"Wh-what—Legolas!" Aragorn lurched toward the limp form a few away but went flying back when a boot connected with his chest.
"Save your breath, Oh King," sneered a voice from above. Coughing for breath, Aragorn lashed out with his feet only to be kicked again, this time in his exposed back. "Mereth," he whimpered, clawing the ground toward his lover. The by-now familiar boot came down on his fingers.
"I said, save your breath." Long hands caught Aragorn by his beard, held his face up to a pair of smirking eyes. "You'll need it, I assure you." The teeth below the eyes were small and glinted harshly in the dying light.
"Glorfindel!" Aragorn jerked his head out of the elf's grasp and reached for his sword. But it wasn't there.
"How stupid do you think I am?" the elf laughed before motioning to the circle of archers. "You two, take care of the usurper. The king is my responsibility." His laughter hung foul in the air as he kicked Aragorn in the ribs
"Why?" gasped Aragorn. "Why him? Leave him be! He did nothing—"
"Now now, Dunadan, we've been through this. Thranduil's son stole you." Glorfindel thrust his fair face into Aragorn's. "And that, my dear king, is a very serious offense."
"Gwanno," Aragorn snarled, and brought a kick of his own up between the elf's legs.
Glorfindel dodged it. Just barely. "Take him," he snapped. "He won't go
easily."
Three of the encircling elves moved to unstring their bows, and in that moment Aragorn saw his chance. He was rolling up off the balls of his feet before Glorfindel had turned back again; was raising fists to strike the two black-clad elves over Legolas when hot breath hissed into his ear.
"I don't think so, Elessar." In a rage Aragorn whirled, or meant to. But a blunt object in the elf's hand hit the back of his head with a crack, and the last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the slim, beautiful body of Legolas, innocent and inert beneath the two tall elves in their cloaks of ebon.
* * * *
"Unnh…" Legolas fought the waves of blackness that wrapped his mind in sticky webs. "Aragorn? What…happened…"
"Quiet back there," came a voice, melodious and uncertain. "We want this to go as smoothly as possible."
Legolas tried to speak again but his mouth would not work. Neither would his hands, his feet…all seemed sluggish, as if connected by only the barest of threads to his mind. "Aragorn!" he thought in panic, "What's going on? Where are—"
"I said quiet!" Pain lanced through Legolas' shoulder, then shot again through his chest and the arrow-wound. He yelped. "Elrohir, what did you do to him?"
"I didn't—all I did was poke him—" Through waves of pain Legolas felt something twitch aside over his wound. "Where did he get that? Sweet Elbereth, they haven't been shooting at him have they?"
"Elladan!" Legolas blurted suddenly, for the sticky wrappings around his brain were slowly loosening and he recalled the voice. He fought for control of his limbs, even just his eyes. "What is this? Where's Aragorn? Help me—"
"I'm afraid we can't do that, Legolas son of Thranduil. You'll make it gentler for yourself if you just go along with us."
"But—why—ai!" The elf moved weak hands up to protect the tear in his chest.
"Elrohir, be easy! Look at him. It's not as if he can hurt us."
"I don't want to listen to his babbling the whole way."
"Please, he was our friend once. He—"
Legolas finally cracked an eye open, for all the good it did him. Darkness still dominated to the point that he wondered if he'd fallen back into a dream, until he managed to tilt his head upward to a sky full of stars. They comforted him, and their presence gave him strength enough to beat back the lethargy that lorded over his tongue. "Was? When did things change, sons of Elrond? Why—"
"When did things change?" a voice, which Legolas recognized as Elrohir's, cut through the night like a scythe. "Things changed, Legolas, when you lured our sister's husband away from her. Things changed when you robbed a country of its king. Things—argh!" Out of the night a pale face loomed, dark-haired and condemning. "We were going West, did you know that? There's nothing left for us here. It's the twilight of the elves, Legolas! Our father left, and we were right behind him." The face twisted into a hiss. "And then you had to run off with Arwen's fancy of a Man."
"Come on, Elrohir. Let's just ride, all right?" Legolas' vision returned enough to catch a restraining hand on Elrohir's shoulder above him.
"Where is he?" Legolas demanded, voice soft. "Where is Aragorn?"
