Chapter Text
There was a line of cars leading into the parking lot, dirt and torn up grass making up a field up against the tree line. There were cops everywhere, directing the traffic into the parking lot, waving her through. She gunned her engine and cruised forward slowly, the sun an almost unbearable heat against the leather of her jacket. A female cop gave her a nod as she drifted by and Tara felt her lips pull into a smile absentmindedly as she followed her gesturing directions. Another cop pointed her at a spot beside a silver mini-van and as she cut the engine and swung off her motorcycle with practiced ease another blue Sedan pulled in on her other side. She peeled her jacket off of her arms before she took off the helmet, the heat overpowering without a breeze. It was early February still, but this part of the country it already felt like late spring, all sunshine and warmth. Her braid of hair swung down her back, freed from its previous coiled position at the base of her skull, which released some of the built up tension from the ride. She stood still for a moment, eyes tracking the people wandering across the field-turned-parking lot toward the tree line. The she stuffed her jacket in the compartment on the back of her motorcycle and locked her helmet in its place, fingertips trailing over the silver and green paint job before she turned and walked away.
The sight of the long, crazy lines almost made her regret the decision to come check out the fair, but she had wasted just under half a tank of gas to get all the way here and it was such a gorgeous day. She bit her lip as she tried to figure out the system of the lines, not quite understanding what was going on. There was a ticket booth, eight stalls open, and a short line leading from them back toward the trees, but then there was a break in the line about ten feet long before the lines seemed to start again. She couldn’t see any signs around stating which of the further back signs where the lines randomly picked up again.
“Confused, miss,” someone asked, just beside her shoulder. She jumped a little bit, turning to find a tall broad shouldered man with a dark mustache and a beard who had an odd lopsided hat tipped upon his head.
“Yes actually,” she said. This man seemed familiar to her, like a character from a book seen on the television; like someone else’s idea of a person she once knew. It was a feeling she was more than used to, so she just shrugged it off with a roll of her shoulders and smiled. He was in period clothing, so she assumed he was one of the renn faire attendants. “Can you point me at the cash line, please?”
“Right there, miss,” he said, gesturing grandly at the right most mess of a queue. She nodded her thanks and turned to join the line, but something about him pulled at her. She paused, biting her lip before blurting out her question.
“Do they have archery here,” she asked. The man had already been turning away, but at her question he paused. When he turned back to look at her an odd look crossed his face, one she couldn’t place. He tipped his head to one side, absently reaching up to tug at one side of his moustache as he stared at her.
“Yes we do,” he said after a moment. “Furthest corner of the fairgrounds from here, on the right. Just go past the food stalls and the shop aisles and you’ll get to it easily.” He paused then, a crooked little smile tugging at his lips. “Have you ever shot an arrow from a bow before, lass?”
Something within her bristled at his tone. “Yes,” she said, snapping the word a little harshly. “I was in the archery club at my high school.”
The man grinned widely, genuine pleasure sparking at his eyes. They were a dark color, rich brown and warm against all odds. “Then do ol’ Bo a favor, will ‘ya? Find a man called Hadley out there and knock an arrow against his skull for me, won’t ‘cha?”
“Hadley,” Tara repeated quietly. The name brought about that familiar feeling again. She swallowed it back and quirked an eyebrow instead. “Why should I knock an arrow into this man’s head for you? What has he done?”
The man, Bo apparently, whipped off his hat and gestured to a hole in the side of it. Tara recognized it as an arrow hole. She felt herself start to grin before she could really understand why. Bo, spotting her amusement, scoffed darkly in the back of his throat, nose scrunching up like a rabbit’s as he shoved the hat back on his head.
“He shot an arrow through my hat,” Bo grumbled, “and I’d return the favor, trust me I would, but I can’t wield a bow worth a damn. Axe is more my sport, I admit, so do an old man a favor and knock him around for me a bit?”
Something within her jolted, electric sparks on dry leaves, and she burned inside. “Of course,” she said, tossing her braid over her shoulder and grinning widely, recklessly. “What does this Hadley look like?”
“Tall as a couple of sticks taped together, with a blond braid nearly as long as yours. But his most defining feature?” He leaned forward, as if he was imparting a secret, an act which Tara mimicked. “He’s got a hooked nose and beady little eyes, like a creature from the bottom of a tar pit in a horror movie.”
