The trees whispered of serenity lost, and none but a listening woodland Elf could have caught the thread of their susurrant grief. Legolas moved through them, understanding that pain. Orcs filled this region, scraped and shuffled through it like a plague unleashed, a cold and persistent malaise. And the wood, trapped in its own rooted trees, trapped in its dark soil and slow water, could do naught by way of escape. It could do naught to escape, short of dying.

So die it had begun to do, and rolled now ponderous toward its own end, knowing that death would be better than this, for there could be nothing worse. Legolas trailed slim fingers along rough bark, sympathetic but helpless to intervene.

He slipped further - ever further - from camp, and felt an ache settle in his breast at the distance. Each step took him further from those to whom he had pledged his life, those who had become to him as a home, a place to which he would always return. Each step in the dark wood took him further from home, and so he ached yet more, and cursed the necessity of it. This wood was infested - plagued - with Orc. He knew as much, could feel it with a growing certainty in his blood, in his bones, in the space between his heartbeats. He had felt it not upon their entrance, had taken the forest for its serene face and the haven it seemed to offer; now, he knew that haven to be but a mask, the forest long stripped of its serenity. He needed to learn what was about, what was about with the Orcs, and he needed to take that learning back to his own, that they might benefit. So he accepted as more necessity the growing ache and the likelihood that they who he loved so would see his actions as a breaking of their trust.

Boromir had taken first watch, pacing inside the hem of trees while the Fellowship sought much-needed rest. He had trusted that all would remain where they had stretched out, remain within the security of numbers until light returned. They had all trusted in the assumption that nine fellows would be present upon dawn's breaking. Gandalf and Aragorn, particularly, had trusted that one Elf would sleep through the deepening night, relieved from the watch he was to have stood because...because....

The ache swelled into a throb, painful against his ribcage, as Legolas realized. Aragorn had bid him rest through the night, had assigned himself second watch without explanation, and there could be no reason but that the Man did not trust him to hold his place, to wander out among the trees and yet not stray into determined seeking of answers for his questions. Aragorn - Estel - his best friend, his surrogate brother. One of those who owned his heart. Estel believed that this Elf's word could not be taken as a surety.

And Estel was right.

********

Legolas could smell them ahead. He could hear them but a heartbeat later, their base muttering tongue unwelcome in his ears. He felt, even at a distance, polluted by them, tainted by their very presence, and he could well imagine the sad forest's distress. It, unlike he, had no escape.

They were of a number, maintaining position. Legolas crept forth, the minimal sounds of his approach lost in a mere sighing breeze amid foliage, a single night creature's lonely call. The Orcs certainly would not hear him, although they might come to sense him if they were still and quiet long enough, and listened to that sliver within them that still resonated along Elven lines. They might sense him then, a lost kin, a lost connection, and if they did then they would grow incensed, for they were the ones lost.

The trees thinned conspiratorially, guiding their woodland brother forth, and Legolas breathed them thanks as he found that which he had sought. Orcs - eight individuals - lingered in a rock-strewn gully aside a steep hill. They snuffled over the earth, scraping at her in search of…something. Likely food. Legolas wrinkled his nose as their fetid scent threatened to overwhelm him. Ai, but they were foul beasts.

As he watched, a thicket near the group stirred, the brush parting. Two more Orcs emerged, and Legolas glimpsed black behind them. A black gape, a cave in the rocky hillside. The Orcs, now ten and bold, snuffled off into the wood.

Legolas lingered within the trees, scanning the open space ahead. The cave was an unknown; its mouth opened behind sheltering scrub and its body disappeared into the hill, into Middle Earth herself. The ground before it bore distinct tracks - many Orcs had moved through that space.

Could the cave be not an isolated entity, but connected to others? Legolas eyed the hill, considered the surrounding terrain. The forest stretched itself over land by no means flat, butted with rock faces and carved through with gullies. Gimli would know; that Dwarf would need take one look about him and would be able to read the underground lie. Legolas could only guess, but his speculation kindled within him an unease that grew rapidly. The sheer amount of track on that ground ahead suggested that many Orcs travelled through the area, and that in turn suggested that the cave might be but an entrance to something larger. Perhaps a system of tunnels, of underground passages and caverns. Orcs would seek such darkness.

Aye. It made sense. A network of passages and caves would be ideal for large numbers of Orc. Legolas pursed his lips - entering the cave was too risk-filled a venture. Remaining in this wood was too risk-filled. His Fellowship lay sleeping, and perhaps lay sleeping near one of the caves those Orcs used. Ai, but what ambush could the foul beasts set if they were able to swarm in numbers from the very heart of Middle Earth? One watch, a Ranger and a Wizard and a Dwarf, four small Hobbits inexperienced in battle...they would be easy prey.

