What Used To Be
Disclaimer: I only own the characters you don't recognise.
FemaleSpock: Glad you liked it, it was good to write! :)
Nosterineth: Thanks, it was really just a spur of the moment decision! BTW, how did you know it was me on YouTube? I know it's still DipDab and stuff...and I have LOTR vids favourited...OK maybe it wasn't that hard to figure out after all!
Swanfeather: No worries! I really like writing cliffies, for some reason...but I'm not going to overdo it. Actually, I wondered what Legolas and Dari could come up with before I wrote this chapter!
stlova: I reckon you got it right....HAVE you seen the behind the scenes stuff, on the Extended Editions? They were nearly better than the film! In the meantime what about...."What does Legolas reply when Gimli says "Never thought I'd die fighting side-by-side with an Elf!"?"
Chapter 10
The door opened slowly, and Eradan came in. Legolas didn't really think about what he was doing, he only knew that this might be their only chance to escape. Quickly, he hurried forward and threw himself at the door. His idea worked out perfectly. The door flew shut - almost. Eradan was standing, unsuspecting, on the other side of the door when it slammed into him. It was a heavy wooden door with iron parts. It was just unlucky that his height put his head right at the iron sheet where a window might of been on another door. There was a rather unsettling thwack sound as the door made contact with the mans head, and said man crumpled to the floor quickly. Luckily, Legolas managed to grab Eradan before he hit the actual ground, and Legolas carried him carefully into the cell.
There was a lot of blood coming out of his head - Legolas was very sorry about that. It was soaking the Elf's own clothes (on his top half, he was wearing only an undershirt) as well as the mans. Dari had watched this all in delighted surprise but his happy grin turned to a frown when he saw the gash on Eradan's head.
"That doesn't look to good." He said worriedly.
"I know." Legolas replied. He didn't have any more clothes to spare so he tore of the mans own shirt and used that to somewhat stop the blood. Dari struggled over to the pair and held the shirt to Eradan's head as Legolas tore a thin, rope-like strip off of the bottom of his bloody undershirt and used that to tie the shirt securely to Eradan's head.
"It's not going to stop the bleeding forever." Legolas said doubtfully. "But there's not much we can do about it. We have to get out of here." He glanced over at Eldarion. "Can you walk?"
"I'll have to." Dari said with determination.
Legolas watched as Eldarion struggled painfully to his feet. The boy took a few steps forward, but after only a couple he cried out as his left knee buckled under him. He managed to hold himself up with his hands on the wall, but slid awkwardly to the ground. Legolas hurried to his side.
"Did they do anything else to you- other than whip you?" He asked.
"Well, they knocked me out with something heavy, and I think they drugged me." Dari admitted.
"It must be the drugs." Legolas replied with a frown. He spared Eradan another look. If they were going to do something, it had to be now.
Legolas moved over to Eradan and began searching him over for weapons. The man, however, did not seem to have come prepared for a fight. On the other hand, Legolas found a small dagger around his ankle. It wasn't much, but it was all they had.
"What are we going to do?" Dari asked quietly.
Legolas thought for a moment. "We can't stay here." He began slowly. "But maybe it would be best for you to stay here with Eradan and stop him from raising the alarm, while I go and sort the others out."
"Are you going to kill them?" Eldarion asked bluntly.
Legolas blinked a little in surprise. "Not unless I have to." He was a little uncomfortable. There was something about it, when it was put like that, that made it sound as though Legolas was doing the bad thing. Legolas also got the idea that it wouldn't of sounded nearly so bad coming from someone else's mouth.
"Oh." Eldarion said.
"I don't want to kill them." Legolas reminded the boy. "But we have to get out of here."
"I know."
Legolas regarded Eldarion for a moment longer, then walked slowly towards the door. "Keep an eye on him." Legolas instructed. "Don't come out of the cell no matter what happens, until I come and get you...it's not safe."
"I don't think he'll be going anywhere anytime soon." Eldarion pointed out somewhat dryly.
