The Training Grounds

Tuarwen woke up in the dark, her mind struggled to remember where she was and what happened. She noted the dark colors and the bed covered in green curtains, definitely not Svartalfheim. She stretched slightly, trying to avoid moving too much. The curtains had not been opened yet, so the room was veiled in shadows. It must have still been early. Tuarwen glanced at the food that had been deposited on the desk. It reminded her that she had not eaten in some time. She had just got back from a mission when her King had unceremoniously told her she was leaving for good to Asgard. She barely had time to gather her things before the Dark Elves had thrown her out of their city like she was a traitor. It had been at least four days since she had eaten. She would have to steal something later. At the moment her guard duties resumed. She heard the Prince make a soft sound from the bed, moments later she heard the sheets rustle. The curtains were opened suddenly, blinding her eyes for a second. She noted his sudden interest on something outside, not daring to move, she tried to guess what it could be.

The Prince had been on his guard since she had foolishly given up her position. He had remained alert all night, just on the edge of sleep, she could hear his rather fast breathing to know he did not rest peacefully. The slightest movement could foil her already too foiled plans more. She heard distant shouts of trainees and guards. His window must have looked out to the Training Grounds. She suddenly wondered if he ever went there anymore. As if to answer her question, he lazily picked up a knife and flipped it in the air a few times, his gaze still on the world below his window. He absently glanced at the food the servant girl had brought in. He smirked in a self-satisfying way and hurried away somewhere out of Tuarwen's sight. Tuarwen sat in a bemused mindset, what just happened? She recognized his look as one of intelligence and a predator. For a moment Tuarwen felt like the assassin again, trying to outwit her opponent. What was the point of all this? He had been acting strange all night, but this was starting to concern her. Did he know she was in here? What did he know about her? It was a battle of wits and Tuarwen was not about to let anyone beat her at her game. Until, she remembered she was guarding him, not trying to kill him. Her job was to make sure his life went on, not to play games with him, that's why she was kept alive, she was the assurance that Svartalfheim would not be annihilated. If only her life was being bargained with, she would not have hesitated to end it, but when the weight of an entire world was thrown onto her, she was going to do her best to keep it alive, no matter how horrible she had been treated there, no matter the pain she had and still did feel, no matter how much they had ruined her and turned her into the monster she was now. If for no one else than the innocent children who would not remain innocent much longer. The more Tuarwen thought about it the more she realized life was an unending circle of corruption and shattered hopes. The hopes she had once longed for in Svartalfheim were gone, all beaten to nothing. "Like her," she thought, involuntary touching her face, she could feel the torn and shredded skin, still festering under the new growth. The small scars that crossed her face were invisible unless someone stood inches away from it. Sometimes her King would look onto her broken face to intimidate her, she would scream, begging him to spare her the humiliation, that was before she learned to feel nothing.

Her eyes, that she did not know had closed, opened suddenly when something unceremoniously landed on the ground. Tuarwen glanced at the dagger on the floor, still lost in her painful thoughts. The Prince stooped to pick it up, the same smirk still on his face. Did he think whoever was in his room was asleep? He was dressed and headed out the door before Tuarwen knew what was going on. She waited for his footsteps to be heard before she slipped down from her hiding place. Her eyes skimmed the untouched food, for a moment she thought about stealing some of it. A sudden thought hit her right in the head, she would have smiled if she could have. It was clever really, leave your breakfast untouched and wait for it to be stolen. Wasn't really a very good trick, but it was nice try. She glanced back to the bed. As quickly as she could, she opened the curtains around the bed and slipped a dagger out from under her cloak. She positioned it under the pillow. She drew back to the door, listening for a second, she didn't want anyone to see her coming out of the Prince's room.