Legolas rose, his moves rapid but infused still with silence born of his Elven line. The cave interested him no longer; the Orcs out in the wood, distant and becoming more so, interested him no longer. He turned back along the path by which he had come, making haste.

***********************************************

Boromir was ready to settle on his bedroll, settle with sword at side and warrior's senses held at their typical high alert, and sleep. His eyes burned slightly; his legs ached. Aye - he was ready for sleep. The forest was serene in its quiet, night deepening in subtle waves. The peace was thick, tangible, the air soft. He breathed deeply of cedar and damp earth.

And then it happened. `It,' for there was no suitable descriptive term. `It,' for the suddenness was unthinkable. `It,' for the speed with which things changed, went from good to bad, from calm to chaotic.

From safe to deadly.

It happened. It rolled in on them, swept in on them, and they were unaware. They came from sleep to waking, from their beds to their feet, with the speed of those for whom speed is the only possible saviour. Boromir ran into the camp, shouting warnings.

Orcs were upon them.

Aragorn was up almost as Boromir's first shout rang forth. He whirled, instincts turning him to the enemy, and impaled the first beast on his sword. Pulling the blade from the still-falling corpse, he slashed and parried, fought them each as they came at him. Off to one side, Boromir was as one crazed, locks flying as he engaged the creatures. Gandalf fought well, and bravely, his robes shining silver in the night. Gimli swung his axe, swift and determined, into one yielding body after another. And the Hobbits, whirling themselves, thrusting and retreating and surrounding Frodo, trying to shield him. To keep those Orcs from the Ring. The clang of steel on steel was a bell tolling in blackness; the cries of wounded and dying Orc were shrill in ears that had moments before known only peace. The air hung warm and misted with black blood, cloying with a fetid unnatural scent.

Aragorn fought, possessed. His sword arm moved with fluid expertise, unthinking, unhindered. His training carried him, swept him forward into the battle, against the rising tide of Orc, and he surrendered to it. He felt the sweat dampening his shirt, the hair clinging to his neck. He felt each heavy blow of his sword, felt the echo of it in his shoulder, in his spine. He felt no fear, no fatigue, no ache of muscle. His training carried him. And he pivoted again in place as that tide of Orc shifted, flowed in from another direction. Would it never stop? From whence had they all come, and how so quickly? His eyes panned over the camp, over the carnage and the battle raging, even as he moved to slay the next, and the next after that. His eyes took in his comrades, still standing, still fighting...but for one.

Legolas! Legolas was not there, not there....

Had he fallen already? Did he lie even now buried beneath enemy corpses? Where was he? Aragorn wheeled without pause, facing down yet more of the beasts, his sword ringing out their death knells. His gaze streaked over the bodies, over the dark carnage, seeking one lighter limb, one flash of flaxen hair. He could not stop to search - a search would have to be later, after. He swallowed down panic and the rising initial stages of grief, and continued to fight.

******************************************************************

Legolas ran. The forest lay steeped in its darkness about him, and he ran as a silent flash of light through it. There was no reason to believe that the Fellowship was even now in peril, no reason for such mad flight back over covered ground, along the trails by which he had come forth, and yet he ran. Apprehension had swelled in his breast, small and benign at first, but nourished by the knowledge that he had left them. They still had the Watch, still the Watch and the Ranger and the Dwarf, still the Wizard and four brave Hobbits, but they missed their archer. He had left them unattended in a wood full of Orcs.

The caves were scattered throughout the wood, he had concluded. Uneven terrain, rock formations and hills - the land was obviously ideal for such openings into Middle Earth. An Elf accustomed more to trees than the ground would not know so much, would not be so familiar with the signs. Gimli would know. Gimli the Dwarf would look upon this with those deep-set dark eyes, that earthy stare, and he would know as one knows that which is in his blood. But an Elf - nay. Not an Elf.

They had to be warned, though. That much Legolas did know as a surety. The Fellowship slept unaware even now, and potentially surrounded by unseen caves leading down into...what? What was down there, in the vague black, in the fouled deep reaches of the ground? There could be hundreds of Orcs. Thousands. And they could flow from the caves as pustulence from wounds, overrunning the nine - the eight, the remaining eight - so quickly as to defeat them. He pressed his legs into faster flight, heedless of his own surroundings, and cast his senses forward.

******************************************************************

Too many to fight, too many to win against. Aragorn could feel now the ache settling, the grinding pain in shoulder, wrist, neck as he swung again and again. He could feel the heaviness of muscles pushed to their limit, the fatigue of one who had not seen a whole night's sleep in too long. Too long.

