A/N: Yay! Chapter Two! Woot! I heart this story so far and I hope all of you like it too! For those of you who are die hard LotR fans, I am obviously not writing this according to the book exactly. I regrettably haven't been able to read them yet due to midterms and college and such. I'm using the extended version of the movies as well as the book Sparknotes. Hope that clears up some confusion and frustration. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Nope. Nada. End.

~~~Chapter Two~~~ The Fellowship Contention

"Legolas!" Aragorn yelled, shooting up from his seat, enraged over the threat being posed to him.

Valo shrank away fearfully, unable to stop the scared tears from filling his eyes. He found himself wrapped in Lady Arwen's comforting embrace with Aragorn standing between them protectively. It warmed his heart to know that someone cared enough about him to fight for his safety.

"You will not touch him!" She yelled fiercely as Valo clung to her like a scared child, "He saved Frodo! There is good in him yet and I will not let you take that away!"

Aragorn implored his friend in elvish to lower his weapon. The final deciding factor in Legolas's warring eyes was when Lord Elrond finally put his hand on his arm, lowering it gently. The elf lord nodded his acquiescence. He leveled Valo with deep soulful eyes that seemed to bore into his very core.

"Very well, Aragorn, his care is entrusted to you and you alone will be responsible for his actions. I will trust your judgment on this matter." He declared.

Aragorn bowed his thanks and turned to see Valo curling up in his beloved's arms. Just a scared child. Like him, he was unable to control where he was from, but something in this stank to the Valor. What was a beautiful child like Valo doing being raised in Minas Morgul? What did he mean the Witch-King kept him asleep? So many questions were bundled in the small boy that Arwen was easing in her arms.

«««o»»»

"Another child joining the quest?! Are the hobbits not going to slow us enough already?" Gimli, a rather gruff dwarf, practically harrumphed.

Aragorn turned to see the hobbits playing hide and seek with his new charge. He really was in no position to take a child under his wing but he couldn't just let Legolas shoot the poor thing for something he couldn't control. He turned to watch the five just in time to see the brightest smile light up Valo's face. The elf prince at his side frowned at the sight as if he were trying to decide what to make of it.

"Not only a child but a child born of Mordor. The child of the Witch King of Angmar." Legolas confessed tightly, his voice betraying his thoughts on the child for all to hear.

Gimli let out a sputter of indignancy and curses that drew Boromir's attention.

"This is not a good omen, sir Dwarf. Mark my words. He will put a curse upon us all." The man hissed.

Gandalf, watching the children with something like amusement and thoughtfulness, decided to speak his piece at last. He had been watching the five play for some time, sitting upon a stone bench beneath the shade of the trees in the garden.

"No, Boromir. I think in that we were fortunate. There is something about him yes, but I believe the sleeping curse placed on him protected him from the worst of the dark influence." The wizened wizard said, with a smile and a nod as the hobbits and Valo raced up, laughing.

Legolas stepped back as if he were burned by the child's very presence.

"Gandalf! Tell us about the Dragon! The one who you spoke to in the mountains!" Pippin begged, the five of them clamoring around eagerly to hear the tale.

"Oh, I don''t know..." He drew out in false reluctance, earning only a redoubled excitement from the playful children.

"Oh please! Please tell us the story!" Valo plead, his emerald eyes shining brighter for his excitement.

Gandalf smiled and ruffled the elf-like boy's hair affectionately. He truly believed Valo to be innocent. He could see the pureness in his soul despite the malicious thing making it's home there. A dark parasite...

"Very well. It was at least an age ago..."

«|»

The Nazgul shrieked in fury and pain as his Master let his displeasure known. Agony raced through them all, forcing them to the ground, writhing. None were tortured nearly as much as the Witch King, though. He'd lost him! He'd lost the Key! He'd lost the Master's consort! The Dark Lord's rage burned through him like acid. He would get him back. He must!

«|»

The group had come to rest on a small outcropping at the foothills of the Misty Mountains. The hobbits were play sparring with Boromir while Valo sat contentedly with Aragorn watching the man smoke his pipe. The child had become strangely attached to the Ranger in the month past, something that Legolas had taken note of grimly. He was...confused. By the dark child's whole existence. The one named Valokiloren was cheerful but timid and polite and courteous as any elf. He was just as content to sit and watch the clouds or a tendril of smoke than he was to play with the hobbits. All of this and he was a child of Mordor. A child of the Witch King himself. Aragorn had gone to "assist" Boromir from his assault by the Halflings, leaving the shy Valo sitting alone by the rock. Gandalf was looking out in the distance. Sitting all by himself off to the side, the teen looked small and his emerald eyes looked lonely staring at the playing group. Legolas watched this with a mixture of curiosity and a twinge of sympathy. Did the child feel alone away from the Nazgul? As odd as the thought was, perhaps it was so. After all, they were all that Valo had ever known. Did he perhaps not even feel as if he belonged there? Orcs and Nazgul...none that looked like him. None that were like him. Then where did he come from? Did Valo himself even know? Surely the child had to have had a home at some point. Was his family missing him? Had they searched relentlessly for their missing child before settling into despair? Were they searching even now? The elf found himself taking up Aragorn's abandoned spot at the child's side, hardly even thinking about his action. He wanted to understand this strange thing better. Emerald eyes looked at him soulfully, filled with calm serenity but a deep longing that he couldn't dare to try and discern.

