A/N So...here is the infamous question: can orcs be good, or care/have feelings? The answer: what your beliefs are can influence heavily these matters.

Personally, any unfortunate elf who happens to get caught by orcs and tormented beyond recognition is the only orc that could be good/neutral. It is all a spiritual battle in the end, who they give allegiance to. Whether give in to dark forces because they cannot do it anymore, inevitably drowning out any possible redemption because of the path they took if they do not rebel, hold out until they are found and sent to Valinor, or they are released from their torment to meet their reward for their long suffering and endurance.

Elladan and Elrohir are at a fault too...even if they were not aware of it.

So long, so long. He could not see anymore. They did enough damage to his eyes, and the constant darkness of the cave…he was still in the cave, right? It was cold, damp, and so closed in still. He had screamed himself deaf, and the screaming of the orcs. Darkness, soundless, all except that sinister little voice that whispered to his heart and mind, promising to restore all that if he just gave up.

He was no orc…he was no orc! But was he? They destroyed his body in too many ways to be considered an elf (not that he could remember what one looked like, sounded like…)

He started screaming into the dark again when the oppressive force became unbearable, and heard nothing still. He despaired he would never hear again.

Give up, give up…then he could have peace, or whatever sort of peace orcs had. He had been like this for too long, and nothing, no one, had come. Maybe he should stop…He was too tired. He had been like this for too long.

He screamed again from the anguish of his soul, the battling forces of light and dark. He still clung to the hand of light, that only small hope he had, since he could not abandon this body for some reason. He did not want to die, but he wanted to so badly. It was a negating force that was torture in of itself.

There was a lot of rumbling going on, and he curled in on himself. Please, please do not hurt him. He was hurting enough. What was happening? If he could only see and hear!

He could not stop shaking, he was scared, terrified. What would they do? What did he do? The rumbling had stopped, and his body tensed to the point of becoming stiff metal.

Then he felt the hands: gentle, kind hands, smooth hands, not orcs and their rough handling. They held his wrists. He still did not stop shaking though.

The dread in his heart, that voice, had been amplified by the touch and it was screaming in outrage. He was starved of nice touches. Beatings did not count. What if this was a bad thing? Some sort of orc they had brought that was not calloused? Oh, whatever that is still good in the world, please, please do not…

One hand left, but the other stayed, which was trailing its fingers along his hand and wrist. The other hand rested on his naked shoulder, quietly prodding him to sit up. He would become vulnerable, but he was too weak to resist. The hand grabbed his other again. They were lifted to touch something else, something smooth. They did not mind his nails, which by now should be claws? The nice hands moved his own across the surface. A face! It was a face!

Then the hands pulled his away from the face, and he started shaing again, both from exhaustion and emotional stress and tension. His fingers felt something again, and his fingers trembled as they searched. Ears, given the roundness. Man? He did not know what a man looked like…not anymore. But he found the small elvish tip even though the ears were mostly round.

Elf-man? Man-elf?

Wait.

A name…names, right there.

Only a few individuals have such a blend of man and elf in their features. And he was spared from…this…

His heart soared and were he not tired and dehydrated he would have wept, despite the fact he could see nor hear. But he trusted this person. The only person he could trust after so long.

The bad voice that tugged at his heart was still screaming at him. With a great push he shoved it aside.

He was an elf; an elf that was going home.

Elrohir held the tormented's hand to his face and then his ears before lowering them again. As much as he was unwilling to admit it, this…this being was familiar to him, if only through passing and patrols. The name escaped him, but the elf that was, was a kind person. How long had he been in the hands of these orcs, now reduced to nothing but a blind and deafened goblin?

Elladan was standing in the background looking on, his expression troubled and mildly infuriated. Their blood-rage had ceased when they saw the creature curled up screaming in the corner. Elladan would have destroyed it, but Elrohir stayed his hand, ever the more reasonable of the two.

Now the older twin was feeling heavy grief and remorse. How many innocents could they have destroyed during their raids these past years? But what is the difference between death and this? It is still freeing them…but they were still kinslayers. They had evil intent behind their actions, even if they were blind before now.

"Elladan, how low have we fallen?" Elrohir despaired in a whisper, "How many have we turned a blind eye to and slaughtered without a thought?"

"But we free them…yes?" Elladan questioned hesitantly.

Elrohir shook his head viciously, "Free perhaps, but to what end: hopeless damnation? Who knows if the enemy claims their souls the minute they are dead, or if Mandos takes them away. We could have prevented the former happening…"

"Murderers." Elladan began despairing.

Elrohir tried to prevent himself from trembling, briefly eying the blind elf, who was looking vacantly into the distance with hope and tremendous anticipation on his face, "Give me your cloak, brother, and the flask…we will take him to our father and find a place for him on a ship."

"And beg with all our souls' worth for mercy." Elladan unfastened the garment around his shoulders.

"We start here, brother…and try to take heed to whom is in a battle of spirit, and bring them back to the light."