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Tauriel was born under starlight, on the night of the winter solstice – it sounded romantic, but it was, apparently, a difficult birth. She’d become twisted somehow and came out feet first, nearly throttling herself and injuring her mother in the process. So Tauriel came to know guilt very young.
For some time after this she and her mother were quite ill – the shock of nearly losing her daughter made Tauriel’s mother weak – and they journeyed from their home to Rivendell to be close to relatives there and to be healed. These are Tauriel’s earliest memories, of soft sunlight and running water and clear, empty air. She was a rarity – the first elf child in a century or more – so lowborn as they were Tauriel’s infancy brought her parents favour in Rivendell. It had been a long time since anyone had seen a child of their own kind.
She remembered being held by Arwen Evenstar, carried proudly on the hip of Elrond’s daughter and called daughter of the forest in the soft, Rivendell accent the Evenstar carried. She remembered being sang to, rocked and tended to, having her hair braided and being taught a few words of the common tongue, because it amused Arwen to hear her lisping clumsily over the unfamiliar vowels.
“Darling daughter,” Arwen would intone, “try again for me, now.”
Tauriel enjoyed pleasing her, enjoyed the solemnity of being a favourite of the elven court. She enjoyed the unobstructed view of the sky. She remembered learning a little of elven healing magic, watching Elrond chanting over her mother, or lying next to her, and learning to repeat the words herself, to stroke her mother’s hair and whisper those things that would make her strong again.
“The little daughter of the forest will be a healer,” Arwen had remarked, once, to Tauriel’s parents, “she has the gift for it already. When she is grown you must bring her back to us, and she can be trained here, under my father.”
Tauriel had puffed up with pride.
She remembers being held aloft by her mother, as she grew stronger, and being taught to see each constellation at night, the spatter-dash of silver a bright, swirling path across the sky – every point of light a spirit, an ancestor, a love long lost. The world, she thought, made the best sense when seen from there.
Then they journeyed back to Mirkwood, and there the Orcs caught them.
From that day to this no one has been able to adequately explain to Tauriel why a band of the creatures were so far from where they were common. Her suspicion, many hundreds of years later, was that this was perhaps amongst the very first wave of them who had grown bold enough to push northward, and that, had Thranduil taken her parents’ deaths as the travesty that they were, rather than simple ill-luck and perhaps foolishness at traveling unescorted through wild lands, then the movement of Orcs would have been spotted sooner, their troubles caught and snuffed out before they could begin.
As it is, her parents died for very, very little, as far as Tauriel can tell.
(“That isn’t true,” Legolas remarked to her, when, in a moment of greater impropriety than was probably wise, she confessed her feelings on the subject to him.
“Then what is it that they died for, exactly?” Tauriel rounded on him, feeling herself taughten with the grief and the rage she was attempting to keep out of her voice, “If my father’s head, carried more than a mile from his body, would not serve as warning enough to Mirkwood of what was coming – ”
“They died so that you would live, Tauriel,” Legolas intoned, gently. “They died protecting you.”
This did not comfort Tauriel.)
In Mirkwood, they later said that she was raised at Thranduil’s knee, and that was not much of an exaggeration.
Like all of their kind, Thranduil carried a deep sense of responsibility for the children of their race, rare as they are, and having no daughters and it being a millennium or so since Legolas’s childhood, he took a particular interest in her care. And at least, Tauriel hoped, on some level his favour toward her might have come out of genuine kindness.
Still, looking back, she could see that the elf king must have been priming her to take captaincy of the guard almost as soon as she came into his court, bloodied and traumatised, less than fifty years old, half-grown, little and afraid. He had very clearly seen in her an opportunity, and a good king never wastes those.
Tauriel’s parents were not warriors - her mother a smith, her father dedicate to the care and cultivation of rare plants; but on her mother’s side there were a number of excellent archers, on her father’s poets and musicians. Thranduil had perhaps hoped that this combination of lineages might have bred someone with both a natural affinity for weaponry and the intelligence required for true skill in combat. Beyond that he must have seen in this orphan child a rare opportunity to shape his own ally – to forge the infant Tauriel into a weapon for his own use, crafted and honed to exactly his specifications. If she were raised at his side, by his own hand, shown every kindness, taught well and raised to know Mirkwood and only Mirkwood as her moon and stars, then she would be his creature, his warrior and spy, her loyalty absolute, her efficiency guaranteed.
And for a little while, at least, that was what he got.
Though perhaps not the brightest of childhoods, she enjoyed the privileges of the court, especially Legolas’s friendship, which proved a warming light in her grief. If Thranduil’s motives were cloudy, she never had cause to doubt his son’s good intent – moved by her plight, for to be orphaned so young was almost unheard of in Mirkwood, Legolas was never anything but kind and gentle to her. Only occasionally possessed of the arrogance common to all royalty, and never directing such an attitude at her (at least, not before she reached full maturity), it was his unfettered affections that soothed her loss to the point of being able to live with it.
When she first arrived in Mirkwood, carried home by the elven guard who had arrived too late to help her parents, she had been unable to speak or eat for several days, and Mirkwood’s healers had feared her grief would kill her. It was Legolas who had taken it upon himself to coax her into life again, sitting at her bedside in the royal infirmary.
“You are known to Arwen Undomiel,” he had told her, “aren’t you? She has sent her kindest concerns for you. It would be a terrible pity if you were to die now.”
Tauriel had given him a look that, years later, he imitated for her – earning himself a smack on the head from the butt of her bow – but the mention of a familiar name and the show of familial concern had been enough to persuade her to take bread and broth for the first time since her arrival, and Legolas had stayed by her side for many days after.
When he could, he would set Tauriel on his back and carry her about with him, showing her the palace, the forest, the great trees that had given her her name. They had become such a familiar sight about the place that she had become known by a derivative of Legolas’s name for much of the rest of her childhood – Legoli – his stoic spirit guide, solemn-faced and silent on his back, occasionally issuing orders to take her that way or this.
She had had to best half of Thranduil’s personal guard in hand to hand combat before she had been able to reclaim ‘Tauriel’. No one dared call her Legoli to her face anymore, although she knew it was still whispered amongst a number of those who served beneath her – the prince’s pet, the king’s creature.
And if she was the king’s creature (for she did not consider such a title an insult; as a member of the guard what else was she meant to be?), she was somewhat resentful of the idea that a child’s grief-stricken attachment to the one person who had shown her true compassion made her his pet.
Legolas was warm and brotherly to her at a time when she had desperately needed such a bond, and to have that made the subject of gossip and rumour stung her.
Still, she attempted to ignore such whispers. She had much grander problems, for she had reached her hundredth birthday, the age of maturity, and was already progressing swiftly up the ranks of the guard – and most likely that fact was helping to fuel the whispers.
She had rejected the idea of any particularly lavish celebration for the birthday; she already felt both too young and too old for her current position and had no wish to draw further attention to her age.
Still, that evening, Legolas had come to her with a flagan of mulberry wine and honey cakes stolen from the kitchens and insisted on escorting her up into the highest point of the palace, beyond the tree tops, so that they could see the stars.
