Chapter Two: A Meeting

The gardens outside the halls of the dead were in twilight. They always were like this, Gimli had said, no matter what time of day it was anywhere else. Yet the groves and paths did not have a gloomy aspect. The place felt merely restful, soothing. The grass was faintly cool, but without the wet chill of dew, and the scent of lilies hung in the air. If she had not come here with a purpose, Tauriel would have been greatly tempted to lie down on the ferns and doze.

They came at last to great gates carved of black marble like a night sky laced with cloud, and set in the side a vast mountain. Tauriel had seen no mountain peak looming over the garden when she had entered. Yet here the mountain was, all the same.

The open space before the doors, where the path ended, was empty.

Tauriel's heart fell.

She had told herself, time and again while journeying here, that this would not be the reunion of flesh and blood that she longed for, but even so, she had thought she might at least see Kíli. Even that hope had proven more than she should have allowed herself.

She halted, and a first unbidden tear fell. She would have stayed rooted where she was and wept, had not Gimli taken her hand and drawn her gently but firmly toward the gates until she was near enough that she might have touched them, had she wanted.

"Here," he said, his voice unaccustomedly gruff.

Tauriel tugged her hand free from Gimli's to brush the tears from her eyes, and then she did see him at last.

The shape was dim, as if seen through mist or smoke, but he was clearly her Kíli. She recognized the clothes his ghostly form had assumed—they were ones he had worn when they were first married—and his hair was plaited into the two elvish braids she had given him to symbolize their betrothal.

His face lit when he saw her, and he came near. His lips moved, and she knew he said her name, though she heard no sound, not even of the wind.

"Kíli!"

Tauriel dropped to her knees before him, and he extended a hand to her face, though she felt nothing. From the look of unfulfilled longing in his eyes, she knew he remained as senseless of the touch as she.

"Oh, Kíli, hadhodeg, hadhod nín," she continued, and she knew then from his warm smile that he, at least, must hear her.

His lips moved once more without sound, and then, as if remembering that she could not hear him, he laid a hand over his heart. I love you, he mouthed again, slowly enough that she was sure of the words.

"I love you," she repeated back to him.

Kíli gazed at her, his expression easing as some long-held tension seemed to flow from him. He made no further attempt to speak.

"Kíli, my one love," Tauriel said at last. "What are you doing here?"

His shadowed form merely shook its head lightly.

"What, melleth, you will not tell me?"

He glanced back meaningfully at the gates behind him, then looked again to her and shook his head more deliberately.

"You will not go?"

He nodded once.

"Oh, but Kíli—" She took a deep breath. "You must go. It is your fate." It broke her heart to dismiss him, but surely his spirit was weary after all these years of waiting naked and alone, on the doorstep of the halls within which he might have found rest. How could she not ask this of him when it was for his good?

Kíli's lips moved, forming one word: no. He stared at her very steadily, and she knew that look: it meant his mind was made, and she might as well try to push the Mountain itself down as change him.

So she sat back on her heels and gazed up at him, while he put out insubstantial fingers to catch her tears.

That night, Tauriel wept as she had not since the day Kíli had died.

Tauriel went to him often after that, and the meetings fed a great sorrow within her. A voiceless spirit whom she could see but never touch, Kíli seemed at once both near and impossibly distant. After years of living with only his memory, to see his eyes and smile warm in response to her was a joy she could barely contain. And still it was not enough. She longed for the rumble of his voice, the rough warmth of his touch, the rich scent of him against her. Seeing him as a mere fae, a ghost, left her more lonely, more hungry for him, than she had ever felt in the years after his death.

Yet though being near Kíli made her ache, she would not—nay, could not—abandon him, any more than he could her. After that first day, she gave over trying to persuade him to leave her. She knew he would not, and that to ask him pained them both.

Thus the days drew on, and Tauriel marveled at how she alone, of all those who lived in the Undying Lands, had found a grief that this blessed place could not heal.

Coming away from the dim gardens of the dead, Tauriel was surprised to find sunlight in the world beyond. She was never quite sure how long she had stayed in that timeless, twilight place. This time, her visit had lasted at least twelve hours, if not far more. There would be food for her when she reached home, she thought gratefully. Legolas was always sure to leave out a meal against her return. He was, as always, very kind to her. She must be sure to express her thanks. She had been far too distant to her friends lately.

Lost in her thoughts, she did not see Gimli waiting beside the pathway from the gardens until he had fallen into step beside her and taken her hand.

"Fergive me," he said when she started.

"Oh, it's nothing," she assured him. "I'm sorry I did not see you. I was... thinking."

"Ye do that a lot lately, it seems."

"I'm sorry!" she said again earnestly. "You are my friend and kinsman, too. You deserve better from me."

"Don't trouble yerself," the dwarf said kindly, tucking her arm against him as they walked. "It's good ta see ye so devoted to Cousin Kíli still."

"Oh, Gimli!" Tauriel nearly sobbed. She halted, and Gimli stopped beside her. "I am afraid he and I shall never be happy again until the world's mending." She took a shaking breath and continued. "I was healed, while I lived without him beside me. I believed him with his kin, and I honored him in all my deeds. But now... I fear there is no living, for here I am neither with nor without him."

"My dear, ye mustn't talk like that; not today."

"Today?"

Gimli beamed up at her, his face ruddy and cheerful.

"Ye've a summons from Mahal himself."

"A summons?" Tauriel felt herself trapped between honor and fear.

"Ye needn't look so stricken, lass. I'm sure the Maker means ye well."

"Gimli," she went on shakily when she could. "He will order me to stop my visits. Kíli has tarried here too long; Mahal will ask me to forget Kíli, and I cannot. Oh, I cannot!"

And tears fell over her face.

Gimli produced a handkerchief and gave it to her. As she blotted her eyes, he went on, "That may be. But I doubt it, meself. Kíli's spirit is Mahal's charge, not yers. If the Maker has a mind ta see Kíli move on, he'd look to it himself."

"You think so?" Tauriel refolded the handkerchief and offered it back to Gimli, who gestured for her to keep it.

"Aye." He slipped his arm in hers and drew her onwards again. "I'll come with ye, all right?"

Tauriel's fears were by no means soothed, but how could she refuse the kindness of her friends?

"Yes; I'll go, if you accompany me."

Author's note:

hadhodeg - my little dwarf (diminutive form) This is Tauriel's special name for Kili from So Comes Snow After Fire and the companion stories.

hadhod nín - my dwarf (formal possessive form)