I'm going to warn you that I don't think this is one of my better chapters. It degenerates towards the end, hopefully the next chapter is better. I think it is. In fact, I'm almost positive it is, but that's neither here nor there.
Kathira: *looks pleased* That is a request I think I can manage. Sort of. Next story if not this one. He just can't escape.
Grumpy: lol. Yeah, my hands hurt writing the thing. I had to keep stopping and flexing my fingers. If he were smart, he'd never come out, but that comes later. You can ask him, but I think he'd rather have Arwen. *smiles* The woman's fate will be revealed. *g*
NaughtyNat: Oh, boy. Not that I'm complaining, cause I'm not. But oh, boy. Let's see. *wades in slowly* I had to babysit yesterday. A six year-old and a fifteen month old. Both were actually very sweet. But maybe that's because I only had to spend five hours with them, and they were asleep for two of those. Lol. Proabably, but I think that's an overused phrase and could actually be applied to nearly every chapter. Hehe. Then, I changed directions I was going with the fic after titling it and never changed the title. *shrugs* Mm, maybe. Elves are definitely tricky to comprehende. Maybe that's why I've gotten so into hurting Aragorn. Him I understand. Lol. He might try to become less comprehendable if he ever finds out, though, so shhh. *g* lol. Mm, yes, he makes girls so flustered. Um, that's actually a reference to Mellon Chronicles, somewhere around Mistaken Identity, I believe. It's always been a joke, but the shadows have made darker and taken away the humor behind it. That's where it originally came from, and the ones who mentioned it in the dreams that I have written were Elladan and Elrohir, but he's had others that haven't been seen by anyone but him. Who's knows what has happened there, away from prying eyes. *g* Oops, guess I forgot to spellcheck that chapter. *looks absurdly pleased* Then it worked. I wanted it that way. And you are the 50th. I feel I should have a prize, but alas! Lol. Someone who agrees that this is fun! Lol. Lol. *snorts* Blame the pins on this action movie I saw once where they were somewhere, maybe Korea maybe China, and were torturing somone. That was the torture. It's been years and I don't remember very well. I just remember my hands hurting at the thought, watching the pin placed against his finger, the fear in his eyes, then being whisked away to the outside of the room and hearing desperate pain-filled cries. *g* You just so wanted to know that, I cant tell. *cheeky grin* lol. Yes, if all else fails, glare. A great motto. I can believe it's the biggest, and this is close to the biggest response I've ever done because of it, if not the biggest. Escape time, yes. Coming up. Miraculous? Yet to be seen. *g*
Lauren: Hi, Lurker! *waves* I just have to thank you for your email. I'm mostly a lurker, too. *looks sheepish* It's so terrible to ask people to review and then not review myself. Not that I read all that many stories. I'm too picky. Hehe. I'm glad you're enjoying it so much. Thank you so much for your kind words. They mean a lot.
Okay, now I can get on to the story. Then I can track down my sister and borrow Two Towers. After that, I can write the next chapter to The Storm and possibly finish it so I can continue writing my next story. If I can get back to writing it, I can probably have it finished by Christmas. If, If, If. . . . *sighs in frustration* Ah, now if only I could get everything to work and write somewhere other than school so I can actually pay attention in class. Lol.
Anyway, read. Enjoy. Review. You know the drill. =D
Chapter 14
Nature's Aid--Or Destruction
Legolas sat, and watched. He was almost in a trance himself, sent there by shock and grief. He had lost his best friend. After all they had been through, and all that had happened, he had lost his best friend. The human he had almost left to die in his hatred, who had worked his way into many hearts and changed many minds, who was the hope of men, and he had lost him.
That was he gone, though, had yet to penetrate his brain, too shocked was he by his friend's state. He could almost imagine the young man was going to look at him at any minute, smile, and make a truly odd comment. . . .
~*~
Silence had surrounded Legolas and Aragorn for many hours, a fact that surprised the palace staff, especially when they discovered both laying quietly in the prince's room not even planning any great or terrible feat--and knowing them it would likely have been the latter.
