Of Forests and Mountains: Tauriel and Thorin

AN: I was never satisfied by Thorin's storyline ending in The Hobbit. This an attempt at giving that character another chance at life. Another word to the would-be readers: Tauriel is a re-worked character in this fic. She has a very different background story than the elf depicted in Peter Jackson's trilogy. Finally, assume the storyline of The Hobbit is the same up until Thorin and the others get lost in Mirkwood.


Chapter 1: Captured


Thorin Oakenshield was tormented by mouth-wateringly vivid dreams of feasting. Spiced and baked poultry. Roasted venison. Sweet baked apples. Fresh, warm loaves of bread with lots of salted butter.

These were cruel visions after having wandered the fathomless and unforgiving depths of Mirkwood without any food. They exhausted their provisions days beforehand.

The exiled King Under the Mountain and his thirteen companions of kin and friends departed from the path - foolishly, he now knew - seeking after crimson lights in the woods. Lanterns - he realized. And torches.

These were the Wood-elves at feast. Many fair folk arrayed in brown and green, so similar to the color of the trees that the elves did not seem separate from the depths of the forest, but for their fair faces and tall, lithe forms.

Yet, there was one among them that did not blend in with the forest.

The Elvenking.

He did not celebrate as the others did, but instead sat at the head of a great banqueting table, contemplative and alert. His noble face ageless, and his white-blonde hair falling down his shoulders in straight rivers. And his eyes - his eyes were a startling blue. As deep and bright as a breathless, starry winter sky.

Thorin had the distinct eerie sense that nothing was hidden from the elf's penetrating gaze. He did not have green or brown apparel as his subjects, but instead he wore a shining silver robe which reflected every source of light within the clearing, mirroring it outwards like a many-faceted jewel.

And upon the king's head sat a twisted and divaricate twigs-and-holly crown of richly worked silver. A tremendous piece of smithwork, which Thorin at first believed to be dwarvish.

However... He recalled his father speaking once of the excellent workings of the Noldorin smiths of old.

The Gwaith-i-Mirdain.

Highly witty craftsmen they were, and unlike most elves - even those of Rivendell - once worked with metals and shaped stone as skillfully and as beautifully as even the finest dwarven smiths. They worked alongside many dwarves, including Narvi, the maker of the Doors of Durin, the West-gate of Moria.

And that was a lofty praise from Thrain, who bore little love for elves otherwise.

Elves. He scoffed. How was such metalsmith skill attainable by them?

The elves were far too wild and frivolous for careful talent.

He frowned. His feet seemed heavier now.

Elves, he reasoned tiredly, finding it terribly difficult to think through the growing cloud within his mind. What did they know of such attentive arts? What did they know of...

Thorin slipped into forgetful darkness.


"Awake, dwarf! Awake!" A distant, strange voice cried.

Thorin stirred. His lids fluttered open, and his eyes strained to focus on shadowy figures standing about him. His mind was fogged and his tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth. He hardly felt his body for the numbness that ruled it.

A sharp kick to his ribs brought him roughly to his senses.

He cried out and sat upright, clutching his side.

Through bleary eyes, Thorin saw dozens of elven warriors staring down at him, ire in the glint of their glances.

Nearly all of them had arrows drawn and aimed at his person.

Stealing a quick glance to either side, Thorin perceived he was on his own. His kinsmen were no where within sight. Fear gripped his heart for the sake of his nephews.

He had made a promise to their mother.

"What are you doing in the woods of the Elvenking?" A golden-haired elf demanded, as he strode forward from the line of archers.

Many of the elves were golden-headed, or dark of hair. A stark contrast to their haughty lord. Their long, pale faces were ageless and unmarred.

The elf-lord was young, but not for his countenance alone. No one could rightly reckon the age of an elf by their mere appearance. No, it was in this one's eyes. This one was impatient to gain what he wished.

And Thorin was far from pleased, himself. He glared up at the leader in reply, and he received another kick in the ribs for his defiance.

Thorin grunted involuntarily, but willed his wince to a snarl. He twisted fast enough to spot that particularly eager underling of the elf-lord. A wicked smile played on the elf-face.

"Daro i!"* cried another elf.

A female.

Thorin's attention flicked upwards in guarded surprise. He had noticed this one before - but there she stood abreast the golden-haired lord. The she-elf held a bow and arrow in her grip with the projectile aimed at the earth. Her focused was wholly upon the elf who had kicked Thorin. Her withering stare caused the offending elf to take several steps backward behind the line of archers.

She was something different entirely, Thorin decided.

Her long red-brown hair lay in straight, soft layers that framed her fair, narrow face. Though her attire was greatly akin to those of her companions, her features were a severe contrast to the fair-haired and -eyed elves gathered around. Her eyes were not blue, neither were they brown. She was a curiosity, at best.

