Warning: Here there be gore and blood.


The problem was that they were dwarves. Not just any dwarves, but Durin's folk at that. Their kin knew splendor as well as they did squalor. Whether on a throne or on their knees, being a Durin came with certain expectations, chief among them being not to complain.

It was, after all, a matter of practicality. Before he could read or count, Fili had learned that no amount of squealing would put more food on the table. No matter how hard he wept, the sting in his scraped knee would not soften. Pain was not something that could be reasoned with, only held back like a horse before it could run wild.

Does it hurt?

Though the question hung heavy in his mind, it would never reach Fili's tongue. Suppose his brother truly was in pain - what reason would he have to admit it? What could possibly possess him to go against everything his uncle and mother, even his older brother himself, had taught him?

At least he was using his walking stick. In that regard, Fili couldn't fault him for not listening to Oin. Still, Fili couldn't walk forward a few steps without turning his gaze back towards his brother. The arch of his back, the wrinkle of his forehead, the curve of his lips - Fili took in the different parts but couldn't paste them together into a whole. If Kili was in pain, would Fili even be capable of realizing it?

Kili suddenly turned his head, and their eyes met. He narrowed his gaze but said nothing. Fili hurriedly looked away, his eyes dropping to the ground. His cheeks were hot as burning coals.

I have a right to be worried, Fili reminded himself.

And why shouldn't he? Oin had never been one to exaggerate. That his brother still had his leg at all was a miracle, if not entirely a surprise. They were dwarves, after all - Durin's folk at that. Their kin were hardy as the stone they had long called home.


Tauriel had never realized that one could walk forever and still get nowhere. It was a perturbing revelation that slowed her steps. Suppose Legolas came looking for her. What hope was there that he might be better able to navigate this abysm?

No, it wasn't a question of if Legolas would come. For centuries, he had been almost as faithful of a companion as her shadow.

It looked like a tornado had passed through her one room home. Broken furniture and shattered pottery littered the floor. An orc lay sprawled near the front entrance. Tauriel couldn't pull her eyes from it. Only moments before, it had stood tall, its corn yellow teeth bared and nose held high, sniffing the air. Now, it lay unmoving, though blood thick and black as ink still poured from the arrow hole in the back of its skull.

Her legs felt like they had been stuffed with pebbles. They were both too heavy to move yet too flimsy for her to stand on. Her throat was tight and dry as a bone.

The orc pack had descended upon the athan as soon as the last of the sun's rays vanished from the sky. They'd come from seemingly all directions, weapons held high and horns blaring.

"Tauriel!" Though her emmel had screamed, the word just barely reached her ears. "Hide!"

If not for her cries, Tauriel might have stood frozen forever. She'd scrambled inside, running so fast that one leg had nearly tripped under the other. She'd bolted towards her mother's loom, pulling the stool sitting before it in front of her. She tightly clutched its sides. Her whole body shook, thrashing against the surrounding air. A chill traveled down her spine while sweat coated her forehead.

Even now, she couldn't be sure how long it had taken the orc to kick the door in. The noises outside had echoed in her ears for ages, though they had barely seemed real. Yet the bloodstained beast was surely flesh. As much as it drew her eyes, it was the smell that had hit her first. The distinct odor had reminded her vaguely of spoiled meat and rotting hay.

The jagged edged sword in the orc's hand had been almost as long as she was tall.

The fact that she was going to die had only half registered in her mind. Cosmic questions couldn't batter her brain while the here and now had threatened to overload her senses.

She'd stared wide eyed at the body. The orc's skin had a smoky grey complexion. Its leather armor seemed a size too big for its frame. From the way it was positioned, she could only half make out its face. One glassy grey eye hung wide open.

Sitting so close to the floor, she'd only been able to make out a pair of seemingly disembodied legs moving towards her. Thick green boots moved with a surprising grace, making not the slightest sound when they hit the floor.

"Gwinig," a deep, strange voice called out. Though he hadn't been shouting, the words still rang in her ears.

He'd walked the house's short distance before reaching the loom and pulling the stool back. Leaning down on his knees, he'd locked eyes with her. Though still unable to stand, she'd had enough strength in her arms to at least pull herself against the wall and curl into a ball.

He'd been dressed entirely in green. A silver insignia was stitched into the center of his right sleeve. It took her a moment to place it. That only made his face all the more confusing. Not only was it unfamiliar, but... Silly as it was, a part of her had expected the face of a great beast like something out of her father's stories. Yet the blonde hair and angular cheekbones were much the same as many of her neighbors. All the same, she'd pulled away, her back hitting the wall with a thud. At least the orcs were upfront about what they were.

"Gwinig," he'd repeated. "We must leave."

Yes, Legolas would come. The thought brought a renewed vigor to her steps.

And determined as her prince had always been to follow her, her king no doubt was just as curious about her whereabouts. Any other ruler might have seen her leave their kingdom and locked the gates shut behind her. Yet he'd extended his hand again as freely as he had before.

