining him carefully. "This is no hunger strike," he said, peering into Kili's eyes and creasing his delicate brow. "I thought you said you rescued them from the spiders?" he turned to one of the guards, who nodded.
"He was nearly taken by the last spider, while the rest of the dwarves were being captured. I slew it before it could sting him."
"He is very small," a female healer observed, and Kili bristled at the insult, but his weak twitch was barely noticed by the strong elf grasping his cheeks. Thranduil let Kili go, and the healer came forward, inspecting Kili closely. "He's no larger than a preadolescent elfling. Some of the others might get up and walk – even fight – after a single sting from a spider. I imagine one or two might even shake off two stings. But this one, one sting would keep him down – two would certainly stop his heart. Ah! There it is. Look, he has been stung after all. Perhaps this was not their only encounter with spiders."
Thranduil immediately ordered the guard and the healer to take Kili to the healing wing. A small crease formed between his brows, and he added to the room as Kili was all but dragged out, "Send someone to treat the other small one, the one with the book. And perhaps the blonde one, too, though he may well be fine."
Kili, catching more or less the idea that Ori and Fili were in danger, struggled, but the effort brought him to his knees, and a moment later, he was wrapped in velvety black darkness as the elven women supporting him both reached to catch him as he fell.
.
When Kili woke, he was not in his cell. He was in a small room, furnished with a soft bed and even softer pillow. He sat up, finding his head once again clear, and felt a thick bandage around his shoulder and neck. Numerous small wounds were coated in a foreign paste, one which smelled strange.
A small fire crackled happily in a little fireplace, and Kili smelled food. Getting up from the bed, he saw that a small pot was hung over the fire, and from it issued an enticing smell. A plate with two rolls sat on the bedside table, with a spoon, and a thick cloth.
Kili worked out that the cloth was a kind of oven mitt, and took it to the fireplace, removing the little bowl, which turned out to have a stew inside. It was hot, but not unbearably so, and Kili placed it on the plate beside the bread rolls.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Kili tucked in, finding that the stew tasted even better than it had smelled. It was a lamb casserole, and it equalled his mother's cooking, in his opinion – and not just because it had been days since he last had eaten.
When he'd finished eating, he tried the door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. Digging in his pockets, he found something which Thorin would not approve of him having – a set of lock picks, given to him by Nori as the winnings of a bet. It took him ten times longer than it would have taken Nori, but he did manage to unlock the door, only to come face-to-face with a surprised elf.
Gasping, Kili drew himself up to his full, if unimpressive, height, hiding his lock picks in his pocket quickly.
The elf, getting over his surprise, said, "I see you are awake. If you would come this way…" he trailed off, clearly taken off balance by Kili's sudden appearance, and Kili realised that the elf had been sent to get him from the locked room.
Nodding, Kili walked before the elf, meekly following his directions. Soon they came to a high platform, and once again Kili faced Thranduil.
"You are looking better," Thranduil acknowledged, nodding to Kili, who stood before him silently.
"Why have you brought me here?"
"I would like to offer you a deal. I already know what your quest is. You mean to take back Erebor, and slay the dragon."
"What makes you think I have authority? I am not the leader of this company," Kili replied.
Thranduil raised a single eyebrow. "I knew Thror when he was King Under the Mountain. I knew Thrain, also. And I knew Thorin, and his sister, Dis. You have the same look about you. In any case, Thorin was not taken in with the rest of your company. If he has, indeed, perished in the forest alone, that would make you the leader, I think."
Fear filled Kili's heart. Thorin had not been taken in with the others? He wondered briefly whether Bilbo had, but quickly dismissed the troubling thoughts. Thranduil did not know that Fili was actually Thorin's heir. That was good, he hoped.
"Who told you of our quest?" he said instead. "If what you say is true, I cannot allow such a traitor to remain in my company."
"Does it matter?" Thranduil shot back, stepping away from Kili. "Your company is locked up, and will not be going anywhere. But I did not need a traitor to tell me of your quest. There is only one reason Dwarves would be in this part of the world. I will not let you awaken that beast, even if I must keep you here for a hundred years. I will not risk my people against that monster."
"Would it not be preferable that the dragon be slain?" Kili asked, enjoying his moment of role-play as leader. When Thranduil discovered that Kili had no authority, no doubt Kili would be locked up and forgotten. For now, though, he might have a chance to get them free.
"But how many lives will Smaug take with him? Too many. If you do succeed, what then? How do you plan to hold the Mountain, once you take it? A dozen dwarves will not hold back the armies of goblins, orcs, and perhaps even men who would try to take the treasure."
A dozen! Kili thought happily. Fili was definitely alive, then, as were all the others. But was Bilbo the missing member? Or had Thranduil simply rounded the number, perhaps to unnerve Kili? Not so happy, Kili carefully formulated his next words.
"Dragons can be killed, if one can only get close enough."
