Tauriel grasped Legolas' limp body in her arms.

He stared up at her, not protesting, not reacting as she lifted him. Tauriel had to heal him, but they first had to leave Dol Guldur. Legolas hung like a limp weight in her arms.

She feared for his soul. His eyes drifted closed again – he was lost to the dark world of unconsciousness.

She feared his soul would never awaken.

Yet, she could not prevent hope from building up in her heart, causing her arms to tremble and vibrate. She tried to stay steady – moving Legolas was not a good idea, though she had to do it. The darkness tore at her as she comforted the elf in her arms, knowing he could not hear her, knowing he did not recognize her in his present state.

She stood and walked away from the shadow, not allowing it to touch her, to prevent her from saving her friend. It wished to trap Legolas' heart into its cage of hate. Tauriel would not allow that. She would save him.

Tauriel would settle for nothing less.

She walked – her pace brisk but smooth as to not harm Legolas further – and she left the ruins. To her surprise – though certainly not to her dismay – she heard no footsteps following her own. They had not noticed her rescuing Legolas.

Shocking, but not something she could ponder at the moment. She reached the hidden – poorly though it had worked – area that she had left the dwarves staring after her. They were not to be seen.

She spun, surprised, but she could not see them. Straining her ears, she wondered if they had been taken captive; however, it was hard to believe that she had heard nothing.

Unless she had been too captivated with the prince?

A smile tugged at her lips for the sheerest moment – trust Legolas to pull the attention away from dwarves even when he was unconscious.

Then the smile that had barely been there fell, and she knew she had to search.

A loud smash of something on metal interrupted her thoughts. Turning, she heard a loud dwarven curse. Though she did not recognize the voice, she knew it had to be one of her companions. She ran over, still clutching Legolas' thin body tight in her arms. Sincerely, Tauriel hoped she was not about to enter a fight because her weapons were near useless if she could not handle them.

To fight, she would have to lay Legolas on the ground, and she knew that – even with their good fortune – that he would be slain if left unattended. She reached the source of the sound in only a few moments, and to her greatest shock, saw that the dwarves attempted to release another prisoner.

She stared at the man, wondering why the dwarves worked so hard – slamming weapons into the iron bars of the prison – to release this one captive.

"Gandalf," Kili said, looking desperate. "T'is not working."

Gandalf.

Tauriel knew that name, though it was not the one her people spoke. Gandalf the Istar.

It was of great fortune that they had happened upon one of the great wizards. Tauriel had never met him, but she knew of the role he played in Middle Earth.

"Mithrandir," she said, her voice quiet but heard in the tense silence. "Tell me: how is an Istar captured by a mere human with a talent for controlling shadows?" The dwarves startled, spinning around to look at her. Mithrandir did as well, looking at her with surprise.

Then he saw the elf in her arms. Ignoring her comment, he looked at Legolas with worry.

"Has he fallen to shadow?" he asked her.

"Nay," Tauriel said, gratitude and relief dripping from her tone. "Though I fear they whisper in his mind."

"He is wounded," Mithrandir stated.

"Many speak of your ability to reason, great Istar. Must you speak of the obvious?" Tauriel said, irritation leaking into her voice.

The wizard looked surprised at her harsh words. Tauriel glared at him, knowing his weak appearance was truly a lie. He held great power gifted to him by the Valar themselves. She respected him, but by no means would she allow time to be wasted on his behalf.

"Please, Tauriel," Fili said. "We must rescue him. He was of our company."

Tauriel scoffed.

"And I now know why dwarves attempted to set out and antagonize a dragon. They had a meddlesome Istar on their side."

"Please, my lady," Kili said, looking up at Tauriel. Tauriel glanced at him, and her gaze softened as she saw the slight – for his pride allowed no more – pleading and fear in his eyes.

She looked up, gaze cold, at the wizard.

"What must we do, Mithrandir?" she asked.

"You must enter Dol Guldur and search for my staff," Gandalf said. "With it, I can escape these bars."

Tauriel, forgetting the dwarves for a moment, tensed her muscles, longing to clench her fists but still holding Legolas in her arms.

She could feel the blood running down her arm.

"We have not the time! Legolas withers as we speak. Your strength does not lie alone in your staff. Summon it to you, Mithrandir. Do not test my patience with faulty, hopeless tasks."

