11: (Truth Is) Like Blood Underneath Your Fingernails

This time, as the guards navigated the maze of tunnels leading from to the arena, Tauriel did not even try to memorize the small details about her surroundings that might be of use to her should she ever manage to break out of her cell. Instead, her attention was divided between imagining what would await her at her destination and the slight weight of the item she carried in the secret pocket at her waistband. Kíli's rune stone, pressed into her palm in the heart-stopping seconds after the doors to their dark prison had burst open, admitting the men that would take them away towards an uncertain fate.

"Take this—please. It's all I've left to give and—and just in case that we do not both make it back here. . ."

Kíli's voice had faltered there, habitual confidence and the teasing twinkle in his eyes, which Tauriel had grown so accustomed to, giving way to a more hesitant, more vulnerable side of his character. Without another word, Tauriel had stepped up to the bars, raising the hand which cradled the precious stone to her heart.

"We will," she had assured him with a confidence she had not felt, but had wanted to feel—needed to feel—so very, very badly. "We will make it back and I shall return your stone to you."

She could only hope that he had been able to hear the meaning beyond her words; that once they had put this terrible obstacle behind them, there would be time to further investigate what had grown between them, to voice the things that still remained unspoken.

Now, as she was marched along to the arena like a lamb being led to its slaughter, she wondered if it would not have been better to speak the feelings she carried inside her heart, feelings that were yet unnamed, but gained in both sharpness and urgency with every day she spent in Kíli's company. Who knew if she would ever get a chance to articulate them now, with both their fates hanging in the balance? What she regretted most, though, was not having kissed Kíli when she still could have.

Oh, she had wanted to, indeed she had. And she wished she could say that it hadn't simply been cowardice that had prevented her from doing so. But even with the weight of their companions' curious gazes resting on her back, even with the heavy burden which the looming fight put on her shoulders, the main reason for her reticence had been just that—cowardice.

Or what else should she have called the sudden uselessness of her hands when she had commanded them to reach through the bars, to grasp onto whatever she could reach of Kíli and hold on tight? The knot which had tied her tongue when she had wanted to ask Kíli to take her in his arms again, to make her forget who and where she was with the brush of his lips against hers? Cowardice, plain and simple.

She turned her head and craned her neck, trying to catch another glimpse of Kíli as he was led through the tunnels behind her. It was to no avail, though. The bulky guard following on her heels obscured the remainder of the narrow corridor from view, the only indicator that there were other people following the sound of several sets of footsteps.

They rounded another corner and even in her distracted state of mind, Tauriel recognized her surroundings. This was where the trip would end, where she would be shoved into a closet-like space to wait for her ordeal to begin. She'd been here a few times before, after all, and recalled this particular stage of what it meant to be taken to the arena with an especially claustrophobic sense of discomfort.

She was surprised, hence, when she was marched past the long row of hatchet-like doors and into another corridor which looked significantly better kept than the previous one, with large lanterns casting almost cheerful circles of light against the wooden floors and walls. Before she had time to take in more detail, however, a door was yanked open on her right and she was pushed inside.

The room she found herself in was not particularly large and sparsely furnished—a wooden bench, which looked distinctly uncomfortable, ran along three of four walls and a lamp dangled from a hook in the ceiling, softly illuminating the small space. This was definitely more than the broom closet she had expected to find herself in and the reason for that was perfectly obvious: she had company.

Seated on one of the benches and looking quite at home there was none other than the man she had noticed during her fight the other day, the one who apparently held the power to call an end to a fight even though it wasn't, technically, over.

Back in the arena, Tauriel had mostly noticed his fine clothing and the shrewdness of his gaze as it was fixed on her. Now she examined him more closely. His hair, sleek and black, was tied into a knot at the back of his head, revealing streaks of gray at his temples. The eyes which mustered her with something akin to amused interest below long, arched brows were so dark they looked almost entirely black, their intensity sending an uneasy shiver down Tauriel's spine. Rich fabrics clothed his tall, slightly stout frame, golden stitching along the high collar and seams of a knee-length indigo coat gleaming like tendrils of fire in the orange lamplight.

