8: Bloom

Outside, a storm was raging. Tauriel held her breath whenever she felt the wind strain against the wooden walls, strong enough that she feared it might rip them apart. What would happen if their prison succumbed to the wrath of the natural elements, she wondered? Would they all spill from its enormous wooden belly like seeds from a bag, free at last? Or would the gigantic rolling fortress bury them beneath itself, imprisoning them even in death? Occasionally, she could hear trampling footsteps and frantic yelling, leading her to assume that their captors were quite busy ensuring that neither scenario she had just imagined came to be.

Another gust of wind hit the outside wall of her cell, the wood groaning ominously under the immense pressure.

"Wha's that?"

Kíli's voice was heavy with sleep, the words rolling clumsily off his lips. After their conversation earlier that night, he had not moved away, the length of his body stretched out just on the other side of the bars separating them. Close enough to touch. Not that she had spent hours considering doing just that.

Now, she looked over her shoulder, taking in his disoriented, still tired expression. She, too, had chosen to stay close, resting her shoulder blades against the bars while she listened to the storm.

"It is just the wind," she reassured him. "You can go back to sleep."

Kíli rolled onto his side, rubbing a palm across his face and yawned. "Good. Thought it was the dragon."

"What dragon?"

"The one below the mountain," Kíli muttered, his eyes closing again already. "Thought the burglar had woken him up."

"Don't worry," Tauriel whispered as Kíli's face relaxed once again, just a tiny furrow between his brows suggesting that his sleep was haunted by troubling thoughts. "You are safe from dragons here, at least."

While his breathing eased back into the regular, gentle huffs of deep sleep, Tauriel kept watch over the young Dwarf, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead. Slips of conversation flitted through her mind, things Kíli himself had told her and things others had said about him.

A quest. A dragon. A mountain. The Dwarves of Erebor. The name Durin. . .

All of this added up to only one likely picture in her head. And it was a picture she was not sure she liked. What had those Dwarves Kíli had been traveling with when he was taken been doing just east of the Misty Mountains, not so very far from her own homeland?

A journey that had been planned for a long time, led by Dwarves older than Kili. That was what he had told her, and back then she had not questioned him further, not wanting to upset the tentative trust that had begun building between them. Now, though, she felt that maybe she should have.

Of course she remembered the days of the dragon's attack on the Lonely Mountain and the once prosperous city of Dale. Remembered the devastation it had brought to those residing there, leaving a whole landscape in utter ruin. It had been the Dwarves' insatiable greed which had brought this plague upon them, her king had assured her when she, younger, and more easily unsettled, had come to him with her sorrow on behalf of those who had lost their home.

And even as her king's easy dismissal of those mortals' fate as well as his refusal to step in on their behalf had nagged at her innocent heart, she had concluded that there had to be some truth to Thranduil's words. Surely something had to have happened to result in such tragedy, some fault in the Dwarves' actions that had cost them everything. She had to believe that, or how else would she have convinced herself that something equally terrible might not happen to her and the kingdom she loved any given day, without warning?

And so she had gone on with her image of the Dwarves of Erebor warped into something horrendous, making her imagine them as despicable creatures, who were deeply flawed and barely deserving of her pity. Until she had met one of them and witnessed first hand that he was just as capable of compassion, of caring for others, of loving them, as she was. Possibly even more so.

Again, she studied Kíli's features, now utterly relaxed in sleep, searching for something that might refute the terrible suspicion which had formed in her mind. All she saw, though, was the young Dwarf that had surprised her so many times since she had first met him, who had—she might as well admit it, here, in the loneliness of night—secured a place in her heart which had so far remained unused, like a large patch of untouched earth which begged to be cultivated, to be cared for, to bloom.

A Dwarf on a quest to reclaim the lost kingdom of Erebor or not—she would not be able to undo the impression he had already left upon both her heart and her thoughts. What her nightly revelations did, however, was to make her even more eager than before to finally leave their prison behind. If somewhere out there, a dragon was on the verge of being woken, she could not just sit here like a puppet waiting to be brought out for the amusement of her owners. She needed to act—she needed to fight.

As a familiar pressure swelled inside her chest—not entirely dissimilar to the one which had driven her from her homeland in the first place—Tauriel struggled with the urge to leap to her feet and once again search every crack and crevice of her cell for a way to escape. It wouldn't lead her anywhere, she knew that, and if her fellow prisoners became aware of what she was doing, they would think she had lost her wits. Still, the compulsion was hard to resist, making her bones itch most distressingly, and in the end it wasn't her own willpower, but rather a warm pressure against her fingers which kept her in place.

She glanced down, disoriented, and found Kíli awake again, looking up at her with warm, velvety eyes. How long had she been lost inside the corridors of her own mind?

His hand, placed on top of hers where she had been pressing it into the grainy wooden floor in an effort to keep herself anchored, gave a light squeeze.

