Author's note: I'm still amazed by the amount of feedback that this story is getting - thank you all so much for reading, reviewing, favouriting... you all rock.

This chapter constists mostly of Tauriel and Kíli bonding with their respective companions - I hope you enjoy it nevertheless. Some big things will happen in the next couple of chapters - prepare yourselves! ;)

Disclaimer: The Hobbit's not mine.

Chapter XI

"You are running a fever."

Kíli glared at Finn over the small campfire, considering to simply thank him for stating the obvious. But then he sighed and refrained from doing so – the boy had so far proved quite helpful and did not deserve his sarcasm. Either way, none of this was Finn's fault.

Even before awaking from his dream the previous night, Kíli had known that he had fallen ill, the all too familiar signs of a fever penetrating his dream world. Really, this was just about the last thing that he needed on top of losing Tauriel to a pack of orcs and no really useful clue where to search for her. He and Finn had been on the road for two days now, traveling south on the eastern bank of the river Bruinen, hoping to find a trail while at the same time staying out of sight as much as possible, lest they be picked up by either the Rivendell elves or the Rangers and hauled back to camp. Kíli, obviously, was a grown-up by both dwarven and human standards and might have been allowed to roam on his own, but of course he had to admit that whoever stumbled upon them would have every right in the world to take Finn back to his camp, his family. And whoever that might be, would also be entitled to punish him for allowing the boy to come with him - he could not dispute with that. But still he found himself unable to say that he regretted bringing Finn along – he might have gone mad with worry by now if there hadn't been someone to distract him, someone to look out for. Although, as it was, the boy seemed to be looking out for him rather than the other way around.

"You should let me look at your wounds," Finn said worriedly when the dwarf before him did not even bother to argue with him and instead seemed to sink back into himself. "Maybe one of them got infected, I think I have some ointment in my bag…"

"No." Kíli held up his hands. "No, that's not it." He coughed, bringing up a hand to his head that suddenly hurt quite a bit. "It's just a cold, Finn, don't worry. It will pass."

Finn did not look convinced. "You put too much strain on yourself before you were properly healed."

Kíli stared into the flames. "Aye, that's probably true. But this is not a matter of choice for me – and we mustn't let it slow us down. I know you mean well, but just let it rest."

The young Dúnedain looked at him intently. "You really would do anything to get her back. Even if it means putting yourself in danger."

Kíli glanced at him. "Of course." He had to suppress a smile at the open adoration with which the boy looked at him – like he was some kind of hero. It reminded Kíli of how he himself had looked at his uncle while growing up – but then of course Thorin had done great things in his life. Kíli, on the other hand, was not used to such admiration. He was the young one. The reckless one, the one who let his emotions get in the way of his actions. And right now, he certainly did not feel like a hero. "One day you'll meet someone for whom you would be prepared to walk to the end of the world, if need be," he said to Finn. "Then you'll understand."

Finn leaned back against the tree behind him. "I hope she'll be as beautiful as the lady Tauriel," he replied, staring into the flames.

Kíli grinned at the boy's dreamy expression. "I'm sure she will be," he said distractedly, while in his mind all he could see were Tauriel's eyes smiling up at him the way they had when he had seen her again in his dream. While the dream had temporarily lifted his gloomy spirits, in its aftermath his longing to be with her again had, if anything, become more acute. He missed her with every fiber of his being.

If only – yes, if only he had been able to gather some more useful information from their nightly encounter. He knew, deep down, that, considering the history of their shared dreams, he had done a pretty good job at not allowing himself to become distracted by the allurements of his dream, but still he felt that he should have done better, that there had to have been something that would have given him a lead on Tauriel's whereabouts.

Somewhere cold, somewhere dark, somewhere underground… this could be anywhere. Kíli let his gaze travel into the distance where the moon was rising above the Misty Mountains that loomed threateningly over them. He and Finn had yet to find the trail they had been searching for, but suddenly his gut told him that this might be where they needed to go. Surely there were plenty of caverns, tunnels, underground lairs to be found at the foot of those sublime mountains, places where dark creatures such as orcs and the like would feel right at home. He just hoped that he wouldn't be confronted with another fat goblin king and his entourage when they finally located Tauriel – this time he might not be as lucky as he had been as a member of Thorin's company.

