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He's Gone
By Nefhiriel & Imbecamiel
Rating: PG-13
Genres: Action/Adventure/Angst
Disclaimer: Neither of us owns either Middle-earth or it's characters. Everything belongs to Tolkien, with the exception of Glamdil (if, for some bazaar reason, you'd like to use him, please ask first ; ).
Summery: Aragorn and Legolas caught by orcs: dejá vù, right? Torture and eventual escape? If only things could be that simple... What started out as a nightmare of a trip, turns into a catastrophe – and they would give anything to be able to go back and change the past. But appearances can be deceiving…
Notes: Italics shows thoughts. Things enclosed by / Flashback / are flashbacks.
Aragorn equals Estel, equals Strider (I know most of you already know this by now, just have to make sure ; ).
A/N: Yay, finally posting again! I was hoping to post the sequel to The Wrong One, but Imbecamiel agreed to give a go at co-authoring this story with me, and it ended up coming out pretty quickly. I'm making good progress on the sequel, but I just couldn't wait to talk to you all again : D I'm really excited to be posting again, so please talk to me, and let me know I'm not completely forgotten! LOL.
We'll do our best to respond to reviews, but our schedule has been extremely hectic of late (not enough to keep us from the actual posting, LOL), so please bear with us.
One last thing… I'd like to give a special thanks to Eleniel Ithel for all the hard work she put into betaing this for us. Thank you, mellon-nín!
Now for chapter one…
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-Chapter one -
Aragorn stumbled and fell to his knees, cursing the bound hands that prevented him from catching himself. Legolas dug in his heels, jerking the orc that held the rope attached to his own bound hands. He desperately tried to assist his friend before their captors found another excuse to vent their anger on him.
Using his friend's arm for leverage, Aragorn struggled to his feet just as the two irritated orcs turned on them. This clumsy human and his defensive elf-friend had jerked them to a halt far too many times this night, in their short-tempered opinions.
"Here, you!"
The orc in charge of Aragorn pulled the rope hard, and the human, still slightly off balance, was once more knocked off his feet.
"Get up you lazy scum!" The orc scowled and swore in his foul speech as Aragorn clumsily rose to his knees. Furious at the delays his captive kept causing, he aimed a vicious kick at his ribs. "Didn't you hear what I said? Get up, we haven't got all night!" The kicks that punctuated his words weren't doing anything to help the man regain his feet, but at this point the orc was in no mood for reason. Suddenly, he was astonished to find himself falling to the ground.
He had paid little heed to the other captive's furious protests when he had begun beating the man. Let him shout all he wanted, there was little enough he could do about anything. Or so he had thought. The furious strength with which Legolas had jerked himself from the grip of the orc holding him had startled it so much that it had not had the time to warn its friend before the other orc was knocked to the ground.
Now the laughter of the other orcs served only to further enrage the felled one.
"Ha! And here he was upset about the human not being able to keep 'is feet. Goin' to let yourself be bested by a tied elf, Blagrak?"
Picking himself up from the ground with a snarl, Blagrak growled at the rebellious prisoner "That was a very bad idea, elf. You'll soon regret it, though. I'll see to that."
The elf in question appeared singularly unimpressed by his threat, merely staring back in silent contempt. A punch from the orc landed him on his back. Before he could regain his feet, Blagrak was on him, taking out all the fury of his injured pride. He was soon enthusiastically joined by Zargut, the orc who had been holding Legolas earlier, whose own pride had been more than a little stung by the taunts of his fellows at the ease with which Legolas had escaped his grasp. Egged on by the other orcs, they gladly saw to it that the elf learned a lesson in what it meant to provoke an orc.
Aragorn had, by now, regained his feet, and tried desperately to stop the abuse. He rammed his shoulder into Zargut's stomach, knocking him into a tree. Turning to Blagrak, he was met with an iron clad fist, which slammed into his face, stunning him. Before either of the orcs could renew their "lessons" to the prisoners, another voice interrupted them.
