Thank you everyone who is reading and a special thanks to Oakensheild's Star who is kindly betaing this story as well as my reviewers, MissCallaLilly and Griffind. I hope that you all continue to enjoy this story.

So please sit back, enjoy and leave a review!

Thanks, Taernith

C2

"How have you truly been mellonamin?"

Legolas sat in the Tauriel had shown him in her sparsely finished room as she pulled a well-worn pack out of her chest and began the process of laying out her personal items she would need for travel on her bed.

She had seen him look around the room and after over five hundred years of close friendship, she already could guess what he saw. When she looked around her chambers she saw functionality. A table and chairs, a desk, a closet, a chest and a bed. Tauriel had all that she needed and more than enough to keep her sparse belongings. What her closet friend saw was a lack of personal touches besides a single polished black stone shot with blue beneath the pillar on her small table.

"I am doing good here." She replied, folding her only formal dress and placing it deep within her pack under tunics and trousers.

"You are doing good here or you're doing good?" Legolas pushed her own words at her as he stood and bound the different parts of her bedroll in a way he hadn't done since she was barely an adult on her first assignment for the King. The gesture was familiar and comforting and her heart ached a little as she watched him.

She had missed him but to be near him had been to be too close to ground soaked with grief that she had no desire to stand on, but that now she found herself missing. The forests of Lórien and the sanctuary of Imladris had helped to shore up her strength and now she longed to see the Great Wood again and help to restore it to what it was in days gone by.

"Does it matter which?"

Tauriel turned away from him, making herself busy with the paperwork and books at her desk, She moved the copies of the completed contracts she had kept in a pile and put her expenses ledger on top of it before reaching for the blue, black stone that she had placed on the corner of the desk under its lit candle when she had taken off her cloak. It wasn't there. Her eyes snapped up to where Legolas stood, flipping it over in his hands as he examined it.

"Dwarvish runes," He said, his voice barely a whisper as a finger ran over the top of the polished stone. "You have accepted no communication from the east and yet you take on jobs that draw you ever westward. I am concerned that you are not doing as well as the lady of Lórien said and that this trip home would be less than a good idea."

He looked up from the stone and Tauriel was careful not to snatch it out of his hand, when he offered it back to her. She tucked it into her pocket, doing her best to ignore the relief she felt to have it safely back on her person.

"I have avoided the east for long enough and it has not changed how I exist. If my king would see me again than I am ready to return home to the Woodland realm." Tauriel took a deep breath and looked her prince in the eyes. Legolas had changed in the decade since she had last seen him, but the tender regard shining from the depths of his blue eyes had not changed. He believed that he was still in love with her and the hope that somehow, she would be able to overcome the sorrow of first love was as clear as it had ever been. "Your journey does not take you on the same path that I must travel mellonamin and I feel there is much you must do before our paths will linger together once more."

"Perhaps you are right Tauriel." Legolas looked away from her as he moved toward the balcony that looked out onto the mountains that surrounded Imladris. "I am to go north and seek out the Dunedain. My father suggested that there is a young ranger that I should get to know." He said quietly, as though he was only half speaking to her and instead letting his thoughts flow into the room.

"Someone of interest to you or to the king?" She asked.

"I think in this instance, both."

He clasped his hands behind him as he paused at the open doors.

"What weighs so heavily on your soul?" Tauriel moved away from her pack to stand next to him. She had known the prince and been in his confidence most of her life and knew there was more to his thoughts than he was putting forth. Much more than a trip to the north or his unspoken but not unacknowledged love for her.

"My father would have you home, he has a task for you but I cannot help but feel that he will ask more of you than you can bare," He responded. "Darkness still moves, Sauron was not defeated. Instead he moves quietly in the shadows, preying on minds and interfering in matters that have yet to come to fruition. I fear that soon we will find clan pitted against clan, kingdom against kingdom and families torn apart. I fear middle earth weakens while our enemy grows stronger, biding his time."

