Just a quick note to say many thanks, as always, to everyone who has taken the time to review the story so far. Thank you for your support; it's nice to hear those coins clinking in that old hat! My very special thanks goes - again - to Myselfonly, who so very kindly took the time to read through this chapter for me, despite the fact that I kind of launched it on her. Any mistakes in here are of my making.

Enjoy, and kindly take a moment to tell me what you think!

Chapter Sixteen: The Bonds We Make

He was barely tall enough to reach his guardian's elbow without stretching, but Elrond had deemed him old enough for his education to begin. He ensured his diminutive pupil accompanied him on all healing matters, from understanding herbs with their healing properties and potential dangers, to treating those in the greatest of need. He saw much from such an early age, but he took each of Elrond's lessons to heart and tried to learn to distance himself from their pain as instructed. Yet of all his tutoring, of hours poring over intimidating tomes of herb lore and absorbing the limitless volumes of information passed from teacher to pupil, that was the one thing he struggled most to master.

Empathy. Both a beautiful strength and a crippling weakness.

Each of them marked him in their own way … but there was one that he knew he would never forget: a hunter, lying prone on the white linen of the bed, sweating and hurting. And there was such a lot of blood. He just lay there, alarmingly still and grey like one of Lady Celebrían's statues. His leg had been badly gored by a boar he had disturbed, and though his companions had been on hand, it was long before they managed to get him home. It was a vicious wound, the flesh torn and discoloured. There was blood and sickness, and a smell that anchored itself in Aragorn's memory.

"Watch," the Lord of Imladris instructed with his matter-of-fact disengaged authority, as he tied a slip knot above the heavily-bleeding injury. "Look into the wound, Estel. See what happens to the blood flow when the cord is tightened -" he did so. The hunter screamed and Aragorn shied as the sound tore through the very quick of him. The horror of it, the sheer awfulness of such overwhelming pain, was more than he could stand. But Elrond did not accept such weakness. "Do not recoil, Estel! They need your strength when they have none left themselves. Never let them down!"

-(())-

Legolas' side was a mess. His entire flank was stained an awful matt rust, streaked with bright crimson that glimmered wetly in the late afternoon light. Their foes had not even tried to grant him the honour of a clean death: the wound inflicted by the Nazgûl sword was a long and jagged laceration, more tear than anything else, and it ran deep into his side, cleaving through his two lowest ribs to just above his hip. It was more like some loathsome creature had tried to rip him in half.

And it was not healing. The Eldar healed quicker than all other races … but this was not knitting at all. It oozed thick blood from its awful depths and showed no signs of coming together. The cuts and abrasions to Legolas' face should be nothing more than dark marks to his skin within a day, and completely gone within a week. Even his fractured arm and shoulder should be healed soon. But this, his most serious hurt, was not mending.

There was nothing about this that Aragorn could avoid: this was his fault. Legolas was paying heavily for his mistake, and there was no escaping that bare truth. This was the physical form in which his failure chose to manifest itself, hacked into his friend's side like some grotesque effort at a mouth, grinning triumphantly at him as it forced him to watch his dearest friend suffer.

The blood loss was greater than any healer would be comfortable with, and the beginnings of a fever stirred deep in the barely concealed misery of Legolas' eyes, triggered by the infection seeping through his veins. They could fight it together, they could rail against it and storm and fight … but they were little more than moths flinging themselves at the walls of a glass jar. Whatever Aragorn did for Legolas now was likely to be too little for him to make a difference. Legolas' outward demeanour of strength was faltering, the real fear he harboured setting a shadow in his eyes that no smile or quip could banish.

And Aragorn was terrified for him.

"I am sorry, Estel." Thin and too quiet, a wisp of smoke compared to the fire of mere minutes ago.

Something crumbled in Aragorn's chest. He had allowed his own pain to show and provoke a sense of guilt in his friend, guilt that he did not deserve and had not the strength to carry. He damned himself harshly for his own weakness, for adding to Legolas' pain when his burden was already so very high.

Never let them down.

