6: Take This Glimmer of Hope (And Do What You Want With It)
Well. This was. . . not very conclusive. And, also, a fair bit uncomfortable.
After leading her down a series of narrow, low-ceilinged corridors—always heading deeper into the maze instead of, as Tauriel would have expected, out of it—the guards had rather unceremoniously shoved her into a structure which strongly resembled a broom closet. Except for little slivers of light shining through cracks at the bottom of two walls, she was enveloped by darkness. The ceiling was even lower than it had been in the corridor and she was forced to crouch while she waited. And waited. And waited.
This was not the release of pent-up energy she had been hoping for.
She was busy feeling around the walls, searching for a crack, a crevice, a handle, anything, when, from outside, she became aware of a sound, slowly swelling in intensity.
What was that? It sounded like wind, howling around the tops of the mountains protruding from Mirkwood. Mountains which she had climbed sometimes, in an effort to be closer to the stars. The sound ebbed and rose again, even louder this time and was now joined by the beat of drums.
A crowd, Tauriel realized. It was the roar of a crowd she was hearing, locked away in her latest, darkest, prison. And while the thought of a whole crowd of people coming together just to watch her fight was a bit unsettling, to say the least, at least now she knew with certainty that this was really why she had been brought here. A few more moments and she would finally see with her own eyes what the others spoke of when they talked about the arena and the events which took place therein.
Now that her fate was settled in her mind, it became much easier to bear the period of waiting, which went on for a bit longer still. And then, when the roar of the crowd had reached its pinnacle, one wall of her holding space dropped into the ground quite suddenly. She was greeted by light much brighter than anything her eyes had been exposed to over the last couple of days. Daylight, she realized as she took a cautious step out of the confines of her temporary cell.
A glance upward revealed that, indeed, she could see the sky from here, its color a steely gray that was oddly blinding despite the absence of direct sunlight. Only a web of metal chains separated her from that sky—a web which spanned the entire width and length of the square space she currently found herself in.
Faces were peering down into the enclosed space of the arena, dozens of them. Their heads were covered in shawls and hoods, for the most part, and she thought she saw men as well as a few women and even children among them, their faces reflecting a curious mixture of excitement and numbness. Tauriel looked away, her heart beating fast under the detached scrutiny of those many blank pairs of eyes.
Don't get carried away, not now. Focus on assessing your surroundings.
And that was exactly what she did, taking in as much of this curious place she had been brought to as she could. The floor, just like all floors, walls, and ceilings she had seen since waking up in her cell, was made of wood, but it was covered in a thick layer of sawdust and straw, the planks underneath merely peeking out at irregular intervals. There appeared to be recesses in the walls which were covered by bars. Behind them, Tauriel thought she discerned shadows moving about and she wondered whether they could be opened, and, if so, what threats might lurk beyond.
In the middle of the arena, as Kíli had promised, a small dais was located, a number of items scattered across its surface. Before Tauriel had time to take a closer look at those items, another, even louder cheer went through the crowd above her.
On the far end of the arena, several wooden panels had disappeared into the floor, revealing recesses similar to the one Tauriel had just stepped out of. And from those recesses stumbled four—no, five—Orcs, shielding their bloodshot, dull eyes against the light.
A knot abruptly smoothed itself out inside Tauriel's chest. She had not allowed herself to dwell on the matter, but ever since she had learned of her purpose here, she had been wondering what she would do if she faced another innocent prisoner in her first fight. Someone like Ingolf, like Suri, or even one of the Dwarves. Would she fight them and risk harming those she wanted to protect or would she find the strength to refuse and face the consequences? She had not been able to come up with a satisfactory answer to that.
Faced with a group of snarling Orcs, however, she did not have to dwell on any sort of moral dilemma. She would fight, and she would win—the brutes before her might outbid the goblins that sometimes strayed into the kingdom in the woods in terms of their physical prowess, but Tauriel doubted that they would pose much of a challenge to her.
The crowd above them roared when two of the Orcs launched themselves in the direction of the dais in the middle of the arena. Calmly, Tauriel took a moment to assess the items scattered across the wooden surface. A selection of spears, it seemed. Crudely fashioned and no match for the blades she usually carried. Still, they would make decent missiles when thrown.
Excellent.
Tauriel's lip curled as she lowered herself into a slight crouch, getting ready to intercept the Orcs just before they reached the dais. Any moment now.
Three. . .
Two. . .
One. . .