"Right." Legolas agreed. The two shared a look, without saying anything, and then Legolas turned around and walked out of the cell. As he went, Legolas couldn't help but think about the small weapon he was about to try and defend himself against about 20 men with. It was ridiculous even in his own mind. The whole thing was ridiculous.
Once again, there didn't seem to be anyone in the cavern. It was dark and dank and even Legolas, although he couldn't feel the cold, could tell it was cold. There was a distant drip drip of water somewhere and the vague sounds of drunk men from outside the cave.
Drunk men. Legolas was sure they weren't all drunk, although it explained the noises he had heard outside the cell. It had been Eradan staggering around, more than a little drunk. This would definitely help him though. Two dozen intoxicated men would cause a lot of chaos, and it wasn't as if their aim would be any good when they had been drinking heavily.
Legolas could not say these men were intelligent at any rate. They must of been plotting for 15 years now, and if this was the best they could come up with...there really wasn't anything to worry about. However, the Elf also was not about to underestimate them.
He was approaching the entrance. It didn't look like there was anyone guarding the entrance but...
Legolas could not believe his eyes. Or his luck. He had thought the men to be...not particularly bright, but to be this idiotic?
There, in front of him, was his bow. Even better than that, right next to his bow was his quiver, with all his arrows inside and his knives lying next to them. Plus the bag he had bought with provisions.
It was almost gleefully that the Elf glided forward and picked up his bow, strapped on his quiver, sheathed his knives and slung his bag over his shoulder. Still, he thought as he continued towards the entrance, he wasn't going to waste the dagger. Legolas could see the men's weapons sitting against the inside wall of the cave. Being very quiet, he used his dagger to slice through the strings of the men's bows, although there wasn't much he could do about the swords.
Becoming serious again, he looked at the men. They were sitting around the campfire, laughing, talking, singing, dancing, having a good time.
With a pang Legolas realised he might of been doing the same thing on board a ship with his own friends right now, although in a more dignified way.
He had to hurry up. Legolas thought about how he was going to do this. He couldn't see the Captain anywhere, but he had no time to worry about that because it was at that moment that one of the more sober men looked over and saw Legolas. He called out in surprise, which made the few men around him look over and see Legolas too. However, because it was a slow moving process and it took a few minutes for everyone to understand what was happening, Legolas had the time to jump right into the group.
Legolas moved quickly. His favourite method of disabling his opponent was to knock them out, so once again he did this with the handle of his knives. By the time he was against people with weapons, he had a third of the group lying on the ground. He moved fairly quickly through the rest of them - they really were drunk. There was more chance of Legolas getting hurt if the men didn't aim for him, to be honest. Only a few minutes later he twisted the last man's hands behind his back, kicked him to the ground, bent down and hit him just hard enough to keep him away for a few hours.
It was going well, Legolas thought. He wondered vaguely where the Captain was - probably in the woods hoping for a little privacy, the Elf guessed. Now all he had to do was hurry back and get Dari. He would only really relax when the two of them were safely in the trees out of seeing and hearing distance from anyone.
Making sure that the men were well and truly knocked out, he nodded to himself and began back through the cave to Dari's cell. Legolas didn't bother to be quiet as he thought there wasn't anyone about, who could hear him, at any rate. He wasn't making much noise anyway, being an Elf.
He was thinking about what he was going to do about Eradan when he arrived at the anti-chamber. He came to a dead stop in the doorway as he scanned the room.
He had found the Captain. Found him sitting in the cell with a knife to Eldarion's throat and a cruel, twisted smile playing on his lips.
"Hello." The man said pleasantly. "Place your weapons on the floor, now, and no-one's going to get hurt. I'm afraid that if you don't though, someone in this room is going to get hurt. It won't be me, or even you. It'll be him." With this last word he gave Dari a harsh jerk which made the boy scream in pain.
Legolas met Dari's eyes, then the Captains, and he wasn't joking.
Legolas put his weapons on the floor.
"Please," Legolas said as calmly as he could. "Leave Eldarion alone. Hasn't he been punished enough?"
