He stifled the urge to look down at his unfeeling feet, to make certain that it was he that was moving; he could not be sure that the forest was not rushing around him instead of he through the forest. Legolas was caught in the undertow of the many layers in Ilúvatar's song; each called to him, trying vainly to capture his ear, but he heeded only one. Hatred and desperation fueled his movements – a wrathful melody of his own making.

Waves of grief assaulted the Prince in an unrelenting symphony of agony and despair, their undercurrents a lulling, tremulous overture to his every melancholy thought and failing body's action. Everywhere there was music: the trees sang to him as he ran, their discordant sonata of indifference, joy, and sympathy all familiar to him, and were a bastion against the undulating sorrow that threatened to plunge him into its depths. The song of the forest, together each tree's aria normally an omnipresent, comforting chorus to the Wood-Elf, was fading from his soul.

The leaves in the tall, gnarled trees were blurring together, such that Legolas could no longer see the branches above him as he flung himself forward along the uneven terrain of exposed roots. A vague smear of a pale sky would interrupt the shadows overhead on occasion, but he focused on the running human before him; the greedy degenerate was the sole image distinguishable amongst the blackening shadows of tree trunks and underbrush that the Wood-Elf dodged. Startled birds flew out of the bushes ahead of the Prince, and though he heard their soft calls of alarm, he could not see them. All the brilliant hues of his homeland were now merely shades of gray. The color of the forest was fading.

A briny odor drifted to Legolas from ahead, adding to the Prince's barely contained longing to lose himself in the increasingly ashen haze obscuring his vision and thinking. He could smell the blood from the arrow wound on Ament's back, an injury that the archer was satisfied to have caused. The mercenary had torn the healing wound open with his mad sprint through Mirkwood but it was not enough to slow the human from his own desperate endeavors in running. Though he moved as gracefully as he could hope to in his current condition, the Prince could not catch the stumbling human. He followed the blossom of crimson on the human's back nonetheless, for he wanted to destroy the brightly sanguine imperfection in the eclipsed world around him. He wanted to smell nothing but the salty aroma of the human's blood. He wanted to hear Ament's dying breath.

Legolas looked briefly at his hand to verify that he held Elrohir's sword. He could no longer feel his fingers, and could thus not feel his white knuckled grip on the blade's pommel. He will die by an Elven blade, the Elda reaffirmed while remembering Strider's words earlier when he had handed the Prince the sword. The Wood-Elf had witnessed Ament's dagger strike the Ranger's chest, he had seen Elladan's lifeless body as he ran after the mercenary, and Legolas knew that Tirn lay dying in the same tunnel where he would have met the same fate, had not the sentry come looking for him. Elrohir would be tormented by the loss of his brothers, perhaps to the point of passing from Arda, and the Wood-Elf felt himself already doing the same. Anguish trumpeted its somber addition to the oeuvre of existence around him: he held no hope for Strider, for Elladan, or for Tirn. His buoyant hatred for Ament kept him afloat in his etiolated, choking consciousness, and he held as tightly to his ambition for carnage as he did his sword. I will watch him die.

They had sped through the forest for only minutes, though it had seemed an eternity to the Prince because his every step brought pain. His flesh ached; there was not a part of his body that had gone unscathed. The jaw marks around his leg, the arrow wound to his thigh, the scoring lash across his breast, and the bruises and lacerations from Ramlin's revolting lust renewed their indignant protest.

His body cried out to him in throbbing disapproval. Each sour breath was ripped from his chest; the exertion of running, in addition to the inability of his lacerated, pierced, and likely punctured lungs to draw in air, made Legolas feel as though he were suffocating slowly. Whether by his weakening lungs or fading soul, which one caused the obfuscation of the forest through which he ran he did not know, but he was pulled inexorably into its accompanying rhythm. The Prince had spent many of his childhood years swimming in the shallows of the Forest River, the twisting, lazy current the cadence to which he had sang, played, and spent time with his Naneth. A similar meter barraged him now, immersing him in its soothing, flowing timbre. Memories of his mother sitting with him on the rock bank, the sound of the swelling river's water sifting through the pebble and stone shore, arose within him. He tried to ignore his body's dying, grieving rhythm, to moor his consciousness to the fleeing mercenary, and to avoid drowning in despair. If the mercenary were not stopped now, his father and Mirkwood might still be in peril, and he knew he would not survive long enough to warn either.