"It is I who am sorry, Legolas. You never deserved this." Aragorn cast Legolas the most fleeting of smiles in an attempt to dissipate the damage he had done, resetting his own walls and carefully re-applying the healer's mask he should never have let slip. You never deserved this. Anger roiled and seethed through him, but his healer's hands were steady as he busied himself with steeping the first cloth in athelas water, hiding himself behind the task and allowing the clean scent to wash over his rage and push it aside to deal with later. Aragorn stole a glance at Legolas' face. The pain lines about his eyes were tight, but Legolas' focus was entirely beyond everything around him, staring hard into some place invisible to the man and dwarf. Before he could even begin to look at the wound properly, the surrounding skin must be cleansed. Aragorn raised the cloth…

"It was necessary."

The unexpected statement arrested his attention. Water streamed vocally back into the tin of its own volition from the suspended cloth, playing and laughing in the thrown silence. "Necessary?"

When Legolas looked to Aragorn, the shrewd logic with which he judged his own actions was clear in the set of his eyes. "Me, or Frodo and the Ring."

Legolas' eyes flitted to the cloth in Aragorn's hand with a pulse of fearful apprehension, a wounded bird eyeing a snake … but he could not stand to watch as it neared his skin. Not since he had awoken by the river had Legolas looked at what had been done to him, and he could not stomach the notion of seeing it now. And as the cloth made careful contact, he could not help stiffening at the discomfort it elevated in his inflamed flesh. The water was only warm and his burning skin barely noticed, but the soft fibres of the cloth were entirely too harsh, the careful pressure as the grime was steadily cleansed away far too much.

Push it away.

"As amusing as I'd find watching a dwarf try to leap a ravine, the idea was not wholly practical at the time." There was a new rigidity to his voice, but he did his best to ignore it, just as he did his best to ignore the discomfort of Aragorn's ministrations.

"Hmph." Their dwarven companion adopted a feigned indignant air, raising his head archly. "And to think I nearly missed you."

"That does not stop me wishing you'd never done it," Aragorn rejoined, blanking Legolas' effort at making light of his situation.

Legolas lowered his head back to the tree root. Aragorn quietly noted the effort such a simple action took. "Then I'll find an easier way to die, if it suits."

Aragorn's hand froze. The memory flared across his mind before he could think to rein it in, and Aragorn found himself standing again on the brink of that crumbling precipice, the savage sense of utter helplessness as he was forced to watch the cursed servants of the Dark Lord tear into one he regarded closer than a brother strangling his heart. He heard that awful scream, just as he knew he would always hear it … and Aragorn saw too clearly that final look of sheer terror on Legolas' face as he was swallowed by the earth's greed and flung into the raging waters below. It was an image scratched into his memory that no span of time could ever fade. He was helpless again, stripped bare of his strength and abandoned to the cold of grief…

"You shouldn't mock, Legolas."

The pain that registered in Aragorn's voice jarred Legolas' humour, and he knew the severity of his error immediately … but sometimes, immediately is not soon enough, and that was all too clear when Aragorn rose, wringing out his cloth and leaving it on his spread cloak, stained beyond recognition and abandoned. Without a word, he took up the empty water skins and made for the river. "We need more water."

"Estel, saes…"

But Aragorn did not pause at Legolas' appeal and disappeared, swallowed by the sneaking darkness being ushered all the faster by the towering trees.

"Estel!"

Legolas pushed himself up –

Pain bolted through both side and shoulder. The world spun nauseatingly and his vision blackened with the surges of agony that followed, and he was only dimly aware of being pinned against the tree by a strong hand.

When his senses edged back to their faded clarity, Legolas noticed that Gimli was now right in front of him. The dwarf released a weary sigh, shaking his head heavily at his elven companion as he shuffled a touch closer, all the better to thwart any further foolish attempts, Legolas supposed.

"Eh Legolas, lad; I'd have thought that at least a little sensitivity might have penetrated that foolish kurnheim of yours in three thousand years."

Legolas threw a searing glare at the dwarf, but the expression soon collapsed, and he pulled his eyes away to stare skyward with a weighted sigh. He did not have the strength of will nor the heart to focus his anger at his own actions undeservedly on Gimli. The partial face of the early moon peered through the turning leaves above his head, as though curious to ascertain what he was doing there, flush to the bole of a tree like a cornered rabbit. The great orb of light disappeared behind a veil of cloud, bored of such a meaningless and tiny creature so far away. He shook his head at himself in unwitting imitation of Gimli's sad disapproval. "I did not mean anything by it."

