Chapter Text
He watched her from behind the decimated wall of what was once a house. Why would she come back here? She shouldn't be here. He watches as she wanders into the middle of what was left of the docks the town was built on. Falling to her knees, he can only stare as the sorrow pours down her face. Her shoulders shake as she hiccups and chokes on her own pain, gasping for breath she wasn't sure she still wanted. She still wore the clothes she had worn during the battle, called the battle of five armies by many. They looked very much worse for wear, smeared in dirt and blood, peppered with small burn holes and scorch marks. The arm was completely ripped of the left side of her shirt, revealing the thin red lines scratched down her arm, intentionally done or not, he wasn't sure. They matched the deep cut still bleeding on her right cheek, dripping her too bright blood down to mingle with the mud covering all but where tears had cleaned a path.
Thranduil turned away from her to survey the landscape, to keep himself from falling into memory along with her. One of them needed to be able to get them out of there. Jagged and broken beams of wood stabbed up into the smoke blackened sky like knives, taunting the storm heavy clouds. The houses were all dust, save for a few walls that had somehow survived but provided no shelter from the cold. Wood and bricks were thrown everywhere, mixing withe the ash and snow. He suspected that before long whatever was holding up what was left of Laketown would soon let go and drop the whole thing into the water. At least then it would be quiet, for some of the rubble was still smoldering, popping with sparks and billowing poisonous smoke all over the land. The acrid scent matched the lingering odor of blood and orc, and the bodies that lay everywhere, most burned beyond recognition.
And there were so many, broken, broken bodies. There were the bodies of women and children, men and animal. Death did not discriminate. Broken limbs were bent at odd angles and blood pooled in the dips of the earth. Some were missing limbs altogether, or had skin charred to nothing. These were the lucky ones, who had hopefully died quickly instead of being trapped in a burning building, unable to get out. His heart shattered at the sight of the trampled and bloody body of a little girl, still in her hand a homemade doll. Her blond hair and white dress were much too bright, garish against the dirt caked into both. Nothing deserved to be that bright after such death. She couldn't have been more that six summers old.
His eyes went straight back to Tauriel as she cried out.
"Why does it hurt so much?"
She was now sitting numbly on the cold ground, shivering as she stares at nothing. The memories held her firmly in their grasp. She was surrounded by them, it was almost sadistic. The screaming and terror were not quick to let anyone go. She fails to notice as he walks over to her, draping his cloak over her trembling shoulders. She used to be so alert. He sat beside her before he answered. "Because it was real."
And he knew terribly well what she'd meant. Why was sorrow so keen to be felt? Why did the innocent have to suffer and die? Why were THEY the ones left behind? Why couldn't they have saved more of them? Why, why, why? It was a never ending question. How were things ever going to be normal again, and what did normal mean now? What did anything mean now? They were questions he could not answer.
She turned her tear stained eyes to meet his cold blue ones. She couldn't find a single bit of remorse or pain in those unfailing eyes. He had seen war before, but did he not still care? Maybe things got easier after each time they happened. She wondered how many times she would have to witness it before she stopped caring, it must be nice if it didn't kill you first, and it was. it was killing her in the worst way possible. She stared until she could bear it no longer, burying her face into his chest. Her absently stroked her tangled hair as her sobbing became even more violent and ugly. He just held her and let himself break a little too. Eventually, too exhausted and dehydrated to cry, sleep overcame her.
Tauriel awoke on the front of a horse, her face buried into its neck. Her eyes felt dry and itchy from having cried so much. She could feel where the salt had dried on her cheeks, along with the dirt and blood. I must look awful... Slowly she sat up, not wanting to hit whoever had the reins. The bouncing of its light canter made the throbbing in her head feel like white hot knives on the inside of her skull. Everything hurt. She grimaced.
"I'm glad to see you awake, Mellon nin." Tauriel gave a start as the voice suddenly issued from behind her. An instant later she recognized the voice as belonging to the king.
"How do you feel?" She wasn't sure how to answer that. She felt everything, and yet, nothing. She felt dead, and at the same time wished she was. "I feel hollowed." And that was the only way she could explain it. She had woken up and felt nothing outside of physical sensation, no passion, no faith, no heat. Nothing. It felt like it took the effort of walking a thousand miles just to stay awake, and that scared her. She had always been ready to face things as they came, but now she was unsure if she even had the will to take down a giant spider. This didn't even begin to encompass how she felt, but it was the only thing that came close. It did not occur to her how informally she was addressing him, and he her, or how close they were to each other. His chest pressed into her back and his arms were wrapped around her sides to grip the reins. If she were in her right mind she would have found the quickest way out of the situation, or begged his forgiveness. Never in her life had she been so out of line, but it wasn't even a thought in her mind. She was too drained to do anything except sit.
