Captives
1: Flickers in the Dark
"There—do you see that?"
Tauriel crouched low, submerging herself in the shadows cast by the trees that towered above. It was a starless night and anyone without the gift of Elven eyesight would have had a hard time discerning more than vague shapes in the general darkness which surrounded them. Here, though, at the edge of the forest and much further away from the relative safety of her homeland than she was used to (and, to be frank, supposed to) be traveling, the urge to be on her guard was even stronger than usual.
Her heart beat rapidly inside her throat as she watched the strange lights dance in the distance, specks of orange and red in the velvety blackness of the lands east of the Greenwood. Legolas was close enough to her that she could feel him shift uneasily in his own spot on the damp ground, his slow exhale a clear sign of distress.
"I do see that, yes. My eyes work just as well as yours." He glanced at her from under the hood that concealed his silvery blond hair. "But Tauriel, mellon nîn, surely you must know that whatever nefarious business this is, we cannot make it our concern?"
Tauriel frowned, unhappy with his quick dismissal. "Your father seems to be willing to let eight-legged monstrosities crawl up right to the palace doors rather than confront the root of the problem, I am well aware. This, though, is something much bigger than any beast of Mirkwood could ever be, don't you agree? Just listen—there, can you hear it?"
The silence of the night carried the steady beat of drums towards them, punctuated by intermittent, heavy thuds which caused the ground beneath them to shudder with faint tremors.
"Whoever this is, it sounds as if they are rallying for war."
"They could be," Legolas agreed, but whatever satisfaction Tauriel might have experienced at being right was severely diminished by the cautious note to his tone. She did not have to wait long for him to give his hesitation voice. "The point is, though, that whatever war they are planning to fight, it is not with us nor on our land."
Tauriel had to make a conscious effort to relax her jaw before she could speak again. "I thought we were in agreement when it comes to your father's habit of turning a blind eye to whatever he finds unpleasant to see?"
"We are," Legolas hurried to assure her, and she was pleased to note the abashed tone of his voice. He turned fully towards her, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he might reach out to take her hand in his. He didn't, and she could breathe again. "Clearing the forest we have called our homeland for so many centuries is one thing. Running across Middle-earth and trying to eliminate every threat that there is, is another. Where would you ever stop?"
Tauriel squared her shoulders. "Nowhere, if there are innocent lives being taken!" She looked towards the dancing lights in the distance once more. "You do not think that something of this scale does not involve a great deal of suffering for people who have done nothing to deserve such a fate? Innocents, kept as slaves, children, ripped from their parents. . ."
If her voice hitched at that last bit, Legolas did not comment on it. Now she almost wished that he would take her hand, if only to distract her from the feelings threatening to spill over her very carefully maintained calm exterior. But Legolas' mind was on other matters than her tragic past.
"That is just it, though, is it not? People. Not Elves. The races of Men will always find reasons and places to squabble with one another, to make the short span of their existence as miserable as possible. It is not our lot to insert ourselves in the middle of that and be dragged down alongside them." Tauriel made to protest, but Legolas silenced her with a sharp look. "What would you do when you find yourself between two sides and neither of them is right? Act as a judge in one of their petty strifes? Become a mercenary for whichever side offers the most convincing arguments? The most illustrious payment?"
Tauriel was taken aback, hurt in equal measures by the venom in his voice and his suggestion that she would ever debase herself in such a manner. "Now you sound an awful lot like your father," she spat, her anger getting the better of her.
She knew that she should not have spoken those words even as they rolled off her tongue. Legolas' smooth features twisted and he almost looked as if he were in pain. "And you sound an awful lot like someone who is trying to make themselves miserable when everything they could ever wish for is already within their reach!"
Tauriel reeled back when those last words were thrown at her, nearly losing her balance and landing on her backside. Legolas, meanwhile, had risen and was pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, hiding his face. When he lowered his hand, the dark shadows cast on his perfect features made him look weary, tired.
"It is late, let us head back now. Alfiriel and her squad reported a new nest at the western border and we'll head out at first light. You may lead the hunt—slaying giant spiders always puts your mind at rest, does it not?"
He lifted one corner of his mouth in a tentative, almost hopeful smile. This was as much of a peace offering as she was going to get, and while Tauriel didn't particularly mind that, her own, faint smile felt forced nevertheless. She accepted the proffered hand to pull her to her feet and followed Legolas into the forest, their many years of comradeship making words unnecessary as they began the long and not entirely hazard-free trek back to the palace.
