C10

Her homecoming had been a strange thing. Completely different from any scenario that she had imagined and now that she was back, she was off kilter and still unsure of what would be waiting for her around the next corner.

Tauriel was left alone for the most part without ever actually being alone. Her King had assigned her a small guard that he insisted went along with the post that he insisted that she take and they followed her doggedly whenever she left her suites and whom she didn't dare to try an escape for fear that the welcome she had been given would once more be rescinded in favor of her King's prison.

She had spent her first dinner quiet, only speaking when spoken to and devoting her mind to working out who would make a better choice than she for the role she was being asked to play and found that while she knew a candidate or two she had no idea how it was that she would put them forward or if king Thranduil would even be inclined to listen to her. She had paced the hidden battlements the whole night afterward and wished that she had been more effective at hiding in the first place. She should have left the wizard to deal with the dwarves and gotten on with her life the way that she had been. Then, at the very least, she would have been free.

She was given no time the next day to think further on the life that she had led over the previous decade. She was shuttled from meeting to meeting with Uiron on one side, Aranel on the other and Elarinya following dutifully behind. She met with the quartermaster, the stable master, a slew of seamstresses, two dozen members of the guard who had volunteered to accompany her and out of whom she had to pick five to continue as her guard. Once that was over she met with a handful of her King's advisers who did their best to explain to her the most pressing matters of the kingdom and when they were unable in the short time they had, they pressed stacks of parchments and scrolls into the arms of those that had accompanied her.

She was quickly becoming overwhelmed and begged off lunch to slip down to the stables and breathe in the scents of fresh hay, horse and well-oiled leather. She had found her own mare content in a stall twice the size she was used to with fresh straw bedding that came nearly to her knees. With a bucket of grooming tools in hand she had managed fifteen minutes of quiet time to herself before a runner and a groom had appeared together at the stable door. The groom took over her task with an apologetic shrug and she had been dragged back into the palace to hear Captain Gwaedhon's complaints over her choices for her guard and be passed among another group of palace officials before another round of fittings with the seamstresses and then to her room to wash and dress for dinner.

A grand spread had been laid out on King Thranduil's banquet table, enough to feed all that came to it for days to come. She had been sat in a seat of honor at the King's left side with Mithrandir on his right next to their dwarven guests, Aranel at her side and his favorite officials surrounding them. She was toasted, her goblet was kept constantly full and her King seemed to be enjoying the discomfort that the situation was causing her although she was sure that to everyone but himself and Uiron she looked as stoic as she always had when she had been a guard captain. There had been jokes made about her unfeeling nature in those days and she was glad that very few had known just how deep her feelings had truly run.

The table had been cleared with a flick of his wrist when everyone seemed to have eaten their fill and then the music and dancing began as if it were a feast night. Not even on the day of her nativity had such a fuss ever been made of her nor on her appointment to Captain of the King's own guard. Wine flowed with abundance among the guests, helping the dancing create many a flushed and smiling face as she sat stiffly next to her King and their guests and watched, only participating when she was given no other choice.

"I trust that you have everything that you need to continue your journey in the morning?" King Thranduil addressed her but continued to look out into the hall. His eyes were on the merry making of his people and she could only hope that he could find some joy in their pleasure despite the fact that he had never participated in all the long years that she had been at the palace.

"Yes, hîr nín, I have all that I need and so much more. My thanks." She replied. He had lavished jewelry and an extensive wardrobe on her, given her finely made stationary, a second riding horse (though not as fine as her own chestnut mare), a finely made chain mail shirt and a brand new set of the leather armor that archers such as herself preferred, along with a sword, bow and blades that had been made especially for her for the occasion, though they were so ornate that she could hardly imagine using them.

"I will not have Thorin, King Under the Mountain, believing that he is the only one that holds riches in this land." The King commented and her own thoughts on the matter were confirmed. The things that he had given her were less about her and her position within his household and much more about showing off to the other rulers that he shared this part of Arda with. Thranduil son of Oropher would not be outdone by anyone and he would use whomever he needed to prove it, with no regrets.