"I know you didn't," Gimli said with his own troubled sigh. He fished out his pipe and stuffed it, a habit of difficult times and boredom … but he remembered whose company he was keeping, and packed it away again with a huff. "I'll tell you, Elf," he said, levelling his finger at Legolas. "I've never seen a man fight with grief that strong before, and I honestly thought it was going to be the undoing of him." He paused, listening carefully to the silence, before: "He never gave up on you, you know. Even when we thought you were dead. He never let himself believe you were truly gone."

Legolas regarded Gimli for a time with that penetrating elven stare. It was a softer version of what he had been subjected to before, when elf and dwarf cared not at all for each other and did their level best to be as irksome as possible. "Did you?"

Gimli fell pensive at the quiet question. He did not like his answer when he gave it, and it stunned him to realise he hated himself for it. "Aye, Elf. I did."

He expected anger, the slow burning fury of hurt and betrayal followed by a swift return to their previous condition of traditional loathing. Slight an elf, his father had warned him, and expect it to be returned to you tenfold.

Instead, Legolas closed his eyes again, losing his fight to keep them open.

"I do not hold it against you."

Shock pushed his brows high, and he was almost glad that Legolas had closed his eyes again. Relief flooded through him, and he was stunned by how much the elf had come to mean to him, that his friendship was of such value. When Legolas looked to him again, Gimli just managed to collect himself enough to wipe his face of his pleased surprise … though despite his best efforts, the amused and knowing smile the elf bestowed on him was just a little affectionate, touching his dimmed eyes with a lick of lost brightness.

"I owe you thanks."

Confusion. "For what?"

Legolas shifted a little, only to wince with discomfort and have the pain banish the smile away. His face had a greyness to it that was nothing to do with the waxing daylight, the dark surrounding his eyes overwhelming whatever brilliance might have remained to them and casting them dull. The dwarf found it unfathomably sad.

"For staying with him. Thank you."

An elf thanking a dwarf? Either I've got at the Gravlatt and not remembered, or he is delusional. But Gimli had to acknowledge to himself that neither instance was the case. It was an open offering to him, one that did not pass between their people often, and he accepted it willingly. "Yes. Well -" he cleared his throat, feeling the taunting feather of embarrassment touch his cheeks. Gimli recalled the original purpose of their conversation and gave himself a mental shake. "The point is, he never gave up on you. Do not give up on him."

A frown dipped Legolas' abused brow. "I would never give up on Aragorn."

"Perhaps. But you would give up on yourself, and that is the same thing."

Before Legolas could make his reply, the quiet yet sure footfall of a man reached his ears and he fell silent, watching the encroaching darkness for Aragorn's return. When the man did eventually emerge, he gave Legolas nothing more than a heavy look before returning his eyes to his path. Aragorn said nothing as he set the fresh water to heat, tipping the remnants of his dried athelas into the tins, and he kept his silence as took up a fresh cloth…

"Estel-"

"It is fine, Legolas," Aragorn cut in as he resumed his task. "Now be still."

No element of their situation was fine, and the crushed feeling in his chest elevated at Aragorn's flat refusal to listen to his pleas for forgiveness. Legolas also understood that "be still" and "shut up" fell under the same category, and he silently complied as Aragorn commenced with his seemingly endless cleansing.

It took two further tins of water and five cloths before Aragorn was satisfied with his work. Not that what his efforts revealed from under the layers of blood eased his mind… Vivid bruising spanned out from Legolas' broken ribs, dark blights contrasting against the angered red of the flesh surrounding the wound. And now that the skin was clean, Aragorn's attention was honed completely on the enormity of the most serious problem…

Once before, many, many years ago, Aragorn had encountered a wound similar in quality to this: the means of infliction were very different, but there were elements that were strikingly familiar … the ripped quality of the tormented flesh, the darkness of infection, the sheer intensity of heat … even the smell that battled so strongly with the purity of the athelas. Without its frame of old blood, the wound looked all the more horrific, stark in its darkness against the aggressive red of the surrounding flesh.

