Firstly, I am so very, very sorry. Long time in coming? Not half. I could flood you with gushing excuses, or I could simply say that Life got in the way. Well, it did. Secondly, I'm sorry. Please no tomatoes! Hopefully this chapter will make up for at least a tenth of my rubishness as an author. If it makes anyone feel any better, I am losing sleep because I am posting this chapter now. My very special and warm thanks to Vanimalion for her continued support and harassment (in a good way!), and my extra special thanks to Myselfonly, without whom's help this chapter would still be about 1,000 words long. Thank you for the guidance, the cajouling, and the words of wisdom. I owe you some reviews, big time.

Please enjoy, and tell me what you think to my dark turn in the supernatural (you'll find out!).

Sorry again!

Part Two

'Action is transitory, a step, a blow –

the motion of a muscle – this way or that –

'tis done – and in the after vacancy

we wonder at ourselves like men betray'd.

Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,

and has the nature of infinity.'

William Wordsworth, The Borderers

Chapter Seventeen: The Heart of You

This sensation was not new. The feel of loss of form was familiar, a recent memory he had not been aware of possessing until he found himself here, right now. There was displacement and the unquestionable tainted fear of finality … but the fear was pitched higher than ever before, the uncertainty he had experienced last time replaced by a desperation the like of which he had never felt.

Ahead, there were voices, but they did not greet him with love and regret: they were fell, joyous whispers in the pitch dark at his coming, a fresh plaything, the soul of an immortal torn from his physical anchor and gifted to them forever.

There was no way back, no choice like before, and only the darkness was there to laugh at his terror and fling it back at him. Distant and unreachable was the agony of his brutalised body, but he longed for it. What twisted world was this, where the ceaseless torment of his body was sweeter than death? He clamoured for release back to his physical form, where pain was real and total, but where there was also warmth and friendship and love –

"… my Lord!"

Everything changed, and the contrast could not be greater. The light streaming through the open balcony coloured by the coming fall of the day was entirely too harsh, and Elrond felt himself shy from its brilliance. The steady roaring of the falls beyond clawed at his very core. He was sat in a long room lined with tapestries detailing many years of history. As his eyes fell on them, he knew them, his mind reliving the events too acutely and too fast. He was at peace in Beleriand and he was at war before the Black Gates. He was fleeing the fall of his home with countless others and orchestrating the gathering of the Last Alliance all at once, and his head was reeling with this newfound sensitivity. He was married and happy and she was gone in the same heartbeat. It was drawing too deeply on him, stripping him down and touching every fibre of his being -

"Lord Elrond!" A hand touched his own, and upon looking at it, he realised his fingernails were embedded in the oak table top. His eyes traced the line of the wrist, to arm, to shoulder, to face, and he acknowledged that Lord Ristaril was looking at him with high concern, and when he turned his gaze away over the table, he could see ten of his other elven lords regarding him with the same expression. And then he remembered: the council chambers. A meeting concerned with upping the northern patrols.

"I am well," he muttered, disengaging his nails from the wood and removing his hand from Ristaril's concerned grasp. "I am well…"

"I think we have chewed through this matter enough for today," Glorfindel interceded from his seat two chairs from Elrond. "Might I suggest it be raised again in the general council tomorrow?" It may have been broached as a question, but it was very much a command, and the other lords acknowledged it as such. Several murmurs of agreement rose to his suggestion, and when Elrond distractedly nodded his consent, his lords left the table and quietly departed.

The sudden emptiness of the room seemed a violent change to him, but it was preferable to the pressure of so many crowding him with their concern. Now he could feel only one pair of eyes staring at him intently. Elrond did not need to look at his companion to know that it was Glorfindel with whom he shared the chamber. For a time, silence was the only other occupant of the room, until Glorfindel also rose from his seat. He did not follow the others through the door, but took himself to a small side table adorned with crystalwear and a range of selected wines. But it was not wine that he reached for, instead going for a stout bottle at the very back that only Glorfindel ever touched, and he did not hesitate in pouring two measures into crystal tumblers. He placed one of them before his friend on the oak top.

"What is it?" Elrond eyed the contents warily, knowing Glorfindel and his peculiar tastes too well to blindly trust the glistening dark liquid. The heady fumes of alcohol stirred up his nose, hot and strong.

"What it is is not important," the other elf stated as he leaned his hip into the table beside his friend. "Drink."

Glorfindel threw his own measure down his throat in one, and reluctantly taking his lead, Elrond did the same. He immediately wished he had done no such thing: he had never tasted anything so harsh, feeling the purifying fire of the stuff tear through the fog of his mind and throw him back to himself. It burned down his throat and seared his stomach, and he could hardly muster the strength to throw his old friend an indignant glower. To his utter irritation, Glorfindel looked completely unfazed.

"What is this poison?" Elrond demanded, his voice turned husky by the power of the drink.