Tauriel stayed only as long as she had to, begging permission to leave to organize the last of her belongings as well as go over the list of supplies that were being sent with her. She was beyond relieved when leave was given and she could retreat, first to her rooms to change into far more comfortable clothing and then to the dark battlements. It was just Elarinya who followed her and out of respect kept her distance and her own council.

Sleep would not come easy for her, not now that she knew that in less than forty-eight hours she would once again be setting foot in Erebor. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, soaking in the smells of the forest and trying to settle her soul before she had to face the inevitable. She couldn't imagine what it was going to be like to walk in those stone hallways knowing that Kili was laying buried in the mountain, she couldn't help but feel that she would end up feeling buried as well, just alive to know it.

"Do you know why I left Erebor?" She was surprised to hear Sada's voice before she actually saw the dwarf-maid and chastised herself for the way that she had let her mind wonder and with it her attention to her surroundings.

"I did not ask and you have not volunteered the information." Tauriel replied, not bothering to look away from the quiet wood. Sada had been an anomaly, one minute still as stone and just as cold, the next animated and forward with her thoughts but always guarded and always clear in her dislike of her elven guide even in her appreciation.

"I wanted to hate you." The crown prince's betrothed said bitterly instead of explaining as she settled herself next to her, both hands resting on the battlements. "Set out to do so and knew I was right to as well."

"I cannot claim to understand why you chose that path before we even met but I believe that you've met your goal admirably." She just raised her eyebrows as she looked up at the night sky. She was beginning to wish that the dwarf hadn't chosen to seek her out. She wanted some peace before her journey to Erebor, Sada just wanted to be there already and she wasn't sure how she was going to stand to cross the threshold.

"I can't hate you." The words were soft. "But I'm not sure that it would be wise for us to become close as friends either."

"Wise or not, you should get some sleep. The dawn will come early." Tauriel shrugged, she had already had enough of this conversation and if she could get the blasted dwarf to leave her alone she might just be able to allow her mind some rest.

"And you'll stand here and keep watch again tonight? Do you blasted elves never sleep?" Sada snapped, irritation coloring her tone but she got the distinct feeling that the dwarf wasn't actually irritated with her for once. She looked over at her, wondering why it was that she was wondering King Thranduil's halls without Dis and why it was that she had sought her out.

"We sleep, we just don't need as much as you do and I don't like the dreams that await me there." She answered truthfully and Sada frowned but nodded as she took the information on board.

"You once told me that elves only ever loved once." The statement was soft, made some time later after they had been standing looking out into the softly lit darkness together.

"Yes." Tauriel's answer was nearly a whisper, her green eyes closed for a moment, her mind's eye pulling up the memory of Kili's smiling face so vividly that she thought that if she opened them he could be standing right in front of her. Her heart clenched painfully and she blinked a few times to clear her vision. Wherever she went she carried him in her heart and according to the Lady of Lórien that meant that he would never truly die. "Just once, a love meant to carry us through the ages."

"But what about if they die?"

"We carry our memories with us until we can no longer bear to go on and then some fade and some sail to the undying lands but mostly we just endure." Unconsciously her hand had sought the ruin stone that was stored safely in an inner pocket of her robe near to her heart. The hardness of the stone stilled the grief inside her as she drew a measured breath. In and out to the beat of her heart just a she had been taught so that she could indeed endure. "You worry about your union with the Prince?"

"Never!" Sada looked up sharply, her jaw set and her expression the most confident she had ever seen when the warrior hadn't had a weapon in her hands. "The one thing that I am most sure of in this lifetime is and always has been Fili. It's rare to see a re-marriage in our people but it happens, there are few that hold to the idea that you can only love once, not unless you are one of the lucky few that find and are able to recognize that the literal other half of your own soul living in another."

"We would say meleth e-gûr nîn." She offered the elven phrase.

"We have a word for it also." Sada nodded.

"Amrâlimê." Tauriel breathed the word before she thought of the consequences.

"How?" Sada snarled, her head snapping around and her teeth bared ever so slightly in a look of angered horror.

"I did not mean offense." Tauriel was quick to offer apology. "I heard it said once, at the time I was too caught up in my own personal conflict to understand what it meant but later, on reflection, I assumed that it meant some sort of variation of a declaration of love."

