Chapter Text
It was a beautiful place to be hunted, all things considered. From their vantage point on the bald hillside, the entire valley rolled out away from them. Sloping fields, sewn neat with crops; acres of wooded hills full of chirping birds and dewy ferns; a thin swath of morning fog drifting in the valley below. It would have been a nice thing to wake up to, the damp air cool with the promise of a hot day to come. They would have stretched and rolled up their bedding and stolen some vegetables from one of the farms below. Only enough to feed them, not enough to be noticed. These days, that was as close to doing the right thing as they got.
But with the men behind them, the scene offered no comfort.
“We’ve gotta move, Lup,” Taako pleaded, pivoting to watch his sister stop-- again --and glare behind them. She’d been doing this on and off for the last hour, as if daring the men to catch up to them. Daring them to fight her. Every time seemed like a final stand. Here is where I will meet them , her shoulders said, hiked up around her ears. Here is where I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done .
But then Taako would grab her hand, and she would turn and see the bruising on his throat, the blood drying on his brow, the tear in his shirt. And she would grip his hand in hers and together they would keep running.
He hadn’t meant for it to happen like this.
The caravan--a band of travellers headed toward the ocean, many of them carrying lofty dreams of finding gold in the Sundarin Hills and striking it rich--was a big one. It had been hospitable at first, moreso than some and less so than others. Taako and Lup and joined up with it a few weeks back. To cook and to fix things and to stay out of the way.
And when one of the men had started to make aimless conversation with Taako, he hadn’t thought much of it. He lied about where he and his sister came from as easily as if he were breathing. Oh, we’re from the forgotten hills. No, this is only our second caravan. Yes, our parents were travellers. Oh, yes, quite tragically I’m afraid, the bandits attacked so suddenly. No, we escaped into the night.
All lies. But the man kept asking, kept trying to “get to know” him. Taako had learned enough now to be weary, and when Lup whispered to him in the dead of night, asking about the man, if they had to leave--Taako had said no.
Because it was a dangerous road to the coast, and they were safer in the caravan than on their own. He didn’t want to leave yet, not if there was still food for them to eat, shelter at night, safety in numbers.
Neither of them suspected that more than one of the men were in on it. The one was only a messenger, relaying Taako’s lies to his companions. They’re alone. No connections to other caravans, no parents looking for them. Vulnerable.
One evening, Taako had been cooking a stew for the group in a wagon parked along the edge of the encampment. The man came to talk to him again. Had seemed friendly enough. Had cut off a large chunk of bread and some cheese, gave them to Taako. Don’t worry about it , the man had said. You work awful hard for us. You’ve earned it .
Taako had looked at the offer warily. Wondered, not for the first time, that if the man were a woman, would he still be so uncomfortable?
“It’s alright, sweetheart,” the man had said, his voice changing, lowering, “go ahead.”
And he’d tucked a curl of Taako’s hair behind his ear.
Taako’s thin, nimble fingers found the thick callused one beside his face and bent . He didn’t remember making the decision to break the man’s finger. The crack, the snap, the howl of surprise and pain from the man. Taako had wheeled back, wooden spoon at the ready. For some reason, he’d anticipated a moment to figure out his plan. He thought the man would be caught off guard, would stand there for a few precious seconds while Taako figured out his escape plan.
He hadn’t. The man recovered quickly, almost immediately, almost like he knew what the risk was of touching Taako and had been anticipating it. He moved faster than Taako thought he could and grabbed him around the neck.
Somewhere in the struggle--in Taako’s kicking and thrashing, in the man’s raining fist, the spittle on his lip as he pinned the young elf down and began to list off how he would be punished--two more arrived. Two of the men who had been in league with him.
Humans , Lup would say for a long number of years afterward, are more violent in packs than wolves or demons.
Taako knew some magic. Enough to light fires, to refresh wilted herbs, to impress people into letting them join caravans. He held out a palm in desperation and pressed it to the man’s chest, pushing as much heat into his fingertips as he could. The man howled, and released Taako’s throat. He coughed and gasped and curled to the side.
“You little shit,” the man snarled. Then, to his companions, “Grab his ankles. We’ll take what we want.”