She flew down the hallway as fast as she dared. She had already wasted too much time in his room. She knew where he was going, but he couldn't be left on his own for too long. There were too many dark passages and uninhabited corners in the Palace, ones where you could be stopped and pulled into the shadows easily. She made sure she at least stopped and looked into as many of the corners as she could. Nothing unusual yet. Her hood was still wrapped around her head tightly. No one noticed the dark shadow flitting around the Palace. Tuarwen reached the gates, she glanced behind herself one more time. She noticed something black moving along the shadows, she was tempted to return to the maze of hallways and follow the shadow, but she left the Palace and headed to the Training Grounds. She immediately noticed her charge was not on the Grounds. She did notice the Crown Prince and his friends were having small battles with each other. She walked over to a tree and stood under it while scanning the surrounding area for the Prince. She was starting to get worried when she couldn't see him.

"Loki!" Tuarwen glanced at the Crown Prince before noting that the aforementioned Prince was striding onto the field, with a handful of knives.

"How odd," she thought. "I didn't see him there."

Tuarwen knew at that moment she was dealing with someone who could use magic exceedingly well. She watched the princes with little interest for awhile, leaning back against the tree. She glanced upward, the tree was tall and broad, a perfect place to sit and see the surrounding area with ease. She threw her cloak away from her arms and grabbed a branch. Without the protection of her cloak, two white sleeves could easily be seen if you looked in the right place. Loki just happened to be looking in the right place at the right time. He smirked to himself, he had convinced himself he was not going to fall prey to anymore assassins.

Tuarwen sat back against the trunk, she had scrambled up to a nice spot where she could sit and put her legs up on another branch. She still had a perfect view of the Training Grounds and the Palace. The Prince was content to throw daggers and cause occasional mischief to his brother. Tuarwen smirked when she saw Thor's hair turning an olive green color. His friends could barely contain their laughter. Loki turned back to them and smiled mischievously. Oh, how he missed playing pranks on people.

Tuarwen had no idea how long she had been up in the tree when she noticed a dark figure watching the Prince intently. She sat up immediately and scanned the person with her hawk eyes. It was unmistakable. She jumped out of the tree and swiftly walked closer, dressed in black and wearing a hood. It was pretty hard to miss someone dressed in black where almost all the people dressed in light and gay colors. She wondered why Asgard had such trouble with assassination attempts when the assassins stood out so much. Tuarwen failed to realize how advanced her training was and how often she had seen assassins. It was rare for Asgard to hire killers, they preferred open attacks. It was more courageous they thought, little did they know how much courage was required to sneak into someone's room and hope beyond hope that no one was awake. The stakes were higher in Tuarwen's game, getting caught meant instant death, unless you could escape, which was unlikely. Tuarwen knew many assassins who never returned, they were never heard from again. She never ran across any signs of them in her travels. Of course, they weren't friends, so it didn't matter anyway. Dark Elf assassins didn't have friends. It wasn't allowed, nothing could get in the way, not even life or death.

"Oh, how it will be fun to play this game again," mused Tuarwen, sarcastically.

She noted everything she could about the assassin before her. She took in his stance, build, eye color, which was gold strangely enough. She couldn't see his skin color, but she saw enough to be able to identify him should he change his clothing. As nothing more than a shadow she tried to get closer to him, so she could see his skin. His relaxed stance tensed up as soon as she got within hearing distance. She heard his breath hitch in confusion. He promptly turned and all but fled back into the Palace. Tuarwen still didn't see his skin color, but she had an uneasy feeling in her stomach, like she had seen him before. She turned around to note that the Prince was still with his brother, she took the time to hurry off to the market place.

Tuarwen never had time to appreciate the market places she had been to. Svartalfheim didn't have market places, food there was limited and precious. She had been in the Market Place of Asgard before, but it was a long time ago. Little seemed to change here. It still looked the same, with it's colorful lanterns and bright wears. The sellers and buyers were talking cheerfully. Tuarwen didn't catch onto much of their conversation, but what little she did, it seemed exceedingly boring, it was mostly about politics and farming. While Tuarwen didn't hear, we will listen into what they said.