It had been a very long time since Tauriel had permitted herself even a glance skyward at night – she remembered too well the night skies over Rivendell, her mother’s voice.
“So solemn, Tauriel,” Legolas told her, offering her the wine, “haven’t you achieved something worth taking joy in after a full century on this earth?”
“Who has ever achieved anything noteworthy in only a hundred years?” Tauriel shook her head.
“There are those amongst the race of men who say such things are possible.”
“Men are mayflies,” Tauriel sipped the wine, frowning at the taste – she did not drink often, intoxicants being discouraged for members of the guard.
Legolas laughed at the expression on her face, and took the flagan from her. “When you were a little girl, do you remember the look you gave me, when we first met? And I told you it would be a pity if you were to die?”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“That expression of yours is precisely why I knew you would endure,” Legolas gave her a gentle nudge, “no child could give the prince of Mirkwood a look so disgusted if she also intended to die in the immediate future.”
“Perhaps because I intended to die I felt I had nothing to lose by making my feelings plain,” Tauriel retorted.
“Ah, so you do remember.”
“I am merely suggesting the more likely explanation,” Tauriel took the wine back from him, “given that it is likely I know myself better than you do, so am in the better position to judge. Is that not a fair assumption?”
“Fair enough, young Legoli,” Legolas replied, with something mischievous in his smile.
Tauriel rolled her eyes, taking a deep draft from the flagan before handing it back to him with a cough. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“I would never dare look at you like anything.”
He presented her, then, with his gift for her – a twin pair of blades, carefully wrought by what Tauriel recognised must be the royal smith. She gazed at them, turning one this way and that – they were more expensive weapons than anything she could currently afford.
“I’ve a feeling you’d take well to fighting two handed,” Legolas shrugged, “and they are befitting a captain of the guard. Do you not think?”
“I am not captain yet,” Tauriel replied, at which Legolas waved a hand.
“You will be.”
He spent several months after teaching her how best to use the knives and, somewhat to her own chargin, he’d been right – she did take well to the style of defence that required two blades instead of one.
“You ought to name them,” Legolas suggested, after she had baptised them in spider blood.
“What would you suggest?” She raised her eyebrows, wiping first one and then the other clean in the grass.
Legolas shrugged. “I couldn’t possibly offer suggestions for a weapon not my own.”
Tauriel named them after her mother and father, although she didn’t tell anyone that she had done so.
She grew better at wielding them, and began to train others – especially the female guard members – to do the same, for two short blades seemed particularly effective for hand to hand combat when one was a little slighter and lighter footed than one’s opponent, but perhaps not as strong. She was hoping, quietly, to create a style that could be distinctly her own and passed down as such, as other great members of the guard had done. It seemed to her to be quite something, to have such a legacy.
Still it was in besting Legolas that she still took the greatest pleasure, which, admittedly, it took her a year or so to do. It was an effort more than worth the expenditure of her time, for the look on his face when she finally caught him with the butt of one knife and brought the other to his throat, pinning him to the floor of the secluded yard in which they trained at night, was more reward than a multitude of legacies.
“There,” Tauriel declared, with a breathless grin, “I have reached the point of true maturity. As much as I can ever hope to do so in your eyes, anyway.”
“I can assure you I consider you as nothing but an equal,” Legolas got back to his feet with a wry smile. And then he kissed her, as if to prove it.
It took her a little by surprise, that kiss, and she remained unsure of how to judge it ever afterwards – although, perhaps help by the thrill of her win, it was not an unpleasant experience… simply a strange one.
Primarily because she did not make a habit out of kissing people herself – romantic entanglements feeling an unnecessary distraction from the task of protecting her people the way she could not protect her parents – she had never grown especially attached to anyone before. Such attachments were never made lightly by elves, of course, and were not encouraged in the very young for that reason, since a broken heart was often far more dangerous to one’s health than a broken bone. So she very rarely thought on such things.
For a certainty she was attached to Legolas, as warmly and deeply as she would be a brother – but in any other sense?
He tasted of honey cake and smelled faintly of earth and tree sap, and she didn’t stop him when he pulled her close, opening her shirt a little to stroke the skin beneath. It was a warm, rushing, sweet sensation, so she let him do it – but when he reached further she stayed his hand.
“Don’t,” she murmured, “they will say this is why I am to be made captain.”
He had, to his credit, made a valiant attempt not to look hurt – but he avoided being alone with her for many months after, for which she felt guilty, and sad, because she missed his companionship.
She felt guilty because she had lied to him, if only by omission. It was not exactly that his becoming her lover would inconvenience her career in a way that she would care about. Though certainly it would set rumours off worse than before, she had never been one to let such small things come between her and anything she wanted and she doubted it would actually cause Thranduil to remove her from her position, unless Legolas did something utterly stupid like attempt to marry her.
What she feared had been that warm, rushing sweetness when he had touched her – the gentleness in him, the way he had not deepened the kiss until she had let him, the way he had been tentative but kind in his touch and how very abruptly she had realised she could grow used to it.
That Legolas might genuinely be in love with her had not occurred to her until that moment and something about the full strength of his affections was terrifying. No one had held her so tenderly since her mother had done so, and there was something in that that she simply couldn’t bear.
Still, elves are long-lived and Legolas did not remain distant for especially long – between them they were in charge much of the guard, Tauriel already a second captain responsible for training any number of potential guard members, Legolas her immediate superior, and thus responsible for much of the safety of the entire kingdom. That was not something the elf prince would jeopardise for the sake of his own embarrassment.
“Should I apologise?” He asked, just once, in a tone she had never heard from him before. “For –”
“No,” she replied, abruptly. “You did nothing wrong.”
He nodded, uncertainly, and she smiled at him, but resisted the urge she was accosted with to reach for him. To encourage him would be incredibly cruel, no matter the craving he had (most probably unwittingly) awoken in her for closeness.
For the first time in her life Tauriel went seeking someone to satisfy her physical desires.
This was not especially normal behaviour in elves, she knew. But in the young, still flighty, and particularly in woodland elves who were perhaps a little more touched by the wild ways of Araw than other elves are, it was not unheard of. The fleet foot of physical desire, quite divorced from any romantic proclivity, might stir an elf in the throes of their youth, and certainly it stirred Tauriel now, as she grew to strength in the guard and so began to flex and test her body in other ways.
Still, she was not so driven by her baser urges to be impractical about the situation. She knew she absolutely could not take a guard or anyone of seniority in Thranduil’s court, which was a problem in and of itself because after that she had just about exhausted the list of people she knew well enough to proposition.
In the end she picked a cupbearer of Thranduil’s. The girl was a lowly Silvan, like herself – a wide-eyed, pretty sort with ink-black hair, who was a little younger than her and had not been in Mirkwood especially long – her father was a favourite of Elrond’s and the girl had been sent in part exchange for some courtly favour or other, because she could dance and sing very prettily and Thranduil enjoyed cupbearers with such skills.
She was impressed by Tauriel, a common elf who sat so close to Thranduil, and seemed immediately enthused by Tauriel’s attention. So Tauriel experimented with her, binding her with ribbons and kissing her all over until the girl gasped her name with the sort of delighted reverence one would only ever normally hear for a king.
