This has been an awfully long time coming, and I can only apologise. My time is not quite my own any more, but I will never abandon this story. I can only hope you enjoy this chapter and that it has been worth the wait, and that you enjoy those that follow.

My very special thanks goes to Myselfonly, whose constant encouragement and prompting has pushed this chapter from a lost thing into something (hopefully) readable.

Enjoy, and tell me what you think at the end (it's the only payment we get, after all!)

Ghost

-((-))-

Chapter Fifteen: When the Darkness Comes

No new air could get to his lungs. Spent as it was, he dared not exhale what little he had. The crushing grip about his throat made his head whirl and pulse towards oblivion. His life was leaving him, flowing between the merciless fingers of a savage enemy he could not hope to match…

But even as Legolas' vision began to hedge towards a more permanent blackness, he still had the presence of mind to want to heave with revulsion as the Uruk's grey tongue traced the blood of his split cheek, lapping at his face with the avarice of a thing starved.

Raw instinct remembered the knife still clenched in his left hand. The fire for survival dismissed the agony of his wounded side as insignificant –

Where he should have felt the tug of leather on the blade edge contrasting with the butter-soft penetration into the gut beneath, Legolas' reward for his effort was nothing more damaging than a single scratch to the surface of the jerkin. Whatever vestiges of strength he had were utterly spent on that final resistance, and he had nothing left.

His tormentor's head snapped back with a mocking roar, the sadistic taint in his orange eyes eclipsed with mirth. "Pathetic maggot!" he snarled disparagingly and he lifted Legolas higher and slammed his back into an ancient ash, so hard his vision sparked and flashed with tiny pocks of light. The Uruk's free hand found Legolas' knife-hand and captured his wrist. In a flash of very real fear, Legolas thrashed fruitlessly and tried to rip himself free as the Uruk began to exert his true strength into twisting the bones within round each other, but it was like being trapped in rock -

Legolas' eyes widened with the sharp clarity of new and sudden pain, the sensation of something snapping punctuated by what little air he still had fleeing in a harsh scream.

The knife tumbled from his hold, his only chance at salvation lost to him amongst the shed leaves, and the last thing that he ever saw would be that loathsome face, yellow-fanged maw wide and descending for his neck like some wild beast –

Everything changed.

A bellow reached through his fogging mind, strong and clear and angry. Something – someone - careered into them and he was dropped, forgotten like a stolen toy. Legolas hit the ground hard, but he barely felt it as he fought to drag air into his abused lungs. He choked, straining to take in too much for his throat and stressed chest to manage. Nothing was getting through; there was no easing of the crushing of his heart, no relaxing of his throat to allow the air free admittance -

Someone seized him by the shoulders and hefted him upright. Through his panic he tried to resist, but his new captor was the stronger. Legolas found his back pressed against a sturdy torso, a gloved hand restraining his head against a solid chest as the other massaged his neck vigorously. And a face was there above him, shrouded in magnificently familiar beard of autumn fire, the cracks of mirth about the eyes tight with anxiety under the thick iron helm. "Easy, Lad! Easy!"

But he was still choking, still unable to get enough air through. He was trapped in the river again, and he was drowning. It would win, he was dying, and he was boundlessly afraid –

"Come on, Elf! Legolas, I beg you, breathe! Breathe!"

Gimli held Legolas' eyes, compelling him through sheer will to simply be himself again, the strong and proud elvish princeling he had grown to regard with such fondness. But the elf continued to strain and fight, an awful and desperate rasping sound coming from his vividly bruised throat. But his eyes … their panicked pain pleaded with him for release from his torment, and there was nothing Gimli could do…

The thought that Legolas was dying in his arms was sudden and hard. After everything they had gone through to get him back, all the heartache and uncertainty, and he might still be lost to them. The helplessness it wrought in the dwarf was a thing unparalleled by anything he had ever experienced. And when his friend continued to struggle and gasp, Gimli's powerlessness vented itself in a plea he knew could not be answered: "Aragorn!"

-(())-

Gimli's desperate cry for aid speared through the sharp biting of steal. But Aragorn could not spare him more than a panicked prayer.

The days of heartache and worry coupled with the nights of scant sleep and weariness of battle were telling on him as the Uruk tested his strength to its furthest reaches. His sword was heavier than he remembered and his muscles moved with the aggressive burn of fatigue. But there was something new to Aragorn's fight now, something instilled in him by finding Legolas alive … he did not fight for the memory of a friend forever lost, but for the life of that same friend found, and he would not fail him, not again. There was no grace to his fight, no reflection of the elvish battle prowess drilled into him many years ago, but a raw and desperate power, forcing its way through his body to stand against that which would take Legolas from him again.