"Your thoughts are quite loud," he said.

Tauriel grimaced. "Forgive me. I had no intention of interrupting your sleep."

A minute shake of his head where it rested on his upper arm. "You do not need to apologize. What you should do, however, is get some rest yourself."

His fingers closed around hers more firmly, not quite interlacing, but definitely something more substantial than just a casual brush of skin on skin. He gave the gentlest of tugs, one which Tauriel could have resisted without even the slightest bit of effort on her side. She didn't. Instead, she found herself sliding into the mirror image of Kíli's position, her long limbs stretched out alongside the bars separating their cells, her head pillowed on her right arm.

Kíli smiled, his face so much closer to hers than it had been before. Closer than it had ever been, quite possibly. "That's better, isn't it?"

And it was. So much better, in fact, as if every cell inside her body had been waiting for this precisely, and was now sighing in relief at being finally admitted to live out its deepest longing. Tauriel did not dare speak past the sudden dryness in her throat for fear of what treacherous things it might do to her voice and merely nodded. Could he hear the quickened drum of her heart? It beat so loudly inside her own ears.

Kíli, meanwhile, merely smiled and shifted ever so slightly on the hard floor, trying to get comfortable once again. He did not, however, let go of her hand.

"Yes. Much better," he answered his own question from before, his eyes already drifting shut again. And Tauriel, successful at casting off her troubled thoughts for a little while at least, couldn't have agreed more.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

The roar of the crowd was deafening as Tauriel stalked along the boundaries of the arena, trying to keep a low profile. Today, the audience appeared to be in the mood for a particularly large amount of carnage, seeing that they had released five contestants at once from the narrow hatches in the walls.

From what Tauriel had been able to observe in the short span before each of them had taken some sort of cover, all of the other fighters were, to her dismay, human. To add a little variation, their captors had distributed a variety of bulky items—empty crates, barrels, and the like—across the arena behind which the combatants could conceal themselves if they wished. As always, the dais which held a small selection of more or less useful weapons—today's choice including a clumsy looking hammer, an axe, and what Tauriel thought had to be some sort of slingshot—was located at the center of their fighting ground.

The hammer had been picked up by the strongest-looking woman Tauriel had ever set eyes upon within seconds of their release into the arena. Where that woman was now, Tauriel could not say for certain, but she was resolved to keep out a watchful eye. That hammer did not look like something she wanted to make impact with her skull in a defenseless moment.

The slingshot was still on the dais, which was not surprising, seeing that there were no missiles available to launch with it. The axe, meanwhile, currently rested in the hands of a lean, young man with a complexion similar to Suri's and clever, dark eyes. This might very well be the contestant Kíli had bonded with during his last fight. He certainly did not seem to be overly enthusiastic about attacking anyone with that axe and had so far only used it to block an attack from the hammer-wielding woman before she had disappeared among the new hiding places.

Tauriel considered moving closer to him. If he had as little interest in turning this whole thing into a bloodbath as she did, then perhaps they could work together. On the other hand, judging by the dark purple bruises covering the right half of his face, his previous alliance with Kíli had cost him dearly already and she did not want to be responsible for a repetition of that.

Deciding to let the stranger fend for himself for the time being—which he seemed more than capable of—Tauriel edged further along the wall, looking for a trace of the remaining two sawdust covering the ground was warm and dry under her feet and a welcome change from the splintery wood which constituted the floor of her cell. Every night for the past few days, she had plucked tiny shards of wood from her heels and toes—an unwelcome side effect of the training sessions with Kíli and the others. Now, she moved without either sound or pain for the first time in days, which allowed for a refreshing amount of focus.

One of the missing two combatants was located quite easily—a young man, or boy, rather, had ducked behind a stack of hay bales as soon as the fight had begun. He was still crouched there, now, making himself as small as possible, Tauriel saw once she had made it halfway around the arena. No threat, she concluded quickly. Still, she resolved to keep an eye on him. Maybe she could keep him from getting hurt—without protection, she feared, he would not last terribly long.

As she scanned her surroundings for the fifth combatant, her eyes strayed to the crowd above, the faces hanging over the edges of their fighting ground difficult to discern against the backdrop of a bright blue sky. It was better like that, probably, for whatever she might have found there would, in all likelihood, not have improved her opinion of their captors. She was about to return her attention to what was happening inside the arena rather than outside of it when she noticed an elevated platform overlooking the arena from the side currently farthest away from her. It held a small number of seats—seven, she counted quickly—five of which were currently occupied.

The individuals who held these seats were all clad in heavy, luxurious garments, which set them apart immediately from the rest of the crowd who, unless they wore uniforms similar to those of the guards, were not dressed in much finer clothes than Tauriel and her fellow prisoners. Tauriel would not have needed to have grown up as close to a royal family as she had to know that she was looking at people of either noble birth or some other, social distinction.

