A/N: Oh my goshes! We're already on chapter 10!
First, thanks to everyone who reviewed. I can't stress enough that y'all keep me working on this story!
I feel like I have made some progress on my idea.
Chapter 10
Legolas felt his heart separating from his mind, just like it had all those years ago. Now, no matter what his mind told him to do, his heart would not allow him to. He couldn't even move, it hurt his heart so much.
"You killer!" it screamed at him. "You have no right to live!"
He kept his eyes tightly closed to ward off the darkness. He needed to see! Cyras had not come in over a day, he thought, and he couldn't bring himself to stop wishing for the human. At least he would be able to see. Maybe the light would ease the ache in his chest.
The door creaked open again. Legolas did not move. He couldn't find the energy.
"Well, my pet, finally lost that snarky attitude, have we?"
Cyras came and kneeled over Legolas. The elf suddenly had a flashback of the moment his father had found him, all alone. Their positions had been exactly the same; Legolas curled on his side and his father kneeling by him.
Legolas stared into his captor's eyes brokenly as he relived the memory once more. Cyras laughed.
"Ah, but the submissive ones are no fun, princeling. Show me your mislead arrogance once again," he said, grinning at the elf as if he had just said the funniest joke.
Legolas stayed silent. That was the only way his heart would let him defy Cyras. Besides, he could not gather the energy to speak, anyway. Cyras sighed.
"Oh, never mind," he said, dragging Legolas's leash. "Come along now."
When Legolas did not move to get up, the man's arm, quick as lightning, was in his hair, and he was holding him up.
"Do not disobey me!" Cyras growled in the elf's face. Legolas relived Veritinan doing the same action and he wanted to crumple to the ground and stay there, but his eyes showed no emotion. When Cyras lowered him onto the ground, Legolas didn't allow his legs to fold.
"Good elf," Cyras said, as if he was speaking to a dog. "Good princeling."
The two walked into the courtyard. The light blinded Legolas, but he was glad to be out of the darkness in his cell. His eyes slowly adjusted, and he began to see what was around him. He frowned as he saw the weapons around him.
'What, no mind-torture today?' he thought sourly.
Cyras cackled as he drew out the orb again. Legolas blinked in confusion. What were the weapons for, then?
The world did not change, as he expected, but the person standing in front of him did. Now, instead of his worst enemy, his best friends stood in front of him. Among them were the Fellowship, excluding Boromir, and his father.
He shook his head.
'This isn't real. No matter what they do to you, it isn't real,' he thought, looking up at them. 'Not real.'
"Hello, mellon-nin," Aragorn sneered, and he walked around the elf in slow, taunting circles. "How are you?"
The image before him looked so true, he had to force himself to look away.
'Not real. Not real. Not real…'
Aragorn grinned and, suddenly, his eyes were those of Veritinan and Cyras, pale green gems on his face. Legolas shuddered as the ranger stared at him with the eyes, and he curled in on himself.
'Not real. Not real. Not real…'
Aragorn picked up a whip from the pile of weapons and ran his fingers along it, eyes shining. He came to stand behind the elf, and suddenly he brought it down and pain exploded on the prince's back. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out.
"Five turns each!" he yelled to his companions, who grinned in delight.
'Not real. Not real. Not real…'
As the whip cracked again and again, Legolas closed his eyes against the waves of pain.
'Not real. Not real. Not real…'
What broke his heart was even the gentle, harmless hobbits each had a turn. It made the whip bite all the harder to know whose hand was behind it.
The worst, however, was when his father, Gimli, and Aragorn had their goes. Gimli was not tall enough to reach the top of his back, like the others could, so he had to strike lower and harder. Aragorn was nearer his height, so he struck in the middle, and his father was tall and lean, so he struck nearer his shoulders.
'Not real. Not real. Not real…'
After forty lashes, five for Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Gimli, and Thranduil, it was finally over. Legolas could not stop a muffled groan that escaped him, and he heard the others' laughter. Soon, it all melded into one voice, which he recognized as Cyras's.
"Wasn't that fun, princeling?" he said as he laughed, and he ran his fingers gently over the cuts, all too real on Legolas's back. The elf arched his back in pain, but no sound escaped him.
Chuckling, the man put his fingers on the elf's chin and forced it up, so they were eye to eye. The unguarded view of the icy orbs proved too much for the prince, strained already as he was, and he allowed the familiar blanket of unconsciousness to smother him in its embrace.
It was later that day when Gimli, Thranduil, and Aragorn decided to test their luck going straight on, and they were rewarded.
"It seems they stopped here," Aragorn said, motioning to a small clearing. "And by the looks of it, Legolas was still unconscious. See, there's a little blood here, and here."
It was a small, well-lit clearing nearing the edge of Greenwood. There were few signs that the man and Legolas had passed through here, but Aragorn could spot some because of his tracking skills and Thranduil because of his enhanced sight.
"…And the way the blood is smeared suggests he was laying heavily on his side." Aragorn moved throughout the clearing, eyes scanning it avidly.
"Ah! See, Legolas's hair," he said, picking a single silvery golden strand off the ground. "Then, I think, they continued along that way, with the man carrying Legolas. See, the footprints are heavier than a man walking unburdened would make."
They began to walk in the direction that Aragorn had pointed out. It was many hours later, during the evening, that they realized there had been no trails to be seen since that afternoon.
"The tracks stopped," Gimli said. "We didn't even notice, we were so determined." He looked up at the man and elf for confirmation.
"Aye," Aragorn said. "It seems it is so."
"Rhaich!" Thranduil said, smashing his fists into a nearby tree in a sudden burst of his fiery temper with each word. "Rhaich, raich, raich!"
Blood dripped from his knuckles, but he took no notice of them.
"Thranduil…" Aragorn said, stepping toward the king. "Your hand!"
"Nuuta!" the elvenking yelled, tears forming in his eyes. "We hae lost an entire day, and Legolas is dying!"
Aragorn and Gimli drew in their breath sharply.
"He is hurting more than either of you could comprehend, I have felt it all day. He is trying to hide it from me, he is trying to block it from me, but some still seeps through. If it is this bad with most of it shielded from me, how bad must it be in its entirety? He is fading from guilt and grief, and we have lost a day's worth of travelling! Nuuta, nuuta, nuuta, nuuta!"
A/N: So…yea.
Question:
Is Legolas's hair silver or gold? Everyone says its gold, and I think I'd like that better, but in the movie it is more silvery. In the books, Thranduil's hair is golden, so I guess it would make sense, but I just don't know…