"Aye, it has been a good year for the crops, except for those maundering thieves that keep stealing cows and wheat."

"I thought the Prince took care of that," said a passing buyer.

"Aye, we all thought he did, but they were hiding all along. He never had a chance to catch them," a small group of men were starting to gather around this particular stall.

"Can't catch what you can't see," said the seller and the whole group exploded into laughter.

"Have you heard about the Prince?" asked a new comer. Tuarwen perked her ears up at this. The Crown Prince was never spoken of with such a sour voice, it had to be the one she was guarding.

"The trickster?" the man nodded. "Nope, I avoid listening to anything I can about him."

"Well, they say that attempts have been made on his life," the whole stand perked up at that. Tuarwen almost felt sick, "But I've heard they brought in a Dark Elf to guard him." Several people shifted uneasily in their stance. Tuarwen smirked, some things would never change, particularly a certain race's judgments on others.

"A Dark Elf? Couldn't get anyone else to do it?" Said the seller with a smile, although he was clearly uneasy and was forcing a humorous response to keep his buyers from walking away.

Tuarwen helped herself to some of the Seller's wares. Satisfied with a loaf of bread and a few apples, she made her way out of the Marketplace. It wasn't until she neared the edge, that she noticed a dark figure leaning against a tree. She fancied it was the same shadow she saw before leaving the castle earlier. Was someone onto her? She trusted her skill though, and ignored whoever was watching her. She left for the Training Fields, arriving back just as the Prince was leaving. At least she caught him before he disappeared back into the Palace. She followed him silently, attaching herself to the shadows on the wall. He stopped in the Library and pulled various books off the shelf, until he had a small pile in his arms. He stepped out of the Library and crossed back to his room. He immediately set the books onto the desk, he glanced at the untouched food still there. His face was scrunched up in confusion. Most would have smiled in triumph at fooling the Trickster, Tuarwen was busy weighing the room and testing theories to give him much of her attention. He disappeared behind a closed door a few moments later. Tuarwen took the time to study the layout of his room and memorize every nook and cranny in it. It was a fairly simple room, with a few closets for clothes, armor, and weapons. A small side room for books, a bathing room, and the bedroom. She briefly studied each and every room. Her eyes brought her back to the main room, the bedroom. She noted a balcony that led to the outdoors. The doors were opened, so she stepped outside, she glanced over the view of Asgard, before noting the Training Field almost directly below her. The room wasn't as high up as she thought it was. Only fifty yards at the most. Easily accessible to her. She placed herself behind the curtains and waited for the Prince to emerge again, if he was not going to leave his room again that day she could leave without having to worry. If he so much as stepped one foot outside of the room without her around, she would kill him herself. When Tuarwen thought like that, it was hard to decide if she was jesting or telling the truth, her threats were not to be taken lightly and she was not prone to being lighthearted. Her emerged minutes later and settled in a chair with his new pile of books. Tuarwen waited for a few minutes before he appeared to be content to stay in the same spot for the rest of the day.

Tuarwen glanced down the balcony, it was a bit too far to just jump. She noticed a tree to her right, it was at least a good ten feet away from her. She glanced back to the room, Loki was hidden from sight by a curtain. She took a few steps back from the railing before she took off running towards it. With a small agile leap she landed on the railing and without hesitation she leaped from there, using her momentum to propel her farther, she easily landed on the tree. She made her way down with grace, she had been climbing things for years. It was an art in itself. Unfortunately, Svartalfheim didn't have any trees, so that made it hard to become skilled without getting killed. You would have to climb a tree at some point in most missions, so when you are a beginner and you're trying to escape, it makes it very difficult to escape without some reminder of your struggle. That reminder is usually a scar of some sort. Most assassins could tell stories about the scars they had, those were the ones who were retired from there work and lived a happy life. Most of their scars had disappeared with time. Tuarwen probably had the most stories to tell and the most scars, hers didn't want to go away. Almost ever inch of her skin had scars, except her face. Some crisscrossed with older ones, causing strange patterns to form. The longer you remained an assassin the more scars you would have. Tuarwen was the best of the Dark Elves, she had been at her art for more than five hundred years.

