Dance of Puppets

by Maranwe Elanor

[Sequel to OMaN] Control. Power. Domination. Ever has the Enemy sought these things. When Elladan and Elrohir become pawns in a deadly game, will Aragorn and Legolas find them in time? Would they be better off not finding them at all?

23. Dusk

Okay, if there was ever any doubt that I'm very good at doing what I'm not supposed to, here's the proof. I should have been writing my speech—which still isn't done and is due tomorrow—but I spent the early morning hours when I was supposed to be sleeping typing this up instead. Which means instead of waiting another three weeks, you get the next chapter now. Chapter 24 will definitely not be making an appearance until after April 6th. Oh, and if I should fail out of college (or, in this case simply lose my scholarship) you will never, ever hear from me again. My mother would have killed me. Or I would have killed myself. I really don't want to work with kids the rest of my life.

Forgive me for not responding to reviews. I'm much too tired. And as it's nearly 4 a.m. with me having a class at 7 a.m. I hope you'll forgive me. Alright, toodles. If there was anything else I needed to say, I've completely forgotten and I hope you'll forgive me that, as well. Night, and enjoy!

Actually, it's now 1:40, but that's because was being stupid and I went to bed. I still don't have time to respond to reviews, however. Post on the run! Haha! (snort)

Chapter 23

The tent was plain. It held an air of judgment, of solitude—of comforts withheld. A fairly large tent, its decoration did not match its size. Only the back half held any of the accoutrements—furs, a desk, chairs, statues—usual for the Slyntari's commander. Sparse but rich, they imparted an elegance lacking in the rest of the space. The only objects at the front were a pair of iron coat racks positioned in the corners that served no discernible purpose for naught was even hung upon them.

Shirk barely noticed any of it, thought the sun through the sand-colored walls cast it in sharp relief and rendered the colors clearly. It was, perhaps, some of the last daylight left to them, but he was in no mood to enjoy it.

His eyes were ice blue slits as the stared through the side of the tent towards the northern mountains. "You are sure?" he prompted, voice both hard and cold.

"Yes, my lord," the lieutenant answered, bowing sharply.

"Bring them before me," the elf lord ordered.

The other man offered a short bow he did not look to see and hurried from the tent to carry out his lord's bidding. The elf did not move as he heard the canvas doors flap closed and caught the man's brisk orders to nearby guards. He ignored all the half-sensed movement and drew a gold chain from his pocket. Finely crafted, the slender band placed a slanted cross at one end and the crest of his former house at the other. It was his lone memento from his other life, a reminder of their foolishness and his anger, and the pinky-sized hole through the middle did little disguise its origin.

Not looking at it, he closed his left hand about the small links and drew the chain from the top with his right until the cross reached the bottom of his fist. Then he wrapped it around the back of his hand and opened his fist to draw the remainder over his palm. When he closed his fist once more, the desecrated crest hung from the top of his clenched hand by only an inch of chain. Only then did he lower his eyes to it.

He twisted his wrist so the crest fell across his fingers and idly ran his thumb across it, circling the hole in its center slowly, meditatively. Then he spoke, his urbane voice breaking the silence that had fallen over the tent with the suddenness of a thunder clap. "Neika, bring me my blades."

A young boy abandoned his position at the wall, bowed, and walked out, moving with the smooth, quick, unobtrusive propriety that marked all good servants. The tent flaps whispered shut in the wake of the youth's passage.

The fair-haired elf watched the wall before him as vague shadows moved across it, his face carefully blank. Then he glanced around, turned on his heel, and leisurely paced towards the opposite wall. As he moved, he twisted his wrist and caught the gold chain between his forefinger and thumb. The crest spun as he rolled it back and forth. He felt it brush against his fingers but did not look at it again until he passed the far corner of his desk and again halted. The gold burned with a subdued fire.

Errors must be corrected, he thought calmly, staring at the piece of gold with contempt. Death works well toward that end. It serves the strong and devours the weak. So must it remain.

Cold eyes watched a final spin, then he dropped the loops, catching the small memento by the cross and jerking it into the air before catching it neatly in his palm. Figures pushed into the tent, three in all, and he viewed them out of the corner of his eye. Only when the group stilled, their bows completed, did he finish the movement and drop the token nonchalantly into his pocket.

He turned toward them, but did not look at them, continuing idly back the way he had come, clasped his hands behind his back, and said, "Your reports claim two individuals, one male, one female, passed your posts heading west, correct?"

"Correct, my lord," the two he had summoned answered.

He nodded unconcernedly. "Furthermore, you claim they fell prey to a trap established by your commanding officer."

"Yes, my lord," they answered again, but nervousness and unease stuttered through their reply. He heard them shift, saw their movement in his peripheral vision and knew that if he looked, he would see their eyes darting to their companions'. They were wondering where this was going. They knew of their failure.

"This trap, you held no part in beyond that of scout and watcher, correct?"

"Correct, my lord."

"And you performed your tasks accordingly."

"Yes, my lord."

Shirk stopped before the pair, and now he did look at them, cold eyes hard and searching, demanding. They straightened painfully under the direct force of his gaze. Quietly, he continued, a hard edge noticeable in his voice. "You waited the prerequisite time, failed to get a confirmation, and went to the site of the trap where you discovered the remains of your team."

"Yes, my lord."

"And there was no sign of either prey among the fallen."

"None, my lord."

He made no visible reaction to that confirmation, but continued forward and around his desk. A scroll of no import lay open upon it, and he pulled it towards him, scanning the words carelessly. His eyes still on the paper, he spoke: "And upon discovering your quarry missing, you reported here immediately."

"Yes, my lord."

He heard more than saw his slave return with the requested items, each finely crafted blade carefully arrayed on a tray which the boy deposited soundlessly before him. One hand still behind his back, the elf lord reached forward and traced his fingers over the hilt of a straight, two-foot long tapered blade, then lightly gripped the blade next to it: a broad-bladed curved dagger with an ivory hilt. He picked it up and twisted it before his eyes. "Do you find any fault in your actions?"

"N-no, my l-lord," they answered haltingly.

He nodded, accepting the answer, then made his way back around the desk, dagger still in hand, to stand before the first of the sentries. He had lived among men for centuries yet this brat looked like every other human that had crossed his path.

"It did not occur to you," he said softly, "to find where they had gone after their escaped your trap?"

"T-that was not within my mandate, milord." Fear swirled in his eyes.

Shirk did not reply but moved to stand before the other man. "Did such a thought occur to you?"

The soldier swallowed hard. "N-no, my lord."

He backed away from them and studied the blade once more. It was of elven make, cold and hard—strong. The runes that decorated it dipped into the silver gleam. "Your ability to follow orders it commendable," he observed finally, his voice emotionless. He saw them begin to relax, felt their tension begin to ease. He smiled coldly. "Unfortunately, your lack of vision, and your failure cannot be ignored."

The implications of his words were still sinking in when he buried the dagger in the first man's gut. The being gasped, jerked, his eyes becoming glassy, when blood poured from his open mouth. The elf jerked the blade free and barely spared a glance as the body sank to the ground.

He moved to the second sentry, looking into the man's eyes as he trembled in terror. He spoke softly. "You should have brought me that Elf or found a way to die with your unit." That said, he stabbed the curved blade into the youth's abdomen. A whimper of pain escaped blood flecked lips. He twisted the blade sharply and blood cascaded over his hand, poured from the sentry's mouth and nose. Panicked pain shone brightly in rapidly glazing eyes.

The elf stepped back carelessly, paying no attention to the dead at his feet and picked a cloth from the tray to clean his hand and the blade. He ignored the lieutenant that stood fearfully behind the still-warm bodies, the man desperately wondering if he would share the young men's fate.

He placed the now clean dagger back on the tray carefully, then proceeded to wipe more blood from his hand. "I expect the recruits to be of higher caliber, lieutenant," he warned lightly.

"Yes, my lord."

