[One moment, Tauriel is traipsing through the marshes, the darkness oppressive, clouds overhead blocking the light of even the most persistent star, and then the next, there is the peculiar sensation of falling, and then she lands flat on her face on something hard and dry. For a brief, irrational moment, she feels like she has sunk into the bog — but if this were the bog, why is it so dry, so quiet, so hard — but then her senses return to her and she becomes aware of her surroundings.

This is no bog. This is a room, somewhere; there is carpet under her cheek, and she can see light spilling in from across the room.

How did she get here? Where is here? She does not understand. Her throat, dry from too many long days with nothing to drink, is unable to form even the smallest of sounds, and so she does not bother attempting to cry out for help. Who knows what kind of help such an action would elicit, in any case? No, far better to struggle painfully to her feet, her head swimming for a terrible moment, and to cautiously head for the doorway. Surely something better awaits her out there.

Nothing better awaits her out there, actually, and while Tauriel nearly trips over what appears to be a trunk of some kind, a handle attached to one side, there is nothing else in the corridor that gives her any hint as to where she might be. The trunk is useless as well, only containing her clothes, a book, and... There is a small, light plaster statue rolled up in one of her chemises, something she might not have noticed had she not been rummaging around through her clothes to find what else has been mysteriously provided for her. It is a dwarf, she thinks, reclining with a pipe in hand, a jaunty red cap perched on his head. It looks nothing like any dwarf she has ever known, and yet looking at it has a lump forming in her throat, a lump she cannot swallow for her body is too dry even to produce tears. Blinking burning eyes, she wraps the dwarf back up in her shirt and tucks it away.

Struggling to her feet once more, she picks up the trunk, and only then notices the number attached to the handle. Since there is nothing else for her to do, she goes in search of it.]

[This is such a strange building. Tauriel is not wholly ignorant of inns and what they look like, but this looks like no inn she has ever seen in all her six centuries. The walls are so straight and so flat, no deviation to be seen. Had she been at home, it might not have been so surprising, but Tauriel is not used to seeing such precision in the works of Men. And yet, for all its sharp angles and clean lines, the whole place seems...old. Forgotten, somehow.

It takes her quite some time to figure out that the number on her trunk is the number to a room, a room with her name on it, as if she is expected.

This whole experience is unsettling, but oh, that bed... It has been so long since Tauriel had a bed to lie on, she is almost tempted simply to throw herself on it and sleep the deep sleep of mortals. Her training overrides her weak will, however, and she immediately sets instead to exploring this room of hers, searching for any places an ambush might occur.]