"And still your father hides in his halls? Has the bowman failed in his leadership of Dale? Does the king under the mountain remain angry and sickened by his lust for power and gold? Do the princes of the woodland realm and Erebor hold no sway over their elders?" Tauriel laid a hand on her friend's arm.

"No." Legolas' fingers covered her own and he looked over at her with a faint smile.

"My father is once again in the company of those outside his gates. Granting council and encouraging the renewal of the old alliances. Bard has done well ruling his people and Thorin has turned out to be far wiser and less petulant than anyone could have hoped."

"And yet you fear darkness?"

Tauriel had spent too many years with her friend and prince to not take his odd premonitions seriously.

"Take no mind of me, mellonamin," Legolas took a deep breath "I have neither the experience of my father, the wisdom of Lord Elrond, nor the foresight of the lady of Lórien. Perhaps I fear darkness too much."

"No one who has touched darkness can walk away unscathed. We must find our own ways to fight it." Tauriel replied resolutely.

o0o

Elves knew how to feast, their tables had been laden and their conversation constant and constantly cheerful. Music soothed the atmosphere and the lulling sound of voices speaking in Sindarin almost made her let her guard down, but first and foremost she was a princess of Erebor, sister to the king under the mountain and mother to the king to come.

Sada Firebeard sat next to her back ramrod straight, completely still and sour faced as Lord Elrond spoke quietly with their wizard companion and herself and got even stiffer when Tauriel arrived to supper with the elven prince, who had become an unwelcome addition to their party.

A heaviness laid upon the elf maid. She spoke animatedly with her prince and one or two of her elven companions, but her smile never quite lit her green eyes and she seemed more on guard than was warranted in a place such as Rivendell.

She was an elf and therefore held that strange ethereal beauty that was typical of her race. She was green eyed, fair skinned and red-headed, not as tall as some but taller than others and far too slender even for one of her own kind. Though stood between the prince of Mirkwood and Lord Elrond's daughter, she looked almost plain and certainly unremarkable. Despite her obvious flaws, this was the female that had stolen her son's heart and turned him against marriage to a nice dwarrowdam or any other female for that matter.

"I do not agree with how you wish to handle this matter." Lord Elrond was frowning as he brought her attention back to the conversation they had been having before Tauriel's arrival.

"This is a family matter. We have heard counsel from wizards and elves and would test her worthiness ourselves." Dis lifted her chin and gave the elf lord a disdainful look. Who was he to meddle in affairs that were not his own?

"Has she not proven herself time and again? She saved your son's life thrice and was rewarded with suspicion and treachery, but still you must test her once more instead of allow healing for everyone." Gandalf sounded frustrated, his eyebrows folding in on one another as he looked at her.

"Do not speak to me of treachery wizard. We leave for the mountain in the morning and not a word of my son will be spoken." Dis stood, her chair scraping off carefully tiled floor. Sada at her side. The music and conversation stopped abruptly as the eyes of the gathered elves turned to them. Fine, let them stare, she would not be questioned by those whose options were of little coincidence to her.

Sada flanked her as Dis left the dining hall and made her way back to the suite that they had been assigned. The rooms were large and well appointed. The arches that led to the balcony were carved as though two large trees had chosen to bend over and meet each other, just to make them and the beds could have fitted three adult dwarrow comfortably without one ever touching another.

The table and chairs that were in the room, though clearly of elven craftsmanship, were the perfect size for dwarrow. The walls were covered in beautifully made tapestries that depicted great acts of elven heroism, while the gossamer curtains fluttered in the light breeze that came softly through the open windows.

"She's not at all what I was expected." Sada sat down on the edge of one of the beds and undid the laces of her boots, pulling them off with a satisfied sigh.

"What exactly was it that you were expecting?" Dis snapped "A witch? A wild thing trapped in civilization? The shadow of an elf lingering into nothingness?"

"I certainly didn't expect to see her rebuke a wizard or leap into the arms of that elven prince." Her soon to be daughter in law snapped right back, kicking away her boots as her temper flashed. Fili would have his hands full with this one, but their sons would be strong and their kingdom well defended.