Staring into the night he tried to estimate the number of days that it would take them to reach the base of the mountains, but found that his fever was playing tricks on his senses once more, causing the lands below the small plateau they were camped on to stretch out indefinitely, making it seem impossible to ever cross them. He coughed again and shivered, pulling his cloak more firmly around his shoulders.

Suddenly a steaming cup appeared in his line of vision and he looked up to see Finn standing above him, offering the beverage to him. Huh. He had not even noticed that the boy had left his spot on the other side of the fire.

"Drink this," Finn said. "It is good for your lungs and will help to bring the fever down." When Kíli took the cup and eyed the steaming liquid a little suspiciously, the boy added, "Go ahead, it is not poisonous. My mother taught me to make it – I drank it myself on many occasions."

"Will it make me drowsy?" Kíli asked. Too many times in his life had he been tricked into drinking a sleeping draught by those looking after him and while there might sometimes have been good reason for this, he simply did not like being played for a fool.

Finn smiled. "And leave me all alone out here? It's not like I could carry you in case that we need to move fast."

Kíli raised an eyebrow at the cheeky tone of the young Dúnedain, who only a couple of days ago had blushed and stuttered when addressed by him, but took a careful sip from the brew nevertheless. It wasn't too bad. Leaning back, he cradled the cup between his palms and commanded himself to get a little bit of rest. In a couple of hours he would think about how to explain to Finn why he felt that they should stop their fruitless journey south and instead head east towards the mountains.

"Erebor? You have seen it from the inside? Lived with the dwarves?" Nimwen asked, her eyes so big with wonder that they glowed in the pale light of the moon. Tauriel was not quite sure if she had slept through a whole day or whether it was still night outside and she had not asked, time having lost some of its meaning in the darkness.

Now she smiled at her friend. "Yes, I have. It was never our plan, but fate has had a way of disrupting both mine and Kíli's plans quite often in these last few months."

She and Nimwen were both lying on their sides on the makeshift bed, facing each other and close enough that they could each make out the features of the other in the sparse light. The time since she had woken up they had spent talking quietly, asking each other questions about the many months they had not seen one another, escaping, for a few precious moments, their dreary surroundings with the pictures that their narrations painted.

"What is it like, the dwarf kingdom? I couldn't imagine staying inside a mountain of all things. And then the dwarves… so… coarse." Nimwen shivered a little, but then stilled and looked at Tauriel a little apologetically. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to…"

Tauriel chuckled. "Don't worry yourself, I've heard people say things much worse. As for Erebor – I think you might be surprised if you ever saw it with your own eyes. I imagined it to be a dark place, cold, narrow, oppressing. But it is magnificent, really. Halls so high that you can barely see the ceiling, terraces that make you feel so close to the stars…"

She fell silent, thinking back to the security and warmth she had found in Kíli's and her shared quarters, experiencing something very close to homesickness. Never in her life had she given much importance to material things, least of all assigned them any emotional value, but now she felt a dull pain in her chest as she thought back to their room, not so much because of what it was, but because of for what it stood. A place to call home.

Nimwen's voice pulled her back to the present. "And the dwarves?"

She felt a smile tug on the corners of her mouth. "Well, they are coarse. And loud, and unruly, and stubborn. But they are also honest, and kind, and loyal. And they love their family above everything else."

Nimwen gave a small smile of her own. "It sounds as if you were happy there."

Tauriel sighed. "Well, it is not as if times there were always easy. There were always some who wanted me far, far away from that mountain. And from Kíli in particular. But all things considered, yes. I was happy there, for a while. I felt… secure. Calm."

Nimwen propped her head up on her elbow. "That explains a lot, I suppose."

Tauriel frowned at her friend in genuine confusion. "What do you mean?"

The young healer looked at her intently. "Look inside yourself – you know what I speak of," she spoke, her voice gentle. "We do not conceive children when they are not wanted. I do not believe that even something as unusual as a union between one of our own kind and a dwarf would alter this circumstance."

Tauriel stared at her friend in shock for a long moment, her breath stuck in her throat, but then sighed, lowering her gaze. "You must think me such a fool," she said after a while. "I did not realize what I was doing before it was too late…"

Nimwen reached across the small distance dividing them and covered Tauriel's hand with hers. "There is no need to be ashamed for wanting a family, a little one to love and cherish."

Grateful for her friend's kind words, Tauriel squeezed her hand. "And yet I should have known better," she said sadly. "Should have known that this illusion of safety could not last. But I allowed myself to get carried away, to get too comfortable, and before I even knew I was wishing for something like this, it had already happened."

