Growing closer to the events surrounding the Wood-Elf's assault, Aragorn's agitation increased. "We traveled through the night to reach this clearing, where the farmer from Fulton told Ament the goblet could be found, but as it was night when we arrived, Ament decided to wait until the next morn to search." The Ranger stopped speaking, hanging his head in thought or guilt.

Seeking to alleviate the human's uneasiness, Legolas began to tell them what he knew of that night. "Strider and Meika accompanied me into the forest to tend personal needs. Meika knew my identity, however, and bid me to run. I stayed for the same reasons as Strider, once I knew of them. I stayed to be certain Mirkwood and my father were safe, and all Elves and all peoples free of the goblet's harm," he reiterated, wanting the twins to know it had ultimately been his choice to remain, once he had been given one. "Ramlin came upon us arguing over my leaving, and believing Meika to be a traitor against their cause, killed him, but not before Meika inadvertently told Ramlin of my identity."

"He sent Ramlin to check on you, case you ran off again, and then he sent Doran, too, case Strider couldn't handle Ramlin should he try anything funny," a gloomy Jalian said, stirring the pot of herbs. "Meika'd already told me he was going to get Strider to make you run off, though. Didn't want Ramlin to get his way, and didn't want no part of the goblet no more."

"He told us as much," the Ranger said, "before he died."

Another brief silence ensued. "When Doran arrived, he thought Strider to be a traitor, also, and disarmed him with an arrow. He wounded me in the thigh with his arrow when I tried to run, for I had hoped that I could lead Ramlin away, though with no weapon and my hands bound, I could not fight him. Ramlin followed me through the woods, catching me because I could not lose him. I was not fast enough." Ramlin's words echoed in his thinking: You should have run faster, Elfling. He trembled, seizing his knees violently, holding himself motionless in hopes of stopping the tremors that wracked him at the memory, and the sudden anguish washing over him.

His fingers feeling for the comforting, rough bark of the oak, the Silvan startled when a hand on his shoulder drew him from his despairing thoughts instead, however, and the Ranger told the Prince, "I have not yet thanked you, Legolas, for returning for me when you could have fled. Thank you, my friend."

He did not want the human and Noldor to worry for him or notice his misery; pushing his despair aside as well as he might, Legolas accepted the Ranger's thanks, though he felt he did not deserve it. "You should thank Elrohir, for telling me of the arrow's location. Had he not, Ramlin would have taken my life as well, and I would not have made it back to the clearing."

"Arrow?"

Elrohir answered Estel's simple question. "I had a vision of Legolas' assault. The arrow he removed from his thigh lay on the ground during his ordeal. I only told him where to find it."

He had not considered the effect on Elrohir of seeing his grief; the Noldo was troubled. Celebrian, the Prince remembered. I have stirred up old memories for them.

"I killed Ramlin with the arrow." The Wood-Elf tried not to think of the events surrounding the mercenary's death as he assured the Noldo, "Had you not told me of it, Elrohir, I would be dead already."

The twin closed his eyes and tilted his face away from the Wood-Elf, and only then did Legolas realize how his words must sound. It was too late to retract them, and nor did the Prince feel they were untrue, so when Aragorn restarted their story, the Silvan sat back against the comforting oak tree, feeling the oak's joy at having a Wood-Elf nearby, a rarity in the virtually abandoned southern parts of Mirkwood. Legolas was glad that he had not needed to tell the details of his encounter with Ramlin to the healers: it seemed he could not cease upsetting the Noldor.

"Doran knocked me unconscious. When I woke, I was with Jalian. The others were looking for Ramlin and Legolas, hoping that Ramlin had not found him."

"And still they did not kill you?" The bitterness of before that infused Elladan's attitude towards his young human brother was not gone. "How did you gain their favor another time?"

Incensed at the twins' inexplicable resentment towards Strider, Legolas listened to the Ranger's explanation without interrupting nonetheless, as he did not know of what had happened to the human during this time. "They needed me to piece Legolas back together, should Ramlin have found him. So they tied me up and kept me alive."

Without giving the mercenary or the Noldor particulars of the difficulty of his return to the clearing, Legolas told them casually, changing the touchy topic, "I returned to Strider because I hoped he could continue where I could not in seeing that the mercenaries would not harm my father or Eryn Galen. Sliding Ramlin's knife into my boot, I let the mercenaries have me again."

