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b2memB2MeM Prompt, Card and Number: Setting as character B7 - getting lost, Legendarium Curiosities B11: Shapeshifting
Format: Short story
Genre: Horror
Rating: T
Warnings: Major character death
Characters: Sigrid, arguably Tauriel and Smaug
Pairings: Sigrid/Tauriel
Summary: The world under the lake is more foreign than any land she could ever hope to travel, airless and full of dancing lights and grasping plant-life. She has seen caves, she has seen jewels, and yet, no matter how she turned, silt stinging her eyes, she has never seen the rise of the dragon's body.
Also on AO3
In the ruins of Lake-town Sigrid sits cross-legged on one of the few remaining piers, balanced precariously on cracking wooden stilts.
She has a home, downriver. She has a town to tend to and a sister who expects her home to help with her wedding preparations. And yet the sun has risen and nearly fallen in the time it has taken her to keep her lonely vigil.
The planks underneath her dip and sway as another's weight joins her. Sigrid holds herself very still as she meets the eyes of Tauriel's reflection in the rippling water, but the old pier holds fast.
"I didn't think you would come," she admits. She hasn't seen the woman in gone five years, hadn't, truly, expected her to give any credence to the rambling recountings of a human's nightmares, especially nightmares so easily attributable to the past, rather than the future.
Tauriel's reflection shrugs. "I was close, anyway. It's been too long since I've seen you and your siblings."
Then how did you get my letter? Sigrid nearly asks, but before she can speak there are arms around her, the comforting scent of loam and wood that always clung to Tauriel filling all her senses, and it doesn't matter.
She is no longer a child, but Tauriel saved her once. It is not impossible to hope she would save her again.
"Thank you," she murmurs, and feels the laughter she gets in response shudder through her bones, so similar to and yet so unalike the shivers of terror that have woken her more nights this year than not.
She lets herself be held in silence for far briefer a time than she would have liked, and then places her hands over those at her waist. "Let me show you what I've found," Sigrid says. "Please - do you trust me?"
"Yes." The reply comes without hesitation, and Sigrid stands, bringing Tauriel with her.
"He's down below," she says. "I know where he fell, we all do, but it's - the water only moves over his body now. Nowhere else."
Sigrid holds her breath once more, but there's no mockery, no condescension, when she's asked, "How far have you ventured down?"
"Not that far," she admits. "I didn't - I didn't want to go alone." The world under the lake is more foreign than any land she could ever hope to travel, airless and full of dancing lights and grasping plant-life. She has seen caves, she has seen jewels, and yet, no matter how she turned, silt stinging her eyes, she has never seen the rise of the dragon's body.
That, more than anything, makes her believe in the fire that haunts her nightmares.
"Well," and Sigrid imagines she can hear the smile in Tauriel's voice now. "Smart of you. Brave, smart girl. I'm here now."
"Thank you," Sigrid says once more, and flushed with praise, before she can think the better of it, she breathes in one last time and hurls them both into the lake.
The shock of late-winter water crashes through her veins, more painful than the last time though the water feels warmer, with the presence of another against her back. As they sink, Tauriel unwraps herself from around Sigrid, lets the currents shift her until they're side by side, only their fingers linked together.
Answering the unspoken question in Tauriel's glittering eyes, Sigrid takes the lead, kicking against her sodden skirt, and trusting the water to bear Tauriel along behind.
There are no paths under the water like there may be on land, but remnants of the Lake-town architecture persist: those foundations too far under to be touched by the dragon's fire and too far from his final resting place to have been shattered then. Some of them she remembers: there, a house-post, there, covered in new growth, the door into what had once been the Great Hall's basement.
There are more plants than she had expected, somehow, even though no creatures have returned to this part of the lake. Sigrid is not at all sure she likes what that means, but she has no choice but to follow the corpse of her last home closer and closer to the centre.
They reach the cave moments before Sigrid thinks it's inevitable that her lungs will give out, stumble onto solid ground in a close, airtight space without even the reflection of the fading sun to grant them light.
The first thing Sigrid understands is that she doesn't recognise this cave. She thinks back, wondering where she turned wrong, but before she puzzles that out, she notices that the only sound she can hear is the drip, drip of water from her hair and clothes.
Tauriel's hand is still in hers, and yet, from her, there is not a sound. Sigrid turns, slides her hand up Tauriel's unnaturally smooth arm and does not touch the fabric of the blouse her reflection had been wearing above water.
Surely, she thinks, surely it is only the cold air that is making Tauriel's hand feel dry in hers. Surely it is only light-headedness from holding her breath so long that has made Tauriel look warped and stretched, framed by the waters of the cave's entrance.
"Tauriel," she says slowly, though she's not sure she wants to hear the creature next to her speak. "Tauriel, where are we?"
The white of teeth is blinding in the cave's blackness, catches on the red - awful, awful red, how can I see something so red - scales that paint the creature's body in a deathly iridescence. "Not Tauriel," it confirms what Sigrid knows now, knows moments - hours - too late.
And by the time she realises, too late, that she wants to scream, she no longer has a throat to help her.
Better me, is all she thinks in the last moments before pain takes her beyond the realm of thought entirely. Better my bones in Lake-town than the dragons, better my death than Tilda's.
