Chapter Four

Revival

A/N: ...oh hai there. I know, I know. 6 months. That's like a spill-coffee-down-your-best-interview-shirt embarrassingly long time not to post, but I promise, whether it takes weeks, months or years, this story will get finished (and then some!) So if any of you loyal readers are left, thank you for your enduring patience, you shall be rewarded. And for any new readers out there, if you haven't read 'Starsight' before, AVERT YOUR EYES, GO AND READ IT FIRST.

The first thing the survivors did was secure their boats and make room for more. Cries filled the air like rain - loved ones had been lost to the dark waters forever. But most of the population had escaped the raging fires and toxic dragon smoke in time, albeit with few possessions.

They did not make much of the Master's death - they lacked the energy to cheer as loudly as they wished. What they did do was roll his body into the water with rocks tied around his swollen ankles, thanking his unknown assassin for the lone piece of good news that day.

When Bard made it ashore, feeling more like a charcoal husk than a man, he neither heard the praise sung in his ears nor felt the pats on his singed back. It was only when he saw Tilda and Sigrid's faces, felt their arms wrap around him like locks, that he remembered himself, and the townspeople. His people.

As for Alfrid, Bard caught him torn between two unnerving states of mind: his usual disgruntled selfishness, and an unusual anxiety, as if he'd witnessed something so horrendous it couldn't be repeated in words. Bard was quick to quell both Alfrid's attitude and the wrath of the townspeople against him. Once that was done, he busied himself helping to set up shelters, and fetching blankets for the shivering wounded.

'Da?' said Sigrid, her arms burdened with firewood, 'What are you looking for?'

'Hm? Oh, not what,' said Bard, continuing to crane his neck, 'But who…Have you seen either of the redheaded twins ashore? Ember, by chance?' Sigrid stared at him in silence long enough to make him stare back. 'What is it?'

'Why do you ask after her?'

'She used her magic to break the lock on my gaol cell,' said Bard, keeping his voice down and out of earshot. 'If not for her help, I would not be standing here.'

'She…freed you?' said Sigrid, almost dropping the broken branches. 'I don't understand.'

'Why do you look so troubled?'

Sigrid realised that he truly knew nothing of the witch's evil. She felt a surge of anger - her father had been duped…but why? Why would the witch do something good?

'Da,' she said, catching Tauriel's eye in the distance, 'There's something important you need to know…'

It was difficult not to look back at the unfolding carnage. But Fili and Kili knew they had to press on as soon as their borrowed boat - one of the very first amongst the others - hit the shore. Sigrid and Tilda had pointed the way to the edge of the forest, but avoided joining the search - they had been too anxious about why Bain had decided to leap from their boat and run through flame tongues and lethal smoke.

Fili and Kili left the boat behind and weaved through the survivors, who distributed provisions to displace their trauma. They had no time to stop - Bofur and Oin would be halfway to the Lonely Mountain by now, and they had to find Astra sooner rather than later.

'If anything's happened to her,' Fili muttered as they dashed between winter trees, 'If Cauna's hurt her, so help me by the Valar I will kill her - sorry.'

He glanced at Kili, running alongside. His face was stony, but not because of Fili's words.

'Don't be,' he said, jumping over a small ditch, 'If it were me, I would say the same. Let's just find Astra, then we can decide what to do about Cauna. She must answer to her crimes.'

They ran for what felt like hours, but in reality was only a few minutes. Time disappeared altogether, leaving only wind through pine needles and the clatter of rocks upturned in the wake of their steps. Then Fili caught ribbons of red and white to his left.

'Over there!'

He couldn't believe his own sight until he and Kili leapt into the small clearing. Astra was alone and immobile. Fili's weapons thudded on the earth, as did his knees. He wondered distractedly why her face felt so numb before tearing his winter gloves from his hands. The joy of his skin brushing hers was marred by the absence of heat, a lack of life.

'No, no no no,' he whispered, faster and faster until the sounds blended into one another, like a flurry of dying leaves. He cupped her neck to feel for a pulse. Standing behind him, Kili stopped breathing to help his brother concentrate that much more. They waited. A creeping frost speared Fili's fingertips. Then he felt it: a shiver of blood, tumbling down a vein at the surface of Astra's neck, confused and alone before another followed. A pause. Another. Fili exhaled in a reverse gasp, as if having forgotten how to breathe in the first place.

