She can smell smoke.
Tauriel exhales sharply, trying to clear the trace of acrid burn from her nose as she buries her face against her knees. The moans of the injured and dying echo loudly from the throne room behind her, despite the heavy, closed doors, and she would reach to cover her ears if she didn't need to listen for danger.
The King had taken every able-bodied warrior to fight the orcs, leaving Tauriel behind to guard the healers and the injured - all of whom had been relocated from the healing halls to Thranduil's throne room in the central-most part of the palace.
Her knives feel heavy where they hang from her belt, the straps of her armor too tight where they are cinched around her. Thranduil had made sure that she was properly armed and armored before leaving, and Tauriel does not dare loosen the straps for fear of leaving a vulnerable gap in her platemail.
Even if it feels like a vice around her.
From within the walls of the palace, she can hear nothing of the battle outside, cannot see the fires that caused the smoke that she's choking on, can't see if those dear to her that are out fighting are okay.
She wants to run out and help. She wants to fight.
But she knows that she will only be a burden.
So instead Tauriel waits. Safe. Sheltered. Out of harm's way, as others die in what should have been her spot at her king's side.
It is enough to make her feel sick.
She shudders a little as another agonized moan from behind her echoes through the doors.
Her blindness had sharpened her hearing over the years, and right now it is a curse, giving her a clear picture of the room behind her.
The rustle of bandages being wound tightly around wounds, each twist drawing small noises of agony from the injured. The quick, muted clink of a mortar and pestle as someone frantically grinds herbs into a paste followed by the brief scraping of stone on stone as they empty the bowl before starting again. Watery, choking coughs as elves desperately fight to keep blood from filling their lungs, their breath wheezing weakly over their lips. The soft sobbing of an elf who has lost their beloved and is simply waiting for their own death to claim them.
She can hear the pain, the despair, the hopeless agony of the dying, and the fretting of the healers as they scramble around, able to do very little to help.
It makes her feel ill.
Tauriel pushes herself to her feet, nerves itching up her spine and making her jittery with helpless anxiety. She needs to be doing something, even if it is simply pacing the length of the chamber.
Sitting still and listening to things that she is helpless to stop is going to drive her mad.
Her footsteps seem overly loud against the stone as they echo back from the hollow room to her, mocking her steps as she circles the area.
The battle outside has been raging for hours.
Her hands can't seem to find a place to settle for more than a moment - hanging at her sides for a breath before darting to circle the handles of her knives, and only staying there for a few seconds before she is reaching for her bow and arrows, fingers tracing the wood; then her hands are dropping to her sides once more, her fingers curling into fists and releasing in time to her footsteps.
She is agonizingly helpless as she is, and her whole body is railing against that fact in anger.
But there is nothing she can do aside from wait.
Tauriel makes one more lap of the room before settling herself against the wall, her palms rubbing in circles over the pommels of her daggers.
She cannot stand the waiting.
She has been in enough battles to know that every moment in combat flies past in a blink, but when she is forced to sit on the sidelines as she is now, the battle drags on as slowly as honey dripping down a spoon.
She feels like she's been lingering here for a week.
There is the sharp creak of a door opening from across the room, and Tauriel is on her feet in a heartbeat, daggers drawn.
"Who goes there?" she demands sharply, her muscles coiled to strike.
There is silence for a moment, and Tauriel strains to hear even the slightest whisper of movement.
"Tauriel," Thranduil's voice says after a long second, soft with pain and pity.
It's her King.
Relief wells sharp and hot in her chest, and she lets out a hard breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"My Lord!" she cries, running to his side, her knives forgotten. "Are you hurt?"
She runs her fingers over his chest plate, unable to tell what warm slickness is the blood of orcs and what is the King's, but Thranduil catches her hands and draws her close before she can decide.
His touch is trembling when it comes to rest against the back of her head, and her stomach hollows in a sickening rush.
"My Lord-"
"Hush, dear one," he soothes, sounding tired, so tired, "I am unharmed."
Somehow the statement does little to reassure her, and Tauriel braces her feet steadily on the floor as she wraps her arms around her King to help hold him up, fearing that he may be about to collapse.
The smell of blood is enough to churn her stomach.
"My Lord, come sit down a moment," she pleads, afraid for the wounds that she cannot see, but Thranduil resists when she tries to lead him away.
"It is fine, Tauriel. Do not concern yourself," he murmurs. "I am tired but uninjured."
She is silent for a moment, swallowing hard as she gathers her courage to ask the burning question that she is not sure she wants to hear the answer to.
"Did we win?" she whispers at length.
"Yes," her King replies with a slow exhale. "But at great cost."
Tauriel swallows hard, taking the information in for a long moment before continuing.
"I smell smoke."