And the fear. Yes - he was afraid. It did not cripple him, did not overrun him in thick waves and slow his movement or his thought, but it did creep at the edges of his determined consciousness, making itself ever known.

Legolas was nowhere to be seen. Not a single glimpse of him on the ground, between or underneath the scattered corpses. Aragorn felt relief at that, relief at no sight of his friend. He felt rising panic at that. Where was the Elf? Had he been able, he would have been in the battle, firing endless into the fray, taking the Orcs out before they could swing their blades. He would have felled a dozen by this time, perhaps more. He would have been valuable, invaluable, easing the weight from his companions' shoulders.

But it would not have been enough, Aragorn knew. He saw the number of Orcs swell even as their casualties mounted. He saw them flowing in from the shadowed wood, black on black, and he heard more coming, snarling through the darkness. How many? Dozens by now, to be sure. He alone had felled eight (one for each member of the Fellowship who still stood and fought); Boromir had likely taken down that many himself. And Gimli, and Gandalf - both had spilled their share of black blood. Even Merry, lunging with his short blade. Aragorn had seen him plunge it into the heart of an Orc, and that Orc had fallen and been still. No kills for the archer, though. No kills for the Elf who would have made so many.

Aragorn spun once more, his blade connecting with a beast's thick neck even as another rounded on him. He had not enough time to pull the sword out of this falling corpse, and so he let it go, swung with both fists at the approaching Orc. It tried to bring its own sword down, but in such close quarters only managed to graze Aragorn's temple with the hilt. Yet it drew blood, and that blow left the Man reeling, the world spinning dangerous before him. He buried his fist, buried the last of his fading strength, in the Orc's hideous face. The last thing he saw as his own consciousness fled was the creature falling, limp. He smiled as the ground rushed to meet him.

******************************************************************

Consciousness returned not slowly, not in a gradual rise from dark to light, but in a charge. Silence shredded itself into sound, a chaotic thrum slow to resolve. Darkness leapt upward from its own purity, became only that dimness afforded by closed eyes. And Aragorn kept his eyes closed for a moment, listening to the snuffle of Orcs around him, listening for any sound to indicate the status of his companions.

His body ached throughout. Every limb lay as if dead; every joint still resonated the harsh impact of sword on sword, of sword on flesh and bone. He was spent, uncertain of his injuries, uncertain of even his location. Had he been moved? Had they all - or at least all that had survived? His mind strayed, unprompted, to Legolas, and his throat constricted. Had their Elf been the first to fall?

Muttered conversation reached him - Merry and Pippin, at least, still breathed. Then Gandalf's voice, low and urgent, stressing caution and the need to be still. From the sounds of it, they lived, all. At least most. At least eight.

He allowed one eye to drift open, a slit unto his immediate world, and confirmed that hope which his ears had already sparked. Aye - Gandalf, Boromir, Gimli, the four Hobbits. All were alive; they sat about the fallen log at camp's edge, surrounded by Orcs.

At least they had not been moved. And they had not been seriously injured just yet. Aragorn closed his eye. Orcs were incomprehensible beasts - why they would attack with such fury and emerge victorious only to leave their enemies breathing…this made little sense. In his every encounter with the creatures, the Ranger had found them to be of limited intelligence and less imagination. They operated on primitive codes, ran along fundamental lines.

They would not simply `decide' to let their captives live. Not if the decision were theirs to make. They had to answer to someone - something - else. Uruk-Hai, perhaps. Perhaps. Aragorn's mind stumbled, still awkward in the waning pull of unconsciousness, over possibilities, struck upon one ever-salient fact, and he nearly moaned so that all could hear.

They would already have the Ring.

******************************************************************

There was no comfort to be had from the trees around him. None, for they were insular now, selfish as those facing their own doom. They cared - of course they cared for a gentle woodland brother, one who shared their language and their spirit, who flowed along their quiet souls and touched them with his own. Of course they cared, but they were helpless and ashamed for that, and so they stood silent in the night. Legolas was not past caring for them, but he had long passed lingering sentiment and regret for their plight. They would focus on what ailed them, and he would focus on the Fellowship. He pushed himself to faster flight and knew that there was no reason for alarm, no reason for panic, no reason to believe that Orcs had already taken they to whom he had pledged his life. He ran faster still, knowing his fellows were probably safe. They were most likely safe and asleep, and when he charged into range of their startled watch, charged into camp, he would find them unmolested. They would be safe; they would be angry with him and Estel would surely march him over to that blasted fallen log for a lesson, and then they all would move on and continue their way.