There was no doubt in Aragorn's mind that Legolas' blood was poisoned by infection, and it was that threat that played Aragorn's fear more than anything else. Legolas had battled against the pain and mounting weakness wrought by his hurt for a long time. How he had managed to push himself this far, on his own, was beyond Aragorn's comprehension … but he feared the archer had pushed too far to combat the infection. Try as he might to ignore it, Aragorn could see it in his eyes: his cool calm and enduring strength were gone. There was only uncertainty and a deep fear that threatened to spill with the oncoming flood of agony.

Without a word, Aragorn took up Legolas' uninjured wrist. He could feel the elf's pulse flying under his touch, distant and too fast like a swallow caught in a gale. He had hoped that what he would find would be stronger, solid and vibrant despite the wrongs inflicted on him, a true reflection of the Legolas they knew and loved. But this erratic beat was no more than a struggling memory. To give him the poppy milk he truly needed to combat the pain now could be enough to kill him.

"Estel… Estel, im gosta."

Legolas was not a stranger to fear … Aragorn had witnessed it ghost through his eyes in the moment of silence before battle, only to see his courage seize it and bend it into something he could use. It strengthened him. But looking into his eyes now, it was courage that struggled for solid ground, and Aragorn could not fault him for it. His grip changed from the checking hold of a healer to the reassuring tenderness of a friend, and he offered Legolas a wavering smile that he knew did not touch the sadness in his eyes. "I know."

The very best the ranger could do for his friend now was make sure the intensity of suffering he was to deliver was over as soon as possible, and to do that he needed everything prepared and immediately at hand…

"I have visited apothecaries with fewer jars," Gimli remarked, his own tension ringing in his voice.

Aragorn did not reply, his attention fully focused on what he did as he sifted through the various pots and vials laid out on his cloak, discarding some back into his pack with a deft flick of his wrist. Those deemed useful were relieved of their stoppers, their contents quickly inspected and selected from their clay depths.

Gimli was intrigued by the wet flaps of preserved leaves, glistening thickly with oil as they slapped into the small mortar. Some he recognised – he knew the narrow and fibrous leaves of ribwort plantain, and the delicate white flower clusters of yarrow – but the majority of the others were beyond his knowledge, and he could only watch with fascination as the ranger measured the ingredients with a depth of knowledge that seemed to come as second nature. Aragorn plucked a stem of athelas from one of his heated tins and stripped the hot leaves down with finger and thumb. Finally a measure of solid honey from the last pot, and he took up the waiting pestle and pounded down on the contents, churning and grinding everything into a bitter-smelling paste.

Deeming his poultice done, Aragorn reached for Legolas' hand. It was cooler than he recalled. Whether it was through pain or exhaustion or fear that it trembled, the ranger did not know. He gave it a firm squeeze, willing his own strength to reach his friend and hold him steady. You are not alone. Not anymore.

"Gar bellas, gwador nin." The only response he received was a weak return of their shared grip before Legolas pulled his hand away, lighting his fingertips on the rough silvered skin of the tree root. Legolas fixed his eyes across the forest again, and though clear fear resonated through their hard blue focus, his jaw was firm.

Aragorn looked to his reluctant accomplice. The dread in the dwarf's beetling eyes was not completely obscured by those bushy brows, but he dipped his head to Aragorn nonetheless: he might not be prepared, but he was as ready as he could ever be.

The healer is deaf, Aragorn recited to himself. The healer is strong. The tools he would use were spread out on his cloak waiting for him, but he could barely stand to look at them. With a steadying breath, he picked the first one up, the clean cold of the steel handle icy to his touch. Have strength. Gar bellas…

Ai, Legolas… Aragorn would have shaken his head with sad despair, save he dared not do something so drastic for fear of his knife slipping. The lengthy wound before him was riddled with fragments of stone and dirt. So many tiny particles that must be removed. Carefully, methodically, Aragorn caught up the tiny pieces of stone…

Legolas' nails scarred the silver bark when they gouged into it, completely heedless of how they themselves tore. The sudden and pure agony rent through his side and ripped into the rest of him with the savagery of a crazed wolf. Some small and distant part of him told him he should be still, that this was necessary and unavoidable, and he could hear a gruff voice near him reiterating those sentiments in a constant rolling timbre. Hands restrained his shoulders, firm and unyielding.

