Caught (a legolas fanfiction)

Darkness

A/N: Had an awesome writing meeting with my brother's friend and her mom (of course, my brother and his friend were writing about flying cats and villains with mushroom-shaped heads and who knows what else), and the mom and I got some good decision making about our stories ready for November, which is National Novel Writing Month!

Chapter 5

When Legolas woke up again, he was in a new place. Darkness. He stared at the blackness, assuming that it was just that his eyes had yet to adjust, but after a few minutes of staring into nothing he began to realize that it was not his eyes fooling him.

His breath hitched, and he sat up. The dizziness from yesterday was gone. He groped at the gritty floor with his hands. He soon came to a wall, which was cold and smooth. Reaching around it, he came to a shelf. Upon it he found a few bottles and boxes. He opened them and, making sure not to drop the lids, for he would surely never find them again in this cursed darkness, sniffed at them, one at a time. To his surprise, they were healing herbs and teas and concoctions. Suddenly, a bright light flooded the room, and he squinted into it as his eyes burned.

"Ah, someone has found the herbs, I see," a voice said, and Legolas immediately hid all emotion from his eyes. The man laughed.

"You need not try to hide anything from me, little prince," he said, grinning. "I already can tell your feelings, whether they show in your eyes or not."

Legolas kept a steady gaze, though inside his heart was racing.

"Yea?" he said, thanking the Valar that he voice didn't shake. "And how, little human, would you know that?"

"It seems you have yet to be taught respect," the man said, frowning. "Maybe this will help teach you." He came up to Legolas and pulled something out of his pocket. Legolas's eyes widened.

"Yes, princeling, this is what you think it is," the man said, and in a flash he had a fistful of the elf's golden hair tangled in his fingers. Legolas struggled, but the man forced him to expose his neck with a jerk of his hand. He pulled out the offending object with the other and fastened it around his captive's neck.

"Much better," he said. Legolas clutched at the too-tight band of leather around his neck and glared at the string attached to it.

He had been collared. Like an animal.

The man laughed, and all Legolas could do was glare, which made him laugh all the more.

"Come," he said, and he grabbed the leash, pulling Legolas along. The elf tried to resist, but whenever he pulled back, the loop around his neck tightened, and he realized if he didn't stop, he would not be able to breathe.

It was thus that the Prince of Mirkwood was lead into a small courtyard: lead on a leash by his captor.

The man tied the end of the leash to a wooden post in the middle of the courtyard. Images flashed through Legolas's mind.

His mother, wearing a collar much like he was, bloodied and unconscious in a heap on the ground, her usual beauty and grace gone.

Her face every time she woke up, turning from a pain-filled grimace into a small smile as she saw his face above her. The feel of her skin on his as she wiped away his tears with one hand.

The look of despair on her face as she fell on that fateful day. Her comforting words, the last time he would hear her voice.

Legolas felt tears sting his eyes as he relived the moments that had taken place in this very same patch of grass almost 2,500 years ago.

He glanced around, and suddenly a realization hit him. Last time, the only reason he had escaped, it had been because of one of the "men" in the place had been a Mirkwood elf in disguise. Now, the place was abandoned. It was just him and the man.