Tara didn’t really believe that was true, but she laughed nonetheless. She promised she’d knock an arrow into the man’s helmet if she saw him around the archery arena and made her way to the back of the line. The cash line was shorter than the credit card line, but not by much. She spent the time admiring the outfits of the other attendants, content to let their excitement wash over her without fuss. She paid for her ticket and made her way past the ticket voucher people, costumed and polite as they were, and then set off to follow the crowd toward the rest of the event. She passed the boxed off area that the vendor’s cars sat in, catching glimpses of trailers and such parked side by side. There was a small blond man coming out of that area, dressed in a white poet shirt and a pair of breeches made to look like deerskin. His hair was curly, freckles danced upon his cheeks, and his expression was quite cross. He held a phone up to his ear, grumbling under his breath as the voice on the other end rattled on.
“I’m telling you, it’s not there,” the man insisted, marching past her. She stepped aside and he gave her an absent smile, waving apologetically to the phone. “No, no, no,” he snapped, almost immediately. “It’s. Not. There. …No, I don’t care where you put it; one of the boys must have moved it, because it’s not there. Oi, don’t raise your voice at me, mister, they’re your kin. Oh that’s bollocks and you know it, they’re kin and that’s that. But when I get my hands on those long haired menaces I swear I’ll-“
The blond man disappeared into the crowd, marching away, phone still head firmly to his ear. Tara felt her stomach roll and her chest ached with loss. She found herself trying to catch glimpses of the man once more before she dragged her emotions back under control. Just because she didn’t have an eventful life full of kin didn’t mean she could creep on others’, she reminded herself pointedly. She’d driven off a roommate before with her nosey questions about the girl’s family life, curious and desperate to live vicariously through anyone else. She couldn’t do that now, surrounded by strangers. The strangers, however, made it so very, very easy.
“Oh god, I wonder what those two have done,” a girl said nearby. Tara’s eyes were drawn to her frame, tall and curvy with dark hair and bright blue eyes. She was dressed in some kind of periwinkle dress with a white top underneath, the blue straps reaching around her neck while the white sleeves hung off her shoulders and her hair was braided in a sort of messy French braid that either told the tale of a distracted/inexperienced braider or of a romp in the back of a parked car.
There was a younger girl with the brunette, whose hair was a tad lighter, and then a boy between their ages with dark unruly hair. Both made faces at the girl’s statement, which she laughed off, shrugging her shoulders.
“Come on, you two,” the girl said, eyes practically sparkling. “I want to go see what they’ve done.”
“I could be at home playing PS3,” the boy grumbled, dragging a hand through his hair. He was in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, though the t-shirt did have a dragon on it.
“Father doesn’t like it when we hang out with them,” the little girl pointed out. She was wearing a kind of fluffy sleeved shirt and a skirt, but they were modern cut. It was a cute outfit, though. The older girl shot her an unamused look before rolling her shoulders and flicking the wisps of her hair that had already escaped her braid out of her face.
“Oh hush,” she told the two children. “They’re my friends and since I am twenty-one now I believe I’m allowed to hang out with whom I wish.”
“Father still won’t like it,” the little girl said pointedly.
“Father can suck it, Tilda,” the older girl said. “Right, Ben?”
“Sigrid,” the boy groaned, but he didn’t finish his sentence. He seemed to spot Tara lingering nearby, eavesdropping like a creep, but his eyes flicked over her and then back to his sister without pausing. “Do whatever you like,” he said eventually. “Go visit your boyfriend or whatever. I’m going to go see Oliver and see when the live chess starts.” Then, without another word, the boy turned and left.
The little girl, Tilda, glanced after him nervously. Sigrid laughed loudly, a glimmer in her eyes, before shooing her forward.
“Go on,” she said, smirking. “Go see Oliver.”
The little girl, fourteen or fifteen at the oldest, turned bright red at the name. “Fine,” she snapped, whirling around. “Have fun with Phillip,” she called back in the same half teasing, half mocking voice her sister had used. Both children disappeared into the crowd and when Tara looked back the older girl was gone as well.
Feeling a bit like a creep peeking in people’s house windows Tara started to move forward in the crowd once more. A breeze picked up out of nowhere, giving her a small relief from the heat. There was still a coil of emotions at the bottom of her stomach, stirred up by the conversation of the three strangers, but Tara pushed it away viciously.
