I do not own Lord of the Rings or any of the characters.
Imprisoned
Rhanir knelt, eyes remaining on the ground, as Legolas held Orcrist at the side of his throat and Thranduil glared down at him.
"Why have you come here?" Thranduil asked in Sindarin. "You've avoided elves for decades. You accepted your banishment. Why enter an Elven Realm now? For Thorin Oakenshield? For Erebor?"
"For Elrond," Rhanir answered. "He bade me protect the dwarves on their quest. The only way through Mirkwood fast enough to reach the mountain on Durin's Day was the Elven Road. If I'd had a choice, I'd have never come here."
"You had a choice," Thranduil said. "You could have refused Elrond. Has gold become so important to you as to forsake yourself?"
"No," Rhanir shook his head. "But Elrond believes the enemy has returned, and that he wants the mountain. So he asked me to protect the dwarves."
Thranduil shook his head slowly. "You never learn. After being banished for your crimes, you should have learned to behave as befits your status, not to throw it by the wayside."
"My only crime was to fall in love with a human," Rhanir argued, raising his eyes to glare at Thranduil at last. "For no more than that, I was banished and forbidden from entering any Elven Realm."
Thranduil snorted. "No more than that, you say? You were a prince, once. A prince has no business consorting with those of lesser species, or with those whose position is beneath them."
Rhanir's eyes fell to the ground again. "You're just like my father. Just execute me and be done with it."
"So quick to accept your fate," Thranduil mused. "Will you not try to change my mind?"
Rhanir shook his head. "I accepted my fate as son as I entered your realm. I knew the price."
"Then why enter?" Thranduil asked.
"Because sometimes, doing the right thing comes at great cost," Rhanir said. "And even besides that, I gave my word that I would not abandon the dwarves and that I would do everything I could to keep them safe. I honor my word."
Thranduil stared at him for a long moment. "Your father taught you well." He stood, taking up one of his twin swords. "Very well. I condemn you to death." He raised his sword, and Rhanir closed his eyes.
"My Lord!" the red-haired elf's voice called out. "I'm sorry for speaking out of turn, but is it really necessary to execute him?"
"He has broken one of our oldest and most sacred laws," Thranduil said. "By law, the only punishment for a Banished entering an Elven Realm without leave is death."
"But if he was here on Lord Elrond's orders-" she tried.
"Elrond is not the ruler of the Woodland Elves!" Thranduil snapped. "I am! Now be silent! Do not forget your place!"
Rhanir wished he could thank her for trying to save his life, but he knew if he spoke, she would likely share his fate. Such was Thranduil's temper. So instead, he waited, anticipating the cold bit of Thranduil's blade. But it did not come.
"What if he wants to die?" Legolas asked.
"What?" Thranduil asked, sounding exasperated.
"He is a Banished," Legolas said. "He can never see his home again. He will never be welcomed home by his father. He fell in love with a human, but she has been dead for a very long time now. What if he came here not to protect the dwarves, but to die."
"Then I shall let him," Thranduil stated.
"But the more fitting punishment, in his mind the only punishment, would be to let him live," Legolas pointed out. "Let him live out the remainder of his existence in our realm. In a cell. Until he fades."
Thranduil stared at Legolas, then returned his gaze to Rhanir, raising his sword, only to stop. He watched as Rhanir remained motionless before him, head bowed to allow for a cleaner stroke of Thrnaduil's sword. Finally, he lowered his blade.
"Lock him away with the dwarves," Thranduil sighed.
Legolas sheathed Orcrist, and the red-haired elf pulled Rhanir to his feet, then led him from the throne room. Once they were a safe distance away, Rhanir glanced at her.
"Thank you," he said. "But why?"
"Were you really banished for falling in love with a human?" she asked.
"I was," Rhanir nodded. "My father forbade it, and I didn't listen. I chose to leave to be with her, and he banished me as punishment for defying him."
The elf remained silent.
"What's your name?" Rhanir asked.
"Tauriel," she identified herself.
"I'm Rhanir," he introduced himself.
"You shouldn't thank me, yet," Tauriel warned him. "Your life here will not be pleasant."
"But I'll be alive," Rhanir said. "And someday, I may yet find a way to earn my freedom."
Tauriel didn't answer, and a few minutes later, they'd reached the cells. The room was large and open, with the center of the floor open and narrow, stone pathways leading around the room, cells lining the pathway. Tauriel locked him in the first open cell before freeing his hands. Then, she turned to walk away, only to stop at Kili's cell.