She was sweet and obedient and she was not in love with Tauriel and that was all Tauriel wanted (the Valar knew she did not want the responsibility of a heart to break and risk some poor young soul fading away once she sundered their association). She granted the girl small favours for her silence, and it was a highly pleasurable arrangement for quite some time – although eventually the girl was sent back to Rivendell and Tauriel was faced with the inconvenience of finding another.
The years passed like this for some time and Tauriel’s life, she felt, was a good one. Unlike so many of those who lived beyond the borders of Mirkwood, she was well fed and clothed and slept safely at night. She had, if not family, then friends – and despite her youth her reputation for skill in combat and for managing the guard with a wisdom beyond her years had gradually earned her a great deal of respect.
Quite to her own surprise she began to realise that she was well liked in Mirkwood. Elves were a patient people, and though it had taken her a few centuries to temper her stoicism with dry wit and genuine compassion, she had been accepted as she was – the heroic young guard who once placed herself between an entire nest of spiders and three healers trying to get from one side of the forest to the other; Thranduil’s favourite who was said to have as much skill at healing wounds as inflicting them; the knife-wielding stargazer who could, on occasion, be heard singing lullabies to herself on her nightly patrols. There were younger elves than her in Mirkwood now, who felt safer for her presence, and that was gratification enough for her labour. Ages and wars and wastes passed by beyond their borders, but within Mirkwood all remained safe beneath her watchful eye and wicked blades.
***
Tauriel accompanied Legolas, with approximately half the guard, on a visit to Rivendell when she was a little over 500 year old. It was Lord Elrond’s 6000th birthday and great ceremonies were underway, but since Thranduil made a point never to leave Mirkwood, he sent his son in his stead. And Tauriel, recently promoted to full captaincy, was expected to go with him. It was the first time that she had been out of Mirkwood since she was a child and she was not at all sure what to expect from the reality of her thin, glass-like memories of the place.
On their way there, they were greeted by a welcoming party led by Arwen Undomiel, sent out by her father to meet them on the road in a very pretty procession indeed. But it was not initially Legolas upon whom Arwen’s gaze fell.
“Little daughter of the forest,” her expression was immediately tender, “do you remember me?”
“Of course, my lady,” Tauriel bowed, as much as she was able from astride her horse.
“Not so little now,” Arwen added, “I have heard something of your adventures in Mirkwood, Tauriel – when we have dispensed with pleasantries this evening you must walk with me and tell me more of yourself.”
There was something knowing about Arwen’s eyes, something in the faintly familiar accent with which she pronounced Tauriel’s name, that made the wood elf feel self-conscious.
Her suspicions were all but confirmed when she recognised Arwen’s cupbearer that evening in Rivendell – clearly her favours did not extent far enough outside of Mirkwood to keep the girl silent beyond the forest’s borders.
“I was deeply sorry, to hear what befell you once you left here as a child,” Arwen remarked, softly, when they were walking alone in the depths of Rivendell’s gardens.
“Thank you, my lady.”
“I did ask my father to have you returned to us here so that you could be raised in Rivendell,” Arwen added, “but he felt we might risk offending Thranduil – and that you would be better off amongst your own kin in Mirkwood.”
“Oh,” this Tauriel had not known. She found herself wondering, briefly, at the life she might have led if she had been raised under Elrond instead of Thranduil – it offered a somewhat dizzying suggestion as to what her relationship with his daughter might now be like.
“But you seem to have done very well for it,” Arwen pointed out, with an errant smile, “I would not have thought to have you raised a warrior.”
“No – you would have trained me as a healer,” Tauriel recalled, earning a surprised glance from the Evenstar.
“You remember that?”
“I remember a great deal of my time here, my lady. Those were happy years.”
Arwen smiled, softly. “Still. I do believe it’s a pity you have not been trained as a healer. You showed a great aptitude for it.”
“You presume something there,” Tauriel pointed out, inclining her head.
“You have some training?”
“I have learned enough,” Tauriel clasped her hands, modestly, “to close smaller wounds, to keep larger ones from killing someone until greater skill than mine is brought to the situation.”
This earned her a look Tauriel could not read at all – part admiration, perhaps, part amusement and – something else, a warm look.
Tauriel swallowed. People did not sing songs of Arwen Undomiel’s beauty for nothing.
They stayed in Rivendell for some time, and Tauriel was invited on a number of excursions with Arwen and her various attendants – the Silvan elf found that she was a figure of some curiosity for them. Where in Mirkwood a she-elf could pick up a bow as easily as a male without anyone batting an eyelash, the she-elves of Rivendell were rarely warriors. Culture here dictated less physical activities certainly for the high-born amongst them, although even the low-born most normally trained for occupations that would keep them within the walls of their own homes. A female captain of the guard was utterly unheard of, although Arwen seemed to like the idea.
“There is nothing so very strange about it,” Tauriel once heard her telling one of her multitude of companions, “if my grandmother can rule a kingdom then certainly a lady may lead a guard. And Tauriel is rather magnificent in a warrior’s garb, do you not think it suits her?”
Tauriel found herself self-conscious about her clothes for the first time in her five centuries, for amongst these women she was sure she must be a clumsy looking sort. Her hair was also cut shorter than the women of Rivendell, and was most usually pulled up out of her way rather than left to flow freely, for she had simply never learned any way to wear it that would keep it out of her eyes in a fight. Her breeches and tunic, though cut with all the elegance and care of any elvish garment, were a far cry from the silk and gossamer gowns that Arwen spent her days drifting about in.
Tauriel had always been aware that she was not considered much of a beauty, with her green eyes, reddish-brown hair, freckles and large ears: such physical markers were perhaps common amongst the Silvan elves but not the Sindarin and Nodor high-born elves amongst whom she spent most of her time, all of whom had clear skin, blue eyes, either raven-black or star-white hair and more sedate tips to their ears. And in Mirkwood that mattered little, for she was well-known there and Silvans were perfectly common outside of the ruling elite – indeed, most of her guard were Silvan – but in Rivendell, where Silvans were the minority and women of her occupation unheard of, she found herself in the uncomfortable position of being considered exotic. It made her shy and she had never once been so before.
Then they were attacked.
It was not the first time that Tauriel had encountered Orcs since her parents’ deaths, but the proximity to Rivendell made the entire encounter feeling sickeningly familiar.
She, a party of Arwen’s ladies, Legolas and a number of the Mirkwood guard were on the road back to Rivendell after a morning spent exploring the source of one of the many streams running through the town. And then there was a snap, a shriek and a horse went down with an arrow in its neck, a bright jet of scarlet streaming sharply through the clear afternoon air.
The arrow was unmistakably Orcish in its design and Tauriel felt herself register that at exactly the same time as a second arrow buried itself in a tree only an inch from her head. She was up and shouting a warning to Legolas slightly before her mind had caught up with the reality of the situation.
They were being attacked, and they had greater numbers but more than half of the elves in their company were unarmed and utterly unskilled with weaponry. Worse, one of their number was an elven princess and if Arwen was taken by Orcs Tauriel did not want to think about what would become of her (she did not, at that moment, have time to consider that Arwen’s presence may well have been exactly why they were being attacked).