Shirk glanced carelessly in the man's direction, taking in the bodies desecrating his floor with the look and swept around to the other side of the desk. He plucked a strip of paper from the mass and sat easily, his nimble fingers taking up a quill. He wrote something, then rolled it and slipped it into a small case. "Send this," he ordered, and the lieutenant scrambled forward to take it and beat a hasty retreat. Shirk let him reach the entrance before voicing a final command.

"Dispose of them."

He paid no more notice as the guards were waved in and dragged the bodies out into the camp. They were already forgotten, his mind on matters of true import.

o/o/o/o/o/o

The hardest thing, he thought, about any plan is waiting. No matter how difficult the actual task, this is the hardest part. He resisted the urge to fidget, to pace or shift his weight. If he was to be successful, he had to remain unnoticed.

Night had come early to these parts, encouraged by the encroachment of cloud upon clear sky to lock the sun. A gray twilight had hung over rock and tree for the past hour though true sunset was still hours distant. Tense expectation had crept over the lands with the threatening gray, and the dark-haired elf had been present to watch much of it, seeing first-hand from a distance how the approaching storm effected their actions. Most interesting to him was the guards' behavior.

Elrohir perched amid the shadows of an odd shaped stone, tucked inside a crevice that mostly hid him from view and allowed him fair sight of the camp. The rock was several yards within the tree line and no human would have seen anything of value; but he could, and he noted the increasing frequency with which the humans glanced to the sky. Based on what body language he could read, Sierra had not been mistaken in her assertions that the Slyntari disliked these storms.

More than that, though, his position gave him a perfect view of one o the last checkpoints before the various groups returned to camp. According to Sierra, this was one of the last locations checked on the regular patrols. If she was right, the patrol would come in no earlier than sunset. They hoped the cover of darkness, combined with the coming storm would keep the sentries from noting anything unusual about him. Then, if he could just remain unnoticed by the patrol he intended to follow, he would be in the camp and able to slip away unnoticed.

That was the plan, at least. If everything would work was less certain, and the time with nothing to do save think and watch was trying his nerves. The thought of doing nothing while his brother suffered was nearly enough to drive him mad and send him flying from his hiding place.

"Waiting with purpose is not useless, young one," Glorfindel chided from his memory. "It is tactical. Without the right time, even the best plans are doomed to failure. No matter the urgency, you must take the time necessary for success. Wait for it, Elrondion."

He had been much younger, then, and on the other side of the world, far to the north. And it had been rangers who needed saving, not his twin brother. When the fear was not near to overwhelming he could admit that he had stood to lose much that day, for if they had failed Estel never would have come into their lives. The line of Elendil would have failed long before the heir's father's father was born and hope would have been lost.

When his fear did threaten to overwhelm him, it was Sierra's face that stilled him—her doubt, clearly visible on her face when he had proposed his plan, when she had questioned if he could wait as long as necessary, still and silent, while day slipped to night. His determination to prove her wrong, to prove him better than her, held him in place when all else failed; and childish though he knew it was, he clung to it beyond all reason.

It had seemed a simple task when he had laid it out. Trapped in a prison of his own making, he could see how he had focused on what he needed to do, the actions that needed to be accomplished and not the entirety of what he would need to do. It was a mistake he had made throughout his youth, one he had seen Estel fall prey to more than once, and one he had thought he had outgrown.

And yet—despite everything—he waited, all but a statue on his seat of stone. Anyone who saw him would have mistaken him for part of the scenery. He watched a group of five ascend the southern slope from a place further west. They kept their bare heads bowed and their cloaks close about them. The wind was beginning to pick up again, swirling in fitful eddies, blowing first one way and then the other, like a child who could not decide which toy he wanted to play with. The temperature had dropped four degrees since he started his watch.

The minutes crawled by.

He tried counting, but that just emphasized how much time was passing. He tried reciting songs in his head, but that drew his attention to the silence and the expectation that it should be broken soon. He tried identifying the different plants around him as he sometimes did when forced to wait, but his selection was decided limited. And it reminded him that he was not home, that he was away from home and his brother was not by his side as he should be; and it was thoughts of Elladan he was trying to avoid.

How could he sit here? How could he wait while his twin suffered Valar-know-what, possibly bleeding his life away? How could he live with himself if Elladan died because he did not get there fast enough? If he was dead when he got there?

I can't. I won't.

He felt it, knew it, but the certainty of that knowledge did nothing to soothe him. It was not time, not his or his brother's. It was not. But would it matter?

Elrohir grabbed onto the rock near him, clutching at the rough stone so the protrusions spiked pain through his fingers. Taking a deep breath, he shut his eyes and tipped his head back, silently pleading with whoever might hear him to grant him the strength to stand still against the screams in his mind, the pain he felt and could not forget. The bond he shared with his twin had lain dormant since they came to these lands; he prayed it was his mind creating these sensations and labeling them: Elladan.

Please, he whispered, his lips moving in silent plea.

o/o/o/o/o/o

Cold stone pressed against his cheek. His eyes fluttered open. Grey stone stood before his eyes, lit oddly by the flickering of fire somewhere behind him. Sounds drifted to his ears, soft at first then growing louder. His dazed mind had a hard time making out what was said. The words were strange to him, yet familiar, far too rough to be elven, too guttural even to be men. . . .

Orcs!

Realization slammed through him like a brick wall. Orcs were near him. His eyes widened, and he pressed his hands into the floor. Sand pressed against his palms and clung to his face as he sat up, getting immediately to his feet.

He swiveled on his heels, still low to the ground but found himself alone. The voices were coming from further down the tunnel along with the firelight, and he relaxed slightly. They did not yet know he was here.

Moving without any conscious decision to do, he stalked silently toward the orcs. He peered down the tunnel, trying to glimpse them, to discover how many there were, what they were doing, but the way curved, bent, and all he could see were distorted shadows on the far wall. Anger and disgust tightened his mouth, hardened his eyes, tensed his body. Evil, malicious . . . they could not be allowed to live!

He would kill them. Kill them for what they had done—

Quick as flight, he stood at the cavern's archway. What steps he had taken to get there, he did not remember, but the foul beasts now stood before him and that was all that mattered. His eyes tracked across the space, counting orcs, noting the familiar obstructions, places he knew he could gain the upper hand.

He looked to the back, then, for he knew that was where he would find most of the orcs. They huddled together, surrounding something he could not see, laughing jeering. His blood boiled. They would die.

He stalked forward to strike them down, to end each miserable life one after the other, when group of orcs parted. His eyes were drawn to their midst, drawn to a pair of crystal blue eyes that bore into his. In mid-stride, he froze.

All air left his lungs. All strength left his limbs. He could not move. He could not breathe. All thoughts fled his mind, save one: Nana.

"Nana," he breathed, the word slipping from numbed lips. Horror, shock, fear, despair, all coursed through him, coiling, colliding, wrapping around him, strangling him. She should not be here!

Then he saw the blood. Red blood. Her blood. Bright, stark against the purity of her white gown. Rage colored his vision. He yelled and rushed forward, drawing his sword—prepared to murder the swine that harmed his mother.

But his hand met empty air.

The orcs turned at his cry, the closest ones conveying on him like wolves on fresh meat. Too late he realized he was defenseless. He swung at them with his hands, but they were caught before his blows fell. Other hands shoed him back against the cave wall. Their foul stench violated his senses as he struggled against them, squirming, fighting, his eyes locked on his mother.

"Nana!"

His voice echoed back to him, shoved into his ears with the force of his helplessness. Grins, sneers, split the mutilated faces; malicious amusement lit their leering eyes. Their laughter filled the room, bouncing off stone, growing, pounding in his head. Whips, knives, iron prongs, wicked corkscrews, straps—all passed before his eyes as he struggled against unyielding hands.

Then the crack of a whip—the smack of a club on flesh—and squelch of blood—a scream! He could not see her for the orcs in the way, but he knew what happened. Her broken body haunted his dreams. Blood trailed down the stone floor, a thin stream that meandered towards him slowly, inch by inch. He shuddered and started struggling anew, battering at the hands of the ugly, laughing orcs that bound him. The weight pinning him never slackened. Tears rolled down his face.