Thranduil kept steering the horse in silence. Because Tauriel was not facing him, she didn't see the concerned look that graced his face the whole way back to Mirkwood. He spent this time trying to piece together her behavior and words, figure out how he could help her. She mourned in silence. She won't be okay for a very long time.
When they reached the forest, it took them no longer that ten minutes to reach a small house in the middle of a glade.
It was a very small clearing, but it was far different from the rest of Mirkwood. It was unaffected by the fast growing sickness, which allowed diffused sunlight to break through the trees, giving it a very calm look. The light dusting of snow only made it look prettier.Even the trees looked healthier here than anywhere else, still had their green needles and sticky sap. It was like time had stopped in this one place, allowing it to flourish and grow while the rest of the forest rotted.
The house was very neat and trim, with a small front garden full of a great number of herbs and flowers and a small stable for the horse. She hadn't known he owned a smaller dwelling apart from the castle. She, however, did not blame him in the least. Many a times she had wanted to shirk her duties as captain and leave the guard to their own devices for a day. If being captain was sometimes hard, being the king of the realm had to be infinitely worse. She supposed this was where he went when he left Legolas in charge and disappeared for a day or two. It was a miracle the guard hadn't stumbled across it on one of their many hunting expeditions. Then again, maybe Thranduil purposely put it here out of the way as they would have no real reason to be out this far.
Reaching nearer the house, Thranduil helped Tauriel dismount. It wasn't because she actually needed the help, but she was still completely unresponsive. He was afraid she would either hurt herself or just stay in the same place if he didn't guide her. I t pained him to see her like this. What happened to the proud leader? What happened to the Tauriel we all knew? He wondered.
This was so far out of her character that it was alarming. Even when she had been sad before, usually it came in the form of a raging river, passionate and merciless. Everything she had felt, she had felt with her entire being. Now? she looked almost as dead as the bodies in Laketown.
As he went to put the horse back in its stable, Tauriel managed to shuffle her way into the house and collapsed into a chair before the grief won over and once again consumed her. She thought of the destroyed lake town, and of the thirteen dwarves that had instigated everything, from the dragon attack to the war. She could hardly remember any of their names. 'Fili...Kili...Thorin...Nori?' It didn't matter. She wanted so badly to be angry, to break things and swear vengeance, but all she could feel was nothing.
Thinking back to the town, she couldn't help but remember the once clean waters, filled with the boats going to and fro. She remembered the small window boxes with little flowers and the butterflies that flew between them. She remembered the children, and their smiles and laughter games and happiness. It never ceased to make her smile when one of them ran up to her with endless questions about where she came from, or who she was. That had been one of her favorite things about running errands there. They would no longer play or laugh though, most lay dead or dying, the rest too scarred to ever be the same. She had seen enough of their bodies to know she was right. Tears began running from her already reddened eyes. She did not notice, even as they fell from her face and onto her clothing.
Finished with the horse, Thranduil fed it a carrot before making his way to the house as he contemplated the sleeping situation. He didn't think Tauriel would appreciate waking up next to him when she was already distraught enough as it was. He didn't have much in the way of furniture, just what he needed. he tried to keep it as different from the castle as possible, so the house only had two rooms, a bedroom and a main room/ kitchen. In the main room, he had two small chairs and a little table, a cupboard to hold a few dishes and pots, a fireplace to cook on, and a few candles and a fruit basket on the table. The bedroom held a large bed and a nightstand with a big candle for reading late at night. He didn't want anything more than that, and since it was only he who knew about the place, as long as he could hunt and get water by the stream, he didn't have to worry about impressing anybody or keeping up the strict ruler façade. No, this is where he could just be who he wanted, away from the public eye. It wasn't like he was going to ever have people over since the death of his wife, or so he had thought.
Upon entering the house, his eyes were immediately drawn to Tauriel, who appeared to have only been able to make it to the chair before the grief won. He saw the tears staining her face and her shoulders shaking. Silently he went over and rearranged the cloak around her before picking her up and carrying her to the bed. He made sure to take off her knives so she wouldn't hurt herself, before taking off her boots and putting them beside the bed. Drawing a sheet and a few blankets over her, he placed her knives on the nightstand and gave her once last glance before he exited the room, softly shutting the door behind him.