Disclaimer: I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from Lord of the Rings.

Warning: This story goes rather dark, including violence, torture, and semi-graphic rape (as in, the event is not described in extreme detail but neither is it 'off-screen', and the after effects to an elf's soul might be distressing).

Also warnings for evil cliffhanger. Seriously. You might want to wait for chapter 2 to read it.

The Story

He awoke and wished he hadn't.

It hurt, worse than the time he had endured three spider bites and a broken arm. Worse than the beating he had endured during a brief captivity among orcs, before arrows had rained down and brought death and ruin and rescue. Worse than the flogging given by a scared and distrustful group of men who thought him an evil enchanter just for his pointed ears and immortal youth that made him different than they. Death had not come to them because he had stayed Estel's hand.

Legolas hurt, as though his entire body had been hacked to pieces and left to rot. It was an agony so intense and entire that if he had been able to scream, he would have been. He couldn't scream, though, because his throat seemed to have no voice left in it. The pain was too great to even accurately know what had been done to his body to cause it. Had he been beaten? Had he been stabbed? Had he been sat upon by an oliphant?

How long he lay there in his pain, he did not know, but in all that time, nothing else happened. There were no voices. Not friends who came to ease his suffering and heal. Not foes to bring him more tortures. Slowly, too slowly, he became aware of the world beyond the pain. He was outside, beneath the sun, lying on stones and pine needles and brown and withered leaves. His body felt twisted, unnaturally so, and the sunlight somehow brought only coldness to his skin. The world around him stank, of blood and death and that particular horrid odor that only one race processed: orcs. There were orcs about.

And the part of his brain that wasn't screaming for relief from the waking world, actually laughed a bit to itself. Of course it was orcs, what else loved to cause elves such pain as he now endured.

They were very quiet orcs, though. In his experience, orcs were incapable of silence.

Legolas opened his eyes; only in that moment realizing they were closed and that he had been relying entirely on his other senses to detect the world around him.

The sun was too bright and the world somehow didn't come into focus as it should, but nonetheless he could see enough. This wasn't some orc camp or town. This was a battlefield.

Black blood splattered nearby rocks and trees, bodies lay headless and armless and dead, some still stabbed through with elven arrows, one impaled on what was doubtless its own weapon.

The act of tilting his head, coupled with forcing his eyes to focus, sent a new wave of agony rippling through his body and stabbing into his brain and a sudden sensation of nauseous vertigo swept through him, almost enough to send him spiraling back into the darkness he had just crawled out of. He pushed through it anyway, forcing eyes to see, forcing his head to move, and it was only when he failed to find what he was searching for and a sick, horrified relief swept over him that he knew why he was doing it.

He didn't remember what had happened. No, he did remember. The memories were there, but as though on the other side of a wall, waiting for when he was ready. He didn't remember, but somehow he knew all the same, that he hadn't been alone when the orcs came.

He was alone now. Only dead orcs surrounded him.

He didn't remember, but he knew that there had been many more orcs than those lying dead here. The orcs had come, they had battled, and the orcs had left, leaving the dead behind.

They had left an elf on the battlefield with the dead. Had they thought him dead? Did his friend think him dead? It was no longer relief that swamped him, but horror. His friend must be alive, but in the hands of those who would make every moment of life an agony and torture from which death would have been a kindness.

Legolas couldn't lie here among the dead while his friend suffered. He must get up.

He couldn't get up.

Now that he had assessed the world and assessed what had happened, it was time to assess himself, beyond the knowledge that he hurt and that those hurts were unrelenting and tortuous.

He closed his eyes again, thought of his friend going through this same agony, only perhaps worse, and forced the darkness back that threatened to draw him down into the folds of oblivion. That way would doubtless lie true death, and then who would save his friend?

Everything hurt, but he had to start somewhere, so he started at his head. His head pounded sharply, perhaps from blunt trauma but perhaps simply from a headache. No doubt he had lost blood and that could account for head pains as easily as concussions. Normally, he'd have run a hand over his own head to test for damage, but he hadn't checked his arms or hands for damage themselves and from sharp and throbbing pains in both, he instinctively felt it a bad idea to move them. One ear felt more painful than the other, and he could feel blood on his face and in his mouth and in his hair. He didn't know if it was his own or orc blood.

Neck was next. His throat was raw. Perhaps he had been strangled? Or perhaps he had been screaming and screaming and…

His shoulders next. Painful, but not broken. Bruised, doubtless, and there was a wound that bled. He felt too out of it to determine if it was a superficial cut or a stab wound or…

words, words that hurt, laughing and sneering and tongues that lapped at his blood and teeth, tearing…

…or he didn't know what. What he was sure of was that his right arm had been wrenched from its socket, his shoulder dislocated. He could feel the unnatural angle and that alone was enough to make him want to be sick, never mind the accompanying pain. Arms next, then, he decided.