The look the golden-haired lord cast him was nonplussed. "Do not be so over-dramatic," he admonished, reaching for the bottle and serving himself another measure. "This is a very fine blackberry brandy of which I am fond, and I would thank you not to insult it." Glorfindel gave the freshly filled glass an admiring look before downing the shot. He swallowed and relished the heavy taste. "From our dwarvish friends in the north," he supplied. Glorfindel finally set down his empty glass and turned his brilliant blue gaze on Elrond. "Anyway. Excellent as it is, the brandy is not of importance. What did you see?"

The harsh quality of the drink was forgotten immediately. Elrond rolled the last drops around the curvature of his glass, a run of purple so dark it was almost black against the purity of the glinting crystal. "Thranduil's Greenleaf is fading."

-(())-

Neither the puncture of the arrow or the ferocious bite of the sword had ever hurt him as deeply as he hurt now, cradling the body of an elf tightly against his chest. To Aragorn, there was nothing else, no-one else. He knew much of pain: he was a ranger of the Wilds, a man who had settled into a hard life lived by the sword and surrounded himself willingly with others of like mind. Many times had he borne witness to the pain of others and felt it himself, because that was the cost of leading such a life. Sometimes, the ultimate price was taken, regardless of rank or love or loyalty. Aragorn understood that.

But not Legolas, never Legolas. Not Legolas…

A stronger taunt of wind shoved at his back and his skin bristled at its cold jostle. The cloth beneath his hands, so tightly woven through his fingers in an effort to trap time, was tacky and wet and hot, and even as his face was nestled against Legolas' crown, the harsh tang of lost blood conflicted with the soft beneath his cheek. There was just so much of it, and it was inescapable. It coated his hands and smothered his soul, and Aragorn knew that until the moment he died, he would always be stained.

The cry that ripped through his throat was savage and broken and wild with the pain his heart did not know how bear, his body so rigid with it his bones would surely snap. It hurt, it hurt so very much: Aragorn felt he could tear himself apart with his own hands and know less pain.

Without his clear instruction, his hand disengaged itself from the stuff of Legolas' cloak and moved to his throat again. He stilled, quietening his grief like a parent hushing a child. To his trained touch, there was nothing to be found, no lost cry of life begging to be given just one more chance. Everything was entirely too still … yet the flesh was still warm, an echo of the brilliance that had been Legolas still there to touch. Aragorn could not stand the thought of the moment when that brilliance faded to a stone-like chill. He could not bear the thought of letting go.

The hand moved away from the elf's throat to settle on his chest over his heart. Again there was only stillness. Aragorn had known it long and well. He knew its passions and its hates, its joys and fears. He knew that a fast ride through the trees elevated its rhythm with exhilaration, and he knew how hardened it became against those who dared attack his people. He had witnessed it spur Legolas into states of unchecked fury and, on one occasion, he had seen it buckle and break and leave his friend utterly decimated. It was possible that Aragorn knew Legolas' heart better than he knew his own.

Aragorn swallowed past his grief and shifted his cheek on the crown of sullied hair. "I know the heart of you, Legolas." His whispered words were thick and coarse, but he did not notice, nor did he notice the tangled gold trapped under his cheek grow damp. "Don't you leave me. Not like this…" For all his presence was worth, he could have been standing on that precipice again, numbed by the rain and trapped in his own despairing helplessness. He was here, right here in his arms, and as far away as it was possible to be.

I know the heart of you…

From under the flat of the ranger's palm, a flutter. Nothing more than the final resistance of a drowning songbird, but there nonetheless, and it was more than enough to kick Aragorn's awareness. His mouth dried with the fear of being mistaken and the devastation of being wrong already licked at him, but he could not let go of that faint promise. "Legolas?"

From his isolated post at the outside, Gimli raised his head at the new note in the ranger's voice. And when his focus settled on the man, he could not comprehend the stark hope in Aragorn's face: his head remained bent, but he was listening, listening with the intensity of desperation and disillusioned faith. To Gimli, Aragorn looked for all the world like a man pushed to the brink of madness. This was grief at its most powerful. This was what death meant to those left behind, and Gimli found the sight ruptured against his own loss and provoked an odd sense of anger in him. "Aragorn, lad … he's gone. Let him be."

The pain of loss did not sit with Aragorn alone. Kneeling as he was in the damp leaves, the doughty dwarven warrior braced his arms together over his chest like a shield. No tears marred his cheeks, but he mourned. He mourned the loss of a respected comrade at arms, and someone he was beginning to regard as something close to a dear friend. But there was no time, not any more: he was robbed of the promise of a great friendship, just as Legolas' life had been stolen from him. Fate had cruelly knotted their threads together and then severed Legolas entirely from the tapestry.

Seeing Aragorn call to Legolas' unhearing soul was more than Gimli could stand, and he found his feet. He tried to push his focus away from the man and the elf, but he was asking entirely too much of himself.

Grief and anger melted together and poured from his mouth. "Will you let him be? He is dead, Aragorn!"