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
The close air inside their prison—the smell of damp straw, burnt porridge, the tang of sweat and a faint residue of dried blood—had the most curious effect on Tauriel when she was shoved into her cell. It felt a bit like. . . coming home.
After a brief stumble, she was on her feet again immediately, clinging to the bars and craning her neck. The small lantern was flickering in the draught from the open door and once again she failed to learn anything new about the locking mechanism of their cells.
"No keyholes and no keys," she mumbled to herself once the door had closed behind the last of the guards. "Either they are very confident that no one except them can operate the mechanism, or they are very foolish indeed."
Her current train of thought came to an abrupt stop when she realized she was being stared at. By four pairs of eyes, no less.
"What? Is something wrong?"
Ingolf and Kíli exchanged glances. "That is for you to tell us, I believe," Ingolf said.
"Me? Why?"
"Well, because you're—" Ingolf indicated the whole length of her body with a sweep of his hand. "Because you—err—"
"Because you look like you just took a refreshing walk while we were stuck in here wondering if you were maybe bleeding all over the arena," Kíli supplied most helpfully.
"Oh." Tauriel ran a hand over the braids running along the side of her head which were, even after her fight, perfectly smooth. She dropped her hand, feeling foolish and more than a little vain. "I am sorry if you worried on my behalf."
Ingolf gave an amused grunt. "I'd rather worry over nothing than have you—" He waved his hand in Kíli's general direction.
"Bleed all over the arena?" Kíli asked.
"Yes, that." Ingolf shot a somber look at Tauriel. "I'm glad you're alright."
Her answering smile was so wide it made her cheeks hurt. "So am I. And as for what happened out there—it does not make for a great story, I'm afraid. Just a few Orcs." She smirked. "Or a few Orcs less, I should probably say."
Across from Kíli, Ruari whistled through his teeth. "Not bad for a beginner."
Tauriel refrained from pointing out that her several centuries' worth of experience would hardly classify her as a beginner in any sort of context. "Thank you." Her brows drew together in a frown. "I am not sure how well I would have done, had my opponents been less unambiguously malevolent, though."
"You mean mean less like this." Kíli did a truly awful impression of a snarling, bloodthirsty Orc which made Tauriel giggle.
"Yes, quite." Her laughter died as she looked at the faces gathered around her. "How many more like us are there?"
This time, it was Ingolf who replied. "Can't be certain. But given the frequency with which they come to get one of us, I would say about fifteen, twenty maybe."
"And you just face off against them like you would against an enemy on the battlefield?"
"Haven't fought many proper battles in my days, but yes, essentially."
"Many have as little interest in really hurting us as we have in hurting them," Kíli explained. "If all goes well, the worst that you walk away with is a bleeding nose and a bit of a headache."
"Doesn't always work though, does it?" Ruari's expression was grim. "Not when they've gone bad in the head."
"No. No, it doesn't." Kíli's eyes flickered past Tauriel to the empty cell on her left. An uncomfortable silence descended over their little group. Tauriel, the newcomer and still, somewhat, outsider, was the one to break it.
"Who was in that cell? And what happened to them?"
"Her name was Lyra," Ruari said, his eyes glued to the dark red spot on the floor of the empty cell. "Young. Strong. Tongue sharper than my axe's blade. She got it into her head that if she won every fight, she would be granted privileges. Would be able to buy her way out of here, get back to her family. The things she was willing to do to reach her goal got a little more. . . questionable each day."
Tauriel digested this for a moment. She almost didn't want to ask, but. . . "What killed her?"
"Not what. Who." Kíli's gaze was darker than she had ever seen it. He wasn't looking at her, but staring at the empty cell—Lyra's cell—as well. Then he just turned away and sat down on the far end of his own enclosure. As when they had first met, his face was cast in shadow.
"He didn't have much of a choice." Ingolf's voice was quiet, almost too quiet to reach Tauriel's ears. "Lyra would have killed him that day in the arena, and many others after that. The day before she died, she came back from the arena, covered from head to toe in blood that wasn't her own. She was. . . not quite right, towards the end."
Tauriel's heart was heavy with pity as she glanced at the Dwarf huddled in the shadows. Whatever the small object was that he carried around with him, he was now holding it inside his palm once again, absently stroking its faintly gleaming surface. She wished he hadn't moved away, wished he was closer to her so that she might—
Might what, Tauriel? Comfort him? Touch him? What makes you think that such a gesture would be appreciated, coming from you?
