"Tell me, Legolas. Who is Kili?"

Thranduil stood, his back to his son, looking out the window of Tauriel's room. Through the opening, a cool breeze came, smelling lightly of the winter flowers that bloomed in the greenwood. Birds chirped outside the window, their happy tune dancing into the room. Most hearts could not fail to smile at the music.

The elven king, however, was not most hearts. Music flowed around him but he did not hear it. He looked at the trees before him, but did not see them.

His mind was focused on the elf in the bed behind him. The severely injured captain of the guard had been brought back to Mirkwood several weeks ago from the battlefield of Erebor. Morgul arrows had pierced her left thigh and right shoulder during the battle. She had also sustained a blow to the head. For many days, elven healers had treated her, along with other injured elves, with athelas and burningwood.

Unlike her comrades, Tauriel's injuries were slow to improve. This puzzled the healers greatly. "She should have been up and about already, my lord!" one had exclaimed a few days ago. "I cannot understand it, we are doing everything we normally do, and she is not the only elf injured by poisoned arrows!"

Not only was her body not healing as expected, but her mind seemed to either be in another world, or trapped in a nightmare. The healers reported her crying and whimpering, calling for someone named Kili. "Where are you, Kili?" she'd whispered in a dream one day when he'd been asked to examine her. "Please don't be dead."

Suspicious of that name, and now knowing why Tauriel had gone to Laketown, Thranduil had examined her closely, reciting old elven healing chants that sometimes helped reveal why a patient was not healing. What he learned that day had initially stunned him, then horrified him. Every time he thought of what she must have done, he felt nauseated.

He had been in a furious rage that day, having had to leave the room quickly before he smashed the vials of medicine, or ripped her possessions to pieces. How dare she, the orphan, the lowly Sylvan, defy him! And betray her own kind! He had raised her since her parents had been killed, a small elfling, sad and confused and lonely. Even though he had doubts, he'd seen she was recruited and trained in his guard. And promoted to head them as well, an honor for a Sylvan as well as a female.

This! This was how his beneficence was repaid! Thranduil rarely did anything from altruistic motives. He expected strict allegiance from those he favored. After all, what was the purpose of helping someone if you got nothing tangible in return?

His rage had ebbed over the past few days, the heat of it almost gone. Now he was cold. Ice cold. He had decided on an appropriate course of action, but there were still some details to address. Punishments to be handed out.

Thranduil turned to face the bed, gazing down upon the quiet form. She lay on a small bed, under warm blankets. Her face was cleaned of all blood and dirt, the wound on her head neatly dressed. Her breath was even and peaceful in deep, drugged, healing sleep. Sunlight from the window streamed onto her red hair, making it glow like fire. Others were moved by the sight of her beauty or pain. He found her disgusting.

"Did you hear me, Legolas? Do you know who Kili is? There is no one in this kingdom with that name. Unless it is a friend name or love name." He turned a piercing gaze on his son.

Legolas was in a world of misery. He sat in a chair by the door, his head bowed, eyes shut tight. He knew what was in store for Tauriel, even though his father had not yet said the words. Thranduil was not known for compassion or understanding. Defiance of his wishes and orders had but one response, unless one was an heir of the realm, or high born. Tauriel was neither.

He could not see a way to hide the fact that Kili was a dwarf of Erebor. And that Tauriel and the dwarf had developed feelings for each other.

No. That was not strong enough to describe the connection. Legolas recalled the end of the battle, seeing the dwarf weeping over her pierced, bleeding body before he himself was carried off to be tended by dwarvish healers. There was a deep connection, friendship and understanding and love, between them. It had been apparent that Kili loved her.

To his astonishment and horror, Tauriel had appeared to return his feelings with the same passion. How could that be? It was beyond his understanding. He could barely accept the idea! An elf, in love with a dwarf? In the history of elves, when had such a thing ever happened?

Yet, at night, as he tossed and turned in his sleep, his dreams told him that maybe this was his fault. Legolas had been friends with Tauriel since she was small. Training together, exploring the kingdom when he was not required elsewhere. Sharing secrets, hopes and dreams. He had watched her grow and change from a sweet little elf into a strong, talented, beautiful creature. Radiant with her love of the starlight.

He thought she had loved him at one time. Not as a good friend, but as more. Maybe not as strong as what he had felt growing inside him for many years, but something more. In the past few years, he was to the point of feeling jealous of anyone she spoke to more than he. He wanted her for himself, but he did not know how to find the courage to confront his father about his long-held prejudice against the Sylvans.

Legolas knew his father would have warned Tauriel away from him. It would explain her reluctance to be alone with him on drills and anywhere else. She shared less with him, only details related to the guard and the protection of the kingdom. He rarely saw her anywhere in the palace, except the dining hall. She kept to her room when not on patrol or training new recruits. Avoiding him as much as possible.

She'd stepped far away from her old friend. As far away as she could. And had done something he never could have imagined.