If one would have looked at the farthest ring in the Training Grounds, they would have beheld a strange sight. Tuarwen was still wrapped in her disguise cloak and she was furiously hurling daggers into targets. The flying daggers would have looked strange from another persons view, as Tuarwen was almost entirely invisible. Daggers seemed to appear from nowhere. They always landed in the middle of the target. When she grew tired of hurling the daggers, she took out two slightly longer ones and practiced stances. She took down invisible opponents quickly and calmly. When she grew tired of this after about fifteen minutes, she took out a small crossbow. She returned to shooting the targets. Slamming the small darts in again and again. Her aim was precise and quick, the darts fell mere seconds apart. She began shooting the other targets, revolving in a circle around her. Her footing was neat and well ordered, she never missed a target, hitting the exact center each time. She finished with the crossbow and retrieved the darts from the targets. She resumed her spot in the middle of the targets, unsheathing a dagger, she admired the curves and spikes in it. She looked back up at the targets and measured the distance between them with her eyes. She planted her feet in the ground and closed her eyes. Counting to ten before she let the first dagger fly, she hurled them blindly all around the ring, as fast as she threw them she took another out. When she returned to the beginning of the targets she opened her eyes. Dead center with each dagger, but Tuarwen was not pleased with herself, so she did it again.

Blind dagger throwing it was called, it was the cruelest training an assassin from Svartalfheim would ever go through. The candidate would be drug out to the ring and shown each one, she was taught to measure the distance with her eyes. Most of the girls were scared of the punishments and torture they had received, others were too weak to stand up. Not Tuarwen, she stepped into the ring proudly, with her head up high. The teachers laughed at the small frail girl, thinking they'd have some fun tormenting her. The girls did not have a chance to try this procedure before they were expected to nail ever target dead center while blindfolded. Tuarwen took a careful measure of every target, to make it harder, they put each target a different length from the other. The odds of succeeding were very slim, Tuarwen didn't even want to think what would happen if she didn't. She waited for the trainer to blindfold her. She felt the cloth coming over her eyes, blinding them and cutting off her vision. She barely flinched when the trainer tied the cloth tighter than it needed to be. It ate into her eyes painfully, she told herself to channel the pain into focus. "Use it to try harder," she told herself. This was before the insecurity and the childishness was gone, when she still had to learn and remind herself of the lessons she had been taught. She unsheathed two daggers, waiting for the signal, she mentally counted, clutching the dagger harder. "When you're ready," she heard somebody say. She breathed deeply, calming herself and turning all her emotions off, emotions got in the way of all training, they had to be removed. She held the dagger up and let it fly, not waiting to hear it's thud into the target, she moved onto the next one. She kept letting the daggers fly until she could sense she was back at the beginning.

"Is that it?!" She heard somebody scream, before the blindfold was ripped off. She looked at the targets, she had managed to hit every one and hit it dead center as well. She glanced at the last target to find she had hit the same target twice, she had misjudged and forgotten the number of targets. No one had ever hit all the targets dead center in the career of any of the trainers and this was Tuarwen's first time as well. The trainers were indigenous and upset that the frail child had more skill than they did. They intended on making her pay for thinking she was better than them, they could clearly see it in her eyes, the pride that shown. So they would just make it harder. One came forward with a knife, sneering at the sheer terror in Tuarwen's eyes. He forcefully took her wrist, his strength threatening to to crush it. He took his knife and sliced it across her wrist. She bit back a scream as soon as she felt the blood flowing, it wasn't a very deep wound, but it would be difficult to throw knives without it screaming with pain. The trainers laughed at her discomfort and pain. They pulled the blindfold back on and forced her to throw the knives again and again. The more she did it the harder it was to get it perfect, they cut her wrists and punched her as a punishment. She could no longer do it with ease as the wounds grew bigger from her throwing movements. They kept making her do it. It wasn't until the sun went down that they let her stop. Her resilience and pride were crushed. She couldn't feel anything anymore, even the pain was muted and distant. She was truly numb now.