He felt the air in uncommon chill against his face, and realized he was crying.

******************************************************************

Aragorn moved. He lay still for long moments, listening. Assessing. And then he moved, for he knew there was no point in further deception. Orcs overran the camp still, slunk along its edges and snarled at each other. Orcs overran the camp and shuffled over the dead ashes of its fire. Orcs overran the camp and sneered at the captive Fellowship. They were simply too many, too many to fight. And Aragorn made the choice between a foolish death and a cautious life, and chose life. In life there was hope, and chance, and opportunity to regain the Ring. Their first, last, only concern had to be the Quest.

He opened his eyes fully and turned his head, just enough to catch the attention of those Orcs. Any sudden move, any lunge from the earth where he lay, would likely bring retribution and a savage death; he moved just enough to let them know he was awake, to let them decide on a lesser response.

It came. The response was considerably lesser than death. Two Orcs, grunting and vile, loped over and seized Aragorn's arms. They pulled him to sit upright and he allowed them, then crawled cooperatively over to his now silent fellows. The Orcs were satisfied with such docile mien and retreated again to their bickering, and Aragorn looked to his battered companions, pulled his knees to his chest and sighed.

The guttural Orc-tongue jarred nerves already thin and stressed, but Aragorn pursed his lips, shook his head ever so slightly, and none of the eight captured souls moved. None spoke. None brought more attention to the group than was already bestowed. They waited, small and wary, battered into submission. Frodo held one clenched fist to his own breast, one empty fist that would have - should have - clutched the Ring. He held that fist there, over his heart, as though such quiet gesture alone could stop a tide of events from flowing forth. Aragorn studied him and felt pride swell. He was too noble for this. They were all too noble for this.

An Orc, hunched and black, lurched in their direction. It grunted, snuffled air that hung heavy with the scent of its kind, and was reassured. In the low reaches of its mind it begat thought, base unsophisticated thoughts of violence and spilled blood, and it wanted keenly at the captives. They were fresh and pulsing with bright life underneath intact skin, and it wanted its chance with them. It shuffled closer, primitively calculating, and salivated over the pungent smell of their fear. So close. Closer. It wanted at them....

Pain. Black as its soul and overreaching, dominating it. It fell back, withered lips stretched into a grimace over cracked teeth, the startled snarls of its others resounding. It knew not of honour, not of sacrifice for the greater good. It did not think in its low mind of the vengeance its companions would wreak on whatever had felled it, and so it fell to the rejoicing earth alone.

Chaos broke forth in the silence, tore through the night as a scream. The Fellowship was as startled, indeed, as the Orcs, and froze for what could have been long moments or more probably not that long at all, absorbing the change in circumstance and preparing as one to take advantage of it. The beasts were frenzied, enraged. They brandished their swords at that which they could not see, snarled defiantly into the smirking night, aimed themselves toward a new enemy. In that hovering drawn instant before his legs could act, as the creatures swarmed and set to fight more, Aragorn stared, confusion at once fading and surging anew.

From the single fallen Orc, from the chest of that nexus of chaos, protruded the slim shaft of an Elven arrow.

******************************************************************

His senses straining forth, fleeting ahead of him, he ran. His eyes took in ancient trees, deep soft shadows and ebony earth; his mind burdened the strong branches with crouching Orc, filled the shadows with vulture-black bodies, saw the earth lacerated by vicious claws. His ears took in the susurrant sighing breeze and the occasional cry of a shy night creature; his mind etched into that breeze the hissing sibilance of Orc-speak, turned those benign cries to shrieks of fear and pain. His nostrils took in the scent of evergreen and moss, of fresh water, of clean air; his mind mingled into all of it a sour decaying stench. The reek of death in life, of that which would rot while its heart still pulsed black blood.

The tears had not dried. Legolas knew Orcs. He knew them as one, dying of fever, comes suddenly and finally to know his disease, to understand its ebb and flow and dark purpose. Legolas knew Orcs and their frenzied violence, their obsession with the Ring. They would show the Fellowship no mercy, for they were not of a merciful creator and had no understanding of such things. They would rend soft Hobbit flesh from bone, run Men through with their swords and smile hideously at flowing arterial blood. They would show no mercy to a Dwarf, and none certainly to a wise Wizard, and then it would be over. They would take the Ring to Sauron, and Legolas would live as long as he might with the knowledge that he had allowed it.

He would fade; he would run into glorious doomed battle to regain the Ring and turn evil's tide; he would run himself through with his own blades, leap from a cliff, drown himself in an ocean....

He would not live long.

