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plainlo-inthemorning · 9 months

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Thranduil’s secret

Pairing: Tauriel x Kili Rating: 16+ Warnings: Mentions of violence, emotional hurt (but fear not …!) Words: 1.800 k.

Disclaimer: Canon what canon? This is for all the lovers out there.

“They want to bury him”.

Snowflakes fall silently around them.

Nature attempting to softly smooth over the carnage.

“Yes”.

Her king remains standing a few feet from where she reclines on the frozen rock, hunched over the still-warm body of a future that has been so cruelly taken from her.

From both of them.

She could rage against Thranduil.

Blame his indecisiveness, his selfishness, for the death of the dwarf.

Had the king only dispatched his soldiers to the mountain, as both she and the wizard so implored him to do, trying to appeal to the heart he has forgotten how to use, much could have been different.

But grief has pushed the fight out of her. In its place is only hopelessness and a pain the like of which Tauriel has never felt before.

Legolas, her old friend, has left.

She did not notice when, or if he said something to her before turning away. At this moment, she has no space for him, either.

“If this is love, I do not want it”, she cries, hearing how desperate she sounds, as she looks to her king. “Please, take it from me”.

Thranduil does not move, but the icy unkindness from earlier has melted from his features. If Tauriel’s own eyes had not been filled with tears, she might have recognized her sadness mirrored in the king’s.

“Why does it hurt so much?” She cannot seem to stop herself, clutching Kili’s gloved hand in hers.

“Because it was real”.

Thranduil’s unwavering answer takes her aback.

She looks down upon the dwarf’s bloodstained face again. A single tear streak has painted a faint silver trail from the corner of one eye and down the side of his face.

She saw it fall when he died. When the orc’s blade pierced his chest.

Flecks of snow cling to his thick brown lashes. He is so beautiful to her, she thinks sorrow will tear her apart if she has to let go of him.

They just found each other. He gave his life defending hers.

Slowly, she bends her head and does what she has ached to do for days, what she should have done on the lakeshore when he pressed the rune stone into her hand.

She touches her lips to his.

They are still soft.

His are the first she has ever kissed.

If this were a children’s bedtime story, she would breathe life into him with her longing.

Only when Thranduil kneels on the other side of the body, does Tauriel remember the king is still there.

She thinks he will ask her to stand and come away, and is ready to protest, to cling to Kili. She will stay right here until his kin returns to claim him.

But Thranduil does not speak.

Instead, he does something very unexpected, his face suddenly a mask of concentration.

His strong brows have come together in a frown: He raises a hand and lets it hover over Kili’s head.

“What … what are you doing?” Tauriel has to swallow her sobs for the words to come out right.

The moment drags out.

The king lowers his palm to place it lightly on Kili’s chest.

Tauriel, wholly confused, idly wonders through her grief if this is the first time in all his many, many millennia that king Thranduil has touched a dwarf with anything but the pointy end of a sword.

“He is a fighter”, the king says quietly. There is wonder is his voice. “And he fights, still. So stubborn …”.

“W-what?!”

Thranduil looks up, meets her shocked eyes.

“His heart has stopped, yes. But his soul is still here. It is holding on …”.

Now it is Tauriel’s heart that nearly stops.

“How do you…how can you-”.

Her king’s attention has returned to Kili.

He answers Tauriel without looking at her.

“I have certain … gifts”.

In typical Thranduil fashion, the king does not elaborate, and his matter-of-fact tone does not invite questioning.

Yet for once, Tauriel is too gripped with emotion to be deterred.

“Can you bring him back?”, she blurts out. “Please, my king, please? If there is any chance … I … I would do anything. Please!”.

Bringing someone back from the dead is reserved for the most nightmarish, ancient evil magic.

Until recently, Tauriel had only heard nonsensical tales of the practise whispered, and even in those, the someones that were brought back, were dangerous, mindless shadow apparitions of their former selves.

But if what her king is saying about Kili’s soul is true …

Thranduil appears to hesitate before speaking but when he does, Tauriel feels as if he is reading her mind. She has sometimes suspected that that is indeed a secret gift of his. Another one.

“The kind of magic required to awaken the dead is not only forbidden, it is destructive to the natural order of the world. However, if the soul has not yet left the body-”

He pauses. Decides.

“It can be done, if done quickly. No matter the strength of the warrior, the soul will be forced to leave this plane soon after death has occurred. I do not know how this one is still here”.

Love, thinks Tauriel. She does not know if it is actually true, or if it is her hope speaking. He is still here because of love.

Then the other elf gasps. Thranduil regards Kili’s face with disbelief.

