Chapter Text
|| NOW ||
She is one the few permitted to hunt, for she possesses a degree of restraint that is unusual among her kind, and rarer still in one so young.
Whispers fly behind her back: She has yet to fully forsake her past; She was not properly bloodied; For all that she has slain multitudes across the centuries, she has never known the ecstasy of draining a living heart. There is enough truth to the rumors that she might be subject to suspicion and scorn had she not proven her loyalty time and again.
She prefers to hunt alone. The spiders she tracks this night are not prey, however. They are vermin, fell creatures loosed by the enemy of her kin. Mindless, fearless, hunger is their only drive, a voracity that cannot be satisfied.
She will return them to ash.
The pack is not a large one, though it is strange it should roam so far to the north while still remaining beneath the eaves of the Mirkwood. There should be nothing to draw it here. The settlement of men lies to the south and east, while the forest here is a snarl of vigilant vines and thorns. The vegetation bends to the will of the Woodland King; and even Tauriel, who is his get and carries his mark upon her always, would have difficulty penetrating far into his defenses.
She can see well enough by stars alone, but the moon tonight is low and large, clothed in tendrils of cloud. Its light casts the spiders' trail in stark relief. They are not difficult to track when moving through the canopy, for they are lumbering and lack the intelligence to conceal their passage. On the ground they are more vulnerable but also quicker. It won't be long before the pack overtakes its quarry, if it hasn't already.
A cry reaches her ears. It is not the expected shriek of fear, nor one of pain, but lusty roar: a battlecry. Sounds of a struggle erupt ahead. She knows the clatter of fangs meeting steel all too well, and the squelch of a weapon striking undead flesh, but her kin are never so vocal. Any other creature that would stand against a spider pack should be approached with caution, so she leaps into the trees, moving swiftly from branch to gnarled branch until she is close enough to survey the scene.
Two man-shaped figures stand back to back, drawn swords already dripping with ichor. One smaller spider lies dismembered at their feet, another wounded and twitching, while the last and largest circles, chittering in frustration.
Fortune shines on her tonight. She recognizes the men from before, the brothers, one bright of hair and one dark. There is no way to assist them without making her presence known, and she is not certain she could subdue both at once without blemishing them, well-armed and coordinated as they are. Best to let them finish the spiders unaided, stalk them afterwards and find an opportunity to separate them.
She will take the bright one, she decides. Hair like gold, like the sun. Her king will be pleased. The dark one with the kindly smile she will glamor and send back to the village of men. He will grieve but he will live.
The men speak to each other in a coarse language she does not know, forming a plan. They split apart, the dark shouting and waving his arms to draw the spider's attention while the bright angles away, pulling something from a bandolier across his chest. It is a firepot, she thinks -- a small one about the size of his fist but similar to the type her kin employ against swarms of invading spiders and ghouls. He drops to one knee, striking flint on the pommel of his sword in a struggle to light the pot.
Here she can help. Tauriel is one who has tasted the blood of their sometime-allies, the terrible enchanters of Lorien, lending her a fraction of their power. She summons a spark, casts it to light the cord; and if the bright one notices that the flame burns a more sullen red than usual, he is too busy taking aim to comment. He looses with a shout and the pot flies true, shattering on impact to coat the spider in liquid fire.
It is not enough, she sees at once. The pot was too small; the spider will be slow to burn, feeling neither pain nor alarm to distract it from its target. It rears above the dark one, who hacks at the grasping limbs, severing two for all the good it does him. The bright one calls a warning too late. His brother is thrown down, pinned beneath a flailing monstrosity that drips gobs of flame, razor fangs a hand's-breadth from his face.
Tauriel grips the hilt of her knife, but there is little to be done from a distance; and the bright one blocks any throw she might make, leaping at the spider with his sword flashing. He opens its abdomen, mixing ichor with the splashing fire, but the wounded spider has worked its remaining legs beneath its prey, clutching the dark one in a deadly embrace.