She pressed her lips together as she tried to silence the intrusive, mocking voice. It didn't make a difference either way—there was nothing she could do for Kíli, for any of them. Nothing except—
"I want to get us out of here. I don't quite know how, yet, but I will find a way."
From his cell, Ruari gave a low chuckle. "I'm touched to be included in this scheme of yours. Unfortunately, I doubt it will come to much."
Ingolf looked apologetic when Tauriel's eyes flickered to him to gauge his reaction. "As loathe as I am to agree with him, he has a point. It's not as if we haven't tried—the place is a fucking labyrinth and crawling with guards."
Suri tugged on his sleeve and made a series of expressive gestures.
"Ah, yes, and then there's all the monsters they keep locked away here," Ingolf agreed. "Trolls, orcs, goblins. Who knows what else."
"They don't frighten me," Tauriel said stubbornly. At some point she'd tell them, about the giant spiders, and the wolves, and the goblins, and even the occasional cave troll she had encountered in Mirkwood. But not now—now they needed a promise, a glimmer of hope, rather than dark tales. "You will walk under open skies again, with just the earth beneath the soles of your feet. And what you do with your time on that earth will be your choice, and yours alone."
Suri's eyes were fixed on Tauriel, darkly intent, while Ruari was staring at the floor with his lips pressed together above his bushy beard. Ingolf, meanwhile, gave a gentle sigh. "I hope you're right, love. I hope you're right."
xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Time inside their small, dark prison turned out to be an ambiguous thing. Sometimes Tauriel would get so caught up in their current game or a conversation that she felt unable to estimate if mere minutes or whole hours had passed when it ended. At other times, the seconds would stretch out before her like whole deserts needing to be crossed without so much as a sip of water to keep her going.
After a few hours of keeping to himself, Kíli rejoined their group, and although for a day or two his smiles were a little less bright than normally and he would often get a faraway look in his eyes, Tauriel was immensely relieved to see that apparently he did not hold a grudge against her for bringing up the topic of Lyra's death.
She had come to like all her fellow prisoners, even Ruari who would often sulk, make snide remarks, or roll his eyes at something one of them said or did. It was Kíli, though, whose approval she felt compelled to seek the most; Kíli whose laughter at one of her jests caused her heart to fill up to the brink with warmth; Kíli who met and held her gaze when she whooped with delight after winning yet another one of their invented games, momentarily forgetting their dire circumstances.
The reasons for this connection, this irrefutable feeling of intimacy, she dared not investigate too closely. And yet, for her, it was the brightest light in those hours where time became warped, where she did not know how long she had been here and if she would ever get to be somewhere else ever again.
With her relationship to time being as fickle as it currently was, Tauriel could not give a good estimate of how long it was before the inevitable happened and one of them was brought out to fight again. It was Ingolf whom they came for, this time, and Tauriel had to violently suppress the urge to scream at the unfairness of someone like Ingolf—someone kind, someone who was, in his heart, not a fighter—being forced to engage in such senseless violence.
Ingolf bore it stoically, even managing a reassuring smile for Suri, who clung to the bars of her own cell while her neighbor was led down the corridor towards the exit. With her eyes glued to Ingolf's hunched shoulders, Tauriel almost missed the glint of something in the hand of the guard who had stayed by the door to operate the strange contraption on the wall there. She strained her eyes as hard as she could—yes, there was definitely something like a small tool grasped in the guard's hand. As she looked on, he slid it into a pouch at his belt.
So they did use a key of sorts, after all, and it enabled them to operate the locking mechanism of their cells' doors. This was good news, in Tauriel's opinion. If there was a key, then that meant it could be stolen or obtained by means of either persuasion or force.
She contemplated those different options while they waited for Ingolf's return. Suri had curled up on her side, either sleeping or watching the door. Ruari was alternately boxing against the shadows in his cell and doing push-ups on the dusty floor. Kili, meanwhile, was completely silent, and after a little while Tauriel became aware that he was watching her.
"What is it?" She lowered herself to the ground, mirroring Kíli's position on the other side of the bars. They both sat cross-legged, their knees almost—but not quite—touching. If Tauriel leaned forward just a tiny bit to rest her elbows on her knees, their eyes were exactly level with each other.
Kíli smiled and gave a small shrug. "Nothing, really." He dropped his gaze to his hands and when Tauriel followed his line of sight, she saw that he was fiddling with his talisman again. A flat, oval stone, completely black but shiny even in the low light. "I was just thinking that with you here, we might at last have a shot at getting out. You certainly seem determined."