“Of course …”, he whispers. His palm flattens on Kili’s pierced armour, fingers spread out. “Elvish blood runs in his line. Many years back …”

Tauriel stares at her love. Her mouth opens and closes.

His finely defined face, the shape of his cheekbones, so different from most of his kin.

Except for his brother’s, and the dwarf king’s …

Impossible. Yet suddenly it makes sense.

Did Kili know?

No, Tauriel does not think so.

As for Thorin …?

“Tauriel”, the elfking says. His voice is even but insistent. It commands her full attention. “If I succeed in bringing him back to you, you must never speak to anyone of what happened here. Not a word, do you understand? Not to his kin. Not to him. Certainly not to the wizard … And not to Legolas”.

Something flutters beneath the deep timbre of Thranduil’s voice. A bottomless despair struggling to surface, to be recognized.

And Tauriel remembers what Legolas told her at Mount Gundabad. About his mother’s death there.

She draws in a breath as she looks into Thranduil’s blue, blue eyes, but the king holds up a hand, reading her like a book.

“No”, he says simply but firmly, and it is a no that silences her. A warning.

No.

The king then touches Kili’s forehead and closes his eyes.

Tauriel is squeezing the dwarf’s hand so hard her knuckles are turning as white as the ground.

Stillness.

And then the air seems to shimmer and fizz around them, thick with swirling magic.

The snowfall has stopped. Or it can no longer touch them.

Thranduil is muttering words under his breath that Tauriel cannot make out. He leans forward, long blond hair falling around his set face. The tips pool on Kili’s shoulders like a veil of fine silk engulfing him.

Time stands still, and Tauriel forgets to breathe.

She has no idea how many moments go by.

And then Kili’s chest rises, and his lips part.

And the dwarf gasps for air!

His whole body shivers as his eyes fly open to the sky, wild, wide, alive.

He is alive!

“Kili!” Tauriel cries out and takes his face in her hands.

Their eyes meet.

He blinks rapidly, like he has been pulled out of deep water. “Tauriel…” Shakily, he raises his hands to her face as if seeing her for the first time.

“Are you okay?”, he asks. His voice is hoarse but urgent. “The orc, is … is he-”.

“He’s dead. It’s over. We’re safe, we’re both safe”. Tears are streaming down her face. “I thought I’d lost you!”.

“I thought so too …” Kili looks at her with utter wonder and bafflement. Then he grimaces and reaches for the wound in his chest. “Ugh, this one hurts, though …”.

“He needs tending to and fast”. Thranduil stands. A tiny droplet of sweat glistens on his brow. Or perhaps it is a snowflake. Are they falling again?

“Tauriel, I would advise you to take him far away from here, and never look back, but …”

He speaks as if Kili was not there.

“What is-”. Kili tries to focus on the tall figure towering over him, but is too stunned, and in too much pain, to fully register what is being said.

Tauriel shakes her head at the elf king.

“He will want to stay with his kin. They have suffered enough loss”.

She thinks of Thorin. The dwarf king is dead.

Thranduil sighs.

“Yes, I anticipate he will want to do that …”

“Tauriel…”. The dwarf winces. She looks back at him. She will never lose him from her sight again.

She brushes locks of soft hair from his forehead.

Does not notice her elf lord leaving. She will never see him again.

“I had a dream that you kissed me”, Kili whispers, his eyes searching hers. “A kiss of love …”.

She smiles through her tears.

“It wasn’t a dream … my love”.

Despite his agony, a smile spreads on his face. A bright, wonderful, boyish smile amidst the hurt and loss. He will face them later.

“…Love”. He grins, actually grins, and tries to sit up, but Tauriel gently puts a hand on his arm to stop him.

“Do not move too much. You are badly wounded. We have to call on the others to come help, and patch you up…”

“Then come down here to me”.

He shakes off a glove. Weaves his fingers through her hair.

She dips her face to his.

He gasps when she recaptures his mouth.

His lips are still soft, but now they move, as well. Melting into hers.

He pulls her closer, his other, gloved hand finding the curve of her waist, and she has to remind herself not to crush his wounded chest.

She wants to drown in his arms.

When their mouths part, they stay nose to nose.

“Never leave”, Kili whispers. His warm breath tickles her skin.

All of him is warmth.

Home.

“I won’t. Never”.

High in the sky above them, eagles cry triumphantly.

She takes his hand. Presses the smooth, oval shape back into his palm.

“It worked, Kili”, she whispers against his lips, before kissing him again.

Deeply, hungrily.

For the third time out of a million more kisses to come over their many, many years together.

“It worked”.

Thank you for reading!

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