Something caught Tara’s eye as she made her way through the crowd. There was an area about the size of a kid’s soccer field fenced off and enclosed on two sides by rows of bleachers. From what she could just barely see and the snatches of lines she could mostly hear from the announcer there was some kind of show going on at the moment. Curious Tara wandered closer, slipping through the bodies between her and the metal seats with ease. Once she was there she blinked at the field before feeling her lips pull into a small, simple smile.
It was a horse show, two tall broad shouldered men in period clothing on two gorgeous, strong beasts. The announcer was an older man with a white beard almost down to his belly who wore Scottish attire and stood proudly in the middle of the field. Tara glanced away only long enough to find an empty seat in the bleachers to sit on before redirecting her attention to the men trotting around the announcer.
One of the men, who rode upon a white horse with red designs along its saddle, had dark blond hair with two tiny braids catching his bangs and keeping them away from his face. His expression was one of complete relaxed peace, though his mouth curled up into a broad grin as he stood in his saddle at the announcer’s prodding and sped his horse up into a proper canter. The other man had hair a few shades lighter than his companion and though his was not as long it still flew out behind him as he turned to keep the darker haired man in sight. There was one large braid that had gathered the top layer of the second man’s hair, most likely to keep it out of his face, and when the first man laughed at something the announcer said the other smiled, small and private. He didn’t have a beard, but a strong jaw and his skin was sun-worn with freckles here and there. (Tara had always had excellent vision. She could read signs from distances that had always baffled her friends. She had always called it her “useless superpower” and shrugged her shoulders.)
It wasn’t long until the show grew to a close. The crowd, small though it was, gave the pair a generous applause before they began to disperse. Tara watched them go, smiling slightly when the first man was able to pull another small smile out of his companion. The announcer wandered behind them slowly, careful not to get too close to the horses. His smile was kindly and the crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes crinkled as he waved at a child in the crowd.
Tara felt something inside her ache sharply at the sight of the white haired man. She closed her eyes and considered just going home, since she usually avoided the places that brought out this feeling within her, but she had spent the fifteen dollars to get in and driving for three hours to get back to her empty dorm did not suit her either. So she squared her shoulders and made her way out of the bleachers and into the rest of the faire.
She passed many interesting stalls as the hours dwindled by. On one of the aisles of stalls there was a stall full of leather work and a stall full of wooden children’s toys, both of which were diagonal to the stall with the little dragon-like creatures that everyone was flocking to. Tara peeked in the stalls as she strolled by, but there wasn’t much that could draw her into one. The armory type stall was tempting, she had to admit, but then she saw the short blond man in there leaning against a tall, broad shouldered man with salt and pepper streaked black hair and she turned away instead. The next aisle held children’s games, candle stalls, perfume shops, clothing, masquerade masks, puppets, and even a side venue building where a magician was holding up a rabbit above his head. It seemed to take years to her to reach the back of the faire, though it was mostly her fault, since she did detour over by the maypole, past the camel and elephant riders before heading to the right-hand corner. Once she did, however, it was not hard to spot the archery setup they have going on. Tara spent a few seconds speaking with the people who passed her a bow and some blunt-tipped arrows, their smiles wide, before she was free to line up with the kids in front of the targets and armored people.
“Oi,” she called out, feeling alive. She always felt this way with a bow in her hand; it had been the only way she had gotten through the loneliness that had plagued her most of her life. Heads swiveled in her direction and she smiled, rolling her shoulders back and cracking her neck sharply.
“Which one of you goes by the name Hadley?”
A man in a pointed helm raised his hand, confusion obvious in the line of his shoulders. “I am, miss,” he called. He was partially hidden behind one of the dummies set up about ten feet away from the fence, but his shoulders and head were visible enough. Tara smiled widely and notched the blunted arrow against the bowstring.
“It’s nice to meet you, Hadley,” she called out. “My name’s Tara and I have a present for you from a man named Old Bo.” Then, without a second to let the man react, she lifted the bow in front of her, pulled back the arrow, adjusted her elbow quickly and released. The arrow shot through the air with a little more force than strictly necessary, smacking against her target’s helm with a loud, ringing thunk.
The crowd around her, mostly made up of children and renn faire workers, erupted into sound. The children laughed loudly as Hadley staggered back a few steps, startled, while the renn faire workers remarked about her aim and the speed of her draw. A tall dark haired man standing a little to her left laughed loudly, throwing his head back to show the strong column of his neck. This man was gorgeous, she had to admit, with his wild dark hair and scruff, but his eyes were wrong, she thought distantly. She didn’t know how, but they were wrong.