Suddenly Thranduil stepped close to him, bending down to place his face immediately before Kili's. A strange shifting appeared in his left cheek, as if the flesh was melting from his face in a furnace – or, Kili thought with horror, dragon's fire – and the eye glazed over with white, as if burned. Staring, transfixed, Kili could do nothing but watch and listen as Thranduil hissed with pain. "You know nothing of dragons!" Thranduil groaned, shaking his head as if to clear it, and the tortured pain seemed to leave his expression as the ruin of his face was covered, as if by some magic, to once again appear unblemished and perfect.
"I have faced the Serpents of the North. I know their wrath and ruin. If you waken that beast, it will destroy us all – from Laketown to the wood, and your kin in the Iron Hills to the east."
"What is it you want?" Kili asked, still reeling from the exposition.
"Go home, or stay here as honoured guests. Stay as prisoners, if that is to your liking. If you go to Erebor alone, you will fail, and the beast will destroy the Rhovanion. Smaug knows the smell of dwarves. He knows that the descendants of Erebor live on, and he knows that they wish to reclaim their kingdom. He is ready for you, he has been so for sixty years."
"You wish for this stalemate to continue?" Kili asked. "For the children of Durin to live as wanderers, indefinitely, displaced from Khazad-dûm and from Erebor, we who were once the mightiest Kingdoms of all the Dwarves?"
"It is better than walking into the dragon's lair, to unleash death upon all in the North."
With that, two elves took Kili away from the King, back towards the locked room in the healing wing. One was the shorter redhead who had saved him in the forest, the other was taller, the one who had been surprised to find Kili out of his cell.
Kili chattered as they walked, and soon discovered their names; Tauriel and Encalion. It seemed that Tauriel was Encalion's Captain, and they did not get on all too well, and somehow Encalion's father was involved.
In the cell, the healer who had diagnosed him waited with materials to change his bandage. Kili noticed that the door remained open, and the two guards remained on either side of it, while the healer introduced herself and treated Kili.
Brethildíl was her name, and Kili chattered while she worked on his neck and shoulder, occasionally hissing when the various substances she put on the wound stung or burned. He asked her about her hair, and if she was half hobbit, for he'd seen no other race with hair so curly, but she laughed it off, claiming that curls ran in her family, and asking of the true nature of a hobbit, for she'd thought them merely fairy tales.
"We passed through the Shire a few months ago," Kili said as Brethildíl prepared some kind of fluid in a small glass phial. "They are very small creatures, and very happy. You would fit right in."
"Oh? What makes you say so?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she glanced at him.
"Your smile," he answered without missing a beat. "You look like a happy person. I'm a happy person. We could run away together, you know, go to the Shire, and be happy people away from all those nasty spiders."
Brethildíl laughed, her curls bouncing as she tilted her head back. "Indeed! I think my father and my brother might have a thing or two to say about that, not to mention my mother, who reminds me every day that she had to push out my big head."
Kili snorted, but let out a strangled scream when she turned around, holding up the glass phial – which, he now saw, had a pointed end, broken, with a tiny drop of fluid already forming on the tip. "What is that for?" he asked, retreating until he ran into the wall.
"It's just a needle," Brethildíl answered with a roll of her bright green eyes. "Now hold still, it needs to go as close to the wound as I can get."
"You're not putting that anywhere near me!" Kili screeched, staring at the needle as if it were a dragon.
"It's antidote," the healer explained patiently. "I gave you the first dose while you were unconscious. You need the second dose to finish off anything left in your system."
"No!" Kili immediately declared, trying to shrink into the very wall.
Brethildíl rolled her eyes, and called for the guards. "Tauriel, Encalion? I need you to hold him still."
Kili suddenly found himself lying on his belly on the hard bed, Encalion and Tauriel having manhandled him with frightening efficiency, held down by Brethildíl's full weight as she sat on his back, Tauriel immobilising his arms and Encalion restraining his legs. A hand gently brushed his hair away from his neck, and he suddenly froze as he felt something sharp against the muscle between his shoulder and neck.
"Good, Kili, now, relax, and it won't hurt," Brethildíl said, removing the corner of her nail from his neck and holding the needle, aiming for the slight indentation left by her nail. Kili forced himself to relax, holding his breath. "Keep breathing," Brethildíl instructed, and as Kili took a breath, she readied her hand.
As he exhaled, she plunged the needle into the muscle, right on target. Kili grunted and twitched, but she'd already removed the needle, now empty of antidote. She rubbed soothing circles into his shoulder, adding her other hand to his other shoulder as soon as she'd placed the needle on the nearby table. "Good, now relax, Kili," she murmured soothingly, "the antidote needs to get into the wound." She soon stopped speaking, though, and Tauriel and Encalion relaxed their iron grips on his limbs. "Is he… asleep?" Brethildíl asked, as Tauriel checked his face, clapping beside his ear to check that he wasn't faking it so that he might escape.
"I think he's… fainted?" Encalion asked, looking up at Brethildíl from where he crouched in front of the dwarf.
