The other day I uploaded a oneshot where Tauriel meets Maglor while they were both wandering. It could concievably have happened in the same universe as this fic - if it did, it would probably have happened in the time covered in this chapter.
This chapter isn't incredibly eventful, but things start to pick up plot-wise next chapter.
Beneath the Stars
FIVE
Dís and Dwalin talked for nearly another hour. Tauriel sat next to the dwarves quietly, making the occasional interjection. At last, Dwalin's loud, rumbling belly interrupted them. In true dwarvish fashion, they both laughed loudly.
"Why don't I fix us some dinner?" Dís said.
Dwalin smiled and patted his belly. "I wouldn't say no to that!"
"Dís, that's very kind, but...I really ought to go now," Tauriel said, standing up awkwardly.
"No, no!" Dís protested. "Please. I know you're not too comfortable here, but the least I can do to repay you for coming all this way is to offer you food and rest, at least for one night."
Tauriel sighed, but Dís was right. "Very well, my lady."
The food was nice, though Tauriel was not especially hungry. She didn't gather up the courage to ask Dís who the previous owner of the bed she slept in was.
The next morning she rose early. She gathered her few belongings and quietly opened the door to leave without any uncomfortable goodbyes.
To her surprise, she heard a voice behind her call out, "Tauriel!"
She turned. It was Dwalin, closely followed by Balin, who must have arrived sometime after she had retired the previous night.
"Yes?" she asked softly, not wanting to wake the still-sleeping Dís.
The dwarves stepped closer. "Thank you for accompanying us," Balin said.
Tauriel smiled. "Thank you for inviting me along, kind Balin."
"Thank you for telling your story to Dís," Dwalin added. "It helped her more than you know."
"It was only the right thing to do," she murmured. "But you are welcome, both of you." She nodded her head to them. "I am leaving now, to seek my fortune elsewhere. Good luck in rebuilding Erebor. And goodbye, as I doubt we will see each other again."
"Goodbye, Tauriel," Balin said, his wrinkled face full of sentiment.
"Goodbye, Captain," Dwalin said. "May your journey be peaceful."
"Tell Dís I thank her for the food and bed," Tauriel continued, "and say goodbye to Master Glóin for me. He wasn't too prickly by the end, after all."
The two dwarves chuckled, nodding their agreement. Then, this time really ready to leave, Tauriel stepped through the door and out into the gray, cloudy morning.
She left Ered Luin before most of the city was awake, meeting no trouble. She traveled rather aimlessly for a while, wandering around the Shire and avoiding Bree. Now that she was alone, she traveled substantially faster.
By the time the Misty Mountains were in view, Tauriel had slowed in her travel. She did not know where to go. Eriador was large but a rather empty land since the fall of Arnor nearly an age ago. Occasionally she ran across a caravan of traveling merchants, but they provided scant company.
She ate little and slept less; even though elves needed these things less than mortals did, she was perhaps too sparing in nourishing her body. She felt empty, and not even the wide night sky brought her any more wonder. She wandered under gray clouds and beneath uncaring skies. Every path felt lonely yet familiar, and none of them seemed to lead home.
It would help if she knew where home was. Long ago, it seemed, though really it was very recently, she had called the Greenwood home, but it was no place for her now. Thranduil had all but banished her from Mirkwood, and she could not return. She had no place to go.
From time to time, her hands would turn the promise stone over and over and over again, tracing the runes Dís had translated for her: Return to me. She rubbed the cold stone with her thumb, as if that could somehow make Kíli come back to her. She had given too much of herself to him, too much he had taken with him to the Halls of Mandos. Home was where the heart was, so the wise said, but home was buried in a tomb in a faraway mountain she could not return to.
Sometimes, Tauriel would find herself staring east, toward the Lonely Mountain, but she knew she dared not go there. It was not a place she could be happy, and the dwarves would not welcome her. Other times, heart-wrenching grief would overcome her and she would stare fitfully west, toward a land she had heard tell of only from her ancestors who had rejected it. She could not go there, nor did she really want to. Her spirit was too tied to Middle-earth, to its trees and valleys and mountains, to wish to leave while still so young.
But her soul ached, full of the uncertainty of the future and the ever-fresh pain of Kíli's death. She did not fit. She had no place to go. Her home was not a place but a person, and that person was gone.
Sometimes, she considered traveling north to the Dúnedain, as Legolas had, but she did not know if he would welcome her. She had been friends with him for much of her life, but his father had complicated things between them. She hadn't thought he had liked her romantically; certainly she didn't like him that way, but...what if he had? What if seeing her with Kíli had been the reason he had left without even a goodbye. Perhaps he didn't want to see her. Perhaps she didn't want to see him.
Eventually, Tauriel traveled south, following the Misty Mountains down to the Gap of Rohan. She abode there for several months, occasionally visiting the wild-spirited horse people when she grew lonely. Mostly, she kept to herself.
One day, she purchased a map from a man of Rohan, desiring to know where she was. She noticed she was not very far from Lothlórien, where dwelt the heart of elvendom on earth, and two of the wisest elves not yet departed. She decided to go there, at least to see some of her own kind again.
Most of the elves there were Silvan, her kin, but their leaders were Galadriel, a Noldo with Vanyar blood, and Celeborn, her Sinda husband. She had heard rumor of them in Mirkwood, though only Thranduil had ever met them. She knew they were wise beyond measure, Galadriel especially. Perhaps they could aid her in her search for peace and lend her their wisdom in where her future lay.