He fights valiantly, raw strength and desperation barely holding the fangs at bay as the spider bears down with its weight, squeezing him closer. His sword slips, and he casts it aside to brace the fangs with his hands. Tauriel scents blood on the air and knows at once that he has been cut despite his heavy gloves.
The vitality pounding through his veins is heady enough, but his fear adds an exquisite edge. For a moment it is all she can do to clutch the tree trunk and fight down her rising thirst, her own delicate fangs bared. She can only watch as the bright one slams into the spider with his shoulder. The dark one thrashes his legs and together the three -- men and abomination -- go tumbling over.
It will be finished soon. The bright one hacks more limbs, freeing his brother enough to straddle the weakening spider; and the dark one uses his new leverage to pry the fangs apart, howling in triumph when he gives a last heave that cracks open the monster's face.
Tauriel's cry of warning is lost in the brothers' cheers. They don't know their adversary as she does -- neither is aware of the exposed stinger until the spider spasms, curling in on itself and driving the barb into the dark one's side. The spider is damaged, true, and the barb a last resort, less effective than fangs at delivering venom, but a lesser dose only means that the man will linger in agony.
Call her sentimental, foolish even. She truly had desired that he live.
The bright one gasps a word that is likely his brother's name, disbelief writ on his face. She decides that she will take and spell him before grief has had a chance to harden in his heart. Her king will enjoy it less, but this is a mercy she can perform.
Rising, the dark one finishes hacking apart the spider with his brother. Blood flows freely down his side, the taint now mixed in it burning her senses. Although she no longer desires him she can still admire his endurance and stubbornness. He takes one swaying step apart, sheathing his sword, then another before crashing to his knees. The bright one is there to ease his collapse to the ground, inspecting the wound even as they speak, one rapidly and the other haltingly in their strange tongue. The exchange has the sound of an argument, and when the dark one grips his brother's arm, she wonders if he pleads for the relief of a quick end.
Tauriel makes to descend from her perch. What is it to her to dispense one more death? She would not have the bright one go to captivity with his brother's blood on his hands.
She alights on the forest floor, thankfully too distant yet to be noticed, for she is startled when the dark one's heartbeat slows drastically, then stutters and halts. There was no opening of a vein to accompany it, no fresh outpour of blood. A blade driven into the heart, perhaps?
Drawing near, she hears the last bit of breath leave his lungs, but the sound is wrong, a rasp rather than a sigh. Then, impossibly, another heartbeat, so ponderous that she does not recognize it at first for what it is. She has never known living flesh to make such a noise, like the dull scrape of a bootheel on exposed rock.
The bright one stands without warning, turns and strides away from the scene even as he sheathes his filthy sword. Tauriel crouches, hiding in her cloak as he passes uncomfortably near to her position, but he is so intent he might not notice if he were to stumble over her. It dawns on her that he means to leave his brother, perhaps to seek aid, but he must know that he will return to a corpse -- if there is anything left of his brother's body to find and bury. There are many things drawn by the scent of blood that would prey on a wounded man abandoned on the forest floor.
She should follow the bright one, catch him before he goes too far, but curiosity pulls her to the brother. He lies curled on his side, so still and pale that she wonders at the sound she mistook for a heartbeat, for surely there remains no life in him. She would sense it. Even as she watches, color retreats further from his flesh, leaving him grey beneath the stubble of his beard, his lips ashy.
It is a mark of the venom, she thinks. So too must be the the rapid cooling of his body.
She is wrong.
His skin darkens even more, growing mottled and opaque. The hair plastered long and lank about his face likewise changes, taking on an appearance like aged rope. Even the blood on his side crusts dry and grey, flaking away when she touches it. She tries to shift the arm tucked against his chest, but his limbs have locked. His cheek is unyielding beneath the press of her fingertip; and when she puts her whole hand there, feeling nose and lips, brow and eyelids, it is as if she inspects a statue.
Memory stirs. She knows that if she tried to feed from him, her fangs would break on his throat.