In the chaos that followed Tauriel leapt onto the nearest horse, instinctively seeking height, the better position with which to defend those around her in, and could see immediately that they were being surrounded. Arrows flying about her head she ducked low against her horse’s neck and sought out Arwen in the fray.
The princess was sheltering against the back of the felled horse (smart, Tauriel thought), and Tauriel had to fight to get control of her panicked mount’s head before she could drive the animal forward to where Arwen was trapped. She arrived just in time to drive one of her blades through the skull of the creature which was bearing down on the Evenstar.
“My lady!” She reached for the princess – Arwen did not need to be told to move, grabbing Tauriel’s outstretched arm and allowing herself to be hoisted up onto the horse behind her.
“The others – ”Arwen’s voice was surprisingly steady.
“My guard will protect them – my lady, we must get you away from here – ”
They ran – loath as she was to abandon a fight, Tauriel was well aware of her primary duty. Legolas could lead the guard without her, but there was no one better placed to keep Arwen from harm than herself.
Of course, driving the horse at a merciless gallop through the surrounding woodland, Tauriel realised that they were being followed by at least two of their attackers.
“They are – ” Arwen’s voice sounded a note of real fear for the first time. Tauriel could feel the hand about her waist trembling, and abruptly recalled exactly what had befallen the Evenstar’s mother.
“I know,” Tauriel replied, “I will protect you, my lady – but you must do as I say.”
“Yes,” Arwen’s agreement was breathless as Tauriel cast about them. The ground here was too open – they needed water, or rocks, or denser trees – anything that might provide shelter.
Spotting a fall of boulders up ahead, Tauriel breathed a prayer of thanks to the Valar and yanked the horse’s head round.
“At my word, jump from the horse and run – do not look back,” Tauriel spoke with as much authority as she could manage, for frightened people, even royal ones a mellenia or so older than oneself, desperately need authority when being told what to do. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Arwen’s grip on her tightened. “But – ”
“Now!”
Arwen jumped – she staggered – Tauriel kept her gaze on her just long enough to see the princess regain her footing and begin to run before she wheeled the horse around, facing the two orcs bearing down on her.
In reality the ensuing fight could not have lasted longer than a minute. The orcs, one a short, slight, snake of a thing, the other ox-like and covered in thick metallic spines which seemed to be growing straight from its dull grey flesh, were determined but stupid. It rather explained why they had followed her instead of staying with their kin where their odds of survival were far higher. But Tauriel felt time elongate around the moment where she faced the creatures, and heard, distantly, a scream that did not belong in this time, this place – the note of her mother’s voice, cut short.
She drew her bow and nocked an arrow.
The great gift of being trained up from so young an age as Thranduil had trained her in his service, was that in times of great stress the body moves of its own accord, the muscles possessed of their own memories. Tauriel had loosed an arrow into the eye of the little one before she had time to think about it, and sent another into its chest just to be certain it would not get back up, then rounded on her remaining foe.
Sensing that her greater speed and mobility on her feet would be her major advantage against something so thickly armoured, she jumped from her horse and drew her blades. Named for her mother and father as they were, it was entirely satisfying to baptise them in orc blood, taking off first a hand and finally the head of her opponent with a great, flying leap she was not entirely sure wouldn’t leave her impaled on one of his spines. The force of the blow did, however, shatter the one of the blades – something metal inside the damn beast’s neck, catching it.
She kicked its twitching body away from her for in disgust, although badly stubbing her toe in the process, tossing down the broken pieces of her knife with a string of the vilest curses she could manage. She had thoroughly coated herself in the thing’s blood, too, the stink immediate – she stripped off her jerkin and tunic, her skin prickling with heat, and tossed the garments aside, drawing still, cool air into her lungs and trying to calm herself, to listen for any further threat.
Then she remembered the Evenstar, and hastened back to the fall of boulders.
Arwen was knelt behind them still, and could not get up because she was trembling as if about to come apart at the joints.
“Tauriel,” she gasped, holding out pale hands to the Silvan, “you are – unhurt?”
“Yes, my lady,” Tauriel sank down beside her, saw the flicker of Arwen’s gaze and realised that her remaining blade still dripped with gore. She wiped it, hastily, on her breeches, and then set it down.
Arwen threw her arms about the captain, warm with sweat and the heady scent of lavender – Tauriel stilled for a moment, not at all sure how to react to the embrace. The Evenstar was sobbing into her shoulder, mute but clearly unable to swallow her distress now the immediate danger had passed, and Tauriel had never seen anyone of rank in such a state of fear before. She had absolutely no idea how to comfort her.
“I’m… sorry,” she managed, after a moment, all other sentiment abruptly leaving her.
“For what?” Arwen came away for a moment, her eyes still bright with tears.
Tauriel shook her head, then tentatively put her hands to Arwen’s face. “If I caused you distress – ”
“You saved me,” Arwen told her, softly, “you know what became of my mother, don’t you?”
Tauriel nodded, mutely, seeing at once the unbound grief and fear and anger in the Evenstar and understanding, suddenly, why so many of the Eldar adored the princess – so wrought, so strong, so much the daughter of Celebrian – truly Luthien’s image made flesh once more.
“Thanks be to Elbereth you would save me from such a fate,” Arwen pressed her mouth to Tauriel’s scraped forehead, then pulled her close again, resting her brow against the captain’s.
“That I could keep you from my mother’s too,” Tauriel murmured, fumbling to grip Arwen more tightly, her arms beginning to grow leaden with the exhaustion of the fight – she abruptly needed such closeness, for she was growing cold now the adrenalin had leeched from her system.
Arwen was stroking her hair, her breath steadying and warm against Tauriel’s neck, and momentarily Tauriel let her eyes close, felt that soft, rushing sweetness that had so frightened her in Legolas’s embrace all those years ago. She shivered.
“Come, my lady,” she sat up, gently peeling the Evenstar off her, “we must return to Rivendell – there may be more Orcs nearby.”
Arwen nodded, allowing herself to be helped to her feet, Tauriel sheathing her blade before leading her back to where the horse had skittered to, a little way through the trees.
They arrived in Rivendell a half hour or so later, the sun beginning to cast long shadows, the evening approaching, to find the place in uproar and Elrond beside himself (quite a thing to behold). Their flight from the ambush had been seen, as had their perusal, but no one from the original party had been able to track them and there was fear that the worst had befallen the pair of them. Legolas all but snatched Tauriel off her horse in order to embrace her, calling her stupid and beloved in roughly the same breath as Tauriel laughed and gently pushed him away.
“I am covered in Orc blood,” she told him, “I need a bath.”
“Little daughter of the forest,” Elrond greeted, holding his daughter close, “you have done me a great service. I will see you duly rewarded.”
“That the Evenstar is unharmed is reward enough,” Tauriel bowed (the gentle expression on Arwen’s face, too was gratifying, she thought).