And then the face of the shapeshifter is in front of her and it looks nothing like Tauriel, and that is almost a comfort as its teeth descend once more.
Format: Short story
Genre: Horror
Rating: T
Warnings: Major character death
Characters: Sigrid, arguably Tauriel and Smaug
Pairings: Sigrid/Tauriel
Summary: The world under the lake is more foreign than any land she could ever hope to travel, airless and full of dancing lights and grasping plant-life. She has seen caves, she has seen jewels, and yet, no matter how she turned, silt stinging her eyes, she has never seen the rise of the dragon's body.
Also on AO3
In the ruins of Lake-town Sigrid sits cross-legged on one of the few remaining piers, balanced precariously on cracking wooden stilts.
She has a home, downriver. She has a town to tend to and a sister who expects her home to help with her wedding preparations. And yet the sun has risen and nearly fallen in the time it has taken her to keep her lonely vigil.
The planks underneath her dip and sway as another's weight joins her. Sigrid holds herself very still as she meets the eyes of Tauriel's reflection in the rippling water, but the old pier holds fast.
"I didn't think you would come," she admits. She hasn't seen the woman in gone five years, hadn't, truly, expected her to give any credence to the rambling recountings of a human's nightmares, especially nightmares so easily attributable to the past, rather than the future.
Tauriel's reflection shrugs. "I was close, anyway. It's been too long since I've seen you and your siblings."
Then how did you get my letter? Sigrid nearly asks, but before she can speak there are arms around her, the comforting scent of loam and wood that always clung to Tauriel filling all her senses, and it doesn't matter.
She is no longer a child, but Tauriel saved her once. It is not impossible to hope she would save her again.
"Thank you," she murmurs, and feels the laughter she gets in response shudder through her bones, so similar to and yet so unalike the shivers of terror that have woken her more nights this year than not.
She lets herself be held in silence for far briefer a time than she would have liked, and then places her hands over those at her waist. "Let me show you what I've found," Sigrid says. "Please - do you trust me?"
"Yes." The reply comes without hesitation, and Sigrid stands, bringing Tauriel with her.
"He's down below," she says. "I know where he fell, we all do, but it's - the water only moves over his body now. Nowhere else."
Sigrid holds her breath once more, but there's no mockery, no condescension, when she's asked, "How far have you ventured down?"
"Not that far," she admits. "I didn't - I didn't want to go alone." The world under the lake is more foreign than any land she could ever hope to travel, airless and full of dancing lights and grasping plant-life. She has seen caves, she has seen jewels, and yet, no matter how she turned, silt stinging her eyes, she has never seen the rise of the dragon's body.
That, more than anything, makes her believe in the fire that haunts her nightmares.
"Well," and Sigrid imagines she can hear the smile in Tauriel's voice now. "Smart of you. Brave, smart girl. I'm here now."
"Thank you," Sigrid says once more, and flushed with praise, before she can think the better of it, she breathes in one last time and hurls them both into the lake.
The shock of late-winter water crashes through her veins, more painful than the last time though the water feels warmer, with the presence of another against her back. As they sink, Tauriel unwraps herself from around Sigrid, lets the currents shift her until they're side by side, only their fingers linked together.
Answering the unspoken question in Tauriel's glittering eyes, Sigrid takes the lead, kicking against her sodden skirt, and trusting the water to bear Tauriel along behind.
There are no paths under the water like there may be on land, but remnants of the Lake-town architecture persist: those foundations too far under to be touched by the dragon's fire and too far from his final resting place to have been shattered then. Some of them she remembers: there, a house-post, there, covered in new growth, the door into what had once been the Great Hall's basement.
There are more plants than she had expected, somehow, even though no creatures have returned to this part of the lake. Sigrid is not at all sure she likes what that means, but she has no choice but to follow the corpse of her last home closer and closer to the centre.
They reach the cave moments before Sigrid thinks it's inevitable that her lungs will give out, stumble onto solid ground in a close, airtight space without even the reflection of the fading sun to grant them light.
The first thing Sigrid understands is that she doesn't recognise this cave. She thinks back, wondering where she turned wrong, but before she puzzles that out, she notices that the only sound she can hear is the drip, drip of water from her hair and clothes.
Tauriel's hand is still in hers, and yet, from her, there is not a sound. Sigrid turns, slides her hand up Tauriel's unnaturally smooth arm and does not touch the fabric of the blouse her reflection had been wearing above water.
Surely, she thinks, surely it is only the cold air that is making Tauriel's hand feel dry in hers. Surely it is only light-headedness from holding her breath so long that has made Tauriel look warped and stretched, framed by the waters of the cave's entrance.
"Tauriel," she says slowly, though she's not sure she wants to hear the creature next to her speak. "Tauriel, where are we?"
The white of teeth is blinding in the cave's blackness, catches on the red - awful, awful red, how can I see something so red - scales that paint the creature's body in a deathly iridescence. "Not Tauriel," it confirms what Sigrid knows now, knows moments - hours - too late.
And by the time she realises, too late, that she wants to scream, she no longer has a throat to help her.
Better me, is all she thinks in the last moments before pain takes her beyond the realm of thought entirely. Better my bones in Lake-town than the dragons, better my death than Tilda's.
And then the face of the shapeshifter is in front of her and it looks nothing like Tauriel, and that is almost a comfort as its teeth descend once more.
