A/N: A very introspective chapter for Kíli. The next couple of chapter will be rather quiet ones, but I promise that there will be more action taking place in the future. Thanks for reading!
Chapter 07
As the Elven army undertook the journey back to their homeland in the forest, the lone dwarf among them found it difficult to say whether each mile that they put between themselves and the kingdom of Erebor alleviated or deepened the pain that seemed to permeate his entire being.
Although what remained of his honor told him differently, he could not help but experience a sense of relief that he had escaped the dreaded duty of stepping in Thorin's footsteps. At the same time guilt clutched at his chest, made it hard to breathe even. Guilt over leaving behind those who loved him, both living and dead. His guilt mingled with the trepidation he felt over what was to come – how would he live amongst the Elves? And then, of course, there was his newly acquired, constant companion, namely his grief for his uncle and, most of all, his brother.
But despite all of his torments, Kíli never wavered on his decision to leave the world of Dwarves behind. Oh, he very well knew that it wasn't a good decision, nor a very healthy one, but he firmly believed that it was the only decision he could have made. He might once have been a deserving descendant of Durin, an honorable member of his race, but as a king he would have posed a danger to the survival of his people – of this he remained stubbornly certain. And since his existence had ceased to serve any of its former purpose, he wanted to dedicate what was left of himself to restoring some happiness to Tauriel, not because he wanted anything from her in return, but simply because she deserved a better life than the one she would have led as an outcast from her own people.
Angling his face towards his right, Kíli was able to get a good view of Tauriel's face. And she definitely did not look happy at the moment. Upon their departure from Dale, she had been offered a horse, but had declined, insisting instead to walk alongside the wooden cart on which Kíli lay amongst empty crates and barrels which the Elves were taking back to their homeland, obscured from sight by a large tarp.
Kíli would have preferred another way of traveling, but for one thing his injuries made it difficult to ride and practically impossible to walk the long distance. Also, a Dwarf amongst the group of Elves leaving Dale would surely attract attention. And attention was the last thing he needed at the moment. And so he had been smuggled out of the city of Dale like a piece of illegal cargo. Either way, this was still infinitely better than journeying inside a barrel full of dead fish, Kíli concluded.
Reverting his attention back to the red-haired elf-maid who so stubbornly refused to leave his side, Kíli studied her expression, her jaw set firmly and her eyes staring straight ahead. And for a brief, weak moment he allowed disappointment to wash over him in one great, powerful wave, momentarily obscuring all his other grievances. For this was not how he had imagined Tauriel and himself to undertake this journey leading them away from the mountain and back into her homeland in those dreams, those fantasies he had indulged in during those strange days at Erebor when he and his brethren had watched Thorin descend deeper into madness with each passing day.
In his dreams of the future, the dispute between Dwarves, Elves, and Men had magically been settled, Thorin restored to both his health and throne, and the unconventional bond between Tauriel and himself had been accepted, even if grudgingly, by those around them. And then they would have left behind the oppressive structure of the Mountain and would have travelled all of Middle Earth together, and together they would have gazed at the stars she loved so dearly and they would have found another chance to see a fire moon, as glorious as the one he had seen so many years ago.
And of course, before too long, he would have made her his wife so that they could be with each other without restraint, so that no one could or would ever dare to raise a word against their union, and they would have been happy, oh so blissfully happy with each other.
Kíli shook his head angrily and blinked away the tears that had begun to gather in his eyes, furious at himself for, once again, letting those silly daydreams get the better of him. For he knew now – had known ever since the battle – that those things could never be. Never could he and Tauriel become lovers, never could they discover the world anew at each other's side. Except, of course, as friends. For that was what he intended to be to her, nothing more, and nothing less.
There was a bond between them that went beyond the usual, beyond the rational even. Kíli could not deny that, no matter how hard he tried. But what he could also not deny was how much misery that bond had already brought the both of them. Nor how much heartache it might bring them in the future.