Aragorn had never cowed from a battle in his life as he flinched from those flung words. Hearing them imposed reality on him, and reality was something he wanted no part of. Gimli was right. It was enough to make the ranger's heart draw back, even as his hand remained over Legolas' stilled breast-

"They need your strength when they have none left themselves. Never let them down!"

The memory was so acute, so sharp, he was sent back eighty years and he was a boy again, trying to shy from the pain of a wounded hunter as his tutor reprimanded his weakness.

"No…" The word leaked from his lips. It was not just for Gimli: it was a flat refusal to the world, because he could not give in. He could not let Legolas down.

Aragorn refocused. He pressed his hand firmly against Legolas' chest until he could feel the resistance of his ribs. He pressed his brow against the elf's, just as they had done many a time in greeting over the long years. The new restraints he held over his own grief nearly buckled at the triggering of so many memories, but he remained steadfast, and called. It was not a shout, and despite the desperation and hurt that resonated through his voice, Aragorn kept it quiet, not needing the world to hear. It was not the world he was trying to reach.

I know the heart of you…

The northern wind shouldered into his back icily. The little scent it carried was frigid and numbing, the rumour of frozen lands reaching him through its aggressive gusting. At home, it would likely be snowing. By now, the northern passes to Mirkwood would be densely cloaked and impassable…

"Legolas. Legolas, come back to me."

-(())-

Legolas knew this place.

The mouldering scent of old earth disturbed from its rest permeated with the cold of dead stone, sodden and treacherous under foot. Rain pounded down on him and water streamed over his feet. It made him cold to his very quick, but it was not rainfall as he had ever known it in all his millennia: it did not bounce from his shoulders and soak his hair, but penetrated right into him, each drop an icy needle-like brand thrust through his flesh.

This slope, in the dark … it was frighteningly familiar … only, this was a nightmarish fabrication. It was a stage of memory, warped and accented by the inescapable horror of his own downfall mere days ago. Above him, the scree did not meet with the strong foundations of the forest, but continued beyond sight, endless and insurmountable. But close behind, near enough for a false step to be the end, the slope came to a jarring stop where the white water of the river raged and foamed. Its ice breath licked over his skin and promised to never release him from its embrace, not again -

Something writhed at his feet.

Fear clamoured for him to flee and fettered his feet both at once. It was only describable as black nothingness, vaporous but impossible to identify even as something as relatable as smoke. It seethed and contorted about his feet in complete defiance of the wind that should have pushed it away over the water … and when it started to wrap and twist up his body, like a malicious vine seeking to choke a sapling, he could do nothing as the foul pollutant entombed him in a swirling mass of black, until it suddenly stopped its nauseating movement and fused into solid and towering shapes -

These he knew. So many things he had known in his life and had reason to fear … but all paled to nothing when he found himself caged in the gapless ring of rotting cloth.

Before, there had been five. Now they were nine, the nightmare kings, emitting evil intent as pungently as the rotting stench that shrouded them. And he could see them now. For the first time ever, he saw them as the putrefying shadows of their mannish selves that they truly were, creatures that did not belong with the living or dead. Shades of evil, their rotting lips drawn back in sick grins at their final victory over him. They reeked of hate and pain, of things long since gone that should have been forgotten, noisome and vile.

After the seemingly unending torment and enduring agony he had been through, not even death itself offered him the peace he craved. Trapped, and with nowhere to escape.

On those darkest of nights when he was enveloped in the solitude of watch duty, Legolas had often looked to the star-peppered skies and wondered if he would join those he had lost sooner than his blood should allow. Never had he been so unwise as to dismiss death as something that would never happen to him: he was a warrior, and warriors died. When death touched the Eldar, rarely was their transition peaceful as it could be for mortals, but often cruel and violent, and he could not deny that, deep down, he had always feared it. By the nature of his position, he had witnessed too many die in ways that dampened the effect of even his most terrible imaginings.

But this was a far darker reality than even his most malicious nightmares had ever imparted to him.

Looking on the looming black-cloaked figures penning him in, he knew with damning certainty that he would not be allowed to leave.

I will never see any of them again.

It was a single thought, a fleeting realisation, but it was crippling. He had nothing. Devastation tore out his resolve and left a terrifying emptiness that ate into his spirit with rapacious vigour. And that same black fog that had furled at his feet bled into his head, its violating touch pushing the sudden void of loneliness all the wider.

And they laughed. Silken and poisonous, the sound of their mockery leaked from their black maws and caressed his ailing heart with a strangling hold, accented by the sharp grate of coarse blades being drawn. The sound dripped with the promise of annihilation, and he knew he would not even be a shade after they were through. That unflinching strength of heart that he had relied on for so many years started to buckle. He had not the strength, he was too weak for this -

Lost…

It was not even speech. The word tore through the core of him, a sharp talon dragged over the fine strings of his heart, scarring and savage. So alone… So very alone … LEGOLAS!

He had never given it a thought. It was seemingly little more than a word, a banding of letters and collection of sounds that trapped the tiny fractions of his life and webbed them into a fine and glistening tapestry that was him.

