I am dreaming again, the young Adan told himself. The Orc had removed his arm from around the human's throat, giving Estel the opportunity to look down at his pained stomach. The hilt of the Orc's blade jutted out from his tunic, the filthy handle twitched as the Adan stumbled forward, pushed out of the Orc's way with a violent shove to his shoulder. Time moved very slowly for Estel as he fell to his side, his hands wrapped tightly around the hilt so that it would not twist or shift during his fall to the dirty floor of the cave. This is not happening. This is a dream.

From the corner of his eye, the Adan could see the Orc's foul, blackened boots running past where his head had come to lie on the floor. Too late did he try to move out of the Orc's path, and when the Orc rushed past him, the human was kicked out of the way, the blade in his belly jarred as it scraped across the cave's floor. Estel's world went decidedly black. He heard a terrified scream of pain, and when realizing the horrified cry came from himself, the Adan tried to stop it.

Get out of here, Estel, he told himself. Let them fight. I must flee while they are occupied.

Estel rubbed at his eyes with his tunic, trying desperately to restore his vision: he had not stopped crying out in pain. Suddenly ashamed at himself for his fearful yelling, the human breathed in deeply, and finally found the source of his inability to see – he was breathing too quickly and soon he would pass out if he did not calm himself. With the clash of swords as they struck each other and the rocks of the cavern resounding through the enclosed space around him, Estel forced himself into breathing slowly and soon found he could see again. What he saw, however, made him wish for the blackness of unconsciousness to take him.

The injured Wood-Elf had fallen at the cave's entrance as he tried ostensibly to escape without the human. Estel saw Legolas trying to evade the Orc before he could reach where he lay, but the wounded Prince rolled the wrong way in his confused and desperate attempt, and met the rock wall to his side. The Elf had no escape: the Orc was upon Legolas with a loud growl and a cloud of disturbed dust and decay at his quick movement. As the young human watched, the Orc held his blade against the Prince's throat and had his booted foot on the immortal's wrist, grinding the Wood-Elf's hand into the floor until Legolas released the sword he had used to kill the Orc's companions.

"Elves," the Rhanz spat, drawing his blade up the Wood-Elf's exposed chest and splitting the skin there in a shallow mark. "You are all the same…"

Legolas does not care whether you die or not, why would you care that he lives? he asked himself.

Instinct took over, despite his certainty that the Elf had betrayed him to the Orc to save his own hide, and the young human tried to stand, if only to distract the disgusting beast from its quarry. Unarmed and not at all sure he should be helping the Elf who had planned to leave him to the torment of the Orc, Estel crept to his feet, one hand on the hilt still lodged in his stomach while with the other he held the wall beside him.

There must be a weapon here somewhere, he thought, looking frantically around the cavern for anything he could use; however, his mind reeled at the thought of approaching the other Orcs' cooling bodies, which held their swords even in death, and he could not bring himself to touch them.

"…your kind is weak," Rhanz was telling the Wood-Elf, his blade hovering over the panting and bleeding Prince's chest. Estel could hear the laugh in the Orc's voice as he rammed his foot onto the fallen archer's side, grinding it into the bleeding flesh there and taunting Legolas by telling him, "You've killed the others, but that just means more Elf flesh for me." Raising the sword in the air, Rhanz told the Wood-Elf, "Your human friend I will give to the Warg to play with." The Elf tried to heave his wrist from underneath the Orc, but Rhanz had stepped on the wrist connected to the Prince's dislocated arm: the Wood-Elf's attempts to free himself of the Orc's weight upon his wounded side were futile… and painful. The Elf was trapped.

Estel seized the hilt of the dagger jutting out from his belly, biting his lips to keep a wail of agony from escaping them as he stumbled the short distance to the Orc and Prince, yanking free the short blade from his stomach as he walked. The Orc laughed pitilessly as the Elf tried to squirm away from the impending downward path of the sharp blade aimed for his chest: the young Adan, knowing that he would not reach the struggling Prince or murderous Orc in time to stop Legolas' death, flung the blade, which dripped with his own blood, at the Orc's back.

Falling to his knees from the lacerating pain in his wounded belly, the Adan watched the knife fly through the air, turning hilt over blade, and for one brief moment, he feared the hilt, and not the sharp tip of the dagger, would strike the Orc. However, his aim had been true, and luck on his side, for the short knife embedded itself cleanly into the Orc's lower back.

Rhanz stumbled forward, let loose a bleat of shock, and took his foot off Legolas' wrist and the other foot off the Prince's injured side. His sword, however, maintained its downward path, but the Wood-Elf, suddenly freed of the burden pinning him to the floor, writhed and kicked with his feet until he had pushed himself flush with the wall. The Orc's sword glanced off the archer's shoulder blade as Legolas rolled, leaving a superficial gash of blood behind it, but it met the unyielding ground instead of Legolas' chest. The Orc, recovering from the surprise attack from the rear with an annoyed growl, kept from falling and turned around, his sword still in hand, to glare at the Adan.