No breaks that he could detect through his senses alone, not the arm bones anyway, just more cuts and bruises and…

he writhed, trying to yank his arms free but there were too many, they surrounded him in a thick mass, his strength failed against theirs, hands crushing his wrists into the earth, knives, teeth…

…and his wrists felt swollen and crushed but not broken, he didn't think, nor his fingers, and that was good because he needed those. He needed them to have the strength to hold his weapons for when he went after his friend.

His torso next, then. He was cut there too. He rather suspected his clothes must be in ribbons and he thought there might be a stab wound in there somewhere, which was bad, chest stab wounds were always bad, but he was an elf and if it hadn't killed him by this point then it probably wasn't, in and of itself, a mortal wound. Or perhaps that was a rib that was stabbing him. He had had broken ribs before and he was inclined to think he had them again. His abdomen felt like one big bruise and there were scrapes up and down his sides, from knives and…

claws, raking and gripping and…

…those weren't all defensive wounds. He had been held down at some point, held down by strong hands and they had toyed with him with their knives. The wounds weren't deep, just painful, and probably not deadly unless poison or infection aided them. His hips…his hips were like his wrists, crushed in an iron grip…

he was swarmed by filthy bodies, every inch of him, some holding him, some hurting him, and no matter how he twisted or pulled or screamed they didn't let him go. Their dark words hurt his ears and their filthy hands and teeth and knives tore at his body and they laughed and jeered, eyes filled with sick pleasure and hatred and cruelty and lust…

…and there was another pain his very immortal soul shied away from, because it was part of the pain in his abdomen, inside him, but it was also outside him, and lower, and between his legs…

Legs. His legs were…like the rest of him. They had been held, and cut and clawed at and gnawed and beaten but…the bones weren't broken. They would hold him up, if he could manage to drag his body to its feet. His feet. Oh. Not quite so lucky as all that, then. One was merely bruised, protected even now by his shoes but the other…the other had a knife…

'Kick me would you, little elfling, I'll nail your foot to the ground!'

…a knife still in it, all the way through. That would make walking more difficult. Not impossible of course, but certainly more difficult. So, he had broken ribs, deep crushing bruises at his wrists, his hips, his thighs, skin sliced to ribbons, in places mauled almost to the bone, and a knife in his foot. Also, possibly a head wound, or at least a slice to his ear, a dislocated shoulder, and doubtless significant blood loss. That he wasn't already dead was nothing short of miraculous. Doubtless he had looked dead enough to the orcs or he would have been dragged along to endure more torments. Was that the extent of his injuries? They hurt, how they hurt, but they weren't deadly, maybe, hopefully, nor permanent. In some ways, this was surely one of his better encounters with orcs. After all, he wasn't now surrounded by slain elves. He wasn't burning in the grip of horrific poisons. He was intact.

He was intact, and yet, something was very wrong. Was it his missing friend? Did his hidden memories hide a horrific death before his eyes? Was there something wrong with himself that he was missing?

And then the memories were there, as though he had stepped through a door, and that little bit of wrong threatened to entirely consume him.

They had been taken by surprise when the orcs came, and so many of them, far too many to fight and come out victorious. They fought anyway, of course, because there was always hope, and Legolas had faced long odds before and won. For almost an hour they managed to hold their own, but the orcs kept coming and they kept coming, and the new orcs were fresh and ready for battle and they were fatigued and it was only a matter of time before a blade or an arrow broke through one of their guards to ruinous effect. Legolas remembered hearing Estel's cry of pain, he remembered turning, an unpardonable distraction in his concern for his friend, and then a blade slicing and he was on the ground, and they swarmed him and in moments he was defenseless and oh, how orcs hate elves, how they hated this elf who had slain so many of their number and they wanted him to hurt, and they wanted him to scream.

They had only beaten him at first, some hands holding him so he couldn't escape, couldn't fight back, while others pummeled and scratched and bit. And then it was clear the battle was over, and Estel was screaming. He was captured too, Legolas could still hear his voice in his ears, screaming his name. Legolas feared for his friend, tried desperately to go to him, but it wasn't Legolas who saved Estel. It was another orc.

"Do not touch the man," a cruel voice growled, "He is to arrive untouched." There were howls of fury and dismay and sounds of battle as the orc forced those under him to comply with his command. In the interim, the bodies around Legolas cleared enough that he could see them. The orc was huge, even by orc standards. He had hold of Estel who was still alive, still struggling, though wounded. There was blood on his arm and on his face. The battle field stilled once more, the orcs restless in their victory, their bloodlust as yet unsated. One slinking orc sidled up to the larger, eying Estel hungrily, but it was not the man it asked for.