The healer climbed off Kili's back and checked for herself. "He's actually fainted," she confirmed. "I've never seen someone so afraid of needles. Do dwarves really not have them?" She resumed massaging the antidote into his upper trapezius muscle as Tauriel and Encalion gaped.
"I had heard they don' use them, because it's so easy for infection to set in," Tauriel mused. "Perhaps he's never had a needle?"
"Nonsense," Brethildíl immediately stated, pausing her massage for a moment. "How else do they treat venom?
"Should we get a senior healer?" Encalion asked.
"No, I already ran the treatment past Aldariel and Gillion," Brethildíl declared. "They said he might need a second booster if he continues feeling fuzzy. We'll monitor him."
"I'm supposed to be guarding the cells in half an hour," Encalion told the women after a few minutes of waiting. "How long do you think it will take for him to wake?
.
Bilbo was skulking around the lower palace, in yet another fruitless attempt to find the remaining dwarves' cells, when the elves in the vicinity abruptly froze, all eyes immediately trained on a winding staircase. The hobbit's keen ears could clearly hear yipping and barking, loud shouts, and was that a dwarf's laughter?
Without a word, every elf ran down the staircase, shouting and pushing past each other, except one elven lady who sat down, placed her head in her hands, and groaned, "stupid, Ellen, you should have known better than to leave Encalion and Galenmir with the keys. Now the dwarves have a hostage, and are free!"
Bilbo did not wait to see what else the elven maid might do, for the moment the staircase was clear he ran swiftly down.
He ran down at least two flights of twisting stairs before a long corridor opened up in front, where a crowd of elves jostled past each other to see what was happening. Bilbo slipped around the edges of the crowd, spied a window sill which opened out onto the level of the forest floor, and climbed up to perch on his odd seat. Now able to see over the heads of the many elves, Bilbo had to clap a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter.
A single cell was the centre of attention, still locked, and inside was Fili, shrieking with laughter as he jogged and jumped around something on the floor of his cell. He seemed not to have noticed his audience, who were staring at him with wide mouths, for all his attention was on something which seemed to be moving about the floor, yipping loudly.
Craning his neck, Bilbo caught a glimpse of it as it ran into a corner. A puppy!
It was tiny, barely reaching Fili's ankles, with pure white fur neatly shorn. As Fili reached down to it, it yipped, and snapped at his outstretched fingers, causing Fili to shriek with laughter and dance away from the pup. The pup followed him, barking and jumping, until the dwarf repeated his action, and it tried again to snag his fingers.
"Oh!" Fili froze upon noticing his audience. Wide eyes met a crowd of wide eyes, and Fili gulped. "I swear I didn't hurt him," he said in a rush, holding his hands up in the air.
The puppy yipped, drawing everyone's attention to itself. Its tongue lolled as it panted, and it pranced around, trying to get Fili to continue playing with it.
A plain-looking elven lady pushed through the crowd, and knelt in front of the bars, stretching a hand out to the puppy. "Ithil, come," she commanded, causing the pup to glance at her, but it returned its attention to Fili immediately. "Ithil! It's time to go home now," she tried again, but the pup only wagged its tail and nipped at Fili's boots. She stood back up, flicked her brown hair over her pointed ear, and said to the elves, "get Lothlomë. I will wait here."
One elf vanished, but the rest stayed where they stood. "Aren't you all supposed to be working?" she snapped, and every single one turned and left immediately. The lady slumped, and sat on the floor before Fili's cell, wrapping long, thin arms around her knees. Bilbo noticed that she was heavily muscled, the definition showing through even her breeches and sleeved shirt.
Ithil climbed up Fili's leg, balancing on its back legs, and begged Fili to keep playing.
The lady sighed. "You can play with the puppy, dwarf. Just don't hurt it. I make no promises regarding the princess when she discovers that her puppy had taken a liking to a dwarf, though."
"Fili," the dwarf said as he relaxed and allowed the puppy to snap at his fingers once more.
"Sorry?"
"My name is Fili. Does Ithil belong to the princess, then?" he asked.
"No," the lady answered mildly. "Ithil is mine, but he thinks otherwise. He doesn't listen to me, though, because he's noticed that I always do what the princess says. It's my job, you see. I'm her maid."
Fili laughed at the puppy's antics and danced out of its reach before glancing back to the lady. "You have a cheeky puppy, Miss Maid," he observed with a cheeky grin.
"Lauruial," she returned her own cheeky grin, eyes lighting up. Bilbo tried to be quiet as he climbed down from his window sill, but couldn't help making a sound as his feet hit the floor. Luckily, Fili's chuckle and a yap from Ithil masked the noise, and Lauruial did not notice Bilbo's invisible presence.
"I'll never get my tongue round that!" Fili laughed, earning himself another gentle nip above his boot when he glanced at the elf. "I'll call you Rui," he declared, causing Lauruial to laugh, shaking her head.
