Chapter 2 – A Heart For The Beating
She left Legolas standing on the promontory, and went back to the Lake. It was so wide and so deep that not even the dragon could mar it, though it was darker where Esgaroth had once stood, never to stand again. The water was cold, but ran clear. Blood from the mountain side did not wash into it. It would stay clean and good, reflecting starlight back up into the sky.
Tasting it, Tauriel felt her insides chill again. She had touched something during the last part of the battle. Some kind of rage that blazed with a light so brightly that she wondered if she had burned the orcs as much as cut them. She had seen her Prince burn thus, when he fought. It was his birth-right, after all, to burn with more than the light of the stars. Watching him had never made her blood run cold, as this did, though. She did not like to see such rage within herself.
Was this what the King had seen, all those centuries ago when he had accepted her into this Hall and, shortly after, his Guard? He had encouraged her when she took up the bow and then the blades. He had seen her lowly, on account of her birth. This she knew because he had told her on more than one occasion. But had he seen more than he had told her of? She would not be surprised if he had. Her King was close about many things, particularly those things which he thought he might one day put to his own use.
"Lady-elf?" The voice was thin, but not over-scared. "Lady-elf, are you wounded?"
It was Sigrid, of course, and Tilda in her shadow. Tauriel imagined that their father had left them in the Lake-men's camp and taken their brother off to bear his shield in the battle. Of course they had not stayed in that place of marginal safety.
"No, Sigrid," she replied, and the girls stepped into her view. "I am not wounded."
"Please," said Tilda. "We've heard nothing. Please tell us what has happened."
"Your father lives, and your brother too," Tauriel said. "Already they speak of him as King of Dale, but I do not know if he will take up that mantle. Your father is a practical man, and can see the burden that kingship would place upon him, and upon you."
"He will do it," Sigrid said. "He has waited on the whims of other men for long enough."
"What you say is true," Tauriel told her. She took another drink from the Lake. This one did not chill her as much as the first had. "What will you do as Lady of Dale? If your father does not re-marry, then the people will look to you."
Sigrid paused, and her sister squeezed her hand.
"We will be ready, Lady-elf," Tilda said. "My sister already knows some healing , no one runs a better house on a small budget. With a city, my sister will work wonders."
Sigrid smiled, touched by her sister's small faith, and Tauriel felt the last of the battle-weariness leave her bones. Yes, Dale would recover. A grim Man might lead it, but these two girls would set it upon strong foundations, and it would weather well.
"And the dwarves?" Sigrid asked.
"Thorin Oakenshield lies upon his death-bed," she said. She would not flinch from the truth, and they would not thank her if she had. "Thranduil himself has seen to the wounds, but they are too grave. He will not last."
"What of my dwarves?" Tilda asked.
Tauriel felt grief anew, but it was not cold this time. It was merely deep, and sad.
"Oin tends the wounded, and Bofur will sing and dance for many years once the Halls Under the Mountain are rebuilt." She took a breath and let it out very slowly. Tilda saw it before she said the words, and there were tears in her eyes as Tauriel continued. "The princes fell upon the battlefield, defending their uncle from the Defiler. They will not rise again."
Tilda fell into her sister's arms, and the two girls wept for the bright prince who had kept them safe when the orcs attacked, and for his brother, whom they had helped to heal. Tauriel did not weep with them, but she wet a handkerchief for them when they were done, and sat by while they wiped their eyes.
"You should return to the camp," Tauriel said. "That is where your father will look for you, and if he does not find you there, he will worry."
"I know, Lady-elf," Sigrid said. "We couldn't stay there when the fighting was on. The Master talks still, and it makes me sick to hear him."
"He will not be silenced, I think," Tauriel said. "But when you father is King in Dale, he will be ignored, and that will be the worst for him."
"Will you come with us, Lady-elf?" Tilda asked. "We do not have very much, but you are welcome to a share of it."
"No, Tilda," she said. "I must go forth. The battle weighs heavily upon my heart, and cold, and I must go away from here to find the warmth of myself again. But I thank you for the offer, and name you elf-friend, should you wish it. My naming does not carrying the might that other's would, but there are elves who will acknowledge it, should you ever make the claim."
"Thank you, Lady-elf," Sigrid said. She understood the gift of such a designation, and would explain it to Tilda in time.
"Tauriel, please, if we are to be friends."
"Should you return, Tauriel, we will make you welcome in Dale," Sigrid said. "And if anything comes crashing through our roof, we will happily let you deal with it."
They turned, and went back towards the meagre fires of the Lake-man's camp. They would wait there for their father and brother to return, to name them Ladies of Men and take up their new places in this Middle Earth. And they would do well by it.
Above her, the sun had begun to set, pulling her light behind her as she descended. Eärendil was barely visible to her eyes, and yet she felt its light. There was hope, after all, while light remained. Tauriel smiled.
To be continued...