Now he, for his part, might even have been willing to accept this risk. Or rather, his past self might have, never thinking before he acted, always following his heart oh so stubbornly. Now that he had experienced loss of the worst kind, the loss of his brother who had been like his other half, and the loss of his uncle who had been the only father-figure he had ever known, he could not help but think that he never wanted to attach himself to another person again, for he might not survive the pain of losing this person. And loss, suddenly, seemed omnipresent, a threatening shadow that hovered over every slip of happiness, over every good thing in every person's life.
More so than his own shattered heart, there was of course also Tauriel's heart to consider. Where once Kíli had believed that it was in his power to make this magnificent elf-maid happy, to give her what she wanted and needed in this life, he knew now that he could only bring her sadness. For he had not only had a chance to glimpse Tauriel's love after he had been saved from death, but also her despair. She had never explicitly spoken of it, but he still felt that he had gotten an impression of what losing him would have done to her – her spirit would have been crushed.
And eventually she would lose him – no elf magic stood a chance against that fact for he was not immortal and would never be. And it would break her heart in a way that Kíli was only now beginning to understand – and he simply could not selfishly accept this fact.
What he could do, however, was remain at her side as a friend and in any way that he could help her to find happiness in her life that did not revolve around him, so that one day, when his time to go had come, she would mourn him, yes, but would also be able to move on. To live.
The first step towards this end was of course to reinstate her in her old life – for had it not been for him, she would not have been forced to give up this life in the first place. And so here he was, lying on the back of the cart as it was being pulled along towards their destination in the forest.
Since the moment when Thranduil had – rather surprisingly – consented to taking both Kíli and Tauriel along for the Elves' journey back to their homeland, the young dwarf had not quite found the time to give any coherent thought about what might await him in the halls of the Elvenking. Until now, that was, for if there was one thing one could say about his current mode of transport, it was that it gave him ample time to think.
When Kíli had originally made his plea to Thranduil, he had of course not had a detailed plan in mind of what exactly he intended to be doing at Mirkwood. And neither had he particularly cared – the request originally had been made out of sheer desperation both to do something for Tauriel in her dire situation and to remove himself as far away as possible from the things he thought he could not face. But now that he was actually undertaking this particular journey, he began to wonder what his role would be at Thranduil's court.
He could not even with certainty say whether he was going to Mirkwood as a free Dwarf or as a prisoner. Who was to say that Thranduil would not simply lock him up in the dungeons when they got there? He had certainly not expressed an interest in making use of any of Kíli's skills and while Kíli had promised that he would help getting the jewels the king was after back from the Dwarves, they had never specified how this help would look like.
But then again, if going back to Thranduil's dungeons was what it took to redeem Tauriel in her king's eyes, then Kíli would not protest. No matter how he chose to spend the rest of his days, his soul would always be a prisoner of both his guilt and his grief. Would being imprisoned in body as well as in mind really be that much worse?
He knew, though, that Tauriel would find it hard to accept such a turn of events and he was a little afraid that her protectiveness over him might in the end jeopardize her return to her former life. Already, she appeared to be vigilant against a threat that was, in Kíli's eyes, not apparent. Hence her refusal to take a horse instead of walking in as close a proximity to him as possible. Also, right before they had left the shelter of their temporary abode in Dale, she had slipped him a small, but rather sharp knife.
"Hide this well," she had muttered, her gaze nervously flitting away from his towards the door. "Thranduil would not respond well if it was found."
"Then why carry it at all?" Kíli had asked. He could, in all honesty, not detect an immediate danger to his well-being in what they were about to do. And even if there was – then how would one small knife help him against an army of Elves?
But Tauriel had remained stubborn. "I will feel better knowing you have this," she had finally admitted, her face in a deep frown.
Underneath her nervousness and her still apparent anger over Kíli's plan, he had glimpsed some of those more complex, vulnerable feelings that she was so good at hiding. And he just could not continue arguing with her then and so he had forced himself to keep his mouth shut and had slid the knife into the shaft of his boot.