"In that case I'll be calling you Fili-of-the-cheek, and I'll keep it in Westron so that others might wonder at the meaning."
"Now I understand why you're the elf-maid with the cheeky dog!" Fili returned without missing a beat.
Someone came running in, coming to a stop only when she slammed into the windowsill where Bilbo had so recently been sitting. "So it's true!" she gasped, turning around to behold Fili and Lauruial and Ithil as she panted, as if from running. Bilbo noticed her unruly golden hair as her defining feature, the waves pulling themselves free of delicate braids and a thin circlet. Her face was flushed red, and the front of her skirts were crushed where she'd held them up while running.
"Where have you been, Princess?" Lauruial asked, using the bars to pull herself to her feet. "It's rather hard to be your bodyguard when I can't find you."
"Oh, you're my bodyguard now?" the princess returned with a glint in her eye. "You're a much better maid."
Lauruial rolled her dark eyes with a long-suffering sigh. "Lothlomë, just get my puppy and we can go."
"I'm supposed to be the one giving orders, not you. Besides, now that I have a chance, I'd like to meet one of the oh-so-fierce dwarves. I thought they were supposed to be dangerous? This one looks more like a teddy bear."
"Teddy bear?" Fili gasped, laying a hand over his heart melodramatically. "You wound me, Oh High Princess May. Give me my weapons, and take this puppy from me, and you shall be met with a lion!"
Lothlomë simply laughed, the bell-like tinkling lightening the room. Bilbo felt his heart lift at the pure sound, and wondered if this was elven magic. The princess knelt before the cell door, and reached a hand inside, towards the puppy who sat, staring up at Fili with his tongue lolling out as he panted.
"Ithil, come with Lothlomë," she said in a gentle voice. "It's time to go home now, Ithil. Come with Lothlomë."
Ithil obediently walked to Lothlomë, but not before fondly rubbing his nose against Fili's boot. He slipped through the bars easily, being so unbelievably small, and the princess scooped him up in one hand.
Lauruial sighed happily, and rose, patting her puppy on the head. "What will I do with you?" she asked fondly, before meeting Fili's eyes. "I imagine he'll find his way back here again. Don't hurt him, master Lion."
Fili leaned against the bars as the princess and her maid/bodyguard started to walk away. "Until next time, Rui, May," he murmured, and knew they had heard by the way each lady paused for a moment, before continuing towards the stairs.
The moment the ladies were gone, Bilbo came up to the door, and whispered, "Fili? Fili, it's Bilbo."
"Bilbo?" Fili asked, wide eyes searching the seemingly empty corridor.
"I've got my ring, I'm invisible. I'm at the bars."
"Bilbo, it's really you!" Fili glanced towards the stairs to see if anyone had heard him speaking, and continued in a whisper when he saw no sign of elves approaching. "Can you get us out? Is Kili alright? What about Thorin?"
"Slow down, Fili!" Bilbo hushed the young dwarf's flow of questions. "I haven't found Kili yet, but that doesn't mean anything. I only found you because I followed the elves – they all thought they would find all the dwarves free and taking a dog hostage, goodness knows why."
"You haven't found Kili yet?" Fili asked, cutting Bilbo off.
Bilbo sighed. "No, I haven't, not yet, but until half an hour ago I hadn't found you, and you're fine, so Kili's probably fine, too. I know where everyone is except Kili and Thorin, but I haven't explored everywhere yet."
"Do you have a plan to get out?"
Bilbo shook his head, then remembered he was invisible. "No, not yet. But I do know when all their parties are."
"Parties?" Fili asked incredulously. "What do you care about parties for?"
"The elves have a number of celebrations in the coming weeks. However we escape, it has to be on one of those nights – the guard will be nearly non-existent. It's amazing what you can learn about elves by snooping around invisible. Did you know they only celebrate their first hundred and forty-four birthdays? After that, they celebrate each hundred and forty-fourth year. Tonight is the celebration of the Queen's birthday, so the palace will be more or less empty."
Fili was staring at Bilbo as if he had two heads. "Can we get out tonight, then?" he asked, but Bilbo kept babbling as if the dwarf had never spoken.
"In four days, it's the Third Autumn Feast – apparently there are six, and we stumbled upon the second when we got caught. They are fortnightly, but in elf-speak, so that is really twelve days – did you know Elves count in sixes? Then there's the Feast of Starlight, where the Elves celebrate the first waking of the elves, when the world was new. There's another three birthdays, but they are going to be smaller parties, the whole realm isn't invited, so we won't be able to count on a smaller guard, but the fourth is the Prince Consort, I think that's the husband of one of the Princesses, and everyone's going to that."
Fili interrupted again, but Bilbo ploughed on, ignoring his uninterested audience.