Gar bellas, gar bellas, gar bellas…

And he thought that he could … he would do this, not for himself, but for Aragorn, because Aragorn had asked it of him.

Gar bellas, gar bellas, gar -

But when the scraping started inside him, Legolas' thin control was lost. It was not even pain anymore. He was being flayed into pieces and scattered wide over black flames -

A sharp glint beneath Legolas' fractured ribs caught Aragorn's eye, black and angular, and when he properly looked at it he felt his face drain -

Something drove hard into Aragorn's back and flung him sideways. His knee skimmed the earth as he only just succeeded in catching his balance, and he all but threw himself back to his friend's side, pressing down into the elf's ribs with a bloodied hand as Legolas bucked and strained. He could do nothing but watchwith horror as blood swelled to fill Legolas' wound, a dangerously deep pool … and when he searched frantically for the shard, it was swallowed from his sight.

Eru, no!

"Stille nu, Legolas, an ngell nîn!" But Legolas was deaf to Aragorn's plea, the power of his torment driving reason out and investing everything he had left into fighting to escape. Aragorn shunted his weight onto his hip and against Legolas' thighs, pitching his strength into pinning him to the solidity of the tree. It was not enough. "Gimli - hold him!"

"I'm trying!"

The dwarf shifted one hand down to the elf's chest and kept the other to his shoulder and leaned his full weight into him. Legolas fought, his eyes wild and teeth bared in a fierce grimace, but he was not strong enough to throw their combined hold.

Gimli was a hardened warrior. He had seen much of pain in war, but never had he been required to be so close to it. Never had he held a companion down as they tried to flee from inescapable agony, and never had he felt a heart so desperate for release under his hand. Never had he forced anyone to endure such awfulness. "What fuss over a little scratch, eh?" Gimli said, trying to distract the elf from the fight he still insisted on putting himself through. Even to him, his voice sounded a lost and powerless thing, and it did not surprise him that Legolas failed to rise to the bait.

Aragorn knew this was not good enough. The frantic desperation of Legolas' pain was too great for him and Gimli to counter with strength alone. He knew too well what he had seen, and the fact that it had disappeared from his sight instilled more terror in his heart than the darkest servants of Sauron ever could. If Legolas fought against them with such a violent burst of power again, there was no doubt in his mind that the thing would kill him.

Daring to trust in Gimli enough to relinquish his own pinning hold on Legolas' chest, Aragorn thrust a bloodied hand into his pack and retrieved a small muslin parcel. One handed, he dripped three drops of pure alcohol into the cloth, and pressed it over Legolas' mouth and nose without pause. Alarm flared in the elf's eyes and he tried to pull his head away, but the heavy panting induced by his fit of blind panic forced him to inhale the vapours. His erratic breathing stalled and juddered into a steadier, calmer rhythm, and his bid to throw his companions ebbed away into nothing more than trembling tension.

Gimli could not deny the feeling of selfish gratitude when the elf finally ceased his struggle … but he did not understand when Aragorn removed the parcel and set it aside. "But … he's still awake," he observed uncertainly.

Aragorn made no answer. He enveloped Legolas' wrist in a gentle hold, pressing his fingertips into his pulse point again. And he started to talk, soft and low, in that nonsensical language he and the elf shared. Whatever it was Aragorn was saying to him, Legolas seemed to hear his words as he had not heard Gimli's, and though he made no reply, the panicked fear in his eyes quietened. The quaking of his tense body lessened under Gimli's touch to a faint quiver, his heartbeat calming to something a little less frightening. Even Gimli - who spoke very little Sindarin and understood even less – felt his own distress lessen.

His sense of ease did not remain for long. Aragorn lifted his eyes from their failing companion and fixed Gimli with a sad look, shaking his head meaningfully. The healer did not intend for his patient to sleep, and Gimli did not understand why … but the grave weight in his eyes suggested there was strong reasoning behind his decision. There was such ageless power in that silver gaze that Gimli could not escape it, and for a moment, he seemed more elf than man.

