Tired of Life and Death,
Shadow King. Disclaimer: Tolkien owns Dol Amroth, Thranduil, Legolas, Mirkwood, orcs, the Ringwraiths, and Sauron.

A/N: This fic has Elf torture, slavery, and a lot of other nasty stuff. It's basically a break from Where The Present Meets The Past, because I had the plotbunny for this and no real ideas in the immediate future for WTPMTP, so I started typing this up. Plotline: war in Mirkwood, Thranduil and Legolas get lost a few hundred years after the Prince's birth when Nazgul invade the city, and are abducted to Dol Amroth.

Outcast.

They were coming.

Thranduil shoved the doors to the hall open. Everywhere Elves were hurrying, gathering family, picking up belongings, trying to get out.

The evacuation plan was working relatively well- most of the population had certainly arrived at the Palace by now, so they wouldn't have too much trouble in getting everyone out.

And that's where it all went wrong.

The little groups had just begun to flood into the underground tunnels and towards safety when the doors banged open.

A high-pitched, terrible scream emitted from the throat of the Nazgul, which stood there, huge and black, like an ominous portent of doom.

Shrieks and cries filled the air, with all the Avari struggling for the tunnels, desperate to escape from this bringer of despair, terror, and death.

Bang! The door to one passage slammed shut.

Slam! Bam! Two more. Those remaining were panicking as the Ringwraith swept into the hall...

Hardly anyone was left. The King saw his wife's frightened face in one of the few exits left open.

"Run, Lothmiren!" he shouted, turning to catch up his son.

There was no way that he could reach the entrance in time.

The door swung shut as he went racing out of the room and up the steps, half dragging his son with him. Behind him, he heard a clatter as the undead creature pursued him. Legolas was, by Elven reckoning, the equivalent of ten, but thought beyond his age.

He had seen too much death and destruction not to.

No, Thranduil thought, Legolas would not be a burden, and he would have taken his dear child with him even if it had meant getting taken by Sauron himself. If it allowed his little Greenleaf to escape, he would willingly have given himself up.

Even to the Necromancer.

So the Elvenking ran, until he found a way out, and then leapt from a window to a tree, and fled through the forest, his child with him, leaping from branch to branch with effortless grace as they ran from their home.

Ironic, Thranduil mused as they went, that, on such a sad day, the sun should dapple the wood with peaceful light.

He could have easily enjoyed it.

Had he not been engaged in running for his life, that is.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

They stopped moving just after moonrise.

Thranduil had no idea why the Nazgul, who naturally abhorred daylight, had chose to attack them just after noon- the hottest time of the day. Maybe it had been to catch them by surprise? If it had, it had certainly worked. The Woodelves had been completely caught out, not to mention confused, especially after a pack of Wargs and several spiders had chosen to ally themselves with the two wraiths. It had been utter chaos.

And they had paid the price for it.

Twenty Avari he had seen lying dead. Twenty of his people had been killed because he had not thought to prepare for daytime attacks.

"Ada?"

He looked down at the small, childish face beside him.

"Ada, it wasn't your fault that they came after noon. They hate sunlight, it burns them. Why should they come in the day?"

Ai, Iluvatar, how is it that you see me so little yet know me so well? It should not happen that you are taken, for how else will I know that you love me, and I you? Sauron fools many into thinking untruths...may it be that we escape.

Ai Eru indeed.

They rested, sleeping in small snatches, only to wake and then spend much time in fearful wakefulness.

At last, dawn came. Thranduil knew that it was wiser to move at night, when the Ringwraiths would be noted by alert minds and so avoided, and sleep during the day, when they were inactive, but now he wanted to get as far as possible whilst their opponents awaited nightfall, and the loss of the sun.

They travelled swiftly, pacing over harder ground, taking to the trees for the softer parts, where they would otherwise be easily tracked. Like golden sun-glimmers they seemed, almost ethereal, gliding silently through a half- imagined pattern of light and shadow and bark and leaf. The name of Mirkwood now was unfitting for this place, it was calm and peaceful beyond words.

