16: The Moon Won't Ever Tell the Sun That It Can't Rise
Of all the times in a day, Tauriel loved mornings the most. She always had. Yes, like the majority of her people, she, too, treasured the light of the stars and had experienced some of her deepest inward reflections during nighttime with their silvery light guiding both her steps and thoughts. But nights spent by yourself, as hers most often were, had a tendency to feel somewhat lonely. Especially if you were blessed with eternal life.
Mornings were different, though. Going out on her own into the golden light of the early hours of a summer's day or the pale, icy air of a midwinter morning when everyone else was still tucked away in their private chambers and either lost in contemplation or sleeping off the consequences of a trip to the wine cellar, did not feel lonely at all. During those times when everything was still and untouched by all except her, Tauriel felt a connection to the world around her which otherwise lay beyond her reach. She was here, she was now, and she was enough.
Now, as the few clouds in the sky outside the little window were dipped into gold from the sun rising somewhere out of sight, Tauriel wasn't alone. Hadn't been, for the longest uninterrupted period of time she could recall from the last couple of centuries. And this was a new sensation all together.
"My little one," Thranduil had once said to her in one of his rare moments of affection (and after consuming a considerable quantity of wine), "you and I are much alike. We thrive best when we are left alone to observe instead of being burdened with the tedious company of others."
The occasion for this comment had been the celebration of Mereth Nuin Giliath, which he had found her watching from the fringes of the feast, hidden in the many shadows of his cavernous palace. That he was willing to compare himself to a lowly Silvan elf was an oddity in itself and an indication of his wine-impaired judgment. And so maybe Tauriel should not have taken his words all too seriously. But just like with anything else that rolled off his too-sharp tongue, she had given thorough consideration to his words and they had stuck with her over the many years which had passed since then. With unsatisfying results. Unsatisfying because she still could not say with certainty whether he had been right or wrong in his assessment.
It was true that she often ended up doing things on her own even though she could, in theory, have sought the company of someone else. The way in which other young Elves appeared to be at perfect ease around each other had always mystified her, the thought of allowing someone else to witness all her small flaws causing the back of her neck to itch most unpleasantly.
Still, she would never have prided herself over the lack of companionship she felt with her peers in the way in which Thranduil seemed to do. More often than not, she did feel lonely and resented herself for being unable to form a meaningful connection when doing so seemed to come so naturally to others.
Except for Legolas, who, due to his status, shouldn't have become her friend at all, she had spent most of her life alone. What was she lacking that others did not?
Nothing, a hesitant voice inside her now piped up. Perhaps what had been missing throughout her entire life had not been some inherent quality, but simply the right sort of person.
With Kíli's head still cradled in her lap, his breaths deep and regular, she realized with no small amount of surprise that while being in captivity had brought with it all sorts of physical and mental discomforts, being locked up together with him had not. Despite being cut off from everything and everyone she had known for centuries, for the first time in as long as she could remember that underlying awareness of her own solitude, that residual doubt of her worth as a companion, had faded into non-existence.
What would happen to those feelings once her freedom was returned to her? Would they come back as soon as she stepped into the stifling embrace of the forest one again? The thought seemed almost unbearable, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that she had prevailed despite her lonesomeness for so long. And she hadn't exactly been unhappy, had she? There was plenty of good in her life, many achievements to be proud of. And still. . .
A quiet sigh escaped her lips as she looked outside again, northwest, towards her homeland.
"Homesick?"
Kíli's voice had the raspy quality of someone who had just woken up, but when she glanced down she found his eyes alert and gleaming in the light of early dawn. He smiled and nuzzled against her thigh with the sort of easy affection which always made her heart clench.
"Quite the opposite, to be honest," she admitted, her throat clogged with the weight of her musings.
Kíli rolled onto his back so that he could look at her more directly, a tiny crease appearing between his brows as he assessed her mood. "You never speak much of home or of your people."
"I seem to recall that when we met, you thought you already knew everything there is to know about us Wood-elves," she teased in a poor attempt at deflecting his inquiry.
Kíli had the decency to blush a little at that and reached up to pinch her thigh. "And you've since proven me wrong about most of those things. I was not talking about your king or his politics, though. What about your life? Your friends, your family? Don't you long to get back to that?"
"There is not that much to tell," Tauriel replied, the smile which had spread across her cheeks during their banter fading. "Much of our life is based around order. Everyone has their role to fulfill, their tasks to accomplish so that we may live in peace and comfort."