He had failed. He had failed to protect her! What kind of warrior was he? What kind of son? That he should repay the one who bore him, who gave him life, with such ill was torment to his soul; to be forced to observe, unable to hinder, to take even a portion of her punishment upon himself a wrenching pain. It should be him! He had failed.

His heart burned. Her screams, their laughter . . . their laughter, her screams. . . .

"Who is Isildur's heir?"

The words stabbed into his ears, hard, unrelenting, demanding an answer. Images flashed through his mind, a series of dark-haired men with silver eyes and grim faces, ending on the innocent face of a smiling child: Estel. Then his father—"No one can know who he is. His identity must remain a secret."

"Who is Isildur's heir?"

His mother screamed.

". . . Isildur's heir?"

Secret.

"Who is . . .?"

He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head; slowly, at first, then faster and faster. The room spun and pitched below him but the pressure on his chest never faltered. The pressure on his mind grew.

His mother screamed.

"Who is Isildur's heir?"

Maggot . . . failure . . . lost . . . killer . . . weak . . . reject . . . failure. . . .

No.

Failure. . . .

"Isildur's heir or your mother, weakling; who's it to be?"

The cruel voice twisted through his mind, stretching, biting; painful. How could he choose? How could he let his mother suffer this torment? How could he deliver a child who relied on his protection to the hands of enemies who would show him no mercy? Love pulled him both ways—love, duty, honor. The mother who bore him, loved him, whom he had promised to protect in his love for her; or the child fate brought, Estel, son of his dear friend, who he had sworn to protect, to keep his secret. . . . To choose one or the other would be his death. To not choose—

His mother screamed.

The bonds of his heart pulled in opposite directions—white pain flared—then he fell back into darkness.

o/o/o/o/o/o

Kalya moved through the woods, familiar yet strange, with practiced ease. It had been years since she had last set foot in this land, a child by the reckoning of any who cared to give the matter such thought. Shirk had not cared about her age; he cared about no one's age. Results were what he wanted—success. Success at any cost was his only goal.

A glance to the side revealed a stepped stone, weathered rock that formed a rough triangle with uneven divots that made climbing its sides simple. For a moment she could see herself, perched upon it, half-crouched with her hands braced atop the point peering into the surrounding wood, sickly green leaves clinging desperately to life in the waning summer months. Then she looked away, shattering the sight. It disappeared as if it had never been and did not reemerge hen she dared a glance back.

She hated these memories—these broken shards from a past she had no wish to recall. The life she had been raised for was gone, banished beyond achievability by her own choice. It was a decision she was at peace with—she was!—and had accepted; the uncomfortable flashes of bitter regret roused by the piecemeal recollections felt disturbingly like opening a coffin and finding someone she believed gone for good still inside.

This is crazy, the girl thought savagely and had a moment's pause as she tried to determine if it was her present or dilemma (as she had intended) or Elrohir's "plan" (which suddenly came to mind) that she referred to with the mental outburst. It could, without doubt, be ascribed to both.

Frowning, she ducked under a low-hanging branch and crouched lightly. She squinted in the almost non-existent light that painted the world in hues of gray and black and fell still. Slight movement attracted her attention amid the static background of trees and resolved itself (with some effort) into living beings. They were, she believed, heading southeast, and she traced ahead of their path for the checkpoint she knew lay nearby. She tagged it—tentatively—nearly thirty paces north of her position and about five east.

It was the fifth patrol she had come upon since parting company with Elrohir. The second she had eliminated with cold efficiency in an effort to maintain the illusion that both escapees were still traveling west, and she debated silently whether or not she wished to repeat that procedure with this group.

Her eyes resolved three people picking their way through the brush like travelers walking across lands strewn with booby traps. Unlikely as that was (and it was unlikely—the Slyntari always knew where they placed their own traps and never made them so numerous in a place they would walk) the girl searched for a new solution. She found two.

Either they were extremely worried about being heard and felt they needed the extra caution to pass undetected, or they were meant to draw attention and were serving as a distraction. If it was the former, she would just move on because no one would believe a group that stupid and inept could surprise an elf. If it was the latter, she had a whole other group to be concerned with that she knew nothing about. And that was dangerous.

At the moment quite thankful for the tree at her back, Kalya slowly around, sweeping her surroundings methodically from left to right. No movement gave away separate forces, and the gathering storm obliterated whatever shadows might indicate another presence. That, combined with the significant number of hiding places gave her pause.

It was possible, of course, that the creeping trio were exactly as they appeared, doing precisely what every other patrol had done; namely, search for her and Elrohir. It was possible they had gotten bored and simply decided to spice up their patrol by amusing each other. But she could not picture such unprofessionalism during an alert. And besides, she was not willing to gamble her life and the success of her mission on stupidity.

Every other unit she and the elf had spotted had contained at least four individuals. If she assumed there was at least that number in every dispatch, there was at least one person unaccounted for. No trouble if he was relieving himself, but serious trouble if he was an archer with a half-way decent aim.

Still, the way she saw it, she had three options. She could stay where she was until she found the missing personnel, possibly allowing more forces to gather; she could continue as she had intended, hoping it was a group of three or to avoid detection by the forth, possibly getting killed and alerting the whole camp that the elf was no longer traveling west with her; or she could try to come up with a plan and try to flush the trap, possibly accomplishing both previous possibilities but this way being responsible for putting the noose around her own throat.

Damn, she thought. I really hate this plan.

It was hard to forget that even if she did not screw up, Elrohir might and doom them both to a slow and painful death; and she might not even know it until her former compatriots closed in around her. Whatever she was going to do, though, she knew she would need to move soon, before her fellow comrades moved first and robbed her of her choice.

But what to do?

The most likely outcome of whatever she tried was a rather inglorious death and failure. Death was something she had learned to expect but failure she could not tolerate. The thought of failing made her stomach roil, and now it was not just Shirk that menaced her but Elrohir as well, glaring at her, predicting her doom based on far more experience than she could claim or refute.

And on top of that, she found the prospect of dying did frighten her. What else save fear had prompted her to abandon the twins when death seemed imminent? It was an unwelcome realization. Part of her assurance in her skill, her bravado n dangerous circumstances had arisen from a fundamental belief that she had nothing to lose. Death was inevitable and close, why avoid it? But now that she had separated herself from the Slyntari—made death that much more assured—she found a promise beyond the shadow, a faint and fleeting hope that she could have more than previously imagined. It was a daunting and frightening thought, and one, she thought furiously, that she did not have time for.

Kalya hissed softly, a slow exhalation through clenched teeth. None of that mattered; none of that could matter. What Elrohir thought of her, what she thought of him—personally, as a warrior, a brother—all of it was irrelevant. None of it had any bearing on the task at hand.

First things first: what did she know? Three of the enemy was visible. There was a high probability of a fourth hidden nearby, a possibility of a fifth. They searched for her and another. They had not been ordered to capture her alive.

Assumptions: they did not yet know where she was; the fourth member was to serve as spotter and probably had a bow. If he got a shot, he would take it; otherwise he would alert his companions. With no light, that meant a birdcall or hand gesture, the latter being most likely. That meant he was nearby. Kalya wished she had thought to pick up a bow from any of her dead. It had not occurred to her after her bow broke when the trap was sprung, but she lamented the oversight now.

Moving carefully, she made a more localized search, this time seeking out only the places that provided good cover within sight of the slow-moving decoy. Moments later, she found him.

He perched on one of the thirteen stone triangles like she had passed earlier perhaps fifteen feet north and east of her position. He crouched on the third lip in read position with his bow in hand and an arrow on the string. That she had walked straight past him without noticing anyone was there sent ice down her spine. If he had heard her passage behind him she would have been dead without even realizing there was trouble.

But he had not, and she was not; and now he was the one oblivious to the danger. He scanned the corridor the previous two dead patrols had occupied—she glanced at the trio, judged their position—and unless she missed her guess, there was another spotter even further north. But this one, her immediate concern, was not looking south and the decoy companions were not overly watchful. They were too focused on their deception to be truly observant. A smile crept across her face as an idea came to her.

Kalya made to move but was halt by the smell of the wind. It was the first substantial breeze to shake the trees in nearly an hour and it smelled like rain. She looked up in time for one of the first drops to hit her chin, then the clouds let loose, pouring large drops of not-quite-frozen water.