Summer was only a memory in Thranduil's halls. The sun's sharp rays and the clinging humidity that accompanied it - so chokingly thick at times that Tauriel would have gladly crawled out of her skin - might as well have occurred a world away rather than a handful of miles. The trees hung thick overhead, their clawing branches blocking out the light so deeply that midnight could just as easily have been the early afternoon. Lamps were kept lit at every hour.

At least she hadn't been the only one shivering. Her neighbors, what few remained, stood huddled around her. What a sight they must have been, with their dirty and torn robes and disheveled hair. They were certainly a contrast to the Elvenking before them, who stood tall above them on the dais holding his throne. No, he was not the gnarled, wrinkled beast her father had whispered of to her each night before bed. He was flawless, his skin smooth as polished stone and eyes the color of ice. Standing behind elves more than fifty times her own age, she only caught quick glances of him.

The kingdom around her was vast, but not in the ways the open fields decorated with wildflowers outside her home had been. Though she caught sight of other elves - guards loaded down with swords and bows and wide eyed onlookers alike - their faces were blurred where Thranduil's features were sharp.

Here was the one her parents had spent every moment of her life running from.

Possibilities more lurid than anything her ada could have ever dreamed up had run through her head as she stared ahead. And for all that could have happened, all the horrors that had seemed imminent on her horizon, what happened next was something her young mind never could have imagined.

Food, homes, jobs - Thranduil had given them new lives just when theirs had been on the verge of ending. Oh, it had brought little comfort at the time, not when she'd watched what was left of her home be set ablaze by burning arrows and seen an orc put a mace through her mother's chest. Time had shone a light on new possibilities, each worse than anything a child could have dreamed up. Only now could she look back and ask what might have happened had he not been so gracious.

He had been more generous than he had any right to be. Stubborn as he was, surely her king's goodwill had not been mined so low in the centuries since.

There must be, she reminded herself, some faith left in him.


Was Kili going to make them eat that squirrel?

Much as the thought made his stomach clench, it was firmly within the boundaries of possibility. The two had certainly eaten stranger while growing up, foraging in the woods surrounding the Blue Mountains for anything that might, even temporarily, plug the ever expanding holes in their bellies. And where it might lack taste, such found meals offered a thrill that could never be mirrored in pulling something from a cabinet.

Or perhaps he'd just make a trophy of it. His brother's chambers flashed through his mind. A roaring fire lit the space, causing the golden vases and bejeweled knicknacks scattered around his dresser and mantel to glow. The tree rat, mounted against a bronze plaque, hung above it all, gazing out onto the surrounding space with glassy eyes that never closed. What a conversation starter that would be!

Fili turned, his eyes following the curving mass of branches above him. The woods just beyond Erebor's east side were sparse, but what trees that were there were almost tough as stone. They had seen dragon fire and held strong beneath a nearly endless wave of rampaging wargs.

The squirrel itself wasn't anywhere near as sturdy. It hit the ground with a thud. If the arrow sticking straight up out of its back hadn't killed it, then the twenty feet between the branch it had been sitting on and the ground must have.

Kili hung his head back and whooped. "Did you see that, brother? I've still got it!"

Fili patted his shoulder. "Anyone can get lucky."

"Then why haven't you killed anything yet?"

His eyes turned downwards. Perhaps it was because these lands already had seen enough death to last it to the end of his days. No matter how many times the question popped back into his head, Fili still had no answer as to why the ground wasn't soaked red. Though large patches of bare dirt remained, scattered areas thick with grass and poppies now dotted the land once again.

"Because," he replied, smirking, "that's what I have you for."

The squirrel couldn't have been more than sixty feet away, but it seemed more than twice that length. Fili walked a step behind his brother. While Kili's limp wasn't as noticeable as it had been even a month prior, he had yet to regain the speed that had once kept Fili constantly on his feet and forever out of breath.

"The next time we come," Fili said, "we should set a few traps."

Though Kili had taken quickly to a bow, Fili had always been on the verge of shooting himself. And while a sword might slice through orcs, it had always done little for him in terms of catching deer and rabbits. Hunting, he had learned, was as much a test of wits and patience as it was about aim. No matter how an animal had been felled, be it an arrow or a carefully laid cage, it was always better to sit down to a full plate than an empty one.

Kili raised an eyebrow. "What's this about a next time?"

Considering how quickly his brother had gotten him out of the mountain, there was no point in denying the inevitable.

"I didn't expect you to complain." Fili released a long sigh. "But far be it from me to steal you away from Ori."

Kili grumbled something. He stopped, stooping down and pulling the arrow from the squirrel's back in one quick motion using his free hand. Dark blood spurt forth from its back, spilling out in all directions. The metallic smell made bile rise in Fili's throat.

"And it only took one shot," Kili said. He pulled a faded rag from his pocket and began wiping off the tip.

"Think we'll see anything else?"

They'd spotted a flock of thrushes overhead when they'd first left the mountain. Besides that, the land surrounding Erebor had been barren. The desire path leading between Erebor and Dale had been empty. Dusty hoof prints had been the only sign that anyone had recently trekked it.

"It wouldn't hurt to look." Kili replied. He stuck the arrow back into his quiver. Clutching his walking stick tighter, he stepped forward.