"Here now, what's this? I told you, no stopping! There'll be plenty of time to have fun with the prisoners after we make camp."
" But Sharzag, they was…" Zargut began to whine.
"I don't CARE what the prisoners were doing! We're far to close to them elves yet for my tastes." the large orc growled to his subordinates, "Blagrak, Zargut - get them up, and no more delays. You understand?"
The two orcs sullenly mumbled in the affirmative, roughly pulling their still dazed prisoners up, and jerking them forward.
Legolas watched his friend with concern as they continued their unrelenting pace. Aragorn's limp had been growing steadily worse over the past two days, and now he began to worry that his friend would not be able to keep up much longer.
Keep up? Who am I fooling? He can barely stay on his feet as it is!
So far the orcs had been in too great a hurry to distance themselves from Rivendell to take time to give their captives more than passing notice, for which Legolas was grateful. All the same, he knew that they would soon be far enough away to slow their pace, and he wasn't looking forward to the attention they would receive then. Inwardly, he groaned in frustration as he thought back to the day of their capture.
If only I hadn't provoked him! If he hadn't been hurt in the first place, we might have avoided capture altogether…
/ Legolas shot out of the woods towards the river, his friend just a few yards behind him.
"Legolas! That was an unfair start – and you know it!"
Legolas gracefully leapt onto a large rock by the side of the river and turned to smile innocently at Aragorn as he ran out of the woods panting.
"Unfair?"
"Yes, unfair." Aragorn sat down on the bank. "Elves are naturally faster than humans, did you really need a head-start to win that race?"
"A head-start?" Legolas pretended to be hurt, "Your reflexes were simply slow, mellon-nín, we started out at the same time."
He smiled smugly as the human glared.
"Look, Strider, would you do me a favor?"
His irritation slightly depleted now that he had caught his breath, Aragorn answered absentmindedly, "Sure…What is it?"
"Well, you have been on the road for over a week.."
"Yes?"
"And it's been so hot out lately…" Legolas continued to hint.
"And your point is?"
"I guess," here Legolas paused to sigh dramatically, and risked a glance to see how his next words effected the ranger. "There really is no delicate way to say this…Will you just take a bath—you're filthy, human!"
Aragorn lunged.
Fortunately, Legolas had been anticipating this. The rock he was sitting on stood some feet out into the stream, and when Legolas leapt backwards Aragorn stumbled over the rock, and into the ice-cold water.
Legolas laughed—until he realized that Aragorn wasn't rising.
"Mellon-nín?" he walked over to where his friend was.
Aragorn looked at him and grimaced. Now getting worried, Legolas offered his hand the fallen human.
"Are you alright?" he asked with genuine concern.
Aragorn took his hand.
Suddenly, the grimace was gone, and Aragorn was grinning smugly.
"Mellon-nín, you just fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book."
Relishing the look of surprise on the elf's face, Aragorn pulled Legolas down into the stream beside him. Then, not waiting for his friend to wipe the water out of his eyes, he began to hastily retreat to the shore.
"Not so fast, you filthy human! You haven't had nearly enough time in the water to get clean!"
Legolas jumped forward, wrapping his arms around Aragorn's legs and sending him sprawling back into the water. Aragorn's legs crumbled out from beneath him and he collapsed face-first into the stream. Legolas dodged around the rock he'd been sitting on just minutes before, just as he resurfaced.
Fixing his friend with a menacing glare, Aragorn positioned himself on the other side. Their eyes locked and they began to circle back and forth in a contest of wills. Clothes now soaking wet, and with drenched hair plastered to their faces and shoulders, they made a ludicrous duo. They stood in the frigid water, neither willing to back down themselves, but both daring the other to do so.
Suddenly swerving to the left, Legolas scooped his hands into the water and sprayed Aragorn in the face. Sputtering through a face-full of water, Aragorn lunged blindly at Legolas just as he jumped back out of reach.
"That's the third time, mellon-nín." Legolas stood confidently over Aragorn, who had once more tripped and fallen. "When are you going to give up and just surrender?"