The briny smell of Ament's blood, the crescendoing murmur of his stricken soul, and the monochromatic forest around him, dull except for the mercenary's rubicund soaked tunic, promised a sea of refuge to the Wood-Elf. He had little energy left and would welcome this new tune with no remorse if given the chance. He wanted nothing more than to stop to listen to it, not to care, to relive the moments spent in the company of his loving family, safe and blameless in his home.

Ahead of him, the mercenary stumbled again, crashing to his knees with a frightened cry, and Legolas exerted the last of his spirit to reach the fallen human. When he felt that his lungs would burst with need for air, and when his legs finally buckled under him out of exhaustion and injury, the archer threw himself towards the now rising Ament. You have thrice chased me through the forest, the Silvan thought, plummeting painfully to the floor of twisted roots across which the mercenary had been running. And thrice you have caught me, Ament. His arms connected with the human's legs, entangling around and between the mercenary's shins to throw the man down. But now you are the one who has been caught.

Ament fell onto his stomach and let loose a wild cry of fear ere he began kicking his feet, trying frantically to remove the clinging Elf that he could not shed. With his sword in hand, the Prince crawled over the mercenary's prone form, dragging his light blade along the ground with him as he used the weight of his numb body to pin the human to the serpentine roots under them, but Ament was not so easily contained, even weaponless and injured. Using his fists, his feet, and the rest of his squirming body, the mercenary contorted, pushed, and pummeled the Wood-Elf away from him; he still could not be free of the Elf, for Legolas held tightly to the human's clothing, dragging the sword ever closer to the human. He could not seem to raise his hand to pierce the human on it, his arm moved sluggishly, struggling against the aegir of the moribund, dolorous melody that washed over him, while the man's flailing kept the Wood-Elf shifting and unable to take advantage of his superior position.

The archer moved to his knees, grinding them into the small of Ament's back as he tried to debilitate the mercenary. His evasion of the human's blows did not last long – Ament's elbow connected with Legolas' stomach. All the air left the Prince's chest in concomitant evacuation of his senses. He fell forward, slack and reconciled against the human's back, his head landing on the thick roots above the mercenary's shoulder. Immediately, the mercenary began to wriggle his way from underneath the Prince, tossing the Elf about, and groaning from the pain his movements caused his own injuries.

The Prince could hear the berceuse of death tempting him to release his weary body, and the pulse of his heart slowed in response. Ament crept upwards, slithering out from under the Silvan. Wanting nothing more than to fade, to let the waves of grief and despair take him under, Legolas was brought abruptly back to his wits when the mercenary's bloodstained tunic slid under him, smearing the briny liquid across his bare, agonized torso.

Opening his eyes, the Wood-Elf saw the claret on the moving mercenary's back and inhaled deeply. He coveted the salty aroma, desiring to spill the human's blood so that he could yield his own lifeblood and faer to the forest. The Elf pushed himself up, first grabbing the wriggling human's tunic so that Ament could not flee far. He seized the human's hair as he scrambled to regain his position over the mercenary, and then shoved the mercenary's skull against the bed of gnarled roots, halting Ament's attempts at escape and eliciting a moan from him instead: however, the respite did not last long, and the human began thrashing once more.

His other arm still lay mostly slack, the light sword moving unhurriedly, scraping the bark on the exposed roots as the Prince strained to stay aware. "Coward," the panting mercenary charged, wrenching his head, and a large tuft of hair, from Legolas' hand. "Will you stab me in the back? And the Ranger dared call me a coward without honor."

Breathing was far too difficult a task for the archer for him to risk speaking, and so the Elf snatched the man's head again, driving it against the roots clumsily. He scrambled awkwardly to his knees and bashed Ament's face into the trees' foundation to keep him still, and then twice more, each followed by an agonized wail from Ament, to maintain the human's submission. With a knee on either side of the mercenary's waist, the Prince straddled the momentarily stunned Ament and lifted Elrohir's sword so that he could hold it in both hands.

The red bloom beckoned to the Prince. He needed resolution; he needed to fade.

"Coward," the mercenary reiterated when Legolas placed the pointed blade between the vulnerable human's shoulder blades.

Around him, the gray darkened its shade, bedimming the whole of his home in ghostly shadows; even with his impaired vision, and the overwhelming urgency of his grief's tempo, Legolas could see the shadow descending from high in the blurred branches above him and the mercenary.

A spider, ebony and unwelcome as the rings tingeing Legolas' peripheral vision, was leisurely lowering itself from a single silken filament.