"You're just going to leave it there?" Fili asked.

Kili turned his head and raised an eyebrow. "Do you want it?"

Fili looked back down. Its fur was still wet. With the very edge of his boot, he pushed it until the beast was laying with its stomach up.


The light was faint, a dot no bigger than a speck of dust. If the shadows weren't so achingly thick then she might never have noticed it at all. Tauriel stopped. The momentum that had been steadily pushing her forward for so long dissipated. The whole world seemed to go still alongside her.

She blinked. The light was the last thing she saw when she closed her eyes as well as the first thing that her gaze met when she opened them. It didn't flicker nor suddenly change in size. What little brightness it had remained steady.

Not even a raging oliphaunt would have been strong enough to pull her gaze from it. As suddenly as she'd stopped, she started moving again. This time, she hurried up the stairs. As she ran, the light grew larger, its color growing more distinct. It was the size of a fly and then large as a coin. As Tauriel moved, the shape changed, growing edges and gaining depth.

Not even the brightest star held a sliver of its beauty. Even if she lived to see the forest felled and mountains crushed to dust, the light would never leave her memory.

She couldn't be exactly sure when she passed through the barrier that separated the light from the shadows. All she knew was that one moment she was invisible, almost a part of the darkness itself, and the next she could make out the tips of her scuffed boots as she ran.

She stopped. The light was streaming in through a rectangular stone doorway, which rose only a handful of inches higher than her head, that stood less than three feet away. Had she paused even a moment later then she might have raced headfirst through it. The light was too bright to make out anything that might lay ahead.

Her gaze turned back downwards. The knees of her trousers were torn, the edges of her robe tattered and dirt stained.

She blinked. No matter how many times she opened and closed her eyes, the dark mass on her chest remained. Its opening was about the size of a tea saucer, but the wet circle surrounding it was roughly twice its size.

It was as if her body and mind were moving without the input of the other. She couldn't pull her shaking hand away from it, no matter how loud the shrieking in her skull became. Her fingers slipped inside, moving up and down in slow circles. She pushed deeper inside. It was her hand, of that she was certain. Yet she just as easily could have been standing a few steps back, watching someone else perform the same motions.

When she pulled it back out, her whole hand was stained red.

No matter how many times she blinked, the image before her never changed.

On shaking legs, she stooped down and rubbed her hand on the lower half of her trousers. Only when she pulled it back and looked at her smeared palm did it hit her.

She hurriedly clapped her hands together. There wasn't so much as a sting. When she pulled them back, her once clean hand was speckled. She brought them back together even faster than before and intertwined her fingers.

The scar below her left wrist was her own. She rubbed it with the tip of her thumb. If not for her eyes following the movement, would she even have known what was happening?

Tauriel stepped back. Whatever was going on, there had to be some sort of explanation. But what? In the more than half a millennium she'd been alive, she had never heard of anything remotely like this. Would an elf ten times her senior even be able to imagine such a scenario?

She reached her other hand into the hole. Her hand just as easily could have been at her side or above her head for how numb it was. Her free hand was directed towards her mouth, though it was anyone's guess if her fingers ever grazed inside it. When she pulled her hand back down, her fingertips glistened wetly.

Tauriel's eyes shut. She kept them closed as she pressed forward. Whatever was going on, she wasn't going to find any answers if she stayed back there.

A well lit stone tunnel greeted her eyes when she opened them again. Her gaze followed the row of lamps hanging above her, which extended in both directions for as far as she could see.

Lines were etched into the walls. She squinted. Though the carvings themselves were unfamiliar, the style wasn't completely foreign.

Hadn't she seen them etched into another stone?

She moved towards the right, putting one shaking foot in front of the other. That off-putting feeling that had come over her when she'd placed her hand inside that strange opening in her chest had returned. How could her body move as directed if she couldn't even register her feet pressing into the stone floor?

The hall gave few clues to its whereabouts, let alone its uses.

She moved like a gasping swimmer racing towards the shore. "Is anyone here?" she cried.

Her only answer was the echo in her ears.

She cupped her hands before her face. "Can anyone hear me?"

She kept running.

Tauriel couldn't be certain which her mind registered first - the dwarf with an axe strapped to his back or the ever growing wall she was racing towards. He had come walking around a corner, his shoulders slumped and eyes locked on the ground.

"Can you-"

The rest of her question never passed her lips. Her hand shot through his skin as if there was nothing in front of it. The rest of her body soon followed. He didn't so much as pause.

Tauriel stopped, watching him continue ahead. He moved steadily, never turning his head back.

More questions raced through her mind, ones so loud that they drowned out any she'd previously asked herself. Would answers, distant and unimaginable as they now were, really silence their frantic shrieking?

More dwarves passed her by. Some walked alone. Others chatted boisterously in small groups. Tauriel might as well have been a hole in the wall. She stepped back, her eyes landing on her boots.

Once the dwarves were far enough way that their features melted together, she started moving back towards the direction from which she'd came. Choking as the darkness was, it was the only place where she might have a chance of putting her thoughts together.

She was halfway to the door when she heard it.

"By Aule's beard! Tauriel, is it really you?"