Feeling the small knife's handle press uncomfortably against his ankle, Kíli sighed inwardly. He remembered how overwhelmed – almost happy despite the loss of his brother and uncle – he had been when Tauriel had practically admitted the intensity of her feelings for him after he had been healed. New possibilities for the future had seemed to map themselves out in his heart at that moment; new paths had appeared to open where before there had only been darkness.
All too quickly, however, his more sinister feelings had caught up with him, laying waste to whatever tentative hopes had begun to build inside him. He knew now that this thing – this unfortunate romance – between Tauriel and himself needed to be put to rest, before any damage was done that could not be repaired. What he did not know was how that should be achieved. From the glimpses he had been allowed of her character, Tauriel seemed to be just as stubborn as he himself was. She would not be persuaded to act against her feelings – that at least he was sure of.
Thinking back to the incident with the knife, Kíli realized that he would have to be the first to take a step away from her. Because, if he was honest, he still basked in the glory of having her return his affections, of having this exquisitely perfect, beautiful creature care for him so much that losing him would quite possibly break her heart. It would be hard to do, one of the hardest things, in fact, he had done in his life, but he would have to push her away from himself, ever so slowly, without hurting her more than he already had.
Even though it almost ate himself up from the inside, he invited the thought into his head that maybe, at some point in the future, Tauriel might move on, might direct her affections towards someone else, someone who was more likely to make her happy than he was, someone more worthy. He swore to himself that should this ever happen, he would stoically bear the pain of watching her move on, because her happiness mattered so much more than his own. Giving up his freedom, he had come to realize, in order to win back her position at Thranduil's court, might not suffice. Rather, he needed to give up his claim to her love, in order to give her a chance at true and lasting happiness.
The fact that those two objectives stood in more than slight conflict with one another was what kept Kíli's mind busy for a good part of their journey and helped distract him from his other, troubling thoughts. For how would he manage to distance himself from Tauriel when in some sense they were closer than they had ever been, living together among the Wood Elves?
He did not know what Tauriel expected their life at Thranduil's court to look like and it was quite possible that she did not really have any definite idea of this either. Kíli was sure though that no matter what position the Elven King assigned to her, no matter how time they would actually be spending in each other's presence, Tauriel would always look out for him, making it so much harder to help her distance herself from him enough to properly find her way back into her old life – to move on.
The rattling of the cart as it was pulled along lulled Kíli to sleep over and over again, but each time that oblivion was about to relieve him of his troubled, confusing thoughts, he would drag himself away from that brink, both unable and unwilling to relax sufficiently to fall asleep in his current position. Night had fallen and darkness enveloped the Elven army, torches carried by individual soldiers creating just enough light for them to stay on their path.
Thranduil's army did not stop for breaks, which did not exactly surprise Kíli. For the time being, he was content with simply remaining hidden away on the cart, since this meant neither having to confront his conflicted feelings for Tauriel during a stop, nor being faced directly with her anger. In the darkness he could just make out her silhouette amongst her kin, but this was enough to know that she still carried herself with the same furious rigidness as she had when they had set out from Dale. Sooner or later he would have to confront her, just as he would have to confront the consequences of his decisions. But not now, not yet.
When morning dawned and Kíli was just wondering for how much longer his limbs would tolerate the lack of movement that traveling in a lying down position brought with it or – more urgently – how much longer his bladder would hold out, the cart came to an abrupt stop. Judging by the amount of daylight seeping through the fabric covering the back of the cart it had to be somewhere around five o'clock in the morning, which meant that they had been travelling for almost an entire day. Kíli frowned – he would have estimated the overall journey to take just a little bit longer than that. But then again, Elves probably travelled much faster than his own people would. Also, considering the Dwarves' infamous escape from Thranduil's dungeons via the Forest River, he was not familiar with the direct route between Erebor and Mirkwood.