Ahead, he could hear more of that revolting tongue. It was not of his frantic mind this time. He slowed, Elven stealth reclaiming his steps, and approached the clearing in which his Fellowship had only that night - only an eternity before - made camp. He dreaded what he would see.

Aye. The worst had already befallen them, and Legolas swept his gaze over the huddled figures of his fellows and knew that they were afraid. Frodo sat like a small statue, dark locks shining in the light of Orc torches. He was rigid, erect, motionless but for the shallow flutters of breath that moved his sides. Sam clutched one of his hands and seemed to peer intently at him. Merry and Pippin were as one, a tangle of arms and legs, heads each on the other's shoulder. Gandalf was a marble pillar atop the log; beside him, Gimli's squat dark form was still. Boromir sat before them, head bowed.

And then was Aragorn, there beside Boromir. The Ranger had settled with his knees drawn to his chest, his strong arms restraining - imprisoning - his legs. Aye - he would want to move but would remain still. From his temple, dark and accusatory, ran a flow of caked dry blood: that had been a nasty head wound. But the dark eyes were bright and alert, and Legolas breathed a gentle sigh as Aragorn shook his head mildly to free a troublesome lock of hair from his face. The Man seemed not in pain, suffering not from vertigo or drowsiness. He would likely be able to move when they needed him to move.

He edged closer, wary and silent, and debated circling around to come in from the other side of the camp. Conditions were less than ideal. Aye, the beasts were close, but the Fellowship was closer and partly blocking the very shots that would send those beasts back to the darkness from whence they had come. And the log itself was an obstacle. It could at the very least shield the innocents, though....

An Orc approached, snuffling and seemingly intent. Its eyes were dull black realms of hate; its lips thin and necrotic over shards of teeth. And it was so obviously focussed on the huddled captives, so blatant in its thirst for them, that Legolas felt a snarl rising in his own throat, his hands moving with unbidden instinct to bow and quiver.

It could not have his Fellowship.

******************************************************************

The savage snapping fury that erupted from the brush, following a volley of arrows that had felled now three Orc, stunned Aragorn. He saw the flash of gold, the flash of steel and the glow of dark wood, and he knew it to be Legolas, their archer returned. His legs tensed, pulled in and underneath him, and he was up into a crouch. He was ready.

As the Orcs reacted, pinpointed the direction of their new enemy and began surging past the Fellowship to gain the wood, Aragorn lunged from his crouch and was on the nearest of them. His fingers found their purchase around a thick oily neck, the flesh corpse-cold under them; his weight followed and sent both he and the creature pitching into the hard ground. They grappled for control, writhing. As the world spun he saw Gimli, a short solid mass, using fists as powerful in their way as an axe. He heard the Dwarf grunt, and the sound seemed to him one of satisfaction.

The arrows continued to fly, lodging themselves unerringly in beady eyes and black throats, two and three at once in chests, bellies. The camp that had become battlefield, that had then become morgue and prison both, became battlefield once more. The bodies piled themselves new upon old, and in the confusion the Fellowship fought its way back to its weapons. Boromir whirled triumphant, brandishing his reclaimed sword.

Aragorn seized his own weapon from one of the corpses, and when he turned back to the fray he saw Legolas, standing tall at the camp's edge and firing, lightning-quick to grab another arrow, shifting aim and firing again. The Elf's hair was a promise flashing, a pennant to the victors. Aragorn tore his eyes from that sight and fought with renewed savagery, his sword singing once more and the Orcs falling under it.

******************************************************************

So they fought, and fought bravely and well, and the archer saw eleven Orcs to their end before it was over. Then Gandalf strode to the centre of camp, through narrow blood-soaked lanes crooking between the bodies, and looked over his fellowship and found it intact. He looked over the mutilated corpses, found the one he had taken note of earlier, and retrieved from around its black neck the chain that held the Ring. Frodo was at his side, a diminutive shadow, taking such weight of evil upon himself once more.

Aragorn's head no longer hurt, no longer throbbed as it had upon his return to consciousness: hours had seen his own somewhat heightened healing abilities work their way. He spared a scant handful of water to the wound and wiped the dried blood from his face. "Is everyone alright?" he asked, and waited while they answered in turn. Legolas, he noticed, lingered at the perimeter, at the trees. The Elf did not answer Aragorn's question.

"Legolas?" the Ranger called, more softly. He skirted the corpse of that first fallen Orc, arrow straight and humble in its chest, and stepped to his friend's side. "Are you alright, Mellon nin?" he asked, his eyes already running over the slender frame. There seemed no blood, no injury.

Legolas raised his head enough to answer. "I am uninjured, Estel," he reassured.

"Good," Aragorn murmured. "I was concerned."

