Hello again! Thank you thank you thank you all you wonderful people for reviewing, it has miraculously got me through this first week back at school. Only one more day until the weekend! Yay!

Here is a little bit of trivia from some research I did, inspired by a query I received from guest reviewer Sona: surnames don't work the same in Middle Earth. People get nicknames for famous deeds, "Oakenshield" for example, but otherwise they typically use their father's name as identification. This involves adding a thing on the end of the word, e.g. for Dwarves they use -ul as in Balin Fundinul (written on Balin's gravestone in Moria) which practically means "Balin son of Fundin". Elves, conversely, use -ion, which gives Legolas the name "Thranduilion". I've also seen in fanfics 'ion-nin' meaning 'my son', which kinda makes sense since 'nin' means 'my'. But isn't he called Legolas Greenleaf? Well, for starters, Greenleaf isn't elvish, so it's clearly not a surname. It is actually the translation of Legolas's name into common. Eryn Lasgalen, a term I've been using quite a lot for Mirkwood, literally means 'Wood of the Green Leaves' so you can see the similarities. This means that calling him Legolas Greenleaf is like calling him Greenleaf Greenleaf, or Legolas Legolas. Or perhaps it's like saying "Hello Bonjour" every time you meet a friend. Not that there's anything wrong with that - I mean, if Galadriel says it, it must be a legitimate thing to call him - but all I'm saying is, you can pretty much call him anything you like. I once read a complicated thing about elvish naming customs, and whether it was all reliable or not, it seemed pretty interesting, because apparently elves have several names given to them at certain times by certain people, but since I've forgotten most of the details I won't quote anything here. I'll also mention that this is only how I understand things to be and if I've got anything wrong please correct me! There, you are now officially Tolkienified for the day. If you didn't know all that already. Now go read the story :)

Oh, and I'll also apologise in advance for...well, you'll see. I am evil :D

Legolas reached Dale on his horse not long after noon. The first thing to do, he realised, was to make sure Fili was there and give the warning in person if possible. The second was to track down Yarvin.

Since he knew of no stables in which he could leave his horse, Legolas tied the intelligent beast loosely to a lone wooden post on the South side of the town, among a field of newly-sprung grass and daisies. He guessed it would be safe there until he returned or could find a better place to leave it. Then he made his way towards the centre, where he had heard most of the building was going on.

The air got gradually dustier and the roads became gradually more mended as Legolas neared the more inhabited parts of the city. At last he turned a corner and saw, far down at the other end of the street, men lifting heavy slabs of stone and with them smaller figures giving directions. Here were people who could tell him where Fili was. He broke into a light jog, his worry increasing the nearer towards them he got, because now at last he would know if all his toils had been for nothing.

A short figure sprinted out of a side-road and collided with him head first, sending the both of them stumbling back but not loosing their footing. In an instant Legolas saw who it was, and laughed out loud.

"Fili! Thank goodness you're -"

"Kili's in danger; he's been kidnapped!" the crown prince of Erebor cut in, and Legolas' heart plummeted. He had been too late after all - but why Kili? Had there been a mistake?

"What -" he began, but again was cut off as a figure dropped from a half-constructed rooftop above.

"Kili's been kidnapped, we need to find him," said Tauriel breathlessly, not seeming at all surprised to have run into the crown princes of two realms both together in a city that was not their own.

"Aren't you -" began Legolas a third time.

"We can have story time later, now we need to shut up and hurry up," said Tauriel so sternly that Legolas forgot that he was technically her superior and shut his mouth, following immediately as the female elf took off in the direction he had just come from. Fili came behind, following closely on his heels.

After about a minute of running through the streets, the elf heard Fili shout from behind him, "Does anyone actually know where we're going?"

"Somewhere away from the construction," Tauriel called back, "Somewhere neglected but not ruined. Somewhere on the side facing away from the Mountain."

"Facing Laketown," Legolas realised out loud, "That's where the kidnappers are from. It would give them a quick getaway."

"Let's hope they haven't already used it," commented Tauriel from ahead.

They wove their way in and out of uncleared wreckage for a few minutes longer, until the dwarf's voice came from significantly further behind than it had been.