His sword arced into the scimitar's horizontal swipe and swatted it aside, only for the thing to come back round again with a tireless might and their blades met again and locked together. Aragorn was suddenly far closer than he ever wanted to be as they tried to throw each other off balance, close enough to smell the decay of civilisation that brought this creature to existence, close enough to see the merciless evil relishing watching him struggle through those loathsome eyes –

His vision filled with the Uruk's descending head and there was a sickening crunch and a white explosion of pain when the broad forehead smacked into his nose. The blinding agony rested his attention for too long, and he was hefted from his feet in a mirror image of Legolas, high and kicking …

-(())-

Legolas could feel the dwarvish strength behind him: solid as the rocks Gimli adored, and as wonderfully alive as the trees Legolas cherished. Though the heartbeat against his back was faster than normal, elevated by both physical exertion and fear, it was constant and strong, and Legolas anchored himself to it, the great lifesong of the earth made tangible. He strained against his own desperation in an attempt to mirror the steadier patterns Gimli illustrated to him, feeling the great bellows push and relax into his back. He writhed with the effort and pain of it, but ever there was the song of the earth reverberating through his back … and his choking lulled into an aggressive coughing fit.

"That's it," Gimli sighed, relief spilling from his eyes to twitch his beard into a smile. Legolas still strained, but he breathed, and that was all Gimli could ask of him. "Well done, Laddie. Well done. He Keep it steady, now. Easy, easy."

-(())-

Lurtz was in his element.

Mannish blood peppered his face and the tang of elvish life ran over his tongue. The man he would slay. The dwarf would be no obstacle … and the elf he could tear apart in his own time. He was bigger and stronger, birthed in the very pits of Isengard and powered by the might of his birthplace, and he could feel it blistering through him as he lifted the ranger and flung his worthless hide across the forest floor -

There was no way that Lurtz could know of the perils Aragorn had faced trying to keep up with his elven brothers as a child. Nor could he know that the man he sought to crush had been forced to master the art of falling whilst trying to chase through the treetops. He was older and more sensible now, and his body did not respond nearly as well to such violent shifts, but his learned reflex saved him from a more damaging collision with the earth…

Aragorn lay still where his body stopped, the raw copper of his blood mingling with the scent of disturbed leaf mould. The sound of his enemy advancing on him with a sure stride resounded through the dirt under his face. He must look like a thing defeated, but he was primed.

When Lurtz twisted his clawed hand into the wool cloak and hauled his limp victim only partially upright, he did not expect the sudden snap of the ranger's muscles to action, or the sweep of the sword as his prey turned on him in a last leap of defiance. His face remained a frozen vision of that surprise when his parted head spun to the forest floor itself.

Nothing moved.

A reeling moment of complete silence, numbing and new, and it was as though the forest dared not breathe. Aragorn's muscles retained their readiness and his sword remained in his hands … but there was no-one left to fight. His searching eyes did not sight any further enemies besides the felled corpses littering the ground. The trees did not seethe with nightmarish plagues of orcs, nor did they reverberate with bellows of Black Speech. There was a heavy miasma hanging in the air, the memory of their foul stench that the trees would remember for many long years yet, but little else.

Aragorn's chest heaved with weary relief, feeling his inaction allow new aches and hurts to demand his attention. But he could not stay still and listen to them, not right now:

The leg he had allowed to take the brunt of his fall was already stiffening and ached horribly, but he still forced it into a run, because there was no physical pain now that would keep him from whom he wanted – whom he needed – to be with.

Ever since losing him to the river, every waking moment and otherwise for Aragorn had been hounded with separate visions of Legolas. No matter how forceful he had been in his conviction that Legolas lived, every twisted image in his head had shown him his friend lifeless and alone. His heart needed to see that Legolas had survived, that he could speak and move and laugh as he had always done. That he would shake everything off with the flash of a wry grin and a sharp quip.

But as he slowed to a halt beside his two friends, he could see that what his heart wanted and what was reality were two completely different things. Grief and relief battled inside him and forced Aragorn to his knees, and there was nothing he could do save pull his dear friend into his arms. He breathed deeply of the wool cloak pressing so tightly to him, smelling river water and blood and earth.

