Title: A Bit of Shade
Prompt: #85 - Shade / Mellon Fic 100
Author: TrinityTheSheDevil
Rating: PG 13
Characters: Aragorn, Legolas
Disclaimer: Not mine, at all.
Summary: Aragorn travels home after one of his great escapes.

A/N: Not beta'd and I quickly finished it before having to run to work. Any errors are mine and all mine.

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The sun was merciless. It beat down unhindered by any cloud nor tree. The wind was not even blowing to give some small amount of relief to the man who rode wearily upon his horse across the great plain. In the distance, he could see trees. If only he could make it to them ... another couple of hours and he would be there, safe within their branches from the sun, and he could get water.

He wore no shirt, and his leggings had been cut short. So short that if he stood and put his hands by his sides, his fingers reached past the tattered cloth. His arms, back, chest, and legs were covered in barely healed gashes. Some still oozed blood when he moved wrong. The skin that was not marred with injuries was covered in blisters from the sun. The past week had not been kind to Aragorn, and he was thankful that he had survived it.

He had set out with a task of trailing a group of orcs back to where they had come from, to find out where they were hiding. The group had been small in number and Aragorn was not worried about being seen. Two days into his journey, however, and the group had met up with an even larger group of orcs that Aragorn was not prepared for. Just as he had decided to return to the ranger encampment and gather more men, one of the orcs had stumbled upon him quite by accident. The man had killed the creature, but not fast enough. It had alerted the rest of the group and Aragorn soon found himself bound to two large stakes in the ground, stripped of most of his clothing.

The orcs, thinking him of nothing as amusement, had their fun with him. The whip had rained down upon him again and again, leaving him unconscious three separate times before they finally finished. Instead of killing him, they left him tied there, to bake under the hot sun and die of either dehydration, hunger, or perhaps from some animal in the wild. None of these sounded very appealing to Aragorn.

The group of orcs had left, laughing as they did so. The man had lay there, weakly struggling against his bonds for hours. It was early on the next morning that he finally managed to pull one bloody hand loose and manage to free himself. The skin around his wrists was mangled, bleeding. Aragorn could hardly bare to look at them. Instead, he had focused on standing up and walking towards some sort of shelter. He knew that secluded as he was, the only places to hide were infested with things that would likely kill him. Late that afternoon he had finally found his horse, but the animal had been stripped of all supplies. The horse wasn't harmed, however, which led Aragorn to believe a group of men had found it and taken everything but had not managed to take the horse.

And so he had climbed upon the beast and started the slow journey back. At one point he had managed to find a small stream and was able to drink from it and wash his wounds as best he could, but he had nothing to keep the water in. With a heavy heart he had left the stream behind, knowing that there was a long ride to the next source of water.

Aragorn knew that if he could just make it to the trees, he would be fine. There was shade there, and water. Perhaps, even though he was scared to hope, he could find someone to help him. He honestly doubted that he could go much further; his vision wavered in and out, his thoughts seemed sluggish, and staying on the horse seemed to be an almost impossible task. Every now and then the horse would step sideways or turn sharply to avoid something and Aragorn would be hard pressed to simply cling to its back.

One hour went by with such a slowness that Aragorn was sure that fate was against him. The treeline still seemed impossibly far away. Not that Aragorn was sure of this, considering his vision had gotten so bad that he had to squint to even see them. His head had begun to throb with such power that the man wondered how it even stayed on his shoulders. Each step of the horse caused Aragorn to flinch in pain.

Another half hour and Aragorn was ready to drop. Well, if he was honest with himself, he was ready to drop quite a long time ago. Now, however, he could not even cling to the animal below him. He simply laid across the horse's back hoping that he did not fall off, because if he did, he would not be able to get back on. He was almost there though ... the trees were closer, beckoning him with their branches and the cover they provided.

When he was nearly there, the horse below him swiftly turned to the left to avoid a rather large rock. Aragorn was unprepared for the movement and found himself falling ... he landed with a heavy thud, as a groan of pain escaped his dry lips. For a few moments, the man knew nothing but agony, as fire raced through his entire body and left him gasping while trying to cling to conscious thought.

With sudden clarity, Aragorn knew that he was going to die there. An unfitting way for a warrior to die, but it seemed like it would be his end. He hoped that someone found him and realized what had happened.

As Aragorn began to give into the darkness that called to him, he heard a sound. Soft at first, but it grew in intensity. It was someone ... someone familiar! As he thought this, a face he knew appeared in his line of vision, calling his name.

"Aragorn, you filthy human. What happened!" Legolas called softly, afraid to touch his friend for fear of causing him more pain.

"Orcs." Aragorn rasped, blinking heavily.

Legolas shook his head, sighing. "Come, we must get you to your father's house. I have some water with the horse back in the woods that I am sure you would like."

As Aragorn was gently lifted by Legolas and carried into the woods, his last conscious thought was he had finally made it into the shade.

End!