I like this one ... just thought I'd say...
Chapter Nine - Total Darkness
Total darkness. The deepest black that he had ever experienced in his entire life. And it wrapped itself in choking folds about his body, refusing to let even his mind go unaffected, as it pressed its merciless cold hands into his soul. It oppressed his very spirit, denied him even the memory of fresh air, as it was close in here, damp and heavy with decay. He shared with a skeleton; he knew it by that sickly earthy smell that came to him. Moulded bones.
He sat on his legs because the floor was damp. He was cold enough without having moist clothing as well as heart. His legs were indeed damp, and his upper body dry ... but that did not stop it from seeping in and chilling the rest of him. Elves were resistant to cold, that was true - but even they had limits, and the environment that Legolas had been forced into went over that line. This was not the usual kind of cold ... it was not a natural chill, otherwise he would not have been able to feel it as he was. He had braved blizzards without a cloak and had been totally comfortable. There was some kind of dark magic here that worked past his normal senses and penetrated his elven-spirit, causing him to feel the discomfort of mortals.
Legolas had his chin resting upon his good arm - which had a shackle encompassing his wrist, keeping it held high with an icy steel grip above his shoulder level as he sat. The pressure from the weight of his head strained at his wrist, and he could feel it chafing his skin - but he no longer cared for such a trivial thing as nagging pain that accompanied bruised and cut skin.
This was depression as he had never felt it before. He needed the outside, to see the sky, to smell the grass on the breeze. As a Wood-elf, it was essential to his spirit that he have some connection with the outside or he would sink lower into his despair, possibly to the extent of never emerging from it again.
A key clanked in the lock of the door. Legolas sprang to his feet. His pride would not allow anyone to see him knocking at Despair's door. Besides, he was the Prince of Mirkwood, the only heir to the throne of his lands. His very title called him to stand with a straight back to face whatever Fate had in store for him. It was what his father would have expected of him. It was high time that he showed what and who he was: his mother had been of the Avari, his father was of the Laiquendi Elves, the great King Thranduil. He was Thranduilion.
A smile alighted his lips as it had not done for what felt like an age, and it remained as the heavy door opened, admitting Gríma into the dungeon.
Gríma could see the Elf before he had fully opened the door, even in the small dose of light that managed to get through. It fell on the being's face in a long slither. It was very little in quantity, and it was poor - so poor that the only real indication that it fell on fair skin was a faint difference from the surrounding darkness. But it was caught by an unblinking eye, which reflected it back to him in a gleam that was far more intense and bright than the stuff that seeped through the crack in the door. So bright! "How could it be?" he pondered briefly.
He fully opened the door, deliberately leaving it open for the Elf to stare out at freedom, which lay naught but a stone's-throw away from him, yet impossible for him to actually obtain.
Legolas focused on the light. He knew that it was not much, and that it had a dirty quality to it, but it was better than anything that he got when that door was closed - which was none at all - and it gave him some indication that there was still a world outside, and that in turn strengthened his heart. It was all that he had.
Gríma's boots sounded on the dirty stone and he drew his cloak about himself tighter. It was freezing down here, and it made him shiver. It stank. Filthy. Decaying. Still, it bothered him not - the Elf deserved to live in this squalor for breaking his nose and rib as he had done.
He was here again, just as he had been yesterday. All of his words the day before had been wasted; Legolas had just stood there, completely ignoring him and singing of all things! That had been most infuriating for Gríma - it had been like trying to talk with a simpleton, which, he knew, the Elf was not by any means.
He came to stand a few feet from the prince - he would not go any closer than that, for his nose was still incredibly tender, and he was not prepared to have it made any worse.
Legolas regarded the Man, and his smile turned to a grin. He knew perfectly well why he stood so far off, and it amused him considerably.
His eyes flashed to what Gríma held in his hand. As the Man saw this, he lifted it to his mouth and took a huge bit out of the chicken leg, chewing with his mouth open.
Legolas turned his eyes away in disgust, fighting to retain his equanimity, at which Gríma chuckled through the meat.
'Hungry?'
Legolas snorted and refused to grace that with an answer. He had not been given anything to eat, and, as the despicable little Man chewed deliberately loudly, he was made horribly aware that nothing had passed his lips for four days. Were he a Man, he would be weak with hunger, but Elves were capable of going much longer without any sustenance, and that was of comfort. But he would need something soon.
'Interesting,' began Gríma, inspecting his food, 'how you still manage to be so insubordinate, even about so simple a question.'