The Elf had paused, his sword gouging into the mercenary's back. The lapse in movement inspired the witch to hope Ament's words held some sway over the motionless creature atop him. The Prince had only stiffened, however, and Melfren closed their eyes in impatience. This is it. All this turmoil and I am still to die a mortal death.

The thin blade rose from their back only to descend again, piercing their torso in a swift, violent, and forceful motion. The well-honed metal scraped along the bones, slicing through the flesh and organs easily. The Wood-Elf leant on the pommel as he stood, impaling the witch thoroughly and tacking the human to the roots underneath. Ere Melfren had time to react, the Prince was standing over him, wrenching the sword from the skewered human as he pressed the witch down with his foot to disengage the mercenary from the sword.

But then, as Melfren arched forward in pain, shifting to his side to clutch his stomach and watch the Wood-Elf deal his final blow, the Elf suddenly recoiled, shuffling quickly away from him. Melfren could feel the emotionless violence emanating from the dying Elda and wondered, Why do you hesitate? Kill us, you fool. The witch welcomed death; his run through the forest had convinced him that he would die regardless, as their wounds were overwhelming him at the physical exertion it had required to sprint and his magic-borne energy was spent.

However, the mercenary's anger was eclipsing his hold over Melfren's borrowed body, and the sight of the Prince, his Elven blade dripping blood while he stood back to watch their slow death, incited Ament's wrath in a pyre of grief and frustration. Melfren could feel the mercenary returning, could remember the man's memories, and felt Ament begin to take full control over their actions. Though Melfren had allowed Ament's anger to prevail so that he could rid himself of the mercenary's vestiges, the witch realized now his hold was slipping, and if the Silvan didn't kill him quickly, he would soon be cast back into the nothingness, leaving Ament here to die. This could not happen: the witch wanted to die, for anything was better than the void in which he had waited for this opportunity at immortality. The goblet's hex was cast, and there would be no more chances for the witch to return from his meaningless continuation in nonexistence. The Prince's emotionless mask broke, and his bloodied, bruised lips curled into a grin, lighting his beaten face, while his cold blue eyes focused just above Melfren's head.

It was Ament who turned to look above them, seeing the shaggy, black haired legs dangling from a branch overhead. In a rush of loathing, the mercenary tried to twist his body from under the advancing spider, to evade the Dark creature. Unlike Melfren, Ament held hope that he may live yet, despite his dire circumstances. He tried rolling to his side, his vision momentarily blackening at the lancing agony of his pierced torso and his inability to breathe. This is not over. Get up.

Melfren halted their evasion of the spider, and instead gripped the roots under them, holding them tightly to the ground. Leave, Ament. The long, hairy leg of a spider brushed against his face; it was their only warning before feeling the spider's fangs stabbed deeply into their shoulder. Ament loosened Melfren's hold of one hand, swinging it around, knocking the arachnid from them before it could pump its venom. Still trying to stand, the mercenary turned to the Prince, feeling his hatred rise and with it the resurgence of his control.

Two more spiders had drifted down from their webs above, drawn by the death and blood on the beings below. Together with the first, one of the newcomers attacked the mercenary. He could avoid neither, and screamed in horror as their fangs filled him with burning, acidic poison. The Wood-Elf watched silently, his sword hanging limply at his side. A sentinel spider stood before the motionless Wood-Elf as if expecting the Prince to help the suffering human. It did not attack the dying Silvan; even the Dark creatures could sense the promise of bloodshed in the immobile, unconcerned Legolas.

"For the first time," the mercenary choked, knowing from his short-lived experience as an immortal that the Elf could hear him, despite his failing voice. "For the first time, Ramlin did not fail me. You will die, Thranduilion, along with your friends. We still have our revenge."

The human managed a laugh, his hatred satisfied to see the Silvan flinch at his words. He stared at the Elf, the familiar odium pushing the witch from him, filling his veins as steadily as the spider venom coursing through his body. Between the legs of the spiders crawling over him, ramming their fangs into his skin and weaving their webs over his faintly struggling limbs, he could see that Legolas stared back at him.

Ament cried out, his dying breaths slipping from his lips in guttural rasps when the spiders sank their fangs into his flesh repeatedly. He writhed on the bed of roots, his body convulsing. Ament locked his gaze on the Wood-Elf's eyes. Tortured screams began pouring from his mouth, though a smug smile graced his face.

We have our revenge, Ramlin.

In a final burst of effort, the mercenary exhaled his last, his body becoming limp under the scurrying spiders.