"Can we slow down? Please?" gasped Fili, and the elves paused long enough for him to catch up.

"We can't waste any time," said Tauriel, looking worried, "

But if we split up we could cover more ground. They must have taken him somewhere around here."

Legolas nodded, "If they took him back to Laketown I would have met them on the road. We can use the nuthatch call if any of us find him."

"Nuthatch call?" queried the dwarf.

"Just whistle, loudly," replied Legolas, "Good luck."

They split up and headed in opposite directions, Legolas taking the west, Tauriel taking the east and Fili heading straight on towards the southern end of the ruined city. The dwarf ran at a pace he knew he could maintain, because he was sure that wherever this ended, there would be fighting. The twin swords on his back felt natural, like they were a part of him. His hands itched to draw them.

Every now and again he paused and listened intently. The only sound he could hear was the odd caw of a raven up above. No voices. He continued on his way.

All of a sudden he heard a yell, quiet in the distance but loud to his ears because he knew that voice as well as his own.

"Kili!" he shouted on reflex, then he realised that no one was likely to hear it. The cry had been one of pain, and Fili's heart was in his mouth as he put two fingers to his lips and let out a long, shrill whistle. It sounded nothing like a bird, but he didn't suppose that mattered. Legolas and Tauriel would get the message.

Sprinting at top speed towards the place where the sound had come from, around empty pigsties and abandoned chicken coops, hay carts and roughly-constructed barns in which he guessed the livestock of Dale had been kept that winter, Fili heard another cry, clearer than before:

"No! No, please stop! I'll tell you!"

It was coming from a barn directly ahead of him and without a second thought he collided with the door, sending it flying inwards, and drew his swords. The person nearest him was a man, the shortest in the room but nonetheless generously built. In less than a moment Fili had him kneeling on the floor in front of him with two swords hovering dangerously close to his neck.

Kili was at the other side of the barn, held by a man whose height and breadth was comparable to a horse. Kili's arm was twisted awkwardly behind him and was clearly causing him pain, and Fili was horrified to see a dirty, bloodstained rag tied haphazardly around his brother's thigh. From the way Kili's eyes kept glazing over and recovering as the dwarves locked gazes, the older one realised that the younger had to be almost at his limit. The blossoming bruises and thin trail of blood on his face spoke of many beatings in quick succession before Fili had got there, and the crown prince of Erebor cursed everything that might have caused him even the slightest delay in getting here.

It should have been me. He could not get the thought out of his head.

"Put him down or this one dies," said Fili, successfully hiding the slight waver in his voice. He could see that this lot carried knives quite openly, and he hoped that Legolas and Tauriel would hurry up.

"Well well well, look who we have here," sneered the man who was neither the one holding Kili nor the one whose neck was being threatened by Fili's swords. "It looks like we won't have to go to the trouble of kidnapping this one after all."

"I said put him down," repeated Fili through gritted teeth. There was hope in Kili's eyes which made him more determined than ever not to fail.

"Not so fast," said the man, but the dwarf wasn't having it.

"Five," Fili said slowly, "Four."

The man glared, and the big man holding Kili gave his captive's arm a little wrench which made the youngest Durin grit his teeth in pain but refuse to whimper or cry out. Fili felt a surge of pride for his little brother, but it came with a pain that was almost physical.

"Three."

At that moment, a small portion of the ceiling was kicked down from above and the red-headed she-elf dropped elegantly through. She looked around the silent room and she locked eyes with Kili for a split second, but as her gaze moved on she let out an almost inaudible gasp of surprise.

"Lhénir?"

The elf turned around. "It's Arradon now. You really shouldn't be surprised to see me moving onwards and upwards in the world. Leaving Mirkwood was the best decision I ever made."

"One: you were thrown out, you didn't choose to go. Two: if you call this onwards and upwards I'm surprised you haven't tried digging for gold in a tree yet," replied Tauriel, "And I suppose you're still mediocre at fighting."

Before anyone in the room could blink, the female elf had the traitor's arms behind his back and a knife to his neck. He gritted his teeth in defiance but could not struggle.

"I suggest you all drop you weapons and let the dwarf go," she said clearly, "You may run back to Esgaroth with your lives if you leave now."