'She lives. Cut her binds, she lives!'

KIli surged forward with a dagger and obeyed his brother, freeing Astra from the tree trunk so she could fall into Fili's waiting arms. Her face flickered with vague disorientation, but her eyes remained closed. Her breath barely turned white.

'Feel her shoulder, it's in a bad way,' said Fili, 'All cramped and stiff.'

'It never healed properly since the river,' said Kili. 'We must get her to the Mountain. Home.'

Though he struggled to stand with a body taller than his, Fili found the strength to gather Astra in his arms, her neck resting on the edge of his shoulder.

'What did the witch do to her to make her like this?' Kili said as they slalomed back through the trees. A sweat was already breaking out on Fili's brow.

'I shudder to think of it.'

Legolas winced as Tauriel finished wrapping the makeshift bandage (a green strip torn from her own jacket) over his hand.

'I wish I could tell my father exactly what I make of your banishment face to face.'

'There will be time for that later,' Tauriel murmured. 'But presently, we must ready a horse for Gundabard.'

'If we leave now we should reach there by - look.'

Tauriel, along with many Laketowners on the immediate stretch of shore, looked: Kili moved like a young stag in comparison to his brother, who staggered under the weight of an unconscious Astra.

'Kili!' Tauriel exclaimed, before reeling in her attention. 'What happened? Is she -'

'Dead? No, not yet, hopefully never,' Fili said - or rather, babbled. 'Her heart still beats, but she won't wake.'

'She needs warming up,' said Bard, who was hurrying their way with a singed red blanket over one arm, 'Wrap her in this. If you help us gather supplies for shelter, we will help take care of her.'

'Thank you, but we cannot stay,' said Kili. He turned his head just as Tauriel's face fell. 'We don't know what has become of our kin in the Mountain, and now that I'm well enough to travel we can waste no more time in rejoining them.'

'Very well,' said Bard, too exhausted to object. 'Take one of the boats - we will not need them on foot.'

'Thank you, thank you,' said Fili, folding the offered blanket around Astra with as much care as his shivering hands could muster. Not even her eyelids moved.

'Are you all right?' Kili said to both Tauriel and Legolas.

'Yes,' Tauriel replied, wishing she could say more. 'How is your leg? Your Dwarf friend was lucky to bring the Athelas when he did - without it, I would not have been able to heal you.'

'You -' Kili stopped the flow of words as his memories adjusted themselves to the truth. '…You healed me. Of course, that makes so much more sense. She hadn't yet come down from the mountain.'

'I don't understand - oh.' Tauriel bit her lip and, with it, her words. She could feel something in her chest shrink and wither like a burnt flower. 'Oh, I see. You imagined Ember was there in the room.'

'I mistook dreams for reality,' Kili sighed heavily, before raising his head again to Tauriel's face, 'When in truth you were the one who saved my life. For that, light really does radiate from you.'

The Elf couldn't help but beam. Legolas looked stoically on and said nothing. Meanwhile, Bard helped Fili tuck Astra into a modestly sized boat, intact from the dragon-fire.

'Come, brother.'

'All right.' Kili opened his mouth to bid the Elves goodbye, but Tauriel held up a hand and stepped towards the boat.

'Wait, perhaps there is one last thing I may do for you.'

The soles of her boots were quickly soaked as she waded into the cold shallows, hands untying the bow of her forest green outer cloak. She laid it over Astra's chest.

'When you are able,' she said, breath ghosting the chilly air, 'Exchange her bloodied shirt for this, otherwise the wound on her shoulder will be aggravated.'

'I will - we will,' said Fili, nodding, boarding the boat and hoisting its small anchor all at the same time. 'Thank you, again.'

'Tauriel?'

'Yes, Kili?' She turned on the shore to find his mother's rune stone sitting in his open palm. Instinctively she shook her head, fighting the urge to touch it if only because it would mean touching his skin.

'Take it, please.'

'But it is your Promise - I cannot…'

'I insist,' he said, pressing it into her hand and causing her withered heart to flutter anew. 'We will find some way to repay you in full, once these dark times are past us.'

A/N:I know I don't really deserve reviews after making you wait so long but...review anyway, pretty please?