'It's a gift,' came the terse reply. Legolas had no wish to have to bare the presence of Gríma Wormtongue, and he was beginning to contemplate singing again ... he knew a good long one about how stupid and easily corrupted Men were, which he thought to be fairly fitting. He would sing in his own tongue, of course, just to emphasise his point.
'I wonder,' began Gríma before the Elven prince had commenced with his song, 'where your dear friends are?'
'Not here.' A pathetic answer, he knew, but he really had no patience at the moment to engage in small talk with this snivelling rat-faced puppet.
'Well that is plain,' Gríma snorted. 'But they did not follow, did they, as you did yourself those past days. They have abandoned you, Legolas,' he said quietly. 'Haven't they? They have left you to preserve their own skins.'
"Ignore it and it will go away," thought the Elf calmly. "If not, it will die of boredom." That final thought he found fairly amusing, and the flicker of a smile touched the corner of his lips - the fact that he found it even remotely amusing confused him.
'They have left you, Legolas. Your faithful friends who value your companionship so much.' He was not going to give up. The Elf was breakable, he knew that he was - it was just a case of finding the weak point and working into it. Slowly, so that it would achieve a better affect. To bring his world down, piece by piece, until it lay in an unfixable mess of shattered dreams and values, all mauled into discernible bits by such little things as words.
'I sympathise with you, my friend.' Those were very false words, and he knew that the Elf picked up on that, even though he had tried to hide them, for he was shot such a glare that he almost cowered under it. But it had been a glance, little more, and it was a sure indication that he was getting somewhere with this. 'How completely alone you are,' he whispered. 'How completely, utterly, alone. None to hear your lonely, pained cries into the night save your own sorrowful ears and the rats that await your carrion.'
Legolas' head bowed slightly - a minute movement, barely detectable to any whom were not skilled in reading such actions ... but Gríma was, and it leapt out at him like a beacon atop of a mountain.
But the handsome head lifted again, a benign smile turning the lips up at the edges.
'Why, I am not alone, Master Gríma,' he observed with a falsely light voice, generated purely to annoy. 'I have my dear friend, Raeg-Nem, in the corner there-' Legolas inclined his head towards the depths of the shadows to the right. Nothing could be seen, but the Man knew what was there. There was a mocking glint in the eyes of the Elf, and Gríma knew that it had something to do with himself. Sure enough: 'I named him after you.'
'Really? And what does it mean, exactly?'
'Great One.'
Gríma had to fight with himself to keep his temper level. The Elf lied to him, that was plain, and he hated being patronised in this way. It was incredibly tempting to lash out at the Elf - but he held the knowledge that that would undoubtedly be a very stupid thing to do; the Elf was shackled and wounded, that was true, but it did not mean he was incapable of striking out, and there was still a significant amount of strength left.
Right. Perhaps that had not been as successful as he had originally thought. A different approach was certainly called for...
'Was he one of your Elven friends, left to rot in here like yourself?'
'I doubt that.'
'Do you indeed? Death is not always required for a body to rot - not entirely, any way. For you will rot in here, Thranduilion, just like he did, with none to mourn your passing save the fleas that you will eventually get from the rats.
'Aragorn will not mourn you, will he? He will continue with his little quest with the Dwarf, and they will forget you. Merely a part of their history, not even worth their time glancing over in their minds. That insignificant immortal, the only one of his selfish kind to cross their paths-'
Legolas' head snapped to look Gríma in the face, bright eyes blazing. '"Selfish kind?"'
There was outrage in the voice, cold and disbelieving - Gríma heard it as clearly as the eagle sees the rabbit before it swoops down to seize its' prey in steely talons.
'Yes, dear Elf, selfish kind: those who have the gift of life eternal, while all others are doomed with the mortal man's bane.'
'You glorify immortality in your mind with your misconceptions.'
'Do you think so? Man could do so much with ever-lasting life, yet are restrained by Death; but what do the Elves do with it? Nothing worth taking into account! You sit in your forests and sing the days away, 'til you go over the sea to fulfill your pathetic little longings! Yes, your people are selfish, Master Elf!'
Legolas did not take his eyes from the Man's face, and the rage burned in his soul. Insults to himself he could take - even laugh at - but he despised his people being spoken of in such a manner. He would not tolerate it.
'Let us explore the whole notion of selfishness, shall we, Master Gríma?' Legolas' words cut through the air with their iciness, and his speech passed from its usual softness into harshness, like a placid dog turned nasty under threat, snarling at its' tormenter. 'Who was it that placed an entire kingdom under threat of death for their own ends? Who was it that was prepared to have the blood of innocent women and children on his hands for a single desire? Who was it that told their master of the lives fleeing to Helm's Deep and the exact route they would take, all because he could not have his way with the Shieldmaiden of Rohan?'