“Hadley, what in the world did you do to Old Bo now,” the man remarked, grinning widely. Then he turned to her, raising an eyebrow at her. “And where did he find such a talented, beautiful knight to fight for him, hm?”
Someone behind them sighed loudly, a gusty sound of amusement. “Oh Arthur,” someone said, drawing the man’s attention from her. “You are so, so very lucky Arryn puts up with you.”
“Puts up with me,” Arthur repeated. His expression went from scandalized to dreamy in less time than it took to blink and Tara’s chest constricted with envy for the way he spoke. “Arryn is a goddess and she no more puts up with me than she does with you, my friend. She loves me and I love her, simple as that.”
“Yes, well, she might not love you anymore if you’re late to the show,” another man called out. The first man, Arthur, leant over the fence and peered around her, making her turn curiously. Behind her was a blond man with hair that barely reached his jawline and a neatly trimmed beard that was hardly more than a few days of scruff. The man was dressed in a suit of armor that had to be hell to move in, with accents of red and gold in the material under his suit of metal.
“As a mutual friend would have said, I am never late; I arrive precisely when I mean to.”
“Well you better mean to arrive in the tent within the next few minutes or you won’t have time to put on your armor,” the man laughed. Arthur brushed past, muttering something about her excellent aim as he did, and then clasped the blond man on the shoulder jovially.
“Lead the way, Bernard, brother,” Arthur said, and with that they made their way away.
Tara frowned slightly, eyes trailing after them. “Is there a weapon demonstration,” she asked, turning back to glance at the renn faire volunteers behind her. Before one of them could answer her there was a clanking sound behind her. She turned around to find Hadley standing a few feet from the fence, off to the side to avoid the arrows the kids were still shooting at their targets. He pulled his helmet off, giving her a stiff sort of smile. It didn’t look like he was trying to be rude, but more like that was how he normally smiled at people.
She had to admit, though, his nose was a little bit hookish and his eyes were just a tad bit beady. So maybe Old Bo hadn’t been exaggerating that much. She raised an eyebrow at him, leaning on the fence slightly as he opened his mouth.
“We leave the weapon’s demos to the SCA group,” he said faintly. “You can find them in between the food stalls and the shop stalls. Bernard and Arthur are off to get ready for the last jousting match of the day.”
“Jousting,” she repeated. “You guys do jousting?”
“Yep,” one of the other human targets called out. “It’s really interesting, you should go check it out! If you hurry you should still be able to get a seat somewhere good!”
Hadley pursed his lips, glancing back over his shoulder. “Yes, thank you, Norton,” he drawled, probably only a little sarcastic, though it was hard to tell. He turned back to her, ignoring the man who had shouted and the rude gesture he made at his back. There were several annoyed and scandalized shouts of Norton, there are children!, which made Tara bite her lip on a grin.
“Norton is correct,” Hadley said, shrugging a little bit. “The jousting match is pretty much the last event of the day and it will be packed to the brim, more than likely. If you’d like to get a good seat you’re going to have to hurry.”
“Thanks,” Tara said, shrugging. Jousting sounded interesting and her bike was parked over there, so it was on her way out… “I think I’ll head over there then.” She turned to go, lifting a hand to wave, but paused. She bit her lip and sighed, glancing back at the man who’s helmet was still off to find him staring at her.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Hadley’s eyes widened before he smiled, even smaller than quiet man in the horse show. “Don’t worry about me, my lady,” he murmured, eyes strange. “I’ve gotten worse injuries from much less pleasant looking assailants, trust me. It was an honor, miss…?”
Anyone else would have sounded mocking, but there was a strange sincerity in Hadley’s voice. Norton, who was identifiable from the way he crept closer, dark eyes and dark hair peeking out from under his helm, shifted, seemingly waiting for her name.
“Tara,” she said, loud enough for both to hear. “My name is Tara.”
“It’s nice to meet you, my lady Tara. I hope you enjoy the jousting match.”