"And now you must deal with the consequences. As I am sure you will – you will do fine, Tauriel."

Tauriel pressed her lips together. "Thank you, my friend." She looked down, still a little hurt by her friend's initial reaction of shock to her little secret, even though she knew that she could not really have expected anything else and even though Nimwen would probably be the last person to condemn her. "I know that this is a lot to take in and I do not expect sympathy from anyone."

Nimwen tugged at her hand to make her look at her again. "But you do have my sympathy and also my support. I will help you in any way that I can." Her face darkened. "If we ever get out of here, that is."

Tauriel's thoughts went to Kíli and the dream she had had while she had been resting – he was looking for her, she knew that now. Not that she had expected anything else from him. If their roles were reversed she would be out searching for him day and night and in her dream it had seemed as if that was exactly what he was doing. She wondered, briefly, if he was alone in his quest or if he, too, had a friend at his side.

Either way, she would hope that he would find them soon and try to make use of the time until that happened to gather as much information about her surroundings as possible and maybe find a possibility for escape on her own. This would, however, be really difficult as long as she was still locked away with Nimwen in their cold, dark prison. There was not much to learn about her capturers from in here.

While Tauriel let her thoughts wander, her friend had sat up on their cot and turned to the side, feeling around for something in the dark. When she turned back around, she held a metal bowl in her hands that contained two small pieces of stale bread and a couple mouthful of porridge made with unidentifiable ingredients. Tauriel wrinkled her nose as the smell entered her nostrils.

"This was left here while you slept," the young healer said. "You should eat."

Tauriel sat up on the mattress. The smell of the food was not very appetizing to her, but she knew that she had to eat – too long it had been since her last meager meal. "What about you? Have you already eaten yours?" she asked while she still eyed the bowl suspiciously.

Nimwen shook her head. "No. This is all that there is. Eat my share as well as yours."

"No," Tauriel protested. "I cannot do that."

"You must," Nimwen urged her. "Please, Tauriel. There is little as it is and you cannot hide from me that you are still very weak."

Tauriel made to reply, but the slight tremor in her muscles as well as the sudden lightheadedness that even such light activity as sitting up caused, made her rethink her answer. "Alright," she said reluctantly. "I will do as you say. But only this once – you too need your strength for when we find an opportunity to fight back."

"Of course," Nimwen replied gently as she handed Tauriel the food. From her tone Tauriel could however tell that this would not be the last time that her friend would offer to put her needs and her well-being before her own. She very much hoped that their time here would be limited and that there would not be too many more occasions on which she would have to have this argument with Nimwen.

During the first few hours of the night, Kíli had been freezing under his coat, now, in the wee hours of the morning, he was soaking wet. He supposed that this was a good sign though and that his fever had broken before giving him too much trouble. He still felt like rubbish, but, glancing over at Finn who had curled up under a blanket after taking watch for most of the night and was now sleeping peacefully, he admitted grudgingly that it had been good that he had listened to the boy when he had offered him medicine earlier.

For his age the lad certainly had a good knowledge of the healing properties of plants and herbs, probably something his mother had passed onto him. But, as most young men, he would in all likelihood not rejoice in being complimented on this. It was adventure he sought, an opportunity to prove himself with sword and bow. While Kíli could relate to this better than Finn might have guessed, he had to suppress a sigh at the thought that the boy's innocence might be spoiled by whatever awaited them at the end of their journey.

Sitting up, Kíli slowly peeled out of the various layers of fabric he had covered himself with during the night. Wiping his sleeve across his damp brow, he grimaced at the sticky feeling that his fever had left behind on his skin. Determined to allow Finn a little more rest before he woke him up, he rose and quietly made his way over to where they had left their provisions. Going through their belongings he realized with some concern that they were almost out of food. They would need to hunt very soon, but he did not think that his shoulder would permit him to use a bow just yet and he did not want to spend too much valuable time giving Finn archery lessons. Valuable time where he could be searching for Tauriel. He made a note to give some more thought to this problem later on – now he was not looking for food either way.