"Aragorn-" Legolas pulled to escape his embrace. Aragorn let him go, but he could not deny that his feelings were spurned by Legolas' seeming desperation to be free of him. But alarm took over when he looked into Legolas' face and saw the barely bridled panic there, battling in his fever-bright eyes to be heard-

Legolas struggled to rise -"The periannath, they have taken the periannath-" A sharp cry and he fell back into Gimli's chest, his teeth clenched tight enough to shatter. His heel spurred deep ruts into the earth, his tightly closed eyes sealing out Aragorn's own panicked stare as he attempted to ride out his pain. "They've taken them," he pressed through his teeth. Legolas panted shallow pulls of air in an effort to control the agony, but his head was swimming. "They've taken-" Another strangled cry sheered through his words and any control Legolas had was spiralling beyond his grasp -

"Calm yourself!" Horrified, Aragorn pressed a hand firmly into Legolas' chest, forcing him to lie back. "Gimli, hold his shoulders - be calm, Legolas! Slow your breathing!"

But the state of turmoil in which Legolas was embroiled chained him to panic and desperation. It was a trap his pain would not let him escape, and no words of Aragorn's could reach through that encroaching wall. He opened his eyes and the world was blocked into discordant colours again, dark and distorted and shifting in nauseating swells -

There was a touch. The gentle press of hands he knew well to the sides of his face. Legolas knew the sure firmness and calloused touch of old, and he trusted it, trusted it beyond any other. Estel. His right hand found Aragorn's wrist and held on, finding strength where he had none.

"Estel … Estel, please. The periannath…"

Aragorn felt his face pale when he actually listened and a twist of fear knotted his gut. "They have the Ring?"

Legolas shook his head. "I bid Sam take Frodo before the attack. But the young ones…" Legolas prised his eyes open. The surrounding world was comprised of blotches of light and dark shapes out of his powers of recognition. But he could see Aragorn, shrouded in a haze of what Legolas could only see as dark light. His grey eyes were trapped in webs of new stress lines, and it seemed that they were gouged deep into his skin. The exiled King of Men, scarred beyond his years.

And that look Aragorn was giving him, so rich in love and worry when Legolas knew he deserved neither, was more than the elf could stand, and he shuttered his eyes against that boundless affection.

"What of Boromir?"

Legolas shied at the question. He is dead. I killed him. The words trapped themselves against the roof of his mouth, and he could not bring himself to answer. He shook his head, feeling the despair grab at his heart. Do not make me say it…

Aragorn would not be so easily denied.

"Legolas," he pressed urgently. "What of Boromir?"

When Legolas finally looked at him again, still no words breached the silence … but there was a new note to his pained eyes, something that channelled deep into their heart, and Aragorn knew. Oh no… His hands fell to his lap and he felt sorrow twist in the corners of his mouth. "Where?"

Still Legolas did not reply, but his gaze drifted just beyond Aragorn's shoulder. Aragorn paused a moment to gather himself and left without a word, but not before giving Legolas' forearm a light touch…

It surprised and shamed Aragorn that he and Gimli had sprinted past Boromir's body and not noticed him. The power of battle and drive to save their friend had rendered both of them blind to all else about them, and he was sorry when he came to his knees once again beside another friend…

He was laid awkwardly, the proud son of Gondor. His final fall had twisted his form, bullying his body into a contorted and graceless shape in which Aragorn could not stand to see him. The ranger carefully angled Boromir to lie fully on his back, and his heart cried that his body still radiated the warmth of life, his limbs still supple. And that was the hardest thing for Aragorn to stomach: had he and Gimli arrived but a few minutes earlier, they would likely be four rather than three.

The touch of death to Boromir's face was clear in his pallor, but his skin was not otherwise tainted. Not so much as a scratch marked him. His clear green eyes stared beyond Arda with a crease of confusion and surprise about them, as though the reason for the failure of his body was a mystery to him. But the answer was right there at the corner of his mouth, stark red against his white skin.

Aragorn's gaze travelled down Boromir's chest to where the dark colouring of the fine leather and cloth became wet. Such a lot of blood, yet he could not see a wound: no great slash marred Boromir's body as the killing blow for a man so powerful, no evidence of a terrible and clear act of violence against him; the blood could quite easily belong to someone else. Aragorn analysed Boromir's tunic more closely … and then he saw it, the neat parting in the saturated cloth:

It was nothing more than two inches across, a perfect slit in the material just under the arc of Boromir's ribcage. Aragorn carefully parted the cloth to see the wound that had taken down the elder son. It was nothing more than a line of parted flesh, committed by a sharp and not overly large blade. He had seen such fatal wounds before, but never so cleanly executed. The severing of the major blood passages anywhere in the body would be enough to take life, but few could do so as quickly as those running through the trunk to and from the heart. He had seen men succumb to death mere moments after suffering such a wound before, and it was clear that Boromir was no exception.

