Well, here is the next part, finally. Once again, I hope that some of your questions will be answered in here! It's still supposed to be kind of a mystery, but some things will be revealed here. And again, there's some angst-y stuff in here, so consider yourselves forewarned. All reviews, good and bad are welcome!! Although I'm partial to good ones... ;) Oh! One more thing, the italicized words STILL do not show up on here so I apologize for that. I know it makes it more confusing. It helps to show when characters are thinking and things like that...oh well, on with the story!

Wounds and Choices

"Good morning, Prince Legolas."

Her voice was not what he had expected to hear when he finally came back into the world. It was sweet and soft, like his mother's had been when he was young. When he opened his eyes, he found himself looking into her smiling face. She looked happier than when he'd last seen her. Her face was still a milky white, but her cheeks were the color of rosy apples and her eyes sparkled as the sunbeams from the window played softly around her shoulders.

"How long have I been asleep?" he asked, a playful smile spreading across his tired face.

"Almost two days exactly. Your father will be pleased to know that you are awake," she said, smoothing the bedsheets with her hand as she talked and pretending not to notice his smile.

"Two days!" he repeated, incredulous. His eyes wandered around the room's perimeter. "Where is Aragorn? I half-expected that he too would be asleep somewhere in this room." The ranger was always nearby when the elf prince periodically fell into harm's way.

How did I manage to hurt myself this time anyway? he thought to himself. He did not ask though, as it would probably seem an absurd question.

He propped himself up carefully on his forearms and scanned the chamber.

"Where is he, Eldárwen?" he asked, his thoughts once again turning to Aragorn. He noticed immediately the shadow that slid over the sparkle in her eyes.

"I wish you had not brought that up just yet," she said, bowing her head to look at her hands.

A sick fear settled in his heart. Something was not right here.

"Tell me now. I do not appreciate being hidden from things that I should know about. What has happened?" he asked, trying not to think of the worst possible scenario. He stilled her quaking hands and held them in his own. She looked up slowly and finally spoke.

"He has been taken."

He dropped her hands abruptly.

"What? By whom? How did they-?" he faltered.

"We don't know who did or where they've taken him," she answered, "but everyone here is doing their best to find him. Your father has sent several of his best elves to try and track the captor. We will find him, Prince Legolas."

"Where is my father?" he asked, ignoring what she had recounted to him. "I need to speak with him."

"He will be here soon enough, Prince Legolas," she said. "Is there anything you need before I take my leave?"

"No," he answered, absently. "You may go now." He waited until she shut the door behind her and listened to her muffled footsteps pad along the corridor. Then he quickly threw off the sheets and made an attempt to stand, at which he failed miserably, and promptly crumpled to the floor with a loud thud.

Sudden panic gripped him with a force that made his head swim. The dream, this was what had happened in his dream. He tried to move his legs, but he couldn't even feel them.

Memory came flooding back to him now: Eldárwen's intentions, Aragorn's silent reservations about her, everything was piecing itself back together now. Time was running out.

Slowly, he pulled himself across the expansive wooden floor towards the door of his chamber. Trying to be as quiet as he possibly could, he opened the door and began to drag himself down the hallway to his father's quarters.

The house was strangely quiet, deathly quiet as if the entire house was holding its breath for fear of some unknown thing. He could hear a slight wind whispering against the house, the brushing of leaves against the windows, but nothing of his own elven kind. Even Eldárwen had seemingly disappeared. That is what frightened him the most. She seemed to appear at the least expected moments.

Just as he reached the door to his father's chambers and reached up to grasp the door knob; a small, hard foot slammed into his back, knocking him onto his stomach and holding him there. Legolas tried desperately to turn himself over, twisting his arm to catch hold of the foot that ground itself into the small of his back. The added dead weight of his useless lower body made it difficult to move. Two small hands grasped his own and jerked his arm across his back sharply, a sickening crack indicating that his shoulder had been dislocated. He gasped in pain as quick surge of fire ripped through his shoulder.

"How do you feel, Prince Legolas?" Her voice was cold as ice, frozen with malice and emotionless sarcasm.

He stopped struggling. There was something about her voice...

"Let me go. I can do you no harm. My entire lower body is paralyzed," he told her softly.

She released some of the pressure, allowing him to turn over on his back to face her. He could not hold back a slight gasp as he caught a glimpse of her face. It was not just that her face was as frosty and pure as snow, or that her lips were drained of whatever color they had once been. No, it was her eyes. Her eyes were the only things that betrayed the emotion that her voice kept secret. They flashed silver, silver as mithril, silver as his own blade. Never had he seen eyes such as hers, and they scared the life out of him.

"What are you doing?" he whispered hoarsely, trying not to stare at her eyes.

"You are afraid of me, are you not?" she asked, ignoring his question. Her lips parted in a half-smile.