Estel looked around him again, searching for another weapon, though he knew he would find nothing else, for the only blade within reach had been the one the Orc now pulled from his back with a smirk. Rhanz looked at the dagger, which dripped with the black blood of the Orc as well as Estel's claret essence, before he tossed it to the side.

"Shouldn't've done that, human," Rhanz told him, leering as he hobbled forward, swinging the sword he had in hand out towards the Adan. The Orc walked towards Estel, temporarily forgetting the Prince behind him as he advanced on the human who had dared to interfere with his tormenting the hated Wood-Elf. "Should've died like a good little boy."

This is not happening, he told himself again, scrambling to his feet before the Orc could reach him, fleeing further into the recesses of the cave to avoid the lumbering dark creature. Let me wake.

The human watched the Wood-Elf spring into action. Picking up the Orc sword Rhanz had forced him into releasing, Legolas leapt at the Orc's legs, felling Rhanz before he could reach the Adan. As the Orc fell to his knees only an arm's length in front of the retreating human, Legolas toppled Rhanz by driving the handle of the sword against the Orc's skull, and then drove the long blade into the Orc's back, twisting it with a vicious cry before letting loose the hilt. The Orc fell onto the ground, his face contorted into a grimace of confused pain, before his face hit the rock floor with a dull thud.

I am back in Imladris, sleeping. The Wood-Elf was kneeling over the Orc, having never risen to his feet, and staring down at Rhanz as if afraid that the foul being would rise again. Please let me wake. Estel closed his eyes and put his back against the wall behind him, sliding down it into a crouch.

He opened his eyes and the Prince was suddenly close to him, shuffling forward on his knees, speaking to him – the young human could not hear what the Wood-Elf told him. The rushing sound of his heartbeat in his ears was the only sound he could hear, save for his own voice, as he pled with the Prince, "Leave me alone."

Legolas was trying to hurt him, to finish the job the Orc had begun, or so the human's muddled mind told him. The Adan could not decipher which, but from the Prince's disavowal of friendship earlier, the human decided he did not care. He could not trust the Elf. "Stay away from me," the human told the Silvan.

Unable to move away from Legolas as he approached, the Adan grabbed hold of his stomach tightly and tried to roll to his side, to rise from the ground again. Hands held him, and he twisted to face the Prince, screaming as he kicked out, his stomach balking in pain at the movement, but he managed to land a blow against the Elf's dislocated shoulder.

The Wood-Elf cried out, letting go of the human's leg to grab his shoulder instead. "You told him to stab me," the Adan whispered brokenly, watching the Prince become paler as Estel kicked out again, this time striking the archer's bare and bloodied side, the one from which the small Orc had attempted to taste the Elf's flesh and Rhanz had just been crushing beneath his boot heel. Although he could not hear the Prince's moan of pain, he could see it in Legolas' graying face.

"You are not my friend, leave me be," he cried out softly, taking advantage of the Prince's momentary loss of attention to snatch the archer's injured arm, yanking it, and with it pulling Legolas to him even as he kicked out a final time. With the momentum of the Elf falling forward against the young human's foot thrusting to meet his battered ribs, Legolas fell limp to the ground before Estel, all the air having rushed from his abused chest and his consciousness fleeing him – this time not as a lark.

Estel looked at the Wood-Elf: the pallid being was covered in bruises and blood. He does not exist. This is a dream, he tried to convince himself, unwilling to believe that the awful memories of death and pain he had long ago hidden deep within his mind could be happening in his waking.

Estel sat for a moment, his hand never leaving his injured belly, as he watched Legolas' labored breathing. Legolas is not here. He is safe somewhere. He did not tell the Orc to kill me, because I am not here. I will wake up, the Adan said, nodding in agreement with his vindication of hurting the Prince. But the smell of the blood seeping from his belly hit his nose and a fresh wave of pain assaulted him; with a sob of distress, Estel finally realized, I am not dreaming. One does not smell blood in dreams. One does not feel such pain in dreams. Legolas wished me to die, and I will die here in this cave.

Tears welled within his eyes, rolling over his cheeks. Estel drew his gangly legs to him, hugging them to him with one arm. I do not want to die. I want to be back in Imladris, tied to a pillar in the courtyard, he cried. Although his relationship with Lord Elrond and his Elven sons was usually a strained one, the Adan wished that he were with them now. Closing his eyes against the tears there, Estel found he could not open them, and before long, he had not the strength to try.