"Oh, and at the end of autumn there's the greatest feast of them all –honestly I'd love to see it, it sounds fascinating – which they call the Ghost Feast, as near as I can make it. They all dress up like demons and go out into the forest, where they hold competitions and tell terrifying stories. They make a drink in great barrels, and it looks like they are drinking blood because it stains their lips. Then they have a great feast, where they use up all the perishable items which will not keep in winter, and the food is all themed, so it looks like they are eating spiders and worms and drinking blood."
"That's fascinating," Fili said, as Bilbo drew a breath, "but it's too late. We have to be at the Mountain's hidden door by the last day of autumn, or this whole journey was a waste. We can't wait until next year, for others will try to claim what is ours. We have to escape before that time! And we'll need time to travel there, Laketown is almost five days away, and then it's another full day to get to the Mountain itself, and we'll still need to find the hidden door. Dwarf made doors can be completely invisible when closed; it could take us all day to find the place!"
Bilbo frowned as he considered Fili's points – all of which were quite valid, and Bilbo already was aware of, to some extent. "We need to escape during one of the Autumn Feasts," he declared finally. "The Feast of Starlight will be out last chance, before time runs out. I need to get the keys, figure out a way out, and find Kili and Thorin. Two elf-weeks is plenty of time."
"Great!" Fili said, grasping the bars and grinning at the place he thought Bilbo's voice was coming from (really it was a little too far to the left, and Fili was looking just over Bilbo's ear). "We'll be out of here in twelve days, at the most! Get to it, Master Burglar!"
"I'm going, I'm going," Bilbo huffed, before stomping off down the corridor, hoping that Kili might be found in one of the nearby passages, for Bilbo had not explored this section yet.
.
Four hours later, Bilbo finally found Kili, though he wasn't in a cell. He'd heard some elves discussing a dwarf in the healing wing, and Bilbo happened upon the two guards who were escorting Kili from the healers to a cell. Kili was paler than usual, but seemed otherwise alright, and white bandages peeked out from under the edge of his blue tunic.
Bilbo recognised one of the elves who escorted Kili from the fight with the spiders, when they'd been captured. She was less tall than her fellows, with long red hair and a powerful bow strapped to her back. As they walked, Kili chattered away, glancing up at her with an impish grin. She scowled back, raised an eyebrow, or replied with a cutting remark, but Kili's grin never failed.
The other was not dressed in a guard's uniform, and Bilbo wondered if she was a healer. She wore a flowing dress which reached past her knees, in a pretty green which brought out her emerald eyes. Her dark hair was even curlier than Bilbo's, marking her stand out from the thousands of Elves with dead straight hair – indeed, Bilbo had seen only a handful with wavy hair, and only the Elvenking's bodyguard had curls to match this girl's.
The two women lead Kili unerringly down corridors and stairways, and all the while Kili flirted outrageously, first with the redhead, and then with the brunette. Bilbo stifled a giggle as the redhead glared at the healer over Kili's head, but managed to stay silent and undiscovered.
Finally, Kili was locked in a cell only a short distance away from Fili's, by Bilbo's reckoning. The escorts left him alone, and Kili called out as they left, "I look forward to your next visit, Brethildíl and Tauriel!"
"You know," Bilbo said, startling Kili with his seemingly disembodied voice, "if Thorin or Dwalin hears that you've been flirting with elves they'll probably leave you behind when we escape."
"Bilbo?" Kili asked incredulously, staring up and down the corridor as well as he could through the bars.
"I'm invisible, you won't see me. I'm right in front of you."
"Bilbo! Have you seen the others? Did anyone else get stung? The elves won't tell me anything!"
Bilbo smothered a chuckle at Kili's questions. "So you've been in the healing wing, then? I was getting worried that I couldn't find you."
Kili nodded, absentmindedly pulling at his collar, where the bandage likely itched. "Apparently I collapsed when they were trying to take me to a cell. Tauriel says I'm lucky Brethildíl was there, because she recognised the signs of spider venom."
"Is Brethildíl a healer, then?"
"She's also a warrior," Kili stated with a wistful smile. "She was in the patrol which caught us. I owe my life to both of them."
"Thorin won't like to hear that," Bilbo commented, and Kili groaned.
"All my life Thorin has told me that elves are heartless creatures who turn away from those in need, but that is not what I have seen. Admittedly, those in Rivendell have no idea how to party, but that's not such a major failing. Tauriel saved me from the spiders when I lost my weapons. Brethildíl saved me from the venom that was already in my system – she says another sting would have killed me on the spot."
"Do you flirt with anyone who saves you, then?" Bilbo asked cheekily. Kili blushed.
"No!" he immediately claimed. "I was trying to find out about the others! They wouldn't tell me anything, but I soon discovered that flattery and flirtation made them open up a bit!"
"I'd be careful if I were you, the King's bodyguard looks like he might be the brother or father of that healer, and he's more muscular than Dwalin, and twice as tall. You might regret making a move on her, if he finds out."
Kili paled visibly, and sat down, hugging his knees. "I never meant anything by it," he said sullenly. "It was just a bit of fun, and it nearly worked, anyway – I know that Thorin and Fili are alive, at the very least."
