Once upon a time there lived a little girl named Minastauriel.
She was a common enough child among her people; sweet and innocent and filled with endless energy. There was nothing particularly striking about her nor was there anything horribly wrong. She was just another child of Mirkwood; beautiful and free as she danced with the leaves and raced the wind.
Minastauriel loved her life and never dreamed of being someone else. She was happy enough chasing her older sister through the trees, or learning the bow from her father. She looked forward to helping her mother cook and sew and clean, and could not imagine anything better than sitting down with her family to listen to her mother's tales of days long passed. She would have spent the rest of her days like this if she could; loved and protected and so very happy. Minastauriel did not need fame or riches or power because none of it would ever make her as happy as she was with her family.
But that life ended the day her parents and sister were killed by Orcs.
Though no one knew it, Minastauriel died that day too. The innocent girl who believed that the world was a wonderful and safe place was butchered with her family one cold day in winter. Now all that remained of that girl was anger and grief and a thirst for justice. Minastauriel died a brutal death, and in her place Tauriel was born.
Tauriel was everything that Minastauriel could never be. She was strong and courageous and could kill without flinching. She was a warrior who no longer fled from the Orcs, but actually hunted them down. She was renowned throughout the kingdom for her skills and tactics and even earned her king's approval. She had power and fame and riches and everything else that Minastauriel never had. Yes, Tauriel was everything that Minastauriel could never have been.
Tauriel was everything Minastauriel had (never) wanted to be.
Minastauriel's story never got a happy ending like other stories. No, hers ended in blood and death and rebirth. Tauriel couldn't change Minastauriel's story, but she could change the ending for others. She could ensure that people like Minastauriel got their happy ending instead of the tragedy that she had endured. And through all of it, Tauriel hoped that somehow she too would find her (Minastauriel's) happy ending one day.
~*~
When Tauriel finally returned, two days had gone by.
"Took you long enough," Bard commented the moment the Elf stepped into the camp.
Tauriel flashed him a vicious glare. She was dirty and unkempt and her hair was a mess, but her shoulders were relaxed and her posture at ease. "Next time we'll send you into the forest to track down the scouts. Does that sound fair?"
"Did you find them?" Bilbo asked before the Man could retort and begin another argument. He was really not in the mood for another round between the two.
Tauriel gave Bard one last poisonous look before looking at the Hobbit. "Yes. I gave them my report and told them to take it to the king. With luck, he'll get it by the end of the week."
"Did you have a lot of trouble finding them?" Beorn wondered as he stared at the Elf's shoulder with narrowed eyes and a frown.
The archer shrugged and gave the bear a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I had a small run-in with some spiders, but I handled them easily enough. I'm fine now."
"Hmp. That doesn't smell 'fine' to me," the shape-shifter muttered, his dark eyes flaring as he continued to stare at her shoulder. "It smells bloody and diseased. You were poisoned by those overgrown insects."
Tauriel blinked rapidly for a moment; obviously taken back by Beorn's assessment. Then her eyes softened and her smile melted into something true and genuine. "Yes, they did manage to hurt me during a fight, but I was able to treat the wound before it grew into something fatal. Do not worry about it, Beorn. I'll be fine."
"Still, it wouldn't hurt to double-check it before we leave," Bilbo pointed out as he took note of the dark circles under Tauriel's eyes. He had a feeling the Elf had been on the move without stopping since she left. "And I think you should rest for a moment before we leave. You look like the walking dead."
"She always looks like that," Bard muttered.
Beorn nodded quickly. "The bunny is right. Sit down and rest and let me see your wound. You'll be of no help if you faint."
The Elf rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air. "Fine, fine, you win. I swear, you lot are almost as bad as my king when Legolas gets a hangnail…"
Bilbo snorted and traded a look with Beorn as the Elf began to tug off her vest and tunic without hesitation. When her clothes were finally gone, he found himself blinking in surprise at the dark cloth wrapped around her upper chest.
"Why are you wearing that?" he asked, pointing to his own chest to show where he was looking.
