Apologies for the break. I was finally finishing my other main long story, and going on Storm-level travels at the same time.

"It is going to be all right, little one. It is going to be okay. I promise it is going to be okay."

"Hey, Tauriel." Lanthirel knelt down next to her husband and addressed the little red-haired elfling who trembled in his arms. "I made some cookies for you. I want you to eat some even if you are not hungry, okay?"

The girl opened her eyes and looked at the plate of cookies with a glassy stare for a moment before she slowly reached out and took one with a shaky hand.

"You too," Lanthirel said to Taensirion, offering him the plate as he shifted Tauriel to a better position for eating. He had been up since midnight, too, after all, and she knew the horror of the night's events had to be getting to him. He needed to eat something if he was going to stay up rocking Tauriel for the rest of the night.

To the older elves' surprise—and great relief—Tauriel hungrily attacked her cookie, and then two more like it, before passing out from sheer exhaustion in the middle of the fourth. Lanthirel sat down next to the rocking chair, and she and Taensirion watched the sleeping elfling for a while. "Are we going to have another daughter?" she asked finally.

"I do not know," Taensirion said softly. "Thranduil said something about taking her himself. He seems to think he owes her parents... But she has grandparents as well, and they should have the first right."

"Either way, she will never lack a family," the she-elf promised, handing him another cookie.

"No," he agreed. "There are too many people who love her already."

Several minutes passed. Tauriel twitched restlessly in her sleep.

"Do you think she will be all right?" Taensirion asked, and he swallowed hard. Poor Tauriel had already been through so much.

His wife stroked his hair. "She is a fierce little thing."

He nodded.

. . . . . .

A few years later...

"NO! I'm not going!"

Taensirion and Lanthirel exchanged glances, and then Taensirion leaned up to the tightly shut (specifically, slammed) door. "I think you will like Kyra," he tried. "She has five daughters, you know."

"I don't care. She's not my Nana."

"Oh, Tauriel, dear," Lanthirel murmured as Taensirion turned to her for help. But what did one say to a child like Tauriel? Nothing they had thought of yet had kept her from fighting her caregivers, running away, or hiding in her room and refusing to eat until each of her sets of grandparents, in turn, finally gave up and brought her back to the only two elves who could seem to get anything out of her. Her uncle—Felrion's brother, specifically—had tried to befriend her, too, to no avail. Now Kilvara's middle sister had come all the way from the very north edge of the forest to try to take little Tauriel home with her, but the girl refused to even see her.

It wasn't, to be clear, as if Taensirion and Lanthirel wanted to get rid of her. Quite the opposite. They only felt that they couldn't deny her blood family the chance to take her in.

"I don't want to leave," Tauriel said finally from inside her room—inside Taensirion and Lanthirel's quarters in the underground palace where they'd finally, reluctantly moved to escape the ever-increasing darkness outside. Something was wrong in the forest, though it might not be visible to outsiders yet, and the orcs were growing bolder than ever... never mind the spiders.

"You might be happier there," Lanthirel began, though Taensirion was already shaking his head. "You could go outside more often. The forest is safer." Tauriel's name meant daughter of the forest, and indeed, with her parents gone the outdoors were more of a home to her than anywhere else.

"I don't want to go! You can't make me!"

But only a few minutes later, Tauriel was led out of the palace by Kyra and her husband, staring pleadingly back at Taensirion and Lanthirel with tears running down her face.

Taensirion squeezed Lanthirel's hand. "Can't we...?"

"One more time, love. This time, if she comes back, she will not have to go away again."

. . . . . .

And sure enough, one day Taensirion came home to their rooms to find Tauriel's room occupied again. "Do you promise?" the elfling was asking Lanthirel.

"Yes, I promise. You do not have to go with anyone else, unless someday you decide that you want to." She made to hug Tauriel, but the near-adolescent girl pulled away from her embrace.

"Really? You aren't lying to me?"

"Of course not, we would never lie to you."

