The cold metal door slammed behind Legolas as he was roughly thrown into his cell and the chains were locked back onto his wrists, ankles, and neck.  He winced inwardly as he was shoved into the wall and his torn and bleeding body made contact with the hard stone.  Then his captors turned and left the cell.  He heard the click of the lock as the key was turned.  Footsteps retreated back up the stone staircase, and he was finally left alone.

From the few golden rays of light that came through the windows, Legolas could tell that the sun would soon be fading.  Night fell quickly inside, the few slits in the wall being too high to catch the very last of the sunlight, and soon all was dark and gloomy.  Legolas knew he should try and rest; his entire body screamed for it.  But for some reason, he was wide-awake mentally. 

He had been standing, but now he sat down, gritting his teeth as he eased his back against the wall, the chilly surface extinguishing some of the fire that seemed to tear across his back.  It became easier for him to think clearly, and he bent his thought here and there.

Firstly, he thought of the note that he'd been force to write to his father, and of his possessions that had been sent with it.

No doubt it is to ensure that my father believes that they have me.  But I wonder what the ransom note demands.  Gold?  Jewels?  Nay, something tells me this is different…bigger.  They did say that they needed me alive for the time being. For the time being…does that mean they will kill me before the end?

 

He thought hard about the note he'd been forced to write, but could gather no more clues to figure out what his captors were after. 

Whatever they demanded, I hope my father will not give in to them.  I must find a way out of here.  But how?  If I but breathe wrong I will be brought back to the Screaming Room, I fear.  As much as I hate to admit it, I am stuck here, chained and beaten like a beast.  

He signed and leaned his head back, resting it against the wall.  Again he thought of rescue, but once again his heart sank.  Aragorn might have some of the best tracking skills that the elf had ever seen, but it would most likely take the former ranger a considerable amount of time before he came.  If only they had not passed into that rocky land of little soil and no grass!  But still, Aragorn had surprised Legolas in the past; perhaps there still was a chance of being found.

He was jarred from his thoughts at the sound of footsteps, heavy boots on the stone floor.  The door to his cell creaked open, and a cloaked figure placed a small platter before Legolas. On it was a small hunk of bread, a few days old, but not quite inedible yet.  Next to it was a small crock of thin gruel, the smell of which was highly unappetizing.  To top it all off was a mug of luke-warm water.

Legolas eyes all of this suspiciously, but the figure did not move.  Legolas did not touch the food.

"You will eat it or you will be punished.  We can't have you starving to death, now can we?"  By the sound of the voice, it was the leader of the group.

Hesitantly, Legolas reached out and took up the bread and sniffed it.  His keen elven senses told him that nothing was wrong with it, and he took a bite, the first food he'd eaten since he'd supped with Gimli and the men of Gonder before his abduction.  Until then, he'd barely noticed his hurt, fear and pain taking over.  But now he ate with a renewed sense of hunger, though the food was bitter and little to his liking.  He ate all that was offered, including the rather repulsive gruel and washed down the meal with the mug of water.

We ate better during the war, he thought wryly to himself, and he yearned for even the smallest morsel of elvish waybread.

Once he had finished his poor supper, the leader took up his tray and made for the door.  "I see that you are indeed learning my young prince.  See to it that you remember the lessons learnt this afternoon or you shall be re-schooled."     

The door shut behind the leader and he disappeared from sight.  Again, Legolas could not shake the sense that he knew the being underneath the robes from an earlier time.  A Man's voice it seemed, harsher and less eloquent than Aragorn, and certainly less so than his elven kin.  But elvish the figure seemed in movement.  He was light of step and keen of senses, yet unnaturally so, for Legolas guessed that the person's natural form was not an elvish one.  And he was as cruel and cunning as the Dark Lord had been, but on a lesser scale. 

His plan is not so grand as to destroy Middle Earth, thought Legolas, but we may yet see a different side.  Orc-like he seems and yet not…small-scale thinking, yet not so petty as orcs tend to be.  Ah, but now I must rest while I may, for who knows what the coming of the dawn may bring.  Nothing maybe, but I fear more of the same treatment as I faced today.

With that, he slowly drifted off into an uneasy sleep.