"You know more of elves than I do, is she lingering into nothingness?"

"I do not believe that she fades, but I do not think she is the same elf that my son once knew." The elder dwarrowdam replied, shaking her head.

"He loves her." The younger corrected.

"And do you still believe that you are doing what is right?" Dis felt herself deflate.

"I do." Sada's jaw tightened and she faced Dis down as though she were already queen.

Sada loved her eldest passionately and her youngest like her own brother. Kili's continuing pain in regards to the elf maid, had finally become too much for the hot-headed warrior to watch and while setting out on her search had turned out to fruitful, it had left them both vulnerable.

Orcs, men and dwarrow had taken up their swords against them to impend their journey home and their target had been clear from the beginning. Sada Firebeard was not meant to survive her journey.

"And yet you do not like what you see?" Dis asked, sitting down at the table and wondering again if what they were doing was right.

Was she risking one son's happiness at the cost of the other's? Was the price the reward?

"I do not like what she has reduced him to," Sada replied "and yet she is not like any other elf I have ever seen. She is pale, thin even among slender creatures and did you not notice the reaction she had to you? Like she was seeing a ghost. Perhaps Tauriel really does not know Kili is alive and if that is so, then are we doing what is right?"

"I am afraid that only time will tell Sada."

The princess of Erebor shook her head and hoped she was right.

o0o

No one trusted dwarves although why seemed to be a long lost or a far too distant memory from another time. Tauriel however, was intrigued by them and their arrival so suddenly in the woods as the evil in the air seemed to grow to the point of suffocation. It was the flash of light off of a polished surface that caught her eye and led her to the cell of the dark haired archer, whose life she had saved in the wood.

"The stone in your hand, what is it?" Tauriel turned toward the cell and peered inside.

"It is a talisman." He looked up at her briefly before looking down again at the stone in his hand. She moved closer to his cell, giving him her attention and wondering what kind of talisman a dwarf would be carrying with him while he traveled.

He was well featured for a dwarf. His hair dark and beard short and well cared for. He was the tallest among his party and younger than most of them as well, if she was any judge of these things. Tauriel had never been this close to a dwarf before and this particular one intrigued her. It may only have been a trick born of her own desires but he had seemed as curious about her earlier as she was about him.

"A powerful spell lies upon it, if any but a dwarf reads the tunes on this stone..." He shook his head, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly upward but in humor or cruelty she could not decipher. "They will be forever cursed!"

He held the stone up for Tauriel to see, showing her the strange runes that were carved into its surface. She took a step back, eyes narrowing in suspicion. It seemed that her prince was right about the stupidity and cruelty of dwarves.

The dwarf knew her no better than she knew him yet, he was willing to curse her just because she was elven. Tauriel turned to go feeling suitably ludicrous for thinking that somehow she might find her elders were mistaken.

"Or not. Depending on whether you believe in that kind of thing. It's just a token." He stumbled over his words, catching her attention again, drawing her back to the door of his cell. She smiled encouragingly at him, if he wished to speak kindly than she would listen. "A rune stone. My mother gave me it to me, so I'd remember my promise."

"What promise?" Tauriel found herself intrigued again. What did a dwarven woman look like? Was a female seen as equal to her male counterparts or like humans seemed to view their women as subservient or somehow less? If she were to ask, would she even be given an answer?

"That I would come back to her. She worries. She thinks I'm reckless." He shrugged, but the smile on his face betrayed him.

"Are you?"

"Naw." He tossed the stone up in the air but it slipped through his fingers, slid across the floor and through the bars. Tauriel used her foot to stop the stone from rolling away, bent and picked it up, twisting it through her fingers as she examined the stone in the light. "Sounds like quite a party you're having up there." He watched her intently as her fingers traced the runes on the blue black stone.

