New Fic: A Sky For The Seeing
Jan. 19th, 2014 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityAN: New fic! More elves! Same feelings! I don't even know. Anyway, this is the second part of the story that began with Heart of Stars.
Spoilers: Canon? Basically? The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for sure.
Disclaimer: So very much not mine.
Characters: Tauriel, Legolas, Sigrid, Tilda, Thranduil
Rating: PG
Summary: After the Battle of the Five Armies, Tauriel goes out into the world in search of clearer stars and brighter skies.
A Sky For The Seeing
+++
Prologue - A Hope For The Waiting
The raven almost came too late.
She knew immediately who sent it. The raven does not speak, so it must be one of those given to the city of Men. Instead there is a written note, in common. The hand is not that of the dwarf-scribe, nor the elder, but it is shaky with age. She had forgotten, when she left, that those who stayed behind would grow old.
The message was simple. A dark one has come to our gate, and to the gate in the Mountain. We have turned it away. It seeks the Halfling, and Dain has sent messengers to Rivendell. It is time, my friend. You must return. There was no word of Tilda, nor of Bain, though she knew that Bain had died. The death of a Lake-man was nothing to the Southrons, but the death of the King of Dale was whispered in the markets.
When Tauriel had first come here, seeking newer stars and clearer skies, she had covered her ears from their eyes. They thought her odd, too tall and too pale, but they welcomed her at the markets and inside the city walls. But the times darkened. She covered her whole head now, the fire of her hair and the pallor of her skin, and she never lingered long in one place, no matter how much she loved the stars there.
The message, in Sigrid’s failing hand, had been a boon. It gave her a reason to leave, to return. But not to the North, where her friends lived and aged without her. Her heart longed to see them one last time, if they still lived, but she knew that she could not go. She was needed somewhere else.
If dwarves had been sent to Rivendell, they must have passed through Mirkwood. Thranduil was treaty-bound to let them, but he would send emissaries of his own in their wake. Her Prince, gone from her mind these long years, would surely be among them. Thranduil would only send those he trusted, those most like him. Tauriel would go, and she would speak to Legolas whether he wished it or not. It was her hope that his heart might be softened too, though she did not put so much stock in herself.
She did not allow herself to doubt, had not all these years, but still she could not help but wonder if, had she stayed, they might have come to see each other as they had before, with the trust of a comrade in arms. She banished the thought as useless almost before she was done thinking it. The past was gone, and had she stayed, it was far more likely she would have turned cold too. Thranduil expected certain things from his guards, after all, and especially from his captains.
Instead she gathered her belongings. Her bow, wrapped carefully against the desert wind and heat, and her knives, kept sharp all this time, though not often used. She took up the trappings of her old life, and found they did not weigh upon her as she worried they might. Rather, they were a comfort to her, a promise of friends to meet and friends to remember.
She set her feet towards Rivendell, and flew thus. The lands around her fell away, blurring brown into green into grey as she came to the foot of the Misty Mountain chain. The air around the Gap of Rohan made her uneasy, and she hastened by it, at least turning North now that she had come so far West.
When she came to the hidden valley, she was apprehended immediately. She did not try to evade her captors, and doubted she could have if she had desired to, though she did wish them to visit her in her forest someday, to see how they fared. They only laughed with her, their faces split in the same smile, and took her to a well-appointed room where she waited.
She would not fret. Or stew. Or worry. She owed Legolas nothing, and he owed nothing to her. Perhaps he felt she had betrayed his father, and would scorn her. He had been so long under the trees, and Mirkwood was poisoned still. She could not know what he had become, so hidden from the sky and from the world.
At last, he came, as tall and as proud as she remembered, and she looked in vain for some whisper of kindness in his eyes. There was none.
“You have returned,” he said.
“I thought my council might serve, my Prince,” she said. “I have been a long time in the world.”
“We will sit in council soon enough,” he said. “But our representatives have already been chosen.”
“I do not think so highly of myself as that, my Prince,” she said. “I meant only that I can tell you what is happening where the Southrons muster, and what numbers they might have.”
“I will hear it, if it is necessary,” he said. And then he turned and left her.
Then, Tauriel worried. He was as cold as his father, as cold as she had feared. Some hours passed with nothing for her to do, and then she heard voices below her window, in the garden.
She looked down, and there he was again, with the twins that had brought her in, and a mortal Man she did not know. They sat close together, knees and elbows almost touching, the way that boys do when they fear their fathers will overhear them and think them foolish. And there it was, the kindness she had not seen when he spoke to her. He was not so cold as to be unreachable. She had only to keep reaching.
With that in mind, Tauriel turned from the window, and marshalled her thoughts anew. It was time, she decided, to once again become the Captain of the Guard.
+++
Chapter 1 - A Blade For The Rending
Spoilers: Canon? Basically? The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for sure.
Disclaimer: So very much not mine.
Characters: Tauriel, Legolas, Sigrid, Tilda, Thranduil
Rating: PG
Summary: After the Battle of the Five Armies, Tauriel goes out into the world in search of clearer stars and brighter skies.