He has become stone.
|| THEN ||
The inn is crowded tonight, as inns always are when there are strangers in town. Granted, he is always the stranger, and could not say for certain what is normal and what is not in any of the dozens of settlements he's entered, but there are signs. Wary curiosity hangs thick in the air, along with a haze of pipe smoke and the reek of fish. Too many patrons are nursing their drinks, unwilling to spend more coin than necessary while they linger to overhear news of the outside, maybe a story or two. He's caught some of the youngsters openly eyeing his weapons -- the elders are more circumspect -- but none have been bold enough to approach his table.
Fili returns, sloshing two meager wooden bowls as he sits.
"Well?"
"Fish stew."
"That's not what I meant." Kili wrinkles his nose but digs into his portion anyway. They've gone too many days on dry rations to turn down a hot meal, no matter how unappetizing.
Fili leans close and lowers his voice. "Uncle's not here, and there's no sign he's been here."
"Maybe we're early."
"If anything we fell behind schedule dispatching that wight." Fili shakes his head, spooning through his bowl without yet having taken a bite.
The stew is not terrible, though it would be tiresome to eat it every day, as Kili suspects the lakemen might. "Lost or sidetracked, then."
"Or both knowing him. Could be days before he stumbles into town. We might as well put the time to use. What have you found?"
Kili flicks his eyes to the right; Fili looks while pretending to scratch his ear. "There's our loose tongue." The lad against the wall has been yammering to anyone who will listen the whole time Kili's been watching. He's the type nobody would trust with real secrets, but he'll probably be eager to share what little he does know. "And the old woman by the hearth." She's been silent, huddled in her thin shawl, but he's caught her appraising him with shrewd eyes.
Fili nods without looking this time. The hearth is generally a coveted spot in establishments such as this -- perhaps more so in one built over a lake, with the chill wind blowing off the water coming right up through the floorboards. The woman's clothes are very poor indeed, and she has neither food nor drink. That she's retained her warm place without spending a penny suggests she's either well-liked or respected -- or feared. "You take the granny, then. I'll take the boy."
"Why am I always stuck sweet-talking the grannies?"
"Because you do it so well," Fili says. "And because I dislike it when they mistake me for a long-dead son or husband in their dotage."
So does Kili, but he's learned to smile and pretend and hold their frail hands in his while he questions them. Remembering lost loved ones can dredge up other forgotten memories. He hates when the memories are distressing, but Thorin made it clear that the knowledge their clan lost must be collected anew if they’re to rise to prominence again. Too often they face unfamiliar monsters, claiming narrow victory thanks only to hints and clues sifted from local lore.
There is one benefit to arriving before Thorin. He holds his own secrets, those he keeps even from his closest kin. The town on the lake must be important, else he would not have arranged for his best hunters to converge here. He would not say his reason, but neither had he thought to forbid Kili and Fili from trying to learning it on their own.
|| NOW ||
Tauriel makes a pyre in the same small clearing as the stone man. If left unburned, the spiders would only be raised again by the magic of their master the necromancer, misshapen but still able to do harm.
(Stories tell of weapons with the power to visit true and final death on any being, though none have been seen for an age -- if they existed at all.)
She is smeared with ichor and the detritus of the forest floor by the time she has thrown the last of the spider parts on the blaze. The stench would be unbearable if she wasn't inured to it, but there are some creatures the thick, oily smoke draws rather than drives away. She is not deep enough in the Mirkwood to rely on her king's wards for protection, so she takes to the trees to keep watch.
Only a few hours remain of the night. Day never truly permeates the forest's gloom, so she will have some shelter from the abhorrent sun. Its touch will not kill her, merely sap her strength and dull her mind. She will be no match for the brother when he returns, but she cannot take him as prey, not now that she has an inkling of what he might be. Instead she will watch and follow. It has become vital that she learn all she can and report it back to her king.
She scatters what is left of the fire just before dawn breaks. Ash drifts about the clearing, catching in her hair and settling on the stone man like a foul snow. She brushes him clean as an excuse to study him again, feeling the grainy texture of his skin. When she raps his chin with her knife hilt it makes a bright, solid sound; she presses her ear to his chest and does it again and again, trying to vary the pitch and produce the clearest note.
