Tauriel figures that Lord Thranduil must have gone through a list of his soldiers and picked out the ones that were her closest friends in the guard to be her escorts about the palace. In the space of the week, every guard that has been assigned to her has been someone that she cares deeply about. Meldiron, Faelwen, Gilgalad, Hannasiel... all of them very dear to her, trusted companions. Even Alassé, a young elleth who sits with her now as she listens to the sound of the soldiers training, was someone that Tauriel had always been friendly with before...
Well, before.
Tauriel suspects that he has some reason behind his choices. Perhaps placing her friends as her guards is his way of preventing her from trying to slip away from them. If this is the case, it has worked, she muses, mildly irritated that her King knows her well enough to guess her actions. But then, hasn't he always? In fact, the only time she has ever truly taken him by surprise is when she drew her bow on him, and if she is being honest, she had rather surprised herself with the action as well.
Finding that trail of thoughts unpleasant, Tauriel reaches into her pocket and traces her fingers over Kili's runestone. She can feel the carvings, and can almost picture the strange dwarvish writing in her mind. She lets out a soft sigh, her heart clenching a bit as she recalls Kili's rough translation - "return to me" - for all the good it might have done him.
There is a particularly sharp clack from the training grounds, and Tauriel feels something land in the loose dirt at her feet, kicking dust up over her boots.
"Heads up!" one of the soldiers calls a bit too late, and Tauriel smirks, leaning to feel for whatever landed by her. Her fingers brush what feels like a stick, and she carefully drags it closer to herself. It is wooden, about three inches wide and the length of her arm, ending in a jagged end. One of the practice staves must have snapped. Alassé calls out a lecture about being careful after the soldiers and Tauriel can practically hear the elleth rolling her eyes.
"Go easy on the equipment," she orders good-naturedly once Alassé has finished her rant, and someone calls a sheepish "Sorry, Captain," back to her.
Tauriel plays with the staff fragment, twirling it like one of her knives as her mind wanders. That is another curious thing...Lord Thranduil has not removed her rank. She is still Captain, regardless of whether or not she can perform her normal duties. There is, of course, someone else acting Captain, but she has retained her title and standing. Why he would allow this to a traitor is beyond her, but perhaps it is simply an oversight on her king's behalf that allows her to keep her rank, and so she does not question it too much.
Tauriel brings the point of the broken staff to the ground, feeling the drag of the loose dust as she swirls it in absent patterns. An idea strikes her after a moment, and she uses her foot to smooth over the ground where she had been playing. Tauriel scratches her stick for a moment in the sand, then turns in the direction that Alassé's voice last came from. Taking the runestone from her pocket, she holds it up for the elleth to see.
"How close am I?"
There is a pause as Alassé leans close and studies the ground at Tauriel's feet.
"Erm. Well. The first one's pretty close. The second and third kind of wound up overlapping. The rest look about right."
Tauriel makes a humming noise in the back of her throat, sliding the rune back into a pocket and once again scuffing over her writing in the sand.
"Heads up!"
Tauriel feels the whistle of air as something flies past her ear, and she flinches away on instinct.
"You all right, Captain?"
"Okay, now I know you're aiming for me," she calls with a smirk, getting to her feet.
"S-sorry, Captain..."
The embarrassed voice - the same one from earlier - comes from her left and Tauriel makes her way over to the soldier. She can hear the shift of movement as the other guards step from her path, and she stops once she believes that she is near the one that spoke.
"Was that your attempt to challenge me?" she asks with a smile, her heart thrilling a bit because this is what she's missed, this is what she craves...
"And if I am?" the good-natured reply gets fractionally louder as the speaker steps to stand in front of her and she smiles.
"Then it would be my pick of style for the match. Hand to hand."
Now there is a pause, the soft chuckles from the others become quiet.
"Captain...that would not be a fair fight," the soldier says slowly, his voice gentle. Trying to back out and save her the embarrassment.
"Do not worry," Tauriel smiles, reaching a hand out until her fingertips brush his tunic and then tracing it up to clasp his shoulder. "I will go easy on you."
It is not the answer that any of them are expecting, which makes their surprised gasps all the more pleasing when she sweeps the soldier's feet out from beneath him and pins him to the ground. He lets out a rather undignified squawk, and she leans back so that his flailing arms cannot reach her, feeling the movement of air as he swipes for her shoulder and misses.
He manages to get a grasp on her hips and throws her, but she does not let him go. He hits the ground beside her with a soft grunt, the air knocked from his lungs and his body half-sprawled across hers. Tauriel twists until his weight is no longer pinning her, but she does not loosen her grip.
She turns and starts to scramble to her feet but the soldier grabs her by the elbow and pulls her back to the ground at his side. He tries to roll to grab her in a bear hug, but she feels the muscles in his shoulder stretch and turn beneath her fingers and rolls out of the way.
She has kept her hand firmly on his shoulder - this way she knows where he is, can feel where he is going to be. She does not need to see him.
She lunges in and he catches her shoulder with his free hand, trying to toss her aside again, but Tauriel is ready. She pulls back, using the flat of her palm in an upward jab to break his hold on her and shifting the angle of her body before he can try the same move to remove her grip from him.
The soldier twists, trying to break her hold, but Tauriel knows this trick and allows the force of his movement to pull her smaller form over top of his. Tauriel wastes no time in wrenching his arms back and placing the flat of her calf against his back to pin him beneath her. The soldier struggles for another moment in vain, and Tauriel does her best not to smile.
"Do you yield?" she asks, leaning over his shoulder.
"Yes, yes, I yield!"
Tauriel lets him go and gets to her feet, dusting her hands over her tunic to remove the dirt as the other guards call encouragement to her and cheer. She reaches a hand in the direction that the young soldier was, and he grabs hold a second later. Tauriel hefts him to his feet but does not let go of his hand, not yet. She draws a step closer.
"Thank you, for sparring with me," she says softly, allowing the noise of the crowd to keep her words private. "I have sorely missed it."
"My pleasure, Captain," he replies, and she can hear the smile in his voice as he leans close. "Though perhaps next time you might consider actually going easy on me."