A friendly trip 2

3.

The next say they passed by a cave. A big cave, wide and dark. They could hear the screeching of bats inside. Legolas gripped the reigns tighter, which made his horse unsettled. He didn't even know Aragorn had seen, until the soft voice almost made him heart stop.

"Are you alright?"

He looked over at Aragorn, and met his concerned gaze with a smile. "I just remembered, that's all."

Aragorn nodded, looking at Legolas with sympathy. Normally Legolas hated sympathy. He never Aragorn to feel bad for him, for he did not feel bad for himself. He had grown up and learned to forget trauma, even if it did not truly work it kept him going to pretend it did not face him.

"I understand. Moria left scars on all of us, and we weren't wood elves."

Legolas nodded and petted the horse's neck. "Forgive me." He whispered and loosened the reigns. He saw Aragorn's smile, before looking ahead again.

Fear hit him like an arrow through the heart. "Stop." He whispered in a rushed breath. Aragorn did, turning wide eyes to him, but saying nothing. He let Legolas listen.

Legolas looked ahead and scanned the forest as he listened for the sound again. Thumb. Thumb. Then a branch cracking. "Footsteps." He whispered, wide eyes scanning around them. "It's something big."

Aragorn turned the horse to him. "Should we leave?"

"Yes." Legolas turned to Aragorn just when the troll appeared to their right, and his breath caught in his throat. "Aragorn!"

Before either could react the troll swung his fist down on the horses neck, and Aragorn fell to the ground with it, getting stuck under it. Legolas grabbed his bow and aimed an arrow at the troll's head. It fell with a pained grunt. Legolas jumped off his horse to run over to Aragorn and lay a hand on his arm. Aragorn nodded at him and with Legolas help slid out from under the horse, when the pained scream of a horse mad them look back. Legolas' horse had been inpaled on a spear taller than any of them, and was stuck in the ground, slowly sinking down on the wood.

Legolas pulled another arrow. Just as Aragorn called his name a rock hit him in the back of the head. It knocked him forwards, and the seconds of weakness made it easy for the troll to knock with the mace. He hit the ground, and his vision got dark.

The first thing he felt was the hard ground. Then came the soaring pain in his head, and his arm. Opening his eyes caused a strike of pain to his head, and in turn his eyes. He raised an arm to rub at his head, when he noticed his hands were tied together. He felt a wetness in his hair when he touched the side of his head. He closed his eyes again. This was not good, he knew that very well. And he had a small, sharp rock under this back.

He heard a whisper from beside him. Tipping his head to the other side he saw Aragorn sitting against a tree, a rope around his hands and feet. Legolas throat closed up at the sight.

Aragorn had a finger over this lips, signaling for Legolas to be quiet. The elf struggled to sat up anyways without the use of his hands, and tried to look around though the blinding, stabbing pain clouding his vision. Beside them was a huge fire, and on it lay Legolas' horse, hooves bound around a large tree laying over the fire. It had a huge gaping hole in his body from the spear, and the fur on its back slowly burned away as its blood dripped into the fire. The sight made Legolas feel sick.

Then the footsteps returned, with voices. Aragorn whispered for him to lay back down, and he did. It the trolls thought he was asleep they could have an advantage. Not big, but something.

"That elf just shot him." One of them said with a dark, gurgling voice. "We should cook him first."

"No let him watch." The other one said in bad english. It sounded like he struggled to get the words out. Legolas could make out two voices so far, but could not be fully sure there weren't more. His heart threatened to choke him, but he forced himself to breathe slowly to pretend to be asleep.