Hadley’s eyes were dark and Tara felt a chill race down her spine. She swallowed, nodding before turning to give the bow and arrows back to the people at the table. The woman looked a little confused as she took the arrows, asking quietly if Tara was sure she didn’t want to shoot any more. But suddenly the idea of firing arrows at the blonde and dark haired men among the targets made her sick. Her skin felt too tight and her chest hurt, so she just shook her head, wishing she had pulled on the hoodie in her bike compartment so that she could shove her hands in her pockets. The wind was picking up and that added to the chill that had gripped her turned the temperature into something that made her regret her jean shorts and t-shirt. She curled her arms over her stomach as she made her way back toward the aisles of stalls. She picked the furthest aisle, partially because she liked watching the children at the children’s game booths, but also partially because the older girl of the trio she had seen at the entrance – Sigrid if she recalled correctly – was standing in front of the weaponry stall with the curly blonde haired man and his big brute of what Tara could only assume was the weapon smith. She figured it was best to avoid the temptation of eavesdropping on their conversation, which fit nicely to her usual routine of avoiding the nagging, itching sensation of familiarity that pulled at her gut when she saw them together.
She had dropped a class once because of that feeling. Taken it over the summer instead, with a different professor. It didn’t help that she got close enough to see the weapon smith’s smile, which was unfamiliar, and to see the gleam of his dark eyes, which were not unfamiliar. She probably looked a little silly, turning on her heel to walk down a different path, but she didn’t care. There were a few interesting stalls down the second aisle that she glanced at as she wandered, one in particular with two loud amusing men pressing designs into coins. They were very personalable, singing little bits of songs that fit the moment. “Tell me what you want, what you really really want-“ was something she had heard them sing earlier, but as she walked by this time she heard one of the men singing, “I like to smash it, smash it- I like to smash it, smash it- I like to smash it, smash it- you like to- smash it!” She recognized the song, lips curving in a little smile, before coming to a stop at the sight of two light haired men who were juggling in the middle of the path.
Neither were familiar to her, which was a blessing. Their features were so similar they had to be related, noses the same shape and eyes filled with the same spark of mirth. One was juggles balls while the other juggled boxes, their heads tipped up to keep an eye on what they were doing while they called out to each other happily.
“Heads up, Pip,” one shouted. He was wearing a yellow vest over a white shirt and one the bag at his hip was a stylistic design of a charging horse. He was slightly taller than his companion, who looked up, face twisting as the first man tossed his balls one by one into the air, arching them toward the one called Pip. The balls flew over the heads of the crowd, some who paused like Tara had to watch, and then landed without a hitch in Pip’s hands.
“Merry,” the other one whined, despite having caught them all with the ease others blinked and breathed with. He was wearing a blue tunic with a silver tree design on it, the cut altogether different from his companion. He paused from a moment, eyes tracking the objects he was juggling, mouth twisting as he realized what was in his hands. Tara did a quick count as well, coming up with six boxes, five balls, and-
“The apple’s new,” Pip commented, continuing to juggle it without a problem. Merry beamed at him, pulling on the suspenders over his yellow vest with a prideful little grin.
“Swiped it from the big ol’ grumps packed lunch when his boys distracted him,” Merry explained. Pip whistled, impressed, eyes darting to look at something behind Tara. Tara glanced, leaning a little bit to match his line of sight, and found that she could see the edge of the weapons’ stall from where she stood. She wondered if the man they were referring to was the smith, but the thought was tugged away from her when Pip spoke.
“He’s going to be right upset when he finds it gone,” the juggling man said, grinning. Merry simply nodded sagely, neither of them looking bothered in the least.
“Mr. Williams won’t mind, though,” Pip continued. “Used to feed us treats all the time, remember?”
Both sighed blissfully, content expressions on their faces. Merry even smacks his lips, muttering something about tea cakes to wage war for, before he made a thoughtful expression, jaw stuck out a little bit, nose twitching faintly as he hummed.
“Still,” he said, drawing out the word. “Best not to linger about until we’re caught.”
“Right-o,” Pip agreed. Then, in a flurry of tossed about objects and bouncing curls, they were both suddenly gone. Tara bit her lip, blinking as if coming out of a trance, because while the men weren’t familiar their mirth and mischievous nature were. She sighed, a weight in her stomach that hadn’t been there before as she resumed her journey back to the bleachers in front of the fenced in area. The sun was at the edge of the trees as she walked, making it marginally colder than it had been before, which would have been a relief on any other day. She resented the trees a little, for stealing what time she would have left of the sunlight, which was an irrational feeling she had always harbored. Anything that blocked the sky from her was viewed with a less than favorable eye, which had frazzled the adults who had been forced to put up with her many fits as a child when she was told she couldn’t play outside. She had found during her travels and many lonely camping and hiking trips that she felt most familiar with forests, even if the trees’ leaves did sometimes block the sight of the sky, and that if there was a mountain peeking just from the trees her chest would clench and her eyes would burn with tears she couldn’t explain.