The recently-subdued Elrohir swiveled around in his seat and struck Legolas hard across the chest, his weakness clear now. A cry of agony ripped from Legolas' throat. "How dare you ask about him?" Elrohir roared into the stillness. "After all you've done you still have the nerve to treat as your…your…" The elf threw up his hands in disgust and returned to the reins, or so Legolas guessed by the renewed jingle of harness in the night. That and the muffled thud of a horses' hooves on loam failed to fill the vast canopy of earth and sky; even in his pain-blurred condition Legolas felt the yawning emptiness stretching around them as if they were but a few leaves in a lake. He felt small. And weak.
"Did they really shoot you?" Elladan asked after a long while, during which Legolas had clung longingly to memories of the previous day—or was it the day before that?—with Aragorn. He answered the question with stony silence. "Legolas, did they—"
"Oh, give it up, Elladan. What do we care?" There was a little swish, and the horse picked up its pace.
"They had no cause to do that. They could have just come up to them calmly and—"
"No cause? No cause? Do you forsake your sister, Elladan? Our sister? This—prince—of Mirkwood yanked Undomiel's Aragorn from her and his duties as king besides. And you say there's no cause to take them by force?"
"But do we know if Glorfindel and them even tried to discuss—"
"Discuss?" Elrohir exploded. "What's to discuss? Would you rather we be sitting munching lembas, chatting about the weather and the horses while Legolas paws over our sister's husband like a…a…" He slammed his fist into the wood of what Legolas guessed to be a cart or carriage. "What's to discuss?"
"He's not hers."
"What?" Elrohir roared, raising a fist. Elladan stayed it.
"He's not hers," Legolas repeated, his voice gathering strength from the undrugged parts of his body. "Once he might have been, because he willed it, but Undomiel gave herself away long ago." He braced himself for another blow and added, "To Glorfindel."
"I don't believe it!" cried Elrohir, leering over the back of the cart. "And I've had enough of your muttering on this trip! One more word and you'll feel a worse pain then any Glorfindel ever gave you, understand?"
"Elrohir!" his brother admonished but said no more after that. Legolas stilled his tongue and focused on rest, gathering his strength. Whatever they'd done to him still impaired his night vision and he could make out more than vague shapes against the blackness, but dawn would come eventually. And with it, knowledge. Legolas settled his battered self as best he could on the hard wood slats of the cart, and wondered if they had hurt Aragorn or blamed him—if they blamed him he'd only soak it up. What if they had killed him? No, he couldn't be dead. Legolas would have felt it, he was sure.
"Wherever you are, mereth," Legolas thought as sleep bore him away from the hard wood and the ache in his chest, "I love you." His hands gripped each other in the cold he didn't feel.
* * * *
Rough hands jarred Legolas from sleep.
"I hate to do this, Thranduil's son," came Elladan's apology. Legolas struggled to sort out the elf's face from the blessed blue of dawn and dark canopy of trees.
"Then don't," he managed to croak, confused.
Elladan advanced upon him with a soiled cloth in hand. "It's for your own good, though—whatever happens."
Legolas lashed out with bare feet, knowing only that that cloth should not come near him. Then he yelped as a stick jabbed from above came down on his wound. Elladan stepped lightly forward, grimacing, and smothered Legolas' face with the cloth.
"Noo!" Legolas cried. "Nnnnuh…" He felt his body slackening, felt the sticky webs weaving themselves over his mind, and he panicked. His flung-out arm caught Elladan's cloak as he pulled away, and Elrond's unwilling son was forced to bend close to the pained face of his friend. "Why?" Legolas whimpered. His blue eyes, clouding over already, leaked tears. Elladan untangled the limp hand from his cloak and replaced it on Legolas' breast, over his wound.
Out of pity or hesitance or plain nervousness, whatever Elladan had put on the cloth hadn't been applied strongly enough. When against this weakness Legolas' fear rose and lent power, he was able to fight off the sticky sleep the drug tried to induce, although the effort left him incapable of moving or speaking or even hearing very well. He kept his eyes shut, believing with his muddled mind that seeing things would overpower him altogether, and strained through the sticky whips and cords to catch snatches of blurry conversation. He wanted to hear, felt the need to grasp at least this much of his situation. He wanted Aragorn, too, and his labored train of thought frequently tore away from the conversation he was trying to hear to fuss over memories.
"…don't think we should do this, Elrohir."
"But he…husband!"