The elf prince, even, found it highly unusual for his friend to stay quiet for so long, well aware of his usual habits. Of course, he could be sleepy, he reasoned, aware that when humans slept they were generally quite quiet.
He shifted slightly to glance at the human who was laying on the floor above him, feet against the wall. Intense silver eyes stared up at the ceiling, watching the curtains that were near him dancing in the morning breeze.
Confused, he watched the ranger watching the hanging decorations, not seeing in the least what could make them so extraordinarily fascinating. There were other trinkets scattered around his room that provided far better entertainment than his window curtains, and yet the human had bypassed them all in favor of watching lightly floating fabric. It was incredible.
I will never understand humans, he thought, still incredulous at the attention garnered by a bit of fluttering fabric. Mayhap he has lost his mind.
Regardless of the reason, however, Aragorn kept staring and, lacking any sort of satisfying explanation, Legolas kept watching Aragorn. Neither so much as glanced away from their subject for a moment nor blinked more often than absolutely necessary.
The curtain, for its part, floated on happily, never suspecting it was the the subject of such scrutiny; and Aragorn watched on, seemingly unaware of the scrutiny of Legolas, another thing the elf could not understand as the ranger had always proven incredibly aware of his surroundings. For a human, that is.
Somewhere in there, Legolas lost all track of the passage of time. They could have remained thus for three days and he would not have been able to say so. He was much surprised, then, when Aragorn started laughing.
The elf's eyebrows rose towards his hairline, perplexed, as the other's shoulders started shaking with surpressed laughter. His blue eyes darted up to the curtain which still floated with the breeze. To his eyes, nothing had changed, so what did the human find so funny?
Then Aragorn rolled over onto his stomach and looked at him, head propped up by his hands, eyes twinkling brightly. "How long were you prepared to wait before you were finally going ask?"
Legolas blinked. "Ask what?"
One of the human's eyebrows lifted questioningly, his expression the epitome of someone dying to say "Are you daft, or just stupid?" Instead, he said, "Come now, Legolas. Surely there was something you felt inclined to discover. You do not stare at me for minutes and hours on end, if you are not trying to puzzle out something."
The elf blinked slowly, once, twice, three times just for good measure, as he tried to get his mind to shift gears and make what his friend was saying make sense. Apparently, Aragorn had been paying more attention to his surroundings than he had thought.
"How long have you known I was watching you?" he finally asked.
"Three hours."
"I have not been wathcing you for three hours!" cried the elf, surprised, but even as the words left his mouth, he had an odd feeling it had actually been a good deal longer.
Aragorn laughed. "Ah, my good Master Elf. Three hours it has been since I first noticed your rather intense stare." He paused, looking rather like the cat that swallowed the canary. "Of course, it could be closer to four hours."
Legolas' jaw dropped before he could stop it, then snapped it shut and narrowed his eyes. "You did that on purpose."
A wide grin split the human's face. "Why, of course! What could possibly be so fascinating about window curtains as to hold my attention for nearly four hours?"
For a moment, there was silence. Then the elf started chuckling. Once he started chuckling, he could not stop and the chuckling turned into giggling. A glance at his friend's half-perturbed-half-amused face sent the giggles into a full blown laughing fit.
Maybe humans are not so hard to understand after all. Shortly thereafter, Aragorn joined him, laughter being, after all, highly contagious.
~*~
It occured to him, distantly, that they had been in the same position mere days ago, though not with exactly the same results. How many things, he wondered, do I take forgranted that might not be there when next I look?
He had never, exactly, taken Aragorn's presence forgranted. He was well aware that one day his human friend would cease to be around and that he would never see him again. That one day Aragorn would die and pass to the Halls of Mandos, beyond his reach forever, and that he would pass over the sea in the fullness of time and be forever beyond Aragorn's reach. But perhaps, just perhaps, he had forgotten to appreciate the little things, moments suspended in time, though he missed them greatly whenever they were gone.