A Sky For The Seeing
+++
Prologue - A Hope For The Waiting
The raven almost came too late.
She knew immediately who sent it. The raven does not speak, so it must be one of those given to the city of Men. Instead there is a written note, in common. The hand is not that of the dwarf-scribe, nor the elder, but it is shaky with age. She had forgotten, when she left, that those who stayed behind would grow old.
The message was simple. A dark one has come to our gate, and to the gate in the Mountain. We have turned it away. It seeks the Halfling, and Dain has sent messengers to Rivendell. It is time, my friend. You must return. There was no word of Tilda, nor of Bain, though she knew that Bain had died. The death of a Lake-man was nothing to the Southrons, but the death of the King of Dale was whispered in the markets.
When Tauriel had first come here, seeking newer stars and clearer skies, she had covered her ears from their eyes. They thought her odd, too tall and too pale, but they welcomed her at the markets and inside the city walls. But the times darkened. She covered her whole head now, the fire of her hair and the pallor of her skin, and she never lingered long in one place, no matter how much she loved the stars there.
The message, in Sigrid’s failing hand, had been a boon. It gave her a reason to leave, to return. But not to the North, where her friends lived and aged without her. Her heart longed to see them one last time, if they still lived, but she knew that she could not go. She was needed somewhere else.
If dwarves had been sent to Rivendell, they must have passed through Mirkwood. Thranduil was treaty-bound to let them, but he would send emissaries of his own in their wake. Her Prince, gone from her mind these long years, would surely be among them. Thranduil would only send those he trusted, those most like him. Tauriel would go, and she would speak to Legolas whether he wished it or not. It was her hope that his heart might be softened too, though she did not put so much stock in herself.
She did not allow herself to doubt, had not all these years, but still she could not help but wonder if, had she stayed, they might have come to see each other as they had before, with the trust of a comrade in arms. She banished the thought as useless almost before she was done thinking it. The past was gone, and had she stayed, it was far more likely she would have turned cold too. Thranduil expected certain things from his guards, after all, and especially from his captains.
Instead she gathered her belongings. Her bow, wrapped carefully against the desert wind and heat, and her knives, kept sharp all this time, though not often used. She took up the trappings of her old life, and found they did not weigh upon her as she worried they might. Rather, they were a comfort to her, a promise of friends to meet and friends to remember.
She set her feet towards Rivendell, and flew thus. The lands around her fell away, blurring brown into green into grey as she came to the foot of the Misty Mountain chain. The air around the Gap of Rohan made her uneasy, and she hastened by it, at least turning North now that she had come so far West.
When she came to the hidden valley, she was apprehended immediately. She did not try to evade her captors, and doubted she could have if she had desired to, though she did wish them to visit her in her forest someday, to see how they fared. They only laughed with her, their faces split in the same smile, and took her to a well-appointed room where she waited.
She would not fret. Or stew. Or worry. She owed Legolas nothing, and he owed nothing to her. Perhaps he felt she had betrayed his father, and would scorn her. He had been so long under the trees, and Mirkwood was poisoned still. She could not know what he had become, so hidden from the sky and from the world.
At last, he came, as tall and as proud as she remembered, and she looked in vain for some whisper of kindness in his eyes. There was none.
“You have returned,” he said.
“I thought my council might serve, my Prince,” she said. “I have been a long time in the world.”
“We will sit in council soon enough,” he said. “But our representatives have already been chosen.”
“I do not think so highly of myself as that, my Prince,” she said. “I meant only that I can tell you what is happening where the Southrons muster, and what numbers they might have.”
“I will hear it, if it is necessary,” he said. And then he turned and left her.
Then, Tauriel worried. He was as cold as his father, as cold as she had feared. Some hours passed with nothing for her to do, and then she heard voices below her window, in the garden.
She looked down, and there he was again, with the twins that had brought her in, and a mortal Man she did not know. They sat close together, knees and elbows almost touching, the way that boys do when they fear their fathers will overhear them and think them foolish. And there it was, the kindness she had not seen when he spoke to her. He was not so cold as to be unreachable. She had only to keep reaching.
With that in mind, Tauriel turned from the window, and marshalled her thoughts anew. It was time, she decided, to once again become the Captain of the Guard.
+++
Chapter 1 - A Blade For The Rending
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 09:59 pm (UTC)form a red-headed coalition and make Legolas not a dick anymoooooore.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-19 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-20 12:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 12:11 am (UTC)The Harad chapters are coming. I am weirdly terrified, but also excited. ;)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 10:26 am (UTC)[Speechlessness is a positive comment. I just……….TAURIEL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
[I like that I hate Legolas in this story. Whether you intended that or not, I like that I hate him.]
no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 10:49 pm (UTC)(He gets better, don't worry.)
(OH GOD, he says something so ludicrously obvious in the final chapter, but I DON'T EVEN CARE.)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-21 10:49 pm (UTC)