"The stone in your hand, what is it?" she asked, speaking in the common tongue this time.
"It is a talisman," Kili answered. "A powerful spell lies upon it. If any but a dwarf reads the runes on this stone...they will be forever cursed."
Rhanir looked over at them as Kili held out the stone, a small, black, polished stone with runes carved into its face, the stone roughly the size of his palm. Tauriel recoiled slightly on instinct, looking away. As Kili lowered the stone, Tauriel turned to walk away.
"Or not," Kili smiled knowingly, Tauriel stopping and looking at him again. "Depending on whether or not you believe in that kind of thing. It's just a token." He chuckled disarmingly. "A Rune Stone. My mother gave it to me so I'd remember my promise."
"What promise?" Tauriel asked, stepping closer.
"That I'd come back to her," Kili answered. "She worries. She thinks I'm reckless."
"Are you?" Tauriel asked.
"Nah," Kili said, tossing the stone, only to miss the catch.
Tauriel caught it under her foot, stopping it from falling from the ledge.
"And this is why I was asked to escort them all," Rhanir said, both looking over at him. "If it had been left to Kili, he'd have accidentally dropped us all off a cliff."
"Hey, that wasn't my fault!" Kili defended himself. "Climbing the trees was Gandalf's idea!"
"You climbed trees and almost fell from a cliff?" Tauriel frowned.
Rhanir chuckled. "If only that had been the least of our troubles."
Kili nodded in silent agreement as Tauriel knelt, lifting Kili's Rune Stone. Just then, a voice cheered from above.
"Sounds like quite a party you're having up there," Kili commented.
"It is Ismereth Engilith," Rhanir said wistfully, eyes on the roof of his cell. "The Feast of Starlight."
"All light is sacred to the Eldar," Tauriel explained. "But Wood Elves love best the light of the stars."
"As do my own people," Rhanir agreed, closing his eyes and imagining the star-filled sky.
"I always thought it is a cold light," Kili admitted. "Remote and far away."
"It is memory," Tauriel corrected him. "Precious and pure." She looked down at his Rune Stone, then held it out to him. "Like your promise."
Kili accepted the stone in silence.
"I have walked there, sometimes," Tauriel smiled. "Beyond the forest and up into the night. I have seen the world fall away. And the white light of forever fill the air."
"I saw a Fire Moon, once," Kili offered, Tauriel turning to him. "It rose over the pass near Dunland. Huge. Red and gold, it was. It filled the sky."
As Tauriel settled onto a step to listen to his story, Rhanir returned to envisioning the stars. Once Kili's story had ended, he asked Rhanir if he'd ever seen one, and Rhanir replied that he hadn't, but that he'd once seen a lake so wide and so calm that on a cloudless night, he sat in a boat atop the water and could see the sky both above and below. Tauriel listened to both of their stories in rapt attention as they swapped them back and forth, talking until early in the morning. Finally, Tauriel took her leave of them. Rhanir sat in silence for a long few minutes before speaking.
"You should take care, Kili," Rhanir warned. "An elf's feelings are not like your own. If you are in any way unsure, you should not try. When an elf pledges him or herself to someone, their feelings never change from then on. And if yours do, she will die. It's why relationships between elves and other races are forbidden by so many, including my father."
"My feelings will not change," Kili said. "What of yours?"
Rhanir was silent for a long while. "I have no right to pursue her. I shall live whatever time is given to me alone."
"Is it really so awful to be banished?" Kili asked.
"Yes," Rhanir said. "It is the greatest punishment an elf can suffer, in some ways."
Kili remained silent, and so did Rhanir. He sat in the doorway of his cell for hours, listening to the Feast of Starlight and wishing, as he had for more than a hundred years now, that he could take back his choice to leave his people. That he had never been banished. Because at least then, he could look upon the stars.
"I'll wager the sun is on the rise," Bofur spoke up, hours later. "Must be nearly dawn."
"Not yet, but soon," Rhanir answered. "Within the hour."
"We're never going to reach the mountain, are we?" Ori asked.
"Not stuck in here, you're not," Bilbo said, seeming to appear outside of their cells, keys in hand.
The others began to cheer and call to him, but he shushed them, quickly beginning to open their cells. As Bilbo worked on one side, Thorin worked on the other with the other half of the keys, though Rhanir wasn't sure how they'd known which keys fit which locks, since each cell had its own key. Finally, however, Thorin opened Rhanir's cell, only for Rhanir to not move.
"What are you waiting for?" Thorin asked. "Let's go!"
