A/n: Hi:) This is my first fanfic... on this account so, be nice, my new ego is fragile *wince* Oh, and this will all make sence in chapter two, I SWEAR O_o And... first chapter's kinda awkward, but it will make WAY more sence in chapter two, so... just stick with me until then!
"Be careful, Legolas!" Aragorn warned, making cautious eye contact with his best friend, more like a brother actually, gripping his shoulder tightly, refusing to let go of the Elf until he swore to be on his top guard.
"When haven't I been?" Legolas replied, playfully, taking the situation at hand with a measurable amount less pressure than Aragorn, even gracing the man with a bright, white smile before rushing off into the woods, running in the opposite direction as his friend.
Shaking his head and biting his lip, Aragorn watched his best friend's form fade away into the distance and reluctantly turned the opposite way, having a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Painful stabs attacked his abdomen, as they were wane to do whenever his Elf-friend was just running into the face of danger...
Stick to the plan, Aragorn! He told himself, sternly. Legolas would get mad at you if you didn't... He chuckled to himself, picturing the lecture Legolas would give him if he broke the plan out of concern for his welfare. Strider certainly didn't have any wish to get his ears lectured off.
Legolas ceased running once he was sure he was far enough way to the point Aragorn couldn't see him anymore. His bow was drawn and loaded with an arrow. The Elf's stance showed his alertness, the stiffness in his shoulders. It seemed to the passing animals that he was ready to fire at the first sound that he found the least bit dangerous. Mirkwood's prince was tence and ready for action.
"NO! NOOO! PLEASE! HAVE YOU NO MERCY!" Legolas jumped at that voice and his eyes narrowed, while his legs carried him over to the voice. He stopped just short of a clearing he was familiar with, taking shelter behind a surprisingly thick tree that could hide his slim frame too well, peaking out from the side and felt his heart leap into his throat in horror.
Blood was sprayed over the ground, slashed across trees... in fact.. the blood was everywhere. Dead, mutilated bodies of many tortured Elves littered the ground, some missing limbs, heads and other body parts. Legolas felt his stomach whirl when he saw one body missing it's head and it's chest cut open, where the heart had been cut out and he could see the torn lungs and broken ribs. Fingers, toes and... (mayhap most disturbingly) tongues covered the ground, found in the pool of blood. Yet, by far, the worst was the thick, heavy, metallic smell of blood that made Legolas feel as if he were choking.
Two figures stood in the middle of the gory chaos. One was nude and on his knees, a tortured Elf. Legolas could just barely see his face, and without meaning to, took a sharp intake of breath when he saw that the Elf's eyeballs had been popped out of his sockets, his right arm was missing, and his left foot lay nearby and had obviously been hacked off recently. This made the young Elf prince, tremble, feeling like a child. Bloody tears had trailed down the tortured Elf's cheeks, or maybe it was just blood seeping out of the eye-socket wounds...
The other figure was a being clothed in all black, his face covered by a mask. His muscles were thicker than Legolas' body structure, and he was stiff and still, watching the Elf with blank eyes. If there was any emotion in those eyes, it was anger, and it made Legolas choke on a sob. This dark person had a bow drawn and an arrow was aimed straight at the sightless Elf's head. Aiming an arrow at the dark man, Legolas was just about to release it when the man turned toward him and Legolas gasped, dropping his arrow without meaning to.
He knew those eyes! And appearently they knew him, too, because there was a chuckle that made both Legolas and the tormented Elf shudder. In fact, it was so cruel, and so dark, Legolas dropped down to his knees, rubbing his aching temples, in a similiar fashion to the other Elf. Approaching Mirkwood's young prince, threateningly, the man pulled down his mask... revealing the most handsome face that was possible for the race of Man.
His jaw line was strong, and wide, grey eyes. His nose was ever so slightly crooked, and there was a scar on his left cheek and another running from the right side of his hair line to his eyebrow, but it only enhanced his handsomeness. His lips formed into a straight line for a second, before a malicious smile that made his eyes sparkle lethally took over his face.
"Little Legolas?..." He asked, his voice nearly as handsome as his face, and the evil smirk grew ever wider, giving off an almost friendly appearence, "My little Legolas?" At this point, the prince was trembling too hard to even answer. His throat was seizing up, and he felt like he was choking on his sob.
"Legolas..." As much as Legolas would have liked to pull away, he felt powerless to pull away as the man grabbed him by the crook of his neck, pulled him in and kissed him roughly.
Gulping, Legolas felt revolted. Dispising himself, for feeling like a helpless child again in the hands of this man, he dimly heard the other Elf called out 'Prince Legolas? RUN!' over the pounding of his ears. His heart was beating so fast, making his blood run fast in his viens, also resulting in making his body throb painfully.
When the man finally pulled back, Legolas released a shuddering breath. However, the man still had a tight hold on the crook of his neck. With his other hand, he drew his fingers through Legolas' hair. "You have grown much..." He added, with amusment, smiling, enjoying the fear that his mere presence caused 'his Elf'.
Hearing the futile advice of the bleeding Elf that was missing his eyes, the man growled, and turning around, snatching up his bow as fast as the eye could blink, he aimed and fired, and the Elf died immediately when the arrow passed through his skull.
Legolas screamed as more blood splattered across the ground, and hearing the sound of the arrow passing partially through the Elf's skull made the prince nearly loose the contence of his stomach. Whirling back around on the helpless Elf, the man smiled, dully.
