Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings or any characters and/or places thereof

Author's note: anything in italics is a memory.

*****

Legolas struggled, wrenching his body this way and that, but the hands on his shoulders held firm. The stench overwhelmed him, the foul smell like rotting meat, associated with the disgusting creatures ringing around him, so like the one who gripped him from behind.

The elven princling quietly moved, setting one foot before the other as he made his way down the corridor. There were no windows here, but the door at the northern end of the hall lead outside, and this had been propped open. Sunlight streamed in, the first pure sunlight in many days. Birds twittered and sang, and Elladan and Elrohir had disappeared down to the river to catch frogs.

His braids slowly unraveled as he threw his head about, his teeth gritted in rage. Angry tears streaked his cheeks. This is unfair, unjust! He wished to cry out but did not, confining his terror.

Laughing cruelly, the creature who held the beautiful woman ripped her gown open. Legolas fought harder against his captor and his tears. He knew her well: her smiling face, her hair in two thick brown braids as she often wore it, the graceful curves of her: her hands, her neck, the bones in her cheeks. Now he saw another part of her, a place he had no right to see, and for her dignity he closed his eyes.

Elladan and Elrohir invited Legolas to accompany them to the river, but he declined. The twins planned to catch the frogs in glass jars and observe them for a time before releasing them into the wild. "I need a day to rest," Legolas told them, but he truly meant that he had something else to do, and that he would not be in Imladris long enough to release his frogs. Soon enough, he would be going home.

There was just one thing he needed to complete before his father, or whomever his father sent, arrived, a thing he could not do alone.

A sharp blow to the side of his skull caused Legolas to open his eyes. "And you can watch 'er, boy! Just so's you know what you're in for!" a gruff voice mocked. Apparently this was much to the amusement of the horde, for they cackled with joy at this announcement.

Until this very moment Legolas had not known what would be happening to his mother, his radiant, loving, gentle mother. The fact had wriggled at the back of his mind, but until the orc's bruising grip on his mother held her, until the deed was begun, Legolas had not truly believe that it would happen. Legolas screamed then, before a chokingly foul hand was clapped over his mouth.

"Lady Celebrían?" Legolas peered uncertainly into the room. Celebrían looked up from her sewing, blue eyes sparkling. Her blond tresses had been left free, and she looked not unlike a younger version of her mother. Smiling, she invited him in.

"And please, call me Celebrían," she added as she cleared scraps of fabric from a chair beside her own to allow Legolas a place to sit. This room was flooded with sunlight, and everything sparkled and shimmered beautifully.

Legolas seated himself, settling a bundle of cloth in his lap. "La--Celebrían," he began, "you said I might assist you in your sewing sometimes."

The idea of brushing away this comment, telling Legolas that he needed not aid her, occurred to Celebrían, but she knew better. Legolas wanted something from her, and if all he wanted was to aid her in sewing, she would happily oblige to teach him some.

"Oft you have denied this request, but now I ask your help."

When the beasts had had their fun they cut her open, but she did not die at once. She lay alive, bleeding, against the tree where they had thrown her.

The one who appeared to be the leader pointed to Legolas. "Now the boy," he said. Legolas shivered as he realized what was meant, and much to his shame felt a warmness trickling down his legs: in his fear he had lost control of his bladder. The orcs found this highly amusing. "Come here, boy," the orc commanded.

Legolas was released. He could not think but to obey, and told his legs to move, but they stumbled, and he was shoved roughly from behind. If only I had my knives! The weapons had long been taken from him. Now in his fear he felt the great orc hands on his shoulders, gripping his tunic--

Then at once the beast toppled to the ground, taking Legolas with him, an arrow protruding from his throat. The elder sons of King Thranduil massacred the party of orcs while their mother lay bleeding. Legolas could not cry nor lose consciousness, such was the intensity of his suffering then, his terror, his sorrow, his relief.

"Lady, last night I cried for my mother. It was the first time. With every tear a great weight was taken from my heart. But tears alone will not heal me." Legolas lifted a tunic from his lap. "This was your son's. All of these were theirs, but they say now that I may call them my own. I wish to destroy these clothes, Lady, and to sew a patch of grey in every tunic, just here, where the heart is."

Celebrían nodded. She understood. Gently she plucked a tunic from Legolas' lap and laid it across her own, then searched her fabrics for grey. She would do what she could for this boy, even if all she could do was aid him in his prayer to Este: an appeal for healing.

*****

To be continued

Kit Cloudkicker: Yet you assume much on Tolkien's conception of majority, even in your statement of legal majority, and the question of whether aging is quicker in some times than others remains unanswered. For this reason, I write ages as human equivalent. It's more certain that way. To each his own.

Pippin the Hobbit-elf: Twenty questions goes like this: one person chooses something from the category of person, place or thing. A person could be, for example, Billy Boyd, Peregrin Took, or someone you know personally; a place London, Mars; and a thing any inanimate object. The person who chooses this thing then states the category (person, place, thing) and the other players try to guess what it is, asking twenty "yes or no" questions. I felt that Peter Jackson did very well in Return of the King, others felt differently. Thranduil's location will be addressed shortly, and the event was very recent.

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