But in their vile tongue, his name was a burning brand thrust through the centre of that fine mesh, and he was undone. His guard splintered open and they piled on his fëa as starved wolves would set upon an exhausted hart.

No attack he had ever endured during his life held any resemblance to this: the blades were not for flesh, but for his soul. They swiped through him, hacking at the cornered animal that was his essence without a shade of mercy…

And he screamed. How he screamed with every fibre of himself that was left to him, and how their peals of laughter smothered his cries and scorned his fear as they shredded into him.

It was his memories that they wanted, and when they reached them they gave no quarter as they ripped through them in their maddened search.

Precious moments became shields, savaged to indistinguishable fragments as though they were little more than fine paper. Spectres from his past pooled before him, over three thousand years of treasured memories … obliterated by poisoned swords and reduced to ash on the wind. Harsher retentions he had fought many long years to repress came to the fore, moments of shame and rage and grief cracking under the siege and scolding him. He held a secret that he had sworn to protect and they wanted it, but he could not hold out against such an onslaught for long. He was bleeding, bleeding from his memories, and there was nothing he could do to stem the flow -

"… I want you to take Frodo…"

They stilled, fixated by the conversation that bloomed before them, staged between a failing elf and a reluctant hobbit. Horror seized him as the dangerous memory played in the rain, treacherously defying the need for silence:Samwise, sat next to him in the sunlight like a colourful ghost, the hobbit's worry for him melding with his fear at what he was being asked to do -

Once again on this damnable slope, he was the only barrier between the Nine and Frodo, and he franticly tried to grab back the snatch of memory -

But they had seen. It was too late. He hurriedly tried to push the vital and devastating information down deep in the moment before they set upon him again … but the Nine had found the blood trail of their wounded quarry, they knew the place where he struggled to hide it, and they slashed through the scant barriers he managed to erect.

It was like fighting to stay afloat without letting go of something precious clenched in his hands.

The spices on the meat are too heavy. Everybody is looking at his grandfather making his speech, and no-one save Daerahil sees him slip it to Baerahir's plate, but it is alright, Daerahil will not tell-

The kingfisher is a sapphire dart to the river – in out – and sits proud amongst the spring emeralds of the oak branch with his prize-

"You disappointed me tonight… In a way I never thought possible."

Wargs, they are riding wargs. They fly down the gully sides and he knows there is no way they can outrun them, and death-screams rip from behind-

Afraid and alone in the snow, for all his adult words still a child at heart: "Promise me you'll come back!"-

Above the excruciating pain of the arrow in his shoulder, he hears the strength of his father's heart, bracing him tight against his chest for its removal-

"Still you insist on treating me as a child-"

"BECAUSE YOU ARE MY CHILD!"

The stench of burning flesh seeps into the back of his throat and they are in the village. Too late, they are too late, and only the silence of the dead greets them, punctuated by the black shafts of orc bolts in the churned mud-

His grandfather's army is an endless ribbon, and he stands and watches for what could easily be hours in the snow. When it is gone he stays yet, because he promised, and the skin of his cheeks is tight where his tears have frozen –

They are forced to move north. His father tells the people it is precautionary, but he knows better -

They have taken the child from him, and the pain in his heart carries a fire he does not think can ever be extinguished, and finally he understands the hard love of father and son-

Against the cool oak door, listening to his father's grief… "She is dead, Daerahil." And he crumples into the wood and sobs, because his heart hurts and he does not know what else to do-

It was old pain drawn out and perverted into a new kind of agony. It penetrated so deep into his core that he longed for the physical pain of his broken body as a release.

The little moments and the bigger events that made him who he was were haemorrhaging into each other. And the Nine were winning: with each torn recollection his resistance weakened, bleeding from him in great rivers. It would not be long now, not long until there was nothing left of him and they got what they wanted -

-(())-

It was raining. Aragorn did not recall that it rained … nor did he remember the transition of day to night. It was night, it was raining, and the wind was screaming.

No. No, not the wind … someone…

His thoughts strained to make sense, trapped by the alien otherworldliness of this alarmingly familiar place like a deer drowning in quicksand…

The stone chips under his feet slipped and shifted on a bed of mud, drenched through and unstable, and his numbed mind remembered -

The violence of his realisation kicked his senses back to him, and he knew where he was, in a warped version of the place his dream-self would be forced to wander forever. And he remembered why he was here, and he knew whose screams he could hear over the tumult of churning water and howling wind, above the fell shrieks that he knew too well -

"Legolas!"

-(())-

The wind cried with a voice that he thought he knew, a single word breaking through the piercing shrieks of his tormentors. Hearing the desperation and pain encapsulated in that voice pulled at his protective instincts, but he did not understand where the feeling originated, or even why such an impulse should grab at him when he himself was being ripped apart. Memories he did not possess the strength to truly muster writhed beneath the surface, stirred by the voice he thought he knew. But he dismissed it as another evil trick of this place, trying to drag hope from him so that it could be slashed to ribbons like everything else. He turned his back on the hope that he was not alone, and waited for them to finish him.