She had actually been scouting out a possible camping and hiking trail when she had heard about the faire. She hadn’t meant to come at first, but then there was a sign on side of the road pointing out the parking for the event and she had made a u-turn at the next light, figuring a few more hours spent outside her empty dorm room would be good. She reflected on the pulling sensation in her gut that had made her turn around as the cheers ahead drew her attention, signally that she had spent too much time watching the jugglers and that jousting had started without her. She was a little disappointed, but she found a spot at the back corner of the fence where she could lean against the sun warmed metal and watch the show.
The announcer was a bald, tattooed man with a heavy Scottish accent who was shouting at the three knights on the ground, who were beginning to scuffle amongst themselves. When his shouting didn’t work he pulled out a gun, firing it loudly into the air, which made the crowd and the men jump. There was one in with a red accent on his armor, which she assumed was Bernard, as well as one with a green accent that she assumed was Arthur by the green tunic he had been wearing earlier. The third knight had a blue accent on his armor and Tara’s eyes wandered across the broad lines of his shoulders and the curve of his helmet with idle curiosity.
“Oh, put your hands down, you great gob-less gits,” the man boomed, shoving the gun back in his belt. “I already shot my wad.”
The three knights went limp with relief, which drew a gusty round of giggles out of a nearby little girl. The show continued, the announcer slipping into a more formal and practiced round of speech as the knights retreated to their horsed, mounting with the help of assistants in matching colored outfits. There was a dark haired woman, gorgeous and pale, who handed the knight with the green accent his blunt lance with a sweet curl of a smile and Tara wondered as that familiar lurch flooded her if that was the Arryn that the men had mentioned earlier. She was certainly gorgeous enough to warrant anyone to make the face Arthur had.
The red and blue knights faced off first. The crowds took up cheers in designated areas that she had apparently missed the arrangement of, shouting for Bernard and someone with a K-name that was lost as the mass of voices washed over her in a strange, distant way. Her eyes were drawn to the blue knight, watching with a kind of breathlessness she had never experienced before as he rode. He lost the jousting to the red knight by only a point, directing his horse off to the side so that the red and green knights could charge at one another instead. In the end Bernard won the jousting, raising his arms above his head as his section of the crowd cheered wildly.
“Alright,” the announcer said, “it is time for the other knights to go and congratulate the winner on his skills in combat.”
The two losing knights drew sullenly up to Bernard, Arthur on his horse and the blue knight on the ground. As Bernard reached out his arm to shake the blue knight’s hand Arthur took the lance still in his hand and used it to push Bernard from his saddle. The blue knight jumped out of the way as the crowd gasped, Bernard’s side of the field booing at Arthur’s actions while the rest of the crowd cheered wildly.
“Well,” the announcer said, sounding somewhere between cross and amused, “shall we let them show off their skills in combat yet again?”
Tara tried to add her voice to the crowd’s cheer of approval, but there was something about the blue knight’s gait as he walked toward the sword’s that drew her breath away. The announcer said something about using whatever weapons they liked, gesturing to the end of the field where Tara was, apparently asking for the king and queen’s approval. Tara glanced at them almost reflexively, seeing a blonde woman that resembled the two men from the horse show and a man who slightly resembled Bernard, though his smile was shy and small as he sat with a crown upon his head. Cheering brought her attention from the pair to the knights and she saw with a squeeze of her throat that the blue knight had picked up a war hammer, wielding it with the kind of easy familiarity that bespoke many years practice. She imagined a wild grin in her head and wished that she could see through his helm, just for a second.
Combat ended almost before it began. The knights turned on each other with fluid ease, Bernard and Arthur with their swords and the blue knight with his hammer. Bernard was knocked down, scrambling to get up as the blue knight advanced with his sword, but in the end it he too was flat on his back, Arthur above him with his own hammer. Tara choked back a small wounded noise as Arthur brought the hammer down on him despite the knowledge that this fight was more than likely choreographed as she fought past a wall of fear she couldn’t explain. Bernard got back up, but only for a second before Arthur smacked him aside and kicked his legs out from under him, surprisingly nimble in all that armor. The assistants rushed forward to help the fallen knights out of their helmets as Arthur pulled off his own, holding the hammer out to one side. Tara craned her neck to see the blue knight as the announcer began his closing spiel, the crowd milling around behind her now that the action was done. There was an assistant in her way at first, but she stepped upon the metal fence, hands curling around the metal as if she was a small child who needed the extra height and not a grown woman, and the assistant could not block her view of the knight then.