They were each engrossed by what was taking place in the arena below them, tracking the movements of the other combatants with greedy eyes. All except one—the man on the far left lounged in his seat with one arm propped on the cushioned armrest, the side of his forefinger pressed against his upper lip in a gesture which seemed half thoughtfulness, half amusement. His eyes, meanwhile, were locked on Tauriel.

She frowned as she became aware of this fact. Her immediate instinct was to look away, unnerving as the stranger's eyes felt on her skin. She stopped herself, though, unwilling to show weakness, and tried to put on the expression she normally reserved for new recruits who had, by some foolishness or other, endangered the safety of her whole unit in King Thranduil's guard. Her spectator seemed unfazed—if anything, his amusement grew more distinct. His cool, level stare sent an involuntary shiver down Tauriel's spine—he seemed different from those whom he shared seats with. Where they were completely enraptured by the violent spectacle below, he looked calm and detached. That made Tauriel even more suspicious of him. If not for entertainment, why did he watch those poor souls slaughter each other?

Her thoughts were interrupted by an ear-piercing screech, and she tore her gaze away, quickly scanning the arena for its source. Hammer-wielding woman wielded a hammer no more—instead, by some mysterious circumstances unwitnessed by Tauriel, the heavy weapon appeared to have been dropped onto her foot, provoking the scream which still rang in Tauriel's ears. As she looked on, the woman bent down to retrieve the hammer, grunting in obvious pain as her foot came free. Several broken toes, Tauriel estimated.

The woman looked around with wide, crazed eyes, damp strands of fine, almost colorless hair clinging to her wide forehead and ruddy cheeks. When she pounced, Tauriel was at first unable to determine what her target was. Until she saw a skinny leg disappear from view behind a large, empty barrel.

For her considerable size and what had to be no small number of shattered bones in her foot, the woman moved with alarming swiftness. Tauriel was faster, of course, and cut off her path just before she reached the overturned barrel, the hammer already whooshing threateningly through the air.

There was no time to hesitate, no time to debate. The kick which Tauriel delivered to her much bulkier opponent's temple was of the sort that would knock her out completely and without delay. The slight risk that the trauma to the woman's head might result in permanent damage was one which Tauriel would have to live with.

"Some of those you are going to meet out there are past reasoning," Ingolf had said to her when he had demonstrated the move. "When you do meet one, you will know. You can tell by their eyes, usually."

That much was certainly true, Tauriel thought, as the woman's bloodshot, blue eyes rolled back in their sockets, her enormous body sagging to the ground. Evidence of the things they had seen and the things which had been done to them was visible in all prisoners' eyes—a certain resignedness which they all relied on in order to keep going instead of giving up and wasting away in their cells, combined with what happened to a body when it was denied proper rest and food and air. For this woman, though, those things had tipped into madness and Tauriel had no doubt that she would not have stopped before she had killed each and every single person in this arena.

As she stepped back to avoid being crushed under the weight of her opponent, Tauriel's eyes registered movement at the edge of her vision. The boy she had seen before cowered on the floor beside her, his back pressed against the barrel. His lips were pulled back in a feral snarl, both his uneven teeth and his pointy chin smeared with dark red blood. Tauriel's heart thrummed loudly inside her ears when she pieced together the events which must have led to the tall woman dropping her hammer.

A glance at her former opponent's body, now stretched out on the ground, confirmed Tauriel's suspicion. Below the hem of soiled, ragged trousers, a fresh bite-mark stood out from the pale flesh, blood running down the leg in small rivulets, mixing with the grime and dirt which covered what skin was visible.

Quickly Tauriel held out both hands, demonstrating that she carried no weapons.

"I am not going to hurt you," she said to the boy, whose eyes were not so very different from those of the woman she had just felled. Only much, much more fearful.

She tried to step closer, which was when an axe whistled through the air right in front of Tauriel's nose, its blade gleaming in the sunlight.

"Step away from him."

The voice was tinted by a heavy accent Tauriel did not recognize and it left no room for arguments. She rolled back onto the heels of her feet and took the requested step backwards. Swiftly, Kíli's ally inserted himself in the space between her and the boy, his dark eyes glaring defiantly at her. The protectiveness in his gaze was enough to convince her that there was no point in arguing with him. His entire being was focused on protecting the boy—a younger brother, she assumed, or maybe even a son if the man was older than he looked—and nothing she said right now would make him trust her.

"Keep protecting him," she said instead, and spun away to survey the rest of the arena.

Turning her back to a man who had just thrown an axe at her made her neck prickle most uncomfortably, but right now it was the course of action which seemed most feasible. The two of them might be desperate and scared, but they were no killers, and she had to trust that they would remember that fact and allow her to offer what little protection she could give them.