Bilbo sat down beside Kili, reaching out to touch his shoulder through the bars. "I spoke to Fili a few hours ago. He's fine, and he's made a friend, though I doubt he'll be of any help to get us out of here. Perhaps your girlfriends can, though."
Kili ignored the girlfriends comment, instead looking at Bilbo's right ear and asking, "Fili's made a friend here?"
Bilbo chuckled. "Not an elf, though he's well on the way to becoming friends with a princess and her bodyguard. It's the puppy."
Kili's face melted into an expression of tender adoration. "A puppy?" he asked, rolling onto his knees and bouncing intently like a child begging for a story.
"It's tiny, small enough to be picked up in one hand. Its fur is pure white, and its nose barely reaches my ankle. When he stands up, he can almost reach Fili's knee, and he tries to bite Fili's fingers. His name is Ithil, and he doesn't come when his owner calls, because he's cheeky, and knows that his owner – the Princess's bodyguard – takes orders from the Princess, and so he copies her."
"Ithil sounds adorable," Kili crooned, looking down at his clasped hands. "I wish I had a puppy to play with. Mum let us have one when we were kids, but when it grew old and frail she refused to get us another."
"I can try to lure the puppy down here, I think we're not too far from Fili's cell," Bilbo offered, and Kili's face lit up.
"Really? You'd do that for me?" Kili asked, his smile growing when Bilbo confirmed that he would try. "Bilbo, you're the best!" Kili cried, jumping to his feet and doing a little happy dance.
"I'm going to go now, Kili," Bilbo said, causing the young dwarf's face to collapse into worry as he turned to face Bilbo (well, very nearly, he was actually looking at Bilbo's left shoulder). "I'll do what I can about the puppy, but I'm also trying to find Thorin, and figure out a way out. I know when – there's a whole series of parties coming up, we can escape during one – but I still don't know a way."
He was still fumbling around and searching for a way a week later, until he happened upon some young elves grumbling about barrel duties, and discovered them sending off the empty barrels from the most recent Autumn Feast. Suddenly, Bilbo had an idea, one which would have to wait until the Feast of Starlight.
.
Tauriel slipped into the shadows on the edge of the clearing. It was a lovely party, by all means, but she just didn't feel in a partying mood. Encalion and Brethildíl were waltzing around the clearing, her dress skimming over the grass like a whisper in the wind. Nearby, Legolas and his cousin Aldanna were dancing, and Tauriel was amused to see the younger female warrior in a gossamer gown. Lothlomë and the twins Gilloth and Melloth had formed a little circle in the centre of the clearing, enclosing Queen Aldariel, who blushed from all the attention, and begged her daughter and granddaughters to let her free.
Tauriel watched for a while, swilling her wine in its goblet, and enjoying the party atmosphere. Thranduil soon arrived, and stole his Queen for a dance, to the disappointment of the young women, but Tauriel could see the smiles in the girls' eyes as they began their next order of business; enchant the single men.
Someone came up beside Tauriel, and she groaned when she saw Rílglín, her best friend and also the most annoying person on the planet. He'd joined a different section of the guard to Tauriel, going on missions mainly to the southern parts of the forest, while Tauriel had fought her way into the Home Guard. Somehow, though he was only a common footsoldier and she an accomplished Captain, he always tried to rub it in her face that he was more important to the defence of the realm.
"Rílglín," she greeted him coldly.
He didn't even flinch, just grinned exuberantly. "Tauriel!" he returned, eyes lighting up as if he was surprised to see her there.
"What are you doing in my air?" she asked, glaring at him. She raised one dangerous eyebrow as he threw an arm around her shoulders.
"I've missed you, dear Tauriel," he crooned, raising his own glass of wine in his left hand and taking a rather large sip. "It's dark in the south without you to light my days."
"It's dark in the south, period," she retorted. "Though I've noticed that you have a way of darkening any room you enter."
"You wound me, oh Tauriel!" He placed one hand over his heart, sloshing the last drips of wine all over Tauriel. She grumbled, but did not resist when he pulled her into a hug.
The sky was veiled, and the stars hid. Feast of Starlight indeed, Tauriel thought bitterly. There is no starlight tonight.
"You're drunk, Rílglín," Tauriel accused him. He simply shrugged, putting on his best innocent face. It didn't work on Tauriel, she'd known him too long – she'd trained with him for a hundred years, after all. "I'm going to check on my prisoners."
"You can't take the credit!" he shouted as she turned to leave. "It was Legolas and Tathar who found them!"
Tauriel glanced back over her shoulder, and looked him dead in the eye. "And whose fault is that?"
.
The next morning, Brethildíl woke to find that nothing was the same as it had been when she'd gone to the party the previous evening. Her patient had vanished from his new cell, along with all the other dwarves. Orcs had attacked the water-gate, killing some of the guards. Tauriel and Legolas had been reported missing. The gates were closed, and no-one was allowed in or out of the kingdom.