"Leave me," Rhanir said. "This is the fate I deserve."
Thorin glared at him. "Wallow in self pity all you want, but do it moving, Rhanir. You were hired to help us reach the mountain. We're not at the mountain yet! Are you going back on your word?"
Rhanir stared at him for a long few moments, then stood, nodding. "Bilbo, how are we getting out?"
"This way!" Bilbo called softly, sprinting down toward the cellar.
They all followed, and after a few minutes of hushed arguments, the dwarves had all climbed into empty wine barrels, which Bilbo dropped through a ramp in the floor to the river. Rhanir then picked up Bilbo and grabbed a knife from a sleeping elf at a table beside them before following the dwarves, landing on the edges of two of the barrels.
"Well done, Master Baggins," Thorin congratulated him.
Bilbo waved him off before the dwarves released the sides of the river, allowing the current to take them. The current swept them along through a cavern rapidly before finally spitting them out over a low waterfall. And just like that, they were free of Mirkwood. Rhanir breathed a sigh of relief as the sun shone on him for the first time in months. However, he knew their trouble wasn't over yet.
"We're going to have company soon!" He warned them all. "Be ready!"
"We have no weapons!" Thorin shouted.
"We'll have to make due!" Rhanir called back.
Just then, Rhanir looked back, seeing Legolas emerge from a doorway in the cliffs, and an elf behind him blew a horn. Instantly, a gate in the river ahead of them began to close. The five elves manning the gate prepared themselves to arrest, or possibly to kill, them all, but just as Rhanir leapt onto the dam above the gate and the dwarves began to get pinned to the gate itself, an arrow stabbed into an elf from behind. And then, before the elves could prepare, dozens of orcs were swarming over the dam.
Rhanir swore, ducking under an orc's blade and stabbed the knife he'd borrowed into its heart, then ripped it out, hurling it into another's face. He snatched up a sword one of the elves had dropped in time to swing the blade up beside his head, an arrow deflecting off of it as he leaned aside from another. A trio of orcs leapt at him, but he turned, splitting all three in half as he stepped between two of them, then stabbed another. He pulled the sword free and turned, slashing an arrow out of the air, only to catch it and drive it into an orc's throat. An orc leapt on him from behind, but he spun on the spot, loosening its hold before slamming his elbow into it, knocking it loose before turning back the other way, slashing it before it splashed down in the water. He snatched up a fallen orc blade and hurled it into an archer, then leapt over an arrow, allowing it to stab into another orc before he slashed through the archer's bow, killing its wielder.
More orcs swarmed over the edge of the dam, but as they swarmed Rhanir, he spun and twirled between them, cutting them down smoothly. Two leapt at him, only for an Elven arrow to plunge through one's head and into the other's. Rhanir glanced at Legolas, seeing him holding Rhanir's bow. Rhenir turned back to the battle, taking up a fallen elf's shield in time to block a trio of arrows, then turned, knocking a sword aside and killing its owner. An orc moved to run past him toward Kili, who had joined him on the dam to try and open the gate, but Ranir slammed the edge of the shield into the orc's throat, crushing it, as he split another that tried to pass him on the other side. A pair leapt at him from behind, but he ducked and stepped back, evading them before slashing them across the back.
"Kili!" Fili shouted
Rhanir spun, seeing Kili had taken an arrow to the leg. In an instant, Rhanir lunged, shoving his shield in front of Kili, blocking a second arrow, then dragged Kili from the edge, dropping him into his barrel again. He threw the lever, allowing the dwarves and Bilbo to continue on, then turned, returning to slaughtering the orcs. A dozen of them charged toward Tauriel, but Rhanir leapt from the dam to her side, blocking an arrow with the shield before tearing into the orcs. Tauriel fought as viciously as Rhanir did, wielding one of his shortswords in her right hand and her bow in her left, firing arrows as often as using the blade. Within seconds, Legolas and a group of elves arrived, almost instantly slaughtering the orcs around them. However, more were pursuing the dwarves with single-minded focus.
Rhanir turned, sprinting after the orcs, and the other elves pursued them. As the orcs around Rhanir opened fire with their bows, Rhanir spun, slinging his borrowed shield and sending it crashing into an orc's neck from behind, breaking it and dropping the orc into the water. He caught up with another pair a few moments later and cut them down, then spun, catching a bow and quiver Tauriel threw at him. He dropped the sword instantly, smoothly slinging the quiver across his back before rapidly loosing arrows. The bow wasn't anywhere near the level of his own, which Legolas still had, but it was better than Kili's when he'd borrowed it, and better than any orc bow. He sent an arrow into one orc's knee to drop it into the water. Another he placed in an orc's head. He spun the bow, one arm of it deflecting an arrow before he returned fire into the orc archer's eye.