No weapons, Tauriel noticed, at least none that she could detect. That realization did not reassure her, though, as it might have under different circumstances. If he was confident enough to be locked inside a room alone with someone like her, whom he knew to be capable of killing with her bare hands, he had to be powerful indeed.

Powerful or not, Tauriel resolved she would not cower before him. She stood up straight, keeping as much distance between her and her opponent in the small space as was possible without flattening herself against the wall opposite.

"Why am I here?"

Her voice was loud in the small space and she was pleased that it came out firm and without even a trace of a tremor. Still, the stranger seemed unimpressed, his left brow twitching upward.

"Straight to the point. I have observed that this is a tendency of your character. I quite like it."

His voice resonated deeply in the small chamber in an accent similar to Adis' softening of his consonants.

Tauriel frowned. "You have been watching me."

"Everyone has been watching you," he corrected her. "But possibly no one with the same amount of interest as I have."

The air in the room was warm and close, but still Tauriel felt a chill creep into her limbs and she had to suppress a shiver. "Why? What is it that makes me so interesting?"

He laughed, but it was a sound that lacked all warmth. "Ah, no false modesty, please. You know very well that you are a most extraordinary fighter."

"So are many of the others you keep for your own amusement," she shot back. "If they weren't, they would already be dead."

Ignoring the latter part of her statement, he clucked his tongue. "Some of them are entertaining to watch, I will grant you that. But you. . ." He gave an appreciative hum that made Tauriel feel sick to her stomach. "When I look at you, all I see is potential. An infinite supply of it."

"Potential for what exactly?" Tauriel wasn't sure she even wanted to hear the answer to that but simply had to ask.

"That is up to you. To how well you. . ." he tapped his square chin, searching for the right word, ". . . to how well you adapt, you might say."

Tauriel swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. "You mean how many of my friends I am prepared to kill."

He clapped his hands together, an elated smile stretching his lips. "You see, straight to the point! Delightful. You and I are going to get along splendidly, I believe."

"And if I am not prepared to do as you suggest?"

The smile on his lips grew more strained as his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. His hands came to rest on his knees. "Well, let me put it like this. If you go out there, today, and triumph as you were born to do, you will reap the rewards which compliance and industriousness earn you. If you deliberately choose not to. . . well, then I will take that as a sign that you would rather live in squalor than glory and will make sure that your wish is granted."

"What sort of rewards? Freedom?"

Even if that had been it, Tauriel would not have been tempted to buy into his game. Still, if there was a way to earn one's freedom from this place, then she felt she ought to know it. Not for her own sake, perhaps, but for those who had families out there waiting for them. Ingolf. Suri. Kíli.

As it was, though, the stranger gave another humorless chuckle. "Some day, perhaps. But not yet. Not before I can be certain that you will elect to stay anyway."

Tauriel scoffed. "That will not happen."

"Do not be so hasty. You may yet change your mind once you experience the sort of life I imagine for you. Others have, before you." He touched a hand to his chest. "At the house of Gansukh, those who seek to earn it may yet reap pleasures much more desirable than such trivialities as what you call 'freedom'."

Biting the inside of her cheek, Tauriel fought against the urge to express her pity for these ominous 'others'. Antagonizing this man—Gansukh—on purpose and without the hope of gaining an advantage from it did not seem like a wise idea.

"Say I do as you suggest, then," she said instead, opting for another approach to find out what she really wanted to know. "What do you gain from it? What is your benefit from this whole thing?"

"My benefit?" Gansukh's smile turned sly. "I simply enjoy being right."

And Tauriel might have believed him, had it not been for one thing. There was something hungry in his eyes, something not so different from the look Tauriel was accustomed to from her king when he gazed upon a particularly beautiful set of gemstones. This man was a collector, she realized, and she was the rare prize he had set his sights upon. If she did not function as he intended, then her worth would be diminished. A disheartening prospect, at best, and it took all of her willpower to keep her face impassive as her realization dawned upon her.

Hence, relief washed over her when Gansukh slapped his knees and rose from the bench. "Well," he said, "you will have to excuse me now, for I have other matters to attend to. Think about what I said. Make the right choice, and you will not come to regret it."