"Gimli, I need you to listen to me," Aragorn commanded tightly. "There is something..." His sentence stalled and his jaw clenched. "You must hold him down. No matter what. Understand?"

Gimli blanched, but gave his companion a clipped nod, and watched, appalled, as Aragorn brought a pair of pincers and a small blade to hand -

Though whatever Aragorn had administered stopped Legolas fighting, the muscle under Gimli's hold became stressed to the point of tearing when Aragorn took the knife to his side… and Gimli's heart could do naught but quail in horror when Legolas released a terrible and keening cry, low at first but building, until it became a raw scream of unbridled agony.

Sweat seeped from Aragorn's brow into his eyes. He wiped it away on his shoulder, only grateful that his heightened terror at what he did expressed itself in that form rather than shaking his hand. The incision he created was as small as he could make it between the broken ribs, and he acted as fast as he dared, but it was like the damnable thing he chased through his friend's body knew it was being hunted. Clean blood blocked his view as he slipped the blade through healthy flesh, and the thing was moving at an angle up and under. It is aiming for his heart -

An open sob bucked through a new agonised cry. Tears ran the etched contours of pain in the archer's face, and Gimli felt his own eyes heat at seeing such utter misery.

"Mahal's breath, Aragorn!" Gimli exclaimed, his grief overriding his self-control. "Will you not give him something?"

The ranger shot him a fleeting glare, his eyes hard and pained. "What would you have me give him that he's not already had?" Aragorn snapped, at the edge of his nerve as he tried to carry through his work whilst listening to his dearest friend screaming with the agony inflicted by his own hands. "He's not strong enough, Gimli!"

"But this is killing him!"

"And if I give him anything stronger, he will certainly die!"

The revelation stunned him, and Gimli could do little but watch as Aragorn continued his task, his head bent to it and face obscured by a mop of hair. He shook his head numbly to himself and drew his eyes back to Legolas' face … and started when he realised he was being watched.

It was like no gaze he had ever held with anyone before. It was deeper than Aragorn's grave intensity, and more consuming than the Lady Galadriel's ancient power. Bereft of any kind of guard, Legolas' soul was laid bare to him, stripped of all his fierce pride and quiet reserve. The Legolas he knew was there, but he was dangerously adrift, trapped in a violent current that threatened to bear him away, and Gimli felt he was being looked to for some kind of anchorage. But he did not fully comprehend what that midnight stare was asking of him, pleading of him. Such overwhelming pain, and nothing he could do to help him fight it.

As quickly as Gimli had found himself pulled in, Legolas' agony broke it off, his eyes sealing tight as a fresh wave of pain stole back the glimmer of self-control it had allowed. His head bowed to it and an unrestrained and consuming cry rent itself from his throat.

"Stay strong, lad," Gimli choked out, catching up Legolas' hand in his own and gripping it tight. "You hear me, Elf? Don't you dare give in!"

Aragorn swore fervently as his hunt forced him to prise at the broken ribs themselves. If it slipped through any further, there would be nothing he could do … Legolas' reaction to the sliver of cursed sword was not the same as Frodo's had been all those months ago. He had fought the darkness emanating from the shard and turned it on his own body rather than allowing it to poison his soul. If it won, if it reached his heart, he would die. Better that than to wander the world for all eternity as one of the Damned, but Aragorn could not stand to lose him, not now, not after only just getting him back…

Then he felt it, the bite of metal on metal.

"Keep him still!" Aragorn snatched up his pincers and prised the broken ends of bone wider to open the wound and allow access under the other ribs. Legolas' cries were savaging Aragorn's resolve, and though he strained to hold strong against them, his vision blurred wetly at the cruelty of it. He wiped his eyes angrily on his shoulder and bent all his will into working the pincers through the incision he had made -

It was not there.

"No!"