The girl looked back to her surroundings and discovered the change in weather had stirred her target. Over the rush and whisper of the rain, she could jut make out a scaling whistle, and she saw him raise his left hand and circle it through the air. She thought, but could not be sure, that someone from the trio repeated the gesture. Then the spotter put up his bow and arrow and abandoned his perch.

She watched, nonplussed, as he disappeared around the rock formation and slunk through the trees and ran to rejoin his compatriots. Then the four moved off at a more normal pace, hitting the checkpoint and fading away into the trees.

For long minutes, she sat where she was and ignored the rain soaking through her clothes, cold though it was. Her eyes rested unseeing on the rock he had just abandoned. Had they been ordered to return to camp when the rain started? But then why had they continued to the checkpoints? Had this little stop been impromptu?

A frown creased her brow. She had never known the rain to curtail operations before. Shirk had always insisted the weather made no difference. Only the weak cowered from rain and cold—but would one expect different from an elf who felt neither extreme that could incapacitate a man nor catch cold that would be the second-born's death? She did not, which seemed to mean someone else had given the order, if order it was, at least to her mind.

What other orders have been given? She questioned in silence. What other things might have been changed that might trip us up?

Again, she cursed the plan Elrohir had given her. It held too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. It relied on chance for ultimate success, and that in itself would have prompted her to discard it at its inception; and yet Elrohir would not be gainsaid. She knew it would not—could not—be successful. . . .

The thought trailed off into oblivion, taking with it her pent-up agitation. She was too tired for this, too wearied by recent exertions, and if she, at least, was to fulfill her end of the plan she had a long way to go in a short period of time.

A glance east showed the latest patrol gone from sight—not that she had been able to see them for awhile now. Ice cold water landed on her head and dripped down her face. She shuddered slightly then turned her face the way she needed to go. How many more patrols might have lain in wait along her path? How many would move on now that the rain had come? How many might remain? She dreaded the answers but pushed herself back to her feet and resumed her trek.

The rain formed a shifting curtain before her eyes, graying the black shadows. Her eyes sought out the mountains in the distance, the mountains she had to reach before tomorrow night though a dozen patrols could lay between them, hidden by the rain that was Elrohir's only hope.

Valar help me, she thought dismally. I must be insane.

o/o/o/o/o/o

The sun had finally disappeared below the horizon and was now visible only as pink and orange streaks in the western sky. The eastern sky was a dark blue one step above black and as yet free of stars. Between them, the sky was a grayish blue-purple. It reminded Aragorn of a bruise.

The ranger took a deep breath and froze as knives stabbed through his chest, sparking matching lances of white light behind his eyes. After a moment, his breath hissed back out through clenched teeth. He could feel the bones shift back more or less where they had been, more a resettling than an actual shift, as his lungs deflated. Left behind with the pain was the nagging sense that he had not gotten enough air, a feeling that was not entirely wrong.

His lightheadedness, he knew, was only partially from the concussion he had suffered in the same fight in which he broke his—it felt like two—ribs. The rest of that sensation came from not being able to inhale properly during physical exertion. Easily his two most annoying injuries, they nevertheless got competition from a third he had suffered no where near as frequently: a broken collarbone; cracked at the very least. That meant, aside from not being able to see properly, he was also in an impressive amount of pain from about the waist up.

Breath-taking, he thought ironically, a somewhat demented smile twisting his lips. A soft chuckle accompanied it, but renewed pain killed it, turning it into a grimace.

Feeling another nearby, he lifted his bound hands from his forehead and pried his eyes back open. The face that appeared in his line of vision had dark hair cut about his ears and brown eyes. That his visitor was not Legolas disoriented him for the few seconds it took him to recall the boy's name.

"Are you all right, Strider?" Abyl asked.

"I'm fine, Abyl." He was not, contrary to popular belief, deluded enough to believe his own assertion; he just had no desire to add to the lad's worry when there was nothing he could do. The foster son of Elrond recognized in the Gondorian native the same displacement and nervous helplessness he had felt when Elladan and Elrohir first took him out to ride with the rangers—the same time everything went wrong. "Just a little sore."

Measuring eyes studied him, but the other nodded; he released a breath he had not realized he was holding. "Is there anything I can do?" the youth pressed.

"Where's Legolas?"

"Still helping the South Men." When they had stopped to camp for the night, the guards had taken Legolas and pressed him into service securing the prisoners and horses, lugging packs and other mundane but necessary tasks. The guards that had been set over the prisoners to make sure they did not escape had been instructed to kill both the ranger and Abyl if they so much as thought he was about to try something.

One of his tasks was distributing limited rations to the prisoners, and Aragorn vaguely wondered if he had been ordered to see to his friends last or if the elf had determined the women and children needed the more immediate aid. He glanced to the side and found his friend moving among the women with small bowls, a pail and a ladle (at least that's what he thought it was) and turned his attention back to the lad.

"Talk with me," he instructed softly, finally addressing the other's question.

"How will that help?' Abyl asked dubiously.

Aragorn murmured, "Distracting," and let his eyes drift shut, blocking out the fire that flickered somewhere to his left above his head. Three or four had been kindled about the camp, the largest one used for cooking and situated near the children. He, himself, was situated farthest from the glowing flames along with Abyl, Legolas, and three others, a fact he viewed with both gratitude and regret. Gratitude, because he could escape the painful light; regret, because others were with him and he suspected the shivers the still dropping temperature would induce would cause him far more discomfort than the intrusive light ever would.

He heard Abyl shift to a more comfortable position. "Well, what would you like to talk about?" the youth questioned.

So long as it keeps my mind off my brothers and away from my dreams, I really don't care, the ranger thought but did not say. "Whatever you want," he replied instead.

A moment of silence, then the young man's searching mind hit on a question it fancied. "How long have you been a Ranger?"

"Mm," Aragorn considered. "Must be nearly ten years now."

"That's a long time."

He could not help a smile as his thoughts immediately flashed to his elven friends and family as it almost always did when others made statements about time and age. He said, "Depends on your perspective."

"Is it hard? Being a Ranger, I mean."

"There are easier ways of life," he replied simply. "I would say running an Inn was one of them, but every job has its challenges. I enjoy the Wilds; most of the time it is the solitude which is hardest to bear."

"I don't mind solitude," Abyl said. He continued quickly, almost as if to draw attention from his revelation. "What do you do? I mean, almost everyone has some kind of story about Rangers. Some say they're noble, others trouble. And both have these fantastic tales. In Rohan, we hear most often about wandering vagabonds that trouble the innocent and bring affliction to peaceful lands, and I just wondered . . . I mean. . . ."

"If it is true?" the ranger interrupted when the lad trailed off uncomfortably. The silence persisted and he cracked his eyes enough to catch the other's nod of agreement. He closed his eyes again and in the darkness of his mind considered what he could reveal. "It is no lie that we are a wandering people. Events long ago robbed us of our home.

"The Rangers, you see, are the remnants of Númenor, the Dúnadain, kindred long removed from the Kings of old in Gondor. Once we claimed and dwelt in the lands from Gondor west nearly to the bounds of the sea, and when the kingdom was broken, our race all but wiped out in the wars, we swore to protect the people of the lands that once belonged to us."

"Why?"

"It is our duty."

"Your duty? To a people not your own on lands you no longer claim?"

Abyl's incredulity brought a brief smile to his face but it faded quickly. "The Dúnadain believe that, one day, the King will return and reclaim his throne, reuniting the split kingdom. Until that day, however, we will continue to fight the Shadow that threatens the enslavement of all free peoples."

"Are there very many of you?"

Behind closed lids he could see the faces of men who had fought beside him in battle and fallen. Deep down, he knew the cause to defend the king's land was destroying his people, that, in a way, he was destroying them, but he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and swallowed hard. "Few, now," he answered.

"Is it dangerous?" Abyl asked, his voice soft, just above a whisper. The change made him want to open his eyes but he lacked the strength. It was all he could do to stay awake and avoid the dreams.

"Often."

