1Hi! I bet you all are waiting for our dear Prince to save his beloved... I think you've waited long enough. I need more reviews, lest I will stop this story. I need to know what you guys like and what you want, or want changed (within reason of course :))

Here's part 23

Chapter 23: Aragorn's Advice

Ten years... Ten long, hard, excruciating, humiliating, agonizing years that Tari had resided in this place. She had lost count of the many times she had been raped and tortured. She was now more so that empty shell-of-an-elf than she had been so many years ago. Her eyes were dark, and there was no glow to her skin. There was nothing left... Tari was no more.

Everyday, she cleaned, she scrubbed, and washed. Everyday she was made to perform labors that not even the lowest criminal should have to perform. Everyday, she was tortured with whips, knives, needles, spears, and rope. Everyday, she was the plaything of at least ten men. And everyday, she died a little more inside...

Tari was beginning to believe Sircin's words... 'He truly isn't coming for me... He's left me here...' she thought. As she sat upon her 'bed' of tangled sheets and blankets, she wept. She sobbed more than she had ever done before. There was no hope now... She had waited, and waited, and still he had not come... Perhaps he had found solace in the arms of another elleth? Had he abandoned her for the love of another? Tari grasped the locket she had worn for so long, and tore it from her neck, throwing it at the opposite wall with such fierceness that it shattered; scattering tiny pieces of metal and jewel all across the stone floor. "WHY?" she cried as she sank to her knees, her head tilted back to the heavens, "Valar! Why! What have I done! What... have I..." Tari dissolved into tears, wishing to die more than anything else. But Sircin's words held true; the potion in the dart had prevented her from fading, even if she was on the brink of death, she lived.

Legolas was losing hope... For ten years he had relentlessly searched for his beloved, and had found not a trace of her. He traveled to every corner of middle-earth, mostly alone. And every year he returned to Minas Tirith; alone, empty, and grieving.

"Legolas..." said Aragorn, laying a hand on his friend's shoulder, making him start in surprise. So consumed was he in his thoughts that he did not hear the king approach.

"Uma, Aragorn...?" (Yes) was his dull answer. He stared out over the city from the balcony of his room that he always used when he came here. The city was asleep; the people that resided there all dreaming peacefully.

"Mellon, I can only fathom how much grief you must feel now... Arwen and I have been speaking of late, and... We think that it might be best for you to sail-"

"No. I can't I'm not giving up on her Aragorn. What if it were Arwen in her place? What would you do? Would you so easily abandon her?" Legolas asked, his voice and eyes as cold as the winds of winter.

"I did not say that it was easy for me! She was as a sister to me!" Aragorn retorted angrily, his own grief spilling from his eyes. "But come to sense Legolas... It's been ten years... She is probably de-"

"No. Don't you dare finish that sentence." Legolas growled, turning on his friend and glaring. "If Tari were Arwen, and if you love Arwen as much as you say you do, and understand my grief, then you wouldn't dare suggest such things to me. You know why I have not yet faded? Because I still have hope for the one that I love! I cannot give up on her."

"But you've looked and searched every where! There is nowhere left!" Aragorn said vehemently. He strode quietly over to his elven friend, and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Don't kill yourself searching for someone who doesn't live..."

Legolas raised his face up to meet Aragorn's stare.

How can you let go of someone that you love? There will always be that one 'What if?' floating in your mind; haunting you. "I just... I can't accept it... She can't be gone..." he almost whispered.

"Legolas... My friend, my comrade, my brother in arms... There is nothing for you here. All the elves have gone. Your family is in the Havens. In Valinor. With them you may yet find peace." Aragorn said, trying to offer what solace he could to the poor elf.

"I don't know how to leave her..."

"She wouldn't want you to stay here and grieve. You know that. She would want you to be happy; even if it meant leaving these shores. Go... Go to Valinor, where you shall never die. Only certain death awaits you here."