Musical statues will never set a fashion at court. She wonders if the stone man is hollow, if there is space reserved in his lungs for air. His nostrils are closed off, sealed as a true statue's would be, and his ears as well. It would be troublesome to awake after a long sleep and discover that insects and worse have crawled inside you and taken up residence.
Will he wake? She thinks that he went to stone for protection, to help stave off the spider's venom, but she does not know if he chose to change or simply knew it was imminent, his kind's response to injury. He may not be able to wake on his own; it may require spells or potions or charms to rouse him, which his brother has gone to fetch. He may already be dead. The malice in his veins is not a simple poison but magic in nature. Would it care that the body it corrupts is rock rather than flesh?
It does not occur to her to that he might have awareness of his surroundings until the chest beneath her hand flexes minutely. She was inspecting his gear, digging through his pockets out of idle curiosity, trusting to her senses to warn her should he begin to stir; but she can detect no life in him even as his torpid heart grinds its first beat, and the first whisper of air passes between his frozen lips.
Tauriel flies to the trees, crouching on a low branch, near enough to be easily spotted were it not for her cloak. Even as she watches, life returns to the man between one heartbeat and the next. The vitality she remembers is gone, the venom's caustic scent more pronounced, and she knows at once that stone is indeed no refuge from the necromancer's taint.
The man sits up with a groan. His glove comes away red when he prods his wound, and he smears the blood between his fingers in an almost thoughtful fashion. His glassy eyes seem to make little sense of his surroundings; he calls once for his brother but barely glances at the remains of the pyre, doesn't hunt for the presence of the one who made it. He goes to stone again without warning, jaw clenched and expression set in a grimace.
Tauriel hopes his transformation at least shelters him from pain.
Though the horizon is hidden, she knows the moment the sun rises. Its mere presence in the sky makes her temples pound -- far worse than the sickening sensation of traversing flowing water -- and every moment is a struggle against the dangerous lethargy day brings.
Twice more the man wakes, and twice more he retreats to stone. Each time he is weaker, fevered and disoriented. His calls for aid grow more desperate, his fear -- his mortality -- sharp enough to mask the venom's burn. The second time she almost climbs down from her perch, lured by his shallow breaths and ragged moans. She could not feed from him, but she wonders if she could taste death’s approach on his flushed skin.
Hours pass with no sign of the brother. As nightfall draws closer, Tauriel concedes that he may never return. It does not take a full day to travel to and from the town of men, and she knows nowhere else he might have gone for aid. There are worse things than spiders to encounter alone in the woods; it is possible he met his own end.
She may need to have her answers from the stone man himself, and he is fast running out of time.
|| THEN ||
Fili works the common-room with ease, slipping in a comment here, a joke there, until he's joined the flow of conversation. He's very good at saying a lot while giving away little; he dutifully answers the questions he can concerning the outside world while dancing around the matter of his and Kili's business in the lake town.
If Thorin's called his best hunters, Kili reasons there must be something to hunt. He watches the crowd closely when Fili begins to drop hints, never naming any monster outright but describing the troubles they've seen plague other settlements: disemboweled livestock, unfamiliar tracks or claw marks, unexplained sicknesses, folk seeing or hearing strange things, disappearances...
There, the mention of disappearances makes the elders purse their lips and turn away, while some of the youngsters squirm in their seats. The talkative lad had been coaxed to their table; he bites his lip, gaze shifting between Fili and Kili, on the verge of blurting something he knows he shouldn't.
Kili prompts, "What of the forest to the west?"
Unease reigns for a moment, filled only with muffled coughs and the tense shifting of bodies. Finally someone responds, "What of it?"
"On our way into town, we saw what we thought was a game trail-" He and Fili had known damned well it was no game trail. "-and we followed it. After a mile or so it dumped us in a clearing. What we found there was... odd."
Suspense permeates the room, but no curiosity. Some of the townsfolk at least know about the shackles, heavy iron things chained to grotesque trees, pitted from exposure but well-oiled as if they see regular use. Those who don't know are smart enough not to ask.
