Author's Note:Thank you for the kind words, everyone! If you have any criticism, I'd love to hear it. And forgot to mention, Tauriel is the IP of not just Peter Jackson, but also Fran Walsh.

"She walks in starlight in another world."

If there was one thing that a warg had over a horse in a race, it was stamina. Eventually, tireless hours of pushing their horses forced the sindarin and silvan elf to make camp. They worked in tense silence, their keen senses making the task of creating a fire and nestling their camp in a secluded grove as easy as if it were midday.

Legolas sighed, instantly prompting razor-sharp glare from Tauriel. They had been holding a conversation for almost an hour now, but to an outsider it didn't seem so as it was entirely nonverbal. Getting Legolas to be talkative was an achievement in itself, 'And don't even get me started on trying to get him to loosen up with a drink.' Tauriel thought to herself.

"Fine, if you want to stay like that, why don't you get some firewood?" The gaze that was returned to her was just as venemous as Ungoliant, but Legolas knew that more often than not she was right in these regards. It didn't seem to matter how many years you've lived, the silver-haired elf had come to know. Women will still find ways to elude you. Without another word, Legolas trudged off north, mirkwood boy in hand.

Tauriel let out her own pent up sigh of frustration once her friend had walked a good quarter league away.

"Room for one more?"

The young elf gasped, filling her lungs with air and her body with a shot of adrenaline. She turned herself 180 degrees, notched her bow and pointed it to the source of the sound. Her eyes were wide and wild in her reflexive state, and true to her title as captain of the guard, the arrow let fly within half a second of her first standing.

As the arrow sailed through the air, Tauriel saw just who it was that had surprised her.

"Kili-" She breathed as grim recognition washed over her face. The scruffy, young dwarf had barely enough time to realize what was happening before the sharp sound of iron piercing leather filled the still night.

The woman was mortified and filled instantly with regret, her fingers wrapped so tightly around her bow in fear. Had she not been so riled up earlier, perhaps she could have avoided this. Tauriel slowly opened her eyes, anticpating the worst, but there stood her very dear friend, hands around his loincloth, his pants around his ankles and his belt cloven in two.

"If you wanted my trousers off, you only needed to ask."

A heron called out to her mate in the still darkness of the borderlands of Laketown and Mirkwood. The pale moon was slowly overtaken by the thick clouds of the forest, leaving the crackling firelight the only thing that shone for miles. Two figures sat cast in its glow, their silhouettes illuminated in a bright orange. One was a woman. Tall, lithe and proud she was, gently rocking back and forth from her fits of giggling. The other was an unmoving, sturdy fellow, his size dwarfed by the older woman.

"Lambas bread?"
"'Lembas' bread." Tauriel corrected.

Kili looked at the flat pastry quizzically, and after about ten seconds of study, cocked an eyebrow up at Tauriel, the bread blocking the lower half of his face.

"Here, try mine." At that, both of them flushed despite the growing cold of night. The elf broke off a piece and held it between her deceptively dainty fingers up to Kili's mouth. His breath caught in his throat while he tried to move his food out of the way, nervously looking around before opening his maw. It was embarrassing and childish, but as her nail brushed his lower lip before her hand returned to her, Kili found himself still closing his eyes even as he chewed.

The face that he saw once his eyes had opened reminded him of his dream. For a single second, the dark of Mirkwood was as bright as a summer's day, the leaves golden, the bark a shining silver, and the whole unabashed glory of all that Middle Earth could offer paling utterly in comparison to the elf's beauty.

Tauriel, on the other hand, blinked at her new friend's impassioned expression from her rather miniscule gesture. That is, before the sides of her mouth twisted in a big smile and she suffered another fit of chuckling. Kili almost coughed once he'd caught himself, saving his remark on how he probably looked like a babe just a second earlier.

"I do think you're getting a bit too much out of me trying to expand my cultural horizons." He said once he had swallowed the bread down, finding it remarkable how satisfying just one bite was.
"If you weren't so amusing, then perhaps I would not." The way she spoke made it seem for Kili that nothing he could say could quite hold the same air, but by Durin's beard he'd try anyways.

"My lady, if you would permit, I would show you the fathomless halls of Erebor."
"And if I did-" Tauriel's eyes opened wide as she found Kili's hands wrapped firmly around hers.
"Then I would show you things you could only dream about. Have you taste food you wouldn't be able to describe. And the ale..."

For a time, Kili was standing as he illustrated the halls with his fingertips, the air around them his canvas. Long sweeps of his hands told of the deep-running banquet halls, and the fluttering of his eyelids told of the taste of dwarvish delicacies.

"Kili." She interrupted him mid-pose, her finger against his lips. "You don't have to try to impress me."
"But I am a prince... And still I question what it is you see in me." The dwarf dropped to his knees, his hand brushing against the gold leaf that was currently keeping his belt together.
"What I see in you, my friend, is something you will not be able to understand." Tauriel whispered as she now held his hands in hers.
"Is it my good looks? I mean, I know my beard is rather lacking, but just think about it fifty years from now!"

The silvan elf rolled her eyes, but couldn't help but smile. It would take a magic item of great power to protect her from the young dwarf's charms.

"My skill with a bow? Oh, oh, is it perhaps my extensive experience with horseriding?"
"Lle naa haran e' nausalle. You forget I had to hitch your horse."

Crackling embers flew up with the smoke of the fire, periodically illuminating their shared rosey cheeks. The heat of the campfire had little to do with the warmth that they were sharing.

"And what a job you did with that." Kili whispered, lifting up the woman's hand to kiss.
"Anything else you claim to be good at, dwarf?" Her tone was challenging, but affectionate at the same time."
"There is one thing..."

Kili kept his head tilting down, kissing up the woman's wrist and forearm, but looked up to give her a look she could only describe as disarming.