Tauriel was careful not to turn her back to him as he crossed the room, not trusting that he might not still choose to add a touch of bodily force to the acidic sting of his words. As it was, though, he simply walked up to the door and gave three sharp raps against the wood, the door opening almost immediately to let him out.

Even though she was brought out of the room mere seconds later by the same guards which had accompanied her there from her cell, Gansukh was nowhere to be seen. Not that she felt any regret about that particular fact—the less time she was forced to spend under that calculating, greedy stare, the better. Still, she could not stop her mind from reliving every part of their conversation while the guards took her back to the other corridor, where they pushed her into one of the small, dark cells.

For once, the dark confinement did not bother her. In fact, she almost welcomed the absence of any sort of distractions to go over everything she had learned in the past few minutes. For while her recent encounter had left behind a stale, unpleasant taste in her mouth, it had also raised certain suspicions she might yet be able to use to her advantage.

She was quite certain her assessment of Gansukh's character had been astute. His interest in her was that of a curator seeking to enrich his collection with that of yet another, valuable piece. And yet, when she had asked him what he got out of her succeeding in the arena, his reaction had told her that he was holding something back, that there was more to him pressuring her to fight with everything she had than a mere personal inclination to see her win.

During his visit earlier that day, Adis had suggested that the general mood aboard the vessel had grown sour of late and that those who had come along on their mission voluntarily were beginning to question that choice. The attempt to get Kíli and Tauriel, an Elven soldier and a Dwarven warrior, to fight to the death, might thus very well be a gruesome attempt of those in charge to get back in the good graces of their underlings, to prove to them that they had been right to put their faith in them and their power.

Now, if one of those in charge felt it necessary to bribe—or rather threaten—Tauriel just to make sure that she would actually fight Kíli and give her best at it, that might lead one to suspect that there was in fact more at stake than just pride. And that, should she refuse to comply (which was exactly what she was going to do, after all), the consequences might be rather far reaching. Perhaps her original hope of being able to sway the crowd in their favor simply by laying down their weapons and refusing to obey had not been entirely in vain. Perhaps their chances to succeed with such a plan were better than she and Kíli had thought.

The ebb and flow of the crowd's agitated cheering outside the confines of her current prison tore Tauriel from her musings. The spectacle was about to begin, it would seem. What was even harder to ignore than the considerable level of noise, however, was the absence of the slight movements, the constant swaying back and forth, which Tauriel had become so accustomed to over the past week or so. They had stopped, the vessel underneath her feet no longer moving.

In all likelihood, they wanted everyone to attend this particular fight, she reasoned, even those who would normally be responsible for navigating the huge contraption across barren lands. She ground her teeth together as anticipation gripped her muscles. Well, let them come. Let them watch and hopefully walk away with even less faith in their leaders than they already had.

It was only when the wall on one side of her cage dropped into the ground and she stepped out into the golden light of sunset that the thought occurred to her whether Kíli had maybe received a similar offer as she had. Whether he, too, had been promised that engaging in a fight with her would earn him rewards that would significantly improve his current situation and possibly be a first step towards freedom in the near future.

The grim line of his mouth and the deep frown on his forehead as he emerged from a hatch at the opposite end of the arena seemed to suggest that he had. And for a brief, painful moment, Tauriel wondered if it wouldn't be better if he accepted the conditions which had been put before them. Fight her, defeat her, and gradually buy his way out of their confinement. He had a family to return to, after all, and, beyond that—if she had interpreted the facts correctly—a mission, a purpose on which the future of his people depended.

Was clinging to a few stolen moments in dark cells really worth more than that? As much as the thought of being separated from Kíli tore at her heart, shouldn't they jump at the chance of at least one of them walking free when all of this was over?

Doubt caused her steps to falter just inside the arena. She had never thought of herself as a selfish person, her entire life so far dedicated to serving her king, her people. To want something—someone—just for her own sake was a wholly new experience and now, facing Kíli over the wasteland of the fighting ground, stubbornly clinging to the hope that there might be a future for both of them beyond this seemed just that—selfish.