"Very well," Aragorn said between clenched teeth, "I give up." he tried to stand, but before he'd reached his feet he groaned and sunk back to his knees.
"Aragorn, are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"Why do I somehow doubt that? You wouldn't be saying that you were fine, unless you were most definitely not fine." Legolas help Aragorn to his feet and onto the shore where he forced him to sit down. "Now, show me where you got hurt."
"I'm fine." .
"Which leg?"
"I said I'm fine!"
"You could save yourself a lot of pain, human, it you'd just tell me which leg you hurt."
"Left." Aragorn grumbled, sulkily crossing his arms.
Legolas reached out and tentatively began to inspect his left leg. Aragorn stiffened and put a hand on his arm.
"Mellon-nín, I know it hurts but I must look at it just in case—"
"No, listen."
With a start Legolas finally heard what he had been too concerned over his friend to notice earlier: a steadily approaching sound of tramping feet and snapping branches. His eyes widened as his mind reluctantly grasped its significance.
"Yrch!" He breathed.
"Could they have possibly chosen a worse time?" Aragorn muttered as he struggled to his feet with Legolas' help.
Bracing himself against a tree, he drew his sword in preparation for a fight. Nocking an arrow on his bowstring, Legolas positioned himself between his friend and the orcs.
As the first orcs appeared through the trees, swift arrows flew, easily taking down the first startled beasts. Judging by their reaction, it appeared their discovery had been accidental. The thought that they were about to be killed by orcs who had stumbled over them by chance, rather than purposely hunting them down, was small comfort, however, as their foes quickly recovered from their initial surprise, withdrawing behind the trees, out of arrow range. As they prepared for a more organized attack, Legolas put up his bow, knowing that when the attack came, it would be too fast to make arrows practical.
From the start, the fight was an impossible one. His injured leg preventing easy movement, Aragorn was hard pressed to defend himself, even with the large tree providing a measure of protection for his back. Legolas moved swiftly, cutting down as many orcs as he could, but he was sorely hampered by his attempts to aid his friend while at the same time blocking the blows aimed at himself. Still, some part of his mind noted with mixed emotions that the blows did not appear to be intended to kill.
The orcs meant to take them alive.
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Legolas was abruptly brought back to the present as the Orcs stopped, shoving both of them down next to a tree. He noted with worry how his friend turned his head away from him and tried to subdue a gasp of pain as he landed directly on his injured ankle.
"Are you alright?" he asked with concern.
Aragorn grinned wryly. "That's an interesting question to be asking in the middle of an Orc-camp, mellon-nín."
"Let me rephrase that: how is your ankle?"
"Fine."
"'Fine', as in 'the pain is excruciating and I'm probably going to pass out, but I don't think I'll be left with a permanent limp', or 'fine', as in 'this isn't going to work much longer, and I'm about to die from exhaustion'?"
"Neither." Aragorn offered him a wry smile. "It's not that bad—I'm quite certain that it's only sprained. And the pain, well… I don't think I'm on the verge of passing out. You'll just have to accept it this time: I really am alright."
"In that case…"
Before Aragorn could react, Legolas reached forward with his bound hands and gently touched his leg. Aragorn started, but managed to suppress the yelp of pain that almost escaped him.
"You're 'fine'?"
Aragorn answered between clenched teeth as he acclimated once more to the pain, "Well, it might be a little swollen."
Legolas would have laughed had they been in any less dangerous of a situation.
"A little swollen! You've been walking on a sprained ankle for two days—and it's a little swollen!"
"Okay, make that very swollen." Aragorn spoke more harshly than he meant to, but hurried to amend his last words, "It is very swollen, and very painful, mellon-nín, but there is absolutely nothing either of us can do about it, so I'm just doing my best to ignore it."
"And hope it goes away?" Legolas smiled slightly.
Aragorn chuckled and gingerly stretched his long legs out before him, "It might."
