Not as Red as Blood

[igrab]

Kili/Fili/Tauriel • 2035 words • written for StealthLiberal

In the tales told by firesides, there would be sentences about this moment. Time would slow, they'd say. Noise ceased. She would have a moment to look surprised, before the blood began to flow.

It wasn't like that. One moment, he could see the red of her hair out of the corner of his eye, the next, he couldn't.

An orc came at him and he sliced its head off, still moving with the rhythm of battle, but as its body fell away, he could see her quite clearly. On the ground, limbs splayed out, and blood... blood. So much blood.

"Fili!!" he shouted, calling for his brother because he knew, already knew that calling her name would be useless. No, he thought, this couldn't be - no. She was an elf. She was stronger than this. She was immortal, wasn't she? She couldn't be dying on a battlefield. No, that didn't make sense, this couldn't be real, it couldn't -

He was at her side, his hands touching the red fall of her hair - not as red as blood, he thought, and it made him want to throw up. Not as red as blood.

He didn't remember Fili calling for help, or the move from the field to a medical tent. He didn't even remember being pushed hither and yon by the dwarf healers, or the dimming of the light as the sun went down. All he could see was her pale, pale face, and all he could think was how red her blood was, how awfully, horribly red.

A tight, unrelenting pressure on his hand made him gasp and pull out of his fugue, his head jerking up and - oh. It was Fili. He should have known.

The older dwarf's eyes were as rimmed in red as Kili's must have been, and for a moment they just looked at each other, something fragile and too painful for words between them. Then Kili made a soft noise and threw himself at his brother, buried his face in his neck and cried and cried and cried.

Fili held on tight, his own chest constricting with emotions he couldn't name. What if she died? It was a possibility too awful to contemplate, but such was the lot of the elder, to think these things, so the younger didn't have to. And he -

He didn't know. He just plain did not know how they would survive.

"Oh, you two," a gruff voice cut into their reverie, and it was Oin, stalking in and taking over. "You boys should know better than to hang around a sickbed. Don't you have orcs to kill?"

"We're not going anywhere," Kili said, his voice small and quiet and lost.

Oin peered closely at the young prince's face. "She's not goin' anywhere, laddie," he murmured. "I'll make sure of it."

Fili felt, rather than saw, the way his brother tensed at those words. He pre-empted whatever might have come out of his mouth, knowing it wouldn't be anything close to tactful. "All the same. We're staying."

They huddled up against each other in the corner of the tent for the rest of the night, watching as dwarves and doctors came and went. She was still alive, they could tell that much - but for how much longer, it seemed that none could say. By dawn, Kili had had enough of waiting.

"I'm going to the Woodland Realm," he declared, pushing unsteadily to his feet. "I can't just... sit here and wait for her to die. There's got to be someone there who can help."

Fili didn't stop him, but he didn't go with him, either. He felt paralyzed, not by grief, but dread, the heady weight of what felt inevitable hanging over him. Kili left without a word.

•
None would open the doors for him, and Kili dropped to his knees in utter defeat and frustration. Of all the times for this stupid, stupid feud to come between them. Of all the -

A noise behind him had him scrambling for his bow, and he was a quick draw but not as quick as an elf. It was Legolas, the blond princeling, the one who had clearly nursed a seed of jealousy at Tauriel's choice of partners, but had also not hesitated to come to her aid when asked. Kili wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. The question was, would he be believed?

"Tauriel is injured," he said, because he couldn't bring himself to use the word dying.

There was a moment of suspicion - of hesitation, and Kili braced himself to be brushed aside, but to his surprise, that expression gave way to simple worry. "Lead me to her," Legolas said, and Kili's heart leapt into his throat. It was going to be okay. She was going to be okay.

•
Tauriel came to in a haze of indistinct color and sound. For a moment she was simply confused, and belatedly it occurred to her that she was in terrible pain, the kind of pain no elf would normally be acquainted with. Worried, for her own sake, she cast her senses down her body and found that she had sustained a large and quite life-threatening blow to the stomach, but - and she could detect both dwarven and elven healing in tending the wound.

She pushed her eyes open once more, determined to help herself as best she could. Colors swam into focus, and sounds became clearer and more distinct - ah, that was Kili, she would recognize it anywhere, and the slightly lower rumble from his brother. The higher, more elegant voice was... Legolas?

Surprised and more than a bit pleased, she watched as all three faces became clear to her, as they talked above her bed. With a wan smile, she flexed her hand, pressing her fingertips into Kili's palm.

He startled and his head whipped around to look at her - oh, he'd been crying, and her heart gave a little with worry and regret. "You're awake," he whispered, his smile radiant, and she could not help her own widening in return.