Still, Elrond insisted on gifting Tauriel a new bow, arrows and quiver, an exceptionally fine white horse that she suspected may well have been his own, and a thick green cloak made of a material light enough to let her fly through the densest forests of Mirkwood yet warm enough to keep her heated on the coldest nights. That she would have preferred above anything else another set of twin blades, Tauriel felt it probably impolite to point out. But she was well enough employed, now, to commission the making of replacements upon her return to Mirkwood, so tried not to let the loss grieve her too much.
That evening, however, Arwen came to Tauriel’s room to grant thanks of her own.
“It’s only a small thing,” she murmured – she was proffering a tiny, ornate silver clasp, delicately wrought, “but I believe it is something that your mother made and gifted to me before she left, as gratitude for my kindness to you, and I notice that you hold your hair back with twine rather than a clip.”
Tauriel blinked. She had almost none of the items that her mother had made in her smithwork – they seemed mostly to have been lost to the Orc attack or otherwise scattered about during their travels.
“If she wanted you to have it then you must keep it,” she told Arwen, softly, but Arwen shook her head.
“She would want her daughter well turned out, I think.” A gentle twist of amusement on Arwen’s lips, “come here.”
“I thought you always considered me rather well dressed,” Tauriel arched a brow, and Arwen only smiled, beckoning her.
When she had convinced the captain to turn around, the princess gently teased the twine out of Tauriel’s hair, combing her fingers through it before twisting and braiding a handful into a design of her own making, and then closing the clasp to hold it in place.
“Perfect,” she murmured, before pointing Tauriel at a looking glass, “what do you think?”
Five braids, more or less – four that eventually met as one at the back, where her mother’s clasp kept them – holding the bulk of her hair from her face, allowing it to flow loose down her back without getting in her way. It was clever – Tauriel wondered where Arwen had learned such things, although she supposed that the Evenstar must have a multitude of methods for filling her seemingly endless spare time. If maintained in this style she would be able to afford to grow her hair all she wanted, she realised, and considered how long it might take to have tresses as long as Arwen’s.
“Do you approve?” Arwen raised her eyebrows at Tauriel’s expression, and Tauriel found her ears growing hot.
“Very much so, my lady.”
“Good,” Arwen gave her arm a squeeze, “keep the clasp. Your mother would have wanted you to have it.”
Tauriel nodded, and watched as Arwen turned to leave. “My lady?”
“Yes?”
“Have you ever handled a weapon before?”
At that, Arwen looked perplexed. “Only in moments of absolute necessity.”
Tauriel took a step forward, emboldened. “Then, would you allow me to teach you? You were all but defenceless today – I should not like to see you in such a position again.”
“I was not defenceless,” Arwen pointed out, “I had you.”
“And if you had not?” Tauriel pressed.
“My father…” Arwen glanced around, as if afraid that Lord Elrond might magically appear in the room, “it would make him uneasy.”
“I would think that having his daughter so nearly slaughtered by Orcs would make him more so,” Tauriel replied, and then spotted from the slight tightening of Arwen’s eyes that she may have spoken too sharply. “Only that you are a particular target, my lady, and they grow bolder every year – you must be allowed some method of defence.”
“I dislike violence,” Arwen looked away, uneasily. “I am a healer.”
An old belief, Tauriel realised – that it becomes harder to heal wounds when one is too used to inflicting them.
“It would not be violence of that sort when it is in defence of your own life,” Tauriel insisted, gently. “Please – my lady – ”
“What would you teach me?” Arwen asked, glancing back at her, her expression curiously shy, “archery or…”
“I would teach you basic swordmanship,” Tauriel told her, “and how to ride like a warrior, quickly, evasively, in open ground, if you are ever being pursued again with no one to protect you. And if you wish it, I will teach you archery.”
Arwen’s mouth quirked. “I might like that, at least.”
So Tauriel’s stay in Rivendell became prolonged. Though Elrond was, as his daughter had predicted, initially reluctant, he could see the sense in Tauriel’s suggestion that Arwen at least learn some method of self-defence – especially in the light of what had befallen her mother. He permitted Tauriel’s teaching Arwen on the conidition that Arwen not ever be put in harm’s way by any of their activities, to which Tauriel gladly agreed, and training began – although only after Arwen had been talked into suitable clothes for the endeavour.
“You may look perfectly lovely,” Arwen told Tauriel, “but there is not a pair of breeches in Rivendell that will do me any good!”
Tauriel had valiantly attempted not to roll her eyes. “I’m sure no orc is likely to care how you are dressed, my lady.”
At that Arwen had narrowed her eyes, but finally put on a pair of Tauriel’s leggings beneath a loose wool skirt that would be far, far too hot, Tauriel thought, but at least it allowed the Evenstar to move freely.
Arwen was a quick study, deft and easy on her feet – two thousand years spent dancing meant she was a natural swordsman before she ever picked up a blade. The trouble was more a matter of her confidence. She truly abhorred violence and feared any weapon Tauriel put in her hand, and a sword wielded without trust in oneself or one’s blade is as dangerous to one’s own health as a sword wielded by an enemy.
Horse riding was a much more immediate success. Like almost all their people, Arwen had an affinity for horses anyway and had been riding much of her life, so teaching her how best to protect herself on horseback was merely a question of chasing one another through the lands around Rivendell. They spent long days darting about woodlands and through valleys as Tauriel tried to assure Arwen’s understanding of how to use each terrain to her advantage.
On one such occasion they came to the great pools that spill over near the top of the cliffs overlooking Rivendell, toward the end of several hours spent outdoors.
“No more today,” Arwen declared, jumping from her horse with a decisive toss of her hair, “I am tired.”
“And when there are Orcs at your back, will you declare the chase at an end once you grow weary?” Tauriel enquired, earning herself an arched eyebrow in response as Arwen shed a layer of riding gear to leave her in a tunic and breaches (and very fine she looked in them too, Tauriel thought).
“I shall remember you teasing me, daughter of the forest, and I will keep going out of sheer spite,” she kicked off her boots and strode to the water’s edge, “but for now…”
Accepting that there would be no talking Arwen back onto her horse – the Evenstar had a stubborn streak Tauriel had only recently begun to see – Tauriel dismounted, watching as Arwen seated herself at the water’s edge, her back to the Silvan elf. “I meant no disrespect, my lady.”
Arwen glanced back, her gaze amused. “You really must take to calling me Arwen. You call Legolas by his name, do you not?”
“Legolas and I…” Tauriel shrugged, not quite sure as to how to articulate her relationship with the prince.
“You are close,” Arwen observed, softly.
“Not in… any untoward sense,” Tauriel replied, seating herself next to her. Arwen had dipped her feet into the water, and now bent to lift a handful to her lips.
“There is no love in the world that is untoward if it is pure,” she shrugged delicate shoulders.
Tauriel felt that a very pretty sentiment for a beloved princess who had never had to worry for her security at court, but she said only, “there is nothing romantic, between Legolas and I – we love each other dearly, that is all.”
Arwen seemed to decide it wiser not to push the subject. “Still – if you grant Legolas the privilege of his name, you must grant me the same, yes?”
“Yes, my – ” she caught herself, smiled, ruefully. “Yes, Arwen.”