He remembered the time when they had spent a whole afternoon trying to create a love potion from a dusty old book to give to the twins, ending in a highly amusing spectacle over dinner. His friend's steady presence was always comforting, whether Aragorn was standing beside him in a prank or if they were facing death at the hands of goblins or worse. The human's wide grin, or the way his eyes changed colors ever so slightly when he was planning mischief, or his friend's ready assurance that he was "fine" even when he was not, while aggravating, would be unbearable if they were suddenly gone.
Blue eyes shining with tears regarded the unmoving young man. He looked dead, save for the rise and fall of his chest, and the occassional shudders that worked through his frame everytime his fingers accidentally moved. The pain was likely terrible, though one would never be able to tell from the blank expression on the human's face.
A single tear slipped down his cheek and a shuddering breath wracked his own frame. He blinked and looked around quickly, noting Kaialian was no longer present and slumped back in his chair with an undefinable emotion somewhere between relief and depression. He slid forward and felt the end of the chair beneath him.
A moment later he sat back up in surprise. He had been bound, yes, but she had not bound him to the chair, a fact which (though he had yet to figure out exactly what to do) gave him hope for their escape. Surely he could come up with something now that he was no longer confined to his chair.
The elf looked around, his keen eyes searching for something to help remove his bindings. He could nothing from his position before Aragorn, and stood to get a better look.
His legs trembled slightly as he rose, weakly protesting his weight before his mind was used to standing again. He took three steps and could see behind his friend a pedestal of sorts. It was made of stone, highly polished and mostly smooth, and atop it lay a metal tray which gleamed slightly in the dim lighting from the torch; its workmanship seamed vaguely familiar, though he was several steps closer before he realized the reason was that it, too, had been made by the wood-elves.
Upon the tray, he noticed a couple more pointed sticks, an odd knife, a twisted device he could not even begin to place the use of though he knew if was used to torture someone, a vice that was thin and big enough to pace around a person's head, and a double bladed device that rotated around an axis with two handles at one end. He stared at that, but could not make out what it was.
Not that he particularly cared, and he turned so he could grab the odd knife in his hands, which were bound behind his back. It felt odd to be picking up an item he could not see, and he moved slowly to avoid slicing his hands during his attempt. Eventually, though, he managed and began slowly slicing through the ropes that bound him, the motion awkward because of how tightly his hands were tied.
When the ropes finally gave with a sharp snap, the elf prince's hands dropped with the release of pressure. He let out the breath he had been holding to keep his hands steady in one breath, his shoulders slumping. Quickly, he pushed down the rest of the ropes and freed himself from their entangling clutches.
Walking quickly back around to Aragorn, Legolas examined his friend, paying close attention to the quills sticking out of the human's fingers, anxious as to whether or not he could take them out or if that would prove decidely detrimental to his the young man's health.
He chewed his bottom lip anxiously as his keen eyes took in the damage, then darted toward each of the three corridors that led out of the cavern in turn, checking to make sure his ears had not deceived him and that the woman was not returning. All was still quiet and no one moved. Somehow, that did not reassure him as much as he would have liked.
His body practically humming with urgency and adrenaline, Legolas turned back to the dark-haired man before him, staring into space with glassy eyes unrecognizable as his friend. He reached out a hand and brushed it across Aragorn's forehead to check for a temperature, then back through his hair to brush some wayward strands out of his face.
"Oh, Aragorn," he murmured. "I wish I had paid a bit more attention to my lessons. I don't want to lose you to a stupid mistake of mine." His voice was hoarse and barely audible, even to his elven ears.
Again shaky, he stood and made his way partway down one of the corridors leading off the one they were in, looking for herbs or bandages that could be used to help him in his task.
Arriving in the next cavern, he found nothing of use, only several books scattered at intervals around the small space, most stacked haphazardly around a single chair and low table. It led off into another chamber, but the elf was unwilling to travel so far from his friend's side, in case Kaialian decided to come, and so returned to try a different corridor.
