I know that in reality, the floors of Moria were strewn with corpses from the very first hall, but... for the sake of this story, the 'entrance hall' is empty of bodies. Thank you.

The Ringbearer

Deep Through Moria

Pt. I

The Fellowship waded in their despair for a day and a night in the entrance hall of Moria. The smooth wall and floor became black with the soot from their fire; and the temperature at times was stifling, and drew sweat out on their faces and bodies, but they did not let it go out. They feared the misty dark beyond the door, with its hidden, lurking, things.

They spoke little during that time, and it was only of the most necessary things. If they needed privacy at their body's calling, two would always guard from the door, and their charge would not wander far.

They ate and drank little. They had enough provisions, but it turned to moldy dust in their mouths and choked. They slept naught at all or too much.

Legolas slept only once, for a brief moment, when against his eyes he beheld thick, high, grass, and he smelled its sweet green crushed under his boots. In the center of this green sea grew a towering oak. Sunlight glittered in its pale, shivering, leaves, and it was entirely without the bite of bugs or the spore of rot, from root to leaf-tip. He drifted towards the grandsire tree and heard a familiar laughter. Under the tree swirled a wisp of pleasing smoke, and light glowed on a curly head. Frodo smiled and laughed and smoked his pipe, and he stared Legolas in the eyes. And when this happened, the hobbit pulled off his shirt at the shoulder for him to see, and joy overfilled in his lambent eyes, for his flesh was without the Morgul mark.

Despite this dream of enigmatic good-will, Legolas found himself fearing every skitter of a pebble, every high flitting shadow and every breath of cold air. He feared the touch of the ring against his flesh, so with a scrap of cloth he sewed the ring and chain into the inside of his quiver. He could already feel the darkness about him, a smoky blackness touching the edge of his mind. He thought often of little Frodo, and pitied the hobbit for every moment he, too, had fought with the dark.

The second morning, Legolas could stand the stirring sense of urgency no longer. His feet burned to be fleeing, the ring a throbbing circle in his mind's eye. He felt light-headed; a deer pursued in a round room with no doors. Most of the Fellowship still dozed. It was a poisonous twilight hue outside, as it ever was. The holly trees cut black bolts through the air.

As Legolas rose, slow, to his feet, Samwise let out a muffled yell in his sleep. Legolas stepped quick between the sleeping bodies and went to him. Sam was curled into a ball and he trembled with his back to the company. Legolas stroked his shoulder and murmured to him, words like silver threaded through water.

"Samwise, dear one, wake. Wake now."

The hobbit startled awake and curled up tighter, making a pathetic sound into his rolled up cloak,

"Samwise," said Legolas.

Sam rolled over, and his eyes were swollen, watery, and bruised. Legolas sat near and embraced him.

"Dear, brave, Sam. What words can I say to you, about your courageous master?"

Sam choked and dug his blunt-tipped fingers into the elfin clothes.

"Do you know where your Mr. Frodo is now, my dear Sam?"

Sam sniffed thickly and shook his hanging head.

"I will tell you this, Samwise Gamgee. Through coincidence or through the hand of the Valar in hopes of soothing, or from the touch of Frodo himself, I have seen him in dreaming."

Sam jumped, sat up bolt straight and stared. "Truly, Mr. Legolas, sir?"

"Aye. He dwells in green fields, the like of which I have never seen, but have imagined existing in the far west, across the sea. Also, he finds shade and good comfort under a tree which has no greater, save again, in the west. Laughter and smiling seem common to him now, and he is without hurt on his body. He suffers not, and he worries not, and neither should you, Mr. Gamgee."

A well of fresh tears opened up o'er Sam's face, but a smile split his dirt-smeared mouth.

"Well, I must say," said Sam. "That sounds like good 'ol mister Frodo to me. If ever there was a heaven he desired for himself, it would be as such. Aw, but I'll still miss him here beside me, truly I will."

Legolas touched his hair and smiled. "Such is as must be. For we earthly creatures want gather everything to ourselves, and grieve mostly for the loss of something, not of the individual welfare of that thing.

Do not look so alarmed, Sam. Tis simply the natural nature of things, and we all feel the loss of Frodo as blades dug deep through our hearts, and you are not alone in your sadness."

Legolas left Sam, and a dark shifting of color caught his eyes, and Gandalf moved towards him, feeling out the rocky ground with his staff. Legolas was filled with unease, for in his wanderings and dwellings, many of which Gandalf had passed through like a myth, he'd never seen the wizard so bent and colorless. The wizard raised his head and took Legolas' arm in a trembling grasp.

"I feel, as I've always felt, the hobbits to be my family, my children under my care. None of the other wizards of my order pay them any heed, but they fascinated me and warmed my heart and I loved them each in their own way, even those due for a toss into the nearest lake. The loss of Frodo has hurt me almost as much as it hurts Sam." He took a deep breath, and glanced at the hobbit. "Thank you for comforting, when I could not yet do so." He took Legolas into a heavy embrace, filled with the smell of woody smoke and magic, and the rasping of his overlarge robe.

"Mithrandir, if you heard my words, they are for you also," said Legolas.