"Kili is a dwarf, one of the heirs of Thorin Oakenshield, the thief and son and grandson of thieves." Thranduil sneered, reaching into his mind and pulling him into the present. "He was my prisoner with his uncle and the rest of them all those weeks ago."

"Yes," Legolas said dully. What was the point in lying? His father probably already knew all there was to know.

"He was the one the Orcs shot with the Morgul arrow when they all escaped from the cellars."

"Yes."

"And that was the reason Tauriel disobeyed my orders at that time not to leave the kingdom. To find him and heal him. To save him." There was such disgust in his tone, Legolas shuddered.

"Partly, Father." Legolas lifted his head and looked at Tauriel's sleeping form. He sighed deeply. "She did not want the Orcs to hurt others, the people of Laketown as well as the dwarves. I went with her to hunt them."

Thranduil began to pace the room, his long silver robe swishing back and forth along the wooden floor of the sick room. "Yes, yes, I know all about your foolish whim. Your fondness for this lowly, unworthy Sylvan elf, could have gotten you killed. She stayed in Laketown to heal the dwarf, while you went on hunting Orcs. Alone."

"Yes."

"I saw them on the battlefield, fighting next to each other. And I saw him holding her after, weeping, before our healers found her."

Legolas said nothing, trembling inside, keeping his eyes on Tauriel's sleeping form.

"He loves her. And she loves him. Why else would she call out for him in her dreams? A dwarf, and an elf." The words were full of scorn. "Do you know what she did in Laketown? To heal the foul dwarf prince?"

Legolas looked at his father in confusion. "She used the athelas, as our healers do. What else would she have done?"

Thranduil raised an eyebrow. "You think that is all? Why do you think she is taking so long to heal, when others with similar wounds are up and about as normal? Didn't you wonder about that?"

"I don't know what you mean, Father."

"Watch her, Legolas. At the end of this, she should be glowing like a star." Thranduil put his hands over her form, and started to chant.

He watched and listened to his father chanting in an ancient Elvish tongue. Legolas had not studied this particular language much, and knew only a few of the words. Grace. Power. Healing. "I didn't see anything," he said quietly, hearing his father finish.

"No. You did not. Nor would you. I did that over her a few days ago, when the healers came to see me. They were concerned about why she heals slowly. It revealed to me that her grace is completely gone."

Legolas gasped. It could not be true! Tauriel was no longer immortal. She would die someday. Her ability to heal quickly was compromised as well, her condition was no longer a mystery. He felt his heart breaking for his friend. He wanted to weep, but barely held himself back.

Thranduil gave him a mocking look. "Grace leaves us only when it is given to another, or when we are killed."

The answer to where Tauriel had given her grace filled the room. Legolas felt his chest tighten. "Tauriel!" he choked, trying to breathe.

"A Sylvan elf, showing her true low born qualities at the last. Now do you see why I refused to let you bind with her when you asked?"

Legolas felt the words pierce him like knives. "What do you plan to do, Father?" he whispered. He did not really want to know the answer, but could not stop the question.

His father sounded brisk and business-like. "The captaincy will go to Athelos, the second in command. And in two weeks from today, Tauriel will leave this kingdom, with whatever possessions can be managed, never to return. She is banished permanently. And as punishment for your foolish actions and poor judgment, you will be responsible for her complete removal from this kingdom."

His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Rage, fear, regret, they all were stuck in his throat like a rock he could not swallow. Legolas had not even come close to imagining the depths of his father's cruelty.

"You - you would kick her out, even if she is in this state? She would die in the wilderness!" he spluttered.

"Then go to Erebor, and prostrate yourself at the feet of that false king. Beg him, plead and grovel, to take her in. Lower yourself to his level, if you want to save her life," Thranduil said acidly. "If Thorin won't take her, she will still leave the kingdom in two weeks, by your hand."

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. There was not a worse outcome he could imagine. His father's words and voice were like a blade at his throat, an inch from slicing open the pale smooth skin to draw his life blood.

Legolas saw a look of deepest loathing on his father's face as he looked upon Tauriel's sleeping form. "If she loves the dwarves so much, let her live with them, in that dark and dingy pile of rock." His father swept out of the room, not sparing a glance at his son.

The elven prince sat in his chair, his head in his hands. His shoulders shook with the sobs he could no longer hold back. Tears streamed down his face. Her fate was horrible enough, but for him to be complicit in it? How could he ever face himself again, if he did not do everything he could to see that she was safe somewhere?

He pulled his chair over to the bed and took her still hand in his. Pressing it to his wet cheek, he wondered if he was right. If there had been a time when she had loved him, as more than a good friend. If she had returned his passion, would he have had the strength to defy his father to be with her?

Whatever the answer, it no longer mattered. Tauriel had given her heart, and quite literally her life, to the dwarf. But she still had his. She would always have it. Legolas sighed and kissed her palm, wishing desperately that fate had dealt him a different hand.