"Mahal, forgive him." Sada hissed, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. "Kili is a fool. Never thinks before he acts or speaks. Jumps in with both feet, consequences be damned and the rest of us along with him but then I'm sure you are just as aware of that as the rest of us." Her green eyes were bright with annoyance when she looked back up at her.

"Sada…" She had opened her mouth to reproach her for speaking ill of the dead but instead found herself without the words to do so.

"I have lied to you from the moment that we met and Dis would have me continue to lie to you until there is no choice but for the truth to come out. She would have you unaware and unbalanced so that she can judge for herself who it is you really are and decide if you are worthy to be called friend." The dwarf-maid shook her head to stop any further response. "Dis is most fierce when she is protecting her family and she is working desperately to do just that. I love them too, both of her sons and everything I have done is to try and make things right again."

"Fili told you about what happened before he and his brother reached the mountain." The knowledge that her secret was farther known than she wanted was like a lump of hard metal forming in her stomach.

"No," Sada shook her head, uncertainty flashing across her face. "Kili did."

Tauriel physically recoiled.

She felt cold, her heart stuttered in her chest and breathing was agony. Was there no end to the cruelty of dwarves? Had she not suffered enough? Had the brother that Sada claimed to love not grieved enough in the face of his brother's demise that it was now acceptable to use him against her on the eve of their return to the lonely mountain? Was this just another way that the two dwarves had come up with to try and keep her away?

"Why?" She breathed, anger burning brightly within her hurt. "What do you gain by letting those words pass your lips?"

"It's the truth." Sada pressed, turning toward the direction in which her feet had taken her so she was blocking her most direct route off the battlements. "I set out west to look for you and to bring you back to Erebor because I could no longer stand another minute of Kili walking around acting the martyr because you left him and disappeared from the face of middle earth!"

"The signal fire went out, he died!" Tauriel hissed at her, wishing suddenly for a blade, her vow to get this damn dwarf back to Erebor all but forgotten under her sudden onslaught of emotion.

"We don't know how the signal fire went out but he did not die!" Sada caught her arm in a tight grip as she tried to move farther away from her. "Kili is alive and well within Erebor, if you don't believe me, go ask your king!"

Tauriel snatched her arm back, taking a step back and squaring her shoulders, her eyes flickering over the top of Sada's head to see Elarinya watching them intently from a few yards away, her hand on a blade at her hip in readiness. She looked back again and then away, trying to get control over the different emotions that were threatening to overwhelm her body. She felt a cold sweat break out across her body and the muscles in her legs tremble and weaken, the world was spinning out of control and she was spinning right along with it, body ice cold and aflame all at once until she wasn't sure what was left within her control.

"Tauriel?" Sada's voice had lost its tone of confrontation and sounded more concerned. "Please, I am not trying to tick or hurt you, I just need you to know the truth so that you have time to process it before we get to Erebor and you are confronted with it."

"How can that be?" She whispered, her hands gripping the edge of the parapet, the stone cold even if it was impossibly smooth beneath her palms. Her question was not for anyone near her, more an open plea to forces unseen.

"Sada?" It was Princess Dis' voice that cut through the night and made the air settle oppressively around them. All three sets of eyes snapped to the doorway the elder dwarf stood in taking in the scene in front of her, understanding dawning on her features. Her brown eyes were cold and dangerous when they snapped to her future daughter-in-law. "How dare you!" The words were said softly but there was a hint of violence in her tone.

"How dare she?" Tauriel heard her own voice raised half an octave above normal from what felt like somewhere outside of herself as if she was no longer in control of herself or her actions. "How dare you! I asked nothing of you but truth. I protected you and Sada, willing to give my own life in exchange for yours if the situation had called for it in payment for a debt that I do not owe. Gen fuion!" Her voice had risen until she was shouting at the individuals in front of her.

"Tauriel?" Elarinya called to her and she wasn't sure if it was to stop her from continuing or to check on her state of being.

"Goheno nin." She took a deep breath and looked at her once friend, apologizing to her for the outburst that was so outside of her character, not to those who had caused it. "Send a runner to Mithrandir, I know it grows late but ask him if he is willing to meet with me. Send another to Aranel, I could use her council. I find I have had enough of the treachery of dwarves for one night." And with her heart thundering in her chest she swept past her traveling companions back into the halls of her childhood home, to fight or to flee she still wasn't sure.