Legolas' voice quietened, though his anger took him in its hard claws, and he talked in a low hiss, each word coming from his mouth with more power and spite behind it. 'Do not DARE to tell me that my people are weak and selfish, Gríma Wormtongue, for I know what you have done to try and slake your own carnal appetites!'
Gríma trembled with fury, his nostrils pinched and face paler than was normal, even for him. The want for the Elf's blood to flow freely over the floor was greater than he had ever felt, and he found himself taking hurried steps forward into the circle he had previously not dared to enter.
Legolas stood to his full height. "Go on," he thought. "Believe me, there is nothing I would like you to do more."
His hands were balled into fists as he looked upon the cold face of the Elf, in which the blue eyes burned like glowing embers. They enticed him to strike, daring him with their mocking light. The temptation was such that he raised a fist ... and he swung - but he stopped just before he struck. The eyes did not blink, the skin did not even twinge slightly at the prospect of being hit. The Elf stared at him, down on him. If he punched him, Gríma doubted that he would be permitted to leave the chamber with an intact windpipe. The Elf towered over him, and he would easily best him in a fight, even with one arm out of action and the other shackled. This was a dangerous being to challenge, and he had not any to come to his aid if it should turn sour.
The bunched fist shook as it was lowered to his side, and he turned on his heel to leave, slamming the door behind himself.
Legolas was plunged into the pitch dark again, and he found in the perpetual night the cold, slimed stone of the wall, into which he pressed his back, closing his eyes, trying to calm his racing breath. He swallowed hard, as though trying to push his anger down. He only wished that he had struck out when he had the chance. That would have made him feel considerably better, he decided. "No," he told himself. "It would be foolish to do such a thing, no matter how tempting - that is an Orcish thing to do. I am above all that."
His arm was throbbing with the cold, intensified by his speeding heart rate. This was doing it no good, and he pined for the soothing affects of athelas, just to bathe it in. He had none, and he need not even ponder over asking for some - to even think that his request would be heeded with foolish.
The skin above the fracture was vividly bruised, but he had the knowledge that it was a simple break, which should offer him a little more ease about it - but he could find no ease over anything at the moment, not down here in this pit of misery.
He sighed heavily. "Soon," he thought, "I shall not be able to withstand Wormtongue's prying. What will I do then to keep my spirits?"
Chapter Nine - Total Darkness
Total darkness. The deepest black that he had ever experienced in his entire life. And it wrapped itself in choking folds about his body, refusing to let even his mind go unaffected, as it pressed its merciless cold hands into his soul. It oppressed his very spirit, denied him even the memory of fresh air, as it was close in here, damp and heavy with decay. He shared with a skeleton; he knew it by that sickly earthy smell that came to him. Moulded bones.
He sat on his legs because the floor was damp. He was cold enough without having moist clothing as well as heart. His legs were indeed damp, and his upper body dry ... but that did not stop it from seeping in and chilling the rest of him. Elves were resistant to cold, that was true - but even they had limits, and the environment that Legolas had been forced into went over that line. This was not the usual kind of cold ... it was not a natural chill, otherwise he would not have been able to feel it as he was. He had braved blizzards without a cloak and had been totally comfortable. There was some kind of dark magic here that worked past his normal senses and penetrated his elven-spirit, causing him to feel the discomfort of mortals.
Legolas had his chin resting upon his good arm - which had a shackle encompassing his wrist, keeping it held high with an icy steel grip above his shoulder level as he sat. The pressure from the weight of his head strained at his wrist, and he could feel it chafing his skin - but he no longer cared for such a trivial thing as nagging pain that accompanied bruised and cut skin.
This was depression as he had never felt it before. He needed the outside, to see the sky, to smell the grass on the breeze. As a Wood-elf, it was essential to his spirit that he have some connection with the outside or he would sink lower into his despair, possibly to the extent of never emerging from it again.
A key clanked in the lock of the door. Legolas sprang to his feet. His pride would not allow anyone to see him knocking at Despair's door. Besides, he was the Prince of Mirkwood, the only heir to the throne of his lands. His very title called him to stand with a straight back to face whatever Fate had in store for him. It was what his father would have expected of him. It was high time that he showed what and who he was: his mother had been of the Avari, his father was of the Laiquendi Elves, the great King Thranduil. He was Thranduilion.
A smile alighted his lips as it had not done for what felt like an age, and it remained as the heavy door opened, admitting Gríma into the dungeon.
