The world was blank. No color beyond white and perhaps a very light grey. Her fingers and toes were beginning to numb, but she stayed put in her makeshift bunker. Something would walk right into her den that she’d be able to take home to her family.

Patience was not a skill she came by naturally and, in most circumstances, it wasn’t a skill she displayed regularly. Hunting was the exception. She had no control over the animals that may or may not walk into her traps. She’d learned to be patient or starve and the former was far more preferable than the latter.

Out in the gloom a branch snapped. Tauriel drew her bow listening for the beasts next mistake. Off to the left about thirty yards out a great huff whispered through the snow. She stepped out of her bunker silently maneuvering one of the paths she’d made for herself until a faint gray outline was visible. She aimed where she thought the deers heart would be based on the out line. She took a deep breath and loosed her arrow. A thud and mighty groan of the dying beast before all was silent again.

Tauriel slung her bow across her back and trudged through the deepening snow. The deer was barely bigger than herself and she braced herself for the hike back. Heaving the deer over her shoulders she trudged to the edge of the woods then walked along their rim until she found the tree marked with a black piece of string. Stepping into the trees, the banks depth lessened slightly, the snow getting caught in the limbs above. She followed each string down the mountain until lights peaked through the trees and gloom making for a far simpler target. Within minutes she’d reached her ramshackle house on the edge of town. Inside a tiny fire crackled and sputtered, fighting to stay alight. She dropped the body on the butcher table before carefully mounting her bow, her brothers bow, in its rightful spot on the wall. She peeled her snow stiff clothes from her body dropping them in front of the fire before slipping into a pair of her brothers pants he’d left behind. They nearly fit her now without much adjustment, but she tied the band around her waist to keep them from slowly sliding off.

Out the window the storm kept on. Layer upon layer of white fell over every building and life in this forsaken city. She wondered if her brother was near enough to catch any part of this weather. He always hated the snow, but liked the storm. The storm provides cover for footfalls but as soon as the weather ends the remains are louder than any breaking twig. She smiled remembering his frustration out in the woods. Startled creatures taking cover before he could get close enough to so much as take aim. Perhaps he’d come home soon, no foreign army would be stupid enough to traverse this weather. Her father might smile again, at least until Skender left once more. Her father, Willem Brazier, the miner who lost his wife to his daughter. He had never forgiven Tauriel, at least not completely. Her mother had been her father’s light, and she had killed her in child birth. Skender had loved her, raised her, but Willem had barely acknowledged her, could hardly look at her. Skender had said that the more she grew the greater the resemblance became. She tried to gain her fathers love, tried to make him proud, but Skender was the only one to ever praise her. And now he was gone defending a king and country who had only ever provided the Brazier family with poverty.

Tauriel stared out the frost edged window waiting for a lantern to head for their door. She rested her head on the arm of the chair. Her eyes grew heavy and she drifted gently between sleep and reality. The door banged open giving way to her father coated in snow and the dying lantern which he set on the table next to the deer.

“Finally something other than rabbit.”

Tauriel jumped up helping him with his coat and gloves which she placed by the fire along with her own winter gear. By morning they’d be wrapping themselves up again.

“It took me all day hunkered down in a one of those bunkers Skender taught me to make. I could barely see a thing but I could hear it and was finally able to take a shot. It took me the rest of the afternoon to haul it back here.”

He merely grunted stepping out of his boots which she immediately grabbed placing them closest to the withering fire. Dry ones shoes was something Skender had always emphasized.

“I’ll skin it in the morning and you can sell the hide. We could both use some new gloves to get us through the rest of the season.”

“Hopefully I’ll be able to get some seeds for the garden as well.”

“Don’t spend it all though, we’ll scavenge the woods for berries and other plants we can harvest.”

Her nod recieved only the slightest glance from him before he stood lumbering towards the bedroom, “Night.”

“Good—“ the bedroom door slammed shut, “night…”

Tauriel sighed laying on the decrepit sofa in front of the fire. She pulled a hole riddled blanket over her and stared into the weak flames listening to her fathers snores grow louder. She missed Skender, she missed feeling loved. It was those thoughts that cradled her to sleep.