Aranel had become accustomed to the aura of malaise that surrounded Tauriel from sun up to sun down and all that went between but she hadn't expected the agonized despair that she walked into. Mithrandir looked sober as he looked over at her as she walked into her friend's room, it seemed that he had been summoned before she had and that the news she was walking into was not good.

"Man siniath?" She looked between them. Tauriel just moved away from the wizard to the open window and stared outside unblinking so her attention turned almost exclusively to Mithrandir.

"Too many lies. Too many hurts. I am ashamed to say that I have been complicate as well." The wizard shook his head as he stood. "I will see you both in the morning."

Aranel just stood aside as he left and watched her friend carefully, cautiously. She moved farther into the room. Nothing had been disturbed that she could tell, there had been no scuffle or fight but the distress was almost palpable. She sat on the edge of the fainting couch and watched Tauriel closely, not sure what move she was going to make next but content to wait her out.

She wasn't sure how long they were silent in that room except that it wasn't longer than a full notch in a candle. Then Tauriel moved to sit next to her, perched in such a way that flight would be easy and they sat again for half the time they had before. Again she was up and moving, now pacing the floor in front of her vanity in such an industrious manner that she was unsure what was going to be the next natural progression.

"He's alive." The words were spoken at barely a whisper but the room was so quiet they may as well have been shouted.

"Who?" Aranel found herself asking although in her gut she already knew. This was the great secret that the dwarves had been holding so close to their chests as though their very lives depended upon it.

"Kili." She breathed.

"What are you going to do?" The younger elleth asked.

"I don't know." She replied and then said no more through the long hours of the night.

The next day dawned bright. Perfect traveling weather. Aranel watched with veiled concern as a seemingly emotionless Tauriel walked out into the courtyard of her king's halls with her retinue following behind her. Her chestnut mare glimmered in the early morning sunlight along with the silver inlay in the tack that had been placed upon her.

King Thranduil was in the middle of the courtyard giving great show to sending off his people and his guests. Tauriel wore a robe inlaid with silver and gold thread that moved gracefully around her as she accepted her king's blessing and led their party out of the palace court yard at a carefully controlled canter that lasted just long enough to be out of view of the gates.

Things quickly reshuffled from that point. Tauriel took off her fancy robe to reveal the same traveling clothes she had been wearing from the beginning of their journey. Mithrandir moved forward through their party with herself and Elarinya while the rest of her guard carefully moved the two dwarves to the middle of the group, keeping them surrounded and away from their leader. They moved at a steady trot through the forest until they made it to the plains that stretched between Mirkwood, Dale and Erebor and then Tauriel called a for a progression to a steady walk and the company seemed to arrange itself as it willed with the exception that every time the dwarves tried to move forward through the elven retinue their path was blocked, effectively keeping them away from the lead and also those who led.

"We cannot ignore them for the rest of our travels nor when we get to the mountain." Mithrandir said flatly.

"I am more than aware." Tauriel responded flatly, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand. "Send up the hawks, I want a warning should anyone try to approach us."

"Be iest lín." She nodded. Aranel undid her falcon's hood and stroked his head gently. "Hortho le huil vaer." She whispered before releasing the jessies and let the hawk take to the sky. She watched him circle above them and then disappear into the day. She looked over at her friend who was staring ahead of them, her jaw working and her eyes focused on nothing but the horizon.

"I don't know who is more stubborn, dwarves or elves." Mithrandir muttered and peeled away from them.

"You don't have to keep watching me as though I'm going to shatter into a million pieces." Tauriel broke the silence some time later.

"You aren't?" She raised an eyebrow at her. "Have you even decided what you're going to do now that you know he's alive?"

"Nothing different. Nothing has changed in reality. He is still a dwarf, an heir to the King of Erebor and I am an elf, less than that, a silvan elf and an ambassador from my King to his." She shook her head not bothering to look at her as she spoke.

"What has being silvan got anything to do with anything?" She snorted, if her friend was just going to come up with weak reasons why things couldn't change for the better then she would help her to see just how weak those reasons really were.

"To the dwarves perhaps nothing. They do not understand the cast distinctions that we have among ourselves." Tauriel replied.

