Title: Defeated
By: Dreamdancer
Email: dreamdancer@tekken.cc
One year has passed
He had been told that he was to be the King of Men. He had resented that destiny, wanting only the beauty of the land, and the freedom of a life as one of the Dunedain. Yet he never once believed that his destiny would have been ripped from him, never once thought that what he was told was false, and that all hope was false, and that even the Last Homely House would fall in front of his eyes, and hundreds of Elves would be slaughtered, their immortal lives shattered in savage blows.
All while he watched, unable to change what was befalling him and those he loved.
He had never even dared to fear this…fate that had befallen his land. Never doubted the Istari, or the wisdom of Gandalf the Grey…
Maybe that was why he still could not believe that Sauron possessed the One Ring.
Maybe that was why he could not bow his head and slouch his shoulders like all slaves were meant to do.
Maybe that was why they were beating him now.
Aragorn Elessar screamed in agony. He was chained to a wall in the deepest dungeons of Orthanc, his arms and wrists in shackles and manacles, high above his head, straining his shoulder joints. His shirt had been ripped to shreds months before, although a few threads still clung to the sticky wetness of his bloody skin.
He hadn't screamed the first few weeks of his torture. He had been proud, strong, undefeatable. But it had been almost a year since the Ring had been retaken, a year since Rivendell fell. A year of repeated beatings that left inflamed, infected wounds on his body. The orcs stopped sooner if he screamed. They were breaking him; he realized that. But he had started to stop caring.
So he screamed.
Worse than the physical pain was the taunting. Always they taunted him, their harsh, guttural voices slicing away his sanity day by day, preventing his mind from finding a better place to wander, reminding him of what he had lost, those many, many things he had lost…
"You scream like a girl," one growled, slashing his barbed whip across Aragorn's bare back, smirking in delight as the skin and blood splattered easily against the blow.
"Like the she-elf," one commented, as they always commented, the same conversation over and over because they knew it hurt him. Just like they whipped him in the same places over and over because they knew that each time they hit him they were weakening the same spot, until they could break him into a servile being. The lord would be pleased, for Saruman very much wanted to own this man, once fated to be greatest of all men, now fated to be a slave of the Deceiver.
"She had long hair. Black like the night. It was so soft, when we ripped it from her head."
"It made good rope," one commented, and they laughed then, the same raucous laugh they used whenever they spoke of his love, his forbidden Elven love. But what did they know of her? They were just talking to unnerve him; they never hurt her. They were just guessing that he had once loved an Elf-maiden. They knew nothing, they knew nothing…
She had gotten away…
Hadn't she?
In the blur of all the pain and the insinuations of the orcs and his hopes, Aragorn and forgotten exactly what was real and what was not. But he would never let them know it.
"And her eyes, grey like mists," Frualg, the third of his torturers said, poetic in the only way he could be: torture.
"How they watered with tears! Like rain!"
"And she tasted good, like mutton." They all laughed as they struck him in unison, three barbed whips, the same in their form and shape, but each thorn within each whip with a different jolt of pain.
"You know nothing!" the man spat, anger freeing him from the speechlessness of pain. "You know nothing!" His voice was hoarse and tired. It had been proud once, hadn't it?
He was beginning to forget.
They were breaking him.
He felt their leader, the largest of the three, grab his hair and pull his head back.
"I know how soft her skin was, and how loud her cries were. Pathetic human," he growled. And then he pulled Aragorn's head back even further, harshly, pulling his hair out by the roots.
"You never touched her! You aren't good enough to have ever touched her!"
"Good enough!" the second one, Grumm, spat. "Who is the slave? Who is free? Who does the master love?"
"Arwen got away! She got away!" he cried, his voice cracking on the words.
"Arwen," The leader, Krul, laughed. "Arwen."
And Aragorn felt all resolve leave him as they continued his beating. He didn't even feel the pain anymore.
He had told them her name. They knew her name.