As she stared at his back, Legolas' words kept repeating as a loop inside her head. She wondered if he was right, if everything she could ever wish for really was right in front of her and she was just too much of a fool to see it. But if that was the case, then why did her heart ache at the thought of those people Legolas spoke of so dismissively, and why were her endless days and even longer nights filled with the notion that there was another place for her out there, another purpose?
Her head spinning and her stomach clenching, Tauriel genuinely hoped that her prince was right, that the prospect of ridding her beloved homeland of yet another dozen or so of eight-legged beasts come morning would be enough to put her mind and soul to rest and distract her from this inner turmoil.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
As it turned out, it wasn't enough, not nearly enough, and the weak light of the hour before dawn found Tauriel on the edge of the forest once more, gazing east in a much similar manner as she had done under the cover of night. With one stark difference, of course: this time, she was alone.
Her heart fluttered against her ribs, and for a moment she thought that she might have lost the ability to breathe from the unthinkable madness of what she was about to do. Then she trained her eyes on the looming shapes she could still discern in the distance and felt the powerful calm of soldierly routine wash over her as she formulated a plan of action.
She could do this, she was sure of it. She would investigate the source of these odd lights and threatening sounds and gather proof that whatever conflict was brewing on the horizon, hiding in the Woodland Realm would not do. Perhaps that would convince her king once and for all that the fights of those around them were their fights as well.
Presumably, her absence would not go unnoticed back at the palace. But if things went as planned, she would be back by tomorrow night at the latest with sufficient evidence that whatever sinister things were happening beyond their borders needed to be put an end to with the assistance of the king's guard. Surely the pressing character of the situation would soften the punishment she was likely to receive for her disobedience, her recklessness.
She cast a final glance over her shoulder at the forest behind her, its shadows beckoning to her to return to its. . . not safe, exactly, but at the very least familiar embrace. Truth be told, she was quite surprised that she had managed to get away from the palace at all. After last night, she would have expected Legolas to anticipate her doing something like this and take certain precautions. Upon their return to the palace, however, he had withdrawn to his private quarters without much further ado, leaving Tauriel with the clear impression that he needed time to himself to sort through whatever thoughts were swirling around his head. And while the suspicion that she might be the reason for his inner turmoil had nagged at her conscience, she had welcomed the unanticipated privacy this development had offered her.
He would know where she'd gone as soon as her absence was discovered. Would he be angry with her? Disappointed? Both seemed likely, but were risks she was willing to take. Legolas' good opinion of her was a sacrifice worth making for the right cause.
Which this was, she reminded herself as she turned her attention back to the lands stretching out before her. Lake-town lay sleeping in the dense morning mist to the northeast. Whoever was traveling the lands beyond—lands of which Tauriel knew very little—had passed Lake Esgaroth by now and, from what she could tell, was headed in a southeastern direction.
The muscles in her calves tensed as she readied herself. Doing this would have been better with night's black cloak concealing her, but if she waited any longer, the distance between her and her target would become too vast. Reaching past her shoulder, she pulled up her hood to cover her distinctive hair. It was now or never.
Sleepy stars blinked their last faint glimmers in the brightening sky as she flew across the terrain east of the forest, the soil hard and unfamiliar under the soles of her feet. The absence of treacherous roots and other tripping hazards was an unexpected advantage, though, and she crossed the Celduin sooner than expected, when sunrise was still a few minutes away.
The sight of Mirkwood in the distance gave her pause as she perched on a large slab of stone and refastened the lacing on her boots after having taken them off to wade through the river in a rather shallow spot. She'd never been this far east, not once in the six hundred years of her life. The thought was invigorating and intimidating all at once, but she refused to let the sudden surge of feeling slow her down and rose to her feet, dusting off her cloak as she did so.
This was what years of strained conversations with her king and heated discussions with Legolas had been leading up to. Finally making a difference. And she was more than ready.
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Looking back at that moment of confidence several hours later, when daylight was already beginning to fade once more, Tauriel had to admit that nothing could really have prepared her for the sight which currently presented itself to her. Couched low behind a pile of rocks—one of the few hiding places the mostly desolate landscape offered—she craned her neck to take in the whole tableau before her with wide, horrified eyes.
She had assumed that what she had seen move across the barren land the night before was an army of some sort, troops marshaled by the same sinister forces which had cast her homeland into ever darker shadows over the course of her life. Clearly, she had been wrong.