"I bind my breasts so they don't get in the way during battle," the archer explained, raising a brow as she looked over the three males. "Why else do you think my chest looks so flat all the time?"
"Ehh, I just assumed it was an Elf thing," Beorn replied with as much shame that Tauriel had shown when undressing. "I noticed that most of them tend to be on the smaller size."
"Are you sure you weren't looking at the males?" Bard wondered as he carefully avoided looking at Tauriel. Bilbo noticed that he was also turning red and made a mental note to mock him for it at a later date.
Tauriel looked over her shoulder to scowl at the Man. "Would you stop encouraging the rumor that my kinsmen look like females—!"
"It's not a rumor, it's a fact," Bard argued back as he kept his gaze fixed firmly on the Elf's face.
"I didn't know your breasts got in the way during battle," Bilbo commented as he rubbed one of his beads. "Then again, I don't know much about breasts in the first place so…"
"I can draw my bow faster with them bound," the she-Elf explained as she pretended to pull out her bow from behind to demonstrate. "In the past, some female warriors would even cut off one or both of their breasts in order to increase their skills."
"Ouch. That sounds painful even to me," Bard admitted, flinching.
Tauriel simply shrugged and began to undo the bandage around her shoulder. "We do what we must to win. In battle, even the smallest detail can decide whether you live or die."
Bilbo nodded and then winced when he saw what lay under the bandage. Tauriel's wound was still an open sore with oozing blood and pus. The only bright side he could find in the sight was that there was no poison or rotting flesh from the spider's venom.
When Beorn saw the wound, he inhaled sharply through his nose and pulled his mouth back into a snarl. "It's 'fine,' huh? I hate to see your definition of 'bad' then."
The archer raised a fine brow and tossed her hair over her unwounded shoulder. "I'm a warrior, Beorn. The captain of the king's guards. I've endured worse wounds than this little scratch."
"We're not playing the 'compare scars game,' kitten," the bear growled back, dark eyes flashing.
"That's too bad. I'm pretty sure I would win," Bard commented from the sidelines.
Bilbo snorted and gave his friend the same look he used to give Merry and Pippin when they tried to lie to him about stealing his vegetables. "The scratch you got from the scared raccoon the other day doesn't count."
"It wasn't a raccoon," the Man argued back with genuine passion, "it was a demonic beast!"
"It was as big as my thigh! And it squeaked when it saw you!"
"Are you going to clean her wound out, bunny, or keep taunting the pup?" Beorn asked, interrupting their argument without breaking his own silent argument with Tauriel.
The Hobbit carefully looked between the two and weighed his options. "I don't know. Which one doesn't end with me getting stabbed?"
"You can clean my wound, Bilbo," Tauriel assured, her voice softening a fraction even as her glare stayed strong. "After all, you're not the one treating me like a child."
"I'm not treating you like a child—!"
"Then what else would you call this coddling—?"
"Because that's what Beorn does," Bilbo replied before the shape-shifter could answer. He nodded his head to the bear in question as he began to pull out a bottle and bandages from his pack. "He's really very motherly when you come down to it. Why do you think animals love him so much?"
The Elf blinked a few times before looking between the Hobbit and shape-shifter in consideration. "Is that true, Beorn? Are you really a mother hen?"
The bear shrugged his colossal shoulders as his cheeks began to bloom into a faint pink. "Well, I can't help it really. Part of my nature to protect and defend and all that shit. It's what my Mother created me for."
"Oh." The archer glanced down at the Hobbit in front of her as he began to apply one of Óin's salves to her wound. Bilbo saw the question in her eyes and shrugged his shoulders in answer.
"Just accept it," he advised, wiping some of the pus from her wound as he rubbed the green goo into her injury.
"Very well. I apologize for jumping down your throat like that, Master Beorn," the Elf said formally as she looked over Bilbo's head to meet Beorn's gaze. "I am just not used to having someone so fixated on my wellbeing. It is usually the other way around."
The bear nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. "It's fine. Just… don't fight it next time, okay? There are few people that I can worry about so let me fret like some clucky great-aunt."