"Have you even been in a situation like this?"

A faint smile crept onto the ranger's lips. "A few times."

He expected the lad to ask what had happened and was thrown slightly when he instead asked, "Were you scared?"

He could see, suddenly, the tract he had followed and had to resist the urge to laugh, both because he knew it would hurt and because Abyl would not understand his humor. "Definitely," he answered. "Are you scared?"

After a minute, the young man answered, "A little."

"There's nothing wrong with that, you know," he told the boy.

He heard Abyl release a long, shaky breath. "I know," he murmured. Aragorn remained silent, and after a moment he continued. "It's just . . . I never thought I'd end up here. I've heard some terrible stories helping my Father at the bar and I guess I always thought 'That can't happen to me.' They were stories and stories don't happen to simple people.

"But now I'm in one, and these men killed my mother and my best friend. They're ruthless and we're being taken away to even more of 'em. We'll disappear behind that mountains of theirs, with no hope of rescue, and probably be killed. We'll die. . . . And I don't want to die."

Death actually sounded like a fine idea to Aragorn, and a better idea than some, but he would never tell the boy that. It would only terrify him more and destroy whatever hope he still had since, for whatever reason, he had apparently chosen him as a role model, a moderately unsettling revelation. Besides, he had a rather shrewd idea that any admissions of that nature would somehow reach Legolas' ears. That did not, of course, mean he knew the answer.

He remembered well his last encounter with the Slyntari, and the greater part of that had been spent winding through a dark tunnel under the Misty Mountains, yet it was an experience that had, in one way or another, haunted him for nearly a year. Everything he knew about the Slyntari suggested death was exactly what they would find, and it was what he expected—but only after they had explored every definition of pain known to man.

Regardless of the truth of that expectation, however, he would never give it voice, and especially not in front of the boy. Young man, he corrected mentally, but it did not change the feeling that Abyl was too young to have to go through this. I never should have come here.

'And where else would you have gone?' a stronger voice asked. 'Home? It was Caivern or abandon your brothers. Could you have done that?'

There was another inn, he thought defensively.

'Yeah, that's great. You could have walked straight into Siirl's group and saved some time. Then you could've simply died at their hands, left the entire village to the Slyntari's tender mercies, and still be no closer to saving your brothers.'

"Strider?"

He was thankful for the voice that jolted him from his thoughts and his eyes opened of their own accord, fixing blurrily on Abyl's concerned face. A quick blink brought it back into focus. "Why did your parents leave Minas Tirith, Abyl?"

The young man frowned, a perplexed and agitated expression. "They wanted to escape the war."

"They wanted you to grow up in peace," Aragorn stated.

The lad's eyes found his hands. "Well, it didn't work, did it?"

"No," the ranger agreed. "But they had not known it would when they departed. They hoped to find peace away from the Shadow in more distant lands." Brown eyes glanced back up, sensing there was a point and silently demanding he make it. "Life holds very few guarantees, Abyl. The most we can do is decide how we want to live, who we want to be, and hope everything goes well. That hope, whether you realize it or not, makes it easier to get up in the morning, easier to do what must be done. And so long as you are alive that hope exists—that hope for everything to turn out right. All you have to do is hold onto it."

"And that is fine advice, Master Abyl," Legolas jumped in, surprising both humans at his sudden appearance. "The stars shine forever, even if we can't see them, and so long as they do there is hoe left, even if it is a fool's hope."

Abyl smiled and accepted a small bowl of soup with a dip of his head. His eyes darted between the two friends, then, and he retreated with a mumbled "thank you." Aragorn watched his retreat only a second before shifting his gaze to Legolas, who settled down in the lad's vacated spot. He held two more bowls in his hands.

"I'm not hungry, Legolas," the ranger declared, attempting to forestall the elf before he could offer the meager ration.

He got a frown for his trouble. "You haven't eaten since dinner last night, and ate little enough before that. You are no Elf, Strider. You must eat something."

He pushed the bowls away with bound hands, turning his face away to avoid the smell. His stomach churned. "Men can survive on less than you think, my friend."

"And still have the strength to fight at the end?"

"If needs be."

Legolas snorted. "Were you well, human maybe—just maybe—I would believe you. But you are injured so you don't stand a chance."

Aragorn frowned, but he could not summon enough energy to give the expression any force. His friend's assertion was true enough. Were their positions reversed he would be no more willing to accept his answer than Legolas was. And he knew, as his friend did not, that he would get no sleep this night; yet neither could he eat. Even the thought of it made him nauseous.

"Strider?"

He shook his head slightly, sighing and closing his eyes. "I'm sorry, Legolas. I just can't eat right now."

Silence followed. Then he felt his friend shift closer and the elf lowered his voice. "Tell me what I can do."

The pain in that simple plea surprised Aragorn into opening his eyes. Quietly, he searched the blue eyes before him but, though he found a shadow, he saw no hint about what troubled his friend so deeply. What have I done? He questioned silently, a frown creasing his brow.

"There is nothing you can do, my friend," he finally answered. His words increased the elf's agitation and deepened the worry in the blue depths. "What is wrong, Legolas?"

"What is wrong? You tell me there is nothing I can do and ask me what is wrong! You are quiet, withdrawn. I see the pain in your eyes. Do not tell me the shadows that have haunted your every step are gone for I shall not believe it!"

And like the sudden flash of lightning, he understood. The signs, he supposed, were all there, though he had never taken the time to see them, had never cared to look and discover the manner of his decline. But Legolas had looked. The elf, he knew, had been watching him closely, almost ceaselessly, for hints that he was losing himself once more to the horrors of his imagination—the greatest, most tangible reminder of his previous encounter with the Slyntari.

It startled him that he had not seen his friend's dismay sooner, and yet he knew why he had not: the same pain that had pressed away the darkness in his mind had blinded him to the elf's concerns. His heart ached that he had allowed his friend to trouble himself needlessly. Yet he knew, if he were honest with himself, that telling his friend the truth would not free him from his worry. Nay, it will either double it or shift it, nor diminish it.

He sighed, his eyes once again drifting closed; he could never let Legolas suffer falsely. "They are not gone," he answered wearily. "But I have had little time to think on them."

He could almost see his friend's frown but could not decide if it would hide more ire or hurt He had nearly decided to look for himself when Legolas spoke: "How bad are your injuries?"

"Mm, you know," he said, "scratches."

"Strider, if you expect me to believe. . . . You're joking."

The smile he had obviously failed to hide broke free. "Got you," he taunted.

"I'm going to remember this, human," Legolas promised lowly. "And since you're not too ill to joke, you're not too ill to eat."

"Legolas."

"No, Strider. It's not much and I'll settle for a bite or two, but you must eat."

The truth was the stillness, combined with the comfort and familiarity of being with his best friend without the stress of annoying lights, had done much to loosen the vice-grip his concussion had on his mind. Yet having suffered through it in silence for hours (and well aware it would repeat tomorrow) he was reluctant to do anything that might risk his present ease.

"Come on, Strider."

"All right, all right." Legolas took his hands and started pulling him up before he could realize how much that would hurt. When he did, his eyes shot open—but his arm had already erupted in fire, burning from his fingertips to his shoulder while his chest was being twisted and crushed by a giant, whirling him off into spinning darkness.

He was not sure when Legolas realized his difficulty, was not even sure when he had closed his eyes, but he suddenly registered warmth against his back and heard whispering: "Easy, easy, mellon nin. Easy," though it took him a second to understand the words.

When he finally came back to himself, he was almost surprised to find himself still breathing and his wrists burned from where he had unconsciously pulled against his bonds in an attempt to distract himself from the pain. His chest hurt, too, but it was a faint ache almost completely subsumed by the ire of his broken collarbone. It was another moment before he realized he was, in fact, sitting up.

"Strider?"

"Hmm?" he answered breathily.

"Perhaps you'd better tell me the extent of your injuries before we try to move again."