He heard it again, and he understood this time that it was not the wind as it tore into a very real scream. Someone, some other damned soul who had managed to trap themselves in his perpetual nightmare … and he knew it was to him that they called.

Stay away, his flickering mind cautioned. They will get you. Stay away. Stay away…

The word rent the air again. The wind tried to snatch it away from him, but it was too strong in its desire to be heard: it would not be quelled by the fierce jealousy of the screaming gales, or by the evil shrieks of the Nine themselves.

A name, it was a name. If he tried, perhaps he could piece together some semblance of sense from the collection of broken sounds. But he was too weak now. And besides, it would be over soon, it had to be over soon, there was so little left of him for them to destroy…

"Legolas!"

There again, but this time he heard it clearly. Legolas. The name. His name. The recollection was brief and gone in a moment, slipped away like he had tried to catch smoke in a net. Too much of him was lost, that fine mesh that entwined everything he was too damaged to hold such a precious thing...

The voice had transcended the confines of death and reality and braved the darkness that trapped him to follow where none should be able to tread. It reached out to him again, determined that he would take back what was rightfully his. It was laden with the memories of someone else who was strong and whole and defiant, memories that he shared, though he shied from their tentative touch, not wanting to see yet another part of him obliterated -

The Nine closed tighter around him, penning his vision with their rotting silhouettes, walling him off from any hope of salvation … yet he felt something brush against his consciousness, like a questing hand trying to find him in the dark. It was a sensation he had never knowingly acknowledged before, and yet it was so familiar … like the softness inside an old pair of gloves, or the smell of home…

The touch and the voice…

Legolas.

The voice and the name, thunder after lightning, and a sudden onslaught of powerful images blazed through him, moments he never realised he possessed but that he loved -

It is autumn, and they have a fire for the night because the mortal feels 'chill', and he cannot help but tease his childlike need-

It was Elrohir who suggested it, but he was the one who took the clothes, and now they hide out of reach in the heights of the tree, laughing themselves senseless at the curses of the irate and near-naked adan far below-

The small orc horde in the gully below do not realise they are being hunted. He lifts his eyes silently to the adan across from his position, and his friend returns the look with a sober nod. They are one as they draw their bows-

"You may have been raised by elves, Ranger, but that does not mean you have the sense of one."

"You say that, yet you are one, and you have no sense at all!"

Shoulder to shoulder they stand, they two whom have stood so for so long now. The adan nods his consent, and it is affirmation of a solid trust long standing, trust that he will do what is required to protect the quest. The same trust that Boromir fears. And rightly so-

A man of many names and many guises, a shadow who prowled the Wilds and openly challenged the darkness.

Longshanks…

But this was not darkness that could be fought. Witless orcs did not prowl the slope, dangerous but stupid like the forces they were used to countering. They were in the shadow world of the Úlairi, and here, they were almighty: there was no conceivable way a man could pit his strength against them and win. Had he not learned that from those few nights ago? But that was him, that was his strength … he did not quail in the face of the darkness; he did not abandon those he loved …

Aragorn…

Shrouded in the rags of animosity, the last king of Númenor…

Elessar…

But he was not hiding, not now: he was here in plain sight. Legolas could feel the fierce strength of heart that belonged to his friend encompassing him, and he could tear himself apart with the mix of terror and happiness and grief that assailed him…

It hurt to know that Aragorn had trapped himself here … and at the same time, he hated himself for the swell of relief that invaded his heart that he was not completely alone.

Hope itself, hope in the dark…

Estel…

Estel!

Ai, no! Blind terror tempered his fear into fresh panic- NO!

Go back! You cannot be here! Go back!

So intent had they been on their victim that they had not noticed the coming of another … but his reaction piqued their interest, and in mounting horror he watched as the attention of the Úlairi collectively turned their focus to the figure coming down the slope, as a nest of vipers would on a rabbit –

-(())-

"GO BACK!"

It was akin to being hit with the butt of an axe. The scream exploded through Aragorn's consciousness and he was nearly knocked from himself at the deluge that followed. He was at once drowning and on fire. Cold as he had never known grabbed his heart and coupled with terror so consuming it smothered what little sense of himself he had left.

But above everything else was the pain. Never had Aragorn felt anything so complete and consuming, so much so that the physical hurts of the body were a distant and longed-for dream. The most beloved aspects of his life, surrendered in what his heart knew to be a worthless sacrifice. With or without him, they would discover what they wished to know. His most treasured moments were inconveniences to them, nothing more…

He was so lost and afraid, torn asunder and flung wide from himself. But it was what they would do to his foolish adan friend that thrashed his heart with fear – "What are you doing here? They will destroy you! Go back! Go back -"

Realisation shunted him back to a sense of himself. All this fear, and pain and sorrow … it was Legolas'. In the elf's flayed state, the tentative connection Aragorn had forged between them had opened a flash flood, a surge of agony and terror Legolas was devoid of the strength to temper, and Aragorn was in very real danger of being completely engulfed by it.