Taensirion sat on Tauriel's bed on her other side. "We told you we will always be here for you, no matter where you are. But we would much rather you be here with us. We only felt we owed it to your family to let them take you if they could."

But their words did little, and eventually they had to leave her alone. It wasn't the only time they failed to comfort the girl, either, though they did better than others most of the time.

. . . . . .

It was no wonder Tauriel wanted to stay in the king's palace; her whole family was there. Not her blood relations, but the elves she had known growing up, who had acted as her older siblings, her aunts and uncles, and her grandparents perhaps more than her "real" family had, if only because they lived so much closer. And these elves made it their mission, if they couldn't fill her parents' shoes, at least to give her everything Felrion and Kilvara could have wanted for her. Since her adoptive family happened to be made up of the king's inner circle, this included an education fit for a princess.

"And these mushrooms, Tauriel?"

"Sticky when water is added, the only ones that do that," the elfling recited briskly. "A quick way to bind wounds in the field."

"Which of these three can we eat?"

She pointed.

"Which will poison us?"

"These. Symptoms include pain and swelling in the hands and feet, but it doesn't show up for several days."

"Which of these leaves harm humans?"

"Foxglove, though there is also one recorded case of an elfling dying after eating them."

Tathor grinned at Taensirion over Tauriel's shoulder. The girl put enormous effort into her medical lessons, though not quite as much as…

. . . . . .

"Parry-step-stab-duck-back-left-parry-one-two-three!" Silana stepped back, grinning as she lowered her blades. "Well done! That was nearly perfect!"

Tauriel nodded, and allowed herself a small smile.

Alagon's jaw dropped.

"Oh come now," said Taensirion, badly-hidden smugness radiating from his voice, "you have surely seen better than that."

"She is how old?" Alagon stammered.

"Twenty-six." The blond elf folded his hands behind his back and tried to appear as if he were not absolutely thrilled at his friend's reaction.

"…ah." Alagon cleared his throat. "I recommend you prepare her to join the king's guard. Er, well done," he said weakly to Silana—who smirked and bowed in acceptance of the compliment.

For once—once in his life—Alagon had made someone smile. An elfling, in fact. And one who rarely had such a bounce in her step anymore.

Taensirion could have hugged him.

. . . . . .

"A heart of stone?" repeated Tauriel. "This is a human phrase?"

Heledir nodded.

"Is it a metaphor?"

"Yes, very good. Can you guess what it might mean?"

"Stones are… hard. And—" She made a squishing motion with her hands. "Inflexible?"

"Go on."

"So if your heart is of stone, you're stubborn and not kind."

"Something like that, yes."

"So…" She stopped.

"Hmm?" prompted Taensirion, who was sitting in on her lesson today out of curiosity. (Lanthirel had told him he should come see how good Tauriel was with the Common speech already.)

"…like the king."

Ah…

. . . . . .

"Can you not at least look at her?"

Thranduil paced, eyes distant as they so often were. "Have I offended you, Taensirion?"

"She looks up to you. She wants to please you. Could you please be kind to the child?"

"She has many other role models."

Taensirion clenched his jaw and looked out across the palace, the great cavern of amber lamps and moss and waterfalls. It had been a glorious new home once, not a cage. "Her parents were dear to you."

"I hardly knew them."

"I do not think that is true."

The king turned his head away, and after a moment began ascending the steps to his throne. Taensirion had caught him between appointments with supplicants.

"She nearly worships Legolas."

"Perhaps I do not wish to encourage this."

"And why not?" Taensirion waited for an answer, but got none. "Thranduil, please, the time you had with her parents and—"

"DO NOT SAY HER NAME."

Taensirion cut off with a gasp. The king had spun on the stairs, eyes blazing, silver robe swirling behind him. "Could you not be kinder to Tauriel?"

"I… will try. Go now, please."

"Thranduil."

"Go."

Thousands of years working together on all manner of issues that other elves found controversial, and never had they reached a disagreement that left Taensirion feeling so… resentful. It was not a sensation he encouraged in himself, of course. After all, the things the king had experienced… but poor Tauriel, she had been through something much like Thranduil's own experiences. And she was only a child. And… and it was not fair to her. How could he?