She glanced back at the last target again. The memories haunted her through the days and kept her awake through the nights. They weren't really bad memories, they were just memories. Ones that kept her awake. They didn't mean anything, they hadn't for years, she had bottled them up in herself so bad, she could hardly remember what was real and what she had told herself. She couldn't remember if it was her trainers who told her she was nothing and her life didn't have a reason other than to serve her King, or if she had fed herself this. Was she still serving her King now? If he still demanded her service, would she go back? Asgard was nice, but she would never be welcome here. It was just another place she had traveled and stayed at. One that she would leave eventually.

The sun was low in the Western sky by the time Tuarwen headed back to the Palace, she went through the front doors and went to her room. The hallways seemed full of people, women in fancy gowns, warriors, and servant girls were all walking up and down the major paths through the Palace. Tuarwen was forced to take a less used hallway and nearly lost herself in the empty paths. She found herself back at her room. She had walked almost the entire perimeter of the Palace to get back. The sun was already a crescent behind the horizon, she realized it had taken longer than she had anticipated it would to change into her shadow armor. She was taking a risk going on with her plan, but Tuarwen's life was full of risks already, another one wouldn't make much of a difference. She stopped noticing them a longtime ago anyway.

She threw her cloak onto the bed and went to the wardrobe, she took a pair of black leather pants and a black suede shirt with attached sleeves, the stitches around the seem were loose, revealing gray skin on the tops of her arms. She threw off the white dress and left it on the bed, she would deal with it latter. She pulled on the pants and tied the shirt off in the back and topped it with leather chest armor, it was cut away at the top, leaving her upper chest exposed to any injury that came along. Dark Elf assassins were trained for speed and agility, they did not build armor for protection, there would always be another one to replace any they lost. Besides, if she couldn't protect herself from injury, she couldn't be that skilled to begin with. To prove your worth, you had to survive. The armor was built rather to help with agility. Tuarwen's chest plate was pulled tight to keep her body straight and tall, but not too tight, so she couldn't bend or twist her body. She pulled her boots back on and sheathed her daggers on her arms and legs. She put a few smaller ones on her chest and back. Her foot long daggers were securely strapped to her back in a quiver. Her crossbow collapsed and fit there as well. The crossbow was not built for speed, it was built for long range assassination, but it could be useful in situations where one is waiting for their target to come to them. Satisfied that she had all her weapons, she pulled her cloak on herself again and pulled up the hood, tightening the strings to keep it securely around her head.

She pulled the door shut and locked it, she didn't want the shadow that she had seen going through her things. She was outside the Palace again in no time. She walked back to the tree and shimmied up it without difficulty. She climbed up higher than before and jumped down, she barely landed inside the railing, not making a sound, like she wasn't made of anything. The doors were still opened, why would someone leave the doors open this late? Tuarwen glanced towards the chair the Prince usually sat in. He was still there, she could see his back facing towards the balcony. She silently stepped through the doors. She froze when she heard his voice.

"I know you're there," he held a self-satisfied look on his face. He could sense her presence. She stared at his face, she was only a few feet from him and directly to his right. He shifted uneasily in his seat, his confidence slowly fading. Tuarwen waited until he turned to look in her direction and seeing nothing before returning to her hiding spot. Not the slightest noise did she make, nor even the smallest shadow. She stared down at Loki's bemused face, he was still staring at the doorway and the spot she had been standing in. It took all of her self control to not throw a knife in his direction. At least she made him question his sanity, that was payment enough. Tuarwen knew what it was like to question yourself, she knew what it was like to remain awake long nights, questioning everything you knew over and over again. But not this night, this night Tuarwen would be on guard all night. There wouldn't be any sleep for her tonight.