A distant rumbling that nevertheless shook the ground he was walking on, caused Legolas to pause after stumbling slightly. Dust worked its way free from the ceiling and the elf looked up apprehensively. He could hear small rocks dropping to the ground and skittering sharply, clattering before they came to a halt.
At the moment, the elf prince was not finding it difficult to remember why he disliked caves so much. He had been in more than one cave-in, and found the experience lacking and one he had no desire to repeat. That, of course, accounted for most of his dislike of caves, but was not helped a sinlge iota by his experiences with orcs, goblins, or the lack of starlight which elves so loved.
This most recent experience, the elf observed darkly, was not likely to improve that opinion at all. With a last, wary glance above his head, Legolas set off once more, this time arriving in the exact cavern he wanted.
Organized and sorted into tiny cubicles which had been carved into the rock walls themselves were various healing supplies: bandages, herbs, knives, mixing bowls, grinding stones, clean rags, and even pitchers full of water.
With a little cry that was mostly triumph, the elf began making his way around the room, gathering the supplies he would need, beginning with the most basic, like water and bandages, before proceeding to the shelves full of various healing herbs. These he shuffled past, peering at intently and muttering under his breath.
He was aggravated to discover they were not labeled and wished afresh that he had paide better attention in his lessons or that Aragorn could help him, for he knew the young man to be an accomplished healer who would surely be able to tell which herbs were which and would be useful for what.
The elf scanned the items quickly, keen eyes darting back and forth across the items, desperately searching for some he knew. With hundreds lining the wall, and most of them seeming to be collected from Mirkwood itself, he knew he should know all of them. But while he could identify most of them, he was also at a lose as to what they did.
He bounced on the balls of his feet in anxious agitation, a highly un-elf-like move that would have got him a deeply disapproving glare from his father and a long lecture, but which in his current mood did not even register in his mind, much less register in his mind as an elf prince no-no.
~*~
"Don't you ever stop?"
Silver eyes turned to look at him, the man's expression slightly confused. "Stop what?"
Both eyebrows rose as the elf regarded his friend, who had been in perpetual movement, even when he had no where to go and nothing to do, for the past six hours. "Moving. It is unbecoming a future king to act so undignified."
Had he not been quite so irritated, he would have found the other's expression amusing, and he barely noticed the other had stopped bouncing up and down. Surprise changed in a flash to incredulity, and then the young man shook his head and began pacing, his movements short and agitated. "I will not be king," he declared flatly, not looking at the prince. "And we lowly humans do not have ages to wait and so have yet to see the value of patience."
"Then you should see it, at least, for you will need it ere long," Legolas shot back, his eyes tracing the other's path though his head did not move.
"Why shall I need it?" Now Aragorn was irritated.
"To complete your destiny."
Anger flashed briefly in the silver eyes that turned on the elf prince, and for a moment Legolas was tempted to step back, then it was gone, and the elf could nearly believe he was looking into the eyes of a lost child. "The world does not need me," he answered, his tone weary nearly to the point of being mournful. "It is better off without my interference."
"And what of all we have done, Aragorn?" Legolas asked. "What of that? Surely you do not think it was useless."
"Any other could have done the same."
Legolas shook his head, stepping in front of his friend to halt his movements when he tried to continue his circuit. Blue eyes found and held silver. "No other could have accomplished the same," he declared. "We are placed where we are to play a part, mellon nin, and none can run lest their path fail to the ruin of all."
Doubt stared back at him from his friend's eyes. Words had never truly had the same impact on the young ranger as actions, so he simply stared, and waited. Finally, something very near amusement flickered in the silver depths. "What, my friend, does that have to do with patience?"
Legolas laughed.