He forced the pincers deeper and twisted them along the shard's course, feeling the head tear through flesh in his bid to wrest the slither of evil from taking his friend's life. He would not give in: he would stand as the last barrier between Legolas and the night and he would fight until there was nothing left of him –

Metal again. Aragorn's heart leapt to his mouth as the pincers bit down hard. He could feel the difference in the depth through the blood-slick grips, he could feel that they had something clenched in their jaws. But there was so much blood… It slathered his hands with a sickening vigour and made his hold on the grips tenuous at best as he struggled to gain better purchase. There would only be this one chance. Aragorn snatched up a clean rag and transferred the pincers into the hold of the material, feeling the blood soak into the fibres and meld with them over the slippery steel and give him the grip he needed.

Slowly, carefully, he extracted the tool and its captured prey…

Even though Aragorn had succeeded in removing it, an air of triumph pulsed from the shard and mocked them with all the depraved humour of its origins, as though it knew the height of suffering meted out thanks to its efforts. Two and a half inches long, and no more than half an inch wide, the fragment of Nazgûl blade glinted sickly in the waxing light, the dull black metal wearing Legolas' blood like a vile sheath. The thing tapered into a vicious point, so sharp it almost cut the eye to look upon it.

"That was inside him?"

Aragorn felt his head nod, distant and separated from himself. Shock marred his perception of the surrounding world for an undeterminable stretch of moments. That was inside him. The thin barrier of control Aragorn had managed to maintain ruptured, the slip of Nazgûl blade juddering before him as his hand shook violently. He dragged what felt like the first true lungful of air in an age and felt his chest heave and buck with the shock of it. Nausea writhed in the pit of his stomach as his body came to terms with what he had done, and what they had so narrowly escaped. It had come so very, very close…

Something was wrong. Seeing the shard out in the light and covered in his friend's blood had slowed Gimli's head … and when he realised, his mind raced to catch up with the alarms his senses had been clamouring for him to hear.

"Legolas? Legolas, lad?"

The forest air no longer cowed before terrible and heart-shredding screams. There was no tremble of muscle under the pressure of Gimli's still-pinning hand on Legolas' chest, and under the blood and the dirt and lines of pain his grey face was still, the deep agony in his eyes shuttered away by sealed lids. Nothing moved, save the lost meandering of a last tear tracing the contours of his nose. Gimli recalled the slender hand still held in his own. "Elf -" He clenched it until it should hurt and shook it hard, but nothing happened. "Elf!"

The shard was dropped and forgotten into the leaf mould. Aragorn shunted Gimli aside and pushed his bloodied fingers under Legolas' jaw. His hands shook for an entirely different reason as he kept his fingertips pressed into the pulse point.

Gimli was up and out of Aragorn's way, but his feet edged him closer without his asking, not permitting him to place any distance between them. Confused fear seized Gimli's heart when Aragorn abandoned his efforts at finding Legolas' heartbeat with a strangled and undistinguishable cry, snatching his elven hunting knife from his belt and tilting a perfect plane under the elf's nose and slightly parted lips.

"No … I was talking to him. We were talking. Just minutes ago…" Gimli felt suspended in a cruel void between disbelief and reality as he watched the ranger's panicked search. His head told him this could not be the same person, the lofty elf he had loathed, and the friend he had come to respect. He could not accept that this was the wry-humoured archer, who always smiled with undimmed honesty in his eyes. He could not be the warrior who had danced for millennia amongst his foes with mocking grace, or the damned squirrel with a penchant for honey in vile teas. It was not possible that the still and damaged body before him was the same indomitable character…

A glimmer wrested his attention on the forest floor and Gimli looked to it, not wanting to concede that the splinter of Nazgûl blade had defeated them, even as it lay abandoned and righteous in the beech leaves…

But when Aragorn lifted Legolas and clenched him tightly to his chest, releasing the intensity of his grief into the archer's tangled crown, an invisible hand forced Gimli to his knees before his own pain. He did not sob, he was too numb … and as he watched the ranger cradle his life-long elven friend, he heard not Aragorn's open agony, but hissing laughter emanating from the poisoned barb, the breath of the Nazgûl themselves, victorious after all.

TRANSLATIONS:

Stille nu – Be still

An ngell nîn – Please (literal: For my joy)

Kurnheim – Stonehead (Khuzdul)

Im gosta – I'm afraid

Gar bellas, gwador nin – Have strength, my [sworn] brother