When he turned his head in order to see something of their surroundings and his eyes fell upon Tauriel's face, he got the distinctive feeling that his initial notion had been right and they had not (yet) safely arrived at the Elvenking's halls. Tauriel looked apprehensive to say the least and with no small amount of worry of his own, Kíli observed how she adjusted her coat almost imperceptibly in order to be able to swiftly reach for her blades.
Unmoving she remained right beside the cart, staring straight ahead at something Kíli could not see, no matter how he angled his head. His unease increased when he noticed that the rest of the Elven army was passing them by, the occasional soldier glancing at Tauriel where she stood. Kíli tried to read their expressions – pity? malice? fear? – but saw nothing that could give him an idea of what was happening.
One soldier on horseback approached Tauriel then and leaned down to speak to her. His hair was dark and fell over his shoulders in long, silky strands when he bent forward. Tauriel appeared to know him – Kíli thought he saw her seek for reassurance in the other elf's gaze. Whether she found it or not, Kíli never observed because suddenly the tarp covering both him and the goods transported on the cart was thrown back.
The icy cold air of the early morning pricked at his skin as he found himself gazed at by two curious pairs of eyes. After what had apparently been a moment of weakness for them, the Elven soldiers looking down at him quickly adopted more neutral expressions and, one on either side of him, reached for his shoulders to help him sit up. Kíli suppressed a pained gasp when the sudden movement caused a sharp pain to shoot through his upper body.
He was helped off the vehicle and came to stand on the ground on slightly wobbly legs. When the guards let go of him, the earth below his feet appeared to sway from side to side for a couple of seconds and he quickly reached out an arm to steady himself against the side of the cart. He let go as soon as he felt optimistic that he would not land face down on the ground once he did so.
For a moment, Kíli took in his surroundings. They had most certainly arrived in the forest they called Mirkwood – that much he could tell. Although he had to admit that it was quite different from what he remembered of it. When he had travelled on the Elven road with Thorin's company, the air had been stifling, giving him a searing headache, and the light had been murky, playing tricks on his vision more than once. It would not even have needed monstrous spiders hungry for a bit of a dwarven snack for him to be anything but fond of the place.
Here and now, however, the air was crisp and clear, his lungs welcoming the free flow of oxygen after he had been stowed away under blankets and tarps for so long. Despite it being the middle of winter, the forest was rather green, mostly due to moss covering the ground as well as the roots and trunks of the larger, older trees. It seemed that snow had yet to make it through the thicket of branches overhead, making Kíli feel as if he were inside a bubble, cut off and protected from the world outside.
If only that were truly the case, he thought, for right now it seemed that he was anything but safe and protected. The dark-haired elf had caught his gaze and gracefully lowered himself down from his horse, crossing over to Kíli in a few long strides. Tauriel turned as he did so, giving Kíli a view of her still very worried, though maybe not quite as apprehensive an expression as when they had first stopped.
Except for the two soldiers who had helped Kíli climb off the cart and who had now positioned themselves a few feet behind their little group, he and Tauriel were now alone with the unfamiliar elf, the rest of the army having passed them by. For a brief moment Kíli wondered if he had been brought here into the middle of the forest to be assassinated, but he quickly discarded that idea. For why would Thranduil go through all the trouble of bringing him with them in the first place just to get rid of him? If he wanted him dead, he would not have saved his life in the first place, for after all the Elvenking himself was the reason he was still here, still alive.
"I am Elhadron of the Woodland Realm," the Elven soldier addressed Kíli. "And I am sorry that our journey is taking such an uncomfortable turn." Kíli tried to determine whether he was being sincere or derisive, however he could detect no mockery in his tone.
"What are we doing here?" he thus asked bluntly. "I remember the halls of your king a little differently."
Elhadron made a grave face. "I am afraid that you will not be going to the palace at all for the time being."