Despite the pain, he chuckled lightly.

o/o/o/o/o/o

He let the first four patrols pass without making a move. The first he watched to judge security to see if the rain had changed anything that would make his plan impossible. The second and third passed by too early, less than half an hour after the first; the rain had not had a chance to become an enemy, to seep into their clothes and minds, a conspirator with the cold to make their lives miserable. It had not yet driven their attention from their surroundings to their warm beds. The fourth had already boasted five members.

In the moment, when he had judged each group and the sentries upon their approach, he had felt confident of his decision. He would only get one shot at this; it had to be perfect. There would be other patrols coming through later, even more distracted by the cold rain, eager to get warm and dry. He could wait. But as an hour slipped away with no new contacts began to wonder, to doubt . . . to fear.

What if all the patrols had already returned? Neither he nor Sierra had had anyway to know for certain how many had been sent out at the beginning. The girl had seemed certain that there would be many of them; but what if the rain had changed that? Maybe Shirk had not sent as many out or the groups had returned early. Maybe they had returned by the east side. Had he misjudged? Seen folly where it was not? Had he hesitated when he should have moved, let fear blind him when the correct opportunity had already passed before his face? His brother's bruised and bloody face flashed before his eyes. His perch became a cage.

"Don't you move!"

He froze, his hands clasped around the rock edges to lever himself out of the dip. His heart races as his eyes darted around for the source of the voice. He had heart it. He could not be discovered now!

"Don't you move, Elrohir! You never give up your location until everything is ready and you are ready to move or you have decided it cannot work and you are ready to retreat. Do you hear me?"

Elrohir relaxed as he realized no one had discovered him. The voice he had heard was Glorfindel's and existed only in his mind, a memory more than a thousand years old. He and his brother had been learning about covert strikes—ambushes—and the golden-haired seneschal had decided the best way to instruct on the art would be practical experience. So he had come up with a simple goal for them and let them do the planning, gather the information, scout the best locations.

The whole operation had proceeded according to plan until a problem with loading had delayed the target's departure by more than an hour and a half. When it had not shown as predicted, the younger twin had gotten frustrated and impatient. He had wanted to go see what was taking so long and had been on the verge of abandoning his position when Glorfindel stopped him.

"Now, are you moving on the target or indicating a retreat?"

The question, simple and to the point with none of the uncertainties and vagaries of his thoughts, burned through him now as it had then. And, as before, it resettled him to his purpose and he resumed his silent vigil. If worst came to worst and no opportunity presented itself, he knew he could always pull back and follow Sierra to the mountains. It was not what he wanted to do, certainly not an appealing alternative, but the fact that another option existed allowed him to regain some perspective and hold on to his new-found calm.

The rain whitewashed everything around him, creating a pseudo-transparent barrier that hazed objects and people into indistinctive blobs the further from him they ranged. The steady rush of the drops hitting the ground strangely reminded him of home, of the roaring waterfall that always existed in the background but which had long ago stopped registering in his mind. If he concentrated, he could hear individual drops; if he focused, he could see details of the men who waited at the border.

Water dripped from the slight overhang above him to soak his hair and shoulders, flowing every now and again over his face and drenching the tops of his leggings. It meant little to him, the liquid's temperature little more than a variation to tingle his skin, but he knew from years of riding with the rangers and raising Estel that the cold and wet—with an occasional biting breeze pelting drops at them—that the Slyntari were longingly looking towards their beds. He hoped it would make them careless.

What caught his attention, he could not say, but he glanced to the side, looking through the trees and the rain. At first he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, the dark flash of movement wishful thinking. Then they entered "the corridor"—a stretch of approximately ten paces where his view was unhindered, part of the reason he had chosen this location—and he saw there were four of them. They were staggered, nearly forming a line, but none glanced around at their surroundings.

Their hair was plastered to their heads, color impossible to distinguish, and they hunched in their soaked robes, hugging the sodden material close to them for whatever imagined warmth it might provide. Their heads were half-ducked and they looked around (he could see now) only as far as their eyes could move. Either they believed this area was safe or the cold had driven all such considerations from their minds. Perfect.

He eased carefully from his hiding place, dropping away into the shadows, just in time to be slammed with a gust of wind that felt more like a wall of water. Rain that had gathered somewhere above him dumped across his head and shoulders. He stiffened against the onslaught. It struck him, suddenly, that this was something his little brother would do. The implications of that, however, was something he did not want to think about.

Silently, he moved through the trees and emerged behind the patrol.

o/o/o/o/o/o

He hated sentry-line. It was a long, tedious duty with nothing to recommend it save the fact that one did not have to walk far to return to camp for supper. And on days like this, when the weather was foul enough to make an elf (damned enchanted creatures!) miserable, even that saving grace lost is value.

With the rain pouring on your head and the wind cutting through your bones, that proximity which was you salvation on normal days becomes an unbearable taunt. Time becomes your enemy. Instead of slogging through muddy woods, knowing with each step you take you are that much closer to home, you stand looking out over motionless woods knowing that only the passage of creeping minutes can end your suffering.

He pulled his wet cloak tighter about him, trying to bleed away some of the cold by giving it less space to gather, but the wind blew and he shivered all the harder. He hated to the feel of the ice water running down the back of his neck, slipping under his cloak to soak anything that might have remained dry. He clenched his teeth and squinted through the downpour towards the trees.

Dark, forbidding shadows against the slate of the sky, they were indistinguishable in the dark of night. The few fires that still burned, heedless of the driven rain, were bright points that drew more light than they gave off. It was all but impossible to see any that walked from the woods. More often than not they rose like avenging ghosts from the intervening gloom, wet and even more miserable-looking than he, though at least they could move to try and stay warm. . . .

He squinted harder as he thought he caught movement out ahead of him. It disappeared with the effort, and then reappeared moments later. He thought he saw the lighter gleam of wet flesh amid the darkness but was not positive. More minutes passed, and in that time, the glimpses grew certain. Five individuals approached, hoods down.

"It's a patrol!" someone to his left called. He nodded silently. That is was.

Nearly ten minutes had passed before the patrol ascended the slope to reach the sentries and pass into the camp beyond. The leader looked up and nodded as he passed, each one after duplicating the gesture with varying degrees of goodwill.

The last to pass barely raised his head and huddled into his cloak. This as a board, the lad looked like a good, strong breeze would knock him over. He exchanged a grin with the sentry on his right, laughing quietly. Boy, them youths got smaller all the time.

He looked back out over the sea of darkness. Maybe they would be relieved soon and a new batch of suckers could suffer the cold and the dark and the wet. He squinted and stomped his feet. Maybe.

o/o/o/o/o/o

He followed the quartet further into camp, doing his best to blend in. He was not sure how far they traveled together or if they checked in before retiring to their tents, but he knew he did not want to be here when roll was called.

Elrohir glanced back towards the sentries. None of the men seemed to be looking towards the camp. The quartet he followed still had not glanced back to see anyone following them. As few people as possible were wandering between tents and none but one or two of those paid any attention to their surroundings, each being more intent on getting where they were going, completing their errand, and getting out of the rain.

Fear, it seemed, did not completely counter human nature.

The elf glanced quickly around, taking one last chance to make sure no one was paying him undue attention, then he ducked down the first side passage he came to and adopted the same quick, short steps everyone else hurrying about had used. He tried to remember what Sierra had told him about the various color-codings, but found even his elven eyes baffled by the system and wondered how the humans could manage it.

He ended up finding an occupied dwelling and marked that color-tab in his mind. Then he ducked into a darkened and apparently empty one several rows down and listened. All he heard was the rain.

Wood was stacked to one side, near the entrance but far enough back that it would not be soaked if the door was opened or came open due to the wind. He knew he could not remain here as the person it belonged to would probably return from duty soon, but he needed a place out of sight to consider his next move. If he could just remember the tent Sierra had taken them to which was empty, he thought it would be all right.

He shook his head in frustration. It's no use, but I can't stay here. He thought he began to understand some of the girl's skepticism when he claimed he would hide within the cam an entire twenty-four hours waiting for her to get into position. The suspicion that she could have managed it even without the rain did nothing to improve his mood. Though the rain is probably more of a hindrance than a help to staying hidden.