Protection from. . . yes, from what exactly? She had yet to discover the missing combatant. And once she did, what would happen? If this was another, frightened child, what would she do?

A sharp whistling sound broke her concentration, and she leaned back. just in time to avoid being hit in the temple by a small missile that had come hurtling through the air. Instead, it grazed the skin on her cheek bone, leaving behind a sharp burn.

She glanced toward the weapons' dais and found the sling-shot missing. Not a frightened child, then. Or if it was, it was one that knew how to shoot. Quickly, she took cover behind a structure that might have been a table once, her back pressed against the wood. A few yards from her, the young man and his little protégé had done the same. They would be able to end this the swiftest way possible if they worked together, Tauriel thought. Her attempts to make eye contact and communicate some sort of battle plan, however, remained unsuccessful. The young man kept glaring in her direction, but other than frank distrust, she could read nothing in his eyes. Kíli and him had worked together before, presumably, so why was he so reluctant to cooperate with her?

In the end, the only warning she got of what was about to happen, was a slight widening of her fellow combatant's eyes and she half turned just in time to see a shadow leap over the table at her back, its slim form silhouetted against the bright sky.

Tauriel ducked and rolled, swiftly but not swiftly enough. Her opponent landed on her back, one bony knee pressing painfully into her lower back. A blink of an eye and the slingshot, now devoid of ammunition, was wrapped around her throat from behind, cutting off her air.

She gasped as her lungs contracted uselessly. Instinctively, her hands came up to her throat in an attempt to create even the slightest bit of room to breathe. It took all of her willpower to divert them from their path, reaching past her shoulder to grab her assailant instead. Tears occluded her vision almost completely before she finally managed to grab a nice fistful of fabric. With her last bit of strength, she bucked her hips and yanked her arms forward, throwing whoever was perched on top of her off and onto the sawdust-covered ground.

An Orc, she realized with something scarily akin to relief. It snarled, snapped, and spat at her as she rolled on top of it, her fingers closing around its throat in a vice-like grip, but she didn't even flinch. This, sadly, was the easier part of this whole ordeal.

After the Orc's flailing turned into twitching and then, finally, subsided entirely, Tauriel rose onto her feet on legs more shaky than she would have liked them to be. Further towards the edge of the arena, the young man from before mirrored her movements, effectively concealing the boy behind him. His jaw was set in grim determination, and Tauriel could tell that his mind was already made up. He would fight her, and he would not hold himself back. Whether that was because while he'd seen an ally in Kíli, he, for some reason or other, perceived her as a threat, or simply because now the boy he wanted to protect was there in the arena with them and hadn't been the other day, did not make much of a difference.

Tauriel's mind raced through her options. Fight back, and risk hurting an innocent—or, worse, actually killing him? Even if she were willing to take that risk, there would still be the matter of the boy, after. She already knew that she wouldn't be able to bring herself to go up against him.

Which left her with only one option, then. Fight the stranger and let him win.

In the seconds it had taken her to come to this realization, she had dug her fingernails into her palms and now, as she loosened her fists in relief over the decision she had just made, her hands stung just enough to anchor her to the here and now.

Across from her, the young man must have read her intention in the change of her stance, his eyes widening even as his grip onto the handle of his axe tightened. He would do what was necessary, Tauriel thought—as would she. Before she could take a single step to seal the fate she had chosen for herself, however, a loud clapping drew her attention back to the ranks above.

It was the man she had noticed before, his dark, beady eyes fixed onto her as he slapped his palms together repeatedly, confidently. Those sitting next to him seemed bemused at first, some upset even, but one after the other they joined in with his clapping and soon the whole audience was cheering and whooping, albeit with less enthusiasm than they had displayed when the big woman and the Orc had gone down.

Tauriel hesitated, confused. Was it. . . over? With three contestants out of five still standing? It would appear so, seeing that the crowd above began to disperse, the muted chatter drifting down into the arena carrying a distinct tinge of disappointment.

The gates at each side of the arena disappeared into the ground and Tauriel watched with a strange sense of detachment as guards swarmed the fighting ground, retrieving the bodies of the fallen Orc and the woman she had knocked unconscious (or worse, possibly).

She did not resist as her hands were bound behind her back, used as she was to this whole ordeal by now. A commotion drew her attention back to the center of the arena just before the darkness of the surrounding corridors was about to swallow her.

The boy was clinging to the young man, straining against the guards who tried to separate them. The muscles in Tauriel's calves twitched as his desperate wails reached her ears, but she fought down the impulse to intervene. If anything, this would increase the punishment they were all going to receive.

And so she went with the guards, her heart growing a little heavier with the unmistakable sense of failure in every step she took. Had someone told her, a few hours before, that she would get to walk out of the arena without having hurt someone innocent or getting hurt herself, she would have expected to feel at least a small amount of triumph. Instead, here she was, wondering if this day could get any more miserable.