"It is Mereth Nuin Giliath, The Feast of Starlight. All light is sacred to the elder, but the wood elves love best the light of the stars." She couldn't help the smile that crossed her lips. Tauriel loved the light of the stars, they recharged the hope that she still clung to that the woodland realm would one day be what it once had been again. In them, she found promise that not all was lost and rebirth was possible.

"I always thought it is a cold light, remote and far away." He replied.

"It is memory, precious and pure." She looked back at him and smiled. "Like your promise."

Tauriel held his stone back out to him and his fingers closed around it brushing her palm with the tips of his fingers, causing her fingers to twitch slightly. She turned away quickly and looked up and far away imagining what the stars looked like in the sky with no moon to put them into shadow.

"I have walked there sometimes, beyond the forest and up into the night. I have seen the world fall away and the white light of forever fill the air."

"I saw a fire moon once. It rose over the pass near Dunland. Huge! Red and gold it was, it filled the sky. We were an escort for some merchants from Ered Luin, they were trading in silverwork for furs. We took the Greenway south, keeping the mountain to our left and then it appeared. This huge fire moon lighting our path. I wish I could show you..."

Tauriel woke slowly, her cheeks damp and the rune stone clutched tightly in her palm as his words faded in her ears. The company of her prince, good food and wine and the knowledge of the journey to come, had lulled her into the kind of deep sleep she did not normally allow herself.

In her dreams, Kili still lived on, her memory all too willing to conjure up his vestige and voice, replying their stolen moments over and over. Ilúvatar preserve her, it was a form of torture in itself to relive a past she wished to dwell in.

A soft knock on her door moved her from her bed and to the door as she pulled a wrap around her shoulders. It was still dark although the deep blue of early morning was beginning to light the sky, so she had slept longer than she thought, but she couldn't imagine any of her new traveling companions coming knocking at her door. It was Aranel, stood on the other side of the door, arms crossed and a deep frown on her face.

"You were just going to slip away with the dawn and not tell anyone?" Aranel frowned.

"Aranel, I have been summoned by my king. I am not going to tarry unnecessarily." Tauriel frowned back as she took in the hardy traveling clothes her friend was wearing. "Early morning patrol?"

"I'm going with you." The other elleth crossed her arms over her chest and gave her a level look. Aranel was strong willed and stubborn, not unlike how she had been in her five hundredth years of life.. Tauriel looked evenly right back. There was nothing good for one such as her friend in the east.

"The road we travel is full of dangers as of yet unknown and King Thranduil's kingdom is not for those who have their own ideas or wish to express themselves outside the King's own narrow purview." Tauriel shook her head.

"Nevertheless, I will have the horses saddled with the hour. Lord Elrond has given his blessing and some correspondence for your king." Aranel shook her head and turned to go.

"You are not obligated to take the road that I must travel." Tauriel called after her.

The younger patrol officer stopped and looked over her shoulder.

"Just because I am not obligated, doesn't mean that I can't choose to help a friend." Aranel gave her a smile and then continued on her way.

o0o

Thirty minutes later Tauriel met her traveling companions, her prince and Lord Elrond around a breakfast table that had been cleared so a map of middle earth could be spread out upon it. Unfortunately there seemed to be less discussion going on and more arguing. Gandalf was stating his desire to go through the High Pass and along the old paths through Mirkwood to the halls of the king. Legolas and Lord Elrond were advising a detour to Lothlórien and then taking the underground roads through Mirkwood, past Dol Guldor to her King's palace so they could avoid traveling by the most obvious route while the dwarves seemed to feel they should travel north toward the Ettenmoors, crossing the mountains and skirting around the Mirkwood toward the grey mountains to arrive at Erebor from behind.

The arguing stopped the minute Tauriel put her traveling pack down on the floor next to the table and Legolas made way for her to see the map, without looking over anyone's shoulder.

"Do you have an opinion on the route that should be taken Tauriel?" Lord Elrond turned to her. His eyebrows folded over dark eyes in a way that could appear disapproving if you hadn't stood under his gaze before. The elven lord was deep in thought and slightly irritated by the arguing but his request for her opinion was genuine.