But, Thorin's interest was piqued mostly by the way the others responded to her. The elves took turns looking between the tall, blonde male and the shorter auburn-haired female. Consternation in their eyes.

Were he not so weak from hunger and thirst, Thorin might have relished in this sudden division among his enemies, and attempted to use it to his advantage. Instead, he contented to sit miserably on the ground and watch how this confrontation would end.

"Le maetha an i nogoth, Tauriel?"* The elf-lord spoke harshly. His fiery gaze never departed from her face.

Thorin dryly noted the indifference the she-elf demonstrated towards the icy demeanor of the leader. If anything, she squared her shoulders in audacity and tilted her fair chin just a little higher.

Her face remained a mask of calm stalwartness. "Lau, caun nin."*

The young leader gave his rebellious companion one last critical glare before turning back to the dwarven king.

"Bind his hands," he commanded, nodding curtly in Thorin direction.

Several elves descended upon him at once; some grabbed his shoulders, others his legs, still others set to their task. They smartly pulled him to his feet and forced his arms behind his back, and bound his wrists together tightly with braided rope.

Thorin grimaced but kept his gaze upon the elf-lord, never breaking his stare. If the blonde savaged wished to instill fear within the King Under the Mountain, he would receive no such satisfaction.

And Thorin would have bested the elf at their glaring rencounter had one of the other elves not uncivilly shoved him just then, bringing him roughly to one knee.

He pressed his lips into a grim line. So humiliation was the game they wished to play?

Why had he listened to Gandalf's counsel by chancing Mirkwood?

The dwarf king look up again to find the elf-lord looking at him still, just as irate as ever. But there was something else in the flicker of his cruel eyes.

Amusement.

Yet, that was it. The lordling thought this was all good fun.

Thorin smoldered. His face grew hot and his stomach roiled with rage.

"You will regret this," he promised, as he was lead past the leader and the female.

He expected laughter, or even a sneer in return.

"Don't be a fool," was the response. A warning.

He was taken aback when he realized it was the she-elf who had spoken to him.

"I am no fool," he grumbled, more to himself than anyone else.

"Tobo in hen!"* The lordling called from behind him.

Thorin started as his vision was suddenly obstructed by a heavy cloth that they tied about his face. Were it possible, he grew angrier still at their continued measures of mistrust.

Onward, the Wood-elves led the dwarven king farther that he had the strength to travel, and when he finally fell from exhaustion, his captors dragged him the rest of the way.

And they were not gentle. Thorin endured much from their impatience, and his animosity grew still at their ill treatment of him.

He had committed no wrong, after all!

What harm had he done to the elves by simply getting lost in their wicked forest?

But, he had little strength left to resist them.

Being captured was not something he loved, but it far surpassed starving to death in the malevolent wood.

His captors moved him quickly over smooth terrain of bare earth. Paths which they evidently frequented. At all times, hands on either side of him held his arms tightly, holding him upright. His iron-toed boots drug against the ground.

He lamentably considered his present lot. All of this way he had come. He had nearly been eaten by trolls, trekked across half of the treacherous Misty Mountains, was captured by goblins, then chased by wargs and orcs, and narrowly died wandering through the wilderness of Mirkwood. And now, to be the prisoner of the Wood-elves. Alone.

The circumstances were grim.

But, he resolved within his heart that no matter their methods, his captors would never hear a word of his true quest.

Let them think him a coal-miner!** Let them torment him! Let them leave him in their forest to perish from hunger and thirst, for all he cared! These foolish folk would never hear of his treasures and throne awaiting him in Erebor. And especially not of the heart of the Lonely Mountain.

The Arkenstone.

His jealously guarded secret.

At last his elvish captors came to a pause a moment in their long march. Thorin took the opportunity to gain his feet again, and rolled his aching shoulders in their joints. The adamant grip of their hands did not return immediately.

Then - his ears focused upon a moaning grind of movement from somewhere before him. So immense was it that the very ground trembled beneath his feet. It was a sound that all dwarves knew well - the ancient, mighty song of metal caressing stone.

He surmised he was witnessing the opening of a great passageway.

And he was more right than he knew.

Again hands returned to his shoulders and renewed their iron grip. He was roughly forced forward across a small stretch of a bare dirt path which abruptly changed to rough hewn stone as he stepped through an enormous doorway.

His ears perked at the footsteps and the struggling hurried sounds of his own boots upon the smooth stone floor. The sounds evanesced as they leaped ahead of him into the distance. The gouged-out tunnels of this place branched in many directions, through the large hallway that they traversed, and smaller ones that split off from it.

The echoing stirrings within the halls was the secret language of the earth that Thorin and all his kin knew well. And this mountain passageway revealed to him in mutters and in shouts what the elves thought to keep from his eyes.

Fools, he scoffed.