“There,” Arwen remarked. “A fine thing, to have my name on the lips of a daughter of the forest. Although perhaps that doesn’t best suit you either.”
Tauriel glanced at her, bemused, to see the merry look in Arwen’s gaze.
“Is it true they called you Legoli, in Mirkwood, when you were a child?”
“They call me it still,” Tauriel admitted, with a sigh. “They think I am his creature.”
Arwen cast her a sympathetic glance, though there was still warmth beneath it, “if you are too old now for childish names, then I will call your Taurawen.”
Another permutation of her name, Tauriel realised. In the princess’s accent it took her a moment to extract the meaning, but it seemed as if Arwen had affixed her own name – ‘noble lady’ – to the first part of Tauriel’s ‘daughter of the forest’, creating a title that roughly translated to ‘noble lady of the forest’.
Tauriel wasn’t at all sure how to take such a compliment, although she attempted to do so gracefully. “Thank you, my lady – Arwen.”
Arwen laughed, warmly.
It was a sweet gesture from the Evenstar, a gesture she realised could have far-reaching implications if Arwen started using it in public – she hadn’t just paid Tauriel the respect of implying a noble title where there was none, but she had done so by using part of her own name. What the rest of Rivendell’s elite would make of such a gesture from a princess to a commoner, she didn’t know.
“You have earned it,”Arwen told her, when Tauriel queried the idea. “By saving my life once, and perhaps again by taking me on as your apprentice guard.”
Tauriel had to smile at the notion of Arwen in such a role, and Arwen herself looked so pleased with the idea that all felt momentarily easy between them, as if they were not of two different stations at all – as things had always felt with Legolas.
“Now, come, Taurawen,” Arwen inclined her head, “let me fix that unruly hair of yours.”
So Tauriel stretched out by the edge of the pool, resting her temple in her lady Evenstar’s lap, as Arwen gently loosed her braids, combed and rearranged them, and more securely fastened in the clip Tauriel had not removed since Arwen had given it to her. Tauriel closed her eyes, and felt more content than she had done in a long, long time – she remembered clear starlight and Arwen’s gentle voice, teaching her the common tongue as a child.
***
The second orc attack happened in the middle of that night, with Tauriel roused from sleep by a blast from a warning horn high on the cliffs over Rivendell. She emerged from her chambers to find the settlement in chaos, guards running, lamps flaring up the hillside and the distant, distinct sound of a battle going on over her head. It seemed that a hunting party, returning to Rivendell late at night, had been caught by an orc pack travelling northward.
Tauriel had gone back to her chambers and stumbled into her clothes before quite registering what she was doing. Perhaps the thick haze of sleep still on her, from the long day, or the strange, easy warmth that lingered in her bones from having spent so long in Arwen’s company, explained why she made so stupid a mistake. But she was mounted and on the hillside in amongst the skirmish before she realised that she had forgotten the heavy leather jerkin that could protect her from arrow blows.
Tauriel registered this at almost the same time that something sharp and hard and burning caught her shoulder and immediately immobilised her left arm. She heard Legolas shout her name as she toppled from her horse, but lost everything else to a deep red flash of pain, and a voice that sounded like her own, screaming wrathful curses at her own idiocy, although whether aloud or only in her head she had no idea.
The next thing she was conscious of was somebody’s grip on her hand, so tight and panicked that it hurt – though not at all as much as the entirety of her left side did.
“Tauriel,” Arwen’s voice was a sharp gasp against her ear, “please – stay with me – my Taurawen – my protector – please – ”
As if through a thick cloud, Tauriel registered faintly familiar words spoken over her, registered pain worsening and then receding, worsening and then receding, a bleeding pulse running through her veins and swelling there – half blinding her, tightening her chest, deadening her limbs.
And then in daylight she was abruptly awake, with Legolas dosing in a chair by her side – she was desperately thirsty.
“Legolas – ” her voice came in a rasp quite unlike her own. “Leg – ”
His eyes flew open, his expression awash with such relief that he looked abruptly like a child. “Tauriel!” He got up, putting a gentle hand to her brow, “what you’ll do for attention, mellon.”
His smile did not quite hide the tremor in his fingertips. Tauriel managed a faint smile back – she felt weak, weaker than she could ever remember feeling, her stomach churning, her hands and feet cold. “I’m thirsty.”
He helped her drink, steadying a wooden cup against her lips – it hurt to swallow and she coughed, abruptly, sputtering.
Legolas rubbed her back as she tried to clear her lungs.
“Sorry,” she murmured, and he shook his head.
“You’ve nothing to apologise for.”
“What was I hit with?” She had not yet dared try to touch or otherwise examine her wound. Her left arm felt terrifyingly numb.
“Something like a morgul blade, we think,” Legolas told her, and Tauriel’s eyes widened.
“How – ”
“It cannot have been quite what the ring wraiths used,” Legolas shook his head, hastily, “Elrond was sure of that – he does not think any of it was left inside you, and it was an arrow that struck you, I saw it – the orcs must have found some vile poison that takes similar affect. But Arwen used athelas and that seems to have healed you.”
“Arwen?” Tauriel felt some dark memory or other stir, not quite breaking the surface of her consciousness – Arwen’s voice.
“You should recover well,” Legolas went on, firmly, “but you need to rest.”
Tauriel did not really need to be told that, for she was already deathly tried from the effort of sitting and drinking and coughing, and she slept again shortly after.
She woke when the light was leaching from the sky, and there framed by evening stars was Arwen, reading quietly at the foot of her bed. The Evenstar looked up as soon as Tauriel opened her eyes, as if sensing her emergence into the waking world, and smiled.
“Taurawen,” her voice was soft, “are you thirsty?”
Tauriel nodded, and let herself be helped to sit up, and drink, managing this time not to choke.
“How are you feeling?” Arwen asked, seating herself at Tauriel’s side.
“Like a fool,” Tauriel sighed, “I forgot my jerkin – ”
“So eager to rush into battle,” Arwen smiled, dryly. “So honourable a warrior.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“Would I tease my good Taurawen?” Arwen gave her hand a squeeze. “Poor thing.”
“It would seem we are even, though,” Tauriel pointed out, and, at Arwen’s questioning look, indicated the bandaged wound, “Legolas said it was you, who use athelas…”
“A small thing,” Arwen murmured, shrugging delicate shoulders, “if your wound had been more severe it would have required far greater skill than mine.”
“Still,” Tauriel said, and Arwen met her gaze with a tender look.
“I was glad, to return some part of the favour you have been doing me, these past few months,” she admitted.
“Perhaps, if you wish truly to return the favour,” Tauriel suggested, “would you teach me the same? How to heal, properly?”
Arwen hesitated, then nodded. “I am not sure what sort of a teacher I will make, but – perhaps it would benefit you also, especially if the poison these orcs are using becomes widespread amongst their forces.”
Tauriel saw a faint shudder go through the Evenstar.
“The attacks are growing worse, aren’t they?” She asked, and Arwen did not reply, only squeezing her hand.
“You must rest first, however,” the princess said, gently, “regain your strength.”