"There are fewer of our kind than you think that care about whether you are silvan or not. Your time in Lothlorien and Imladris should have shown you that much at least." She was scornful.

"Things are different here Aranel." Tauriel shook her head.

"But you proclaimed him meleth e-gûr nîn. How can you give that up?" She looked sharply over at her.

"Because there is no other choice. I have to be happy to live with the knowledge that he's alive." The elleth sighed, a sound that conveyed just how tired she must have been feeling.

"And that existence is better than the one that you've been living?" She couldn't help but feel aghast, as unconventional as a pairing between an elf and a dwarf was, even to her, it was no more perplexing than the idea that Tauriel would ever give up on anything. Since the moment she had known her, the older elleth had attacked everything in her life with single minded determination, she never gave up no matter the odds and she certainly didn't accept defeat before trying.

"It has to be." The reply was short.

"Well it looks like we have company." Aranel didn't get the chance to question her further as her attention was caught by her hawk circling in the sky a league and a half way from them. She watched him circle and dip and then bank over and over again and anger flared in her blood steam as she realized that whoever was below him was taking potshots at him with a bow.

"Friend or foe?" Tauriel caught the direction that she was looking in quickly.

"No idea but they are shooting at my bird." Aranel growled. Whoever they were, they were going to pay if they actually hit her hawk. She raised her arm and whistled a special trill that she used to get her bird's attention and hoped that for once he was in the mood to cooperate and that he could hear her over the distance. "What do you want to do?"

"Move forward with caution. If I was King Thorin and my lost family members were on a known route home I wouldn't wait for them to arrive and hope that they get there safely." She acknowledged with a frown. "Go talk to Sada, see if she will come take a look."

"You should go talk to her yourself." Aranel shook her head but did as she was bid, peeling back to go find the younger of the dwarves.

The pair weren't hard to find, tucked right into the middle of the retinue that were traveling together. Sada looked up at her instantly, a deep frown on her face as she took in her expression. Dis, however, was hunched into her cloak staring straight ahead of her at the back of the rider in front of her.

"I assume that you have an opinion you would like to give." Sada snapped at her, already on the defensive before she was able to get a word out.

"I have an opinion and if you ask me for it, I will happily give it but until then I will keep my thoughts to myself." Aranel replied only raising her eyebrows a little at the hostility. "I need you to come with me for a moment. There's something you need to have a look at."

She didn't look over her shoulder to make sure that Sada was following her when she kicked her gelding forward again. Sada's pony was a game little creature that kept up with her back to the front of the group where Tauriel was stroking the top of her bird's head as she frowned into the distance.

"He's not hurt." Tauriel told her as she took the bird back and ran her fingers along the fine bones of his wings and then his breast. Aranel looked over at Sada who was looking at Tauriel like she wanted to say something but didn't know how as the bird nipped at her wondering fingers in irritation. "If Thorin was to send someone to fetch you who would it be?

"Dwalin most likely or perhaps Vafrig, maybe Fili or Kili or perhaps both. I would bet on Dwalin through. Why?" Sada answered.

"We are coming up on company." Aranel replied and the dwarf-maid looked sharply over at her, her right hand sneaking quickly into her cloak she was sure to run her fingers over the head of one of her axes.

"Are they dwarves?" Sada looked to Tauriel for the answer.

"Not sure. Can't see them yet." She shrugged answering for her friend. "But I can't say that I like them much, they were shooting at my hawk."

"Is he hurt?" The question held no concern, more curiosity. Aranel shook her head and slipped his hood back on the hawk's head. "If they are a contingent of Dwalin's then they don't have Kili with them. He would have shot your bird right out of the sky." Both of them couldn't help but notice the way that Tauriel stiffened at the mention of the prince's name but she shrugged it off.

"The question is; would someone try and make an attempt on your life this close to Erebor?" She asked and looked with caution out at the horizon.

Glossary

hîr nín - My Lord

meleth e-gûr nîn - Love of my life

Gen fuion - You disgust me

Goheno nin - Forgive me

Man siniath - What news?

Be iest lín - As you wish

Hortho le huil vaer - May useful winds speed you on

Amrâlimê - Khuzdul -My Love