The dark-haired being glanced around the room again. It did not look like its owner had been here in a while. It was, he reasoned, perfectly possible that the tent's resident had died in the course of the day. Surely, if that was so, no one would come empty it and reassign it before tomorrow, especially if that other still stood open after several days.

Pursing his lips in annoyance, Elrohir debated the advisability of moving back into the gloom. There was another tent he was supposed to look for but he knew he would never find it quickly. The more he moved around, the more likely he was to get caught. And he did not have a better idea. Sighing, he determined to stay where he was.

Pulling his sword, he sat with the blade across his lap and braced his back against the bed, then prepared to wait the night—ready to kill anyone who walked through that door thinking to claim his bed.

o/o/o/o/o/o

The house was quiet, dark. Only a few lamps yet burned in the airy halls, their faint glow lending an eerie light to the beautiful sculptures he passed. Little or no light made it in through the windows. It was late at night and everything seemed peaceful; so what had woken him?

He paused in mid-stride, cocking his head to the side and listening for anything that sounded out of place. There was nothing but he kept walking, his feet automatically taking him to Estel's room. There was a vague idea in the back of his mind that his little brother might need his help but be too uncomfortable to ask for it. It had happened before.

At the door, he paused again. Turning his ear to the door, he again listened for any unusual sounds from within the chamber—or even some usual ones, to put his mind at ease. At least, the part of his mind screaming he had no cause to go into Estel's room

I'm his older brother. That's cause enough, he decided, and he turned the knob, pushing the door inward.

He only opened it a crack, at first, peering inside between a space barely large enough to wedge his head. The flickering light of candles, dozens of them, was the first thing to meet his eyes, and it surprised him, worried him even, for a nagging fear rose in he back of his mind. Why would Estel have so many candles lit and still burning at this hour of the night?

Unable to see the bed from his position, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked in. He could see the bathing chamber, see more pinpoints of light flickering within. He looked at the bed. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought it was empty, but only because Estel was not immediately visible within the tangled folds. The bed was the only object in the room still swathed in shadow. He watched a moment, but the night's stillness stretched to the bed's occupant. He smiled.

He still remembered when the human boy first came to Rivendell, when nightmares would wake him from his sleep and chase him from his bed. The first month he had run to his room, or Elrohir's, or Ada's, and then he did not come any more.

"How about you go back to your own room, Estel? Wouldn't you like to sleep in your own room?" Estel had never said no. He could not remember how they had discovered the nightmares still plagued the child, that every night he would flee his bed but stop at the door, but they had, and one of them had checked on his every night after. He could not remember when the ritual had stopped.

Moving quietly, not wishing to wake his sleeping brother, he moved across the room to the first candle and blew it out. The flame vanished and he moved to the next, and the next, systematically working his way around the room. Yet when he extinguished the last light, plunging the room into darkness, Estel gasped.

He whirled. A frown marred the human's face. His eyes moved rapidly beneath closed lids. His head jerked back in distress. "No," the boy moaned. "Please. . . ."

"Estel?" He reached out a hand to touch him, shake him—

"No, don't! Please, don't!"

—and recoiled. "Don't what, Estel? Don't what? Wake up, little one. Look at me." But though he pleaded, he could not bring himself to touch his human brother. Distress radiated from the young one, but he dared not touch him. "Estel—"

The human thrashed, fighting his blankets, flinging his head from side-to-side. "No! No-no, please. Elladan—"

A choked sob cut off the cry, but he refused to hold back any longer. Climbing onto the bed, he crouched directly next to his brother and pulled the struggling boy into his lap. He weighed less than he remembered but he just held him close. "Sh, Estel. Wake up, little brother. It's just a nightmare. I'm here now; it's okay."

But the boy just fought harder.

"Estel!" He grabbed the man's arm before he could fling himself from the bed. Panicked silver eyes, haunted and wild, flew open to latch onto his face. A scream tore from the other's throat, terror-filled, and fear spiked through his heart. What had happened to make him act this way? "Estel!" he snapped, worry making the word sharper than intended.

"Don't hurt me," Estel begged, holding up his hands to fend off a strike. "P-please, Elladan? Please don't hurt me. I'll be good."

"I would never hurt you, Estel! What are you talking about?" But even as he spoke, memories arose. When Estel was seven, he had pushed him to hard and broken his arm; and at ten, he took their roughhousing to far; then what about all the times he had yelled, all the times he had made the boy cry? "I love you, Estel."

Tears streamed down the young man's cheeks as he shook his head, his eyes wide and petrified. "N-nooo, please. . . ." He whispered another word, his lips barely moving, and he had to lean forward to catch it: "monster."

What?

He froze, his thoughts and feelings a confused jumble. He had never—He would never—Silver eyes stared back at him, terrified, haunted, condemning him with every tear that slide down his young cheek, now covered in stubble, now clear and smooth. Monster. . . .

He gasped—choked—and tore his gaze fro the huddled child, only to lock with distressed blue eyes. His own, he realized with sick fascination, just as confused and hurt as he felt. What had happened? Why was Estel acting like this . . . ?

The thought trailed off into silence as he stared transfixed at his image. The skin was different, a mottle green, specked with yellow and brown. The nose was broken, half-decayed. The teeth that shone in his open mouth were yellow, the gums back and rotted. The hair started further back on his forehead. But the eyes . . . the eyes were what stole his breath. They were red, a rich, dark red; red like blood. . . .

He glanced at Estel, and screamed.

o/o/o/o/o/o

The camp was quiet. What little conversation there had been had died out as the tired prisoners decided the best thing to do was sleep. Even the guards had more or less relaxed though five still stood guard.

Seated on an edge, Legolas only had to gaze one direction to see all of the prisoners. With few exceptions, the men, women, and children had formed groups so they could share body heat through the night as only the Slyntari had blankets to guard against the chill and the fires were too small to provide everyone with adequate warmth.

Abyl had bedded down with the three Rohan men shortly after water had been brought around after the meal, he quartet situated as close to the distant fire as they could get. Conversely, it was also as far away from the strangers as their bonds would let them go. The elf had not quite decided which reasoning had won out in the villagers' minds though he strongly suspected the latter. He was just glad their obvious distrust of anything connected with him or Aragorn had not forced the lad out in the cold.

His eyes trailed from the boy to the head cushioned on his lap. His hand smoothed idly through tangled locks of brown hair spread over his legs, taking its opposite with it by virtue of the ropes that bound his wrists. Blood matted some of it and it was only after he had looked at the cut himself (despite Aragorn's protests) that he had admitted it was not as bad as he had feared. That did not mean, however, that there were not plenty of other injuries to trouble over.

When Aragorn had told him he had a broken collarbone and at least one broken rib to go with his concussion, he had been unable to stop the fear that raced through him. Dozens of images, ideas raced through his mind of how the Slyntari would use these injures to their advantage. He knew it was an aid they hardly needed, and he feared what effect it would have on his already battered friend.

He still bears the scars from their last encounter, injuries that have no had enough time to fully heal. The possibility of what this latest confrontation would do to the human terrified him.

The elf stilled his hands and let them rest of the ranger's right shoulder. His eyes studied the man' face, noting the pain that tightened it even in sleep. He lay on his left side to keep from putting pressure on his broken ribs, and using the elf's legs as pillows was the best they could do for the collarbone while considering the ribs. The human's bound hands gave him no chance to truly relax on his back and they were pulled up near his head because that was where he found the most comfort. Negotiating a semi-comfortable position the human could sleep in, however, was infinitely easier than convincing him to sleep.

Stubborn human, he thought fondly. But he suspected he knew why Aragorn did not want to sleep: those images that weren't gone that he hadn't had time to dwell on.

A cold breeze swept across the plains, rustling the grasses and bending the flames. He felt a shudder go through the body beneath his hand, a tense spasm, and heard the man's breath catch. The human pulled in on himself in an attempt to keep warm but it was not long before the fine tremors reappeared. He wished he could do more, but his own bounds hands limited his options.

He hunched further over the sleeping figure, hoping to bring more warmth through greater proximity. It was an uncomfortable position to hold for any length of time but he would gladly suffer a stiff neck and aching back if it brought any measure of warmth or comfort to his friend.