But then Kíli's eyes met hers, and she saw them brighten, just a fraction, the corner of his mouth lifting with the hint of a smile. And she knew then that no matter what he had been promised or what the more reasonable course of action might be, he would not fight her. They had made their decision, together, and they would stick to it. For better, or for worse.

In the same moment in which her spine straightened with her resolve, several hatches along the sides of the arena dropped open, spitting out a group of four-legged creatures Tauriel had not expected to see this far from their usual haunts just east of the Misty Mountains. Their appearance closely resembled that of wolves, but with broader backs and stronger, square jaws. Also, they were much, much bigger than an ordinary wolf would have been.

Wargs.

Six of them, their bloodshot eyes darting around their surroundings with equal amounts of panic and aggression. Above them, the crowd erupted in a deafening roar. Tauriel and Kíli used the seconds during which the Wargs were distracted by the noise, baring their saliva-dripping fangs at their spectators, to lock eyes with each other. Kíli mouthed one word and for once Tauriel could not but wholeheartedly agree with the crudity of his chosen expression.

Fuck.

Out in the woods, with familiar terrain beneath her feet and an abundance of places to hide and ambush her enemies, Tauriel would have been fairly confident that she would survive an encounter with a pack of Wargs. In here, however, within confines that were relatively small compared to the horrifically large bodies of the beasts, she was not so certain.

Kíli had to be thinking along similar lines, his face pale under the wisps of dark hair falling against his forehead. But then a spark lit up his expression like a match that had been struck and, following his line of sight, Tauriel knew immediately what had put that faintly hopeful look into his face. On the dais in the center of the arena, the blades on two spears glinted in the light of the setting sun, their shape somewhat clumsy, but their edges looking sharp enough.

Of course they are not going to throw you in here just to be eaten by Wargs, Tauriel reminded herself. They want a good show, remember?

Well, a good show was what they were going to get.

She and Kíli moved in unison, flying towards the weapons on which their only hope at survival rested before the Wargs had fully registered the presence of an Elf and a Dwarf in such close proximity. And neither of them stopped once they reached the dais, jumping on top of it instead to gain the advantage of height.

With her back pressed against Kíli's and the solid weight of one of the spears in her hand, Tauriel felt considerably better already. They could do this, she knew it.

The Wargs had noticed them now and whipped their shaggy heads around to leer at them, the roaring crowd forgotten over the promise of a possible target of their fury. Within seconds they were circling the dais, snarling as they assessed their prey. Tauriel and Kíli moved with them, trying not to let a single one of them out of their sight.

"Think you can outrun them?" Kíli asked. Pressed close against his back, Tauriel felt his deep voice reverberate through her own body.

"I believe I could. They are fast, but so am I." She frowned, her fist tightening around her spear as a thought occurred to her. "You are not suggesting that we split up, are you?"

Kíli gave a small, dissatisfied grunt. "It's the only thing that makes sense. I'm too slow. Maybe while they are distracted by chasing after you, I can take out some of them."

"And what if they come after you instead of me? I do not like this at all."

"It's a risk we will have to take." Kíli leaned into her more firmly, offering comfort with his mere, solid presence at her side. "And besides, I may be slow, but I'm not defenseless."

Tauriel's smile, which Kíli couldn't see, was tinged with a hint of bitterness. "I believe you have had ample chance to prove that." She took a breath. Now was neither the time to be sentimental nor to stall over a decision she knew had to be made. They could not keep stalling forever. "I will be ready when you are."

She felt Kíli's lungs expand and contract with his own steadying breath. The hand that was not gripping his spear briefly dropped down to squeeze her hip through the worn fabric of her dress. "On three, then. One. . . two. . ."

Kíli's countdown did not come a second too early. The Wargs had advanced on them by now and seemed about to pounce. When the quiet "Three!" left Kíli's lips, however, the beasts froze as Tauriel abruptly threw herself into the air, leaping over their upturned heads and hitting the ground running.

