Disclaimer: I do not own LOTR or any thing affiliated with Tolkien enterprises!

Notes: So, just a few things here . . . Dunno if I'll continue this fic or not, but Telepiel told me how fantastic it is (lol . . . No ego problem here! Lol), and that I should post it, so here it is! I read a few post-LOTR stories like this and got lots of ideas floating around inside my little brain - I don't know how I'm going to keep track of four stories, but the bloody bunrondae would not leave me alone with this one, so I wrote it down and let them have their fun! For those of you who don't know - and that's probably everyone except Telepiel! lol - Bunrondae are like plot bunnies, except they attack without mercy and slaughter the innocent! lol

In this fic, Galadriel and Elrond and anybody else that I happen to mention that should not be there never got to the Undying Lands! This is a really, really alternate universe! That said, let's get on with the show!

Laeriel sat in her cell on the stone bench along the farthest wall. Her posture was rigid, her appearance ragged, her long rich brown hair was in a single messy braid at the back of her head, and her hazel eyes cold and unfeeling, stared unblinking at nothing. Her elegant elvish clothing was now torn and tattered, the elegant cut and colour of the tunic and trousers now all but faded. Her left arm was covered with a fresh bandage.

If she were to look out her window, she would see a cold and dark landscape, covered with dead plants, trees, and animals, not to mention the pit grave located only a few hundred meters from her cell. The air was thick with the smell of pain and death. If she had been listening, she would have heard the screams of her kin and of the other folk of Middle-Earth being tortured, for the air was also filled with the sounds of pain and death.

She had been in this dank and dreary prison for what she believed to be nearly a month, though it was hard to count the passing of time when the days were just as dark as the nights. In that month she had been tortured for information countless times, each time she was asked the same questions, and each time she refused to answer. As a result every inch of her slender body was covered in cuts, bruises, and burns.

At first the torture had been agonizing, but now she saw it as a way to know she was still alive, and, somehow, that thought gave her hope. She had information the Dark Lord needed, and until he got it, she would remain alive, and being alive meant that he had not found the others.

In the last few weeks, she had lost almost everyone she knew at the prison - one by one they were being mercilessly slaughtered in a desperate effort to get the valuable information from her.

Now another of her friends was dragged in front of her cell by one of the guards - a man the Dark Lord had easily corrupted, for he had not been overly virtuous in the first place - but still she did not blink or even acknowledge their presence.

"Are you ready to lose another?" the man laughed, placing his blade at the ellon's throat.

The look in the elf's eyes begged her to save him, but she could not. She just remained staring blankly ahead as the guard slowly, torturously drew his blade across the elf's throat. As the ellon fell dead in front of her, Laeriel swallowed her tears and all the emotion welling within her. 'I cannot tell them,' she reminded herself.

She let go of her conscious thoughts and drifted back in her memory as the ellon's body was dragged away by the cackling man. She remembered the last time she had been outside the prison walls. The Dark Lord had ordered her released in the hopes that she would run to the very elves he was trying to find. But Laeriel was too intelligent to run home - she knew what he wanted and was not about to give it to him. Instead she had lived in what had remained of Ithilien, free for a grand total of five days before being recaptured when the Dark Lord realized she would not return home.

Her thoughts then drifted to her home - the sanctuary that Lady Galadriel and Lord Celeborn had created for the elves and a few select others such as King Elessar and his family. It was hidden from all eyes, and could only be found by those who knew its secrets. She would not give up the location of the Lord and Lady, she would not give up where her elven kin had retreated to, she would not give up. Though she did not know how or why, hope had remained in her heart and she would not let go of it.

She remembered the end of the War of the Ring, remembered how everyone had believed they were safe - they could not have been more wrong. Somehow Morgoth had been able to revive Sauron, and once again he terrorized Middle-Earth from his seat in Barad-dur.

Few had ever seen the Dark Lord, and even fewer had lived to tell about it. But only what might have been either two days or two hours ago to Laeriel, she was brought before the Dark Lord in one of the most frightening encounters she had ever experienced. He had asked her where her Lord and Lady were hiding, and she refused to answer. He had asked her the whereabouts of King Elessar, and once again she did not answer. Sauron and the minions that had surrounded him seemed stunned by the fact that Laeriel had not been intimidated into giving him the information he wanted. After a time he had become so enraged when she refused to answer him that he grabbed her left wrist and held her lower arm over a nearby fire, screaming questions at her while he burnt her. Laeriel had screamed until her throat was raw, and he released her. She was so far gone that she had not even shed any tears at the pain. He had ordered her arm be taken care of, then had her thrown back into her cell.

So now she sat alone in her small cell, wincing imperceptibly at the occasional rushes of pain shooting through her arm. She heard one of the doors opening, but again did not move.

"Welcome to your new home, my lord," one of the guards taunted. Judging by the voice, this guard was another human.

"What's the matter?" the other guard - an orc - hissed at the prisoners. "Won't bow to the lord of Imladris?"

A sudden panic and fear gripped Laeriel as she shot up from her spot and ran to the front of her cell, right hand gripping one of the bars. She looked through and saw a beaten, but still proud Elladan being lead toward her cell. 'Oh, please, no,' she thought. 'Don't let them use him, by Elbereth, please.' Her expression did not betray her panic, however, but remained neutral and uncaring.

Before the guards noticed that she was up, Laeriel ran quickly back to the bench and sat in the same spot and position as before. When the guards brought Elladan to her cell, she was pleased to note that he did not even acknowledge her presence, but continued to stare at nothing, a confident smirk on his face. Did he have a plan?

The human guard unlocked Laeriel's cell and unceremoniously shoved the lord inside. "You can keep her company," he told Elladan as he shoved him.

Elladan, however, remained unaffected by all this as he came to an abrupt stop after being shoved. His demeanor did not change, nor did he move. He simply stood in the middle of the cell, smirking.

For her part, Laeriel did not move, nor did she speak or even blink. And she continued to do so as the guards taunted her and Elladan.

"Neither of them talk," the man laughed. "Wonder if the young lord'll hold out as long as the she-elf, or if he'll break right away!" The orc and the human laughed at them, but still neither moved.

Laeriel winced inwardly, but did not allow it to show through - she knew Elladan would never break and it pained her to think of what they would do to him.

"We'll know soon enough, I'll wager," the orc sneered as he and the man left Laeriel and Elladan alone.

As soon as they were alone, Elladan walked forward to where Laeriel sat, a question in his eyes. She responded by shaking her head tightly, almost imperceptibly. In a place such as the one they were in, even the walls had ears and any conversation they might have would be unwise.

Elladan had gathered her meaning and sat down beside her, using every ounce of strength he had to ignore the bandage on her arm and the other injuries he could see. He did not even wish to think about the ones he could not see.

They sat side by side in silence, each comforted by the presence of the other, but neither allowing their expressions or body language to betray that comfort.