The wood was blackening to true dark, the lights of the gathering were far below. The songs continued – the merriment, and the dance. Tauriel glanced their way, and with the barest smile, she turned back to the working in her hands.
The light from below was a silver haze hanging in the thin branches about her head, clinging to them and humming with a wholesomeness the horrid webs sought only to undermine with its ruthless mockery.
Tauriel stilled her hands. She waited until she could feel the throb of the music below her. Until she could catch the tripping height of the melody as it wound through her. Until she could breathe against the waiting stillness of the oaken bough beneath her, and the trunk against her back. Then she opened her eyes.
Bitter dark could not be woven into a working such as this.
She let the echoes of the music below enter her. She hummed along with it. She willed it to work through her. She had not the skill of the Caliquendi, nor even that of the Sindar. It was only the ability of the Woodland Kindred that she could at times command. She felt the melody wind with the flame of her pulse. She twisted it in with the music as she hummed it. Her fingers flashed in the darkness. She wove thin blanches, one, with another, with a third.
There was peace here. There was blessing.
It was a little thing, this crafting she wove, but it would be a protection. It would be a comfort. It would bring joy to him for whom she made it.
Tauriel smiled to herself in the darkness.