Gríma could see the Elf before he had fully opened the door, even in the small dose of light that managed to get through. It fell on the being's face in a long slither. It was very little in quantity, and it was poor - so poor that the only real indication that it fell on fair skin was a faint difference from the surrounding darkness. But it was caught by an unblinking eye, which reflected it back to him in a gleam that was far more intense and bright than the stuff that seeped through the crack in the door. So bright! "How could it be?" he pondered briefly.
He fully opened the door, deliberately leaving it open for the Elf to stare out at freedom, which lay naught but a stone's-throw away from him, yet impossible for him to actually obtain.
Legolas focused on the light. He knew that it was not much, and that it had a dirty quality to it, but it was better than anything that he got when that door was closed - which was none at all - and it gave him some indication that there was still a world outside, and that in turn strengthened his heart. It was all that he had.
Gríma's boots sounded on the dirty stone and he drew his cloak about himself tighter. It was freezing down here, and it made him shiver. It stank. Filthy. Decaying. Still, it bothered him not - the Elf deserved to live in this squalor for breaking his nose and rib as he had done.
He was here again, just as he had been yesterday. All of his words the day before had been wasted; Legolas had just stood there, completely ignoring him and singing of all things! That had been most infuriating for Gríma - it had been like trying to talk with a simpleton, which, he knew, the Elf was not by any means.
He came to stand a few feet from the prince - he would not go any closer than that, for his nose was still incredibly tender, and he was not prepared to have it made any worse.
Legolas regarded the Man, and his smile turned to a grin. He knew perfectly well why he stood so far off, and it amused him considerably.
His eyes flashed to what Gríma held in his hand. As the Man saw this, he lifted it to his mouth and took a huge bit out of the chicken leg, chewing with his mouth open.
Legolas turned his eyes away in disgust, fighting to retain his equanimity, at which Gríma chuckled through the meat.
'Hungry?'
Legolas snorted and refused to grace that with an answer. He had not been given anything to eat, and, as the despicable little Man chewed deliberately loudly, he was made horribly aware that nothing had passed his lips for four days. Were he a Man, he would be weak with hunger, but Elves were capable of going much longer without any sustenance, and that was of comfort. But he would need something soon.
'Interesting,' began Gríma, inspecting his food, 'how you still manage to be so insubordinate, even about so simple a question.'
'It's a gift,' came the terse reply. Legolas had no wish to have to bare the presence of Gríma Wormtongue, and he was beginning to contemplate singing again ... he knew a good long one about how stupid and easily corrupted Men were, which he thought to be fairly fitting. He would sing in his own tongue, of course, just to emphasise his point.
'I wonder,' began Gríma before the Elven prince had commenced with his song, 'where your dear friends are?'
'Not here.' A pathetic answer, he knew, but he really had no patience at the moment to engage in small talk with this snivelling rat-faced puppet.
'Well that is plain,' Gríma snorted. 'But they did not follow, did they, as you did yourself those past days. They have abandoned you, Legolas,' he said quietly. 'Haven't they? They have left you to preserve their own skins.'
"Ignore it and it will go away," thought the Elf calmly. "If not, it will die of boredom." That final thought he found fairly amusing, and the flicker of a smile touched the corner of his lips - the fact that he found it even remotely amusing confused him.
'They have left you, Legolas. Your faithful friends who value your companionship so much.' He was not going to give up. The Elf was breakable, he knew that he was - it was just a case of finding the weak point and working into it. Slowly, so that it would achieve a better affect. To bring his world down, piece by piece, until it lay in an unfixable mess of shattered dreams and values, all mauled into discernible bits by such little things as words.
'I sympathise with you, my friend.' Those were very false words, and he knew that the Elf picked up on that, even though he had tried to hide them, for he was shot such a glare that he almost cowered under it. But it had been a glance, little more, and it was a sure indication that he was getting somewhere with this. 'How completely alone you are,' he whispered. 'How completely, utterly, alone. None to hear your lonely, pained cries into the night save your own sorrowful ears and the rats that await your carrion.'
Legolas' head bowed slightly - a minute movement, barely detectable to any whom were not skilled in reading such actions ... but Gríma was, and it leapt out at him like a beacon atop of a mountain.
But the handsome head lifted again, a benign smile turning the lips up at the edges.
'Why, I am not alone, Master Gríma,' he observed with a falsely light voice, generated purely to annoy. 'I have my dear friend, Raeg-Nem, in the corner there-' Legolas inclined his head towards the depths of the shadows to the right. Nothing could be seen, but the Man knew what was there. There was a mocking glint in the eyes of the Elf, and Gríma knew that it had something to do with himself. Sure enough: 'I named him after you.'
'Really? And what does it mean, exactly?'
'Great One.'