"Thranduil, the girl has done nothing wrong," he blurted.

The king's piercing-blue eyes turned to him, accompanied by a slight frown, but this was no longer anger on his face. "She is not yours, Taensirion."

"Of course she is." The words came to his mouth easily.

"No. What she is to you and yours is within your authority, but do not expect that she will be treated as your child when she is outside your home."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"She is the daughter of a healer and a soldier, not of the closest thing this realm has to a nobleman, and she shall be treated as such. I know you have been teaching her the higher arts. That is acceptable, but do not push her higher than her parents were."

"Why—you do not want her close to you, do you?" Why else would he make such a statement? It was not like Thranduil to bar commoners from government work… though that was changing slowly. Greenwood was finally forming an aristocracy.

Thranduil's straight-backed posture melted for a rare moment, and he slumped against the spreading branches of his throne. "I cannot bear to look at the child. It is for the best, anyway. Everything which draws close to me dies."

The advisor was speechless at first. "…You are ill, Thranduil."

"Yes." The king rubbed a hand over his face. "This is what I am now. There is no use pretending otherwise."

"You…"

Thranduil stood to his full height suddenly, brushing away the response Taensirion was trying to form. "No matter. I wish the best for the child, Taensirion, but ensure she keeps to her place."

"I just want—"

"You will find it elsewhere. We are done here."

No use arguing when the king was in this state. Taensirion finally turned away, clenching his fists. Poor Tauriel. But poor Thranduil, as well... He could only hope the red-haired girl was not broken forever, as he feared Oropher's son was.

. . . . . .

"Five," panted Tauriel, spinning and drawing another arrow. "Six. Seven. Eight. Nine!"

Each shot landed a few inches from the center—but from an elfling only now entering her thirties, alternating between two targets on opposite sides of the arena, it was impressive, even at this short distance.

"She should be improving her accuracy over longer distances first," grumbled Alagon, who was standing grouchily under a canopy.

"Oh, go see to your soldiers," Taensirion muttered at him—but not too irritably, because how often did Alagon watch elflings practicing their bow skills? This little redhead was special, they all knew it.

"Legolas taught me to alternate my shots," the girl informed Alagon petulantly. "It's so I don't learn to aim by looking where the last arrow landed. I bet you didn't know about that." She was a fierce critter, as evidenced by her standing up to one of the highest-ranked and fiercest-looking elves she knew.

He glowered at her. "And you hold your bow crooked, too. Those Silvans corrupted everyone."

He was right, Taensirion supposed. The "two Silvans" had indeed taught most of their fellows, including Silana, to tilt their bows when they shot, which according to Sindarin tradition was supposed to affect their aim. Oropher had also tried to correct the soldiers, but Taensirion—noticing that the originators of the mistake were Eithryn, Coryn, and Tauriel's own mother Kilvara—which was to say, indisputably the three best archers in the kingdom—had somehow never seen the point.

Legolas was Tauriel's archery teacher, of course. He'd promised to teach her so she could avenge her parents, and anyway, with the aforementioned three elves dead or vanished, he was now the best in the forest. He had passed the same bow-angle quirk down to her.

Whatever had happened to Coryn, anyway? Did he know his old friends had died, or that they had left a daughter behind? Was he still living?

. . . . . .

Actually, Taensirion learned the answer to those last questions quite soon.

"Tauriel?" Silana leaned around the corner. "Could you come with me for a moment?"

The young elf looked up from her lesson with Heledir; they were on to classical Sindarin literature now, which she argued she would never need to know about. She was likely correct. "But Taensirion is about to take me to the river, as soon as we finish."

"Will it take long, Silana?" inquired Taensirion, who strongly encouraged his daughters—ahem, Tauriel and Silana—to bond. Silana made an excellent older sister. "If I could come along, we could set off afterward."

Heledir gave a long-suffering sigh.