The warrior-healer did not quite know what to make of it all.
She asked around at breakfast, and discovered from her brother that the dwarves had escaped through the water gate while the orcs attacked, and one had been shot by the orcs. Concerned, she went to the gate, where she found guards standing tall and grim, all searching the forest carefully for any sign of attack.
Something in the water caught the healer's eye, and she climbed closer, clinging to the stonework to reach the object. She shuddered as she pulled it back, for it was an orcish arrow, with the head broken off. Splinters worked their way into her hands as she inspected it, and by the time she had climbed back out of the space under the portcullis, she had many small splinters caught in her skin.
One of the dwarves was injured, she realised.
In the full daylight, and perched now on solid ground, she inspected the arrow more carefully. A dreadful realisation that the dwarf was already dead gripped her heart, for she had seen arrows like this before; treatment was futile. There was only one way to save such a patient, it could only be performed once by an elf, and cost the healer their immortality.
No elf would reach the dwarf in time, Brethildíl knew. No elf would willingly sacrifice his or her forever for a dwarf, she also knew.
She herself could not imagine such a sacrifice; giving up your fëa, your immortality, your ticket to Valinor, your spirit-world presence – it was like giving up your immortal soul, leaving you with only mortal years, doomed to die.
I'm sorry, she thought, looking over the parapet towards Laketown. I'm so sorry that one of you must die such a painful death.
She had only known one of the dwarves, and there was a great chance that the cursed one was not Kili, but Brethildíl's healer's heart told her that her patient was the one in trouble.
Her patient was going to die, and there was nothing Brethildíl could do about it.
But that didn't mean she wasn't going to try.
.
Sigrid stared at Tauriel, amazed by the elf's wonderful magic. "Can all elves do that?" she asked, finally joining Tauriel on the small balcony. The elf looked at her, smiled wistfully, and looked back to the stars.
"Yes, and no," she answered finally, causing Sigrid to remember the old adage, ask not an elf for advice, for they will say both yes and no.
"What do you mean?" Sigrid pressed, leaning against the rail in order to look sideways into Tauriel's face. She remained staring at the stars, took a breath, and finally answered in a soft voice.
"Elves live with a foot in each of two worlds; the spirit world and the real world. The spirit word is not a nice place, full of dark creatures which suck the light and joy out of the world, like orcs, and yet also full of the brilliant light and power of elves. The older an elf is, the stronger and more powerful he is in the spirit world, and the more he is feared by dark creatures. All elves have this spirit presence, that we call a fëa. Our fëar are our strength, and our power, and is the part of us that will be reborn across the sea if we are so unlucky as to fall in battle."
Sigrid listened without interrupting, for she understood that Tauriel would get to the point in her own time.
"Elf magic, you might say, is what I did to Kili. Oin was right when he said it is a great privilege to see it, for it is rare that it is performed. There is a cost. Every life saved must be paid for."
Sigrid stayed silent as Tauriel gathered her thoughts. What did it cost you, she wanted to ask, but instead she waited.
"You might say that elves have two lives, the life in their body and the life in their spirit. The life in each world, you could say. To save someone from morgul, black sorcery, is more than to save them from a simple injury or illness. It is not stealing their body back from death; it is stealing their soul from servitude to Morgoth, the greatest evil in this world. Where a healer must invest time and energy to save a body, they must invest their spirit to save a soul."
All this talk of souls, spirits and other abstract concepts was confusing Sigrid, who had always been very practical, but she tried to envision what Tauriel was talking about.
"I had to give up my spirit to save Kili," Tauriel finally stated after a short silence.
"What happens to your spirit?" Sigrid asked after another silence, as she digested what Tauriel was saying.
The elf sighed heavily. "It is gone, it is in Kili, it doesn't exist anymore, I cannot say. Perhaps it has replaced Kili's soul as a servant of darkness. I hope not. Perhaps Kili might live forever, though I doubt that, it is far too poetic. Perhaps, if he so desired, Kili could sail west with my kin. I cannot say."
.
Fili stood just inside the little wooden house, in the shadows, where Sigrid and Tauriel did not notice him. Tauriel had given up her immortality for his little brother? He'd overheard the whole conversation while helping little Tilda with dinner, and could not believe his ears.
Kili was still asleep, having fallen into an exhausted slumber after Tauriel had healed him. Fili was still in awe of the elf's presence, and he recalled the magical glow, like starlight but a million times brighter, which had surrounded her as she'd prayed and chanted over Kili's wound.
She was beautiful, there was no doubt about that, and Fili was eternally grateful that she had saved Kili. He was not entirely sure why she had done it, though. She'd actively disobeyed her prince to stay in order to heal Kili, and Fili thought he'd seen the elf riding out of Laketown alone after the orcs.
Would the prince die because Tauriel had stayed with the dwarves?
