Chapter 8: No Longer Safe

"Look at him." The voice sounded far away. It was distorted, as if the speaker was underwater. "He looks dead. How are we going to get him to Ada like this? You know with these wounds it is important not to move them."

Legolas drifted. Agony grabbed hold of his insides and squeezed. The pain was so unbearable he lost track of the world again.

Time no longer mattered. He floated. It was impossible to say how long he had been separated from the world and his family, but it felt like a long time. Once in a while he heard someone crying, who might have been Ada or Kasslad, or both. Sometimes he heard people speaking angrily, and once it even sounded like Pelorian but that was absurd. Pelorian was shot with a bolt and Legolas didn't know if he was alive or not, but he knew better than to hope.

"We should have taken him with us." That voice was familiar, but Legolas couldn't place it. It was too difficult to track what was happening around him when his body was too weak to move, even his eyelids. "After that dragon was scared away, we should have brought him to Rivendell. We are his friends, Elrohir. I know he is young, but Ada said the three of us would become like brothers one day. What kind of brother am I to turn my back on him? Look what has happened to him with us gone!"

"Hush, Elladan," came an identical voice. "He won't blame us. Our mother had sailed and we were lost. Glorfindel was right when he left us. Either we will die in our rage, or something will happen horrible enough to wake us."

"This is too horrible, Elrohir," Elladan moaned, tears in his voice. "Glorfindel might die and if what we heard about Mirkwood is true than Legolas is in more danger than before. He has enemies from every side, and even his own friends tried to kill him!"

"Tried to kill his father who beat him bloody," Elrohir snapped. "The soldiers were trying to save Legolas and crown Kasslad king. I don't blame them for trying. It's been a month since he was beaten last and look at him. He is healing too slowly. They say he's fading."

"We came to save Glorfindel. . . ." Elladan said.

"But we can't bring him with us," Elrohir finished, "so we can take Legolas. You know Glorfindel would have done the same."

Legolas wanted to laugh. It was a nice dream to think his trouble-making friends had come to help him, had called him a brother even. He idolized them, especially after they visited as they hunted a pack of orcs that had traveled through the forest. They were fierce and legendary in his eyes, so removed from all else but what they wanted. In this dream of his though, it was nice to believe they wanted to protect him. He wished he had known that this Glorfindel was a friend of theirs. Though he didn't know what he could have done in the brief minutes he had had with the Balrog-slayer, it would have been nice to know anyway. But then, it was just a dream.

He continued to float in and out of consciousness. Darkness lolled around him like a velvet blanket and he welcomed its numb embrace. It made him forget the pain, the dragons and that his friends at the barracks had tried to kill his ada. He was glad he had sipped the wine first. He was glad it was him and not Thranduil. Losing him would have been too much. His friends would have killed them both if that had happened.

A shiver coursed through him and he turned against the nearest warmth, which felt like Sard. A muscled chest met his face and the world swayed as if he rode a horse that was moving quickly.

"Should we be afraid of the military coming after us?" Elladan's voice again. Legolas wished he was truly with him. "El, what have we done? He is a prince. He is loved by everyone in Mirkwood, especially those mad soldiers who almost killed him. They will not stop until they find him and flay the ones who stole him. Not to mention his venomous ada. Will the dragon he is aligned with find us first?"

"Stop it." Elrohir had always been the short tempered of the two. "Just keep riding. We must be swift. There is no turning back now."

Legolas shivered again. An arm wrapped around him, protective, scared and concerned. He fell into the shadows and heard Ularie crow for him, but all he saw were Dekriem's red dragon eyes. He wondered how long until he died. It was not an unwelcome thought. He knew too many who would be waiting for him, and it would be a place that no dragon could follow.

The shivering intensified. He thought he heard his teeth chatter, but then the black cotton shrouded him once more.

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Thranduil stood staring at Legolas's empty bed. The hallway outside of the royal healing ward was in chaos. Elves shouted and he heard an elleth sobbing. But he just stared at that bed, the rumpled blankets, the dimple in the pillow where his son had rested his head. With a shaking hand, Thranduil touched that spot in the pillow and a single strand of shimmering gold hair that had been left behind. Tears blurred the world and his shaking intensified.

Someone had stolen his elfling.

Someone would die for this.

If it was the cult, then Legolas was already on his way to Kagnirrok. Whoever had taken him didn't understand that the elfling was seriously ill. If not for the dragon, he would already be dead. Legolas could not be separated from Indari now. He would die.

"FIND HIM," he bellowed, tears streaming from his eyes. He didn't bother to wipe them. "FIND MY SON."

The hall trembled with his rage, bed frames rattled and screams of fear erupted nearby. He heard Kasslad shouting orders, heard the franticness in his tone and the quivering fear. This could not be happening. Not after everything. Not when he had still not made it right with Legolas for hitting him, for breaking his bones and his head, for making him afraid of him. It didn't matter that Legolas had shown forgiveness at the feast, because Thranduil had still allowed him a sip of wine, a dose of poison meant for him.

He needed to grovel to his elfling, plead forgiveness, and then never let anyone near his son again. He needed Legolas home safe and sound before shutting the kingdom up once more. He needed Legolas.

The world would burn if he did not return.

Indari's presence hauled him from his reverie. Thranduil glared at him and saw in his fiery eyes that Indari shared his dragon rage. This cruel, wicked beast would find Legolas and bring him back.

Indari said not a word. The false human turned toward the sweeping windows at the end of the hall and the evening light shimmered as he changed shape. Thranduil watched in amazement as the beast grew before him and the world, pale brown wings stretching up to the faraway rafters, his tale one powerful mass of muscle. The rumbling, bone-strumming growl of a great snake filled the hall and quieted the chaos.

Dekriem looked over one powerful shoulder and along the ridges on his back to Thranduil. Small red eyes held a promise.

"Your father kept his bargain. I will keep mine." Dekriem's voice was nothing like Kagnirrok's. It didn't grate against the ears. Instead it was as black as wet charcoal, smoother than creamed butter, and deeper than thunder. It sounded like the voice of a god.

Thranduil stared in amazement as Dekriem climbed through one of the opened windows, his slender body slithering through easily enough. But his wings sliced through the white marble as if the stone were nothing more than sand. The great wings stretched and Thranduil saw his magnificence then. Indeed, dragons were creatures to fall down on your knees before.

Dekriem disappeared into the sky. Screams echoed through the kingdom when they saw him. Thranduil stared at the ruins the beast left behind and suddenly felt alone.

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