What dwarf didn't know the manner in which sound passed beneath the earth? Its varying tones of reverberation off from marble, granite, and sandstone. How it reached forth with its unseen reach as far it dare, around corners and through cracks. How it slowly died to a whisper over mere grains of sand.

These Wood-elves might inhabit this mountain, but they did not know it. Nor, could they. It was not in their blood. Nor, in their hearts. They could never understand stone as Thorin's own people did. These elves were foreigners to this place, and would always be aliens to rock and earth.

At some length, he heard voices gurgling as they roiled up the hall greeting him, growing waning in volume. A great many elves, he realized. Thorin would be completely surrounded soon.

He wondered what number of them were within these cursed wood and haunted hills.

Thorin pitied this land.

At last, they turned him abruptly to the left, and his hastened footfalls no longer rebounded from the wall, but instead fled deep into a new chamber. He did not detect a returning echo. As they rounded the corner, the flood of voices all but ceased.

Thorin held his breath. All but feeling a great number of these beastly people had turned their condescending eyes upon him.

His chest burned with his rising ire, and his face flushed. He scowled deeply beneath his blindfold.

A clear and commanded voice barked a long line of alien syllables, filling all of the voluminous chamber with odd vocables and silencing all the other susurrations. "Ai sen? An thel man le tegi sen nogoth mi thamas nin?"

Long and nimble fingers working in his hair as they untied the blindfold secured at the back of his head. Thorin's neck and shoulders stiffened at the sensation.

Once freed, he blinked a few times to acclimate himself to the light of blazing torches illuminating a great hall. Thorin glanced askance at one the elves who gripped his shoulder so tightly, snorting in derision to find it was the lordling.

To his right, stood the female. She faced the front of the room, unconcerned with the crowd staring at her and her company. Her focus and stance solid as flint.

Thorin gazed down at the buff stone floor beneath his armored boots. It was overtly carved smooth, but done so by inexperienced hands. He sourly noted that the rounded walls and domed ceiling had also been thusly refined.

He found their stonework both insipid and poorly done - best.

Thorin sneered. Why was he not surprised by their childish abilities?

To either side of him, beyond the guards and the two leaders, were crowds of elves folk very similar to those he witnessed in his earlier hunger-induced delirium. Just prior to his capture.

In fact... if his eyes were cheated by some elven trickery...

Thorin blinked in surprise.

He saw many of these elves before.

Their long, fair faces with high cheekbones, and tall lithe figures were known to him. They were arrayed in the same green and yellow raiment, with loose-fitting leaf-shaped sleeves, fitted leggings, and shod with supple brown boots.

But, that wasn't all.

His breath halted in momentary astonishment.

Directly before him, on a crudely cut throne, sat the Elvenking. His pale face glowed and his long silver robe rippled with light under the flaring radiance of the torches. The king's silver twig-and-holly crown cast a dancing shadow upon the wall behind him. His bright blue eyes shone in the firelight, and were as cold as a cloudless winter night.

But, the Elvenking's gaze held such a glint of disdain that Thorin couldn't help but return it.

He glowered up at the king.

Thorin realized with certainly now that his mere trespass on their land was only half their quarrel with him. Their unjust treatment was purely because he was a dwarf.

The elves had always been a stiff-necked race.

"We bring you a trespasser upon our lands," the blond lordling proudly announced in the Common Tongue. His youthful, melodious voice carried through the cavernous chamber, arresting the attention of all who stood witness.

The elven court murmured among themselves at that. Their voices melded together into an incoherent cacophony.

"Silence," hissed the Elvenking. His long pale fingers splayed, gripping the armrests of the throne.

Curiously, the echo of that single whisper not only followed the reverberating words of his subjects, but it consumed them. The crowd's resounding words didn't simply fade away - instead they were devoured.

Elf magic, Thorin cursed.

"Why did you and your folk three times try to attack my people at their merrymaking?" the Elvenking demanded. His piercing eyes settled upon Thorin. His lilting voice floated through the chamber like a small waterfall.

Musical, but firm.

Thorin bristled at the accusation. He bit back a retort burning on his tongue.

But, he assuaged his anger... for now.

If he reacted in animosity, it would only bait these barbarians to fight. It was what they expected of him. He needed to take care and not give them what they wished.

He determined again, that he would breathe no word of his true purpose.

Somehow he managed to even his voice. "We did not attack them," he quickly mustered an honest excuse. "We came to beg, because we were starving."

He couldn't hide the bitterness in his voice.

Why couldn't they have simply aided him? But he supposed that was asking too much kindness from these hateful people.

The Elvenking cocked his head. His white-gold hair slipping forward onto his shoulder. His bright eyes narrowed. Weighing and penetrating. "Where are your friends now, and what are they doing?" His grip lessened upon the armrests.

Undaunted, he pressed on. "I don't know, but I expect starving in the forest."