"Perhaps you can come along, too," Taensirion chuckled.

Silana had one eyebrow raised. "I think… then again, you may as well. Can you keep a secret, Ada, Heledir?"

They looked at each other.

. . . . . .

"So what is it that we cannot tell the king?" Tauriel probed impishly, walking up beside Silana. She had grown taller recently, nearly as tall as her parents had been, though even Silana still stood over her. Next to Taensirion, who was nearly the king's height, she still resembled an elfling.

And yet, she was beginning to speak like an adult now, too. She was almost forty, after all. In the last few years she had even changed to speaking proper Sindarin most of the time, even around elves like Silana and Tathor who liked to use that hybrid Sindarin-Silvan that Heledir found so endearing. The languages had blended together to some extent. But Sindarin was the king's language, the one important people spoke now. Even though he and Lanthirel spoke semi-correct Sindarin at home, Taensirion could not help wondering if Tauriel's switch had been deliberate.

"You'll see," Silana answered mysteriously.

Tauriel elbowed her. "Are we going to Legolas's house?"

"Perhaps."

Tauriel continued to pester Silana until they were there—the prince's house, indeed. Someday Legolas might have to move out of his uncle's old house and into the palace, but he was going to fight his father on it as long as possible. Up the ladder they went and in the door, looking around for the secret surprise. Legolas was there, and both Tathor and Firith, and Galion, and—who was—oh!

"Storm!" Taensirion cried.

The stripe-haired elf grinned from his perch on the back of the couch, next to a she-elf with silver hair. That in itself was a shock to see; Silvans did not have silver hair, and none of the Sindar who came to Greenwood had either. The closest you got was Thranduil's ash-blond, and that was nothing to this metallic color.

And Coryn… "I hardly recognized you," Taensirion admitted. The Silvan elf hardly looked... well, Silvan. His copper-and-black hair was cut short and loose, almost ragged at the ends, to match his well-worn clothing. That cloak—that ambiguously-patterned green-and-gray cloth Taensirion couldn't identify—and those stained-dark leather shoes—those must have been worn and patched for years. Taensirion knew the look; he had seen it on plenty of humans, and elves too. This elf had been living off his own means, or at least without the goods available in civilized society, and yet he or whoever had made that outfit knew what they were doing. The clothes had lasted, after all.

And his face. Never mind the three dark streaks across one cheek, there was something there that suggested experience, challenges overcome, along with the subtle intensity Coryn had always possessed.

But after all, he was older now, was he not? What did Taensirion expect of an elf who was only a few centuries younger than himself? He had always seen Coryn as much younger, but as Taensirion had gained the wisdom of age, so had this elf.

"You called me Storm," the elf laughed. "I guess we did finally get that rubbed into you. What's it been, Taen, two and a half thousand years now?"

No, he did not seem Silvan, but it was not his changed clothing or the cut hair. It was the way his eyes darted around the room, the way he slipped from the couch and padded guardedly around Taensirion, scanning the entirety of him and then searching his face just as closely despite his unconcerned words. And his voice. That slight roughness, the almost-airiness with which both he and Legolas spoke still remained, but the slight little lisp he had always possessed was magnified ten times over. It was a clear accent now, an over-emphasis on the hard consonants and a breathiness to the e's and s's, replacing the Silvan almost entirely.

And without the Silvan accent, without wearing the usual green-and-brown and without the long and tied-back hair, Storm almost could not be recognized as a Silvan elf. He was too tall, too broad in the shoulders, his features too strong. Was Storm partly Sindarin?

"Yeah, yeah, I know I look weird, shush. Hi, Heledir."

Heledir had an odd look on his face. His hands flickered in something that wasn't Silvan patrol sign, and Storm shrugged and responded in kind. Then Storm turned to Tauriel, who hesitated in the back of the group.

"Ah," he breathed, biting his lip. "You do look like your Nana." He abruptly pressed a fist to his mouth and turned away, but only for an instant. "I should introduce myself. I'm Storm, or Stormfire, or Coryn in Silvan. Legolas's uncle, your… your parents' friend." It was evident he'd only just found out about their deaths today.