~*~
Red, green, green with yellow, purple, teal, lavender, every color imaginably found in nature was respresented in the stores. Finally, his mind cooperated and he grabbed a couple herbs that helped with inflammation and bleeding--stopping it, that is. He dumped the various herbs in a bowl and grabbed a pitcher of water, the bowl in one hand and the pitcher in the other, intending to rush back down the corridor.
Instead, he paused. Time was, obviously, of the essence, but he could not afford to have to do things over again. He set both down and scanned the room for what he was forgetting. Bandages: he stuffed some in one of his pockets. Blue eyes scanned the room, mind desperately flying over everything he knew about the situation, his friend's injuired, cures he had used, and anything else that seemed the least bit relevant.
Two more herbs caught his attention, and he lunged for them, quickly stuffing them in his pockets before grabbing up the rest of his chosen supplies and scurrying quickly back down the corridor, his knees bent to keep his passage as quiet as possible in the echoing cave system. Still his footsteps seemed entirely too loud.
Many minutes had passed since Kaialian had left, he was sure, though he could not remember how many. More had passed since he had left to search for supplies. He could not afford to be caught unprepared for her return lest they both suffer again, and the elf was quite sure Aragorn was not up to enduring any more attention from the woman.
Too long for his nerves, but really barely five minutes, Legolas reentered the cavern where Aragorn waited, unmoved from where he had been left, his postition as exact as if he had been carved from stone.
He dropped to his knees at the foot of the chair where the human was tied and placed his findings down gently, careful not to break either the bowl nor the pitcher. Worried blue eyes darted up to look at his friend's face, hoping for some kind of life to flicker in their depths.
"Aragorn," he whispered, loud enough to hear, low enough not to carry too far even with the echoes of the stone. "Aragorn. Please, answer. Aragorn. . . . Strider, do not. . . ." No change was wrought in the man's pale features and he could not bring himself to continue.
Legolas turned back to his supplies, scooping the herbs out of the bowl, then dumping the remainder out so as to not mix them accidentally. Quickly and quietly, he worked, pausing every so often to glance at his friend, or towards the corridor that led away to wherever that woman had gone.
A distant and unsettling rumble started somewhere in the distance, sounding as if it came from all around, and the elf froze. This time, it sounded closer and disturbingly familiar, as if he had heard it before. Admittedly, there had been a similar occurrence earlier, but that was not where the familiarity came from. He watched as the torch light flickered, dim though it already was, and rocks crashed to the ground around him. The stone beneath his knees and hands trembled, and wary eyes turned to look at it. Loose sand bounced, before falling still, and the rumbings died away.
Slowly, blue eyes were dragged upward, panic beginning to play in their depths. He bypassed his friend to gaze, apprehensively, at the ceiling, his keen eyes for the first time noting the spider wed of hairline cracks that riddled the expanse. "By the Valar," he whispered, his voice little more than an exhalation of air, "please don't let this mountain be coming down."
His gaze drifted, reluctantly, back down to the human tied before him. So well was Aragorn tied down, that the jouncing had merely moved his head, putting it at a less than comfortable angle, and the elf could not resist moving it to a more comfortable position. Legolas turned back to his mixture. It was done.
He laid it carefully aside, secured as best he could against tipping, and moved a bit closer to Aragorn, the better to reach his hands. Once in position, he reached back for the pads and bandages, pulling them closer. Resisting the guilt that threatened to overwhelm him, he pried his friend's mouth open and pushed the folded pad inside then tied the bandage around his head and between his lips to ensure his silence. They could little afford for his friend to bring that woman down on top of them while he was trying to get them out, but it hurt his heart to have to restrain his friend so, for the best or not.
Doggedly pushing on, he moved back to his friend's fingers, studying them intently. Had the pins been pushed through the bone? He thought they had. What did that mean? Was there something special he needed to do in that case? That was the problem, since he had no idea if removing them now might not just cause more problems than leaving them in.
That, however, was something he simply could not do. He could not leave them and let his friend continue in that pain, could not leave them when he knew that was what had forced his friend into the unresponsive catatonic state in which he currently resided.
