20.

The Master of Laketown was being difficult.

Men were suspicious of elves. Elves were too aloof, too alien, too…too pretty. Laketown had traded with the elves of Mirkwood for centuries, but hadn't personally been visited by the elves in almost as long, certainly longer than any person in the town had been alive. Some of the elders among them might just remember the king upon his stag, or elves in Dale or in Erebor, paying their respects to the dwarves, but never from close up, never as someone to talk to or meet with.

And now five elves entered their town on the lake, saying they had come from the King himself, and demanding an audience with the Master.

If they hadn't just been visited by dwarves, the Master might have been more eager to greet them. If nothing else, elves are rich and kings could afford to pay back favors handsomely. But they had just entertained a party of dwarves, and everyone knew of the relationship between those dwarves and these elves, and it seemed very coincidental that the one visit should follow the other.

So, the political climate being what it was, the Master cursed the dwarves under his breath, and smiled at the elves, and invited them to breakfast with him, never mind that the sun had been up for hours, and hoped that no one would mention the dwarves within the elves hearing, and all in all dragged his feet and made the whole process slower than it needed to be.

He probably would have allowed the search in the end, once he'd worked out how to blame the elven invasion on Bard, but he didn't get the chance.

Elves have very good hearing. They may or may not have heard talk about the dwarves; they didn't mention it to their reluctant host if they did. They did hear the screaming.

It was a screaming child.

Politics being what they were, the proper reaction for the elves would be to politely bring the screaming to the attention of the Master, this being his town, and he would take care of it.

It was a screaming child.

Their king would forgive them for reacting as they did. He would have reacted in the same way. They left the Master to his food, pushed past the slinky sort of man that shadowed the political official, and they reacted.

21.

"What did you do with our prince?"

Thorin gave a pointed look, not at the haughty elves who had followed them up the secret stairway at a rather inopportune moment, but at the hobbit, as though to say 'see?! See what your kind heart has gotten us into?!'

The look rather missed its mark as Bilbo had all his attention on the elves. He was the only person in the party who hadn't drawn his weapon at the elves sudden arrival. Though to be fair, the elves only had their hands on their weapons, two loosely holding bows with their arrows at the string but not pulled back, two with their hands resting upon swords, and the leader who held a bow but no arrow and didn't seem inclined to draw one. The dwarves, by comparison, were tense and battle ready, their weapons held defensively and it was only a minor miracle that none had gone on the offensive yet.

This could get ugly rather quickly. These elves were not welcome, especially not there and then, when they stood on the threshold of uncovering the doorway. Now was a time for dwarven secrets, and no elves were invited to share in those secrets. The dwarves glared, and the elves stood calmly and there was a dangerous energy present, that of violence restrained. And it was between these two opposite and opposing forces that a hobbit calmly stepped.

"He was injured by an arrow and floating on the river," Bilbo said, his voice far too compassionate for their unwanted visitors. "Not our arrow," the hobbit was quick to add. "We took him to Laketown and a healer tends to him. He is there still."

There was a long moment of silence. The elves stood ethereal and emotionless and unmoving. The dwarves, by contrast, wore their emotions on their sleeves, and they were annoyed and angry and belligerent and just a bit incredulous at their hobbit's calm retelling of events, as though he were explaining what happened to neighbors and not the pointy-eared pests who'd held them captive in a dungeon.

"I do not know who you are," said the elven leader.

"Oh, right, sorry," said Bilbo, "I…"

"He's with us," Thorin interrupted, before Bilbo could get around to making introductions, or perhaps inviting the elves in to tea with the dragon.

Bilbo responded with a strange mixture of pride, embarrassment and annoyance. The elves didn't respond at all, still standing all cold and apart, as if they weren't even worried about all the dwarves aiming weapons at them, as if the dwarves were no threat. The leader spoke again, the entirety of his attention on Bilbo.

"We thank you, member of Thorin's company."

And without paying the dwarves any more mind, all five elves turned and left. They almost seemed to vanish, so quickly and silently did they move, and with the lengthening shadows they could have become shadows themselves and were gone.

Thorin didn't like it. How could they be certain the elves were really gone, and not now spying on them?

Still, it wasn't like they had a choice in what they did next. Whether the elves spied or whether they now sped on their way to Laketown to see to their prince, the dwarves only had a moment in which to uncover the door.

The sun set.

22.

Bolg sliced through flesh, savoring the fresh blood, the whimper it tore from the half dead elf's lips. Screams would be more delicious but he'd take what he could get. The elf was mostly unconscious after all.