Soon the others began to stir, and blink, and wash their faces with splashes of water and wet their dry mouths. Legolas stepped up onto a raised boulder.

"It is time to move on," he said, and pierced their faces with his gaze.

The Fellowship murmured in assent, and began packing up their things and standing to stretch, but Boromir came towards Legolas on his rocky dais and seemed benign of expression, but held a deadly light in his eyes.

"Would you not think that with the wickedness that has already occurred here, indeed, even just at the entrance to Moria, t'would be wise to heed my advice, and head for the gap of Rohan?"

Aragorn stopped placing things in his pack and slipped towards them. His palm was at the pommel of his sword. Gandalf crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat. Boromir's gaze flickered over them without concern.

Legolas found himself yearning to clench the ring in his hands, and reached for it, before remembering its new place. "I would honor the memory of Frodo, by following the path which he has laid out before us."

"And you truly think this path is wise? The path which destroyed him?" asked Boromir quietly.

Wrath grew in Legolas' face. "How infant your argument, to twist words and meanings when you know their truth. I hold the ring. We will go through Moria."

"Foolishness!" cried Boromir, and beat his chest. "This is madness and foolishness. You care not at all for the quest! You can't possibly, to mean to lead us on."

"Boromir!" Aragorn said, coming to his side. He let go of his sword and held his hands palm up. Calm came to his voice, and compassion to his eyes. He touched Boromir's shoulder. "Please, Boromir. Legolas, just as Frodo, would never lead us intentionally into harm. You know this. Aye, you are right with your fear, seeing from our trouble this far. But for all we know the rest of the path may be smooth.

What is most important is time. Doubling back from here to head towards Rohan may be just as dangerous, if not more, of braving the mines. We must push on, it is all we can do."

"He speaks true," Legolas said.

"Indeed he does," added Gandalf. "Be at peace, son of Gondor. We do not forget your wishes. Our wish in turn is that you will see your land soon; through the mines will be the swiftest way."

Boromir kicked a stone and grimaced, but left them alone.

Legolas came down from his boulder to speak with Aragorn.

"A shadow is heavy upon him, Estel," he said.

"Yes. I have seen this as well. I think it is a shadow that may come upon many of us in time. It is the shadow of the enemy, who wants to gain the ring through the temptation of the Fellowship. We must simply watch, and hope that he overcomes his test."

Gandalf turned his attention to them. "I will watch keenly, for I too, see this shadow. Perhaps clearer than all of you. If the worst comes for him, I will do what I can in my power."

They all took torches from the fire, and Gimli volunteered to haul a bundle of extra wood, should the flame need to be passed on. Aragorn scattered the flames and ashes, and they walked to the far end of the cavern, where passages opened up in the walls; gaping, foul, mouths. Beyond them stone stairs like broken teeth ran up, down, to the left and right. The torches roared and the flames blew backwards.

"Do your recognize these passages? Aragorn? Gandalf?" Legolas asked.

Aragorn shook his head. "Though I have journeyed through here, it has been a long time since, and I fear I will remember little, especially in this darkness."

"I will lead," Gandalf said. "As far as I can." He shuffled forward into a bleak and echoing stairway.

Legolas fell into stride with Gimli at his side. The dwarf was bursting with throaty gasps of pleasure, and his careful fingers ever stroked the carved stone. Sometimes he would retrieve pieces of rock from the floor, seem to find them mightily significant, and pack them away. Legolas felt a little better about the closed abyss of the mine, seeing one who feared it not at all, but treated it reverently, like an ancient relic. Sometimes Gimli would tell him tales about the rooms through which they passed, or about the type of stone or the dwarves who built it.

"I always knew dwarves made homes in the stone, but I never dreamed of the extent to which they love their mountains."

The dwarf seemed a little irritated. "Of course! Our homes are not simply just 'stone.' They are rock! Rock!"

Aragorn chuckled softly. Gimli went on, with adoration on his face. "Each rock is different. Different appearance, feel, sound... Different to their very breath! Each must be touched and carved a different way. They are tender as newborn deer, they are!" Legolas found himself smiling without control, contemplating such an image.

Even in his marvel, Gimli, in his heart, was troubled. His relative Balin dwelt here in splender, the last time he had come. Where was he now? Where were the lanterns and candles? The smells of roasting meat and yellow ale? The laughter and familir throaty tongue of other dwarves? It was possible that as danger grew and perhaps, population lessened, they had retreated further into the bowels of Moria. But still a deep blade of dread grew in Gimli's chest.

Their route brought them many times to flights of stairs that seemed to run straight up or straight down. Many times, Boromir, Aragorn, and Legolas carried the hobbits on their backs. Pebbles slid and crackled always under their feet and made them slip. At the archway to each new room, many would look up hopefully, looking for a shaft of light through the dark, a beacon through a stifling night. They stopped two hours from beginning, for the stairs were treacherous and tiring, and breath was a little harder to come by so deep within the earth.

Merry and Pippin wrapped each other up in their cloaks, holding hands tightly, and dozed. Sorrow still hung on them like iron manacles, and also had come a fear. Here, so far away from green rolling lands and cool, clean, waters, they faced death at every footstep and every shadow.