He looked at Aragorn's blank face and sighed. It was times like this when he desperately missed the human's odd sense of humor. He knew the ranger could have made him feel better about this, pointed out some thing or other, but now he could not. All because of that woman. Hatred he had long held at bay bubbled up inside him, and while he would not risk Aragorn's health, he was certainly going to return to finish her off.
With that thought as a reminder, he glanced back towards the tunnel she had disappeared into, listening as well as searching for a hint of her return. Thankfully, there was still no sign of her, a fact which greatly puzzled the elf for he had not considered her to be one to leave her prey simply lying idle.
Another tremor, though much smaller this time, brought his attention firmly back to the ranger before him and pushed out any concerns about her continued absense. With any luck, perhaps she had simply died and they did not have to worry about her any more. That, however, seemed a possibility far too good to be true.
I'm sorry, Aragorn, he thought to his friend, then placed one hand atop the human's and gripped the pin firmly with the other, trying not to jar it and failing miserably, the pained jerk of his friend evidence of that. He closed his eyes as the pain of what he knew his friend had to be feeling--whether it registered or not--flowed through him. A tear slipped down his cheek, then he pulled.
His ears were assaulted by the scraping of metal against bone (the only sound in the empty cavern), a discordant scratching that was somehow worse that the worst screech he had ever heard in his life because it was happening to his friend and causing untold pain. The sound made him nauseous just thinking about how it was causing that, and he swallowed painfully before giving the instrument a final tug, pulling it free so that he could see the entire shiny length.
For a breif eternity, he stared at it, mesmerized, caught in his own swirling emotions with no clear idea of how he was going to be able to stand pulling out nine more identical pins. Then the soft drip of blood caught his attention and he leaned down to the bowl, dabbing the center of one of the pads in the mixture. He placed the moistened part on the tip of the human's finger, forcefuly ignoring the pain he must have been causing, and wrapped the rest of the pad around it. If nothing else, it would stop the wound from attracting dirt and becoming infected. He hoped. Then he wound a length of the bandages around it and tied it securely.
In his mind, he imagined what Aragorn would say to this, and knew he would complain endlessly about being mothered and how he would not be able to use his hands. He could imagine the conversation, and somehow that hurt more. Two tears tracked their way down his cheeks, even as he blinked the rest back. When they were home, and Aragorn well on his way to recovery, then he could afford to cry, not before.
As quickly and carefully as he could, he finished the procedure on the first hand, then moved on to the second. He could hear muffled sounds coming from his friend, filled with pain, but knew it to be reflexive, for he found no awareness in the young man's eyes.
He could not stand the emptiness and quickly looked away, returning his attention to the hand he was currently removing pins from. He had two pins left to go and could not keep his hands from shaking, though they were steady enough each time he removed a pin. He feared he would break before the task was completed, and his breaths were shaky testaments to his inner battle. He pulled the ninth pin out and began to bandage it.
How could someone do this to another human being? How could a woman, who was supposed to be nurturing and gentle, kind and caring, inflict such torment on one who could not even defend themselves? He could not understand it, was not sure he wanted to understand, but found it terrible just the same. What could push her so far as to erase nature's imprints from her mind?
He pulled the tenth pin and dropped it as if he had been burned. The ground trembled again and the thin length of metal skittered away, tinkling almost laughingly, like it was taunting the elf. Taking a deep breath, Legolas did his best to ignore it and simply finish what he had started. But then, his breath froze.
He heard footsteps. Wide blue, horror filled eyes, turned to look at Aragorn, whose expression did not change. Wildly his mind cast around for what to do. His first instinct said "hide," but where would he hide? And he could not simply leave Aragorn alone to her mercies once more. He could not.
The elf looked around wildly, and his gaze came to rest on the small knife-like object he had used to cut his binds. He snatched it up and held it at the ready before him, moving to place himself between the ranger and the oncoming threat.