"They burned the forest," he murmurs in reply, the words heavy with sadness.
Tauriel feels that sick, anxious, dark little worried feeling twist hard in her stomach, making her feel ill.
For a second she is grateful that she cannot see the ruin, the death that the orcs have left in the wake of their attack. The battle of Erebor flashes back to her, blood splashed across pale skin and a young life slipping away through her fingertips as she had desperately tried to grab it back.
Tauriel flinches hard against Thranduil, and she feels him press a gentle kiss to the crown of her head.
He is devastated - she can tell it in the feel of his posture and the broken tone in his voice - and she knows that there has been a heavy price paid in the fight.
She doesn't want to ask - she knows that any answer he gives, however small, will stab sorrow straight through her fea like an arrow - but she can't seem to stop her traitorous mouth from forming the words.
"How many?" she asks, voice barely a whisper.
"Too many..."
His voice is weary. Sick.
"Anyone that-" Tauriel's voice crackles off, drowned by emotion, but that doesn't stop Thranduil from taking her meaning.
"I am sorry, Tauriel. Meldirion...did not return with us. He took down a large beast that was going to kill many others, but gave his life to do so."
Meldirion?
Tauriel buries her face against his shoulder as tears well up in her eyes, shocked. She feels his hand stroking through her hair a second later, although whether it is too soothe her or himself she cannot tell.
For a long moment she merely clings to her King, registering the words.
Processing the fact that her dear Meldirion is no longer alive.
It is almost hard to believe that he is gone. The elf that had been filled with light and life and energy a mere few days ago as they'd spent a lazy afternoon relaxing in one another's company is little more than a cooling body waiting for burial.
Her brain does not want to acknowledge it.
But there is a horrible, twisting, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that is growing by the second, drowning out the little shreds of hopeful disbelief.
The ones that argue illogical thoughts like "he may yet live" and "perhaps he is lost, and they merely think he is dead" and "maybe it was another elf that they saw."
But in the end there is no escaping it, and Thranduil offers no such fuel for her daft hope as her eyes slowly flood with tears.
Meldirion is gone.
Her friend is no more.
Their final evening spent together is to be their last interaction for the rest of this life.
Her last words to him were "I will see you again soon."
Tauriel doesn't truly start crying until she remembers the half-read book they left sitting at their favorite corner in the library - one that he will never find out the ending to.
That is the straw that breaks her, and Tauriel's silent tears are swamped by a well of emotion that leaves her body in soft, desperate wail.
Thranduil holds her close as she sobs, and she can feel him crying as well - for his forest, his people, those he knew that gave their lives for his kingdom...and for his son, so far away and with fate unknown.
Her king's sorrow is silent, but no less potent than her own, his body trembling with the strain of holding his composure when all his fea wants to do is shatter.
She can feel his hands shaking against her, his fingertips pressed hard into her back as he clutches her close to him, and when her legs weaken and refuse to support her weight any longer, Thranduil follows her to the ground, still holding her tight.
Tauriel simply lets her King take her weight, her focus on keeping her breath from choking on her sobs as she weeps for her dear friend.
She mourns for of the lives they've lost this day, and for all those that will not make it through the night because of their injuries.
For the lives that will doubtlessly fade away over the next few weeks as elves die of lovesickness for their murdered spouse.
It is far too much death, and she cannot stand it.
She feels Lord Thranduil's hand reach up to stroke gently through her hair, sliding down to cup around the back of her neck and cradle her close as he presses a kiss to the top of her head.
She feels the ghost of his breath against her temple, warm and accompanied by a feather-light brush of motion. Tauriel doesn't have to see to know that the movement of his lips is a silent prayer of thanks to Eru that she, at least, was unharmed.
She feels sick.
She should have been out there fighting with the rest of them, not hiding indoors like a coward, useless.
Perhaps had she not been blind, she could have assisted Meldirion, and he would be alive now.
It is illogical, and she knows that there is no point in calculating different futures that cannot be, but a small part of her can only see to blame herself for this.
She is the only factor in this fight that could have been different.
If only she had not been such a fool so many years ago...
Thranduil moves before she can delve too far down that particular mental path, drawing back from her slightly as a weary breath escapes his lips.
"Come," he murmurs, curling a finger beneath her chin to lift her teary face up to him. "We must do what we can for those who still live. There will be time to mourn the lost later."
Tauriel nods, sniffling as she roughly wipes the tears from her face, and allows her king to help her to her feet.
She only knows some basic healing - mostly for the cuts and breaks and sprains that come with routine guard duty - but right now a pair of willing hands with a little knowledge is better than none at all, and the injured are plentiful. If the fighting is over and she is not currently needed as a guard, she will make herself of use elsewhere.
She will save those that she can.
And then, when that is done, she will mourn for all they have lost.