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Mirkwood's Plague II:

Aftermath

Chapter 21 ~ Entombed

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The first thing that hit Legolas was sharp, burning, unrelenting pain. The next thing he felt was cold stone beneath him and at his side. It was dark so he couldn't make out where he was but it felt damp and smelt musty, like a cave. He tried to move but there was very little room. Claustrophobia gripped him as he felt around his prison, realising just how small it was. There was something else beside him but he could barely make it out. It was solid and covered in cloth. He ran his hands across it and felt the outline. Fear pulsed through him when he discerned the shape – it was a person dressed in thick robes. He felt no steady up and down motion from the figure and he felt a cold chill run through him. Out of morbid fascination he felt for the face but the head was covered in cloth. Suddenly having a sickening image of a mutilated corpse in his mind, Legolas felt beneath him and found the corpse's hand. Only a brief feel of it confirmed his worst fears. Only four fingers on the right hand. His father.

Whatever small amount of composure he had been clinging onto completely vanished at this point and he cried out, trying to edge away from the body. His fingers clawed at the lid of his stone coffin but to no avail.

"Push it," a small voice echoed from above him. He wasn't alone.

He started banging on the lid before realising that whoever it was out there wasn't strong enough to move the stone lid. He started pushing as hard as he could even though he had very little strength left – the paralytic still in his system. The thought of his father's rotting corpse lying beside him spurred him on though. He pushed as hard as he could.

"Get me out," he pleaded desperately. "Please get me out."

After an eternity the heavy stone lid began to slide sideways and Legolas pushed harder. As soon as there was enough room, Legolas scrambled up and climbed out of the coffin, his legs barely mobile. He fell rather gracelessly onto the hard dusty ground. Ignoring the hands that reached out to him, Legolas pulled himself away from the coffin, drawing in deep, desperate breaths. He reached another stone wall and realised he was in a building. Having nowhere else to run, darkness encroached on his vision and for the third time that night, he blacked out.

He didn't know how long he was unconscious for but something shaking him roughly woke him. "Wake up. Please, wake up. Please. You've got to wake up," a small voice called, still shaking him. "Get up. Come on. Please."

With the image of his rotting father still imprinted into his mind, Legolas wanted nothing more than to fall back into that blissful blackness but the – clearly children's – voices made him force his eyes open. Indeed, it was a child looking down at him and a familiar child at that. Mia. She was staring wide-eyed at him, her cheeks flushed and covered in dirt and tears.

Sharp, searing pain coursed through him and when he tried to move his right arm he found it too heavy, apparently he was still under the influence of the drug the dark Elf had forced into him.

"He's awake," Mia said to someone and Legolas turned his head to see a small boy standing nervously off to one side.

Despite everything, Legolas pushed himself up, groaning in pain and closing his eyes to the dizziness. He felt Mia grasp his arm and he looked down again. He then turned to the small boy, pale and terrified in the darkness. There was a third person as well, lying face down on the stone floor. Legolas pulled himself up with Mia still clinging to him. He crouched down at the woman's side and pulled her hair from her face. He recognised her from the coronation party as Mia's angry aunt. He touched her face with shaking fingers and she stirred, her eyes fluttering open.

"What?" she asked, the word dazed and slurred.

"Can you sit up?" he questioned, his own voice gravelly and weak. She nodded and Legolas helped her up so she was sitting on the ground. "Are you hurt?" he asked, gingerly touching the cut on her forehead with his fully working left hand – he could barely even feel his right one so couldn't move it either.

"I'm alright," she said shakily, wiping her face with her sleeve. When she looked up, she realised she was eye to eye with the King of Mirkwood. "Your Majesty." Her eyes raked down his filthy, shaking form, noting the cut on his own head and the bleeding hands from where he had pounded on the coffin lid. "Valar. Are you injured, Sire?"