Taako pushed his hands forward again, palms burning bright with heat, but huge hands grabbed his thin wrists, pushed them down and away. Taako writhed and kicked and, through a crushed throat, tried to scream.
When Lup came crashing into the wagon, she didn’t pause to assess. She didn’t need those few precious seconds that Taako did. She drove a knife into the man closest to her, the blade slipping into his lower back with ease. As he curled back in shock and pain, she shoved him against the second, and then with a flaming palm, grabbed the side of the cauldron Taako had been cooking in, and yanked it over. Boiling stew spilled down on the first aggressor, the man with the broken finger.
Lup pulled Taako through the howling confusion. He could feel the stew burn where it splattered against his shins as he stumbled after her, but he didn’t stop to address it. They tumbled out onto the cool dirt. People were looking over now, stalled with confusion. Not yet reacting. Finally, here were those precious few seconds that Taako had hoped for earlier, and Lup shoved through them. She rammed herself, full force, into an orc woman carrying a travel bag, and scooped it up when it was dropped. She grabbed up Taako’s hand again, her eyes burning with rage, and took off running into the trees. He stumbled along, keeping up only by the grace of her grip.
Those first few hours were terrifying. The distant cry of men in their wake, dogs barking, pursuing. Lup never slowing down or hesitating as she led them deep into the forest. She allowed them a chance to rest only when the cries were so distant that they could barely hear them, and even then, it was more to assess the damage than to regain any strength.
She saw for the first time the bruising around his throat, the split eyebrow, the purpling cheekbone. The burning on his shins was her doing, and her face twisted when she saw it. She led him into a shallow creek, just to stand in the cool water.
And while Taako cried against her shoulder, Lup looked back the way they had come, her chest heaving, her eyes bright with anger. Had it been up to her, she would have remained planted in that creek. She would have met the men there and fought to avenge her brother’s abuse.
But Taako took her hand again, and they continued on.
They were into their third day now, upon the misty hillside. As the sun began to fill the world, it was possible to pretend that they had just woken up. That their shaking muscles and aching feet were due to their just rising, rather than having not stopped once to properly rest. They crossed into the meadowy hillside and stumbled until they reached a boulder, standing proudly from the tall golden grass. Lup turned and leaned her back against it, tilting her face to the early morning sun. The bag she’d stolen from the orc women slumped off of her shoulder and hit the ground with a cluttered thump.
They were damp and shivering from their night in the woods. Taako resisted the urge to curl against her side; it had been long enough now that he was equal parts ashamed and angry.
Condemnation burned on the tip of his tongue, but he forced it back. To be simultaneously angry at Lup and wanting to hide against her was too much after thirty six hours of running. Instead, he limped around the boulder, letting her have her moment’s peace.
“They can’t still be chasing us,” Lup’s disembodied voice reasoned. “We’re not that important.”
Taako didn’t respond. He rounded the other side of the boulder, feeling unnervingly alone without his sister in sight. Down the slope of the hill, on the shadowy side of the rock, the ground dipped further than expected. Taako came to a stop on unsteady feet, and peered down into an opening beneath the boulder. In the shadow of the stone, it was nearly invisible; he had only found it because he was so close to the rock. He turned his eyes out over the field and cautiously picked his way into the grass. When he turned back after several yards, there was no sign of the small alcove.
He found Lup still in the sun. In the few seconds before she noticed him, she held her hands against her face. He saw her shoulders shake, her spine curl ever so slightly inward as she struggled through whatever emotion had gripped her.
Taako stood quietly and watched. The anger left him all at once as he realized Lup had more reason to be angry with him than he did with her.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, leaning against the rock for support. Lup took a quick, deep breath and stood upright, pushing away from the boulder. She turned to look at him directly.
“What did they do? You were just making dinner. Why would they hurt you?”
He dropped his eyes. Looked away over the valley below, full of places to hide, opportunities to disappear.
“Taako,” Lup snapped, demanded, pleaded, and he flinched, but not for fear of her reaction.
“He touched my hair. And I… I don’t know.”
Lup’s face strained. “You don’t know?”
In occurred to him that she was assuming the worst. That the man had done more than just tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. Panic fluttered in his stomach, the need to clarify suddenly urgent.