"My eyes tell me 'tis true, but my heart does not want to listen."

Aragorn did not turn at Gimli's quiet utterance. "We were too late for him." He reached a bloodied hand to Boromir's eyes and closed them, shutting the cruelty of the world out that he might find peace at last. "We were too late for him a long time ago."

-(())-

The Argonath loomed in the distance, shrouded in haze like the summits of sculpted mountains. To the man stood on the shore, they were a towering reminder of his own failures and those of his blood before him. That he saw them now for the first time with their great backs to him said more than he wanted to dwell on.

It was Gimli who had found the tracks of the boat scudding down to the water's edge and traced it back to the overhang. The sticky green mud where the decaying vessels were moored was churned into a sludgy mess, holding the prints of hobbit feet in stiff casts. The tracks belonged to two, for which Aragorn was grateful: Frodo and Sam had escaped, even if the others had not, and with them, the Ring. Frodo and Sam were beyond them now, and despite himself, Aragorn felt a sense of selfish relief: the Ring's polluting whispers would edge their way into his dreams no longer. It saddened him beyond words that it had succeeded with Boromir where it had failed with him.

His bones groaned at him as he crouched at the water's edge. He was weary to his core, but there was no level of rest Aragorn could grant himself now, not when Legolas needed him. He submerged his stained hands into the clean cold of the river, watching the blood and filth plume and eddy away from his skin into the obscurity of the water. So much blood, and hardly a drop of it his own… The cold bit deep into his flesh, but it was a good cold, crisp and cleansing, and found himself gaining a thin pleasure from it as he massaged a dog-eared hunk of soap into his hands. So engrossed was he in watching the suds jitter and twitch with the current on the river surface, Aragorn barely registered Gimli's approach…

"They have taken the oars with them."

Had their course not been diverted for them, Aragorn would have considered Gimli's observation as a major setback … but Fate had decided otherwise. "Frodo's path and ours no longer follow the same line."

Stunned silence, before: "You mean to say we do not even try?"

Still his hands distracted him, ingrained dirt tracing the whirls and dips of his fingerprints. If he ever got to have a quiet life, he did not think his hands would ever be clean. An impatient noise from Gimli, and he realised he was ignoring his friend. Aragorn flicked the water from his hands and stood to face his companion wearily. "How? How do we do that, Gimli, hmm? This is the Anduin, not some drainage ditch we can leap! And what of Legolas?" He stopped himself going any further, reining in the threatening anger. He was so tired now, and what he was preparing to put Legolas through was more than he thought he could stand.

"Then that's it, then." Gimli turned his eyes across the wide waters, sighting the prow of the taken boat just within the treeline. "All we have been through, everyone we have lost, and for naught." The dwarf scrubbed at his face wearily. "Such a grand plan, and nothing to show for it but soot and ash."

Aragorn's heart tinged with sympathy at Gimli's open dejection. He knew the sense of failure his companion felt … but he would not let it take him, not now. He gripped his friend's shoulder, as much to steady himself as a reminder to Gimli that he was still here, that there was still a Fellowship whilst they were together. "It was always a desperate idea, Gimli. We must keep fighting for what we have left."

Gimli sighed. "Aye, lad." He offered Aragorn half a smile. "Damn your persistence."

Aragorn laughed. "It is perhaps a little more forced than I would like."

"Hmm." Gimli shuffled, a hue of discomfort stiffening his stance. A leaden mood dragged on his voice when he next spoke: "The elf seems to be in a bad way."

The thin veneer of mirth Aragorn's face had worn cracked away. He pushed his gaze back over the water, but Gimli could still see the heart-deep worry in the hard set of his jaw. Aragorn shook his head. "I fear for him, Gimli. He has pushed himself too far. There is fever in his eyes, and I can tell you now without looking that his side is infected. It must be cleaned, and whatever else he has managed to do to himself must be tended -"

"His arm is broken, I can tell you that."

Aragorn cursed under his breath. He had not seen. Wordlessly, Aragorn gathered up his skins and headed back into the trees, trying to install the mental brace he would need to carry through his tasks.

-(())-

When they came back to Legolas again, Aragorn's heart quailed to see him. Legolas had worked himself into the paltry shelter the beech bowl offered, pressing his back to the silvered trunk and keeping very still, a vulnerable hunting cat striving to go unnoticed. His frame held the tense quiver of such a creature driven too hard into the barest threads of his strength, stranded in a pit and surrounded by foes from whom he could not escape.