He had not wanted to share that with them, didn't want them to have any part of her, his love, his Luthien…
Arwen…
He felt defeated. And his hope left him, and he was sure he could remember seeing the light flee her eyes when the orcs surrounded her…just like they said…he could hear Elrond's anguished cries, see Elladan futilely try to save her, and Elrohir pierced at the end of an orc spear. He saw the blood, a million shades of red in the sunlight, on the grass…each drop like a shard of a broken mirror showing him a reflection of himself, a failure in the thing that mattered most.
He should have protected the hobbit in the Shire, but he had been too late.
Sauron had the Ring.
And he remembered feeling the orcs chain him and flay him until he could barely move, and wondering why he was alive, why when all else was lost…was he alive?
And then one of the Nine Ring Wraiths had revealed the answer: Sauron wanted him as well.
Sauron had the Ring. He got whatever he wanted.
And all was lost.
~*~
Curious Elven eyes watched as three orcs left a room filled with human screams and moans of agony. The Elf was sure this man was special, for he had watched the orcs return for torture everyday.
Elven eyes narrowed as they noticed a slight crack in the stone wall that surrounded the prisoner's cell. It was most likely a result of the careless ways the orcs treated their weapons, both whips and those used to bludgeon. They were always throwing them against walls and prisoners alike. The Elf prince scowled in disgust as he fingered the feathered tip of one of his arrows.
"Foolish orcs," he spat.
He notched one arrow against his bowstring cautiously, listening carefully for approaching footsteps, and tried to ignore the suffocating stench of the Orthanc dungeon.
Then he stepped from his hiding place and approached the cell. Perhaps this human prisoner was the one he sought.
Perhaps this was the one Mithrandir had sent him to look for…the one that would help in their cause to defeat Sauron, Ring or no.
The Son of Mirkwood reached the stone cage, and kneeled in order to look through the crack, his Elven eyes narrowing once more as he beheld the piteous sight inside.
It was a Man, dark of hair and tan of skin. He looked somewhat starved, his muscles wiry and taut against his skin. His hair reached his shoulders, and it was tangled and matted with blood. Patches of it were missing where it had been forcefully torn out. His body was scarred and torn, pink, new scars forming over the old. His eyes were open, the Elf could see, but staring at the wall he was pinned, face-forward, against. They were a chilling, glazed, grey-blue that looked so alike to that of the dead, the Elf was certain the rise and fall of the Man's bare chest was an illusion.
There was the trace of dignity in the attempt of his shoulders to remain somewhat straight, the strength in his muscles, the clenching of the jaw. But there was detachment and grief there as well, and for that, the Elf was not surprised. The Elves of Mirkwood had successfully evaded Sauron's legions, but Legolas knew that was not so in Rivendell. A strong soul indeed the Man must have had, to remain strong for such a long time.
There was beauty in his fallen grace, in the curve of his muscles, in his stature, defeated as it may have been. Greenleaf felt a kinship to this man he did not understand, as if he had seen him once, strong and proud, as the fearless Dunedain he was fabled to be. Although that could not be so; he was sure of it. Yet the Elf understood why the Evenstar had fallen for this Man, and felt a great pity in his heart for both, as well as a great irritation concerning Sauron, who not only brought this grief upon them, but had nestled his dungeon in the most foul of foul places, where Legolas could scarcely breathe without gagging and giving himself away.
He sighed.
If this was indeed the King of Men, it would seem as if Legolas had not reached him in time. For although there was breath in him, the one once known as Estel was now hardly fit for the name, as he wore his grief more fittingly than the rags and shreds of noble cloth that adorned him.
This was the type of grief Legolas had seen Elves die of.
He doubted a Man suffering through it would be of any use.
"Yet again," he mused, "you win, Sauron."
Author's Note: Mithrandir is an Elven name for Gandalf.
Also, I'm toying with the idea of giving Legolas dark hair in this fic. Thoughts on this? Hate it, love it…doesn't matter?
Estel means hope and that's what his Elven foster family (Elrond, Elrohir, Elladan, and Arwen, as well as most other Elves prolly) called him.
Elves are immortal, but they can die of you know…bodily harm, like being torn to pieces, or from grief/heartache…
If I'm wrong about anything, please tell me! ^_^