Caught (a legolas fanfiction)

Gone

"Legolas!"

The name was torn from three lips as the elven prince fell without his usual grace onto the cold earth. Thranduil started towards his son, but the man was faster. Throwing his captive over his shoulder, he took off once again.

Thranduil looked toward the space the man had run to, despair filling his eyes as he fell to his knees. Aragorn, who had begun to run toward the man, stopped abruptly.

"Gimli, stay and help the king!" he said, starting to run again. "I will try to get to Legolas!"

Gimli was left speechless as Aragorn ran into the woods. How was he supposed to communicate to an elvenking who had kept his father in a deep, dark dungeon? He gulped and nervously made his way to Thranduil, clearing his throat. When Thranduil still didn't look up, Gimli lowered himself so he was looking at the taller being's face. The tears running down it filled Gimli with a sudden surge of courage and compassion. He had to help the broken being in front of him.

"Hey," he said, lifting the pale face just like his friend's so they were eye to eye. The similarities to Legolas made Gimli want to cry, but he swallowed thickly and kept going.

"Legolas is strong. He will not ever leave you over something like this."

Thranduil shook his head, laughing mirthlessly.

"And what would you know about that, Gimli son of Gloin?" he said. "You so not know my son."

Gimli bristled at the words.

"I have been with him through the darkest of the trails through Moria, under the fair leaves of Lothlorien, and been on the trail of orcs for many weeks. We have been to Rohan and the marvelous fortress of Helm's Deep, and into the Halls of the Dead.

"At first I despised him because of his race, but eventually, after he saved me from falling to my death in Moria, I have come to accept him, because it does not matter what you have done, for he is a different person."

Thranduil looked up.

"Your son is extremely stubborn, and a total know-it-all at times, and he loves to make fun of me. But he is also the strongest friend I have, probably the most valuable asset to the Fellowship, and he will never stop trying to get back to you, no matter what happens."

Gimli paused and placed a hand over Thranduil's heart. The king looked at him in surprise.

"You know this. You feel it," he patted the spot on the left side of Thranduil's chest, "in here."

Thranduil shook his head.

"You obviously do not know his story if you think that his stubbornness will keep the fear of this man away for long."

Gimli sighed, frustration bubbling up in his chest.

"I know not what Legolas has been through," he growled. "But I do know that if you don't get up and go after him right now, he may well have to go through it all again!"

"There is no hope in reaching him," Thranduil said, his voice laced with despair. "He is lost to me."

"By the Valar! Legolas is full of hope and joy no matter what! He never, ever gives up hoping that a situation can better! How on Arda are you his father!?" Gimli yelled, finally having had enough of the king's attitude.

Images of a happy, hopeful elfling beaming up at him flashed through Thranduil's mind, and he curled in on himself.

"Ion-nin..." he mumbled. Suddenly an image of the man came to mind. From Legolas's descriptions from when he was an elfling, he could practically see what had happened during his time in captivity.

"Ion-nin! Dari hae o ion-nin!" he yelled, ignoring the dwarf next to him.

Gimli turned and walked away from the father of his friend.

Aragorn saw the man, almost ten years ahead of him. Yet that was not what urged him on.

What fueled his speed was his view of the pale face hanging lifelessly over the man's shoulder, eyes closed, and the silvery blood that was soaking the man's clothes that was not his own.

Suddenly Legolas's eyes snapped open, and he saw Aragorn running behind them. Relief showed on his face, but it soon was lost in rigorous coughing.

As blood trickled down his lips, Legolas stared at Aragorn, who was running as fast as his mortal legs could carry him. Legolas gasped as the man leaped over a small stream and landed, sending s jolt through the archer's broken body. Even as he cried out in pain, he felt the consciousness fleeing him and he closed his eyes in resignation.

Aragorn watched in horror as his friend fell unconscious again. He, too, leaped over the stream, and he was about to reach the man when he turned, bow in hand, and pointed it at Aragorn, firing.

Aragorn felt a sudden jolt of pain go through his thigh, and his leg buckled and he fell face first into the dirt. The man's laughter reached his ears, and he tried to sit up, but he couldn't ignore the pain.

But the man still has Legolas! He thought. I can't stop! I must save him! But his body would not obey him. He stared in despair as the man and Legolas disappeared beyond the horizon, lost within the trees.

It was late that night when Gimli finally decided that Aragorn had been gone far too long. The king had finally succumbed to sleep earlier in the evening, and Gimli had made a small fire to warm him, as he had seemed unusually cold. Gimli picked a stick from nearby and wrote a message on the ground in the common tongue, so that the king would know where he had disappeared to.

Picking up his axe, he looked in the direction where Aragorn had run. Sighing at the realization that it would be a long trip, he began to pick his way through the woods.

It was almost an hour later when he saw, just across a small stream, his friend laying in a pool of blood. Running over to Aragorn, Gimli kneeled by his side and noticed the arrow laying on the floor and the blood running down his leg. Apparently the pain of removing the arrow had been too much for the human.

Gimli ripped a piece of his tunic and wet it with water from the stream. He began to dab at the blood to wash it away. Aragorn's eyes cracked open.

"G..Gimli?" he said, his lips dry.

"Yes, it is me, laddie," Gimli said, not looking up from his work. He didn't want Aragorn to see the tears forming in his eyes.

Meanwhile, Aragorn had some tears of his own, and they began to run down his face.

"I...I lost them," he said. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Legolas is gone."

A/N: A pretty short chapter, I guess, but I wanted to make sure to write SOMETHING. Hope you all liked. I didn't like this chapter as much as the others.