"That sounds a bit. . . dreary."
Tauriel chuckled at the horrified expression which Kíli tried and failed to hide. "It does not have to be. We live for a long time, and most of us find their own niche at some stage, their own little ways in which they can achieve happiness for themselves. It's just that I—I cannot—I mean, I don't. . ."
She exhaled in frustration, unsure how to convey her complicated feelings about home to Kíli. Unsure what those feelings were, exactly.
"You haven't found your niche?" Kíli tried for her.
"I—I haven't." Tauriel grimaced, trying to suppress the words which tried to force their way out from between her lips, but it was no use. "Not—not until now, I think."
The air seemed to stand still after her admission. Or was it just the ringing inside her own ears which drowned out all other sound?
When Tauriel finally dared to look down, she found Kíli returning her gaze with an intensity which left no doubt that he had grasped the meaning behind her words. Slowly, he sat up and turned to face her.
"When we leave here, for good I mean, you don't have to—you could—" He broke off, his lips pressed together. He opened his mouth, closed it again, ran an obviously flustered hand through his already rather mussed-up hair. "No, I'm doing this all wrong," he muttered to himself. "What I meant to ask—"
She never found out what precisely it was he had meant to ask her—although the rapid drum of her pulse might have been taken as an indicator that she was not entirely clueless about the intention behind his stammering. A loud crash sounded from somewhere close by, followed immediately by a sequence of muttered curses and insults from all directions.
Tauriel raised an eyebrow at Kíli. "Time to rise, it would seem."
xXxXxXxXxXxXx
Throughout the long hours of the night, Tauriel had remained alert to each and every signal of life within their immediate vicinity. After Kíli had fallen asleep, it had taken a few hours of anxious waiting, but eventually the other occupants of their strange new quarters had begun to trickle into the loft. Initially, Tauriel had tensed, prepared to jump up and defend both Kíli and herself at the slightest sign of danger. However, all that had happened was that after a while the sounds of people moving about had died down and the air had become filled with soft, regular breaths, punctuated by the occasional snore.
Whatever the function of those they shared their new quarters with—whether they were soldiers, slaves, prisoners—it seemed that they either had no interest in confronting the newest arrivals in their midst or were simply too fatigued by whatever they had been tasked with during the long hours of the day to care. Kíli, who had not spent the better part of the night listening for disturbances and could therefore not know that no immediate threat emanated from their surroundings, was understandably put on edge by the realization that they were no longer alone.
While bodies began to move about outside their little improvised room, he took up a defensive stance right behind the curtain separating them from the rest of the loft. Tauriel rose to her feet more slowly and crossed over to him.
"I do not believe anyone here is looking for a fight," she whispered, one hand resting on his tense shoulder. "If they were, they would have had all night to come after us."
He looked not entirely convinced, but still she felt his muscles relax under her touch. "Maybe they just wanted a good night's sleep before they show us their true face," he muttered grumpily, but let her pass without resistance.
She could feel him behind her as she pushed the curtain aside, his warmth radiating through her clothes and into bones chilled by sitting up for many dark hours. More nervous about confronting yet another group of strangers than she was letting on, Tauriel tried to draw strength and confidence from that warmth.
Outside their small, secure haven, she found herself faced with several pairs of eyes turned in her direction. Most of those stares she judged to be curious in nature, some reluctant, but none openly aggressive, at the very least.
Right opposite their quarters, a gap between two velvety purple curtains revealed a young man and a slightly older woman, who was currently bent over her companion's reclining torso to examine a large, but already fading bruise. A little further to the right, at a table that appeared to serve as a kitchen and communal area at once, two men were slouched over bowls of steaming food, their spoons frozen midway to their mouths as they eyed the newcomers.
From the partition on the immediate left to Kíli and Tauriel, a girl with wild, curly hair emerged, noticed them and gave a start, stumbling backwards into the chest of another young woman, who had come up behind her. The second woman wrapped a protective arm around the shoulders of the curly-haired one, her green eyes darkening with distrust as they made contact with Tauriel's.
Tauriel lifted her hand in greeting (and to demonstrate that she had neither the means nor the intention to attack anybody). "Good morning."
Her voice, she was pleased to discover, came out calm and collected. Still, there was no response. The two women merely frowned and gave Kíli and Tauriel a wide berth on their way to the communal table. The men sat there vacated their seats for them and disappeared wordlessly into the depths of the loft. Across the aisle, the purple curtain was jerked closed, concealing the woman and her patient behind its shimmering opacity.