Legolas didn't answer her question but instead asked, "Where are we?" When no one offered an explanation, he stated, "We have to get out of here." With all the energy he could muster he pulled himself to his feet, taking in his surroundings. It looked like an old crypt, names were carved into the thick stone, marking the names of those who had died in service of the kingdom. There were a couple of sarcophagi in the centre. The one with the lid hanging off, Legolas knew held Thranduil and he swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat and looked away quickly. The other one remained undisturbed and Legolas had no desire to find out what or who lay inside. The room was lit by a small torch mounted on the wall. It provided only a limited amount of orange flickering light but he was grateful for it nonetheless.

The two children were again clutching at each other as their aunt stood up, pressing the palm of her hand to the cut on her head. Legolas' eyes scanned the walls again, pushing aside his own pain, dizziness, exhaustion and fear for the moment. He finally lighted upon the entrance, which looked like a large slab of stone, sealed tight.

He gracelessly clambered up the set of steps to the door and tested its firmness. It didn't give way even an inch. Sighing, he looked across the room. Maybe if he could see properly… Annoyingly, the torch was nearly at ceiling level on the wall and right above his father's tomb. Knowing he couldn't ask one of his fellow prisoners to attempt to reach it, he walked back down the steps and over to the stone tomb. Even though he tried his very best not to look down, he found he couldn't avoid it. At the – now perfectly illuminated – sight Legolas swayed dangerously on his feet and with his good arm, grasped the edge of the coffin for support, desperately fighting the urge to black out again. A small hand grasping his arm made him snap away from his father and he looked over to see Mia's aunt next to him.

"Your Majesty?" she asked in obvious concern.

He shook off the mind-numbing terror that had briefly gripped him and reached up, grasping ahold of the inch-wide ledge halfway up the wall and despite his unsteadiness, he hauled himself up so he was standing on the stone edge of the coffin. He had to release his handhold to reach up and grab the torch and he felt the woman put her hands on his legs to steady him. Carefully, he passed the torch down to her then leapt down, nearly falling over but managing to steady himself at the last second. He took the torch from the woman and noticed her staring, wide-eyed, at the open coffin.

She swayed on her feet and Legolas instantly reached out to steady her. She grasped his arm for support and shook off her repulsion.

"Mia, come and look after your aunt, please," Legolas said and the child instantly complied. Legolas went to the stone door again, passing the flame over the slab. There were no handles or anything to properly grasp, indicating this was never meant to be opened from the inside.

"Mia, can you hold this for me?" he called over to the girl, holding out the torch. She left her aunt for her brother to care for and went to Legolas. "Carefully," he warned as he handed her the torch. "Just hold it up."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, gripping the torch in both hands.

"I'm trying to get us out of here."

"How? You can't move that, it's too heavy."

He nodded grimly, having to agree with her assessment, but then leaned against the door and shoved it with all his weight. The large door didn't move. After five minutes of pushing and pulling, the slab remained firmly in place and Legolas leaned back against it, breathing heavily and wiping sweat from his face.

"Damn it," he swore.

"We're trapped, aren't we?" Mia said, her eyes filling with tears.

"We're going to die," her brother cried in agreement, gripping hold of his aunt tightly.

Legolas looked over to him and said firmly, "We are not going to die. We'll find a way out of this."

"How?" Mia asked unsteadily.

Legolas didn't know how to answer but he did know that no matter how much he tried he wouldn't be able to open the door. He took the torch from Mia's trembling hands and led her back down the steps towards her family.

"What are we going to do?" the maiden asked, holding the children close to her.

Legolas wondered why on earth they were asking him when he had absolutely no clue. "I don't know," he admitted softly. "How did we get here in the first place?"

It was the aunt who answered. "We were walking home and there was a man. He…I don't even know how he did it, but he knocked us out and then we woke up in here."

"Right," Legolas sighed in defeat, leaning tiredly up against the wall and wondering whether it would be entirely wrong to just lay down and sleep until someone else got them out of this predicament. Mia's soft crying convinced him that this was impossible and he pushed himself upright. "People will start to miss us soon. They'll come looking for us."

"In a crypt?"

"They'll find us," Legolas said hopefully.

~*~