"We almost thought we'd lost you," Fili muttered, and he came around to lean over and give her forehead a furry dwarvish kiss.

"Never," she murmured, and tilted her head back to beg for a real one. Chuckling, as if ruefully amused, he gave it, brushing her lips ever-so-gently with his.

Legolas, she was pleased to see, did not look away, nor did any expression of distaste cross his features. He was, as a matter of fact, quite fond. "Your husbands have not left your side, except to come fetch me. Which was quite wise," and he was looking at Kili now, that curious fondness still shining from his face, "as I doubt you would have lived long without my intervention."

Tauriel rolled her eyes. Leave it to Legolas to make this all about him. "Ego, Legolas," she said, her words perhaps not as strong as she would have liked, but she could get her meaning across. "Na lû e-govaned vîn." The polite farewell was dripping with sarcasm, and Legolas smiled as he stood, lifting a hand in his own goodbye.

"N'i lû tôl, Tauriel," he murmured, and he was gone, as swift and silent as a breath of wind.

Kili frowned after him. "What did he say?"

But sleep was coming over her once more, and she did not answer him before slipping away, back into the darkness.

•
The next time Tauriel awoke, she was curled between her husbands, the two men who had caught her heart and held it close, who had burst into her life like twin rays of sunlight, shining onto a bleak and cold winter's night.

Slowly, her body still aching but feeling much better, she curled an arm around Kili and pulled him in close to her. He looked better now, more rested, and she could only imagine the sorrow and pain that she must have put them through. It was a sorrow she would experience, one day, when her lovers grew old and she still young and beautiful. To another elf, to the elf she'd been before meeting them, the life of a dwarf might have seemed the blink of an eye, but she truly felt the passing of each moment like no other time before. These moments were gifts, precious as new leaves, and she would treasure each and every one.

"Taur?" Kili muttered, coming to himself a little, enough to see her face. "H'lo."

She smiled, helpless to this man and his... well. Everything. "Hello yourself. It is good to see you resting."

The dwarf yawned, then tucked his head under her chin and she chuckled, for that was his favorite place to be. "So worried," he mumbled. "Couldn't bear to think of - need you. Always."

Her arm tightened; she swallowed past a lump of feeling in her throat. "And I you, Kili. Le melin."

"Love you, too."

He fell back asleep, but the other stirred, shifting Tauriel's loose braid out of the way so he could tuck his face into the back of her neck. "I think we'd just got used to you being invincible," Fili muttered. "You're the strongest of all of us, you know."

"I am strong, but not unbreakable," she murmured in reply, her hand carding through Kili's mussed hair. "And without me - "

A sudden movement from behind her made the words catch; she blinked up as Fili took her shoulder and pulled her torso to the side, tugging at the wound until she could roll on her back and look him properly in the face. His eyes were like steel, hard and blue and blazing.

"Don't ever say that," he whispered. "Don't even think it. Don't you dare say that we would have each other, that you are in any way, shape, or form unnecessary."

Gobsmacked, and a little bit winded from the exertion, she just blinked up at him, owlish and uncertain.

"I love you," Fili insisted, "and Kili loves you, and you are the best part of our lives. Believe me, I had time to think about how we might survive, were you to pass, and do you know what I thought?"

She opened her mouth, but he continued before she could respond.

"Nothing. I could think of nothing, no way in which your loss would not break us."

Kili was awake again now, looking from one to the other with an equal intensity - he may not have put it into such words, but clearly his sentiments were the same as his brother's.

Tauriel's lips parted and she sucked in a shallow breath, her mind and heart full to bursting with the faces and emotions of those who loved her. Voice shaking, just slightly, she found the words she needed. "As will I, when the time comes. I do not wish to think of a life apart, and I am sorry, if I ever thought for a moment that I could. But I am here," she whispered, and her hands came up, framed Fili's beautiful golden face and pulled him down to peck gently at his soft lips. "I came back for you, and for Kili, and I would never content myself to be apart, even at the brink of death." There were tears in his eyes and she kissed those, too. "I will always find you. I will always be with you. I will follow you, wherever your hearts lead me."

She knew now what Legolas had seen that had so changed his heart in favor of the dwarven princes. He had seen their spirit, their fire, the call of their souls as they refused to give up on her, pulling her back from death by the sheer force and power of their love. Such a thing must have been a sight too beautiful to be jealous of, and in that moment, Tauriel was certain that it had not been healing that had saved her, but her own heart, grafted in joy and valor to the twin souls of Erebor.

"Le melin, Tauriel," Fili whispered, not perfectly, but with the purest of intentions.

She replied in the only Khuzdul she'd been taught. "Zâyungi mênu."