Legolas would have smiled if his mouth worked. He was remembering Aragorn's face in the cave, those touching worry-lines deepened by the firelight's play, vanishing in an instant when Legolas had held him. He giggled, or tried to. His throat wouldn't work for some reason. Why was that? Oh, the elves. The ones Aragorn fought for him, the sweetie. Where was Aragorn, anyway? The cart beneath him ceased its squeak and squeal, and Legolas hovered on the brink of sleep in the sudden peace.
"I know they told us…but look at him."
"So we might as well…"
"But we don't have to! …no loyalty?"
"Loyalty! In his presence! Why…"
"…said they had contacts there, didn't they? He was once our…"
"Fine…leave him to them."
Leave him to them. What did that mean? Who was even talking? With a vague sense annoyance Legolas sensed the cart resume its forward motion. So much for sleep. But, wasn't sleep what he was trying to avoid? Why? Sleep was nice. Sleep was—"
"…awake!"
"But I…"
"Fool! …not strong enough!"
"Does it really…"
"No. I'll…" The bonds around Legolas' mind convulsed as pain sliced through them. In the moment of clarity his panic came back, and his fierce desire to stay awake, but it was too much for him. The pain had cut too deep and now he was helpless, falling down, down into a black void. He could not even give voice to his misery with lips that refused to move.
"There. He's out cold now." Those were the words Legolas took with him into darkness. He tried to summon a vision of Aragorn or even just his voice, soft and gentle for so tough an individual, but they would not come. The elf felt utterly alone as consciousness fled him.
* * * *
He woke alone. This time he didn't linger in the dreamy lethargy the drug left on him but fought it back ferociously, forcing thick eyelids open before moving anything else. Neither stars nor wood slats greeted his eyes as he would have expected. Instead a stuffy darkness pervaded, interspersed with bulky shadows the elf's impaired night vision couldn't identify. The steady throb in his chest increased to a stinging sensation as he gathered strength and hurled himself sideways beneath his wool blanket, intending to surprise those nearest him and attack. He hit a wall.
"Aragorn!" he yelled, and the sound surprised him. But not for long. Lost and aching and partially drugged at the hand of a former friend, it seemed the natural thing to do. "Aragorn!" he cried again, and again. "Aragorn! Aragorn! Aragorn!"
"Will you hush?" called a voice. Legolas' jaw shut with a clack as footsteps, still far off, drew nearer. "Honestly, you'll wake the whole place, yelling bloody murder like that. Though I can't say I blame you for screaming for anyone at all, not the way that Elrohir was going on." The footsteps paused and the sound of metal on metal reached Legolas' sharpening hearing. "Boy, I don't know what you did, but you sure got him in a temper. Poor Elladan—he'll have to catch it the whole way back wherever they're going. Stupid key…" A thin line of light pierced the gloom and traced itself into a rectangle as Legolas watched, too weak to rise.
"There we go. Now don't try anything funny, I'll have you know I'm fully armed over here and gash or blackthorn juice or anything else—terrible stuff, that, I tell you I just couldn't believe it when Elladan said he'd used it—I've a good many years experience under my belt and I'll knock the stuffing out of you if you so much as cough at me. Now just a minute…"
The line of light broadened and silhouetted a stooping figure carrying a lantern and something that glinted in the shadows. "I've got your dinner right here, see, and if you want to eat it you'd better be on your best behavior." The figure advanced with the lantern and held it up, casting its globe of light over Legolas, who drew back under the blanket at its glare. "A little light shy now, are we? A regular Gollum I've got here." The glittering object, which turned out to be a sword and a very fine one, bobbed as the arm that held it shook off a basket.
"All right, so that was uncalled for. I apologize. Anyway you might as well eat up." Something about the voice sparked something in Legolas, and he peeked blearily out from under the hood of the blanket, trying to adjust to even the dim glow of the lantern. "I'm the one what carried you in here and let me tell you, I could've carried ten of you. I don't suppose Elrohir let Elladan give you even a crust of bread—or did they keep you under the blackthorn the whole time? Nasty stuff, like I said. It isn't every day you see an elf who'll touch the blackthorn…"
"Pippin?" Legolas blurted incredulously.
The tip of the gleaming sword darted out and flicked away the blanket. "Ho now, who are you to—" The voice ground to a halt, and the basket of food fell to the floor with a thump. "L-Legolas?"
In the thin light given off by the lantern, it was hard to tell who was more surprised.