Tauriel nodded. Her face had relaxed back into its natural softness and her eyes no longer looked to be spitting fire as she looked at the shape-shifter. "I will keep that in mind then for future occurrences."
"Promising to let him worry about you the next time you get hurt isn't really comforting," Bard pointed out with a smirk because he obviously thrived on causing trouble. Bilbo was beginning to miss the old Bard who used to stand around glaring at random objects in the room. At least then he could be counted on to be quiet.
"Would anyone really care if I fed you to the spiders?" the Elf wondered as she slowly narrowed her eyes at the Man.
Beorn snorted. "His children would."
"They'd get over it. Children are very resilient," she persisted as Bilbo began to wrap a clean bandage around her shoulder.
"Tauriel, we're not feeding him to the spiders," Bilbo said firmly without looking away from his task. "We need someone to test any traps or act as bait for the enemy, remember?"
"Heartless. Just heartless. I'll remember this later at dinner," promised the Man.
Bilbo nodded as he finished wrapping Tauriel's wound. Once done, he stood up and looked over his friends before jerking his chin to the south. "Everyone, up now. It's time we get a move on. We still have a long way to go."
~*~
It took another week before they finally came to a place that Bilbo had not been looking forward to from the start.
"Dol Guldur," he said grimly as he looked upon the decaying fortress that loomed over the forest. "It is just as dark as I envisioned it to be."
"Why does your king keep such a place around?" Bard asked Tauriel as he squinted up at the rising towers. "It looks like something out of a bad fairy tale."
"It used to be the capital city of his father, King Oropher, when he ruled these lands. After he died, my king abandoned it and took our people north to live," Tauriel explained calmly. "As to why he never destroyed it, I don't think he could bring himself to do it as it once belonged to his father. My king was very close to the late lord."
"Did you ever meet him? King Oropher?" Bilbo asked, glancing at the Elf from the corner of his eye.
The captain shook her head. "No. He died long before I was born. From what I've heard of him, he was very tall and very wise. Legolas supposedly looks a great deal like him."
"He does. A bit shorter and his eyes are blue rather than green, but other than that he's the spitting image of his grandfather," Beorn commented as he stretched his arms out before him until his joints cracked. "Thranduil looks like him too, but not nearly as much as his son. Funny how blood works."
The three turned to look at him in mutual surprise.
"You knew Oropher?" Bard asked, raising both his eyebrows.
"How?" Tauriel wondered as she furrowed her own brows.
"I think the better question would be when," Bilbo muttered as he too stared at his tall friend.
The shape-shifter shrugged and gave them a half smile. "For a time. It was when I was younger and masquerading as an Elf in order to understand them better. Oropher… He was not what you'd expect from a king. He never saw himself above his people, but rather as their equal. He used to sit with them and talk and eat and laugh like they were family. They loved him for that. It's why so many of them were willing to follow him and die with him."
"Wow. He sounds nothing like Thranduil," the Hobbit mused, rubbing one of his beads in thought.
Tauriel nodded as she stared at Dol Guldur with a distant look in her eyes. "No, but it does explain a lot about him. My king has always been firm in keeping us away from the outside world, and he has always made it clear that he was our leader and not a friend. I suppose he was trying to be everything he thought his father was supposed to be."
Beorn shook his head. "No. I saw Thranduil when Oropher was still around. He adored his father; practically worshiped the ground he walked. If anything, he probably resented them for taking his father away. Probably why he hates outsiders too. Oropher always believed in protecting all of Middle-Earth, regardless of race. It's what got him killed in the end."
"Were you two close?" Bard asked as he studied the bear.
"Nah. Spoke to him a few times, but I mostly kept my distance. I didn't want to tip him off that I wasn't really an Elf," the shape-shifter explained with a grin. "So shall we camp here in the shadows of the creepy fortress for the night?"
"Why not? Actually, why don't we just go the whole nine yards and set up camp in Dol Guldur?" Bilbo suggested, with a large and obviously fake smile.
Beorn squinted at him. "I'm sensing some sarcasm in your words."