"There is no need."

Aragorn nodded and turned back to the rest. Gandalf stood waiting, staff in hand. Boromir and Gimli were swiftly arranging their packs. The Hobbits had almost completed packing their things, having set to it immediately and without being told. They were becoming adept, experienced with the rigours of this journey; they knew the forest held dangers for them now, if so many Orcs were able to attack at once. The night stretched ahead and it would be spent traveling. Aragorn moved to his own things, pulling them from half- beneath a bloodied Orc carcass. He paid no further attention as Legolas silently saw to his own few belongings. The Fellowship was ready then and Gandalf led them from the clearing.

They left the forest as dawn flared, climbed from lush meadows of lavender and sunflower and wild sage into higher plains of heather and low scrub. They left that abbreviated life behind as well, and moved among barren rock. The air was thin and cold. As a naked poor sun took its leave once more, they found a scant stand of fir just below the snow line and made camp. Merry and Pippin had regained their cheer, demonstrating the sheer resilience of Hobbits; Frodo and Sam sat at the fireside, laughing with them as they engaged in heated debate over the respective merits of onions and leeks, and which were superior in a soup.

It occurred to Aragorn then, as he sat near Legolas, watching the Elf tighten his bowstring. "You were not in camp throughout the first battle last night. I had presumed you fallen, but you were not there."

"Nay." Legolas avoided the Ranger's gaze. "I was not there," he whispered.

"Did you seek solitude among the trees?"

Such an innocent question, so guileless and benign. So unintentionally wrenching. Aragorn was studying him, but there was no suspicion in the Man's eyes. His gaze reflected friendship and mild curiosity, and would it have been so easy, so easy to confirm that which he was willing to believe. So easy. "Nay," Legolas answered instead, and felt himself step out onto the road of his companions' disappointment, their anger, once again.

Aragorn tilted his head ever so slightly, mirroring that pensive gesture witnessed in his Elven friend over many years. He refocused his attention, studied Legolas with a curiosity now ignited, noting the lowered gaze, the troubled frown, the fingers entwined about the bow, fidgeting. The Elf had fallen into muteness, as though a shadow had entered him, and thus he had spent the day. Now he shied from a friend's gaze, ducked his head to his tasks. Aragorn read those behaviours as words in a book, and traced out the story they told.

"Legolas," The query was pointed this time, quiet yet commanding. "Why were you out of camp?"

There it lay, demanding his honesty. Demanding his confession. Legolas raised his eyes to meet Aragorn's. "I was out in search of answers. I came to sense Orcs in the forest - none near enough to pose immediate threat, but near enough - and I wondered at their presence. I went to learn what I might about them." He uttered the words with a steady calm that surprised him, set as they were against the shuddering rise of another voice, smaller and within him and speaking of how the fellowship had needed its archer and its archer had not been there.

Aragorn nodded inwardly, saddened but not overly surprised. Legolas was as stubborn as any he had ever met, Man or Elf, and once set upon a path he was as persistent as the Nazgul. "You knew you were not to take such action?" he probed, but it was a question of formality. Legolas had of course known. He watched as the Elf nodded quickly and lowered his head even further.

"Elbereth, Mellon nin - how many times are we going to do this?" Legolas' gaze snapped up at that, and Aragorn shook his head. "How many times, Legolas? I tell you, Gandalf tells you, Boromir tells you - we all tell you, and you nod and say `Aye' and seem to get the message. Then we look away, or gods forbid actually go to sleep, and you do just as you please!"

"I...."

"Yes, Legolas?" Aragorn moved to kneel at the Elf's side. "Pray, tell me, Mellon nin. Tell me."

He would have told. But the words would not resolve, losing themselves into brambles of guilt. Legolas scratched feebly at them, trying to create a sensible explanation, and then sighed and shook his head.

Aragorn accepted that silence, would accept it for the time. He longed to just gather the Elf into an embrace, soothe the fears that so obviously still plagued him, seek a night`s rest free of fear and the need for vigilance. But Legolas had defied orders - again. Legolas had risked his life in some noble but foolish endeavour - again. He studied the low set of the Elf's normally proud shoulders, the grounded gaze. Guilt and shame radiated from his friend, and it fisted at his own heart. He sighed and rose. "Come," he said.

Down the steep twisting path they had not long before ascended, down through the rocky disgorge of millennia, down past rough hardy scrub that could eke an existence from next to nothing, Man and Elf walked. Aragorn moved unhurried but with purpose, seeking a spot far enough from camp. Not too far from camp. The others knew - he knew that. He had seen their faces, the sadness in their eyes. Now he saw only peripherally the wind-scored land and its brittle life. The feather-light step behind him was his only signal of Legolas' presence.

