Tauriel did not think much of hunting alone, retrieving her kills alone and trekking back through the woodlands alone. Back to the village, back to the hut where she had left a sleeping  shapeshifter. She actually wasn’t much for the domestic lifestyle, at least not in her hut but.. For him, though she wouldn’t admit to any of it, she wished to please him. Even if she pleased him just by a quick kiss, a fond glance riddled with sharp words or a swift punch to his snout. She wished to be something more than that, no words could form the reasons and she couldn’t find any reasons to give to the words. All she knew is that she wished to see him happy because of her, and … If bringing home a meal and cooking it was the way, she at least had a place to start. 

She thought it odd he wasn’t still asleep when she returned. Closing the door after herself, she made haste to cook the animal she had killed, a few rabbits. The meat was now simmering above a fire and he still had yet to return. A curious glance to the doorway at the sound of approaching feet. Standing immediately to address him with a quizzical look and to inquire just where he had been all day. She was met with a knock. Taken aback by Fenrirs sudden manners, tauriel began to become skeptic as to who was at her door. Silent feet approached the door swiftly before opening. 

Her woodland kin, Elinwe below her command came to her doorstep with regret staining her eyes. “Captain,” she slowly started, Tauriel cutting her off, her anxiety flaring sparking her callused demeanor- she hated hesitation. “– What is it? Elinwe, speak.” Elinwe shrunk back, she knew her sister captain well and though Tauriel would hold herself together, Elinwe knew what Tauriel would face; she had faced it before, and repeatedly, to the point where Tauriel was hard pressed to ever form a relationship of any kind beyond a distant friendship.

“The wolf,” Tauriel roving eyes locked with Elinwes; they were hardening, “we found him,” tauriels eyes went bright, her feelings of anxiety over her wolf vanishing, “washed up upon the riverbed dead.” Tauriel inclined backwards, reeling on the inside. No. No, no, no, no, no. She had left him alone- she wished him not to follow her, he had been asleep in her bed, the scent of him still lingered amongst her hut– her home. Tauriel reached for the meal she had prepared, her hands burning on the iron pot as she veered to her right throwing the meal against a wall, screaming both pain and grief. 

The wooden wall broke under the force of her blow, her sudden action kicked the flames of the fire pit up and into the dry walls outside the ring of stone. Collapsing to her knees, the captain lost her composure as she gripped her burnt hands close to her chest. She had thought a new life possible, she had thought of a family; of a dear friendship. But she had only been a fool, she was still that young child who ventured far from home, returning to a burning village and a pillaged home where her parents laid dead. The only difference this time was she was the one burning down her home, the home that smelt of him. 

Elinwe rushed Tauriel, snatching her lithe form from the ground. The captain mentally reverting back, clasping on to Elinwe’s garb weeping. Of all the things she fought for, they were in vein for the feeling that crushed her now was overwhelming. Elinwe struggled to remove Tauriel from the burning hut, it was as if Tauriel had gone to stone. When did the darkness yield? When did it stop wringing death upon those that are dear. Why did tradegy always follow in pursuit behind happiness?