How I Leave You

A Fool's Gold

"So they're really gone?"

Tauriel nods gravely as she hands me the cup of tea she made. The morning creeps in through the windows. I fell asleep at last.

"They left at dawn," she says, taking a sip of her own beverage. "All except Kili."

"Kili? What on Middle Earth is he still doing here?"

She shakes her head. "Something about keeping the Master in check while the other dwarves are gone."

"Strange," I muse. "I never took him to be the kind of dwarf who stayed behind. Especially not from reconquering his kingdom. But I suppose some things are worth staying for." I take a sip of my tea. "...Or some ones."

"I do not know to whom you might refer," Tauriel says, looking innocent.

This makes me huff, though there is no real amusement in it. A darkness befalls me as a realization hits me.

"I'm alone, Tauriel," I say after a while, my mouth distorting into an upside-down frown. "I'm all alone again."

"Don't you say that." She uses her empty hand to grab mine. "You have me. And-- and Gandalf, and Galadriel. And all the other friends you've made on your many travels."

"Friends," I say, wiping my eyes with the back of my other hand. "Life-long friends, even. But not family. I've been alone for so long, Tauriel." I look out of the window, onto the water that ebbs beneath it. "I believe it might be time for me to go home. That is what I came all this way for, after all."

"Home?" She furrows her auburn brows. "Surely you do not mean home to the Ruins of Rhûn?"

"They may be ruins now," I say, trying to hide the defensiveness in my voice. "But I could rebuild it. At the very least, I could try. I have to."

"Try to what? Rule a kingdom of one? You would die from loneliness, Ilwien. Naiads are social creatures. Fish are hardly good enough company to sustain yourself on."

"I-- I would figure it out as I go. Please, Tauriel. You do not know what it's like to have no place to call home. To have no people to call your own. To-- to be on your own for almost two centuries."

Again those tears.

She reaches in, caressing my cheek with her velvet fingers.

"You're right," she says. "I do not know what that is like."

"I stupidly thought that maybe... maybe I'd find something similar to kinship in joining this company. But they didn't even hesitate to leave me behind." I sigh deeply, trying to get a hold of myself. "At least Bilbo is still here, I suppose."

"Bilbo?" Tilting her head, Tauriel withdraws her hand from my own. "Bilbo left with the others."

I almost drop the cup.

"He did what?"

"He's their burglar, Ilwien. This is what they needed him for all along."

"But surely he won't-- he can't..." I swallow something heavy. "The mountain, the-- the dragon..."

Oh, Aulë.

The ring.

I never got to give him the ring.

How will he hide from a dragon's wrath in plain sight? How will he survive?

"Tauriel, I have to-- I have to go."

I jump off the bed, placing the tea on a table as I start to get dressed.

"Surely you do not mean to the mountain?"