Fili woke to familiar quiet sounds. Tauriel never made much noise when she had bad dreams, but sixty years living in each other's pockets meant he heard her anyway. He rolled out of the too-large human bed and fumbled with flint and steel to light a candle. The light would wake her more easily than him touching her or calling her name - he had learned that lesson early on, when he had been thrown into a tree before she had properly woken.

He'd sprained her wrist grabbing it when she had woken him. They learned by trial and error.

"I apologize," Tauriel said now as she always did, blinking at him in the candlelight. "I did not mean to wake you."

Fili handed her a waterskin instead of telling her she didn't need to apologize, and instead of asking her about her dreams he said, "Strange, that orcs would leave so much intact."

"The innkeeper does not think they were orcs," Tauriel pointed out, swinging her legs over the edge of her own bed and taking a long drink of water. "He said tall things in robes."

"Creepy, like," Fili finished. The innkeeper had been pleased to see an elf, especially one who asked after the trouble he'd had. The Prancing Pony was in Bree, and usually Bree didn't see much trouble from orcs or goblins. Bree's trouble came in regular squabbling, and Tauriel and Fili were not interested in the squabbling of men. This incident, when they heard of it, had been unusual enough to pique their interest.

"This was not orc behavior," Tauriel said. "It is too focused. Too quiet, even."

"Unless the enemy has made new orcs," Fili pointed out, and winced. Tauriel had explained to him what making new orcs involved, when he had told her he was glad Morwinyon and Kili had been dragged off because it meant that Morwinyon at least might still be alive.

"Do not hope for that," she had snapped, and he had learned to hope they had only been eaten.

The innkeeper hadn't been very helpful the night before, but it had been late and he had been tired. Maybe Tauriel could get more out of him this morning, when fewer people clogged the common area. Fili could and had charmed information out of plenty of people, but Butterbur had seemed happier to see Tauriel the night before. They learned why when they dragged themselves down the stairs.

"One of those rangers," Butterbur said. "Hustled out a brace of hobbits like no one's business, and hobbits are my business, I tell you."

Hobbits? Fili looked at Tauriel. She shrugged.

"And all of them looking for Gandalf, who I've not seen for months," the innkeeper continued. "He's always mixed up in something, isn't he? But it's never brought things to my inn before."

Tauriel nodded sympathetically.

"But I've seen plenty of elves in my day." Here Butterbur pulled out a wine glass, inspected it, and plopped in front of Tauriel. "None of you like a good ale, but that's all right. I have to sell wine too, don't I?"

He poured. Tauriel sipped politely as Butterbur slid a tankard of ale in front of Fili.

"Anyway," he said, mollified when Tauriel made an approving noise and Fili drank half the tankard in one gulp. "You lot, you know how to deal with rangers. Never had a problem with them before myself, but they're a raggedy bunch, living up there in tents and clans and all, and then he takes away some of my best custom and leaves me with…"

Fili waited, allowing Butterbur to collect himself. Bree dealt with the occasional goblin band on the roads, but goblins hadn't gotten past the walls in years. Butterbur was used to sending his people out to bring sentries ale, not hiding in his own office while screams and black-coated figures with large swords floated through his inn.

"Did this ranger have a name?" Tauriel asked, which was why Fili usually did the sweet-talking. Tauriel was kind, but impatient with missishness.

"Strider," Butterbur said, shaking off the memories. "He's a reasonable fellow, aside from that. Always pays his bill."

Fili wormed a description of ranger, hobbits, and strange creepy things out of Butterbur and Tauriel slid him some silver to cover their room and his trouble. Butterbur further informed them that he thought the ranger said something of Rivendell.

"It does not sound as if they will return," Tauriel assured Butterbur. "To me it sounds as if they were chasing something. This Strider may have done you a favor."

"Hmmph," Butterbur said, and slid an extra meat pie into the bag of food they purchased.

Tauriel wouldn't eat it, but Fili enjoyed meat pies enough for the both of them. He munched on it as they started down the road.

"Hobbits," Tauriel said.

"Hobbits," Fili agreed after he swallowed his mouthful. "Always with the hobbits. Did you ever meet Bilbo?"

"Once," Tauriel said. "He gave Thranduil Lady Laeriel's jewels."

"The ones left," Fili said, pressing a hand to his chest where the necklace hung, warm and comforting, under his shirt.

"That is yours," Tauriel replied. "Not Lady Laeriel's. Not anymore, anyway."

Fili shrugged and tossed her an apple.

"Is it as you remembered it?" Tauriel asked. They stood staring down at Rivendell, neither one quite on the path.

"Mostly," Fili said. "You?"

"I have never visited Rivendell before," Tauriel said, staring hungrily. "Once I thought to bring Morwinyon here, to her cousins, but Thranduil would not hear of it. Lady Laeriel went missing on the road."

"Thranduil has kin here?" Fili asked. If Tauriel had wanted to bring Morwinyon they couldn't be as unpleasant as his father-in-law, but that was, in Fili's estimation, a low bar to clear.

Tauriel shook her head and started down the path. Fili followed. "Lord Elrond and his kin are Lady Laeriel's cousins on her mother's side. I think."

"Are they as…" Fili trailed off, trying to think of a more complimentary description than he had been about to use. What Tauriel had told him about Laeriel wasn't uncomplimentary exactly, but it did not, to his ears, sound like ringing endorsements either.

"Lord Elrond is very hospitable, from what I know," Tauriel assured him. "Well, you met him."

Fili snorted.

An elf greeted them when they approached the gates. "Be welcome to Rivendell," they said in lightly accented Westron.

Tauriel bowed, hand over her heart, and Fili copied her. "Our thanks for the hospitality, sir," she replied in the same language. "I am Tauriel of the Greenwood."

She left it up to him to decide whether to give his actual name or make one up, which Fili felt was unsporting. He supposed Elrond might recognize him anyway.

"Fili, son of Dis," he said.

The elf blinked.

Tauriel said carefully, "Fili has had the honor of meeting Lord Elrond before. If we might ask to meet him again-"

The elf spun on his heel and shouted something up at a window in Sindarin, too fast for Fili to catch. He knew some Sindarin. He just knew it when it was spoken slowly.

The window swung open, revealing another elf, this one with hair as dark as Morwinyon's but very little of Morwinyon's features in her face. Her eyes were light, for one thing, and the lids had an extra crease that Morwinyon's face was an oval too, not like Morwinyon's squarer jaw.

Tauriel said, "I see you have heard the name."

The elf who had opened the window ducked away from it, and moments later she came rushing into the courtyard.

"I didn't realize I was so infamous," Fili muttered as the elf woman came to a stop before him.

"Fili, son of Dis, who was nephew to Thorin Oakenshield?" she asked.

"Yes," Fili said slowly, looking at Tauriel. Tauriel shrugged helplessly. He looked back at the elf.

The elf put her hands on her hips, looking down an elegant nose at him, and said, "Your wife believes you dead. Is there a reason you have let her think so?"

Fili's first thought was that it was a joke, and tasteless in the extreme. He was about to tell her so when Tauriel made a choked off noise, and he looked back at her to see her covering her mouth with both hands, eyes wide with horror.

If Morwinyon wasn't dead, if they had left her on the mountain…

Fili didn't bother with dignity. He let himself drop to the ground.