They sat in silence then, both leaning wearily back against the tree as they kept a wary eye on the orcs' activity. Though they felt reluctant to let down their guard enough to sleep, in the end their exhaustion, combined with the knowledge that staying awake would do little to prevent the orcs from doing just as they pleased, forced them to give in to the lure of rest.
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Legolas woke with a start, absently noting that the sun was now well overhead. Glancing around, he quickly found the source of the noise that woke him in the first place. Several of the orcs were fighting, shoving each other as they shouted in the Black speech. Legolas winced at the sound of the language. The orcs had been unable to find a cave to spend the day in, a fact which none of them had been at all pleased at. The fact that the day was very cloudy and game was plentiful in the area served to curb their displeasure somewhat, but all of their tempers were obviously on edge. For now, it appeared that they were content to take their irritation out on each other, but Legolas knew all too well that it was likely only a matter of time before they began looking to their prisoners for a more satisfying means of releasing their frustration.
Glancing over at his friend, he saw that he still slept.
Better to let him get what rest he can. He'll soon be needing all the strength he has.
He rested his head against the tree, watching disinterestedly as the orcs continued their argument. He had no idea what it was about, not that he really cared anyways, as long as it kept their interest away from Aragorn and himself.
I very much doubt that even they know what they're arguing about by now.
His contempt for the creatures must have showed all to clearly. Blagrak, who had been watching the fight, glancing in his direction, caught the look.
"What do you think you're looking at like that, elf?" He growled.
Legolas could think of quite a few responses to such a stupid question, none of which were likely to be conductive to either his own, or his friend's health. So he kept his silence, contenting himself with a disgusted glare.
"Still defiant, eh? I think it's about time we did something about that. Besides, I still haven't given you the lesson I promised earlier.
Completely forgetting any arguments with each other, the orcs all turned their attention to what promised to be a far more interesting diversion.
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Aragorn woke quickly when Legolas nudged his leg with the toe of his boot, the sight of the angry orcs approaching bringing him to instant alertness.
"Might I ask what you said to make then that angry, mellon-nin?" Aragorn's tense whisper was only half jesting.
"Nothing! Nothing at all." Legolas paused for half a second. "Actually, I think that's just the problem."
"Oh." Aragorn considered saying more, but all thoughts of further reply were banished by the orcs' near approach.
He watched helplessly as they jerked his friend to his feet, the firm grip of an orc on his own arm preventing any interference.
Blagrak approached Legolas, who was held in place by two large orcs. If he expected his captive to shrink from him, he was to be sorely disappointed. The elf held himself firmly erect, his face expressionless.
"You think you're so tough, huh? We'll soon see how long you keep that high-and-mighty attitude of yours!"
Though his outward composure was perfect, Legolas could feel his stomach twisting into knots as he contemplated what was to come.
"You've had this comin' to you for a long time, elfy."
Blagrak pressed the tip of the long, thin blade he carried against the elf's chest, increasing the pressure when the only thing his actions drew from the elf was blood. Suddenly, he hesitated, drawing back slightly as he turned to see Sharzag approaching.
"Well, well, well, what have we here? Decided to have a little fun with the prisoners, did we?"
"Yes-no… I mean… you did say that when we made camp…" Blagrak stammered, unsure where his chief was leading with his questions.
Legolas felt a slight hope rise within him. After all, Sharzag had made them stop earlier. Perhaps… but the fragile hope was shattered again a moment later.
A slow smile spread across Sharzag's face, sending shivers up the elf's spine. "Yes, I did, didn't I…" The orc seated himself on a nearby log, with an easy view of the proceedings. " Very well, then, carry on, boys."
Well there you have it. Chapter two will be up next Friday. Hopefully, we'll be able to post weekly on that day. Now, before Imbecamiel and I get desperate and start in with the shameless pleading…please review? Hearing your comments is one of the things I enjoy most about writing fanfiction ; ) So hit that blue button, so conveniently situated below, and make two authors very, very happy.
- Nefhiriel & Imbecamiel -