"Picked up on that did ya?" Tauriel muttered as she rolled her eyes and stalked off towards the ruins. "Come along, boys, and don't let the fortress scare you! I promise I won't let the spiders crawl into your beddings. Or your ears in some cases."
Bard and Bilbo exchanged an alarmed look before following after the Elf with a laughing Beorn. "That was a joke right, Tauriel? Right? Tauriel!"
Her laughter was the only answer they received.
~*~
Though he hated it, Bilbo found himself setting up camp that night with the rest of his comrades in the view of Dol Guldur. He tried his best to ignore the dark fortress as he went about his tasks, but it was very hard as he recalled the stories he heard from Gandalf, and his own haunting dream of Sauron. What if the Dark Lord truly lurked within the ruins? Would he feel the ring and come looking for it? Bilbo knew his comrades were strong and skilled, but he really doubted even they could stand up against the Dark Lord.
Soon, soon, soon, the ring crooned to him as it sensed his fears. He will come soon. Soon, soon, soon…
Not before I throw you into the volcano, he snarled back as he paused in collecting some wood to rub his forehead. His headache had returned with a vengeance and it seemed to worsen every time the ring whispered to him.
The ring laughed at him. Lies, all lies. He is coming and all will feel His wrath once more. Soon He will be whole and We will be One again.
He felt something cold trickle down his spine and tried to ignore it. What are you talking about? How do you know if Sauron is coming or not? And why would you even tell me that?
Soon, soon, so very soon, the ring continued to chant with a childlike glee as it ignored his questions. So close, so close, so very close!
Bilbo closed his eyes tightly and tried to block out the ramblings of the ring. You're bluffing. Your Master doesn't know where you are. If he did then he would have found you by now—
A high pitched shriek broke his train of thought and made him jump.
"What the hell was that?" Bard asked as he got to his feet with his bow in hand.
"Nothing good," replied Tauriel as she too rose and scanned the forest around them.
Beorn raised his head and titled it to the side as if listening to something far away. "Sounds like horses. About a dozen, maybe even more. They're moving awfully fast…"
"Which direction?" Tauriel questioned as she continued to scan the area.
Beorn pointed to the left of him. "South. They're coming from the south."
The Elf immediately began to climb a tree to the top and looked out in the direction that the shape-shifted had pointed to. Soon they heard her curse and dropped down to meet them with her face twisted in an expression that they had never seen before.
"It is the Ulairi," she spat with clear disgust.
Bilbo felt his skin erupt in goose bumps. "The Nazgûl? The Ring-wraiths?!"
"Are you sure?" Beorn questioned with a frown.
The archer nodded. "Yes. Though I have never seen them before, I know of the signs to look for. The Ulairi have found us."
"Which means that Sauron has found us," Bard translated with a remarkably calm face. "What do we do now? Do we stay and fight or run for our lives?"
"We cannot all outrun them," Beorn replied firmly as he began to pull off his shift. "So some will have to stand and fight."
Tauriel nodded as she pulled out her bow. "Agreed. You and I shall hold them off for the moment. Bard, take Bilbo and get as far away from this place as possible."
"What? No, we are not leaving you two here to die!" Bilbo objected as he glared at the Elf and bear only to be ignored.
"Are you sure?" Bard asked softly as he met the Elf's eyes.
The captain nodded again with a firm set to her jaw. "Yes. We must keep the ring from them at all costs. Get Bilbo away and further into Mirkwood. With luck, one of the scouts will find you two and take you to the king."
"And no matter what you hear, don't look back," Beorn added before he began to transform into his second form.
He looked between his friends with growing horror. "No, we can't do this, we just can't! We can't leave you two here to die just to give us a head start!"
"We're not dying to give you a head start," Tauriel denied as she climbed to sit on top of the bear. Once seated comfortably, she gave the Hobbit one of her smiles that made her eyes sparkle and cheekbones stand out.
"We are dying in order to protect the world from Sauron," she corrected softly before nudging Beorn with her heel. Then before Bilbo could object once more, the bear turned and galloped off into the forest with Tauriel's red hair billowing out behind them like a bloody banner.