"Doran and Ament found the opening between the trees shortly thereafter." Rubbing his forehead, the Ranger contemplated briefly. "Yesterday morning, I suppose it was. Doran gave us a torch, and Ament and I investigated the tunnel."

Valar, Legolas thought, was it only yesterday?

Pointing at the Ranger's chest, Elrohir raised one dark brow, looked up from his sorting through their remaining herbs, and asked fragmentarily, "A torch…the burns?"

"When we came out, he seemed madder than before. He kicked Legolas, and so I attacked him."

Snorting, Elladan snidely advised, "That is your smartest decision yet, brother. The burns were his retribution?"

"Yes," the Ranger answered, his short tone evidence that he apparently was as aggravated with his brothers' anger as Legolas. "We went below. They placed Legolas in a cell, while Ament, Jalian, Doran, and I investigated the tunnel." At the mention of his desperate time in the tunnel's cell, the Prince withdrew from the conversation as his body began to shudder from the cold sensation of hopelessness the very reminiscence brought, and only partially heard Aragorn tell his brothers, "We searched each room, finding nothing but cells. Ament sent Doran back to check on Legolas while we continued to search. Finally, we found the trapdoor. Ament and I entered, finding the goblet in Melfren's bedchambers." His brow furrowing, the Ranger abruptly asked, "But how did you escape from the cell, Legolas?"

He did not want to recall the blond mercenary or the utmost despair he had felt in the dark, dank, and tomb-like cell. "Doran. He came within." The human searched the Silvan's face, not believing the story was as simple as that. There were some things, however, that the Wood-Elf did not wish to revisit, and this misery was among them. "Using the knife I had secreted from Ramlin, I stabbed the human. He did not die, however, and followed me into the tunnel, which is when you found me," he said, directing his explanation at the Noldor.

The twins sat mutely, trying to digest their brother's tale and ostensibly disgusted by it, until Elladan broke the strained silence of the clearing. "Legolas. How came you to be at the mercy of the mercenaries in the beginning?"

"Your tale can wait, Legolas," the worried human healer interrupted, telling the coughing Wood-Elf, "Your lungs do not sound well enough for answering my brothers' curiosity."

He shook his head, desiring to finish the story with his own version of events, to explain to the Noldor that the Ranger had not merely sat back while the mercenaries tormented him, as they obviously thought. "I do not have much to tell that you have not already said," Legolas rasped, coughing into his hand and wiping clean the sputum, still bloody although much less so than before, onto his already filthy breeches. "I was checking on a scouting patrol, sending word that my father wished them to remain, when I stepped on an animal trap."

"An animal trap?" asked Elrohir, his eyes narrowed and his features lightening at the strangeness of his explanation. "Tirn mentioned an animal trap but I found it hard to believe."

The Prince nearly groaned. I knew I would never live this down, he thought merrily, for anything that distracted the twins from their anger at the Ranger made Legolas happier, and then told his audience, "Yes, an animal trap. And it was rather painful, Elrohir Elrondion, so if you do not mind keeping your disbelief to yourself…" Legolas could not check his enjoyment when the Noldo looked contrite and prepared to apologize.

The horrified twins became bewildered at the Prince's sudden good humor, and then tried to hide their amusement by ducking their heads and busying themselves with their dinner, but did not succeed, and they chuckled behind their curtains of hair. Within moments, the twins were smiling at the Prince apologetically, and the Ranger only shook his head, smiling at his brothers and the Silvan in turn.

"I am sorry, Legolas," Elladan tried to say with a straight face, but his smile broke through his stoicism, and the Noldo explained, "An animal trap, though! How did you manage to step on it hard enough to cause the mechanism to close?"

"By running." The incredulous laughter had relieved the tension between the group of Elves and men, especially between the three brothers, and so Legolas chuckled again, inciting the others into joining him with his merriment, as the Wood-Elf could appreciate how absurd it sounded for an Elf, known for their lightness of foot, to fall for such a ruse. When they had quieted, he continued, "I'm afraid I was more preoccupied with finding the warriors, as I had a feeling of doom descend over me, and believed them to be in danger. It was I who was in danger, however, and was caught in the teeth of the trap before I knew what had occurred. Meika and Jalian had laid the trap to catch an Elf, I soon found out, which was poisoned into putting the unlucky Wood-Elf into a deep sleep."