Legolas didn't know what to say.

She slapped him across the face before he could move away. He had not answered fast enough. Blood trickled from the cut on his lip. He touched it with his hand.

//Get up, Prince Legolas, off of the floor. Be quick, the door is closing//

This was a living nightmare, the one that only hours before had claimed all of his conscious thought. He felt much too vulnerable like this, lying on the floor as she stood over him, with only half a body that would obey what he asked of it.

"Do you want me to be afraid?" he asked. It was better to play off of her own invisible emotions, he thought, than to risk his life being insolent. She was out of her right mind.

"Of course I want you to be afraid!" she hissed at him, her eyes blazing like a bolt of lightning. "I want you to be scared to death of me, I want you to know what fear is like...and soon enough I want you to know what it is like to watch the ones you love die before your eyes."

Suddenly it hit him, harder than anything he had yet experienced. She had taken Aragorn, she was going to kill him and she was going to make him watch his friend die.

Before she even knew what was happening, Eldárwen felt herself hit the floor as Legolas pulled her leg out from under her. She tried to struggle, but Legolas threw the upper half of his body on top of her, pinning her arms just as he had the night she had been controlled by the fever.

"You will not harm Aragorn!" he raged. "You have no business with him and I swear that if you so much as touch him, you will die!"

Someone had to have heard his cries, someone would come running any time now, he thought.

Eldárwen read his mind.

"No one is coming for you, Prince Legolas. No one has heard you. Everyone in this household is in an enchanted sleep that you too were once under. Only I can awake them from their slumber, like I chose to do for you," she whispered. "If I die, this house will remain in an endless sleep."

She smiled with satisfaction as she watched the look of defeat cross the young prince's face. She took advantage of his weakened grip and twisted his injured arm, immediately flipping him onto his back again, then rolling over and slamming him into the door. The elf prince slumped to the floor, curling into himself as much as he could, holding his dislocated arm and waiting for the incessant waves of pain to subside.

"Your paralysis is a side effect of the sleep," she said abruptly. "It will wear off, but only when I am dead. You see, you have a choice: you can kill me and so release yourself from this humiliating situation you find yourself in, as well as save your worthless human friend, or you can keep me alive with the hope that I will someday release your home from this endless sleep." She laughed, watching his face as he tried to deal with his own physical pain and the decision that lay before him.

Her laugh was not the same one that he had grown to love over the time she had been here. Now it was one that was strained, one that was pure evil. But at the same time, he could hear a trapped sob that suffocated behind her tortured laughter. In the semi-darkness he noticed with surprise that her face was wet with tears. Something more was at work here than what was showing before him now.

~~~ He had never known such pain as he did now. Even before he opened his eyes he could feel the still-bleeding cuts across his body. He was suddenly aware of how cold he was, and that he was no longer suspended from the ceiling. He was lying with his bare chest to the dirty stone floor. It hurt badly to breathe, to move, to do anything but simply lay there and try to take his mind off his hurts.

He remembered that his tormenter had beaten him until he was delirious with pain. It had seemed to have taken a lifetime before he could even feel himself slipping away into an oh-so-welcome darkness of unconsciousness. He could hardly remember all that had happened, except for the horrible, unmerciful laughter of the evil one who had whipped him until he felt his own blood run cold down his broken skin. He had begged for mercy, something that he had never done before, and now he could feel his face flush red with hurt and embarrassment at the memory of what he had done. He was an heir to the throne of Gondor, a future king. Kings do not beg for mercy from their persecutors, he thought to himself. Kings must have a sense of pride that must be kept alive and protected, no matter what. He was angry with himself for his weakness; no matter that a normal human being would have died long before he had begun to cry softly for the mercy that would be his only saving grace.

His thoughts only added to his physical pain. Had he been in better shape than what he was, those thoughts would have never crossed his mind. He hardly ever thought of his duty to the throne of Gondor. Now it seemed that all of his emotional hurts and burdens of the past and present were piling themselves on him at a time when pain was all he seemed to know.

With his head to the stone floor, he was able to hear the echoing footsteps of someone coming towards his cell. He shakily dragged himself to the rock wall and gripped the stones that protruded from it, pulling himself up to a standing position in a half-hearted attempt to appear strong to the person who was about to enter his cell.

His heart was pounding in his bloodied chest and he couldn't help but wrap one arm around his bruised ribs as every reverberation thudded off of each one, making them throb as if someone were still beating him.

He quickly discovered that he could not lean against the wall because his back had been flayed open and was still bleeding lightly. The slightest touch caused his pounding head to spin. He would have to hold himself up with his own strength, which did not sound promising at the moment.

And so he stood, trying to still his labored breathing as he heard the creak of the cell door open to the one person he least expected to see.

TBC...