But his eyes … Legolas clearly fought to focus them. Even just keeping them open was taking more effort than it should, but the struggle was like watching two candles gutter and pitch against a gale. Their shard-like edge was gone, dulled down by constant pain and consuming weariness, and the healer in Aragorn recognised the bare truth of what he was seeing.

Yet, despite the clarity of his discomfort, Legolas still managed to fix Aragorn with a disbelieving look as the ranger set his pack down and started to clear leaves to make a fire well.

"What are you doing?"

"You need a healer. We go no further until you are tended."

Aragorn could feel Legolas' stare burning at the top of his head as he constructed his fire, but he would not bend to it. A battle of wills was brewing, a battle he had fought many times before. Granted, Legolas often won, but Aragorn would not allow it, not this time. Tinder was plentiful, and before long, he had a small yet strong fire snapping away at the dry sticks and hunks of old wood with all the avarice of a dog worrying scrap bones. Still refusing Legolas so much as a glance, Aragorn set his tins at the edge of the flames, carefully selecting various dried leaves and herb pouches from his pack and emptying the skins over them.

"A merry dance you've lead us on, Elf," Gimli admonished as he dumped himself unceremoniously beside Aragorn's fire, though the comment was softened with affection.

Legolas cocked his head at the remark, but had no answer it. His focus was with Aragorn alone. "But what of the perianath?"

"We will pursue them when you are treated."

Legolas snorted disparagingly. "Then we will be too late," he said bitterly. "Leave me here."

"No."

"Aragorn, I am telling you: leave me here!"

"I have said no, Legolas, and let that be an end to it." The authority he heard in Aragorn's tone was old. It made Legolas fall into silence, and he was back in his grandfather's library three millennia ago, being reprimanded like a child in front of the lords of the Alliance. When Aragorn did lift his eyes to his, anger swirled their silver depths with a darker shade.

"Do not dare ask that of me again, Legolas. Do not dare: I thought I had lost you before, and I will not lose you again to some absurd request." The ranger turned those angered eyes to his pack as his hands deftly sifted for something-

"So you will let the Fellowship fail?" Legolas bit back acidly, finding strength in his own mounting anger to fling the words at his friend. "For my sake, you will betray everything we have fought for?"

Aragorn stopped. He fixed Legolas with an unwavering stare, unfazed by the glare being thrown back at him in return. It was a look he had endured before, and it was testament to Legolas' waning strength that it was nothing more than a faded shadow of its usual power. "There is a brooch at your throat. There have only ever been eight people to wear them, and seven living wear them still. Whether you like it or not, Legolas, yours is identical to those of the perianath. Do not try to tell me of my duty when you are as much a part of it as they are."

"But I cannot do what you ask, Aragorn!" The words came close to a wail, a switch of emotion from the mask of anger to the despair beneath. "I cannot -" Legolas gasped when the agony in his side peaked at his heightened agitation. A steadying hand pressed against his chest, pinning him against the support of the tree.

"Calm down, lad!" Gimli. He had all but forgotten Gimli's presence…

His world was closing on him, binding him to all the hurts his body suffered. The elves despised weakness, and Legolas was no exception. But he was the embodiment of it now: he could not move without hurt, and no matter how strong his will, he had not the strength even to rise. And now the others were tying themselves to him willingly, as tightly as he was bound to the earth. Frustration clawed its way from Legolas' throat in a dark and guttural cry that further exacerbated his wound.

"Legolas." Aragorn's voice, riding over Legolas' frustration and pain, empty of any trace of anger but full of the steadiness and strength that was so typical of him. "I will not abandon the perianath, but I will not leave you behind. I will treat your wounds and do whatever is necessary to see that you are well. If needs be, I will carry you to the far corners of Arda myself. Is that clear?"

Legolas clenched his jaw and looked away, weary and forlorn. There was not enough left of him to hold his resolve against such an unmoving wall of determination. He would not grace Aragorn with so much as a glance, but his head dipped once in acquiescence.

"Good." Aragorn smiled, inwardly sagging with relief. "That is good. Now. Let me see your arm."

Aragorn did not like the angle of Legolas' hand as he cradled it against his stomach. He knew the problem was not with the hand itself, but with the forearm. It must be reset, and immediately: elves healed too fast to allow for hesitancy, and if Legolas wished to pull a bow again, it had to be done there and then. Legolas stiffened, but did not resist him as Aragorn gently lifted his arm from his protective hold, nor did he move when he carefully started to remove the archer's brace.