“He touched my hair and I broke his finger. And he attacked me. I’m sorry, Lup, if I had--I didn’t mean for things to get so-, and then they did, and-, I’m sorry I just--”
Lup’s shoulders slumped, if only a fraction of an inch. “He looked at you like a predator,” she said, her voice thick with anger not directed at him. “We should have left sooner.”
A bit of his own anger flared back. They were too tired for this. “It was our safest route to the coast. If I had just dealt with it we would still--"
“ Taako ,” Lup snapped, so suddenly and fiercely that her brother flinched.
Then, finally, he saw it. After three days, there were suddenly and finally tears in her eyes.
“I’m glad,” she said, her voice warbling under the strain of trying to keep the tears back. “I’m glad you broke his fucking finger. I wish you’d broken his fucking hand . Don’t ever let anyone-- Taako, don’t just let anyone do that to you, it’s not…” The first tears broke free. Taako stood stock still. “It’s not worth it!”
Then the dam crumbled, and Lup pressed the heels of her palms back against her eyes, and Taako was broken from his motionless trance. He caught her in his arms as she curled downward toward the ground. Her arms circled around his middle and together, in the damp grass, they held one another and allowed themselves to be vulnerable.
After some time, Lup pulled herself together. She seemed calmer now, if not thoroughly exhausted, and her arms around her brother felt stronger than before. Taako looked over her shoulder, up toward the trees they had stepped out of not long before. A familiar and ceaseless panic stirred in him, that at any moment human men might emerge from the shadowy trees and run at them. And they were too weak now, too exhausted to flee, to fight.
“We should hide,” he said into his sister’s hair. She drew a long breath and nodded, finally leaning away from him.
“Yeah. Maybe down in the valley a bit? We could keep going. Just a little further.”
The thought of standing and continuing on sounded almost as bad as being found. Taako shook his head. “The leeward side of the boulder has a small den beneath it. You can’t see it from the field and there’s nothing living in it.”
Lup sighed, and then nodded, and then sighed again. “Rabbits in a rabbit hole,” she said miserably. Taako’s ears drooped. He hadn’t thought to make the comparison.
“It’s better than more walking,” he said. Lup just nodded, too tired to disagree.
They picked themselves up and limped to the other side of the boulder. Beneath the stone, the earth was hard-pressed and a little dusty, but dry and dark. Lup pulled the scratchy bedroll from the top of the pack and crawled in to spread it out in the small space. Taako fished inside and found two large tunics that they could easily bury themselves under as blankets.
“Here’s to giant orc women,” Taako offered, trying to smile for her. Lup huffed.
“I can’t believe she actually dropped the bag. It was like tackling a hill.”
“I bet she was just surprised to see your scrawny ass lunging at her,” Taako laughed.
Lup gave him a coy smile. “ My scrawny ass? If I’m scrawny, what are you , twiggy?”
Together, they took stock of exactly what the pack did and did not have. They found a bag of nuts that they shared between them, though it did little to stop the rumbling in their stomachs. Lup gathered a few stones from around the field and created a small wall beside the opening to their hideaway, doing what she could to disguise the entrance as nothing more than a shadow beneath the stone.
When finally they were confident that their hiding place was secure, Lup helped Taako slide down into the cool darkness. His injuries were made worse by their flight and a lack of rest, and he carefully eased onto the itchy bedding as Lup slid in beside him. There was just enough space for the two of them.
“Not such a bad spot,” she offered, pulling the tunics over the both of them and sidling up close to where Taako had curled himself. “Provided the rock doesn’t fall.”
“Well I was going to sleep,” Taako groaned, and Lup chuckled and kissed his forehead.
“It’ll be fine,” she reasoned, draping an arm over him and pulling her brother close. “I’ll protect you.”
For several moments, they lay in silence. Taako stared at the darkened outline of Lup’s collarbone, her words echoing in his head.
“Hey, Lup?” he whispered, after gathering the courage to potentially wake her up.
“Yeah,” she whispered back.
“... I really am sorry.”
More silence. Lup’s arms tightened around him, if only by a little bit. “I’m sorry, too.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Somehow, it felt like permission. Permission to finally rest, curled together in their hiding spot, their aching bodies relaxing into the darkness. Permission to put it behind them.
Permission to keep going.