There were screams around him anyway, screams of fear and outrage. Ineffectual weapons hit at him and he laughed and brought the knife down for another taste of the elf, not fatal wounds but painful ones, and then it would be the dwarves turn and maybe, for dessert, he'd play with the children whose house this seemed to belong to.

"He's her friend!" a rough voice shouted, and then one of those ineffectual weapons stabbed through his side. Bolg looked down, and there was some sort of hook piercing him, and holding it was the dwarf, the half dead dwarf who he'd already planned to make sport of and make the brother watch, the useless and injured dwarf who had somehow become able enough to have injured him.

Everyone stared at the hook and the dark blood welling out of the orc's side, and no one moved, not the dwarf that had stabbed him, not the brother or the children, who were held back in any case by orcs, not the orcs that had accompanied Bolg, not the old dwarf, not the elf who lay still upon the ground.

If they'd any sense, they'd have followed up on that attack. Dwarves were weak, and men were weak, and so, it seemed, were elves. Bolg growled, and he yanked the hook from his side, and he turned upon the pale sweaty dwarf, who now stared up at him in wide-eyed alarm, and the children screamed.

He loved it when they screamed.

He moved to skewer the dwarf, perhaps not to kill it directly, maybe in its already wounded leg. Someplace that would hurt and punish it and show it how much weaker it was than him and make it squeal.

The elf stabbed him in the leg with his own knife.

He'd dropped the knife to grab the hook. A stupid mistake, really. The elf was stupider though, and with a roar he turned on it, bearing the hook down, only to have the old dwarf who, for some reason, none of his orcs had restrained yet, leap at him and punch him in his injured leg.

The hook missed the elf, digging into the floor instead, and how did these insignificant, weak little creatures keep getting in his way? It was insufferable!

Forget toying with them, he was going to rend them limb from limb, starting with the elf they all seemed so intent on protecting, and then Thorin's little heirs, and then the old one, and then the children.

He grabbed the dwarf and threw him aside, hard. Then he went for the elf. He held it in the air and its eyes were open and it glared at Bolg defiantly, despite the fact that it didn't seem able to focus on him, almost as if it looked at something behind him. Bolg held the elf's neck and squeezed.

He really should have turned to look behind.

23.

Thranduil was waiting for his scouts to return. He was preparing to enter Laketown. Or to travel to the mountain, should his other scouts arrive and inform him that his son was there after all. He was preparing his heart for pain, and he was on the verge of sending out any of his people willing to go, to search everywhere, diplomacy be damned.

He wasn't expecting his scouts to actually return with his son's body.

No, not just his body. His son was alive. He looked dead, but that was because he lay so still in the elven warrior's arms, and he was covered in blood, some of it so dark it looked black. Some so dark, it was black. Had orcs discovered his son? Had they finished what they started?

Thranduil couldn't breathe. He couldn't force air into his lungs, and he suspected he wouldn't, not until he beheld his son draw breath. And if his son didn't, then he wouldn't either.

There were others with his son and the elf carrying him. Thranduil noted them peripherally. Two of his elves carried dwarves, one sickly looking and one who might be dead, or at least unconscious, and two dwarves trailed behind them, and a fourth of his elves was holding a human child, though she appeared unhurt at a glance, only very young, and another child trailed behind them. Adult men followed after them, a couple of them seeming to try and stop the elves, saying something like ,'wait', but they stumbled to a halt when their elves joined Thranduil.

He saw them, but he didn't see them, because there was Legolas, and he lay still and bloody and he couldn't breathe.

"He lives, my king," were the first words Thranduil heard, and for a long moment Thranduil wasn't sure whether he heard the words at all, or if he only imagined he did, because they were so exactly the words he needed to hear. The words that followed were less wonderful.

"He is gravely injured. There were orcs about, and I knew you had healers and supplies waiting, or I would not have dared to move him. We killed all the orcs we saw, but we do not know if there will be more."

"Take him into the tent," Thranduil answered. In his head, he repeated the words 'he lives,' again and again.

Thranduil did not see what was done with the other guests in his camp. He supposed that the injured dwarves were probably seen to, and the children and whoever else wandered into their circle. Those who needed aid would be helped and those who didn't would be kept where they wouldn't be any trouble. A guard would be kept against unwanted visitors, whether evil orcs or spiders, or merely annoying dwarves or men. Thranduil knew this would be done but he didn't wait to see it happen. He followed his son.