They reached a plateau, the land flattening itself as though suddenly afraid to face the wind headlong. Boulders had collected, strewn by forces beyond any a mere Ranger or Elf could conceive, abandoned there by time's fickle march. They lay bare but for the sheerest lichen clinging to their leeward flanks. Aragorn moved to one, took a seat there and motioned to Legolas.

He needed words, now more than ever. Standing from his friend across a bare space, a chasm, he needed their integrity, their truth. He needed a path to understanding, a way to make the one - the one more important to him than any other - know. "I am sorry, Estel," he said, and it was so inadequate. So feeble and futile he wanted to scream.

"I know."

"I am so sorry." Estel did not know. He had no idea.

"Legolas, I know. I know you are sorry. Now come here."

Head down, Legolas surrendered. At Aragorn's side, he waited, wanting to raise his eyes but finding them weighted down, crushed to the life-forsaking ground. The Ranger's gaze held his Elven universe - his star-silvered feelings, his ancient moonlit dreams. Even the clouds of his shame, the thunder that drove through him and the wind that blew him lonely and bare as the jumbled rocks. The Ranger held his welfare, his future, his happiness, held them in dark eyes that could either shine with pride or darken with disappointment. Legolas could not look at those eyes now.

"I needed you to know," he murmured. "It was...I only...."

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"What?"

"I.... When I was off, out there...."

"Yes? Tell me."

"I realized - I realized they were everywhere."

"The Orcs."

"Aye. And I started back to camp. I started to run."

"You wanted to warn us."

"Aye. All I could think of was what would happen if I was too late...."

"You were not. You know that."

"I thought I would be - you would be...gone. And I should not have been thinking - well, I should have been thinking of Middle Earth."

"You did not?"

"Nay. I - Estel, I just kept thinking of myself, what I would do if.... I thought of how I had let you down - again. Forever. I do not know how to speak of this. I do not know."

"Speak of what you hold in your heart."

"How?"

"Just do."

"I love you."

Aragorn smiled. "I love you too."

Around them day surrendered. Night was an old friend, absent and returned. Clouds had taken the sky as surely as Orcs had taken the Fellowship, and were now oppressing the light. Legolas stood at Aragorn's side, waiting. He stared at the sky and wondered if it had an archer, too.

"Come," Aragorn beckoned, reaching for his friend. He grasped the Elf's hand and gave a gentle tug, urging Legolas to sit beside him on the boulder's flat head. "You are tormented by this, Mellon nin," he said. "That much I know as a surety."

"Aye."

"Is it due to the orders you disobeyed, or to your fears for our safety?"

Legolas paused to consider. "Both, I think," he said finally. He shrugged slightly, pursing his lips. "Does it matter?"

"Aye," Aragorn nodded. "It certainly does." He turned to Legolas, taking the Elf's pale slender hands in his own darker, calloused ones. "It matters because you take too much on yourself," he breathed. "It matters because you feel that your presence alone might save us, your mistakes alone might damn us, and your death might be of more value to us than your life. Legolas, it is not true."

"But, Estel - I left you, and you were taken."

"And had you been present, you would likely have been taken as well." Aragorn shook his head at Legolas, stemming further protest. "The Orcs moved in strong and numerous," he continued. "They flowed as blood from a grievous hurt. We were unprepared, and your presence, my friend, would not likely have done us much aid in the moment."

"I might have turned the fight."

Aragorn lifted his shoulders, lifted one eyebrow. "As I recall, you did turn the fight. When does not matter. What matters is that you did."

"I do not know if I can agree with that."

"Try."

Legolas drew a ragged breath and realized he had hardly breathed before. Since the attack, since the unmitigated unrelenting horror bestowed upon them by those Orcs, he had hardly breathed. His heart had been a feeble pattering in his breast; his mind had been a haven for the darkest of imaginings. Orcs streaming, viscous. His brave companions fighting, losing. Dying. That it had not happened such was of little comfort. He sniffled, brine soft and familiar in his throat. "How can you forgive me?" he whispered.

"Easily," Aragorn answered. He ducked to meet Legolas' lowered gaze. "Easily," he repeated.

"Are you going to punish me?"

"Aye. Do you know why?"

"Because I left -" Legolas read the shift in Aragorn's eyes, the near imperceptible shake of the Ranger's regal head. "Because I disobeyed your commands," he amended. "Because I risked my life...." He waited for a nod, and it came. It came, easing the hurt in him.