For a moment, the man Fili was holding looked as if he might want to go, but at the slightest jerk of their leader's head all thought of surrender flew away like a leaf catching the tail end of a hurricane.

The was silence for a moment. Then Fili said "Two."

Kili didn't know what would happen when Fili ended the countdown. From what he could tell, Lord would quite easily let his minions be killed without batting an eyelid and he dreaded what Sodrunn might do to him if Lord allowed it, but even more he dreaded that Fili would be captured too and would be forced to endure the same torture as he had. He wished he had more strength, so that he could break free of the brute holding him and save his brother from the weight of responsibility he was surely feeling for him, but the truth was he could barely breathe through the pain let alone escape from it. Seeing Tauriel had given him even more hope than he could ever have expected, but it didn't do much to help his situation.

A shout echoed from above and to the west of the barn. Another shout followed and a curse in the Sindarin dialect of Mirkwood, then three elves dropped consecutively through the hole Tauriel had made in the roof. The first two were slightly ahead of the third, and looked positively more dangerous. While Legolas had only the knives he had been able to conceal on his previous arrest as weapons, each of these two new elves had a bow and full quiver, accompanied by a pair of long knives that were almost the length of Fili's swords. Kili recognised them, though only after a slight moment's thought. They were the two elves he and Tauriel had sent out of Mirkwood, who had been banished for speaking out against an alliance with the Dwarves. That could not be a good thing.

There was no pause in the air, not even as the first two elves stumbled their landing and struggled to regain their footing while Legolas took an instant to sweep his gaze across the scene. In the split second of distraction brought by the arrivals, Arradon twisted round in Tauriel's grip and managed to pull away. Immediately Yarvin ducked under Fili's swords, and that seemed to be the signal for the fight to begin.

Kili felt himself dropped to the ground as Sodrunn lurched forward to join the fray, but even as he fell and hit the floor Kili's eyes could not leave Tauriel. To the side he could see Lord backing away from Fili who in turn was being advanced upon by Sodrunn, while Yarvin lay motionless on the ground behind. Legolas was facing the three elves at once with his shorter knives but was still managing to hold them at bay. Tauriel was facing away from him but had not moved since Arradon broke away from her, and suddenly he saw her fall to her knees, her hands clutching something at her stomach. She turned slightly as she fell, and with a horror that smote him like a bucket of ice Kili saw the hilt of a knife protruding from between her hands.

"Tauriel!" he cried out loud, but his voice emerged as barely a croak. Still, Legolas turned just in time to see the fiery she-elf collapse sideways and remain on the ground, a growing circle of blood around her abdomen.

"Tauriel!" the Elf prince called in despair, but his opponents were too many and though one of them fell a moment later he could not do anything, still beset by two enemies who were fighting hard and with better weapons.

From deep inside him, Kili found the strength to lift himself onto his elbows and, inch by inch, crawl his way towards the wounded elf. His leg screamed in agony, and his whole body ached with bruises, and he couldn't yet tell whether any lasting damage had been done to the wrist which Sodrunn had twisted, but he ploughed on stubbornly, refusing to give in.

A cry of pain came from his left and though Kili ignored it, he could tell that it had come from Lord. He was nearly at Tauriel, and he could see how pale her face was, could read the agony in it as she struggled to take shallow breaths. This was worse than his nightmares ever were, and one of his greatest fears now seemed more and more likely to come true. Inside his head he was praying to every Valar he could remember the name of in any language but despair was creeping up inside him and a lump was forming in his throat, throbbing with the pounding drum of his heartbeat.

The shouted words floated vaguely over him, "Take the Dwarf and retreat!" but he paid them no heed, so close now to Tauriel that he could almost reach her hair, splayed like a crimson sea across the cold ground.

Then, a strong hand closed around his ankle and hauled him into the air, swinging him round and over Sodrunn's shoulder. He cried out, not in pain but in frustration and anger and sickening worry, but he was helpless once more as the room swung around him and disappeared behind one of its shabby wooden walls. The last thing he saw before he was hit over the head was Fili running desperately after him shouting his name. After that, there was nothing.