The birds themselves did not know if they saw the pair or not. Legolas and his father were out of that range of sight. They were as dust motes, somehow brought into almost-solid form.

Midday came and went. The shadows lengthened in the quiet forest, making it more and more eerie. The two travellers slowed, but did not halt. They would have to choose their path carefully at night, but it was essential that they keep moving. Both understood that to stop and sleep was to die- or to go to a place worse than death.

For death in itself for Elves brings only Mandos, no more and no less, and a chance for life again. Capture, however, meant Dol Amroth, and that brought pain and suffering beyond belief, interrogation, and the betrayal of those held closest to the heart. Death, when it came, was considered a blessing of the Valar.

Silver light lanced between the trees, creating patches like pools of molten diamond on the leaf-strewn floor. Outside of those patches was total darkness, deep and black. Yet for the Elves, this darkness was a mercy.

They dimmed the light of their bodies and became nearly invisible. The sound of their footfall was almost undetectable. They avoided the dens of orcs and wolves that they knew of, and skirted the nests of the spiders. They knew that fell creatures moved after dark, and they strained their ears to the utmost, listening for danger, be it from goblin or Warg or wraith, praying mentally to the Valar that they should not hear such sounds of pursuit that night.

When the Moon reached the centre of the sky, Thranduil heard hooves.

Fear rose tightly in his chest, accompanied by the black terror that confirmed the fact that a Nazgul was behind them, and most likely knew they were there- it would be easy for such a creature to sense the light of an Elf.

The Elvenking was not surprised that the creature had caught up so quickly- their mounts were swift and strong. What did startle him was that the Ringwraith had picked up their trail. He and his son had been light on their feet, and left no marks. It should not have been so simple for the thing to track them.

That puzzle was solved when a fast-running wolf appeared behind the Black Rider. It had obviously followed their scent, after being given a starting point at where they had spent the previous night. However, that was of no consequence. The Nine had found them.

Or four of the Nine, at any rate.

Thranduil gripped Legolas' hand in his, and the two took to the trees and fled.

It was a sight to behold. In the darkened boughs, two spots of softly shining light were racing side by side, bounding and leaping from branch to branch with incredible surety. On the ground, four flowing clouds of blackness and evil raced, streaming around the great girths of oak and elm that blocked their path. It was almost a battle, a battle of endurances, a test of speed and courage.

Suddenly, the smaller of the two tree-runners faltered, snatching at a branch that had been just outside his range. The other jumped down beside him, catching him, and clutched the Elfling protectively to his body as the Riders surrounded them.

They were trapped.

Thranduil held his son close as they moved in, their mounts snorting and huffing softly in the cool night air. Their foul breath polluted the area around them, and the Elf's heart seemed to constrict within him as they reached toward his child.

Hope. A single, tiny spark of it.

"Legolas," he breathed into his son's ear, "I want you to run. As soon as I move back, you must get into the trees and flee this place. Do you understand?"

The boy looked up at him.

"I will not leave you, Ada!"

"You must, I shall not let them take you as well! Dearest child, you are the only one I have left..."

"And I will not let them take that from you! Ada, I'm staying here."

And then the Nazgul were upon them, and it was too late.

The two Elves were ripped apart, crying out and trying to hold onto one another in desperation. The Ringwraiths rode their mounts between father and son, the Black Breath of their kind enveloping the pair in dark terror. Unsought, nightmarish sounds echoed in their ears, sight faded and darkened, and both reeled in shock and sudden giddiness.

Legolas passed out, for, however much he knew of these foul things, his body was too young to take this filth that they exhaled and remain conscious. Thranduil remained upright, but the horror of it and the smoke like substance he was breathing in made him dizzy and sick, especially at such close quarters to the creatures that had emitted it. He only dimly noticed when he was bound and slung over the back of a horse, except for the icy contact of the undead spirits.

Pain became nearly unrecognisable to his mind. Pain? What was pain? Who cared what happened to the body when your fea was under attack? Fear, yes, terror, yes, he knew those. But pain? The concept was beyond his comprehension.

