I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien or in Peter Jackson's movies, and anything Araceil came up with in Fate be Changed belongs to her.
Tauriel flinched when Legolas stepped out of the shadows of the trees that surrounded them, but kept walking. He walked over to fall in alongside her. The pair walked in silence for a time, until he finally said, "You're leaving."
Obviously a conversation opener, considering that she was carrying a backpack along with sword and bow, but she simply shrugged. "Yes."
Legolas waited a few moments, until it was obvious that she wasn't going to continue. "Does Carelwen know?"
"Yes, I told her." Tauriel shrugged again. "She said she wasn't happy losing one of her best scouts at the beginning of her time as Captain of the Guard, but that you'd all survive without me."
She fell silent again. After the pair walked in silence for a time Legolas gently gripped her arm, bringing her to a halt and turning her to face him. "I know the symptoms of the wanderlust that sometimes strikes — I've suffered them myself, and wandered the world beyond our forest for a time. You never have, and are not now. So why?"
Tauriel opened her mouth to pour out the guilt that had churned in her gut and haunted her quiet hours since the scouts had hunted down the surviving Orcs through Mirkwood's trees, only for the words to choke her — she simply couldn't bring herself to admit the part she'd played in the Dwarves' escape, and the deaths of the distracted guards at the Orcs' hands. So she settled for a simpler truth.
"The Dark is rising."
"What?"
"The Dark is rising." She turned away to stare into the forest to the East. "I encountered our Ghost briefly, just before the start of our patrol on the Feast of Starlight." Legolas's gaze sharpened, and she waved a hand dismissively. "I was alone, and she was careful to stay out of reach then disappeared when I glanced away for a moment. But we talked for a while and that was what she said, that the Dark is rising again. And don't forget that Mithrandir was with them on their Quest, at least in the beginning. Remember her saying when we first encountered her, that they found Glamdring at the same time as Orcrist, that he now bears that sword?" Legolas nodded, frowning in puzzlement until horrified comprehension spread across his face. Tauriel smiled mirthlessly. "Exactly. If he started with them, what happened that was important enough for him to leave thirteen Dwarves of varying competence and a single tiny Hobbit — however competent she might be — to deal with Smaug by themselves? And what might that mean for us here?"
"So you intend to help them?"
"Yes."
"Very well. I think this a fool's errand, but you may be right. And you are free to follow your own mind." He lifted a hand in salute. "Oromë and Vána watch over you."
"Or perhaps her older sister. Dwarves are the special concern of Aulë, after all, and what Valar better to watch over Hobbits than his wife?" Tauriel flashed an impish smile at the suddenly thoughtful prince, and turned away to break into a run through the shadow-dappled woods. She wanted to reach Laketown before evening.
/oOo\
As it turned out, Sakura had been right. Her dreams that last night in Laketown, sandwiched between the two girls, had been wonderful — a garden, mist turning the early morning light to a hazy glow, a small child with Bilbo's hair that she somehow knew had her eyes running between the rows of vegetables and flowers chasing a butterfly, laughter just like Tilda's.
She had clutched the memory of that dream to her as she'd sat shivering in the middle of the boat that had carried them across Long Lake, and tried to keep the memory alive as the Company had eventually left the road to strike out across the blasted landscape toward Lonely Mountain. (A landscape that felt ... not dead, not twisted and dark like Mirkwood, but empty, as if all that lived had fled the dragon's presence.)
Now, standing at the top of a bare, rocky mountain spur, that dream was nothing but faded tatters as she stared down at what the decades had left of the gutted ruins of Dale, rubble-filled streets and broken walls like jagged teeth. She remembered another town — much larger than Dale in size if smaller for its time — that had been swept away by Fire.
Vaguely, as if from a great distance, she could hear Balin. "These slopes used to be covered by forest, filled with bird-song." Something else Cheyenne Mountain had shared with Erebor. She wondered if Colorado Springs and the refugee camp that had surrounded it had looked anything like Dale after the nuclear mushroom cloud she'd seen had blown away. At least Dale would have had more survivors, however you counted them.