Gríma had to fight with himself to keep his temper level. The Elf lied to him, that was plain, and he hated being patronised in this way. It was incredibly tempting to lash out at the Elf - but he held the knowledge that that would undoubtedly be a very stupid thing to do; the Elf was shackled and wounded, that was true, but it did not mean he was incapable of striking out, and there was still a significant amount of strength left.
Right. Perhaps that had not been as successful as he had originally thought. A different approach was certainly called for...
'Was he one of your Elven friends, left to rot in here like yourself?'
'I doubt that.'
'Do you indeed? Death is not always required for a body to rot - not entirely, any way. For you will rot in here, Thranduilion, just like he did, with none to mourn your passing save the fleas that you will eventually get from the rats.
'Aragorn will not mourn you, will he? He will continue with his little quest with the Dwarf, and they will forget you. Merely a part of their history, not even worth their time glancing over in their minds. That insignificant immortal, the only one of his selfish kind to cross their paths-'
Legolas' head snapped to look Gríma in the face, bright eyes blazing. '"Selfish kind?"'
There was outrage in the voice, cold and disbelieving - Gríma heard it as clearly as the eagle sees the rabbit before it swoops down to seize its' prey in steely talons.
'Yes, dear Elf, selfish kind: those who have the gift of life eternal, while all others are doomed with the mortal man's bane.'
'You glorify immortality in your mind with your misconceptions.'
'Do you think so? Man could do so much with ever-lasting life, yet are restrained by Death; but what do the Elves do with it? Nothing worth taking into account! You sit in your forests and sing the days away, 'til you go over the sea to fulfill your pathetic little longings! Yes, your people are selfish, Master Elf!'
Legolas did not take his eyes from the Man's face, and the rage burned in his soul. Insults to himself he could take - even laugh at - but he despised his people being spoken of in such a manner. He would not tolerate it.
'Let us explore the whole notion of selfishness, shall we, Master Gríma?' Legolas' words cut through the air with their iciness, and his speech passed from its usual softness into harshness, like a placid dog turned nasty under threat, snarling at its' tormenter. 'Who was it that placed an entire kingdom under threat of death for their own ends? Who was it that was prepared to have the blood of innocent women and children on his hands for a single desire? Who was it that told their master of the lives fleeing to Helm's Deep and the exact route they would take, all because he could not have his way with the Shieldmaiden of Rohan?'
Legolas' voice quietened, though his anger took him in its hard claws, and he talked in a low hiss, each word coming from his mouth with more power and spite behind it. 'Do not DARE to tell me that my people are weak and selfish, Gríma Wormtongue, for I know what you have done to try and slake your own carnal appetites!'
Gríma trembled with fury, his nostrils pinched and face paler than was normal, even for him. The want for the Elf's blood to flow freely over the floor was greater than he had ever felt, and he found himself taking hurried steps forward into the circle he had previously not dared to enter.
Legolas stood to his full height. "Go on," he thought. "Believe me, there is nothing I would like you to do more."
His hands were balled into fists as he looked upon the cold face of the Elf, in which the blue eyes burned like glowing embers. They enticed him to strike, daring him with their mocking light. The temptation was such that he raised a fist ... and he swung - but he stopped just before he struck. The eyes did not blink, the skin did not even twinge slightly at the prospect of being hit. The Elf stared at him, down on him. If he punched him, Gríma doubted that he would be permitted to leave the chamber with an intact windpipe. The Elf towered over him, and he would easily best him in a fight, even with one arm out of action and the other shackled. This was a dangerous being to challenge, and he had not any to come to his aid if it should turn sour.
The bunched fist shook as it was lowered to his side, and he turned on his heel to leave, slamming the door behind himself.
Legolas was plunged into the pitch dark again, and he found in the perpetual night the cold, slimed stone of the wall, into which he pressed his back, closing his eyes, trying to calm his racing breath. He swallowed hard, as though trying to push his anger down. He only wished that he had struck out when he had the chance. That would have made him feel considerably better, he decided. "No," he told himself. "It would be foolish to do such a thing, no matter how tempting - that is an Orcish thing to do. I am above all that."
His arm was throbbing with the cold, intensified by his speeding heart rate. This was doing it no good, and he pined for the soothing affects of athelas, just to bathe it in. He had none, and he need not even ponder over asking for some - to even think that his request would be heeded with foolish.
The skin above the fracture was vividly bruised, but he had the knowledge that it was a simple break, which should offer him a little more ease about it - but he could find no ease over anything at the moment, not down here in this pit of misery.
He sighed heavily. "Soon," he thought, "I shall not be able to withstand Wormtongue's prying. What will I do then to keep my spirits?"