"Nothing good comes of that forest," someone says, drawing a ward against evil over their heart.
Another adds, "Damned inhospitable place.”
"It's no concern to me. Can't row my boat nor cast my net for all the trees," a third says, and the crowd laughs nervously.
Kili would bet it is the whole town's concern. Building over a lake must be difficult. So much wood, very little stone. He's noticed that the inn is one of the few buildings to boast a proper chimney, and even though it's worked stone he can still sense it well enough to know its foundation was painstakingly raised off the lake bottom. It would be too heavy otherwise, buckle or collapse the platform that supports the rest of the inn.
Living over water would not make it easier to launch a boat or haul in a catch. A pier is a pier. True, there's room to expand without clearing land, but trees would need to be felled anyway for building material. There is but one bridge from shore to town, a bottleneck carefully guarded, but a gated stockade would offer the same protection -- save against creatures that are loathe to cross flowing water.
He signs undead to Fili, who strokes his mustache in agreement. Before either of them can pry further, though, the lad sitting opposite cracks under the awkward mood and throws out a little desperately, to change the topic, "Did you come up from the south, then? I would have guessed you'd come down from the mou- from the, uh, north."
A murmur of displeasure ripples through the crowd, and the lad sinks in his chair, turning scarlet and looking like he wishes he could swallow his tongue.
By the hearth, the old woman is still hiding in her shawl. She winds and pulls the end of it through her fingers again and again, pensive and surprisingly dexterous. She will not meet Kili's eye, but by the secretive smile lingering about her pinched mouth, she knows he is watching.
"We did not come from the mountain," Fili says, "but our course may take us there, when we continue on. Tell me about it."
It's as if a geas is broken, the townsfolk speaking over each other in their eagerness to tell the unpleasant tale.
"The mountain is haunted."
"-cursed-"
"It's guarded by a great serpent."
"-by terrible magic."
The old woman nods very slightly, as if humming to herself.
"Goblins dwell in the depths."
"A three-headed hound-"
"Sweet music that lures the unwary-"
She sighs and picks at her shawl; and Kili thinks she has lost interest until she offers, "I'll tell you what's in the mountain." Her raspy voice is firm for all that it lacks strength, and the other voices still in anticipation. Basking a moment in the stifling quiet, she sweeps her rheumy gaze about the room. "Death," she pronounces at last. "Many go there, none return."
A gaunt, weasely man snorts, and soon the crowd is twittering, relief mingled with disappointment.
“That's it?”
“Tell us something we don't know, you old crone!”
"Ah, she's all piss and wind."
"It's not true," the lad at their table insists, but he fails to capture much of an audience. It seems heckling the old woman is better entertainment than listening to his blather.
"What isn't true?" Fili asks.
"People come back from the mountain. Old Tomas went there and returned. I heard the story from his cousin, who heard it from Tomas on his deathbed. He was deep in the passages when his lantern blew out and wouldn't relight."
Kili only half pays attention, watching the old woman try and fail to stay aloof, until finally she stands. Pulling the shawl closer around her, she begins to thread her way across the room.
Fili says, "Go on.”
"Well. Tomas might have wandered lost down there until he starved if not for the woman. The most beautiful he'd ever seen, he said, tall and pale with a river of red hair. She was dressed in a shift and barefoot, never made a sound. Vanished if he drew too near, but always reappeared.”
Apparition, hallucination, or fabrication? Kili wonders.
“Led Tomas back to the surface, she did. He got right on his knees and kissed the dirt and when he looked up she was gone for good.”
The old woman's path brings her very close to their table. She pauses there, standing behind the lad's shoulder where he can't see her, and murmurs, "Tomas was a decent man. If any deserved to be spared, it was him."
The lad twitches and twists around in his seat, but the woman ignores him and moves on, shuffling for the door.
Follow, Fili signs, as if Kili wasn't already rising to do it. It's for Kili's benefit too when he folds his hands on the table and asks the lad, "If it's so dangerous, why does anyone go there? What do they seek in the mountain?"
