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Chapter 2: Fading in the Rock
"Awaken!" The sound arose from the blackness, a temptation to return to reality.
There were other voices, some stressful, others commanding. They all blended together in a haze, which was occasionally joined by quick flashes of lights of all colors. Slowly, the mind began to rise up from the depths it had been cast into. The voices slowly became understandable as a headache began to grow.
"Come on, Elf!" Gimli stood over the fallen Elf, trying to rouse him from the unconsciousness his throw into the stone had set into him.
Legolas slowly opened his eyes everything still just a blur. He tried desperately to remember exactly what had happened. His was standing watch over his comrades, his friends. Something was amiss, then pain and blackness.
Slowly everything begun to come into focus and his saw the worried faces of his companions. However, something was very wrong. Then it quickly became apparent.
The light, there was hardly any light!
As the rest of the cave came into view, he noticed the entrance was blocked. The small amount of light that allowed him to view a small portion of his surroundings was seeping through small cracks in the stone walls.
"What has happened?"
Aragorn looked at him with great worry, "We are not sure. We heard you cry out and saw you fly into the wall, projected back by some great force. Then the entrance came crashing down."
"We believe the enemies which attacked us have learned how to use the explosive power my kind use to move great amounts of Earth." Gimli was very upset. The ancient art of collapsing stone was a closely guarded secret to the Dwarf kingdoms.
"It was that force which threw you back. You are lucky you are an Elf, my friend. A mortal would have more than likely died from your injuries."
Gimli stood and walked back to where the opening had once been. It seemed that their foe had done their work well, for it was solidly fell. There seemed to be no obvious point of weakness, or where there was less buildup. The Dwarf merely wished some point to begin from. This would be a daunting task, and one not so quickly or easily accomplished.
"What are we going to do in here?" Merry was getting very concerned. They had their comfortable holes in the ground in Hobbiton, but this was something completely different. This was a dark cave from which there was no escaping.
"We shall just have to dig our way out. It is not impossible, it just may take some time." Aragorn joined Gimli by the once open entrance. Together they spoke quietly about their situation.
Boromir began looking over the rest of the cave for any other point of weakness they may have missed.
The Hobbits busied themselves with counting the rations over and over. They were calculating the exact amount of every little speck of supply on them. Food was everything to the Hobbits and they quickly brought up all concerns as soon as they noticed them.
"We only have enough bread for 3 days!"
"Never mind that! There's only enough pipe weed for 1 and a half days!"
"What!" They all shrieked and ran around.
"Stop that!" Aragorn yelled from the entrance, "If you run around worrying like that then you'll burn off what energy you have and just need to eat more sooner. I suggest you four sit down for a while, you cannot be of much help moving boulders."
"I can assist you, Aragorn." Legolas stood shakily and walked towards the Man and the Dwarf.
"You should need more time to recover from your flight, Prince." Gimli was already moving a couple smaller rocks to get a better angle at the bigger ones.
"I am fine, it takes much more than that to handicap an Elf, master Dwarf." They both knew there was no reasoning with the Elf, so they allowed him to start lending aid to their objective.
Most of the boulders did require the combined efforts of the Men, the Dwarf, and the Elf to move. They were awkward and very heavy. It seemed a great deal of time before they took their first break and all their efforts did not seem to make a visible dent in the visage.
"We must eat something or we shall perish!" Merry was beginning to grow overdramatic about their hunger.
"Fine!" Aragorn relented, "We shall eat."
The Hobbits prepared a very meager meal in their view, but to the others it seemed way too much given their circumstances. Boromir gave a mental note to try to get the rations away from the Hobbits as soon as possible, without creating a riot.
The Halflings were able to build a small fire. Because of the holes in the cave, the small was able to escape and the fire gave the added benefit of shining some more light on the situation. When the light from the fire added to the small amount from the serrated sunlight, the situation only seemed more hopeless. No one spoke of it, for they refused to believe that this quest was going to end here and now. Not like this.
"Legolas, come join us before the little ones eat it all."
"No, thank you. I do not need to eat as often as you, so there is no need of my taking from our supply."
Gimli nodded and returned to eating. Aragorn knew there was something more happening with Legolas than he let on. Something about the way he was acting, so withdrawn. He was not even sitting near them, but pacing around alone on the other side of the cave as if contemplating the images from a nightmare.
'He is probably just upset about our situation, claustrophobic perhaps. He is used to the open woods.' He dismissed it for now, but something more was bothering the future king of Gondor. The way the Elf appeared in the dim light, it seemed a little off.
'How am I to survive this ill that has been brought down upon me?' Legolas continued to pace. The supply of food was not what was bothering him. It was the rock itself, blocking the life and the light. Without the starlight, he would fade most quickly.
That heavenly light was what gave the Elven race their glow and their fairness. It was also what gave them their immortality, for they took from the stars their eternal light. It radiated through the firstborn, giving them their magic and everything believed mystical about their enchanting race.
'I shall fade here, for there is not even a small branch of a tree to render comfort.' The Elf continued his thought process, trying to think of a chant or a spell which might give him more time before last actions were called for, but none came into mind. No Elf ever spoke of this kind of situation. More than likely, any Elf in Legolas' circumstance did not survive their ordeal.
'Our whole race is dying like a long forgotten candle. I may not have the strength to fight any longer. If the sea does not grab us and rip us from Middle Earth, this force which has begun to descend upon my race shall do so.'
It was common knowledge in Middle Earth that the Elven race was beginning to see their sunset. Rumors of the rise of the race of men and the disappearance of the race of elves were widespread, although not everyone would believe them. There was no being or specific power to assign blame to for these events, it seemed to be just the will of nature. The time of the immortals was growing late, they would soon become nothing but myth. Bedtime stories would be the only time one would speak of the fair folk.
'Out dearest friend, the forest, no longer wishes us in her warm embrace. She is beginning to cast us out onto the sea like scattered ashes.' The pain brought down to the race of Elves was something unlike anything they had ever known.
Days passed. They company could only guess about their progress for the rock would not give up any of its secrets. Now the situation was turning dire. The supply of food was growing dangerously low and Aragorn was not the only one to notice that Legolas had not eaten since their enclosure in the rocks. The Elf always proclaimed that their worry was unwarranted, but Aragorn knew better. Elves may be immortal, but they were not indestructible and it was becoming obvious when the Elf stood straight up that he was growing thinner. The Prince of Mirkwood would break down eventually, he knew it.
However, something more dire was affecting the Elf than the lack of nourishment. The lack of starlight was destroying his Elven soul, and he knew his time was growing short. He would soon have to tap into all of his being and try one desperate last measure to free his comrades, for they must survive even if he could not. These were actions which were only used when the end was near, for they were the last outcry of a dying Elf.
For an Elf would not go quietly into that good night, an Elf would rage against the dying of the light.