"Tell me, Legolas..." The man smiled, circling the trembling Elf prince, before dropping next to him and pulling him against his chest, "Have you missed me?"
Too shaken to answer, the man laughed cruelly into his ear, breath heavy and hot against the sensitive point. Saliva was spat on the Elf's cheek as he spoke again, "You're as beautiful as your mother, you know..."
"STRIDER!" Legolas screamed, terrified at the thought of reliving his past, his thoughts travelling back to what this monsterous man had done to his mom, his older sister, brothers, himself and hundreds of other Elves...
Laughing madly, the man leaned in closer to Legolas, so close that Legolas could feel his heartbeat against his shoulder. Wait... he has a heart?... Legolas thought, dully. "Your ranger's on the way here... and when he gets here... I shall be gone... but it will not be the last time we see each other, my Legolas."
Gulping and gasping, Legolas called out Aragorn's name once again, except a LOT weaker this time, and when the man released him, he fell to the ground, limply. He was gasping and choking on his sobs, memories haunting him as he recalled his mother's death at the hands of this man... He wanted to scream again, but his throat was numb, history replaying itself. With a cackle, the man ran off into the shadows of the trees, his thick boots making squishing noises in the damp, blood-soaked grass.
Aragorn ran so fast through the forest, beads of sweat were already decending down his face. "LEGOLAS!" He called, shouting at the top of his lungs, "PRISSY ELF!" He thought maybe a tease would get the Elf to call back out to him, and was somewhat disappointed when it didn't.
He was running so fast, he nearly crashed into a gore-painted tree adn gasped when he saw Legolas curled in a tight ball, quivering and crying, along with the remains of at least thirty different Elves, littering the ground with their body parts and limbs. The corpses were rancid and certainly weren't improving Legolas' mental state. "Legolas!" He gasped, crashing over to his friend and falling on his friends beside him.
"Are you injured, gwador nin?" He tried to get Legolas to uncurl, but the prince refused, shaking even harder, every time Aragorn layed a hand on him, "Please, Legolas, talk to me!" Legolas was seriously starting to scare and worry the ranger now.
"H-H-He's back..." Legolas choked, his eyes darting around deliriously, as if looking around for someone.
The heir of Gondor didn't know who Legolas was refering to, but he managed to get Legolas to his feet, "C'mon, mellon nin, maybe your father will be able to help."
"NO!" Legolas screeched, trying to back peddle out of Aragorn's strong arms, but they gripped his upper arms, tightly, "NO! ADA, NO! NOT HER! HE'LL BE HEART-BROKEN! NOOOO!"
Confused, horrified and sick with worry, Aragorn wrapped one of Legolas' arms around his shoulders, and bent his knees a little so that Legolas didn't have to stretch to be in such a position while he also wrapped an arm around Legolas' waist. "Legolas? Why don't you want to see you're ada?"
"He'll be mad at me..." Legolas whimpered, hysterically.
"No he-"
"IT'S ALL MY FAULT! SHE'S DEAD! SHE'S DEAD AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT HE'LL HATE ME!" Legolas tried to pull away from Aragorn and stuggle out of his arms.
"Be still! Legolas, stop it! You'll hurt yourself!"
"NO! NO! DON'T MAKE ME GO BACK THERE, I WON'T! NO! NOOOOOOO!" Legolas' cries were getting hoarser everytime he screamed.
"HALT!" Both the ranger and the Elf froze when they heard the strict command coming from the harsh voice of a Mirkwood guard, "Unhand the Elf, human." Aragorn sighed.
"I can't do that, he's hysterical, he'll run away."
"I'll give you another warning, man, that's a prince you're holding onto, release him now, or you'll find an arrow through you!" He warned, again.
"Lower you're weapons! 'Tis Estel, adopted son of Elrond!" There came the voice of the Lerian, Legolas' oldest brother.
Lerian and Alridan - Legolas' second oldest' brother - emerged from the thick of the trees, staring down at the human with intence blue eyes that made Aragorn wince. The ranger was not ignorant to the fact that he was not very well liked by his best friend's family. Legolas' older sibling (the oldest of his siblings), Constiel was the only one who accepted him. Occasionally, Legolas would tell him that Constiel actually had the biggest crush on him, but he only thought his friend had been teasing him.
With an amount of grace that only Legolas posessed as well, Lerian leapt from the trees and approached Aragorn with a cool look on his face, then his eyes fell on Legolas, "What happened?" There was worry and anger evident in his voice.
"I don't know," Aragorn carefully chose his words, looking to his anxious friend who hung limply at his side, nervously scanning his eyes over all the faces present then back to the passive face of the Crown Prince of Mirkwood. One mishap of his words, and the prince wouldn't hesitate to accuse him of attempting to harm his younger brother, "I found him in a bloody clearing in the woods, hysterical, just as he is now. If he runs off, he could get himself killed!"
Nodding, Lerian helped Aragorn carry Legolas', wrapping his younger brother's unoccupied arm around his own shoulders and walked at a rapid pace toward the castle, keeping a tight grip on Legolas when his delirious brother tried to escape them. "NO!" He would scream, trying to pull away.
The rest of the patrol guarded them, and Alridan walked behind, staring at the back of his brother's head with concern, knowing of only two things that could possibly make Legolas this hysterical. Inwardly cursing himself for this, he uttered the name that haunted every single Elf in Middle Earth, "Relen." Legolas flinched, screamed and kicked, whimpering and sobbing while doing so.