"And the elf?" its wheezy voice asked, eager and excited and lustful.

"Kill it."

Estel, who had stilled, waiting and watchful for the first opportunity to strike, erupted into motion once more. His hands were already bound but he twisted and pulled, his eyes wide and desperate and afraid. It wasn't enough. He couldn't get free. Legolas could not help him. He could not help himself. The orc smiled, cruel and hate filled.

"Kill it slowly."

And the orcs had gathered around and he could see nothing but their cruel and twisted faces, blocking even the stars in the sky.

Legolas remembered screams. Estel screaming his name. Estel begging. Estel screaming insults and promises. His own screams. Knives slicing, tongues licking and…and a wound that to most elves is a mortal wound. Hands on his hips, pulling at his thighs, and a pollution to his body, the orcs' evil filth inside his body, contaminating it beyond enduring. They had tortured him. Beaten him. Raped him.

They had killed him, for all he wasn't yet dead. He must have passed out in the end, passed out and lay as one already gone, because the orcs hadn't finished the job. They had just gone and left Legolas's body behind to succumb.

The elves called it Grief, what happened to an elf who was wounded in such a way as to make him lose the will to live. They called it Fading. Euphemisms, Legolas realized. He had felt grief and sorrow before, deeply and horribly, and this was nothing like that. This was…disgust. Corruption. His own skin felt wrong and dirty and spoiled, and if it were in his power at that moment he would have flung it off him. His fea wasn't fading, it was rejecting this twisted ruined corpse it had been forced to inhabit. He writhed in the dirt, careless of all the agonized pains this worthless body was screaming with, fingernails clawing at skin in a desperate attempt to be free of it.

"Out," his own voice whispered, too empty and hoarse to be screams, "Out, get out!"

Never had Legolas been so in danger of dying in that moment and never had he wished it more that it might be true. His fea could escape and be clean once more. Only one thought stopped his passing. Only one thought could have, in that moment.

Where was Estel?

Still captured. There was not a single chance that the young ranger would willingly have left Legolas to lie there among the orc corpses, his body broken and ruined and dying.

And he was dying, not just because his body was ruined and he needed out of it, but because it had been brutalized and torn and bloodied until he himself had been mistaken for a corpse and left. Was Estel in the same state, only worse? Was he even now being tortured as Legolas had been. 'Untouched' the orc had said. Legolas could only hope that meant unhurt as well.

There was no one else to save Estel. No one else knew he had been taken. No one else was close enough to come to their aid, even had they somehow known. There was only Legolas, a broken elf in a ruined body who was barely clinging to his immortal life.

If all Estel had to save him was a broken elf, then so be it. He would get up, he would follow the orc's path, and he would save his friend. Then he could break.

Step one: stand up.

No, step one: sit up. It was almost more than he could bear; it almost sent him spinning right back into the void. The dislocated shoulder made one half of him completely useless, and the tortured muscles and broken ribs of his abdomen made using them to pull himself up next to impossible. He pushed with his good arm, and by good, that only meant not as bad as the other and still resting in his shoulder socket as it should. His body felt strange, hot and cold at the same time, and the earth spun beneath him.

In the end, he managed to roll himself up and onto his knees, all his weight on his one arm, his head hanging and his hair flowing down to the earth, dirty with blood and dirt and clinging leaves. He stayed there, he didn't know how long, panting, resting his head all the way to the earth to ease his strained muscles, his heart pounding in his ears.

If it weren't for the spear, he may never have made it past that position. It just so happened an orc corpse was lying a few feet away, an orc spear through its heart. Vaguely, Legolas could remember the moment of grabbing it and thrusting it through. One of his knives were already gone at that point, thrown to spare Estel from an attack from behind, and Legolas had started using the enemy's weapons against them. Crawling to the spear was agonizing and slow, slower than an infant's crawl, but in the end his fingers curled around the wooden shaft. With it, he pulled himself upright on his knees.

Getting his feet under him took almost as long, and it was a very close thing. He had never in his life felt so unbalanced, so weak, so…mortal. With every struggle to move, darkness threatened to knock him down, the pain threatened to overpower him.

"Estel," he found himself saying, or mouthing without voice. He didn't stop. He didn't fall. He didn't succumb to sleep or death or pain. "Estel." He stood. On one foot, with one good arm, he stood.

From the position of the sun, it had been mid-morning when he first awoke. It was a little past midday by the time he stood. Orcs liked darkness and hated day. His best chance was to find Estel now, that afternoon, before the sun set.