As her bare feet carried her across the thick layer of sawdust covering the ground, disjointed thoughts flashed through her mind, thoughts of how this plan was much too vague, much too risky, and would probably wind up getting them both killed. Still, she ran as fast as she could, only risking a glance over her shoulder as she reached the far end of the arena and dived behind a pile of hay bales.

It seemed that, for once, luck was on her and Kíli's side. Four of the six Wargs had taken up her pursuit and Kíli had already struck down one of the remaining two. While he grappled with the other, Tauriel took a leaf out of Legolas' book and ran up the wall of the arena as far as she could before launching herself into a back flip and landing right behind her perplexed pursuers.

Kíli's plan had been for her to distract their opponents by letting them chase her, but now that they had the element of surprise on their side, Tauriel felt that she should not allow the moment to go to waste without at least attempting to reduce the Wargs' considerable advantage in numbers. Her resolution made, she hefted her spear onto her shoulder and surged forward, quickly singling out the Warg closest to her as her target. Its fur was a light, sandy brown, which stained red quickly as Tauriel drove her spear into its flank from behind.

Whether she had managed to wound the Warg fatally, Tauriel could not be certain of, but concluded that, either way, it would be in no shape to continue its pursuit of her. Satisfied with her success, she was about to launch into another sprint across the arena in the hope of drawing her remaining three opponents after her. And that was where her troubles began.

Giving a sharp tug on the spear still embedded in the Warg's flesh, Tauriel noticed with some dismay that it would not come loose. Stuck between two ribs, she suspected. Which created a bit of a dilemma—abandoning the spear was not exactly an option, seeing that there were no other weapons in sight except for Kíli's identical spear. At the same time, with each second she lingered, her risk of being torn to shreds by the three remaining Wargs increased dramatically.

She slid her hand a little further down towards the tip of the spear in order to get a better grip and yanked as hard as she could. The wounded Warg, despite barely being able to hold itself upright, turned its head and snapped at her wrist, hot, humid breath washing over her skin.

"Come on," Tauriel pleaded from between clenched teeth, her toes digging into the ground as she put all her weight into her attempt to work the spear loose. Finally, finally, she felt something give and her blade left her opponent's flesh with a sickening squelch. While she fought for her balance, the Warg collapsed with an almost pitiful wail, eyes rolling back in their sockets.

Tauriel's relief at having retrieved her weapon and having gotten rid of one of the Wargs at the same time did not last long, sadly. A guttural growl was all the warning she got before one of the remaining Wargs threw itself at her over the carcass of its deceased companion, eyes narrowed to slits and yellow teeth bared in unmitigated fury. She turned to run, but it was too late.

The heavy weight of the beast hit her square in the back, sharp claws slicing through the fabric of her dress and into her flesh. Tauriel heard herself cry out in shock, her mind curiously blank as just one sentence kept echoing inside her head: This is it—you are going to die here. She probably had years and years of training with Legolas and being drilled endlessly on sharpening her reflexes to thank for the fact that she somehow managed to half turn in midair, bringing her spear around with her body instead of falling on top of it.

She landed on her right shoulder, the Warg burying her beneath its enormous form, sharp teeth mere inches from her throat. Fighting the urge to close her eyes, she tightened her grip on her spear and drove it upward. With the Warg's weight pushing down on her, there was not nearly enough space to properly wield the long weapon. Tauriel knew this, and was thus immensely relieved when she felt rather than saw the tip of the spear pierce her enemy's flesh.

The Warg howled and threw back its head to get away from the blade, which, Tauriel now saw, had gone into one of its eyes. With the beast's weight slightly lifted now that it had reeled back from her, Tauriel immediately attempted to crawl out from under it, but the Warg noticed right away and threw itself back down, bared teeth once again aiming for her throat. For the first time since she had been tossed into one of these fights, Tauriel experienced the urge to scream, but the air she would have required to do so was knocked from her lungs by the Warg abruptly collapsing on top of her. The weight that pushed her into the ground abruptly turned into a dead weight.

Groaning under the strain, she arched her back, summoning all her strength to push enough of the Warg's limp form away from her so that she could slide out from underneath it and understand what had just happened. From the side of the Warg's neck a spear protruded, its tip lodged deep inside the flesh. As she looked around, she saw Kíli halfway across the arena, his feet still placed apart in the stance he had to have adopted in order to be able to throw his spear and thereby save Tauriel's life.

