"May I ask you something, Legolas?" Gimli said. "About the stone your friend carries."
"It was a runestone carried by one of the company of Thorin Oakenshield." Legolas said, and Gimli stopped in his tracks. The others stopped with him, and the ranger glanced between the dwarf and the elf.
"What is its significance?"
"It is a talisman, lad," Gimli answering for the elf, stunned. "The rune stone bears a promise, given to a loved one. They are not handed out like mere rocks."
"The stone was not made for her, but it was given to her." Legolas said. The dwarf was staring at Legolas.
"The stone was given, not made for her?"
"There was little time for sentiment and carving, my friend," Legolas said wryly. "Barely a day after that was the battle."
"And the dwarf died." Aragorn surmised, eyeing his friend. "Or would she not be with him, and look less grieved when she must discuss it?"
"Oakenshield?" Gimli exclaimed, eyes wide. "Or one of his nephews?" It looked like neither option him.
"I will speak no more of this," Legolas murmured, and strode on.
"You have never spoken of her," Aragorn said, and though his tone was somewhat sharp it was not unkind.
"Tauriel has been banished for decades." Legolas answered, and Gimli felt himself stiffen. Banished? They had not shared a small amount of information with the red-headed elf, because they had trusted Legolas to vouch for her. But if she had been banished from the woodland realm - which everyone knew was much more relaxed and wild than the elves in Rivendell - was it safe to trust her with as much as they had?
Legolas must have heard his stride falter, for the elf sent him a hard look.
"Banished," he repeated. "And do you want to know why, Dwarf? Because she and I were hunting the orcs that were hunting your kin. Without her and I, the company of Oakenshield may have never made it to Laketown, and what's more," Legolas had stopped, towering over the Dwarf. "Without Tauriel, Prince Kili would have died before he reached the Mountain. And even then! Even after being cast out she stood up to our King, pointed an arrow into his face as he ordered our army to leave the battlefields of Erebor during the Battle of the Five." Gimli was silent and pale. "She told him we couldn't leave, as we had before when the mountain was first lost, that the Dwarves would be slaughtered if we left. She climbed the Ravenhill alone, trying to change the fate of Oakenshield and his nephews."
Gimli, feeling uncomfortably out of balance with this information and therefore irritable, snapped, "Well she didn't do a very good job."
He regretted the words instantly, and Legolas' eyes were blazing fire. "I will not discuss this with you. But know that if she had done and said nothing, your people likely would have lost not only their King to the orcs, but the mountain as well."
The hunters continued into Fangorn silently.
Yeah I didn't keep this in the main body in the end bc it felt too dialogue heavy and like, Legolas felt OOC etc, but here's a little follow up. As ever, it's not really proofred and is pretty disconnected/ends abruptly but it was an idea I was playing around with and I don't think I'll ever expand it the way I once planned to so here it is anyway. This is a oneshot that's been sitting in my drafts basically finished for like. 3 years probably. Thanks for reading!