From a larger canteen he poured some water into a shallow bowl, placed it on the ground before him and repeatedly dipped his hands into the water, leaning forward to rinse both sweat and grime off his face and neck. The cool water felt delicious against his still slightly too warm skin and for a moment he was taken back to that day before he and Tauriel had met Finn's father, the day when Tauriel had insisted on going for a little swim together with him. His heart grew heavy when he remembered the feeling of her skin beneath his palm where it had been pressed against her stomach and the taste of her on his lips when he had kissed tiny droplets of water off her body, the beauty of this moment still so very fresh in his memory.

Sinking back on his heels, Kíli took a couple of calming breaths against the now all too familiar feeling of despair that would sometimes spread in his chest, the one that would demand for him to go running into the night and scream Tauriel's name into the all-absorbing darkness until he lost his voice and could scream no more. He needed to remain level-headed for now. He owed this to her. And to himself. And now to Finn, too.

After briefly glancing back at the boy who was still sound asleep, Kíli looked out over the plains below. Shapes and contours were just becoming recognizable in the grayish light of approaching dawn and he took another deep breath of the cool morning air – that promptly got stuck in his throat when his eyes caught upon a strangely familiar shape a little ways off in the distance. A tree, one side crooked, its branches drooping so low that they brushed the ground below, the other side stretching its branches up into the sky that was still almost dark…

Kíli's heart was beating wildly in his chest. He had seen this tree before – and he knew just where. Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled over to where Finn lay and grabbed him by his shoulder.

"Finn, wake up, hurry."

The boy's eyes shot open and he sat up, whipping his head around. "What, what is it? Are we under attack?"

"No, no, we're not," Kíli replied, trying to keep his tone at least moderately patient. "But I have found something. Grab your things, quickly."

He left no room for questions and hastily bundled up his own belongings, stuffing them in random bags, strapping everything together. Glancing over his shoulder he saw with some surprise and great relief that Finn was following his order without hesitation, his face concentrated as he got ready in a haste.

When Finn was still in the middle of strapping his last bag to his shoulder, Kíli was already beginning his decent off the rocky edges of their little plateau, too impatient to look for a more comfortable path that would take them to the lands below. Ignoring both the pain in his shoulder and the throbbing in his head, he climbed vigorously and soon reached level ground, turning around briefly to ensure that Finn was doing alright, before setting out into the direction of the tree in a sprint.

"Wait, what is going on?" he heard Finn call out behind him.

"You'll see!" Kíli shouted back over his shoulder. He had no idea what they were going to find once they reached that tree, but he'd had enough experience with dreams involving Tauriel to know that this could not be a mere coincidence.

His lungs felt as if they were going to explode when he drew in on the tree after running for another few minutes, but he did not pause to catch his breath and immediately started scanning the ground for any tracks or evidence that Tauriel had been here. Dropping to his knees beside the remains of a campfire he touched his fingers to its ashes. They were cold but did not seem to be too old, a couple of days at the most. This assumption of his was supported by the fact that the grass around the fire pit had been trampled flat by several pairs of feet.

"Someone made camp here recently," he called out to Finn, who was circling the tree a couple of feet away from him.

Suddenly the young Dúnedain stopped and stared at something on the ground before nudging it with the tip of his boot. "Orcs," he called back. "I'm quite certain."

"How do you know?" Kíli asked, getting up to walk over to Finn.

"Because there's a dead one lying in the grass over here," Finn replied, pointing at the body of an orc stretched out on the ground before him.

Kíli came to stand next to the boy. "I suppose that's rather straightforward then." He squatted down next to the creature and looked at it more closely.

"Do you think that Tauriel might have killed it?" Finn asked.

"It's possible," Kíli answered a little hesitantly. The edges of the wound in the orc's chest were ragged, as if a rather blunt blade had been plunged into its body by sheer force. "But I think it more likely that this is the work of one of the other orcs." When Finn looked a little unconvinced, he added, "Lesson number one about orcs – they are just as likely to turn on each other as on anyone else."

Sitting back on his heels he thoughtfully looked at the tree and squinted when his eyes caught upon something on the ground very close to it. Walking over, he picked up a crumpled, dirty rag.

Finn watched him turn it about in his fingers. "It might have been used as a gag," he said. He pointed at the tree. "And look, the bark is slightly rubbed off at the bottom – as if someone tried to rid themselves of ropes binding their hands behind their back."

Kíli glanced at the boy in appreciation. Clearly he had had a lesson or two in tracking already. "You are right…". So his gut had been right when it had told him to head towards the mountains the previous evening. He looked up and caught Finn's excited gaze. "I think we have found our trail after all."

to be continued...