"I agree with Mithrandir. If it is dwarves that pursue the princess and her companion, then they will expect them to go north sticking to the old dwarven paths and because we are leaving from Imladris, it will also be expected that you would have counseled them to go south to Lothlórien and go with the patrols that run north from there. The most direct route is not only the fastest but the way least to be expected for that same reason." Tauriel laid her reasoning out. Legolas frowned but nodded and Gandalf looked satisfied.

"You have no authority to tell us the way we should travel!" Sada Firebeard snapped, her closed fist thumping down on the table top.

"It was you who sought me out and asked for my aid." Tauriel frowned at her, wondering at the strong dislike that Fili's betrothed held for her. It seemed to go much deeper than the dislike of a dwarf for an elf.

"That does not mean that we are going to do as you say in all things." The young warrior met her gaze and held it.

"I am going back to the halls of my king and I am under no obligation to help you but as the family of former friends, I am willing to do what I can but if I do, I head this journey and will have no argument since I am being expected to deliver you safely home." She replied resolutely, no longer speaking to the younger dwarf, but to the Princess Dis.

"I thought that the matter of Tauriel's importance to this journey had been settled." Gandalf sounded frustrated as though this was a conversation that had been had a time or two too many already.

"I will ask again Sada," Dis turned to her young companion. "Have you changed in your convictions?"

Sada just shook her head in reply.

"Then lead on Tauriel of the Woodland realm, we will content with your plan." Dis nodded, ignoring the disgruntled noise her future daughter in law made.

"Yes and well, now that the path our journey is to take his been determined perhaps we should begin the journey itself." Gandalf smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he stood straight and tall, his staff held loosely in his hand.

"I am sending Aranel with you. She is eager for adventure and she has missives for King Thranduil. If his kingdom is to her liking, she has my leave to stay. If not, I would ask that she is sent as safely as possible back to Imladris," Lord Elrond said to Tauriel as Gandalf moved to his side. "Take your leave from Imladris with peace and friendship, knowing that you are ever welcome here. Na lû e-govaned vîn."

His leave of her was spoken in Sindarin and she found herself bowing low, touched by his words.

"The friendship of the house of Elrond is most gratefully received. Your hospitality has been more than generous and I am more grateful for it than I know how to express." She replied.

"Sada, Dis and I will meet you in the courtyard." Gandalf said before leaving the room with the elven lord and the rest of their traveling companions so she was left with just Legolas.

Sada glared at her, lips pressed into a thin line and a silent threat in her eyes as she swept out of the room last.

"You are going to have your hands full with those dwarves." Legolas turned to her, crossing his arms across his chest and looking at the arch the others had passed through, rather than straight at Tauriel.

"Dwarves seem to be my lot in life, but with Mithrandir to help I'm sure to manage. Will you go straight to the Dunedain?" Tauriel looked in the direction he was before looking back at him again. He was her prince, but much more importantly her friend and she knew it wouldn't be long before she would miss him again.

"Yes, unless you ask otherwise from me." Legolas confirmed, the expression on his face when he looked at her tenderly with the same regard that made her love for the dwarven prince, even in death, more than she knew he could bear.

"Legolas." She reached out and touched his arm with her hand. He was warm under her fingers, alive and hale and she knew that if only she could accept what he wished to offer her, her life would be so very different. She shook her head sadly, if she was meant to love her prince than she would never have loved Kili in the first place. "I cannot give you that which you seek nor will I promise to be able in the future. You are my dearest friend and I will not abuse your feelings by pretending, even if it were to mean keeping you by my side for a time longer."

"Then for now we part ways mellonamin." He sighed, placing his hand over hers.

"Na lû e-govaned vîn Legolas." Tauriel bowed low to her friend and Prince.

"Novaer Tauriel."

With one last long look at each other the two friends parted ways, one to the courtyard and her traveling companions and the other back into the halls of Imladris.

Glossary:

Mellonamin – my friend

Na lû e-govaned vîn - until next we meet

Novaer - farewell