Aragorn leaned in to kiss Legolas' forehead, his fingers gentle and accustomed in flaxen hair. Then he reached further, wrapping his arm about the Elf's slender shoulders, and the softness laced itself into determined strength. He was not hard about it, not angry or rough as he drew his friend down over his thighs, but he was resolute. There could be no lesser response when a precious beloved life hung at risk.

Sighing, he lifted Legolas' tunic and drew the leggings down. Under his steadying hand the Elf's back was rigid, solid. Muscles, tensed from guilt and shame and anxiety, played beneath his fingers. Skin, smooth and warm, tightened his own resolve. He lifted his other hand and brought it down, wincing at the sharp scarlet mark it left on a pale bottom. But he could not falter, for in his swift action lay a path unto knowledge, an education for one who had never truly learned of self-worth, and who would one day die bravely, nobly, and needlessly, but for the lessons a friend could teach. He noted the gradual reddening of skin, from near white to pink to crimson, and Legolas was crying, tearing at his heart. But he had known the lesson would not be easy, would not be quick or clean or readily learned. Nay - it had to be this hard, as were all the dearest things.

******************************************************************

Aragorn idly traced the curving ascent of smoke from his pipe, and wondered at how far it would wander before losing all form and becoming just a darkening of the air, just an echo of scent, a warmth recalled in the vaguest terms and forgotten just as soon. Would it reach Mordor? Would it add to the plumes of that smoke and find itself at home, or would it shy from such foreign cloud and wish it had not roamed so far? He could not stop it, in any case. He could not save it from its mistakes.

Across the camp, on his belly near the fire, Legolas was in reverie. Aragorn had spanked him until the Elf could only weep brokenly over his lap, and then he had strained him to his own breast, murmuring in the Elvish. Legolas had calmed, but it might only have been exhaustion staking a claim around a ready soul, spiriting him from the pain of this world. Either way, he had become but a warm drowsy bundle in the Ranger's arms, and Aragorn had seen fit to carry him back up the hill they had travelled, into the camp.

The rest had settled but for Gimli, who now paced their perimeter. They had left nearest the fire a conspicuous open space, arranging themselves around it like guards around the palace, around the prince, and Aragorn had known right off it was for the prince in their keep. So he had laid Legolas there, shrugged the cloak from his own shoulders to cover the sleeping Elf, and retired to nearby shadow, wherein he now sat, watching.

Legolas twitched, a flash of something darkening his unfocussed eyes. Again, and he flung out one arm as though trying to repel an assailant. A whimper rose and died in his throat.

Aragorn was there, the pipe forgotten where it had been dropped. He glided in among the fellows, disturbing not their rest even in urgency, and knelt at Legolas` side. The Elf was clearly gripped by a dream; invisible attackers beset him and he strained feebly against them. Orcs, no doubt. Orcs attacking the archer. Attacking the Fellowship, when the archer was not there. Aragorn sighed. Such things were hard to change.

His soothing words and the touch of his hands quelled rising sleep- bound struggles but did not bring calm, for the Elf still flinched and whimpered. Lowering himself carefully, smoothly, Aragorn stretched out next to Legolas, wrapped both arms around him, pressed up against him. He kissed the fall of golden silk, the warm brow beneath it. He strained the Elf to him, moulded himself to that slender form, strove to become even a part of the dream that he might direct its course. Aye - he would lead it into peace, into sage-scented meadows and the sharp clean smell of evergreens. He would lead it into warm sunlight and soft air, and in it the sparrows would flit and sing. He breathed into the warmth of Legolas' neck and imagined cerulean sky and butterflies dancing.

The Orcs had come. Aye, they had come again, as he knew they would, and they were black and thick and everywhere. How could the Fellowship hope to survive without its archer? How could it hope not to fall? He strained toward it, toward the blood-soaked battlefield, knowing it was already too late. He had left them - he had left them. He had killed them with his absence.

The fight raged, steel clanging in the night. The screams were Orc; the Orc were wounded, dying. The screams were not Orc, then. The Fellowship was wounded. One by one its brave souls fell, and Legolas could only watch, could only watch and wonder at how they could not have an archer…surely they needed an archer to turn the fight....

He whimpered, reached for them. But his outstretched hand held no bow, no way to fight for those he loved. They would all die. He cried, and then the air about him was no longer cold. The Orcs were fading, their hideous twisted faces melting into shadow, their corpses dissolving like plumes of smoke in a breeze. The ground held no more of them, was not soaked through with the blood of the guilty and the innocent, was not scene to such horror.

There was warmth around him, holding him, and he relaxed into it, and from the darkest of nights rose another day. They were whole and safe and together. About them the air was soft, the sky above clear and blue, and birds were singing.

The End