"Are you going to shoot me after all, Master Elf?" Valo asked calmly, a small tragic smile on his lips.

Legolas frowned lightly. Such a look on one so young. It was a look that should not be seen on any youngling's face.

"No, Valokiloren. I will not act unless you give me good reason. I only wish to understand you."

The child's smile turned less embittered. He couldn't deny that Valo did indeed have an elf-like beauty to him not seen in Men. Was he perhaps not a Man at all but something more?

"Understand away." Legolas gave a small grin of his own. What a strange child he was, "what is it you wish to know of me?"

The Prince of Mirkwood finally gave voice to the questions that had been bubbling on his tongue for the last few weeks since their party had left Rivendale. They had only grown as they traveled across the south to the foothills.

"How many summers have you seen? What are your hobbies? How did you get to live at Minas Morgul? What was it like there?" Legolas noted that both Aragorn and Gandalf were listening intently though with the old Istari it was always difficult to say.

"Well, that's a bit of a long story. I don't really remember much about when I first came to be in Minas Morgul. All I remember was that we came from somewhere else, somewhere far away, and that Sauron brought me here. Back then he was called Tom Riddle. There was pain and then the dark. That's when I stopped aging. I've been in Mordor since Sauron's first reign. It wasn't too terrible, I suppose though my Master always made sure that I knew my place." Valo looked off into the distance, his brow tight with remembered hurts.

Legolas winced at the words and even more so at the child's expression. He could only imagine what horrors this child had witnessed in Mordor to put the look between his usually calm eyes.

"And where was that?"

Valo didn't look at him. He seemed unable to bring himself to look at anyone.

"At his side. I belong to him." This was said with such unfeeling that it surprised him, as if it were fact undisputed.

Legolas jerked in his seat, his silver eyes smoldering in anger. Valo felt his chin pulled back to his companion harshly only to meet those burning eyes.

"You belong to no one but yourself. Tell me more." His about face in attitude surprised and confused the teen but Valo humored the elf nonetheless.

It was nice to have someone actually listen to him. It made him feel as if someone actually cared enough to listen. He cracked a half a smile for Legolas''s peace of mind. He had to admit that the elf prince was certainly lovely company to have. He had a beauty that was saved from looking feminine only by the angle of his jaw and the lithe muscled build of his shoulders. One could tell that he had been a warrior prince for some time.

"When Isilidur defeated the Dark Lord, his spirit went into hiding and I was given over to the care of the Witch King. He kept me under a spell that my Master cast as a fail safe. It allows him to put me into a deep sleep until he chooses to wake me. He always kept me with him though I don't know why. It seems that it would be far simpler to leave me sleeping at the Morgul Vale or at Barad-dûr." Valo explained with a shrug.

Gandalf released a long stream of smoke from his pipe where he sat on a boulder nearby. Aragorn seemed to have lost that playful spark he had gained playing with the hobbits. The Mirkwood prince nodded, his lips pursed into a thin line. He seemed to be considering this new information. Indeed, all three seemed to puzzling over his newly revealed past like puzzle pieces scattered over a table top but still searching for the crucial bits that would allow the picture to come into clarity.

"Thank you for telling me." He said calmly before giving the teen a nod and standing.

Valo watched Legolas walk over to the rock crop edge and stare off into the distance. He did indeed seem to be pondering over the background brought to light. His abrupt departure left Valo feeling somewhat disappointed though he was relieved that the Mirkwood prince was more accepting of his presence now. It was a step up from the arrow in the face they had started out with. He aimed to work harder to be friendly to Legolas. He really didn't want any ill will between any of the Fellowship and himself. He really wanted to somehow make the elf like him. Valo wasn't sure why it was so important to him. Was he so desperate for company that he needed everyone to like him? The thought gestated in his mind for some moments. It was only the span of a few heartbeats before Valo had realized that the elf his attentions were focused on was not staring into the distance in thought as he had imagined but had actually caught sight of something on the horizon. Some dark, undulating shape was coming through the sky in their direction and his enhanced eyes were straining to discover if the shape was a threat or not. Merry and Pippin were still shrieking with laughter from play though the rest of the Fellowship had caught on to the thing's existence. Something about the way the mass moved instilled a deep nervousness in Valo's stomach. Something wasn't right.

A/N: Oh boy! Excitement! Watch out, Valo!