The King was strong enough to stand, to walk, on his own. Tauriel had no duties to keep her away. She was anchored to him despite attempts to coax herself elsewhere, aimless as the falling leaves scattered on the forest paths. They walk through the night when neither can sleep, walk and walk. Some nights they did not speak at all.

This night, Tauriel noticed how the King would look sidelong at her before turning away. He seemed restive. The cicada song faded in and out from the boughs on high. The sound drew a faint smile to her lips. It was her childhood. Her mother's lullabies. Her father when he scolded her sister and her for staying awake past the midnight hour. Tauriel sobered as she walked on. The sweetness of that time was something she had to ration, lest it dissipate completely. There was no joy in the thought of how those days came to an abrupt end.

Watching her King from the corner of her eye, Tauriel wondered how it must feel to lose a facet of ones' self. Nestadeth advised her that speaking of his past was better treatment than any remedy she could administer. Tauriel had done just that—she learned so much from the King's own telling. What she'd learned of his past had mostly come from fanciful tales or simple happenstance.

"Why is it that I so rarely leave the caverns?" Thranduil asked. The innocence of his queries almost always prevented her from suspending her disbelief. How could this be the formidable monarch she'd once served? His eyes were raised skyward to where the dark trees parted slightly. She knew what it was that captured his awe.

"The forest is perilous, my lord. By your directive, we remain within our walls to protect ourselves." She tried to keep her tone neutral but the king was perceptive. They slowed to a stop and he turned to her. In the obscurity, his eyes were like mirrored glass. "You disapprove of this." Thranduil remarked. When he looked away, Tauriel breathed a sigh of relief. Although the waters of the river liberated him from his cynicism, she still reeled at the changes.

There was no need to lie. She lost her beloved to the darkness that would consume the world. Let this king bear the brunt of his decree's consequences. "Had we taken action sooner, so many needless deaths could have been prevented. Instead, we let it fester. Until this." Her speech brimmed with accusation and she motioned to the air around them, so thick with malice. The cicada song ceased. It left a vacuum of silence between king and former captain. A spike of loathing arose in her—against herself, the Orc that dealt the killing blow, how her king let those Orcs cross their borders and slaughter with impunity.

Again, Thranduil fixed his gaze upon her. Tauriel almost could not bear to look. She was suddenly back on a cobbled street in the ruins of Dale, facing him down with the bow and arrow she was no longer allowed to wield. How she relished the shock that broke through his icy mask, then resigned herself to die for the love he claimed was false. Tauriel swallowed back the rage that threatened to consume her. It only ever surfaced when she was with him.

"My sins must be grave indeed to earn your condemnation." He murmured. Something overhead caught his attention and he turned once more to the visible sky between the treetops. Perhaps it was no easier for him to look at her than it was for her to be observed. Tauriel followed his example. She was immediately stricken by what she saw.

"My lord Thranduil?" The taste of his regal name never quite settled on her tongue. It was something to be reserved. Names of sacred things were to be rationed too. Thranduil. It sounded as beautiful in her mind as it did aloud.

"My lord, there is something I believe you should see."

The king nodded wordlessly. Still discomfited by the ease with which she could order him about, she motioned for him to come with her. Feren had been reluctant to let the king anywhere near her. In the end, Thranduil disregarded his captain's counsel. His condition left him vulnerable to the discovery of his kingdom's wreckage. Tauriel wanted him to fully understand the cost of doing nothing.

They came to the base of a sturdy birch tree. She leapt up nimbly to catch the lowest hanging branch and lever herself upward, casting a glance down at him. He followed suit with agility that belied his usual deliberateness of movement. Branch after branch they climbed. Her blood roared in her ears and she felt alive with the effort it took to gain the height they needed. The wood was rough beneath her palms, callused though they were as she was long accustomed to this. Not even the skirts of her plain dress could impede her momentum. Thranduil kept pace not far below her.

Soon enough, the pair burst through the canopy and stood on the highest branches. What they'd seen of the sky from the forest floor was nothing compared to how it appeared unbounded in all its glory.

"We are but dust in the wind compared to them." The Elvenking whispered of the heavens. She saw how he trembled. Perhaps the stars did not shine so brightly in the long years of what memory he retained. "A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon." His invocation may have kindled her fury if he had spoken it earlier. Under the stars, she felt her sorrow ease. She wondered what filled his mind. If it was grief for the ancient kingdoms of his youth or remorse for how that grief had numbed him to the suffering of others. The starlight illuminated them both. Even without his crown and finery, outfitted as a commoner, he was resplendent. The ravages of time did not exist where they were.

"I have often come here," Tauriel choked, blinded by sudden tears she could not stop from falling. "Beyond the forest and up into the night. It is here that the world falls away and the white light of forever fills the air." Rather than fight it, she recalled to whom she spoke these exact words not so very long ago.

He gently dried her tears, his warm palm resting upon her cheek. The night wind ushered her into his touch and she let herself lean against him. Fear and doubts could not cripple her now. In the eyes of her people, she was disgraced and broken. In the arms of this king, below Varda's glimmering mantle, she was reborn.

Sindarin Translation:

"A Elbereth Gilthoniel o menel palan-diriel, le nallon."

"O Star-queen Starkindler from firmanent gazing afar, to thee I cry."