Years that had long passed into myth poured into his head as though he stumbled into history, bright flashes that had scorched themselves into another's eyes all but seared him –

Elven life burned with a brilliance too massive to be contained by a mortal mind, and even though the light that was Legolas was near extinguished, he was still enough to rip Aragorn apart. To Aragorn as he battled to rise to the surface of his own consciousness, it was like trying to breathe with hot water flooding his throat –

The ranger wrenched himself free before the Sindar's distress could completely consume him. He reeled, temporarily oblivious to the threat of the Nine, to their surreal surroundings, even to his own life. He knew he was on his knees in the freezing scree, fighting to gather himself together … yet even though he struggled to find himself, he was agonisingly aware of Legolas. He was there, a vein-like scar at the edge of his mind, sensitive and burning like the deep cut to his hand. Just beneath its delicate surface, broken thoughts eddied on a tide of violent emotion, tearing over the much deeper current that was Legolas, and his terror permeated the seam of awareness into Aragorn's mind like a fine mist. But it scored Aragorn's heart that, even now, he could sense his friend fading, and he knew it would not be long before the river was spent.

One foot found its grounding, slowly followed by the other. Mud and stone slipped under the pressure, and he had to concentrate on his balance as he goaded himself into standing. Aragorn raised his eyes to the nine hooded figures. They were closer than he realised, standing shoulder to shoulder with preternatural stillness and blocking his sight from the one they knew he wanted to see. The fell blades they had used on Legolas were point down in the mud, distanced like the bars of a cage, and it spoke of their scant regard of him as a threat that they made no move to raise them.

For all the baleful moaning of the wind and harsh shattering of the rain on the slopes, the silence stretching between the man and the nine undead sparked with dangerous charge.

The gales flung the stinging rain into the ranger's eyes and lashed his face with his own hair, but he paid it no mind, his attention honed completely on the lethal foes facing him. Aragorn's sword sang out a clean note that cut through the miasma of evil when he drew it. He felt the leaden weight of the water trying to drag him down, but he held the weapon steady.

"Elessar…"

The name slipped over him as a snake might try and envelop helpless prey, and it was all he could do to supress a shudder…

Elessar.

Peace was won. No shadow polluted the eastern sky, and the untainted sunlight spilled over Arwen's face, his radiant queen. Her loveliness was his, and it was as though a cloth was being drawn across his mind, so silken it was almost fluid. Its gentle comforting embrace promised to quell his fears and sooth his pains … it was the warmth of Arwen's hand upon his face, the softness of her breath against his neck, and everything were together for a promised eternity -

"ESTEL!"

The warning whip-cracked through his head. A flash of secondary pain, and Legolas' presence snapped away – but the Nazgûl were too late: Legolas had flung back the cover of deception smothering Aragorn's perception. Now that he was awakened to it, fresh rage blazed through him that they had sullied Arwen's name in their bid to coax him to them. But the frightening part was that he had not sensed their virulent tendrils pry into his thoughts and twist them so successfully.

"Estel … you cannot win this." Weak, little more than an agonised whisper at the back of his mind, and his heart twisted to hear it. "They see you, they know who you are… Estel, I am begging you… Please go back."

Legolas begged no-one, and Aragorn's heart ached to hear the broken plea, but he stayed steady. "I thought you knew me better than that, Legolas." Every word between them pressed on the burning scar like a brand, but he would not relinquish such a bond for all Arda. Looking on the jagged swords glinting dully in the rain and knowing it was his own death he observed, he found the corner of his mouth tipping in a wry grin: "You've always told me I shouldn't hide, anyway."

"I meant from yourself!" Fond exasperation momentarily transcended the weakness Aragorn sensed, rekindling something of the old fire he recognised as his friend. It pleased him that he got to hear it again, before the end.

Aragorn hefted his sword from where the tip had come to rest in the dirt during his lapse. Its weight felt ten times greater as he looked on the scene before him, so terribly reminiscent of what Legolas had faced so recently. Would he emerge the victor, where Legolas had failed? He doubted it … but nothing could persuade him to abandon his friend, not to them.

"And I've always said you should be less abstruse."

"Estel -"

"I will not leave you behind, Legolas." Any trace of glib humour was completely eradicated by flat refusal. "Not again."

Legolas did not reply. What Aragorn felt of his presence ebbed to little more than a failing ember, flickering and guttering behind the barrier of mighty cruelty trying to drive him from existence. Aragorn sensed the resonating echo of Legolas' fading heartsong mourning his choice, but his weakness forced him into acceptance. Legolas' upset at Aragorn's decision tugged at their tie, but it was the shamed touch of thankfulness and love that Aragorn detected that he found truly painful.