There's a good chance the boy doesn't know, and a fair chance the woman does.
|| NOW ||
The more she thinks on it, the more convinced Tauriel becomes. It should be the stone man. He is weak, susceptible, though she may not need to glamor him to learn what she wants. She might tease it from his fevered mind -- provided she can keep him conscious. The brother would fight her influence; and it is not certain he would know as much. The contrast in their looks suggests they might not be full brothers, or even blood kin at all. The bright one might not have the stone-gift -- if gift it is and not curse.
The next time the dark one wakes, she is waiting for him.
He blinks and clutches at her as if to prove to himself that she is solid and real. “You,” he mumbles before slumping in a coughing fit that leaves him trembling, mouth stained with red flecks. “How? Fili? Fili!”
“Later,” Tauriel says. “Night approaches. We must get you to shelter.”
He manages to shake his head. “Find my brother.”
"You must not return to stone," she warns, lacing the words with a whisper of power to ensure she will be obeyed. Taking up his water skin, she pricks her thumb on her fang and dribbles in a few drops of her blood.
The stone man will believe only what she wants him to: in his mind and memory he will see her sprinkle in dried herbs from a pouch at her belt.
"It will fortify you. Drink." Pressing the skin to his lips, she watches his throat work to swallow. She has no experience with this, doesn't know how much is safe to give him. She is not even certain it will affect him -- he is not entirely human -- but it is the only thing she knows to try.
His breathing steadies, but it is impossible to say yet if the improvement is real or illusory. Whether or not his pain is truly lessened, he will believe that it is. He realizes that he is leaning into her side and sits up a little, wiping his mouth. "I heard the townsfolk... Are you a witch?"
They see what she allows them to, but the conclusions drawn are their own. “Something like that."
“Did my brother send you?”
“He didn't need to.” Tauriel rises slowly, feigning stiff joints. She's long ago learned that it's easier to pretend than it is to disguise appearance and movement both. “Stand up.”
He hesitates, visibly appraising his remaining strength. “I don't know if-”
“You can.”
“I can,” he agrees, and believes that he does stand, though Tauriel more hauls him to his feet.
“There is a cave I know, not far.” The cave is quite far. “You will lean on me and we will walk together. And don't you worry about these old bones. I'm more sturdy than I look.”
They do stumble a short ways through the underbrush, the man all but hanging from Tauriel's shoulder, her arm clamped around his waist.
He will remember no more of the journey, for she picks him up to carry him, telling him, “Sleep.”
He nestles against her as a child would. She knows because long ago she was that child, embarrassed to clutch her beautiful and ethereal rescuer with her grubby hands. Legolas would only carry her thus once, on the night she first came to his father's crumbling palace; he shied even from touching her in the years she spent as his page and companion. She had not fully understood the temptation she presented, not until the night she was secretly called to Thranduil's chambers and ushered into her second life.
The others had respected their prince's claim on her, but what the king wants he takes.
|| THEN ||
The laketown is a cramped maze of walkways and ramshackle structures. Still, it should not be so easy for one old woman to evade Kili's detection. He'd spared but a moment to gather his weapons, yet by the time he exits the inn she is nowhere in sight. He wastes minutes searching fruitlessly before he remembers to check the waterways. She could have taken a boat, or ducked into one of the nearby buildings. Either way, he's not about to return empty-handed -- Fili would laugh, with good reason -- so he dons a pleasant expression and approaches the first person he sees.
"Good evening.”
The fisherman barely glances up from mending a net. “Nothing good about it, stranger.”
Kili keeps the smile but loses the pleasantness, showing his teeth. “I’m looking for someone, an old woman.” He pauses. It's odd, he spent the evening watching her yet he's hard-pressed to describe her. “Green shawl, sits by the inn hearth. Do you know her?”
The man spits on the pier to demonstrate his opinion of the woman. “I might. What's it worth to you?”
“My gratitude,” Kili says. When that fails, he reaches for his purse to toss the man a coin. "And a warm drink. You look like you could use one, friend."
The coin disappears into the man's vest. "Aye, I know of her."