Still hunched, he looked up at the stars. They were bright against the velvety black background of the night sky and he took solace in their light.

"Do you think my brothers can see the stars tonight, Legolas?" Aragorn had asked earlier, shattering the thought that the human had been going to sleep.

Legolas had glanced toward the mountains, looking for what he still was not sure, and then looked at his friend. "I don't know," he had said.

"I hope they can. Earendil is bright tonight."

"He is," the blond archer had agreed. "But you aren't supposed to be looking at the stars. You're supposed to be sleeping—like every other sensible Man here."

"I can't sleep."

"Of course you can. Just close your eyes and relax."

Aragorn had snorted. "Sure. We'll trade—I'll give you my broken bones; you'll give me your Elven stamina, and we'll see how well you relax with your arms bound awkwardly before you."

"I'm sorry, Strider—"

But the man had raised his hands and waved him off, the motions hindered by the ropes. "Stop, my friend. If I'm not allowed to apologize, neither are you."

"Then let's skip the apologies and find a comfortable way for you to sleep."

That had not been the end of it, of course. The ranger had quarreled with him for at least another twenty minutes though he could no longer remember all the arguments the other had used. Likely, most of them were stupid, the results of a mind desperately seeking any point of contention, and many of them (he thought he remembered) had deviated from the subject on tangents.

He laughed softly, remembering other times when the young adan had successfully distracted him from his intended purpose. They taught you well, human, he allowed easily. Valar help us but they taught you well.

"They," of course, were the twins, and his blue eyes drifted back towards the mountains, distant even to his far-seeing gaze but massive enough to be visible to every member of their company. They looked to him as forbidding as the mountain fence of Mordor though he knew that was simply an association he had made: like the Black Gates, once he passed to the other side of the White Mountains he would never leave again. Unless, of course, they decided to take me to Mordor.

A shudder ran through his lithe body, stirring Aragorn in his sleep, as the very name of that dark place invoked every horror his mind could conceive. It was a land of nightmare and terror and he never wanted to step foot inside it. Death awaited all who dared enter that forsaken land, and the Dark One never granted his enemies easy deaths.

In his mind, the two lands somehow became akin. It was nothing he could pinpoint or explain but it was there, like a great, black cloud obscuring the sky. Everything he knew of the Slyntari pointed to their ruthlessness, their brutality, their cruelty. Had they done to Elladan and Elrohir what they did to Aragorn? What other horrors those blights on humanity have inflicted on the exuberant twin sons of Elrond during their extended captivity? It was something he did not want to contemplate and yet his mind danced with dark possibilities.

No, Aragorn, he silently told his friend. I don't think Elladan and Elrohir can see the stars tonight. And knowing what I know of Shirk, I don't think they've seen them in a long time and probably won't see them ever again.

His thoughts thus burdened, his eyes tracked a small black dot for several minutes before he consciously noted it. It was many minutes more before it resolved sufficiently for him to identify it: a bird.

The elf prince frowned ever so slightly, wondering why a bird, any bird, would fly north across a grassland in the middle of the night in the midst of winter. He tried to think if he had even seen any birds behave thus, or if he knew of any, but he was a wood-elf and a wood-elf who had only rarely ventured beyond his realm before meeting Aragorn and the questions stumped him. If there were birds who migrated north in the winter, at night, alone, he had never heard of them.

Aragorn shifted again, then, and a quiet sound of distress escaped from the back of his throat. Lines of pain had etched themselves onto his face and Legolas was not sure if they were products of his mind or his body. He watched the other closely, looking for a sign that his friend needed to be woken, but for the moment, the ranger was still, the difficulty apparently passed.

Suddenly, the man jerked back, trying to escape. In the instant he moved from his side to his back, the elf prince saw that his friend would scream and clasped his hands over the other's mouth. The muffled cry reached his ears and silver eyes flew open as pain flared through the prone body and wrenched it from sleep. Panic—

"Sh, easy, Strider. It's me, it's Legolas. Easy, mellon nin. Sh, it's just me. Everything's alright." He removed his hands from Aragorn's mouth as awareness overcame the blind panic of his waking and reached out to catch his friend's trembling hands. "Everything's alright," he repeated, as much for himself as the dark-haired human before him. His elbows bracketed the man's head as he held both their hands to the other's chest. He felt when the human's heartbeat finally slowed to a more normal rhythm.

Aragorn exhaled shakily and tipped his head back to catch the elf's eyes. "What reality do you live in, mellon nin?"

"What?"

"That this is alright," his friend concluded.

He snorted. "This one, apparently," Legolas informed the ranger. "In an ideal one, you'd actually listen to me."

The human blinked slowly, apparently thinking. "That wouldn't help," he decided finally. "Because it was your fault we got into this mess."

"How do you figure that?" the fair-haired elf demanded defensively.

"You—" But Legolas had realized what had been said and quickly overrode him: "No, no! Never mind. I don't want to know."

"But you said—"

"I chanced my mind," he reported imperiously.

Aragorn smiled impishly. "All right."

Silver eyes closed and the man took a deep breath to help him relax. Legolas glanced up (looking for he knew not what) in time to see the bird land on one of the guard's outstretched arms. He saw something taken from a pouch about the animal's slender leg and carried to the group's leader.

"At least I'm not cold anymore," the ranger murmured amusedly.

"That's good," he answered distractedly, his eyes still fixed on what was going on at the other side of the camp. He felt Aragorn stir but did not release him.

The Slyntari captain accepted the note with barely a glance. His dark eyes scanned the scrap of paper, and then he looked to one of his men and snapped an order Legolas' sharp ears could not quite discern. He wished he had gotten Aragorn to teach him to read lips as he had intended.

"Ready the horses," a quiet voice said at his elbow.

"What?" He looked down to find the ranger peering across the camp.

"He said, 'Ready the horses,'" Aragorn repeated.

Legolas glanced between the men and his friend, noting that two of the Slyntari moved to do just that. "Are they going to rouse the whole camp, then?" He doubted the children could make another long march so soon. They, at least, needed more rest. He glanced sidelong at the ranger.

The dark-haired man was staring at the Slyntari with a peculiar look on his face. "No," the human whispered. "No, just us, I think."

Before the elf prince could question that, the leader had barked a command and the guards closest to the friends seized them and dragged them to their feet, severing the ropes that bound them to the stakes with quick swipes of sharp blades. The man's fingers dug painfully into the flesh of his arms and he heard Aragorn hiss as they were both propelled across the camp. Four horses were lead forward, a couple tossing their heads in agitation, hastily packed with a portion of their supplies.

They were stopped before the leader, who studied them with piercing eyes, his gaze lingering a moment on Aragorn. He snapped his fingers and waved a hand back he way they had come. "Bring the boy!" he ordered sharply "Get them on that demon horse."

Ardevui took exception to that moniker and lashed out at a man who passed too close behind her, the impact breaking a few of the man's ribs before he was thrown backwards. The on holding her bridle hit her upside the head for her actions and struck her again when she tried to bite him. The Slyntari then pushed Legolas forward, willing to let the elf take whatever else the mare would dish out, but she still though she did pin her ears back against her head.

"Easy, my girl," he murmured to her softly in elvish. They wrestled him atop the horse, and then manhandled Aragorn up behind him. A quickly bit off cry told him they were not gentle about it and fury ignited in his gut.

The captain studied them carefully as more ropes were wrapped about the pair, binding each to the other and to Ardevui though their hands were never unbound. "My lord wishes very much to see you again, Ranger," he said finally, malicious amusement in his eyes. "He's been ever so eager to talk to you about some . . . mutual friends."

Legolas felt Aragorn stiffen behind him and his own blood ran cold, both knowing instinctively who those mutual friends were. Then the man turned away and quickly mounted his own stallion. Abyl was held by the man's second on the third horse and a random guard wearing the black and red slashed robes of the Slyntari rode the third.

"Say good-bye to your new friends, Ranger. It's probably the last time you'll ever see them."

What answer Aragorn would have made, Legolas never knew, for they were suddenly pulled into a gallop and replying to petty, self-important men became a very low priority.