"Where is your quiver, Legolas?" he asked quietly, dropping the tie from the hooks and allowing the supple leather wrap to open of its own accord. Aragorn carefully discarded the brace. His healer's hands could feel the snapped bones within the vividly bruised and inflamed flesh. He felt the angle of the breaks, the sharpness of the splintered ends. Putting them back into place would require great care to get it right on the first attempt, and by the Valar, it was going to hurt. A low rumble of fury that even an orc could do such a thing to another living creature heated his blood, and he knew a thin moment of justice that he had been the one to relieve the damnable filth of his life.

"An archer without a bow is less than useless," Legolas stated succinctly, taking great care to not look at what Aragorn did. "What good is a quiver with nothing to hold? No bow, no arrows. I lost -" The sentence snapped and Legolas did not try to pick it up again. He kept his head aside, carefully avoiding his companions and taking a shaking breath.

The ranger did not speak as he drew the twin knives from the back of his belt and laid them carefully beside their owner's thigh. The soft music of steel to steel as they settled against one another was the only declaration of their presence, a pair of loyal returning hounds nudging their master's hands. We are here, we are one.

Legolas stilled. He did not breathe. Even the angry throb of his injured arm stopped a moment in Aragorn's single hold. When he turned his head slowly to look at them, his face was fearful, frightened by the appearance of what he thought to be impossible. Still he did not move, but an ache of shattered hope changed his eyes. It was not what Aragorn had expected. Legolas looked more broken in that moment than Aragorn had ever thought possible of him. Finally the elf shook his head. "No … this is some cruel deception. This is an evil dream."

Aragorn smiled. "There is no deception here, my friend," he said gently. "They are real."

There was not a single occasion Aragorn could remember when Legolas had ever called the knives his own. They were always "Baerahir's knives", "my brother's knives". They were never his, never Legolas'. Even after three thousand years, Legolas had not let go of his grief for his brother. These two blades, identical to the last detail, were love and death. They were beautiful and terrible, the final vestige of his brother that remained to him. Aragorn could not imagine Legolas' pain when he discovered their loss, but he saw something of it now as the open tears tracked through the dirt and blood, reaching over with his other hand to brush trembling fingertips over the bone hilt of one knife.

A sob ripped from him, coloured bright by an incredulous laugh, but Legolas was not shamed by it. "Estel…" His head shook in disbelief. "They were gone, and I…" Shaking fingers enveloped a hilt. The weight, the age-old smoothness under his skin, the colder starkness of the filigree against the relative warmth of the bone … they were the same as the last time he had wielded them. Nothing had changed for them, yet so much had for him. They had seen so much during their lifetime, so very much, and he could not help but wonder what they had witnessed during their time away from his keeping. Where had they been, when they were between his possession and his friend's belt?

"Where did you find them?" By the river somewhere, was all Legolas could imagine. His quiver had been so badly mauled by the river's harsh treatment that it had become irreparably disfigured, and he had given it to the water. Legolas had to acknowledge that he probably owed it his life: whichever boulder had broken his shoulder would have shattered his back instead had it not been for the gift of the Lady. But it had not saved Baerahir's knives, and that was a failure he could not forgive.

A shadow passed over Aragorn's eyes, and something changed in the set of his mouth. "Worry not of that for the moment." Legolas frowned at the darker tinge he sensed to Aragorn's mood and looked at the blade in his hand anew. Something had happened, something with the knives, and whatever it was had affected him deeply. It was like there was a scar there, harsh and new, and Aragorn was trying to hide it, very much in the same way Legolas himself had for so long. "Estel?"

The ranger smiled at him, a cover that quaked and trembled as it tried to reach into his eyes. "Later, Legolas. Now if you don't mind, I'd ask you to put that down," Aragorn requested with wry a grin. "I know your reflexes, and I'd hoped for a death a bit more glorious than being gutted trying to reset a broken arm."

There was no immediate acceptance of the request, and Aragorn thought for a moment that Legolas would deny it, but he reluctantly lowered the knife to join its twin. Without needing to be asked, Gimli manoeuvred himself behind Legolas' left shoulder and gripped it in a double hold, pinning him against the tree and flatly ignoring the narrowed eyes glaring at him. "Think yourself lucky, Elf," Gimli commented dryly. "Were you a horse, you'd be going in a stew."

The remark was just enough to distract the archer from looking at what Aragorn was doing. There was enough pride left in him to bristle with indignation at Gimli's black humour as the dwarf smirked into his beard. "Perhaps I should break your arm, and see how lucky you feel."

"Gentlemen, please," Aragorn reprimanded distractedly. He supported the arm with one hand and ran the other carefully over the angered flesh once more. If this was not done right, the consequences would be dire. He detected the separate breaks again, assessing the levels of pressure and angling required to re-align the two pieces. Settling on a course of action, Aragorn lifted his eyes to Legolas, and discovered he was being watched intently. "Are you ready?"