Her breath left her without so much as a passing goodbye. The world stopped, the crowd disappeared, and she could of sworn there was the chill of ice all around her. She felt like she was battered, like an army had raged at her, creatures so impossibly evil and large tossing her against stone again and again, and before she knew it a tear was carving its way down her cheek. She whispered a name, one she had not said before in this life, but her throat was so tight she made no sound. She tried to clear it, shaking, heart pounding in her ears. She wondered, for just a second, if she was dreaming, but she knew, as if someone was standing above her telling her, that this was real.
It was real.
It was real and he was right there.
She cleared her throat again, leaning over the fencing, just as the announcer stopped talking and gathered everything she had for her shout. Her braid slipped over her shoulder as she leaned, her bangs getting into her eyes with the wind, but she couldn’t take her eyes off his form as he took his helm from the assistant and stood.
“Kili,” she tried, voice cracking, and once it was out of her mouth it was like a broken dam, building and building until she was raising her voice louder and louder. “Kili! Kili! KILI!”
It wasn’t the name the crowd had been cheering, but he jerked to a stop, spinning to face her. His dark hair was bound at the back of his head in a sloppy bun and his eyes, dark though they were, gleamed in the fading sunlight. His jaw went slack, helmet slipping from his fingers as their eyes met. And then, abruptly, he was running, charging at her, moving faster in his heavy metal armor than she had thought possible and she leaned toward him, not caring about anything else in the world as he reached the fence, slamming into it with enough force that she toppled forward, hands landing on his shoulders.
He reached up, trying to cup her cheek carefully in his metal gauntlets, and for a second she thought he was going to cry. He parted his lips, croaked out a sound that wasn’t quite words, before clearing his throat just as roughly as she had and starting over again.
“Tauriel,” he said, tilting her name up at the end like a question, like he wasn’t sure. She laughed, more tears slipping down her cheeks as she curled her fingers against the metal of his armor and struggled to breathe.
“Kili,” she repeated again. “You’re-“
Lips that she had only known as cold, chapped things belonging to a man who no longer walked upon the same world as she, interrupted her before she could continue. Lips that she had missed without knowing it, lips that were chapped and sweet and careful as they brushed against hers, so careful for a man so brash and brave and foolishly bright. Bright and warm and lovely like the stars. She dragged her hands up his neck and into his hair as she kissed him back, not caring that she was bent over the fence with it digging into her gut, not caring that she could hear people whistling and cheering as the announcer said something in a rough and fond voice.
All that mattered was the smile Kili pressed against her mouth before he drew back. He didn’t go far, just enough that their foreheads were barely touching, noses tapping each other with every breath.
“Stones below, Tauriel,” he whispered, voice like gravel, drawing a long, breathless shiver from her. “I-“
“I love you,” she whispered, tugging at his hair as she interrupted him. He had said before she could last time, but this time it was her turn. He sputtered to a stop, looking shocked, cheeks going faintly pink as he leaned back from her words. She clutched his head, pulling her lips into a smile, wishing she had done this on that beach instead.
“I love you,” she repeated, bold and uncaring if anyone heard. “I lived for more years than I would like to recall without telling you and I could not stand it a moment more to continue as such, so if you do not love me tell me now and I will-“
He pulled her down to kiss her again rather than answer her. She melted into the kiss, feeling the stone weight of her loneliness begin to leave her as he whispered against her lips.
“I love you too,” he whispered, curling an arm around her waist to hoist her over the fence. She could have helped with, more than able to get herself over a fence without fuss, but she liked his arm around her, especially once her feet were on the ground and he turned out to be tall. Kissing him like this was going to be much easier than kissing him would have been, she reflected with a little thrill of amusement as she curled her arms around his shoulders and leaned forward against his chest.
An unfamiliar feeling pooled in her gut, turning slowly as Kili fumbled through the effort of pulling off one of his gauntlets so that he could card his hand through her hair. Tauriel could have helped him, but she was distracted, partially by the sight of a bearded blonde man running toward them, grinning like a loon with Sigrid right on his heels, but also partially by the realization of what that feeling in her chest was.
Home was where the heart was and Tauriel was finally, blissfully, home.