It was a long throw, and Tauriel would have loved to take a moment to admire both the strength and marksmanship behind it, but unfortunately this was not the time. The Warg Kíli had been battling when she had last been able to spare a glance in his direction was nowhere to be seen and thus probably—hopefully—already taken care of. Which left them with two beasts still breathing and currently refocusing their attention on the Dwarf who had just killed their companion, thereby abandoning his only weapon.

A second passed, then two, and then everyone was running. Heading for what looked like an overturned, broken table on the other end of the arena, Kíli had a bit of a headstart. However, the distance between him and the Wargs shrank with alarming quickness and Tauriel pushed herself even harder as she raced after them.

Kíli disappeared behind the meager cover the old table afforded in the same instant in which Tauriel leapt onto the dais only to jump off again right away. She landed on the broad back of the Warg further ahead in the race to get to Kíli, the fist of her free hand clenching immediately in the thick fur in an effort to keep herself steady.

The Warg, unsurprisingly, did not approve of its passenger and made its frustration known by turning its head to snap at Tauriel's ankles where they were pressed into its flanks. Shifting her limbs out of reach while simultaneously keeping her balance was a bit of a challenge. As soon as she felt moderately confident that she would not simply slide off the Warg's back once she let go, Tauriel lifted both arms above her head, gripping her spear tightly, and drove it down into the back of her opponent's neck.

She had intended for it to be an instant kill, but had somehow not been prepared for the beast's immediate collapse beneath her and was thrown off its back as it went down, landing in a cloud of dust a few feet ahead of the now completely still body. As the dust cleared, she saw that the Warg had fallen with the spear still stuck in its neck, the wood of the handle now splintered and the blade buried inside its flesh.

With a sinking feeling, she realized that both Kíli and she were now without weapons and still faced with the wrath of one very agitated Warg. Still—or rather because of that—she wasted no time to push to her feet again and take off after the last of their opponents at full speed.

Her tussle with the Warg she had just taken out had cost her too much time to still be able to get to Kíli before the remaining Warg did and so she couldn't see what exactly was happening as the beast leapt over the overturned table. Her heart stuttered in her chest as she threw herself forward as well, preparing for the worst while at the same time praying that she was still in time to prevent it.

Once again she found herself attached to a Warg's back, only this time it was much too busy trying to bite off the head of the Dwarf crouched in front of it to pay her much heed. Kíli was down on the ground, his shoulders pressed against the wall of the arena. In his hands he clutched what had to be one of the broken table's legs and was using it to fend off the Warg's attempts to tear out his throat. In the Warg's eyes the slim piece of wood could not have seemed much more threatening than a toothpick and Tauriel doubted that it would be deterred by the improvised weapon for much longer.

Despair fueling her muscles, she yanked and pulled, trying to get the Warg to leave Kíli alone. It barely acknowledged her, though, a growl and a half-hearted shake of its shoulders the only sign that it had even noticed her presence. Panic constricted her throat. If she could have reached around the Warg's thick neck, she might have tried to choke it. As it was, though, she could barely do more than tug on its fur.

Kíli was almost flat on his back now, his arms trembling with the effort of holding off the beast. Tauriel cast around a frantic, desperate look, not even knowing what it was she was hoping to find. And that was when she saw it—a piece of rope, peeking out from under the sawdust which covered the ground.

Sending a silent prayer to whoever might be willing to listen, Tauriel slid off the Warg's back far enough to be able to curl her fingers around the rope and pulled. It unraveled, proving to be longer than she had dared to hope and not quite as withered as she had feared. She quickly pulled herself back onto the Warg's back and wrapped the rope around both her hands, once, twice.

She had to flatten herself against the back of the Warg's massive head to get the rope up and over it, careful not to let it catch in its teeth. Then she leaned back and pulled. Pulled with all her strength, her muscles screaming and palms burning where the coarse rope dug into her skin.