Tauriel looked over her shoulder to raise an eyebrow at Kíli.
"Charming," he commented drily. The expression on his face, however, was precisely as bemused as Tauriel felt.
Despite this less than warm welcome, Tauriel forced herself to keep her spine straight as she ventured further into the area between the makeshift rooms. If her experience with Kíli and the rest of their group had taught her anything, then it was that an unpromising start might yet blossom into something unexpected. Something wonderful, even.
With measured steps, she rounded the table and sat down at the far end from the two women, picking up an empty bowl from a stack as she did so.
"Tauriel, of the Woodland Realm," she said, casually, while she used the wooden ladle sticking out from a steaming pot to spoon what appeared to be some sort of vegetable stew into her bowl.
Again, there was no response other than one of the women—the curly-haired one—turning her head slightly to glance at her out of the corner of her eye. At a mumbled comment from her companion, they both picked up their bowls, drained them in a few hurried gulps, and pushed away from the table so abruptly that their chairs screeched against the scuffed, wooden floorboards.
"It would appear that I'm not the only one whose charms do not have the desired effect here." Kíli sank into the spot next to her and accepted the bowl of stew which she handed him with a grateful smile.
Tauriel knocked her knee into his beneath the table in response to his teasing. "I do not mean to sound vain, but I do wonder why that is. Or does their. . . aversion to us not strike you as somewhat unusual?"
"It is because you reek of trouble," a voice that wasn't Kíli's answered. Tauriel looked around to find the woman she had seen patching up her companion approach the table. Now, up close, Tauriel could see a large purplish scar cutting across almost the entire right half of the woman's face.
"What do you mean?"
The woman took her time answering. Only once she had filled her own bowl—meticulously, right to the brim—and sat down in front of it, did she speak again. "We get your type here, from time to time. You come in in a blaze of glory and disappear again just as quickly. Because you will not play by the rules. Because you are trouble. And no one wants any sort of trouble in here."
"We do not want any trouble either," Tauriel said, but even as the words left her lips, she knew them to be a lie. She would gladly walk into any kind of trouble if it promised freedom, if it promised safety for those she cared about. And Kíli was probably even worse than her, in that respect.
Visibly unconvinced (and rightly so), the woman gave a disinterested shrug and returned her focus to her food. While they ate in silence, Tauriel and Kíli exchanged uneasy glances over the steam rising from their food. The inhabitants of the loft they had met so far did not seem particularly mistreated, but whatever the circumstances of their presence here were, they were clearly dire enough to keep them in line, to keep them small, to keep them quiet. Which were things neither of them was very good at. So maybe the woman was right in their assumption that they were harbingers of trouble.
There were a dozen of questions Tauriel wanted to ask, but it was more than obvious that none of them would be welcome. And so, when the woman finished her breakfast and pushed away from the table, Tauriel settled on a simple, "What is your name?"
The woman stopped in her tracks with her back already to them, hunched her shoulders, then dropped them again with an audible exhale. "I will regret this, won't I," she muttered. And then, more clearly, "It's Nesrin. And I suggest that before you do something rash, something foolish that might get us all killed, you come and speak to me first."
That last bit was accompanied by a glance over her shoulder so sharp that Tauriel had to suppress the soldierly instinct to shove back her chair and stand at attention. Instead, she nodded feebly and watched Nesrin disappear among the pandemonium of curtains fluttering in a gentle morning breeze.
Beside her, Kíli gave a low whistle through his teeth. "Wouldn't want to end up on the wrong side of her, that's for sure."
Tauriel sighed. "I have a feeling that no matter whose side we choose, there is always going to be someone on the other side whom we would rather not have as an enemy."
"True," Kíli conceded. "Still, our new neighbors seem increasingly likely to be on said other side, when worse comes to worst."
He'd dropped his voice towards the end there, and Tauriel leaned in, trying not to allow herself to become distracted by his now familiar scent. He needed a bath—they both did—but even so, the temptation to seek some respite from this already rather tiring morning and simply rest her head on his shoulder was nearly overwhelming.
"You forget that in all probability they are a lot like us. Captives, with homes and families out there they are longing to return to."