"Know where she lives?"
"Nope."
"How about a name?"
"If I knew it I'd as soon forget it. She's not decent folk, if you follow my meaning."
He does. "Yes, well, I still intend to find her."
"Is it true you're a hunter? Are you going to..." The man lifts his chin and draws a line across his throat.
"My business is none of your concern," Kili says firmly.
"She’s a land dweller, that's all anyone knows. Try at the gatehouse," he calls after Kili, who's already striding away. "Maybe one of the guards can point you in the right direction, at least."
Kili runs, and he still doesn't catch the woman until she's nearly across the bridge to the shore. "Wait. Hey you!" He thinks her hearing must be fine -- after all, she caught the lad's story about Tomas -- so she's likely ignoring him. He'd do the same in her position if chased down by a well-armed outsider, so he's careful not to touch her, slipping around to cut off her path instead. "Please wait, I just want to talk to you."
She halts, holding her ground. Up close, she is taller than he expected, able to look him in the eye despite being stooped with age.
Kili is the one to yield a step backwards so they aren't standing almost atop each other. Her face is rather forgettable, he decides. No strong features, nor weak, just timeworn. "Remember me? From the inn." When she frowns he says, "Sorry, of course you do."
"You have questions."
"Yes."
She warns, "You may not like my answers."
"That depends on whether or not you speak truthfully."
"You weren't drawn here by the mountain," she guesses, "but now you are... curious."
He doesn't know why they were summoned. Thorin may very well have designs on the mountain. Durin's Folk need not fear navigating deep places as ordinary men do. "What do men seek there?”
“That which greedy men are always willing to throw their lives away chasing.” She looks Kili up and down as if for the first time, making her unspoken question clear: Is he a greedy man?
The warning is twofold. Greedy men would also risk their lives defending a prize they feel is theirs, even if it's naught but a fable. As outsiders, he and Fili should tread with even more delicacy and caution than usual. "You said death lies in the depths. What guise does it take?"
The woman's eyes shine with something like satisfaction. "Clever boy, knows which questions are worth asking."
Kili can't imagine sweet-talking her or petting her hand. He finds he much prefers this odd dance of wits. "My brother and I have seen death in many shapes, and none."
She nods at the sword sheathed at his hip. “Seen it and dealt it both.”
That wasn't a question, but he answers regardless. “Aye. We’re sworn against the evils that would prey on the weak and the innocent.”
She tilts her head. “Do you know the purpose of the shackles in the clearing?"
He has suspicions, none of them pleasant.
"Laketown gives tithe to the forest. The weak and the innocent are simply abandoned. The hale and guilty are tethered so they may not escape their fate.”
Kili has seen that too before, folk turning out their own in the hope that whatever dwells in the dark will take what is offered and no more. The lake town itself may be an unattractive target to the mindless undead, but the outlying farms that supply its crops and livestock are vulnerable. "How long has the vile practice persisted?”
“Longer than even I can remember.“ The woman drums a bony finger on her chest, where she still clutches the shawl tight about her. “Would you lay blame on the monsters or the townsfolk?”
"Both. Although... monsters are bound by their nature. Few can help what they are." Surely there are some in the town who would call Kili monster if they knew his secret.
"Hmph." The woman shoos at Kili. "I must be off now, clever boy. My home is far and my bones are weary."
It's because she hasn't asked for a thing that Kili reaches for his purse so readily. "Wait. I can't escort you home but I can put you up for the night at the inn. Have a hot meal and sleep in a warm bed. Leave in the morning when it's safe."
The woman is clearly taken aback by the offer, though she does not entertain it even for a second. Apparently she is not too poor for pride. "Thank you, but no. I don't fear the forest; I'll manage as I always have."
"You should fear it," Kili says, refusing to budge. "Tonight of all nights, with a hunter's moon rising. Even I'll be glad to weather it behind a sturdy door."
"The forest robbed me long ago of all I had worth taking.”
“Save your life.”
She does not respond, simply gazes at Kili with the unnatural calm and patience of the very old, until at last he steps aside to let her pass.