A gentle hand gripped her shoulder. "Sakura?"
She lifted a hand to grip Thorin's, touched by the concern in his voice. "Just memories of my own war. I'll be fine."
"You had to fight dragons, too?" Ori asked eagerly.
Still staring down at Dale, Sakura missed the various winces at that question, and at the bitter edge to her responding laugh. "Compared to what we could do to each other, Smaug is nothing. Fortunately, both sides' leaders were sane enough that we mostly didn't. Mostly..." She squeezed Thorin's hand, then pushed it off her shoulder and turned away from the valley. "So, how much farther to where the secret door's hidden?"
"Uh ... right," a flustered Balin replied. He pulled out the map to double-check, then nodded. "It should be somewhere at the head of the valley between these next two spurs."
/oOo\
Tauriel strode along the bridge leading to Lake-town. She'd made good time, there was plenty of daylight left. And the Dwarves couldn't be all that far ahead of her — they couldn't have ridden the barrels all the way to Lake-town and they wouldn't have pushed through the swamp that the river turned into after it left Mirkwood on foot. But they would have kept to the swamp's edge to avoid getting lost in the forest and that fringe was heavy going. She'd swung wide, but she also knew the ground well enough to take it at a run. If she hadn't beaten them there, surely they would have only a day on her.
The two guards at the end of the bridge stepped aside and waved her through (they might question others seeking to enter the town, but not Elves), but she paused after walking through the open gate. "Excuse me, I have come in search of a company of Dwarves that might have arrived yesterday or today. Have you seen them?"
"No, my lady," the guard to her left replied. "The only Dwarves to arrive recently were several days ago, and that was on the barge sent for your empty wine barrels."
"Did they? They must have had a stroke of luck. Was there a Hobbit with them? Even smaller than Dwarves, red hair, blue eyes, bare feet with fur on top."
"A ... Hobbit, did you say?" The guard grinned. "The tavern gossip's that she's a Dwarven princess being escorted to the Iron Hills to be married."
Tauriel laughed, shaking her head. "No, she's not a princess, Dwarven or Hobbit. She's a scout, and very dangerous. So where can I find them?"
/\
Tauriel knocked on the door of the home she'd been directed to, her heart sinking. It was much too quiet for thirteen Dwarves (if not one Hobbit). Either she was being pranked and at the wrong house (unlikely, considering the regard Lake-towners had for Elves), or she'd missed them.
The door opened to reveal a tiny Man of the female variety (though not as tiny as Sakura) with light brown hair, wearing a clean but worn and slightly tattered dress. The young girl gaped up at the visitor, stunned silent, and from within the house a voice (also young and female, from the sound) called out: "Tilda, who's at the door?"
Tilda blushed and her mouth opened and closed as she struggled for words, until a smiling Tauriel took pity on her. "My apologies for bothering you. My name is Tauriel and I'm looking for thirteen Dwarves and one Hobbit. Have you seen them?"
"I ... I ... yes, they were here, but ... but ..."
An older girl appeared in a doorway farther back in the house, obviously related to the younger girl thanks to her hair and the shape of her face. She froze at the sight of their visitor. Tauriel patiently repeated her introduction and question, and the newcomer visibly gathered her wits. "I'm Sigrid and this is my sister Tilda. Please, come in, our father should be home any time. Yes, they were here, but they left yesterday morning."
"What do you want with them?" Tilda demanded, crossing her arms and frowning up at Tauriel.
Sigrid smacked the back of her sister's head — gently, Tauriel noted. "Tilda, manners! She's an Elf." She pulled the little girl out of Tauriel's way. "Please, come in. Father and our brother should be home at any time."
/oOo\
Sakura sat on a blanket examining Sting's blade for nicks — something she had done earlier at Bard's home, when she'd cleaned the blood and gore out of the scabbard, but she hadn't quite believed what she'd found. Now that they thought they'd found the location of the secret entrance (up a stairway disguised as decorative carving but seen by Ori with his artist's eye, to a tiny flat space invisible from below), she'd taken a second look at her sword and now found the same thing.