He looked up and flashed her another smile, more hesitant this time. Tauriel thought she caught a spark of hope in his eyes—and that, already, was so much more than she could have asked for.
She prayed her cheeks weren't coloring yet again as she returned his smile. "Determination is not something I usually lack, yes. My faults lie elsewhere."
"I find it hard to believe that you possess any faults worth mentioning."
Kíli's voice was quite low, so surely Tauriel had misheard that. Still, she felt her cheeks grow warm after all and quickly sought another topic of conversation to hide her embarrassment.
"The stone in your hand—it means a great deal to you?"
"What? Oh, this." He blinked at the small object as if he had quite forgotten it was there. He smoothed his thumb across the surface into which, Tauriel now saw, a set of unfamiliar runes had been carved. He shrugged. "It's just a token."
Despite his casual dismissal, the look of tenderness which crossed his face did not escape Tauriel. Her heart clenched with some unnamed, unpleasant emotion. Whoever had given Kíli his stone clearly was on his mind a lot. And judging by the gentle smile curving his lips, the thoughts he associated with this person were rather pleasant.
She swallowed against a sudden tightness in her throat. "What do they say? The carvings, I mean," she explained when Kíli looked at her questioningly.
He pressed his lips together, and Tauriel immediately realized that she should not have asked. Maybe he didn't want her to know, maybe she didn't even want to know, maybe—
"Return to me."
And with those three short words he had both resolved her fear that the runes might convey a message not suitable for the ears of a third person and confirmed her suspicion that the person who had given him the stone held a very special place in his life. Whoever she was, Kíli obviously did want to return to her very much.
"I see," Tauriel said, firmly stuffing that sudden disappointment her discovery had stirred up inside her into a remote corner of her heart. She had neither right nor reason to feel this way. Instead, she forced a smile. "Let's make sure you get to keep that promise, then."
As Kíli met and held her gaze, she fought hard to keep her eyes free of the conflicting feelings rolling around in her gut, but was not sure if she was entirely successful. For a moment it looked as if Kíli was going to say something else, but then the door to their prison burst open, and they both jumped to their feet, watching as Ingolf was led back into his cell. He nursed a bleeding lip, but seemed otherwise unharmed.
While Tauriel followed her usual routine of watching the guards closely as they locked Ingolf's cell—with no new results, but she definitely caught a glimpse of that small tool again—the others started peppering Ingolf with questions.
"That was remarkably quick," Kíli commented. "What did you do to get back here so soon?"
"I didn't even think someone your age could walk this fast to the arena and then back," Ruari added mischievously. "Much less have a fight in between. Are they going soft on you, old man?"
Suri glared daggers at Ruari over Ingolf's shoulder, but the Rohir just laughed. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? So you can claim you were going easy on me the next time I beat up your arse?" At Ruari's scowl he laughed even harder. "Don't worry. I'm certain they had planned to have me beaten into a bloody pulp. My opponent wasn't a troll, but as close as one could get to being one and still call himself Man."
"Then how come you're—" Kíli indicated Ingolf's mostly intact body with a sweep of his hand.
Ingolf grinned. "Big lad fainted the moment he stepped into the arena. This—" he pointed to his bleeding lip, "is merely the result of our dear guards expressing some of their frustration that they did not get to watch a fight. All in all, it rather feels like I've had the rare opportunity to stretch my legs, get a bit of fresh air."
A series of chuckles traveled through their cells.
"Lucky bugger," Ruari grumbled.
"Lucky us, I should say." When Ingolf's remark was met with raised eyebrows and questioning glances, he added, "I don't understand much when they speak to each other in their own tongue, but I do believe they blamed Big Lad's fainting spell on sparse food. So unless they draw some completely false conclusions from that. . ."
"We shall feast tonight!" Any traces of grumpiness had vanished from Ruari's face at the prospect of extra food. He even went so far as to reach through the bars and punch Ingolf on the arm. "Well done, old man!"
Ingolf yelped and rubbed his arm. "I didn't do anything. And we still have to wait and see if I'm right."
He did turn out to be right, in the end. That night, their dinner was. . . maybe not exactly rich or tasty, but it did resemble actual food. Even the water was fresher, and brought to them in large, almost clean bowls.
This time, even Tauriel ate. Not because she enjoyed it, but because she knew that when next one of their little group was taken, they would probably not be as lucky as Ingolf had been today. If it was her who went, she would need her strength. If it was one of the others, she would need to focus all available energy on continuing to formulate an escape plan. She had sort of made a promise to Kíli, after all. One which she intended to keep.