The elves swarmed along the sides of the river, slaughtering any orcs they came across as the dwarves defended themselves with stolen orc weapons, doing well. At one point, they cut a log to drop a half-dozen orcs into the river. At another, Bombur bounced out of the river, then began to bounce and roll along its shore, crushing orcs rapidly before he came to a stop, only to use his battered and broken barrel as armor as he used a stolen axe and sword to slaughter a group of orcs before leaping back into one of the spare barrels. Faster and faster the current flowed, and Legolas jumped onto two of the dwarves' heads, riding along with them as he used Rhanir's bow to fell orc after orc. Rhanir sprinted along the river with his borrowed bow, sending arrow after arrow into the orcs, but just as he loosed his last arrow, he swung his bow around. An arrow stabbed into the bow in place of his shoulder, but the bow broke off at the impact point. The next orc Rhanir met, he drove the broken bow into, taking a belt of crude knives and an equally crude sword from him. Then, he began to hurl them rapidly. Each blade found its mark, killing the orcs, until he held only the sword. And just as he did, a pair of orcs leapt at him. He side-stepped their blades, catching one's arm in the knife belt, then stepped around behind the orc and yanked the belt over the orc's shoulder. Its own blade stabbed into its chest as Rhanir drove the sword into the other orc, then let both fall into the river.
A moment later, as an orc leapt at Rhanir, Rhanir's double-edged dagger stabbed into it at the end of a throw from Tauriel. He grabbed it, ripping it out, then slashed the orc's throat before continuing his pursuit. Finally, however, just after Thorin had hurled an axe into an orc sneaking up on Legolas from behind, Legolas stopped, allowing the dwarves to drift away. Rhanir ignored it, charging into a cluster of orcs alongside Tauriel, both of them spinning and slashing with their daggers, shredding the orcs in seconds before Tauriel reached the last, an archer preparing to shoot Legolas. It loosed the arrow, only for Rhanir's dagger to intercept it in the air, both weapons clattering to the ground as Tauriel disarmed the orc, preparing to cut its throat.
"Tauriel, wait!" Legolas called in Sindarin, stopping her. "This one we keep alive."
Tauriel nodded, and Legolas turned to Rhanir.
"I thought you had accepted your fate," Legolas said. "My father won't spare you twice."
"I have accepted my fate," Rhanir said. "But I gave my word to Lord Elrond to see the dwarves to the mountain safely. From here, they no longer need me."
Legolas regarded him in silence, then picked up his dagger, using a dead orc's arm to clean the blood from the blade. "Thank you for stopping that arrow. I will do what I can with my father."
Rhanir bowed his head slightly in appreciation, then held out his hands to be bound. Legolas bound his hands, then traded prisoners with Tauriel, the two escorting them back to Thranduil.
"So, you attempted to escape," Thranduil said as they walked in. "You captured him alive, why?"
"He surrendered," Legolas stated. "Immediately after saving my life from this one," Legolas shook the orc he was holding, holding his long knife at his throat, "when he tried to shoot me from behind."
Thranduil stared at first the orc, then Rhanir. "Why did you escape?"
"I gave Lord Elrond my word," Rhanir said. "I needed to see it through. Now, it's done. All that remains between them and Erebor is Lake Town. Those orcs that continued to pursue them won't catch them in time, running in the sunlight, and the dwarves will be able to get from Lake Town to Erebor easily. My task is done now. They no longer need me."
Thranduil nodded slowly. "As repayment for saving my son's life, I will spare you. You will be returned to your cell." He turned to the orc, beginning to circle him. "Such is the nature of evil. Out there in the vast ignorance of the world, it festers and spreads. A shadow that grows in the dark. A sleepless malice as black as the oncoming wall of night. So it ever was. So it will always be. In time, all foul things come forth."
"You were tracking a company of thirteen dwarves," Legolas questioned it. "Why?"
"Not thirteen," the orc said. "Not anymore!" he made a snarling sound. "The young one...The black-haired archer...We stuck him with a Morgul Shaft. The poison's in his blood. He'll be choking on it soon."
"Answer the question, filth!" Tauriel ordered coldly.
The orc began to snap at her in Black Speech, but Rhanir kicked his elbow, breaking it.
"Enough of that," Rhanir growled. "Don't make me force it out of you."