With a sigh, the king leaned back on his throne, and his brows drew together. He asked tiredly, "What were you doing in the forest?"

"Looking for food and drink, because we were starving." Have you not listened to anything I said?

The king suddenly sat bolt upright at that, his beryl eyes flashed. "But what brought you into the forest at all?"

Thorin pressed his lips together in grim realization. He could not avoid such a direction question. He refused to lie outright, but neither could he offer further narrative to this foolish king.

He lifted his chin in defiance. Idly, he pulled against his wrist restraints behind his back, twisting them forwards and backwards beneath the rough texture of the rope.

"Very well," the Elvenking said. He looked to the elf-lord beside Thorin. "Take the dwarf to the dungeon! Do not release him until he decides to speak the truth."

The lordling nodded stiffly.

Thorin threw a warning glance up at the him, but the elf-lord paid him no mind, and grasped his arm in a renewed iron grip.

Quickly and roughly, he was steered away from the throne, but he resisted and struggled at every step. Perhaps that was foolish on his part.. because the entire elven troop closed in on him, coming to the aid of their leader. They took hold of Thorin's shoulders, arms, and hair - grabbed and wrenching. He grimaced and grunted in pain.

Under the unsynchronized restraints of his captors, Thorin lost his balance and fell to his knees with a hard clap onto the stone floor. This elicited a garbled curse from his lips, and he struggled to catch himself from falling onto his face.

"Daro!" The auburn haired elf-maid commanded.

He heard and felt her swift movements as she forced herself between some of the elves and himself. She struck their hands off from him.

Thorin looked up from the floor at her in confusion and... gratitude.

It was a relief to have the dogs called off the attack.

From his vantage point, he studied the tense elven faces surrounding him. It was an odd conflict on his behalf.

He felt admiration for the boldness of the she-elf, as some of the guards backed away from her abrupt advance, while others stood their ground and sternly looked to their elf-lord for direction.

Thorin could not clearly discern the Elvenking, but strained to watch the goings-on, surprising himself at having found a strength he did not realize he had left inside. He turned at an uncomfortable angle the watch the lordling's reaction with mild satisfaction.

He was furious.

And the elven guards were visibly torn between their two leaders once again.

Thorin smirked.

"Enough!" The Elvenking barked. His indignant voice cracked like a whip through the chamber.

All eyes returned to his tall, silver-clad form, standing up from the throne. His lurid eyes passed over every one of them involved. Finally, his focus fell on the elf-maid, and he scowled.

"If you feel you must protect the dwarf," he spat, his nose wrinkling in disgust, "then take the prisoner to his cell yourself, Captain!"

Everyone directed their attention to the Captain.

Except for Thorin, who only spared a glance in her direction. He still kneeled on the floor, glowering up at the lordling.

The elf took no notice.

Nodding in submission, the Captain turned gracefully on her heel and squatted down until she was eye-to-eye with him.

Thorin shot her an unappreciative glare, unwaveringly meeting her calm green gaze. His dark browns furrowed.

"There is no other choice before you, Master Dwarf," she said quietly, her tone sympathetic. "But, I can promise you no further harm shall be done if you will come with me."

She laid a placating hand upon his forearm.

He studied her face for a long moment, increasing the trepidation swallowing the room. Taut silence fell upon the elven court like a shroud.

All awaited his reply. A multitude of unkind eyes.

Finally, Thorin made up his mind. He sighed angrily, then nodded once. His smarted pride unwilling to give the elves anymore submission than that.

The Captain inclined her head briefly in return, and gently tugged his arm to assist him to his feet.

Thorin testily shrugged her off and came to his feet unsteadily on his own. Being their prisoner was degrading enough. He would not suffer their patronization as well.

As the King Under the Mountain passed by the blonde elf-lord without so much as a glance.

Thorin's heart blazed with fire. His jaw clenched. He tightened his large fists until his leather gloves squeaked in protest, and his bonds began to give. His body trembled with rage.

This would not be the end of the matter, he promised himself.

He grudgingly walked with the Captain abreast him, and was promptly led off to a cell with a trailing entourage of elven guards.


End Notes: I do realize that my Sindarin grammar is atrocious... I am but a novice to Tolkien's languages. Despite hours of study. If you know how to structure my sentences so that they are correct, please message me with advice so that I can fix them!"

*Literal Translations:

"Daro i!" - (Stop [that]).

"Le maetha an i nogoth, Tauriel?" - (You [would] fight for the dwarf, Tauriel?)

"Lau, caun nin." - (No, my prince.)

"Tobo in hen" - (Cover his eyes.)

"Ai sen? An thel-man le tegi sen nogoth mi thamas nin?" - (Who [is] this? For what purpose [do] you bring this dwarf into my great hall?)

**Coal-miner: This was used as a great insult among the dwarves of Thorin's Company in The Hobbit.