Legolas narrowed his eyes. "Are you?"

Aragorn sighed with exasperation. "That is not an answer."

"Did you count that as a question?"

The ranger shook his head to himself. "If I ever hear a straight answer from you, I will think I've lost my mind." He consciously shifted his perspective from the worried friend to the controlled healer, a man who caused pain through necessity and possessed the skill to turn deaf when needed.

The afternoon was starting to wax. The peppery scents of leaves and damp earth were taking on the spicier edge of a forest coming to night. Despite the destruction that lay beneath the towering eaves, it was as though the forest was already recovering from the violence that had occurred within it, as some of the birds eventually decided it was safe enough to edge from hiding and sing their threats to the cooling air. Aragorn drew a sense of peace from it and centred himself as he positioned his hands, pausing to check his grip above and below the splintered ends - and pulled.

The cry that shredded the peace scattered the few brave birds in a chorus of alarmed shrieks. Legolas jolted back against Gimli's hold so violently the dwarf was almost shunted off balance. Unlike Gimli, Aragorn had been expecting such a reaction. He moved with him, maintaining his tight grasp above the break and refusing to release his hold as he tried to manoeuver the broken ends within. The contracted muscles surrounding the bones were nearly enough to completely hinder what he did, but with a deft twist, he heard the grinding of broken ends coming together over the stream of Sindarin curses.

Aragorn merely raised a brow at the strength of Legolas' continuing coarse language as he ran his hands once more over the arm, assessing his work carefully. Only when he deemed the bones properly aligned did he use the last of the same salve used on Merry's throat in an attempt to sooth the pain and inflammation. The brace was tied back in place and overlapped with its fellow: the leather was soft and old, but the support it offered would be enough for now.

"Well," said Gimli. "I have to say, I had no idea you had such a shining vocabulary, lad! What was that last one again? Ūnc-"

"Never mind that," Aragorn cut in, not really wanting Gimli to know exactly what he had just been called. "How does your arm feel, Legolas?"

"Like you've broken it again," was the short reply. Legolas reclaimed his limb and cradled it protectively from the threat of Aragorn's further interference. "I'd hoped you might become gentler with age."

This was an old exchange. The number of times they had reset each other's broken limbs was beyond the memories of both of them, but Legolas grew no less resentful each time … or any more grateful. "If you would stop breaking your arms, Elf, there would not be an issue," Aragorn returned.

Legolas snorted and leaned his head back into his tree, a ghost of a grin twitching his lips. "So says the healer, who's perfect hide I've had to salvage more times than I care to recall."

The gentle biting was good for both of them, a distraction from the awfulness that awaited … but as Legolas fell quiet and shut his eyes, a pained frown dipping his brow as he tried to draw deliberate and steadying breaths, Aragorn knew they could tarry no longer. The multiple water tins were steaming to a satisfactory level now, more ready to do their work than Aragorn would ever be. He spread his own cloak on the ground, sorting various pots from his pack onto its dry expanse.

Aragorn's fingers brushed against a small phial as he reached for a pouch of dried athelas in his pack. His hand paused in a moment of indecision … broken bones hurt, but what Legolas was about to endure would make resetting his arm seem a trivial thing. The level of the pain relief contained in that phial was high, and certainly strong enough to help against even Legolas' pain. But such powerful medicines did not come without a price, and Aragorn feared that Legolas did not possess the strength to withstand the side-effects.

"I need you to lie on your right."

Legolas opened his eyes at Aragorn's voice and looked briefly confused, as though he had no recollection of closing them. "You want me to lie on my broken shoulder?"

"On your-? Valar preserve me!" Aragorn exclaimed with more than a touch of exasperation. "You never said anything about a broken shoulder!"

"To what purpose?" Legolas demanded snappily, his mood turning on a knife tip. "There is nothing to be done for it, so why bother?"

"Because had I known," said Aragorn with forced patience, unfazed by Legolas' cantankerous attitude, "I would have been less liberal with the salve!" He shook his head openly at Legolas' foolishness and fetched one of his tins from the fireside, checking the colour before pouring the fragrant contents into a skin and presenting it to his friend. "Drink this."

Legolas gave the skin a flat look. "I don't want it."

"Do not be facetious. You don't even know what it is."

"Which is precisely why I don't want it."

Aragorn resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Ribwort and staunchweed tea with a bit of honey, nothing more sinister than that. The herbs are good for bleeding, and the honey complies with your sweet tooth. You at least agree with the honey, yes?"