"Together, my brother." Aragorn carefully set Legolas aside, shielding their bond from the Wraiths so that he might at least succeed in keeping some element of his friend safe. If this was to be it, at least neither of them would be truly alone…

They are being hunted. The night and the trees conspire against them, and the arrow in Aragorn's back slows their flight. Legolas stops and looks back. The elf is stock-still, sharp as a hawk and just as precise when he looses his arrow, and the slinking shadow Aragorn had not seen grunts and falls still-

"More come, Estel, keep moving!"

But he has not even the strength to muster a reply, and he distantly feels the elf take his weight with his shoulder, and they are moving again-

The pride of his ancestry and open defiance straightened his back in the face of his death, his eyes hard and steady: it was his turn.

"Give him back to me."

Laughter prickled over his skin, and this time, Aragorn could not refuse the shudder that grabbed his spine.

"You cannot claim what is not yours."

As one, the Nazgûl soundlessly raised their blades. This was it. Aragorn swallowed dryly and adjusted his grip, ready…

"Two – four – five– You are not fast enough!"

His sword is batted aside with an almost casual swat by the smaller knives, and he resents this arrogant prince from the north who tests his fighting so harshly. It is not like sparring with his brothers: this elf is not loath to show him his weaknesses, and it sets a fire of dislike in his young belly-

A ripple of silent shadow, and Aragorn's fight reflex sent a jolt of anticipation through every taut muscle – but he could never prepare himself for the attack they launched on him:

The gapless rotting barrier split and framed something lying still and broken in the sodden muck…

Horror and grief stripped the fight from Aragorn's limbs. He watched the eddying ghosts of their joint past, dancing and whirling in a myriad of faded colours and lost moments. Some he recalled clearly, others jerked his memory … but it was the fallen figure at the very heart of it all that tore into him. The proud and fierce warrior, the last prince of the elves … his friend … reduced to little more than a lost shade of the Legolas he knew at the feet of their enemies and helplessly awaiting that final strike.

The rain violently parted in a splintered shower of black diamonds for the nine blades that arced down to deliver it-

"NO!"

Metal clattered on stone as instinct took over and released his hand. Not the instinct he had relied on for all his adult life, but something far stronger and as ancient as his bloodline, roused from dormancy to defend what a sword could not save, and it felt like it was splitting him in two -

The Witch-king recognised the surge of untempered power a split second before it blasted into him and the others. Their demonic screams sheered the air as all nine were repelled back with enough force to rip them gracelessly from their feet and fling them wide of their victim –

Aragorn wheeled in shock. Intense pain blistered through his head like a thousand pockets of fire, but he blanked it as he drove himself forward through the darkness to the prone figure. But his movements were clumsy and leaden, his body feeling weak and unresponsive to the frantic commands of his will and his knees betrayed him, flinging him into the muck. Blearily he raised his head, seeing the still form of his friend seemingly so close, and yet so impossibly far…

Somewhere to his left, deep shadows darker than any nightmare writhed with unfettered malice, incensed hisses rising to a cacophony of screams of unparalleled fury: the Wraiths were recovering, and quickly.

Fear bit into his courage. Whatever it was he had flung at them had done nothing to destroy them: it was only a matter of moments before they would be upon them. And he had nothing left to give. The Wraiths would win, and there could be only death -

Aragorn pulled his eyes away from the Nine and tried to fix his swimming focus on Legolas. His friend's still form juddered and blurred, and Aragorn did not know if it was the rain trying to blind him, or his own senses failing him. "Legolas…" His voice sounded distant and distorted, a shadow on a wall. The elf did not respond, and real panic stabbed into Aragorn that his friend was gone, that he was going to die alone after all. Frantically he forced his focus on the forged bridge at the very edge of his mind … but there was nothing there to cross. He was alone.

The crunch of brittle stone under an iron-clad foot slowly followed by another, and he did not need to look up to know to whom those deliberate and fatal footfalls belonged. A low, predatory hiss ran along his spine and replaced his courage with utter terror–

Jagged splinters of stone tore at the skin of his hands as he dragged himself on his belly. A hand lay outstretched from Legolas' body, the elf's fingers lax and open. If he could only take that hand in his own, perhaps he would not be so alone when death came for him. Exhaustion hauled at his limbs, the two feet of distance an impossible league for what he had to achieve. He chanced a glance up at their coming executioner. Victory was etched into the warped contours of his rotting face, his ragged shrouds snapping and flailing in the wind in cruel celebration. And the sword raised once more, the mesmerising dance of a viper before its killing lightning strike.

The laughter of the damned poured over Aragorn's skin: grief and pestilence, pain and death, encapsulated in the splintering mockery of the Witch-king. Aragorn's efforts to get to Legolas were openly ridiculed with the surety of victory. Where once there had been mercy in the Witch-king's heart, there was only a bed of ash. He knew what Aragorn was trying to do, and his cruelty would not allow it.

The serpent streaked down -

A sharp cry of final defiance and Aragorn lunged the distance, flinging himself between the ragged sword and his friend's body. He snatched up the archer's icy limp hand in his own, clenching his eyelids against their fate –

Nothing happened. Where he expected to feel the savage bite of steel, he felt not so much as a glancing score, and he wondered in frightened anger what twisted game had stayed the Witch-king's hand.