And for a little while this was an easy instruction to follow. Whatever disgusting thing had gone through her blood had entirely sapped Tauriel’s strength and for perhaps a week she did little more than sleep, occasionally being spoon-fed broth, bread and milk. After that, however, when she could be awake more, she began to grow deathly bored.
She was not used to being confined – had not been since after her parents’ deaths, during her time in the houses of healing in Mirkwood – and for all she tired easily she longed to be up and about again. Legolas visited regularly, and she eventually convinced him to help her get up – a visit which culminated in him bearing her on his back again, as he had not done since she was a child, and carrying her down to a pool to bathe.
He kept his gaze politely averted as he did so, talking loudly of his father’s concern for her. Thranduil had apparently made known a very strong desire to have his captain of the guard returned to him, only the conviction that she was not strong enough to travel had kept her in Rivendell. Tauriel felt a twinge at such news. She did miss the forest, the deep woods of her home – but she was loath to be separated from Arwen, moreso than she was ready to admit to herself.
It is entirely her fault, she thought, as she eased a week’s worth of sweat from her skin, Arwen named me for her and made me hers in the process. What outcome did she expect?
Although it frightened her. Devotion to Arwen had made her stupid during that battle – tired and slow, fat on contentment. She would have to watch herself.
Then a healer arrived to ask what in Elbereth’s name she thought she was doing out of bed and Legolas, with a rueful grin, helped carrying Tauriel back to her chambers.
Arwen brought her books on healing, and read them to her when Tauriel’s head began to swim with the effort of pouring over the old, small text, painstakingly etched onto each page.
“I hear you had an adventure today,” Arwen remarked, seating herself next to Tauriel on the bed, with a book in her lap.
“I?” Tauriel shrugged, “only a trip for a much-needed bath. I doubt the healers of Rivendell wish me to sit in my own stink for the next month.”
“You could have asked for water to be brought to you, you know,” Arwen gave her a gentle nudge, “you must be careful not to over-exert yourself.”
“Legolas carried me,” Tauriel retorted, more sharply than she meant to, “it was not exertion, I merely wished a moment – outside of these walls.”
She softened her voice as she caught Arwen’s arched brow, the faintly haughty look that always served as a reminder of the princess’s rank compared to Tauriel’s, for all Arwen might insist on being called by her given name and not her title.
“I know it is a trial, for one such as yourself, to be made to sit still,” Arwen told her, “but it is not said merely to torture you – do you understand that?”
“Yes,” Tauriel sighed, and Arwen smoothed her jaw, in a moment of abrupt intimacy – Arwen’s concern for her was genuine, Tauriel realised, the Evenstar’s gaze carried real fear.
Stupid – had not Arwen’s mother nearly died of a similar poison wound?
“I’m sorry, my lady – ”
“Will you please call me Arwen?” A note of frustration, there, Arwen’s brows knitting, “please.”
So Tauriel kissed her, which at the time felt an entirely logical response to such a request, although after she would tell herself that it must in part have been due to the rigors of the fever that had not quite left her bones.
The sound Arwen made, though very faint, was one of surprise more than indignation, and Tauriel took that as encouragement – especially when, a moment later, she felt Arwen’s gentle hands in her hair, combing the locks back off her face, the Evenstar carefully pressing Tauriel back against the pillows. Tauriel dared let her hands come to rest against Arwen’s chin and throat, cupping her face to draw her close.
They were so entwined for a long while, Arwen’s kisses seeming languid and warm and easy compared to the purpose and urgency with which Tauriel tended to go about such things on her own time.
“I should not wish to exhaust you,” Arwen murmured, sometime later, her mouth close against Tauriel’s throat.
“You won’t,” Tauriel assured her, tightening her grip on Arwen’s shoulders, “please – stay – ”
“Not tonight,” Arwen shook her head, “it would be hypocritical of me – you really must rest.”
“But – ”
“Think of it as an incentive,” Arwen told her, leaning over to very gently nip the tip of Tauriel’s ears, “to stay in bed and thus recover faster.”
It was certainly that.
Arwen departed with a sweet smile that masked terrible wickedness, Tauriel thought, but every evening for the next few weeks she would climb into Tauriel’s bed when they were quite alone and kiss and fuss over her, murmuring sweetnesses and concerns, just as a lover would. And Tauriel melted under such attention, for it had been so very, very long since anyone was so gentle with her.
She would read to Tauriel from books of healing and from other books, too. She read stories that Tauriel already knew, but had not heard quite so crystalised – the story of Luthien and Beren, the story of the creation of the world by Eru and the Valar, the story of Elbereth who created the stars to light the sky for the newly wakened Eldar.
She listened, her head resting in the crook of Arwen’s neck, as she must once have done as a very small child, and revelled in the feel of Arwen stroking her hair and felt herself yearning more deeply than she had for anything else in her life before.
“Father wishes me to go to my grandmother, in Lothlorien,” Arwen told her, one evening some weeks later.
Tauriel glanced up, surprised – she had been entirely caught up in exploring the delightful expanses of Arwen’s bodice, touching the embroidery, feeling Arwen’s chest expand and contract beneath her fingertips.
“He thinks I will be safer there… and my grandmother misses me, for she misses my mother,” Arwen’s brow had knitted.
“Do you wish to go?” Tauriel asked, not quite sure she wanted to hear the answer.
Arwen laid a hand on Tauriel’s cheek, distractedly winding a strand of her copper coloured hair about two fingers.
“If I could bring you with me…”
Tauriel glanced down. Thranduil had permitted her protracted stay in Rivendell on the basis that it would not be good for relations with Elrond to refuse to allow Tauriel to offer her services as a protector for Arwen. But she sincerely doubted that his generosity would extend to letting his captain head off to another kingdom entirely where she would ostensibly be an unnecessary presence.
“If you cannot, you must not let that stop you,” Tauriel said, and earned a sad smile from Arwen, so that she saw immediately that Arwen would never have let it stop her either way.
The Evenstar let her brow touch Tauriel’s for a moment. “I am sorry,” she spoke gently, “but lovely as you are, as – this all has been… much as I enjoy your presence… if it carries on any further…”
“I am a woodland elf,” Tauril finished for her.
“And you are female,” Arwen added, glancing away. “Between those two things I fear I have kindled a situation that is unresolvable. The people might accept one or the other… not both, I do not think.”
Tauriel closed her eyes, because they were filling with tears and she was not at all sure why her chest suddenly hurt so much.
“I will not leave before you are quite well again,” Arwen assured her, “Tauriel, I feel responsible for this I – should not have let it start – ”
“You had little choice in the matter,” Tauriel told her, firmly, “it started the moment we met for the second time.”
Arwen’s grip on her tightened, and her mouth was hot when she kissed Tauriel, deeply and lingeringly, as she always did, and Tauriel allowed herself to be lost to it. The knowledge that she was about to lose whatever this strange, sweet thing between them had been, somehow only made it burn the brighter in her.
Arwen ran her hands all over Tauriel that evening, and Tauriel tugged and pulled and held Arwen close, reluctant ever to let her go again. She undressed the Evenstar with hands that only shook a little, her mouth finding soft skin, her breath stuttering in her chest.
“If ever you should need my help,” Arwen told her, softly, “for any reason, Taurawen, send word.”