Impossible odds were against him. There seemed little chance that the orcs had stayed in the area. There seemed little chance that Legolas could walk fast enough to ever catch up to them. There seemed little chance that, having found them, a second encounter would lead to anything other than his true death.

Step 2: follow. He would follow. This journey would be his last, and it would be hard and painful but he would walk it nonetheless.

The spear came with him. He lost a bit of time forcing it free of the orc, a much more difficult task than it should have been. The knife in his own foot he left. He should have drawn it while he was still down; to do so now he'd almost certainly have to sit and he didn't think he'd be able to rise again. It meant his foot was next to useless. He could put his foot down only on the toe, and to do so caused agony so sharp that the first step almost had him passing out. Hopping only worked in the short term, not least because he didn't really have the strength to hold his own leg up.

He limped, trusting his weight to the spear, and he started in the direction the orcs had gone. There, at least, was a bit of luck. They hadn't bothered with stealth in the slightest. Clearly they did not fear pursuit but reveled in slashing at trees and trampling plants and, all in all, leaving a trail even an infant would be able to follow.

Legolas followed. Step by slow, agonizing step he followed. His wounds were untended to and still tortuous, and yet, oddly, it was the pollution to his soul that helped to keep him going. Somehow, everything his body was going through felt distanced from himself, as though the decision to abandon it meant he no longer cared what pains it endured. It hurt, worse than any pain he'd known in all the long years of his life, but the pain wasn't his. The damage to his soul was so much beyond the damage to his body that the lesser almost didn't matter anymore.

And the pain to his soul was eclipsed by the feared grief of losing his friend to darkness and suffering. Legolas was ready to die but not yet. Not yet. He had to go on. And on. And on.

And then the impossible became a reality, because he could hear them. They weren't leagues away and running on. They had set up camp, unwilling to travel unnecessarily in the daylight hours. After all, what was the hurry? They had their prize; he was going nowhere, and they were out in the wilds where any chance of rescue coming was non-existent, even should someone somehow know a rescue was needed. So they had stopped, and gathered in the shade of some pine trees, not being near enough a cave for shelter and so taking what shelter from the sun they could.

It was late afternoon, and the camp was not completely asleep or still, but most of the orcs had taken refuse from the sun in their tents. Even better, Legolas could clearly see Estel and wouldn't have to search him out. He had been tied to a post in the center of the camp, left without cover, though it was wooded enough that he had partial shade from the nearest trees. He sat, his legs straight in front of him and his head bowed and his hands clinched in fists.

He was also guarded by no less than ten orcs, standing in a circle around him, weapons at ready. Other orcs wandered around the camp, tending to fires or roasting foul smelling meats or scrambling for the shade. Not a lot, but enough to make things difficult. It would take but one shout for orcs to wake and pour from the tents in hopeless numbers.

If Legolas had been whole and hale, he might have just managed. He'd use his bow to take out the ten guards, hopefully quick enough they'd never even know they'd been attacked. He'd leap from a tree then, cut Estel's bonds, and together they'd run even as the alarm sounded, too fleet for the slumbering army to easily catch them.

Legolas didn't have his bow, or his arrows. He didn't think he'd even be able to climb a tree if he tried, not even if the tree attempted to help him do it. He couldn't run into the camp.

"Step 3," he whispered hoarsely. "Save Estel."

And he allowed himself to fall to his knees, the spear tumbling from his fingers. He reached down with his good hand, and then, before he could think about what he was about to do, he grasped the hilt of the knife in his foot and yanked.

The primal scream that accompanied the move went unheard, his voice still lost in his throat, and for a moment his entire body went limp, leaving him back on the earth, dark spots dancing behind his eyelids.

Later, how long later he didn't know, just later, he pulled himself upwards once more. Just to his knees. Then he readied himself for what he had to do. Normally, it would be an easy act, a very low chance of failure, but just at that moment, when he felt seconds away from passing out, or perhaps passing beyond the world of the living, when one arm was useless and his vision wavered, his entire body wavered, he couldn't be sure of hitting the mark. And he had to hit the mark. To miss would be disastrous. It could mean Estel's death.

The afternoon was growing late. He was running out of time.

If Estel died by his blade, at least it would be a better fate than what awaited the man when the orcs reached their master.

Legolas breathed in. He breathed out. And his arm moved. The knife in his hand flew. It flew, and the moment it left the elf's hands, Legolas knew he had missed. Or rather, he hadn't. He had aimed just a tad too high. What would have ideally imbedded in the ground just in front of the man was going to pierce his heart.

There was a gasp of shock, a thunk, and then silence. Legolas fell to the earth, utterly spent.

Step 4: break.