And then Aragorn realised…

It did not rain. There was wind, but it snapped with clean cold against his skin, unlike the dirty grasping gales he had experienced. He could feel the dozy farewell kiss of the setting winter sun on the side of his face, the weak light glowing through his sealed eyelids. It did not rain, there was light, the wind was a welcome touch on his skin … and the vicious shrieks and jeering laughter were reduced to the chortling squabble of a magpie pair. How…?

Shouts of panic ruptured the slow process of his thoughts. They sounded at once distant and right in his ear, and he could not decide which of the two options it was, nor could he discern what was being said…

The sensations of his body knew this place: this was where life was … but he still held death in his arms, trying to fend it away with his love for the one he gripped so tightly, the one he had followed between worlds… But it was not possible, and with a dart of agony he realised that it could only have been a dream. A warped, convoluted nightmare that had preyed on his grief and his hope in one last effort to break him.

His face buzzed, and he did not understand it. His awareness grappled with the darkness pulling on him - then his eyes shot open at a sharp sting and whip-crack sound across his cheek, and his vision filled with a face shrouded in red wire-hair –

"Aragorn!"

Gimli's earthen tone boomed and rattled through his skull. Aragorn flinched with the tremors that shook his searing headache to new heights. The dwarf was oblivious to the fact, almost giddy with relief. However, the stout warrior's smile of happiness quickly gave way to a mask of anger. Without warning, he thumped Aragorn's arm, not hard enough to really hurt, but certainly hard enough to inform the ranger of his upset. "Don't you scare me like that! Never again! Understand? I thought you'd died." There was a crack in Gimli's strong tone, a seam of pain that Aragorn found surprising. He was struggling to keep up with the wheeling emotions firing from his friend, but the dwarf was not finished yet: "You went still … like the elf … I was speaking to you, and-"

"It felt so real…"

"What?" The same gloved hand that had thumped him only moments before encompassed his arm with gentle concern. Such strength, bent into something so muted by worry. "What are you talking about?"

"I followed him."

Gimli frowned, his great mane waving lazily as he shook his head slowly with the burden of his confusion. "Aragorn, lad, you're not making any sense."

"I followed him. They had him. I tried to save him, Gimli…" No more than a dream, but it burned. Aragorn could feel his throat constricting, trying to close the words off because they hurt too much to be uttered … but they forced themselves through, because he could not stomach the truth of them. "I didn't save him. I didn't save him…"

Gimli started to speak again, a heavy and even rumble of words aimed at taking the edge from Aragorn's pain, but Aragorn heard not a word of it. His grief was too engrossed in memorising the weight of his friend in his arms, the fine gold of his hair … the smell of his blood and the cruelty of his death. The pain threatened to engulf him again, but Aragorn did not care now if it swallowed him -

The dwarf's sudden iron grip clamping down on Aragorn's shoulder startled him from his thoughts long enough for his stunned eyes to find Gimli's face beside him. The ferocious grip was so intense he felt his bones shift, like being crushed in a warg's jaws … but it was the almost fearful focus of the dwarven warrior that really took Aragorn's attention. Though he could not bring himself to look, he knew it was at Legolas' face that Gimli stared, half concealed against Aragorn's chest as he held him. His clay eyes were fixed and wide and not a hair moved, not a breath was taken. He was so completely paralysed, Aragorn feared some form of seizure had taken him … until he shook his head, sweeping motions that encapsulated his expression.

"Look!" Gimli demanded, his normally strong tone degenerated into a rasp.

Aragorn blinked with incomprehension at his remaining friend. Why? What good could it do? He did not want to. He knew where Gimli's eyes looked. He knew every bruise, every pain line -

"Look, damn you!"

Without his instruction, regardless of his own reluctance, his eyes acknowledged Gimli's command … and felt a kick in the pit of his stomach strong enough to seize his heart. It bolted back into an uneven and thundering pace, clamouring painfully with the terror of being mistaken and euphoria of what should not be coming to pass.

Aragorn's mouth yearned to speak, but all words eluded him. Understanding was completely beyond him, but he was devoid of the need for it, because it did not matter. Not in that moment. Not as he involuntarily tightened his grip on Legolas' hand … because it gripped back. Because Legolas looked back at him, his focus unfixed and struggling, but it was Legolas all the same behind those dark blue eyes. They fluttered against the failing light, shying from its dimmed brilliance, and Aragorn could have sung with joy at their sensitivity. They fought hard against his weakness, but finally they found the storming grey above them and connected with their familiar hold. A frown tilted his bruised brow.

"I heard you…" Little more than a breath, yet Aragorn captured each sound like a cry. Legolas' eyes threatened to lose their focus and he had to fight to keep them open. "You called me… I heard you…"

Aragorn could stop no more stay the welling tears tumbling from his eyes than he could stop the laughing sob flying his lips. He pressed his brow against the elf's, greeting him as he always had. "Yes, I called you. And you answered.