The orc shrieked in pain for several moments before beginning to pant, nodding.
"You like killing things, orc?" Tauriel asked, dagger in-hand. "You like death? Then let me give it to you!"
She lunged, drawing her dagger back.
"Enough!" Thranduil snapped in Sindarin. "Tauriel, leave! Go now! Take Rhanir to his cell!"
Tauriel remained motionless for a moment, then turned, taking Rhanir by the shoulder and leading him out of the room. For a moment, they headed toward the dungeon, but then they turned, heading for the gate. Tauriel glanced around, then freed his hands.
"We're going after them, I take it?" Rhanir asked.
"Yes," Tauriel nodded, glancing at him, and the dirty, ripped, faded clothing he wore, so ruined that its colors were nearly indistinguishable. "But you need to look the part, first."
She cut left, leading him down a short corridor to an armory. Rhanir nodded once, and she turned away, allowing him to quickly strip and dress himself in a green shirt under a leather brigandine vest, silver-plated, leather vambraces matching, armored, knee-high boots over black pants, and a new pair of quivers, both fully stocked.
"I'm decent," Rhanir said.
Tauriel turned to him, picking up a bow and holding it out to him. He nodded his thanks, and they hurried from the room, then out through the front gate. As they ran, Tauriel pulled Rhanir's shortswords from her back, handing them to him. He strapped them on instantly, thanking her.
"How do you fight the way you do?" Tauriel asked. "Blocking arrows with the face of a blade, or avoiding them when they're fired from behind you."
"I was always special among elves," Rhanir said. "Lord Elrond has the gift of true foresight. He can see visions of possible futures, and how to reach them. But I possess a more limited form of foresight. It's an instinctive reaction. When I'm about to be wounded, I feel the pain in the location that it would be, allowing me to block or avoid it. However, it's only just before the wound. The exact timing varies, but the furthest it's ever been is one second."
"Since the amount of time is so short, I had to train hard. I needed to be as fast and agile as I could be. I trained myself for decades, until I was the most lethal in my entire Realm. I didn't need to be strong to cut through armor. What strength I needed came with the rest of my training."
Tauriel nodded, just as they reached a rock on the edge of the lake. They both sensed a presence behind them and spun, drawing back their bows as Legolas drew his own back, his arrow trained on Rhanir.
"I thought you were an orc," Tauriel said in Sindarin.
"If I were an orc, you would be dead," Legolas informed them.
"Not with me here," Rhanir smirked, glancing at Tauriel. "My skill extends to those around me as well as a flash image. Harder to block, but useful."
Tauriel nodded.
"Tauriel, you cannot hunt thirty orcs by yourself," Legolas said. "Even with Rhanir."
"I can easily hunt thirty orcs," Rhanir said.
"Besides, we're not alone," Tauriel smirked.
"You knew I would come," Legolas realized, receiving only a smirk in return. "The king is angry, Tauriel. For six hundred years my father has protected you, favored you. You defied his orders. You betrayed his trust." He switched to Sindarin. "Allow Rhanir to hunt them. Come back with me. My father will forgive you."
"But I will not," Tauriel responded. "If I go back, I will not forgive myself." She switched back to the common tongue. "The king has never let orc filth roam our lands. Yet he would let this orc pack cross our borders and kill our prisoners."
"And your people," Rhanir said. "How many died at that bridge?"
"Nine," Legolas answered. "It is not our fight."
"The orcs kill your kin and it's not your fight?" Rhanir snorted.
"It is our fight," Tauriel agreed with Rhanir. "It will not end here. With every victory this evil will grow. If your father has his way, we will do nothing. We will hide within our walls, live our lives away from the light, and let darkness descend."
"Legolas, did that orc, which I imagine your father killed, mention something?" Rhanir asked. "A leader, or a weapon? Anything?"
Legolas considered. "He said that the leader of these orcs serves 'The One.' You know what he means?"
"Elrond believes that the enemy, the Great Enemy, has returned," Rhanir answered. "Or that he's trying to."
"Are we not part of this world?" Tauriel asked. "Tell me, Mellon. When did we let evil become stronger than us?"
Legolas sighed in silence. "We did not." He looked to Rhanir. "Do you believe Lord Elrond?"
"I believe that whether for the Enemy, or for themselves, these orcs cannot be allowed to lay claim to Erebor, or to wake Smaug," Rhanir said. "And if they do intend to claim it for the Enemy, all the better that we stop them."
Legolas nodded. "Very well. Let's go hunting."
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