If there was an army, it was well hidden within the monstrous contraption crawling across the wasteland before her, towering high into the sky. It reminded her of a ship, but it had neither sails nor oars. If it had any wheels, she could not see them for the billowing clouds of dust swirling around the lower portion of the strange vessel.
What had her gaping in shock and disgust, however, was not the thing itself, but rather the means by which it moved. It was pulled along, at a steady pace, by several creatures unlike anything Tauriel had ever seen. Images of the legendary Mûmakil of the Haradrim sprang to mind as she gazed upon the gigantic proportions of the beasts before her. However, unlike the Mûmakil—or, rather, the illustrations Tauriel had seen of them in books—these ones were covered in thick, ragged fur in various shades of brown and gray.
Their backs looked broad and muscular, not unlike a bear, in fact. Their legs, meanwhile, were long and somewhat spindly, lending them an altogether improbable appearance.
From the mass of fur covering the beasts' visages long tusks protruded, and even though she couldn't be sure in the waning light, Tauriel was quite certain that the tips of those fierce appendages were covered in blood. This was, incongruously, not the most unsettling thing about the creatures. What really chilled Tauriel's blood were their eyes: surrounded by thick layers of scar tissue, milky globes stared out into the approaching night, unseeing.
As threatening as those strange beasts appeared, Tauriel experienced a surge of pity for them. Whatever their natural character may have once been, they were now puppets of their masters, forced into a life of brutality and—literally—blind obedience.
There were six such creatures pulling the ship-like contraption across barren soil, but despite their considerable size, they visibly struggled under their burden. No wonder—the strange vessel seemed to Tauriel almost like a whole village folded up and squeezed into an enormous box.
Light protruded from several gaps between the wooden panels which made up the body of the vessel, suggesting life inside. From her vantage point, Tauriel could not see anyone, human, elf, or otherwise. But given the sheer height of the construction, that was not particularly surprising and the intermittent sounds of—cheers? screams? both?—suggested that there were quite a number of individuals aboard this strange ship.
It was all highly irregular indeed, and more than a little unsettling. Was whoever commanded the vessel going into battle? Or merely transporting goods? Transporting people? Whichever of those was the case, what Tauriel knew with certainty was that she was out of her depth. For all she knew, an entire army of goblins or something equally foul might lurk in the bowels of the gigantic construction. An army against which she would stand no chance if she were to be discovered.
The wisest course of action would be to return to Mirkwood immediately. Once Legolas and Thranduil had finished reprimanding her for her recklessness, they would have to listen to her. Something of this scale—and such horrifying novelty—could not go ignored by either of them, of that she was certain. And yet she hesitated, her hands braced against the rough stone in front of her.
She had come this far—would one step further really be that dangerous? If she could get closer, maybe she would be able to solve yet one more piece of the puzzle her strange discovery presented her with. Also, she was convinced that within a structure as large as this, there had to be prisoners, people kept as slaves. . . Perhaps they needed her help, perhaps they could not afford to wait for a hesitant king to make up his mind. . .
But no. If she got caught, then there was no one to return to Mirkwood, no one to tell the tale of a ship sailing across dry land, pulled by beasts as outlandish as one could imagine, dozens, maybe hundreds of souls condemned to an unknown destiny inside. She had to get back, and she had to do it now.
Her resolution firm, she pushed away from the boulder she was crouched behind, ready to undertake that journey home even faster than she had come. Before her eyes had time to focus on the path ahead, however, something solid connected with the side of her head, causing a sharp pain to explode inside her skull. And without further warning, her world was plunged into blackness, impenetrable.
A/N: Welcome to this latest Kíli/Tauriel story of mine! For a while, I thought I was done writing for this pairing, but what can I say... these two were not done with me, apparently. This one is going to be a little more AU than my other stories in the sense that it completely changes Tauriel's and Kíli's stories during DoS and BotFA. There's going to be adventure, found family vibes, lots of original characters, a bit of spice (nothing very explicit, though), a very liberal interpretation of Tolkien's world and the races he populated it with, and (of course!) romance.
This story is completely written already and has almost 200k, just as a heads-up. New chapters will go up as soon as I'm done with a final spelling check. If you prefer to read with more detailed tags and trigger warnings, I'm also posting this on ao3 as Niniel315 under the same title. Might take a few days for it to go up over there, though.
As always-I'm terrible at replying to comments, but know that every reaction to or kind word about my stories makes my heart sing :-)