So Comes Snow After Fire

13.iii

"I really should go now." From atop Ravenhill's rampart, Tauriel could see that the party of dwarves marching from Erebor had nearly reached the tower. When she had come to share her patrol report this morning, Dwalin had told her Kíli was giving some of the Council guests a tour of the fortifications. She did not plan to be here when they arrived.

She turned and gave Dwalin a smile. "Thank you for the breakfast and the company."

"Ye should stay," he told her, for the second time this morning. "They'll all have heard of ye before the month is up, anyway. Remind them there's a face t'go with yer name."

Tauriel shook her head gently; she did not need these strangers talking about her without cause.

"Don't let them see that yer afraid of them," he finished.

"I'm not—" No, it was foolish of her to think that the seasoned Dwalin, who had fought in more battles than even she, could not see her fear. She worried these foreigners would misjudge her; for even if their opinions did not immediately affect her, they would Kíli. But Dwalin was right: they would hear of her one way or another. At least if she met them, they might have some truth upon which to base their wildest conjectures.

Tauriel took a slow breath. "I will stay."

"There's a good lass," Dwalin pronounced with a grin, and Tauriel wondered how often he had awarded that smile to a young Kíli or Fíli. It was, she felt, a look worth earning.

She followed Dwalin down from the rampart and onto the courtyard above the tarn. She had hardly guessed, when she had first stood here and fought for her life against Azog's elite, that she might be called to face a very different foe in this same place. And yet the stakes were, in one way, the same: a false step might lose her the one she came to care for so much.

Tauriel shook her head as if she could dislodge the gloomy thought as easily as the stray hair that had drifted into her face. What was she so afraid of, all of a sudden? Kíli was a prince of Durin, as he ever had been, and that knowledge had not stopped her from falling in love with him under his disapproving uncle's nose last winter. Thorin at least countenanced them now; what did it matter what the others thought?

She could hear Kíli's voice outside the wall, describing the newly rebuilt fortress. And then he came into view within the gate, the dozen or so other dwarves close behind him. Tauriel thought he looked especially formal somehow. His clothing was certainly more ornamented than usual, and he seemed to have taken more care with it than he often did. Kíli was not slovenly—far from it—but his appearance generally had a relaxed air: the last buckle on a surcoat undone or a shirt collar left loose. Today he looked buttoned up indeed, and Tauriel wondered if he were uncomfortable.

Kíli looked momentarily alarmed when he saw her, and Tauriel wondered if she had been wrong to stay. Yet he gave her half a smile before addressing his guests.

"You have all met Master Dwalin, and this is Captain Tauriel, our ally and mistress of Dale's border patrol," he said.

Tauriel swept a curt, professional bow. "Good morning Your Highness, my lords."

"Are you the elf said to have slain Azog's captain?" asked a young man at Kíli's elbow. So they were already talking about her.

"I should think that distinction belongs to Prince Kíli," she said. "I claim only the honor of having fought at his side."

Dwalin gave a rough chuckle. "Don't let her modesty deceive you; I saw that fight, and she played her part as well as he."

"And what do you say?" the original questioner asked of Kíli.

He laughed dismissively. "I have nothing to add. No matter what I say, I prove she bests me either in arms or in modesty."

The young man smiled, amused. "A prudent answer," he said, sweeping an appraising glance over Tauriel, and she wondered what he had concluded.

Tauriel and Dwalin accompanied Kíli for the remainder of the tour. The visiting dwarves listened with respect when Tauriel spoke briefly of the role the ranged patrol played in the security of the mountain, yet they still stared when they thought she would not notice. Was it because they knew her connection to Kíli? Or had they never seen an elf before, and a woman at that?

Now that her initial concern at meeting strangers was past, she felt her accustomed boldness returning, and she was tempted to catch them watching her. But she could not let her behavior be counted as rudeness when such would reflect on Kíli as well, and so she pretended not to notice, though once she had to bite her cheek and try not to laugh when someone whispered rather audibly, "Do y'spose she can twitch those ears like a cat's?"

In the end, nothing proved so annoying as having to bid Kíli farewell with only a cool, "Good day, Your Highness" and without exchanging a single touch. Even on duty, they were usually relaxed enough to permit a cordial parting—Kíli's men at the tower accepted and trusted them both well enough now that they could do so without incurring censure. But under the eyes of strangers, she and Kíli had become instinctively guarded once more.

Watching Kíli go, Tauriel felt an almost physical ache in her chest. What was wrong with her? She had not even meant to see him today, and so this dispassionate farewell had robbed her of nothing she had expected from him. Had her love for him weakened her so that she could not be near him without feeling her need? For she did need Kíli, in some way that touched both body and spirit.

She had thought that it would have been cruel to lose him on Ravenhill, before they'd had a chance to find out if they could truly love. And yet, knowing she loved him felt almost a greater cruelty now: if parting for so brief a time as a few days could hurt like this, to truly lose him would be a pain unimaginable. She had not known loving Kíli would make her depend on him so fully, or she would surely have faced the blizzard that winter day rather than follow him into Erebor. Thank the gods, then, that she had not known.