The Warg wheezed and reeled backwards, standing up on its hind legs in an effort to throw her off. Tauriel tightened her grip even further, a cry that sounded foreign to her own ears forcing its way out of her chest. Her opponent reared up once again before going slack, falling backwards and burying Tauriel underneath its weight.

Light became dark and top turned into bottom for a few indeterminable seconds and then Kíli was there, dragging her out from under the Warg's limp body while she gasped for air. His hands cupped her elbows as they both kneeled across from each other, panting hard.

"Are you. . ." Kíli began, but then his teeth clicked shut as his gaze traveled over her disheveled form. No, she was most certainly not alright, Tauriel realized as the burning pain in her hands and sharp sting of her back where the Warg had torn through her clothes fully registered for the first time. And neither was Kíli, she concluded, her eyes skimming over a multitude of scrapes and bruises before coming to rest on four deep cuts on his forearm. Claw marks.

She wasn't sure if it were his steadying arms or her own legs that did the trembling, but getting to their feet was a clumsy affair. Once they stood, the noise of the crowd, which had so far been drowned out by the rush of her blood in her ears, crashed down upon her all at once and she blinked dazedly at the ranks above them. Faces in various stages of agitation met her eyes, some of them merely excited, whereas others had already passed on into impatience or even anger.

Among them, seated comfortably and a little apart from the rest of the crowd, she recognized her visitor from before. Gansukh lounged leisurely in his chair next to a corpulent, bald man whose face shone almost purple from too much excited screaming. The cold, calculated gaze with which her would-be master fixed her served to remind her of one thing: they were not done here, yet.

"What happens now?"

Her words were uttered softly, but from the way Kíli stiffened beside her, she knew he had heard her. When he did not speak, she pressed on.

"If you could somehow gain your freedom from this, if you could come one step closer to joining your brother and uncle as I know you long to do—"

"Don't say it." Kíli's tone was harsh, and for a moment Tauriel thought that was because having the temptation of how fighting her might benefit him was too much for him to bear. When he looked at her, however, she knew without a doubt that that wasn't the case. That it was the mere thought of her being hurt that was threatening to choke him rather than a guilty conscience.

Oh, Kíli. . .

He glanced up to where their captors presided over their ordeal, his jaw hardening as a look of grim determination descended over his features. Someone in the crowd, impatient for things to progress, threw a rotten apple, but Kíli dodged it easily and without blinking. As he tore his eyes away from the ranks above, Tauriel caught a glint in them which caused her stomach to clench.

He was about to do something utterly, stupidly, recklessly dangerous.

"Kíli," she began, but then found it beyond her current ability to stop him as he turned and marched past her, crossing the arena with a slight limp in his stride.

Tauriel stood, strangely paralyzed, and watched as Kíli walked right up to the Warg he had killed to save her. With one foot braced against the still body of the beast, he yanked the spear out from where it was deeply embedded in its neck. He turned back immediately, the spear clutched in his right hand as he made his way back towards her.

The crowd all but exploded. Tauriel kept her eyes trained on Kíli, but she knew that had she looked around she would have seen faces rapt with anticipation over the fight they assumed would now take place between the Elf and the Dwarf. Kíli showed no reaction at all to the heightened level of noise and simply kept going. Feeling curiously detached from the whole situation, it seemed to Tauriel as if she, too, were watching the whole thing unfold from above. She knew Kíli had no intention to fight her, even if a remote part of her still wished that he would, simply so this might all finally be over. But what, then, was he doing with the spear in his hand and the look of grim determination on his face?

Right before Kíli reached her, his eyes shifted from her face to the elevated ranks above and that was when Tauriel knew. She had about the span of a breath to prepare herself for what was going to happen before Kíli launched into a short sprint, hoisted the spear onto his shoulder and threw.

The force of his own throw nearly knocked him off balance and he stumbled forward for a few more paces, his feet kicking up a cloud of dust when he finally came to a stop. His eyes, however, did not leave his spear as it went straight through the web of chains above their heads, hitting the bald, corpulent man Tauriel had noticed earlier right in his massive chest.

A/N: Chapter title inspired by the lyrics to "Looking to Closely" by Fink.