Jalian, who had been trying very hard to blend in with the trees out of humiliation for his part in the Prince's story, defended his actions, saying, "Never thought it would work. Just doing what Ament told us to do. He said to lure a Wood-Elf into the trap, but you caught yourself."

The Prince, persisting in his story as if the mercenary had not spoken, admitted, "I do not remember much about the journey to the cave." Absently the Silvan rubbed his calf, where the sting of the trap's teeth had all but faded with the overwhelming pain from his other injuries. "And after that, I woke with Strider looming over me." He shifted to face the Ranger, telling him, "It is as you have said, Strider. I did not trust you in the cave, and nor did I find your compliance with the mercenaries to inspire my trust. It was not until Ramlin attacked me the first time by the river that I decided you meant me no harm."

"You certainly could have acted more responsibly, Estel," the elder twin offered caustically, his amusement vanquished with the reminder of his brother's actions. "You have abetted the torture of an Elf."

This is the crux of their upset, then, he thought. They think of their Naneth and would blame the Ranger for my death. "I had the opportunity to flee, Elladan, several times, and did not take them. Strider tried to convince me to run. Do not fault him for that which I brought upon myself."

Unconvinced, but again disinclined to argue with the fading Silvan, the elder Noldo switched the course of their conversation with a pessimistic frown that portended his human brother had not heard the last of their anger. "Jalian planned to leave you behind the trapdoor with Ament," Elladan said uncharitably to the Ranger. "When you were in the cell with Ament, he came upon us while we were with the Prince, intending to flee."

Rather than becoming angry, however, Aragorn laughed heartily at this information and settled back against the tree. "I do not blame you, Jalian. He was rather upset that you had abandoned us," he ribbed, patting the myriad bandages over his lacerated legs.

The mercenary grinned sheepishly at his fellow human, pausing in his perpetual stirring of the cold extract he was preparing. "Nothing personal, mate. Just wanted out."

Aragorn yawned, wincing as the deep breath expanded his torso and the injuries thereon. "I can understand that, also."

"You have more than made up for it, Jalian," Elrohir contended, glaring at his twin.

Elrohir has befriended the mercenary, Legolas noted, shaking his head at the ludicrousness of such a thing. This exploit has not merely been complicated, but bizarre, also.

"You have Jalian to thank, dear brother, for your timely rescue," Elrohir told the Ranger. "Had not he agreed to help us bait Ament into coming out, I do not know that you would have survived long enough for us to devise another plan."

"And you have Tirn to thank for agreeing to make the trade." Elladan frowned down at the sentry beside him, smoothing back the pale blond hair as he spoke, "He felt it was his duty, but it was his love for his Prince that caused him to do it, not his duty."

"And Legolas," the younger twin added to the Ranger. "We have Legolas to thank for killing Ament and saving your hide many times over, brother."

It is I who should be thanking them. Closing his eyes, the Silvan was assaulted by the rising tide of his desolation, and he fought the torrent of sadness. Once more, the Ranger drew him from his despondency, this time grasping the Wood-Elf's forearm gently.

"Are all Wood-Elves so willing to sacrifice themselves for others, Legolas?"

He took the question as a rhetorical one, though he smiled, thinking, When the cause is worthy. Tirn's ashen and lifeless form was not the result of a worthy cause, not in Legolas' opinion. It should have been me, he told himself again.

"Thank you, brothers and friends," the Ranger told everyone, though he smiled in sullen acceptance of his brothers' sermon. "I owe you all my life."

"We go together or not all, Strider." The man's pleased grin at the Prince's reminder of their oath to each other was worth the effort it took the Wood-Elf to speak, for his ribs lurched painfully into his lungs with each hacking cough that wracked his body after his words. "We should be thanking Strider," the Wood-Elf countered when he could breathe again, saying aloud his thoughts and grabbing the Ranger's uninjured forearm to return the encouraging gesture the human had given him. "Had it not been for your obstinate human brother's quick thinking," he told the twins, "Melfren would have killed me, and the rest of us soon after."

"Ah! I believe we are almost caught up to the present," exclaimed Elrohir at the mention of the witch. "Though none have told me what occurred while Jalian and I were underground. I have yet to hear why I found both my brothers unconscious on the ground!"