Well, Kíli could think of worse things – it was not as if his prime objective of joining the Elves for their journey home had been to once more see Thranduil's kingdom with his own eyes. That did however not make the whole business any less disconcerting and confusing.
"I am not sure you understand," Kíli objected. "There was…" he hesitated, trying to make eye-contact with Tauriel, but failing to do so, because she was staring into the woods, lost in thought. How much did Elhadron know? "There was an agreement," he finally continued, "between me and your king. And it specifically involved me being allowed to return to Mirkwood with your people."
Were it only for him, he would not have cared so much about what was happening. Whether he was at Thranduil's halls or somewhere else did not make much of a difference to him, as long as that somewhere was not Erebor. He was worried, however, that this sudden turn of events might also have consequences for Tauriel's return to her homeland.
From the way in which Elhadron inclined his head, Kíli gathered that he was aware of at least some of the circumstances of Kíli's presence among the Elves. "And I can assure you that the king will not go back on an agreement once made. However, there have been some slight alterations to the conditions you agreed to."
Kíli frowed – why did he feel as if he was being lured into a trap? "What alterations?"
Elhadron's eyes briefly shifted to look at Tauriel, who was still rooted to the spot several feet away. "Will you follow me?" he asked Kíli. "It shall be much easier to show you what I speak of instead of explaining."
Kíli did not see that he had much of a choice and he mutely nodded.
"Are you able to walk?" Elhadron asked. "It is not very far, but if you would prefer my horse…"
Kìli glanced at the magnificent black stallion Elhadron had been riding. An image shot through his mind of the two Elves who had previously assisted him awkwardly trying to lift him into the saddle. At the thought his wound stung a little more fiercely than usual and the back of his neck began to feel slightly warm from embarrassment. "I'll walk," he quickly replied.
And so off they went, Elhadron taking the lead. Kíli followed and, not to his surprise, Tauriel fell into step beside him immediately, shooting him glances of barely concealed worry. Even though he did feel rather poorly, he did his best to keep his back straight and his steps firm. He needed her to believe that he was doing fine so that she would not continue to burden herself with looking after him. The two other Elves followed behind them and Kíli could not help but feel like a prisoner that was being taken away to his cell.
And he also could not help himself but be reminded of his last visit to Mirkwood. Never had he cared so little about being taken prisoner as he had back then. For the whole journey to the Elvenking's realm he had craned his neck, trying to get another glance at that Elf-maid who had swooped in to save his life and had caused his heart to leap into his throat when their eyes had met, making any witty return to her refusal to give him a weapon quite impossible. She had stirred something in him then, something he had never felt before. He had not had a name for it then, but he had known that he must see her again, must speak to her to see if that spark he had felt would still be there.
When he had finally had the chance to speak to her, of course, he had gone and ruined his chance with an embarrassing joke about the contents of his trousers. Alone in his cell, he had wanted to hit his head against the wall. How would he ever know now if what he had felt had been real? To his complete and utter amazement, however, she had come to him again, had spoken to him not as a capturer to a captive, but as one soul to another, had shared something of her own with him without holding herself back.
And as for that spark from before – oh, it had been there alright. And not just that, it had turned into a bright flame that would not be extinguished even after she had left him again, a flame that had burned right through all the dark and terrible things that had happened afterwards.
Glancing at Tauriel out of the corner of his eye, he realized with a lump in his throat that this little flame still burned just as brightly as it had back then. Only now he had decided for himself that instead of stoking the fire with hopes and dreams of the future, it was his duty to smother it before there was nothing left to salvage for either of them.
He had talked himself into believing that with their respective duties at the Elvenking's court – whatever those would turn out to be in his case – they would automatically distance themselves from each other, would not be as obsessed with the fate of the other as they currently were. Now that they were not going to Thranduil's palace after all, he could not help but wonder how this would affect his plans. What on earth was Thranduil's scheme for them?