"Oh, it's not the brat I'm punishing by doing this." The Captain said brightly. "It's his father. I don't blame this baby for what happened."
"I am not a-" Dari started furiously.
"Be quiet!" The Captain snapped, placing the knife by the boys mouth. "Or do I have to make you be quiet?"
Dari fell silent, while Legolas tried to take the Captains mind of Eldarion. "I don't know your name."
"You do not have to know my name."
"You can't really believe this is going to work." Legolas insisted. "If you just let Eldarion go now, this can all be forgotten!"
"I have come to far to fail now." The Captain hissed. He turned to Dari. "Now, boy. Say goodbye."
This was all Legolas needed. In one single split second he was once again holding his bow and arrow and was aiming it at the Captain. Seeing the quick movement he turned to look at Legolas in surprise, but the Elf waited only long enough to say three words.
"So have I." Then he released the arrow. It shot straight into the mans heart, and he looked at Legolas in his last few moments of living.
Legolas watched as the man finally slumped on the ground before finally lowering his bow. He looked down at the Captain regretfully. "I'm sorry." was all he said, though. Then he turned his attention to Dari.
"You killed him." Eldarion whispered faintly.
"I know. I'm sorry, Eldarion. I had to. He was going to kill you."
Dari seemed to know this. "I understand."
"Good. Dari, did he do anything to you?" Legolas asked, immediately dropping down beside the boy.
"No more than he already had." Dari replied. Then he looked at Eradan. "He needs attention more than me at the moment."
"I know, but we can't be around when the others wake up." Legolas said. "They aren't going to be too happy with me. I've knocked them out and killed their Captain." The he moved over to Eradan. "I don't see what else we can do for him." Legolas admitted. "Dari, pass me the Captains shirt."
Eldarion tried not to make contact with the Captains actual skin as he removed it, and Legolas swapped Eradan's blood-soaked shirt for the Captains slightly less blood-soaked shirt. He used Eradan shirt to keep the mans head levitated off the floor.
"We'll just have to wait until his friends come and treat him." Legolas said finally. "Can you stand, Dari?"
"Just barely." Eldarion sighed as he struggled, once again to his feet while Legolas picked up his weapons and the bag again. The Elf moved over to help support Dari. It was in this awkward way that they exited the cell, and made their way down the passage. It took them more than twenty minutes to do this before finally reaching the fresh air and morning light. The sun was just rising and they stopped in the entranceway to look around them. Dari breathed in several times in happiness. Legolas left Dari using the outside cave wall to support himself and moved off to climb into a tree. They stayed this way for about three minutes before Legolas finally said they should be going.
"Where to?" Dari asked.
At this point, Legolas found himself once again thinking of the friends he had left behind. Although maybe they had left him behind? In any case, they were on a ship right now and he was not. He was surprised to find this thought didn't make him sad any more. Not happy either...he didn't know what to think of it.
"Legolas?"
"Oh, yes...to find your father, and mother, and Hal and Lauri." Legolas said with a smile.
"Where are they?"
"I don't know, yet."
"Maybe we should go back to your camp and wait for Ada to find us there." Dari suggested.
Legolas looked at him sadly. "There isn't a camp there anymore, Dari."
"What- what do you mean?" Eldarion asked in confusion.
"They've left. Sailed. Gone. The Elves." Legolas explained.
"But what about you?" Eldarion asked. "They can't of gone."
"They have. They've sailed. But I'm staying here. I suppose it took something drastic to make me realise that I'm not ready to say goodbye to Middle Earth yet."
"You- you didn't sail...to rescue me?" Dari asked in amazement. When Legolas nodded, the boy had new found respect for him. "I'm sorry."
"It's not you're fault, Dari."
"But what will your father say when he finds out?""I'd rather not think about it." Legolas laughed. "Now come on, we need to get away from here."
Legolas helped Dari over to the trees, and after a quick look back at the dreaded cave, they turned into the forest and began an awkward journey through it.
Quite a long chapter...but I think the next chapter, or possibly the one after that is going to be the last one. Thanks for reading and please review! :) :) :)