Tauriel buried her face in Arwen’s hair and said nothing.
They went to bed together many more times before Tauriel was healed, and as promised Arwen taught her more powerful healing magic – how to use athelas, especially, which Tauriel had had little real understanding of before.
But at last she could walk properly without growing tired, and feed and bathe herself and even pick up her bow and nock an arrow, though her muscles were wasted as much by the month or so spent recovering as from the injury she had suffered. She began to walk about the halls of Rivendell, stretching her legs, glad, at least, to be out of her chambers again.
On one such occasion, she found herself in the royal armoury, quite by chance. Tauriel breathed in the odd air of the place, the familiar metallic tang, the weapons that had once sung with blood now silent and waiting.
There, beneath a fine layer of dust, she caught the Sindarin word ‘arwen’ in glittering tengwar runes, and pulled a fine, wickedly curved sword from where it had slipped down behind many others. Hadhafang, Tauriel realised – the weapon wielded by Arwen’s great grandmother, Idril, and inscribed with the words Aen estar Hadhafang i chathol hen, thand arod dan i thang an i arwen.
An idea struck her, and she carried the blade back to her chambers.
“It was all but made for you,” she told Arwen, when the Evenstar visited her that evening “there, your name – do you see it?”
Arwen looked doubtful. “Hadhafang has already been wielded by my father.”
“Then it is only right that it should now pass to you,” Tauriel insisted, “it is a woman’s blade, my lady, constructed for use on horseback, so it is light, easy to grip – please – at least see how you like it?”
Arwen pursed her lips, but agreed to try it, and they made their way to their usual spot – a small courtyard near her chambers where they were granted reasonable privacy.
Tauriel not really strong enough to spar with her, so she seated herself and called instructions, putting Arwen through the basic manoevers they had already practiced.
It was immediately clear that Hadhafang and Evenstar were an excellent match for one another. Arwen and her great grandmother may well have been of a similar height and build (there was a practical reason, after all, why such weapons were customarily passed down through families), for the sword certainly looked as if it had been made for Arwen, precisely the right weight and balance down, even, to the length of the hilt.
“It will be best tested on horseback,” Tauriel told her, “but I do think you carry it well.”
“I do, don’t I?” Arwen’s cheeks had flushed, Tauriel realised – the Evenstar was at last beginning to taste a little of the satisfaction of making oneself truly dangerous to one’s enemy.
“You must promise me that you will keep practicing with it,” Tauriel said. “Have a member of the guard in Lothlorien spar with you, and your archery – you must keep that up also – ”
Arwen threw her arms about Tauriel, silencing her with a heated kiss, her mouth open and questing – Tauriel let her own blade slip through her grasp and gently pushed Arwen to the ground, drawing the Evenstar’s ridiculous skirts up over her thighs and slipping a hand between them.
It grew time for Arwen to depart for Lothlorien, although before she did so she presented Tauriel with a second gift, small and delicate – a tiny white star set in silver thorns, on a long silver chain.
“For my lady of the forest,” she murmured, producing it from the folds of the discarded gossamer thing Tauriel had spent quite some time getting her out of earlier that afternoon, afraid that she would rip it in her haste.
The dim twilight was painting Tauriel’s chamber grey and pearly-blue, and the little pendant glittered white in the Evenstar’s palm – Tauriel watched Arwen kiss it then, cupping Tauriel’s chin, press it to her mouth, before placing it into the wood elf’s hands.
Tauriel examined it, curiously. She had never owned anything so purely decorative before, trust Arwen to consider this a suitable gift for a captain of the guard. Still… given that no one else would think to hand her such a thing, it made a suitable momento of the Evenstar.
“Thank you,” she murmured, folding her fingers over it.
Arwen pressed her soft mouth to the pulse that flickered in Tauriel’s neck. “Remember me, won’t you? In that great forest of yours?”
“I could hardly forget you.”
Tauriel could feel Arwen’s smile against her throat.
***
Tauriel’s return to Mirkwood after near enough a year away was a strange one. Little had changed in any practical sense, for a year is no more than a breath in the life of an elf – and yet Tauriel felt fundamentally turned over in her own skin. Arwen’s pendant was warm against her breast bone; her mother’s silver clip was fastened in her hair; she rode a white horse gifted to her by Elrond and carried a new bow.
There were bruises on her neck pressed there by Arwen in her fervour the night before, that would take days to fade.
Captaincy of the guard had fallen to Elros, one of her seconds, in her absence, and he had almost inevitably grown too used to his position to take demotion gracefully. Legolas, who had travelled back ahead of her, had, at least once whilst somewhat intoxicated on mulberry wine, sung her praises less discreetly than he should have done. Old resentments about her position and her youth were roiling. She was rather glad she had been absent on such occasions, for she liked neither wine nor gossip – she found the sensation of being drunk rather too like the slow, stumbling sensation she had had in the days immediately after her parents’ demise to enjoy it.
“He thinks the stars shine out her face,” she heard one guard say to the other, the day after her return.
“He thinks the stars shine out her arse,” the other had retorted, “500 years old and captain of the guard – how else do you explain that?”
Tauriel made sure to give both speakers a good hard whack about the practice yard the following day. Though she was still regaining her strength, her reflexes had never left her, and she was still by far the better warrior than most of those under her command – well and good, there ought to be none who could best her in combat if it came to it.
She went out into the forest on her third day back, alone, wishing to lose herself in the old trees, to regain her familiarity of the place. It was not an especially well-advised thing to do, still weak as she was, but she had a desire for solitude.
She could feel Mirkwood murmuring about her, and could feel, too, something that had not been there when she left – or perhaps simply an intensifying of something, the way a stream might swell to a river, a river to a rushing waterfall. But it was not immediately clear what had changed until she came across the first of the spiders.
It was amongst a nest of dead deer, legs and antlers and gore spread across a clearing amongst a mist-white sticky bed of webbing.
Tauriel had seen spiders before, of course. This, however, was larger than any she had yet encountered and never once had any been so brazen as to feast this close to the forest floor. Tauriel thought of the orcs coming up against Rivendell’s boarders, and knew she would have to speak strongly to Thranduil on the subject of seeking the source of such monsters.
But first she drew her bow and shot the spider as it ran at her, felling it with a single arrow to the centre of its face. Then she drew her one remaining blade, hacked off one of its great legs, and carried it back with her.
“A… handle?” The smith looked doubtful as he inspected the leg.
“Its shell is harder than wood – it will endure longer,” Tauriel shrugged, “and it will serve as a warning to the beasts, of what becomes of those that cross me.”
The edge of the smith’s mouth quirked, and he nodded. “Aye, alright.”
She returned the following week, to pick up the twin blades he had fashioned for her, taking apart the spider’s leg to form the two handles – he had even managed to etch the design she had wanted, the star in thorns, on each blade. Arwen would perhaps not approve but then, Arwen was not here.
Tauriel sheathed her new weapons, and went back to work, for there was, she knew, much to be accomplished in the coming years. She had begun to dream of stars, of clear skies, and of pure memory overhead, and if such peace was to be achieved there must be many more adventures first.