ladytauriel | Fic: Starlit Spirits

Author's Notes: Yes! I finished. I sincerely thank anyone who has taken the time to read this. I hope I made you love Tauriel and Kíliel just a little bit more. Any comments are welcome!
I would like to thank my beta, Thrandildo, once again, because she really is awesome for betaing for me, despite her personal opinions about this fic. Thanks, Bela!
Stay tuned for more fics coming starting next weekend!

Chapter 9

Four Years Later

"Listen, Kíli, listen!" Tauriel yelled, spinning around, hitting Kíli in on the shoulder with the spatula she was holding.

"What?" he asked in irritation. "Leave me alone, Jesus."

"You really don't want me to recite this new poem to you?" Tauriel inquired in mock hurt. "It's about you!"

"Oh, that can't lead to anything good," he taunted her. "Now I'm trembling with fear."

Tauriel cleared her throat, and in mocked pompous, recited the poem:

"Kíli was like a broken spring swallow,

Finally flying at the Olympic Games.

In nostalgia and sorrow for four years he wallowed,

Yearning all night for the games' burning flames."

Kíli gently pulled the spatula out of her hands, taking them to pull her towards him. The smell of the cooking omelette wafted towards them, but they stood in embrace, wrapped in each other in the warm sunlight that seeped through the windows of Kíli's Amsterdam flat.

"Thats quite a mean and taunting poem," Kíli complained. "Maybe you should just stick to writing newspaper entries." His airy whisper blew softly into Tauriel's throat, and Tauriel had to stifle an inappropriate moan.

"Oh, really?" Tauriel grinned, taking Kíli by the shoulders, spinning him around, and pinning him to the wall behind her. His head rolled back, and his eyes smiled at her through his long, dark lashes. "You really loved the love-inspired angry news article that I had dedicated to you?"

"Nah, just your portrayal of Azog de Moria as another Tonya Harding," Kíli joked. "It had been extremely helpful."

After the events that had come to pass with Kíli at the end of the National Figure Skating Championships, it had been really hard for Tauriel to sit still. She had been elated from joy when Kíli's recovery reached it's end, discharged from the hospital only after almost three weeks. However, during those three weeks, the 2014 Sochi Olympics had come to pass, and de Moria and the two younger competitors shined on the ice with a merciless glint of a black obsidian in their eyes and a stone of dirty coal in the place of their hearts. Only with a sheer stroke of luck, it had originally seemed to Tauriel, that Azog de Moria had placed higher than Denis Ten, placing him at third place after Patrick Chan with silver and Yuzuru Hanyu with gold.

However, strange and frightful news reports had begun to float around the international sports programs, recounting the constant accidents that overtook many of the male figure skaters after short program. They included the hospitalization of a Japanese competitor Tatsuki Machida, after a particular practice in Germany, and the broken leg of a Spanish competitor Javier Fernandez after unexpectedly accidentally tripping on someone's foot while exiting the stadium. These men had placed higher than de Moria during the short program, and Tauriel had begun to suspect that these occurrences, as well as what happened to Kíli, had not been an accident.

The explanation that the doctor had given Tauriel was that Kíli was beaten by a murky figures that tended to live in the neighborhoods around the Thialf stadium, those who lurked in the alleyways through which Kíli had gone. However, the anger that she had felt brewing within her, as men less qualified than Kíli kept taking the opportunity to win while he could not, had made her inquire into the background of the figure skater with suspicious intentions.

Azog de Moria was a figure with a dark past, not particularly happy, as she learned from various
credited sources. His father, a widower with his only son and a once successful figure skater, had made him train on the ice since twenty months, in his childhood and adolescence, de Moria had spent long weeks hospitalized, or unable to skate because of casts, due to a constant flow of injuries. Despite wanting to quit, he was pressured by his relentless father to stay in the sport. Many rumors and dark stories were tied to the skater and his father, such as the closing of the skating rink at which de Moria had trained. It resulted, unexpectedly, in the resignation of coaches and the quitting of most of the students.

Knowing this, Tauriel had not been able to idly sit still and let a suspicious criminal, possibly involved in the assault on multiple competitors, become an Olympic medalist. Working at the manor by day, visiting Kíli, who had not gained full consciousness for another two weeks, and researching and writing by night. This had become Tauriel's life. And soon, her claims and long article was published. An official reinvestigation of her plans occurred, and de Moria had pleaded guilty in court.

As much as Tauriel hated to hurt a broken man with an unfortunate past by stripping him of his medals and disqualifying him from all international and national figure skating circuits, it was the path he had chosen for himself.

Kíli had his feet back on the ice, Tauriel's words helping him regain his confidence. However, something deep and meaningful had risen within her as well.

The words that she had written, the thoughts that she bitterly jabbed at anyone who would read her article, were on the paper. It was done. They summoned her back to a pen and paper, or her MacBook and coffee stained keyboard, and she could not help the words that flowed through the tips of her fingers.

Honestly, Tauriel had had not the slightest idea why she let herself end up at Mirkwood Manor. She loved Lord Thranduil and Legolas, and she knew that she was part of their family, like a daughter and a sister, but working as a bartender and guard captain was never a life goal. Now, Tauriel knew.

There were words that sang in her blood, as her heart pumped it through her chest every morning, when she sweetly kissed Kíli good mornings. There were words that flitted through the outskirts of her still-functioning mind, even when he kissed her breathlessly and senselessly while spinning around in the ice, her legs wrapped around his waist, after an exhilarating practice session.

There were words when she cooked him breakfast, even if they were silly and stupid. But these
were the words that she had pushed down within her, deep into being, after the death of her parents. It hurt too much to write. How could she write, when the only emotion that her heart projected was unbearable sadness?

Now, Tauriel smiled down into Kíli's open face, and she knew that she had freed the singing caged bird from her heart. He stood in front of her, an open and honest expression on his face, and she leaned down to kiss the small smile off his lips.

"Your flight to Pyeongchang is in five hours," she whispered. Finally, finally, the greatest international championship was here. A dream for Kíli, glistening brighter than the dim light of the sun at dusk this day, waiting for him tomorrow.

"And you'll be there soon, too," Kíli insisted.

"I will be," she responded softly.

"But only after you make sure to write the most amazing final paper and secure your Dutch Language Major," he assured her. "You deserve it."

Tauriel grinned, now knowing that this is true. “My supporter and encourager and shining star, Kíli Durinson, I thank you,” she said. “Do you have your runestone for luck?”

“No,” Kíli responded seriously, waving towards where it rested atop the fireplace. “The runestone has already done its job. Having you, my dear Tauriel, has been my sheer luck. The rest are details.”

The end.