Not a single nick or scratch — Sting didn't even need to be sharpened, and a bemused Sakura slid it back into its scabbard. And this is an Elven blade, Dwarf work is supposed to be even better! It made her wonder about the quality of the Bowie knife Arwen had given her. The Elf princess had said it wasn't of the same quality as Sting, but still ...
Rising to her feet to sling on and buckle the harness that carried Sting on her back, Sakura looked over at the Dwarves searching the rock wall for the keyhole. She didn't know why they were bothering — from what Dwalin had told her, thanks to the Dwarves' own Art, a properly hidden Dwarven secret entrance — at least one involving stone — would be undetectable even to Wizards. She couldn't imagine that the camouflage for one leading into the heart of a kingdom would be anything less than perfect. And — she glanced up at the sinking sun — since we managed to make it here on Durin's Day, it isn't like we won't know if we got it right in a little while, anyway. But this close to the culmination of the Quest, she supposed they simply found it impossible to do nothing but wait.
She watched as the sun slowly sank below the horizon, more and more of the Dwarves joining her as the clouds turned red and the sky darkened. Finally, the last of the sun sank below the horizon and the Company groaned.
Sakura sighed, then forced a grin as she turned to face the others. Ori looked especially downcast, and she walked over and patted the young Dwarf on the arm. "Hey, it isn't your fault this wasn't the right place, it looked good. Don't worry, it just means I'll be going through the front gate tomorrow." And past Dale again, not something she was looking forward to. Ah, well, needs must.
"Sakura is right." Thorin glanced around the tiny alcove, and the space taken up by their piled-up packs. "This is too small for us to camp, we'll need to go back down. Sakura, I want you coming down last." At her questioning look, he added, "You're the least likely of us to slip and fall, but if someone else does I don't want to risk you getting knocked off — however good you are at what you do, all of us can bounce better than you can."
The rest of the Dwarves laughed at Sakura's reluctant agreement and, the somber mood broken, cheerfully sorted out their packs and began back down the the zig-zag stairs as quickly as they could, while they still had some light.
Sakura had just stepped down to the first step when she heard a clicking sound behind her. Pausing, she turned to look back to find a thrush — the first bird she'd seen since the Company had left the eastern road to head north into the Desolation of Smaug. It was knocking something held in its beak against a gray rock.
"Stand by the gray stone when the thrush knocks …"
"No!" she breathed, turning to stare westward. The sun had already set!
" ... and the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the keyhole."
I can still see, the light isn't gone! Whirling back around, she shouted down: "Everyone, come back! No, Thorin, pass the key up, hurry! Wait, no, pass the key up and come back!"
Without waiting to see if anyone had understood her, she rushed over to the thrush (the thing in its beak was a snail that it kept hammering against the stone), and waited. Dwarves began to join her in the deepening dusk, but she ignored them except to push Bombur out of the way when the bulk of his barely-darker shadow fell on the wall. She glanced up at the sky: the moon was setting, it was sinking behind the western ridge ... as the moon disappeared, a circular beam of moonlight somehow focused through some hole that must have been carved through that ridge faintly illuminated a tiny crevasse in the rock wall.
Thorin stepped past her and inserted the key into the crevasse and tried to turn it. Something clicked, and a softly glowing outline appeared on the rock — rectangular, the right size for a Dwarven doorway. He reached for what had looked like a natural break in the rough rock of the wall but now was perfect for a handle and pulled, and in spite of decades at least since its last use, the door silently swung outward to reveal a large square of inky darkness.
They were in.
Yes, my Lake-towners are extremely respectful of Elves. Not only is the Woodland Realm the town's primary trading partner, but they are a race of immortal, breathtakingly beautiful, hyper-competent (to the Lake-towners' eyes) people that hold themselves aloof from the rest of the world. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch for some of the Lake-towners to actually worship them!