WHO: Nina Deforest → Tauriel WHEN: Evening of August 20 WHERE: Her kitchen SUMMARY: Nina has another helping of Tauriel interacting with Thranduil. WARNINGS: None
"You think your life is worth more than theirs when there is no love in it? There is no love in you."
Tauriel stood firm, looking at Thranduil, her would-be king, had he not already banished her from his kingdom. It was a punishment that she perhaps deserved, her actions having had gone against everything he had ordered. But Tauriel had been following his orders for too long, swallowing her discontent and knowledge that what he bid was not in the right. Perhaps her going after the dwarves had set her on her current path, but it was just the catalyst that she had needed. Still, she couldn't have imagined standing with her bow, arrow nocked and pointed directly at the man who had, in many ways, helped raise her to be who she had become.
She stood with her arrow raised for one moment, another. Then, with an ease and swiftness she hadn't expected, Thranduil's sword arched through the air, cutting Tauriel's bow in two. He stepped forward, his blade pointed toward her chest.
"What do you know of love? Nothing. What you feel for that dwarf is not real. You think it is love? Are you ready to die for it?"
In that moment, Tauriel thought that she very well might have been. Perhaps it would have been a waste, her efforts at swaying the king to change his mind and lend his aid for naught. It didn't matter in the end, as Legolas's own blade pushed his father's away.
"If you harm her… you will have to kill me."
The king and prince looked at one another for a moment, then Legolas turned away. Even before he spoke to confirm it, Tauriel knew that he would go with her. Her heart could perhaps not be his in the way she was too aware he wanted it, but she wouldn't doubt her oldest friend's loyalty.
With a blink, Nina found herself in her home. In one hand was a plate, covered in suds from where she had been washing it over the sink. At her feet was Sam, staring up at her with hope in his eyes, his only knowledge of the kitchen and his favorite human's presence in it being that occasionally food would fall to the ground for him to snatch up. Her eyes closed for a moment, letting the plate sink back into the water as her hands gripped the counter and she released a long sigh.
She had seen enough of Thranduil in the last many months to know that the king was not a particularly kind or warm elf. She had come to understand how he looked down on Tauriel for being Silvan, much in thanks to the hierarchy of the elves that Nina wasn't sure she'd have been able to abide by herself. But, she also knew that he had invited her into his home, groomed her into becoming the warrior that she had grown to be. There had to have been some affection lingering in the king's head or heart for the younger elf, she thought. If there was, though, she hadn't seen it yet.
Nina knew that he was wrong, though. She could feel Tauriel's emotions just as keenly as her own. For as much as she knew she loved Rupert, Nina knew that Tauriel loved Kili; she had only let herself dwell a minimal amount of time as to whether or not there was more correlation than simple luck of both pairs meeting one another. For Thranduil to suggest otherwise was downright wrong. Maybe it was because of the simple taboo of an elf and dwarf that led him to say as much -- or maybe he was just saying something hurtful to cut Tauriel because of her own slashing words. Nina wasn't sure if she'd ever know or even find out in the future. What she did know, though, was that her dreams and visions seemed to be leading up to something big, something familiar… and she wasn't sure she was ready for it.