24.

Five elves watched the mountain. Five elves returned to their king to report what the not-dwarf had told them. The watchers kept their distance. They didn't want the dwarves to wake the dragon, but they too had heard the rumors, that the dragon was already dead. Dead or gone. They had no orders to stop the dwarves from entering their mountain. Perhaps they didn't feel it their right, in any case, to stop the dwarves from trying to retake their mountain. Perhaps they merely felt it prudent to let the dwarves test it out first.

They were close enough to see the hidden door open. They waited to see what would happen next.

They were almost too close when a dragon did emerge, breathing flame and ire.

It was well they hadn't followed the dwarves in. Perhaps they would have noted the missing breastplate. Perhaps they would have done what the dwarves could not and slain the monster. Or perhaps they would have failed, and the dragon would have smelled elf, and perhaps instead of flying for Laketown, it would have chosen a different target, and perhaps the entire story would have ended very differently and in a much darker manner than what did happen.

The dragon flew for Laketown.

The elves were nearby, but the army was not at hand, and the elves were preoccupied with their prince.

Bard slew the dragon over the shoulder of his son.

Thorin became king under the mountain. He became ill from dragon sickness. He barricaded himself in his mountain with eight dwarves and one hobbit. His nephews weren't there nor the other two who had stayed behind.

They stayed to be beset upon by a dragon. In his heart, Thorin feared the worst. It didn't overpower him. In his heart, Thorin had little room left for his kin. The gold had taken him.

25.

Kili was tended to by Óin and Fili with an elf's help. Kili was doing better. It seemed the elves understood the evil that was in this wound, and what must be done to combat it.

From what Óin observed, the young dwarf was now doing better than the elf prince. Not that he'd seen the elf prince since they'd entered the elven camp. And really, the old healer didn't know how he felt about their new location. It didn't smell of fish, and it was very lacking in orcs, but it was rife with elves. These elves did at least offer aid: herbs and water and bandages and chants that seemed to ease Kili somehow.

Bofur was mended as well. It seemed he hardly needed any help, for he awoke shortly after they arrived, complaining of a headache and wanting to know where everyone was and if he had missed the boat. Apparently he remembered nothing that had happened from that day.

The two girls stayed with them as well. The Men had tried to follow, and the wheedling one first tried to complain that the elves had brought the orcs upon their town, and then that they had taken the children (never mind the children's protests to the contrary), and all in all the oily man had made it clear he thought some sort of compensation was in order.

The elves ignored him, unless he started to go where he wasn't meant to, and then they made it clear he wasn't wanted. It would take a brave man to stand up to a determined squadron of elves, and this was not a brave man. In the end, he slunk back to his master, and the others followed.

"Do you think Da is alright?" the younger girl asked. "And Bain."

"I'm sure they're fine," Bofur answered her kindly, despite having almost no idea what was going on.

It was, rather ironically, directly after he said this that they heard the noise. It was a noise Óin still heard in his nightmares sometimes, one impossible to forget once first heard. Like thunder, without a cloud in the sky, like the roar of a fire, like oncoming death.

The elves stiffened. They knew that noise too.

The noise went on, and on, and then, after the great noise, was silence.

26.

Tauriel felt stronger when she awoke again.

The world was still wrong. Legolas was still not there. But the world didn't swim about and the pain she felt was only a residual ache in her limbs and she knew from experience that the worst of her battle against the spider venom was behind her.

"Captain Tauriel," called a visitor. "I have news. Prince Legolas has been found."

The words hit Tauriel like a physical shock, like being hit by an unexpected shower of cold water.

"And he lives?" she asked, not at all in her captain tone, but almost breathless in her hope and fear. "Tell me, does he yet live?"

"He was found gravely injured, but he still drew breath when the messengers were dispatched. They intend to return him here as soon as he is well enough to travel. Reinforcements are sent for to meet with them, to ensure no evil befalls them on the journey. Apparently orcs attacked him a second time while he was already wounded."

Tauriel wanted to be part of the party that went to meet them. She wanted that with all her heart, but she was not foolish enough to think she'd be sent.

It did not occur to her to ask after the dwarf. It wasn't that she no longer cared for him, nor that she wouldn't do all in her power to save his life if he needed it, but the messenger had not mentioned the dwarves and it didn't occur to her that there was any news to be had.

It was just as well no one thought to tell her. Had she known that both Legolas and Kili were to be met and returned to the stronghold, no amount of spider venom would have kept her down, and she was in no condition to go.