Would Tauriel be an outcast among her people, now that she had no spirit?
Would Kili die anyway? The thought startled Fili out of his trance. Oin had said that Kili was not out of the woods yet, as the original wound was still a threat.
"Tauriel? Sigrid?" he asked, causing the two women to turn around. Sigrid looked worn, older than she really was, and it broke Fili's heart to see the girl prematurely saddled with responsibility. And they say that Bard's is one of the luckier families in Laketown, Fili thought sadly. "Dinner is ready," he told them, causing them to nod and follow him inside.
Sure enough, Tilda was ordering Bofur around in the kitchen, saying that Fili had vanished, and she wasn't allowed to touch the stovetop, and so Bofur had to take the pot off the heat. Fili chuckled upon seeing the little girl ordering the dwarf around, and heard Tauriel and Sigrid laughing behind him. Bofur stuck his tongue out, and turned around to place the pot on the bench, only to cause all three members of his audience to collapse into howls of laughter, at the sight of him wearing an apron clearly made by a young human girl, judging by the bright colours and the embroidered bunny on the front.
.
They had barely divided up the bowls before a frantic knocking sounded at the door, and all eyes turned to the door. Sigrid answered it tentatively, and a second female elf stood on the lintel, eyes wide as she stared at Sigrid. "Tauriel?" she asked, and Tauriel appeared from the kitchen.
"Brethildíl?" she asked, and the other elf sagged with relief.
"Come in, have something to eat," Sigrid said, gesturing the elf inside now that she knew she was a friend.
"Thank you," Brethildíl accepted the offer, taking her cloak off as she entered.
"This is Brethildíl," Tauriel introduced her to the human girls and the dwarves. "She is a healer, she treated Kili while he was affected by the spider venom."
"Kili was poisoned?" Oin asked, and the new elf nodded.
"Nothing serious, he just needed a couple doses of antidote. He was fine when I discharged him, before you lot escaped. I don't care how you did it," she held up a hand when Bofur started to talk. "I just want to know who was injured on the way out, and is he still here?"
"Kili," Tauriel stated darkly. "He's asleep upstairs. I saved him from morgul, but I cannot get to the arrowhead, which I fear is still inside."
"No," Fili argued. "Kili took it out when we met Bard. I bound the wound myself."
"I could feel its presence, Brethildíl," Tauriel argued.
"Let me see him," she demanded, but Tauriel pushed her into a seat at the table, and Sigrid placed a bowl before her.
"You look like you've been running all day. Eat, then you can have a look at him," Tauriel declared.
Brethildíl was introduced to Sigrid, Tilda, Fili, Bofur and Oin while they ate, and finally was allowed to inspect Kili's wound. Oin and Fili hovered over her shoulder, and Tauriel was little better, while the elven healer poked and prodded. "There is a shard. Lord Elrond once showed me how to remove these, though he said I would likely never need to use the skill. I need tweezers, a small, very sharp knife, a needle, thread, and something to sterilise everything – fire or strong alcohol."
Sigrid immediately went to her room, emerging, red-faced, with a bottle which she pressed into Brethildíl's hands. "Don't ask why I have this," she warned, before going to look for the other items. Fili produced a tiny dagger from deep inside his coat, and Tauriel sighed when she realised that the dwarf had possessed this throughout the time he was captured, for it was clearly of dwarf make.
.
The elven healer found the fragment, a tiny shard of the arrowhead buried deep in Kili's thigh muscle. "Got it," Brethildíl declared, holding it up to the light in the tweezers to ensure she had got the whole thing. Bofur disposed of it in the fireplace, watching as it melted before his eyes.
The elves determined that there were no more shards, and Oin helped Brethildíl to close the wound. "It was a near thing," Brethildíl commented as she sewed. "If it had reached the femoral vein, it would have gone straight up the highway to the heart, and he would be lost, even after Tauriel's efforts. He will live," she declared, and the moment she had finished sewing, she was wrapped in a tight hug by Fili.
"Thank you for saving my brother," he said, squeezing her tight. Sitting on the stool, she was about the right height for him to hug, when he stood up. He turned to Tauriel a moment later, hugging her, too. She squeaked at first, but then patted the little dwarf on the head, smiling wryly at Brethildíl.
"Thorin will reward you both handsomely for saving the prince," Oin told them, and Brethildíl whipped around, while Tauriel raised one eyebrow.
"Oin, the prince is the one I let chase a dozen orcs alone," she said slowly, but Oin shook his grey head.
"I'm not talking about that one," he stated.
"Didn't you know?" Fili asked incredulously, but judging by the four females' faces, they didn't. "Kili and I are Thorin's nephews. When Erebor is reclaimed, we'll be princes. I certainly plan to reward you all most handsomely, as soon as I have my share of the treasure!"
"You're a prince?" a tiny voice said.
Fili smiled at little Tilda. "Do I meet your expectations, my lady?" he asked, sweeping into a deep bow and causing Tilda to giggle.