"I dare not summon it to me for that would be to challenge Sauron into a battle of wits. You act as if I fight a human – did you not know that the force was much greater than any human could ever be?"

"I cannot risk my companion to complete that task. Alas, the others will not leave without you, Mithrandir. Tell me: is there no other path?"

"I fear not," Mithrandir said. "I can heal Legolas with my staff in hand. Without, I am powerless to help him."

"Tauriel!" Fili said. She turned. "Bind Legolas' wounds – I know you are able. We shall go find Gandalf's staff. Fear not, we will make haste."

Tauriel looked down upon Fili – her companion, her friend in the long hours of their journey. She stared at him, stricken, hating that she could help them on the perilous task they planned to undertake. Alas, she could not abandon her prince.

Unable to argue, she nodded once, harshly.

"Be safe," she whispered. "Be agile. Use your weapons well – if you must – for in your hands lie the life of their true owner. Fili looked at the elven knife he wielded, then at the prince lying pale and still in Tauriel's arms. Without another word, he turned and with the others, began to move stealthily towards Dol Guldur.

Tauriel looked around, knowing there was no true area of seclusion that she could access. Knowing she would most likely need Mithrandir's help before everything was over, she was loathe to travel far from his prison.

Fearing to be caught by the army moving steadily below her, she knelt to the ground, laying Legolas on the stones before her. Mithrandir – to her slight ire – leaned beside him, moving with a deftness that betrayed his weak appearance.

"Has he awoken since you found him?" Mithrandir asked. Tauriel looked at him, annoyed for a moment, before realizing that he only wanted to help Legolas. She would work with the wizard for that.

"Ai, but he responded to name alone; he did not appear to recognize me."

"Was he delusional? Did he respond at all?" the wizard pressed, firing off the questions with a scarily pointed concern.

"He did not respond to imagined forces, but he responded to the very real pain."

Tauriel brushed aside the tattered tunic; it was so destroyed that she did not even have to remove it. Legolas' chest was covered in small wounds – nothing serious but by no means harmless or painless.

Tauriel knew that infection could set in quickly – not to mention te vile poisons used by orcs and other dark beings. However, there were no visible signs of poison that she – an untrained healer knowing only the battlefield basics – could detect. There was nothing she could currently do for the small lacerations.

Turning the elf gently, she saw that there was a large gash – the source of the blood she had seen falling from him. The blood still moved – albeit more sluggishly. Tauriel ripped a large block from her elven cloak. Though not sanitary, the covering would do to stop the blood flow. that was her greatest concern. Legolas looked pale and weak; losing blood could – and would if she did not hurry – kill him quickly.

Wrapping the long strip over his wounded side and securing it tightly, she felt him gasp with pain. Relieved that he was beginning to wake, she maneuvered him to his back once again. Blue eyes, bloodshot with exhaustion and pain, looked up at her. She saw a flicker of confusion as Legolas looked upon her.

"Tauriel," he breathed, voice hoarse and hardly a whisper. "Dead… trick…"

And with that, his consciousness fled once more, leaving Tauriel speechless from his cryptic words.

"I – what did he mean?" she demanded, turning to the Istar. Mithrandir sighed.

"Sauron would have tried much to break the young prince. He may perhaps have spoken falsely of your death at the orc's hands."

"But – we fought together! Surely he knows –"

"Does one know anything for sure when trapped in the everlasting shadow?"

Tauriel swallowed hard, embracing the limb elf sprawled out before her. Unwrapping her cloak, she draped it over his body, trying to keep him warm.

In his vulnerable position, the warmth was needed.

She thought back to the battle. She had abandoned Legolas, leaving him to be captured.

He would have wondered if she betrayed him or if she was dead.

It pained her that he believed her more likely to die than to leave him.

He had trusted her, knowing - falsely – that she was at his back.

And she had betrayed him, leaving him alone to face the powers of the Necromancer – of Sauron himself.

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Hey, guys! Tauriel was really at the end of her nerve on this one – she took out a lot on Gandalf (which I wasn't planning on when I started this chapter…)

Anyway, tell me what you think! I'm sorry it took so long to get this up. What has it been? Seven days? Well, I did only promise updates that often.

Please review!

Thanks to all my old reviewers!

Disclaimer: I'm not Tolkien! And I don't own anything movieverse either!