Then, though, he realized something he should have noticed before. The footsteps were coming from the wrong direction. True, he had no idea how many tunnels there were and if they connected, but always before she had reemerged from the same tunnel she had exited through. These footsteps were coming from a completely different direction, one Kaialian had never come from before.
Legolas frowned, and concentrated harder. His sharp hearing told him then that the steps were also too heavy to be those of the woman, especailly as her steps had alwasy been faint even when she was but a few feet away. He caught only the barest whisper of cloth as the rumblings from the mountain fell away into silence, and that was certainly not the sound of a dress rustling with it's owner's movements.
Confusion shot through his mind. If it was not Kaialian, who was it? Without meaning to, he relaxed his guard as he tried to puzzle out who was approaching them, and the blade clutched in his fist sank lower, till it was held about waist height before him, the point of the blade angled towards the floor.
He came back to himself quickly, though, and brought the blade back up, prepared to strike quickly once this strange threat was revealed. His muscles tensed, ready for action, as his sharp blue eyes remained focused on the corridor the sounds came from, straining for their first glimpse of the enemy. But the angle was wrong, and the most he could see was a distorted shadow that did not hold a form long enough to be identified.
He shifted his grasp on the psuedo-knife, ready to throw it if he desired, then froze. Around the corner came a man. His gray eyes scanned the room, by-passing Legolas and Aragorn, looking for someone else. When he saw there was no one, he stepped out and raised his hands.
"Greetings," he said, his voice low and rough, like he had not used it much or used it too often. "I come in peace."
Legolas narrowed his eyes. "You'll leave in pieces if you don't explain yourself quickly. I have no time to play games."
"No. No time," the man agreed. "I came to help you get out, though it appears you are doing quite well on your own."
"Why would you help?" the elf asked suspicioiusly, quickly concluding this man had come from the village, though he could not remember seeing him. "Who are you?"
"I am Jans," he offered, "and I did not agree with their decision to send you two in the stead of our own. I was outnumbered, and gave in. Buying my life with those of others makes me ill, and I desired to go and be done with it but the townsfolk disagreed. I let them. I wish to make it right."
Legolas glanced down at Aragorn. He doubted things could ever be "right" again, but for his friend's sake, he had to try. The cavern shook, this time more violently than any of the others, and both Legolas and Jans were thrown off their feet as a couple good sized boulders fell from the ceiling to crash with the force of gravity into the floor. Pieces broke off with the impact and went flying across the room, some striking exposed skin and drawing blood.
The elf drew himself up despite the heaving floor and looked at Aragorn. His head was swinging wildly from side to side, occassionally knocking backwards with particularly hard bounces. He reached out a hand to steady his friend, and was nearly thrown again when the floor heaved.
Then, almost as if a switch had been turned, it stopped. He looked up, his suspicions that the caverns were coming down now dead certainty in his mind. Quite possibly, they had less time than he thought. Before he realized it, Jans had crossed the floor and appeared at his side.
He glanced at him, disconcerted by how quickly and quietly the man had appeared, though part of that might have been because of the tremors. The man pulled a knife, and before Legolas could react--which was saying a lot--began cutting the ropes that held the young man in the chair.
Deciding to take this newcomer at his word, Legolas silently thanked the Valar that, for once, things were going their way in this escape attempt.
When the last rope snapped, the elf hauled the limp ranger onto his shoulders and braced him tightly. He hoped he was not aggravating any injuries his young friend had sustained, but could not be sure.
He turned to Jans, aware that it had taken guts for the human to come up here, and painfully aware that few would have, even among his own, if the village had been elven instead of human. "Thank you," he murmured.
The other nodded, his gaze traveling to Aragorn. "Don't thank me," he denied. "Your friend doesn't look too good."
Legolas glanced over his shoulder. "I have to get him back to my father as quickly as possible."
"Then you had best start now. Exit's that way."
He inclined his head gratefully, then started in the indicated direction. Before the two made it, however, the exit was blocked. Legolas looked up.
Kaialian had finally decided to come back.