"Oh wow," Tauriel gasped.

"Eh, I'm not sure I'm quite worth that. But it's very good to meet you."

The silver-haired elf on the couch finally kicked him.

"Ai! Forgot you were here. Everyone, this is Swift. She's sort of almost an adult and she won't leave me alone."

"I'm fifty-three, thanks, Stripes," she corrected in an even heavier accent than his—but good Silvan, notably.

"I do not go by Stripes," Storm informed them. (Taensirion really did think of him sometimes as "Storm".) "Any variation on my actual name is still fine."

Swift pushed past him to Tauriel. "Hello. You're almost my age, aren't you?"

"Yes, nearly."

"Nice. I'm a healer, y'know. You?" She had the same three stripes on her cheek as Storm.

"…A warrior."

Taensirion winced a little. Tauriel had been trying to decide which of her parents' paths to follow, and he had been hoping for the other one. It was considerably less dangerous.

"That's good too. I've never seen real weapons except Storm's, do you have any?"

"I have my mother's."

"Aw. That's good. Storm's told me about your Nana, he says she was an awesome fighter and she always stood up for what's right. I guess you look like her, that's cool, I look a lot like my Nana but I have my Ada's eyes, or the eyes he used to have before he went blind, not his actual eyes you see, but the same color—"

"Oookay," said Storm, taking her by the shoulders and moving her to the side, "let's not give you too much chance to rub off on Tauriel yet. You go talk to Silana, you'll like her."

Taensirion, who was starting to get out of his shock at seeing Storm alive and well, noted with relief that Silana was not upset at seeing Storm. Of course, it had been a long time.

Tauriel grabbed Storm's arm. "Tell me about my parents."

"Of course."

Just like Legolas, thought Taensirion. But at least he still had his Ada.

. . . . . .

"So you've taken her in," Storm remarked, leaning against a tree with Taensirion and watching Tauriel show Swift her battle stances.

"Of course we have."

"That's good. Silana said Tauriel didn't really want anyone else, anyway."

Taensirion smiled sadly. "Would you have taken her, if…?"

"Maybe. But I'm only one elf, and I wonder if a family is better for her. I wouldn't trust anyone more, anyway."

Tears pricked Taensirion's eyes; he got emotional with regard to this child. "Really?"

"Really."

Heledir passed by, and paused and said something to Storm in a tongue that Taensirion almost understood. If only it were a bit slower, he felt he might recognize some words.

Storm answered in the same language, perhaps even more fluently.

"So…?" Taensirion began as Heledir continued onward.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You will not tell me—"

"Nope."

"Heledir understands, clearly."

"I just asked him not to tell you."

Taensirion sighed.

"Sorry, but it doesn't feel like the right time yet. For reasons. Humor me. You're not gonna argue?"

"I do not remember that arguing with yourself or your sister ever had a strong effect.

"Ha. Or Oropher, eh?"

"No…"

"…How is Thranduil?"

"He is no longer in danger of fading, but I fear he is not improving, either."

"Ah. All right. Take care of him, too, will you?"

"I try. Truly, I do."

"Thank you. My sister loved him, after all."

. . . . . .

Felrion and Kilvara were dead.

Storm sat with his head bowed. He and Swift hadn't stayed long—Moon didn't want them gone longer than a month. She and Tauriel had gotten along splendidly, though.

Poor Tauriel. She was as fierce as her mother, but Storm could nearly see the scars. She reminded him of Flint, a little.

"C'mon, Stripes, don't be too sad."

"Too sad?"

"Yeah. You have to mourn, but don't forget to have fun too; we all die, right? So we have to enjoy things while we can."

"Who told you that?"

"No one. I thought of it, thank you."

"You're too young to say things like 'we all die'."

"Well, Raven might've said that part."

"Raven? Raven's probably gonna live forever."

"Not at the rate he breaks bones, no."

"You're an interesting kid."