The archer looked unhappy about it, but he accepted the brew all the same and drank, grimacing at the protests of his abused throat. Those first swallows, though pained, clearly reminded his body that he had not drunk for too long, and the skin was drained before he could think about the heat of the liquid. No sooner had he dropped his hand then the flask was removed from his lax grip, and it was with no small measure of dread that Aragorn slipped one hand under Legolas' arm and the other under his legs-

Legolas tensed.

Aragorn stopped, knowing the height of his own trepidation and understanding that it could be little more than a shadow compared to what Legolas must feel. In the end, it was of no consequence how they felt towards the eventuality: if Legolas was to survive, it had to happen. "Legolas," Aragorn implored. "Saes, mellon nin." Trust me enough to do this.

For a long moment, the tension under Aragorn's hands remained … but eventually, reluctantly, Legolas sagged at his friend's plea. Much had passed between them over the years, but never before had Legolas so completely laid his pride aside at anyone's request, and for Aragorn, that was humbling. Legolas refused to look at either of his companions as the ranger manoeuvred his body into the required position, clearly shamed that even this, the simplest of tasks, was completely beyond him. Pain flared in his eyes at the movement, but he refused to give it voice.

The bole of the beech was deep and cupped, massive supporting roots offering their embrace like loving arms, and it was this structure that leant itself to Aragorn's purpose. Legolas' head was supported enough by one extension of live wood, his back pressing into the deep curve. It offered support, and it provided a trap.

Awkwardness was not a sensation Gimli was used to. He hovered, his hands floating near Legolas' shoulders in a suspended desire to help, but he did not venture to touch him. He himself was a proud creature, and he understood that he had just borne witness to the rarest of things. It surprised him to find that the respect he held for the archer was so high. On an equal level, it amazed him how saddening he found seeing Legolas in such a vulnerable state. The fire of his spirit was so clearly dampened that even the anger that could rip from him was vastly preferable to this. "We could get you drunk," Gimli ventured.

Legolas kept his eyes straight over the forest floor with its mess of orcish corpses. "There is not enough drink in the whole of Arda to deaden this to me," Legolas said tightly.

Gimli inwardly flinched at the implication of his friend's words, but kept it shielded from Legolas' awareness. "I have some rather fine blackberry brandy I might let you have."

"I do not think a tot of brandy will have the desired effect, Gimli," Aragorn remarked through his concentration as he cooled the contents of one of his water tins.

Gimli huffed in prideful disbelief. "Trust me when I say, Aragorn, that this is no elven maid's flowery wine. This is Gravlatt, distilled in the caverns of my home. The very finest of our drinks and a traditional accompaniment to the celebration of the greatest triumphs. Many a victory has been toasted with a swig of this, and many a tooth pulled with a bottle." His chest puffed at his hereditary claim. "No elf can drink this and keep his senses."

It was Aragorn's turn to snort as he banked clean leaves into Legolas' stomach. "Clearly, you have never tried to out-drink an elf before."

Legolas' lips tipped, just a fraction. "Aragorn can tell you what happens when mortals try to out-drink elves." There was a dance of teasing mirth in Legolas' quiet tone, a whisper of his better self, and though Aragorn growled at the mischievous reference, he felt a secret swell of gratitude that Legolas should feel well enough to quip at his burned pride.

"Blast soot!" Gimli scoffed. "I call that a challenge, Elf, and I accept."

Amusement peppered Legolas' reply. "Very well, Dwarf: if you wish to be humiliated, then so be it." But Legolas fell silent when he felt the material at his side shift. It tugged against his skin, it was stuck to him, and Legolas receded into himself, focusing his attention across the forest again…

Aragorn cursed under his breath at his discovery: the mess that was Legolas' jerkin and shirt was completely saturated with blood both fresh and old, and had sealed to wound and skin when the blood had dried. He trickled the water over it, watching the stiffened fabrics painfully slowly swell and lift -

Fire, Aragorn was pouring fire over him. There was nothing he could do to restrain the strangled gasp as his body went rigid, fingers gouging into the earth in a futile effort to dissipate the pain. The need to escape surged through him and he tried to rise –

"Easy, lad, easy," Gimli soothed, placing what he could only hope was a comforting hand on the elf's shoulder. "Steady now."

When the cloth finally relented its merciless grip, the sight that met Aragorn's eyes made his heart quail, and even Gimli, stalwart as he was, could not help but blanch. The ranger sighed, shaking his head with despair. "Ai, Legolas. What have you done to yourself?"