Even as she spoke, she studiously avoided Kíli's searching gaze at the mention of their earlier topic of conversation. Right now this was not about the distant future, about what would come after all this, for him, for her, and for the both of them, but rather about their current circumstances and how they would cope with those.
After a tense moment, Kíli relented, and leaned back in his chair, somehow managing a confident, leisurely sprawl that was rather at odds with both the uncomfortableness of the furnishings and the general air of hostility they had been met with. He let his gaze wander around the room, where currently everyone was concealed behind their individual screens and curtains.
"Somehow I think that if everyone here is so very keen on staying out of trouble as that Nesrin woman suggested, getting out of here and back wherever it is they originally came from cannot be that high on their lists of priorities."
"I see what you mean." Tauriel, too, let her gaze sweep around the loft. In contrast to the night before, when everyone had gone to sleep quickly after entering their quarters, it wasn't just quiet up here. The atmosphere was tense, and more than a little subdued. Was it always like this, she wondered, or was it just hers and Kíli's presence which had set everyone on edge? She looked back at Kíli.
"Remember, though, that jumping headfirst into whatever opportunity for a fight presents itself is not the only way one can go about altering one's circumstances. Maybe we judge them too harshly. After all, they know more about the ways of this place than we do."
It wasn't meant as a tease—or not exclusively as one, at least—but still Kíli grinned and raised a hand to his chest in mock offense. "Do you mean to imply that I am some sort of reckless fool who does not know how to pick his own battles? I thought we'd gotten past your silly prejudices against Dwarves."
Despite herself, Tauriel smiled and leaned forward in her seat to squeeze the hand which Kíli still kept on his chest. "A fool, no. Reckless, perhaps. But no more than I can be, on occasion." She dropped her gaze, for a moment, her mirth trickling like sand through her fingers as a by now familiar dread pooled in her stomach. "I just want us both to be safe. I also want us to be free, and to be able to help those who are in no position to help themselves, but even more than that, I want us to be safe. Even if that makes me feel like a coward."
Kíli brought their joined hands down onto the table and laced his fingers through hers. "That whole business about who's the more reckless one may be something we need to postpone to another day, but I can assure you here and now that out of all the things in the world, you are most definitely not a coward. It isn't cowardice to—to care."
Despite the fervor of his declaration (or perhaps because of it), he had stumbled a bit over those last few words and Tauriel raised her eyes to his, so very close to hers now that he, too, had leaned forward in his seat.
Care.
It was too weak a word to label the nature of their bond, she was well aware. And, from the slight touch of pink which Kíli's cheeks had acquired as he spoke, so was he. And yet, was this really the time and the place to correct him, to put into words the things that hovered between them for the second time on this very disorienting morning?
It wasn't, it seemed, for the unnatural stillness of the loft was at that precise moment interrupted by the unmistakable sound of steps on the stairs. With the swiftness of someone who had been waiting for this to happen, those whom they shared their quarters with emerged from behind the various screens and curtains. The pair of young women from before, as well as the two men who had been the first at the breakfast table. Nesrin, scowling, followed by the younger man she had been examining before. There were also a handful of other people Tauriel was able to make out between the curtains that were still billowing in the morning breeze, making it difficult to keep track of what was happening inside the large room.
All inhabitants of the loft appeared to stand at attention, sort of. 'Sort of' because Tauriel's trained eye discerned quickly that their actions were not those of trained soldiers who were meticulous and at ease in the routines which had been set for them by their superiors, but rather those of people who had been conditioned to act a certain way unless they wanted to be punished for doing otherwise. Prisoners after all, she thought to herself. Not that she had ever been particularly convinced of the opposite.
Nesrin glared at Kíli and Tauriel until they, too, rose from their seats and came to stand in front of the table at the exact moment that the door at the far end of the room creaked open. At first Tauriel thought the woman leading a small procession into the room was the same as the one who had shown them to their quarters the night before. She was dressed in the same, undistinguished way, wore her hair in the same, bland manner, and had a face that was neither kind, nor cruel, neither old, nor young.
As she advanced into the center of the room, however, the limp which had characterized the other woman's gait was nowhere to be seen, and she looked at Kíli and Tauriel without any trace of recognition. Also, it quickly became clear, without any trace of friendliness. Despite being fully clothed, Tauriel experienced the outlandish urge to cross her arms in front of her chest to shield herself from the woman's piercing gaze. If this was some sort of test, would she pass it?
