Legolas and Tauriel: What I Did For Love

14: Tanna

[Tauriel POV]

"Right, now you don't want your feet so close together. They need to be about the same width apart as your shoulders."

Melain adjusted herself.

We were in the lower archery meadow and I was giving her her first archery lesson. It was a week since Legolas and I had arrived.

"And when you pull back on the string, don't only use your arm muscles, use your back too. Imagine trying to touch your shoulder blades together. I found it helped when I was learning."

"Doesn't it help you still," she asked.

I shrugged. "Now, I do it instinctively."

She selected an arrow out of the quiver on her back and fumbled as she nocked it.

"Oh, and never, ever, dry fire a bow."

"Dry fire?" Her thin eyebrows came together.

"Fire a bow without an arrow," I explained. "The force that should be pushing the arrow forward gets absorbed by the limbs. In most cases it completely destroys the bow. Sometimes, with a bow with a very low draw weight, you get lucky and it survives. But even then, it's dangerous. This bow only has a draw weight of thirty pounds because I don't think you're strong enough to handle bigger. Eventually, you'll build up your muscles, but not all at once."

"What's the draw weight on yours?"

"Mine's about seventy pounds. However, it took me a long time to work up to that. If you noticed, I can't pull it all the way back anymore. I lost a lot of strength. But I'll get it back."

We continued on with the lesson, standing about seven yards from the target. After about an hour, we sat down on the grass and rested.

"Thanks for teaching me," Melain said.

"No problem."

"I've always wanted to learn. Not necessarily fight, I don't think I'm cut out for that, but just for fun. But I'm too shy to ask a guy to teach me."

I cocked my head. "Aren't there any girls?"

Melain shook her head. "Only one girl, Tanna (Ta-ah-na), fights, but she doesn't shoot."

"Why not?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. It's not that we're not allowed, but few of us here want to. Tanna's the only one who's actually learned how in a long time."

"Where could I meet her?"

"Probably down by the dueling ring this evening. The soldiers often go down there to practice together in the evenings, after dinner. She usually goes down to watch, and sometimes practice."

I nodded, knowing exactly where I'd be spending my evening.

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The dueling ring wasn't really a ring, it was a square, surrounded by a three and a half foot wooden fence. When I arrived there, a girl with honey colored hair stood in the center, circling with a man. Both held swords in their hands and wore no armour. Several soldiers leaned on the fence, watching, Legolas among them. He caught my eye and gave me a quick smile.

The girl and man advanced toward each other and their swords collided. The man executed a series of cuts and jabs, all aimed at the girl's right wrist and arm, I noticed. The girl blocked these easily and then tried a move of her own, which the man just managed to parry. Then she caught his blade just in front of the hilt and twisted quickly. The sword fell out of her opponent's hand and clattered to the ground.

The spectators cheered and the girl held her sword in the air. The man picked up his sword and walked out of the ring, taking a place on the fence.

"Anyone else?" asked the girl. She hadn't gloated or anything when she had won. I admired that. If there was one thing I hated it was someone who gloated when they won.

Legolas caught my eye and subtly shook his head. I ignored him and hopped over the fence. I had had my clothes repaired and wore my usual green and browns. I drew my knives as I walked.

A chuckle went through the onlookers. "You think you can beat a sword with knives?" one sneered.

I had taken a look at the armory over the past week when I found Melain a bow. there were no knives. There were single daggers, not really meant for fighting but that was all.

The girl, Tanna, raised an eyebrow slightly. She too was skeptical, but she wasn't laughing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Legolas roll his eyes.

We began circling each other. Then, Tanna lunged.

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"Just what were you doing?"

After the fight, I had cornered Tauriel in her room. It was dark out and through the open balcony door, I could hear the crickets chirping.

Tauriel shrugged. "What did it look like?

"It looked like you were trying to get yourself killed."

She rolled her eyes. "We weren't fighting to kill and well you know it. We were fighting to disarm each other."

I put my hands on her upper arms. "You could have gotten hurt."

She looked at me incredulously. "Legolas! I've been in positions where I 'could have gotten hurt' more times than I can count and very, very, few of them were as low risk as that."

"We weren't engaged then."

She touched my cheek. "Listen, Legolas. I understand that you don't want me to get hurt. But this is a little extreme. Tanna is a sweet girl and I noticed she never tried to cut me anywhere that could be dangerous. Besides, I won. And it served all those ninnys on the fence right. It'll teach them not to laugh at me."

I couldn't help but smile. But just a little smile. She hated to be laughed at. "Just be careful."

"Oh, please. I'm always careful."

I hugged her. "Of course you are," I said into her hair. But I had the feeling she wasn't fooled one bit.