Behind the stern woman, three young girls and a tall, lanky boy had entered the loft, carrying an assortment of bowls and baskets in their wiry arms. The girls immediately set to clearing the table, stacking used bowls into one of the baskets and wiping down the dented surface of the table with lumpy, wet cloths. The boy, meanwhile, shifted nervously on his feet as all inhabitants of the loft except for Kíli and Tauriel shuffled over to him and formed an irregular line close to the door.
The woman in charge surveyed the movement out of the corner of her eye.
"Stay," she barked when Kíli made to step around her with the apparent intention of joining their neighbors and glared at him until he had shifted back into the exact same position he had been in before. Then she left them for a moment to head over to the group huddled by the door.
With measured steps she walked up and down the short line, looking each individual over from head to toes. When she reached Nesrin's companion, she lifted his tunic and bent down to examine the bruising across his ribs. Apparently satisfied with what she found, she gave a short grunt and stepped back, allowing the young man to rearrange his clothing. She nodded sharply at the servant boy, who seemed about ready to jump out of his skin. He recovered quickly, though, and led the small procession through the door and into the stairwell. It wasn't necessary, apparently, to tie anyone up or use force to make them follow, for everyone simply fell into step behind him, albeit without much enthusiasm.
"Where are you taking them?" Tauriel asked before she could stop herself. Beside her, one of the girls cleaning the table started so badly at the sound of her voice that she dropped one of the empty breakfast bowls. Without thinking, Tauriel darted forward and caught the bowl before it could hit the floor and shatter, handing it back to the girl, who accepted it with badly shaking hands. Tauriel tried a smile and did not quite get one in return, but when the girl stepped back to resume her work, her hands had somewhat stilled around the bowl and she was able to deposit it in her basket without much fumbling.
When she turned back around, Tauriel found their warden studying her with cold, assessing eyes. She crossed back over to them. "Like all of us, they have a day's worth of work ahead of them," she said in answer to Tauriel's question.
Tauriel tried to discern if the woman's words were genuine, or if perhaps there was another layer of meaning behind them. Such as 'work' being a code word for torture, or other unspeakable evils. But the woman's demeanor was impenetrable, her face an iron mask, her voice detached and factual.
"What about us, then?" This was Kíli and Tauriel knew even before he continued that he was not about to make a new friend. "Do we get to laze about here all day? Not that I'm opposed to a bit of a vacation, but I would rather get to choose for myself when and, more importantly, where I take one."
As Tauriel could have predicted (and Kíli as well, judging by the belligerent grin on his face), this earned him a hard glare. "Do not fret," the woman said. "You, too, will contribute your share." She stepped back a little, looking Kíli up and down disparagingly. "Even if, from where I am standing, it still remains to be seen whether you will actually be able to deliver what will be asked of you. Or if the result of your efforts will, in the end, fall short of what is expected of you."
Before Kíli had the chance to react to this—admittedly not entirely witless—jab at his height, Tauriel interfered. "What is it we are to do, then?"
"Ah, you'll join your comrades in a little while. But not like this." The woman swayed forward on her toes and wrinkled her nose. "You reek. Ordinarily, the baths are open to you lot in the evening, but I believe for today it is best if we make an exception." She nodded at one of the servant girls, who came skittering over with her eyes turned downward. "Tara here will take you to get cleaned up. And after today, see to it that you keep yourselves neat. If not out of respect for yourselves, then at the very least in consideration of your neighbors."
Tauriel felt hot indignation rise inside of her at the implication that the state she and Kíli were in was in any way their own fault rather than that of the captors who had kept them imprisoned in horrifying circumstances. But she swallowed it down, trying to heed her own advice to Kíli. Pick your battles wisely. This is not worth wasting your strength.
Their ward studied Tauriel for a moment, as if she was waiting for the inevitable protest to burst forth from the Elf's lips. But Tauriel did not give her that satisfaction and, almost surprisingly, neither did Kíli, even though Tauriel could practically feel him glow with fury beside her. With a twitch of her mouth that could have been a smirk, the woman finally relented and turned away.
Not a battle won, perhaps, but one postponed, Tauriel thought to herself. Either way, the fact that their first proper interaction here had not resulted in a fight ought to be counted as a success. What awaited them next, Tauriel could only form a very vague idea of in her head, but at the very least they had as much of their wits about them as might be expected.
A/N: Chapter title taken from the lyrics to "Love Is Letting Go" by Ashe feat. Diane Keaton