And that was strange, for Thranduil was accustomed to agony. He knew how to pretend he did not feel it, and he could work around it, cope with it. The son of Oropher was not an Elf who could sit back in a war. He took his people into battle, and fought alongside them. And, because of that, he was used to injury. He could even resist the Riders, to some extent.

But never had he been so utterly enclosed by them.

He envied his child the gentle bliss of unconsciousness. In that unusual otherworld, you were sheltered from the twisted place that was reality. It was a state stronger than sleep, and harder to break. It protected the thoughts, and gave them time to come together before sending them out again, into the world.

He knew that they were bound for Dol Guldor, and, oddly, he didn't mind. He found it impossible to believe that anything could be worse than this torment.

Anything.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

Legolas was awake again by the time they entered the fortress.

His father was still in the tormented land that the undead foulities had cast him in to. He could feel his body, but was refusing to acknowledge it. Knowing that he was a potential threat, the Nazgul had kept him under all through the journey.

The Prince was pale and shaking as they rode beneath the arch of the gateway. He knew where they were, and he knew the probable outcome of his coming here. He knew that many things carried out here had been done by Sauron's orders, and he trembled in fright as the great black horse bore him toward the tower.

The Ringwraiths dismounted in a kind of courtyard, just below the imposing bulk of what was once the Dark Lord's main torture chamber- except it was really many chambers. And, as a matter of fact, prisoners were still tortured here.

Horribly tortured.

Legolas had once seen the mutilated body of a Man the orcs of Dol Guldor had captured. The twisted limbs and infected wounds had been forever imprinted into his young mind. It had been a display of cruelty the likes of which he had never seen before, and had hoped never to see again.

Now, however, he was not only going to witness such a horror, but be a victim to it himself. He was going to become one of the screaming wretches he had heard of and pitied, an unfortunate Elf thrust into a living tale. And not a cheerful tale of heroic deeds, but a tale of the likes of Angband, Melkor's great fortress in the Age of Stars. He would experience many dark things, akin to those that had turned Elves to orcs, although not on that same immense scale.

This knowledge unhinged his mind, baffling every thought with deep, thick terror. Coherent understanding was beyond him. He was far too scared to grasp the concept of that. All that he knew was that he was full of a fear that hardly let him move, suffocating him in its depths.

Then his father stirred.

Thranduil moved stiffly, lifting his head from the ground on which he had been deposited to look about. His eyes caught his son's...

...And Legolas realised that they were in worse trouble then he'd thought.

Much, much worse.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

Feet unbound, Thranduil staggered through the stone corridors, barely noticing the bloodstains on the walls.

They had taken his son.

They had dragged his only child away from him, laughing cruelly. They had stolen the single treasure that had kept him sane when the Nazgul had captured him, stolen it and borne it off to crush its light and sully it's beauty. They had robbed him of a life that he and Lothmiren had created, and he no longer knew if he could stand it.

Ai, Elbereth...let it be swift. Let his life fade before they hurt him too much. He is a child, surely you would grant him a fast release, or at least an easier one. He has done nought to deserve the pain that they will bring him, so please, let it be quick!

The Men that had taken his child had been Haradrim, by the dark tone of their skin. No surprises there; the people of Harad before had allied with Sauron. If any Men were here, he'd expect that they were the Oliphaunt- herders, rather than the noble warriors of Gondor. Yet even of Gondor we know so little- oh, that when Isiuldor had cut the Ring from Sauron's hand, he had heeded advice and destroyed it! For then my son should at least not be here, where soon I will fester and rot.

Thranduil was brought back to the real world when the man in front half- yanked him down a flight of stairs, nearly causing the Elvenking to break his head against the wall. Another said a few words in the language of Harad, and the maliciousness behind them was unmistakable, even if he did not understand them.

Suddenly, the Sinda noticed the bloody marks and mangled tissue marking the walls, ceiling, and floor of the tunnel, and disgust exploded in him. Who were these Men, that they destroyed living bodies and proudly displayed the result in the tunnels they walked each day? Scorn, anger, and horror he felt in an intense rush, yet he was also filled with sympathy for those whose tattered flesh now besmirched the corridor in which he stood.

That I could aid you...that I could SAVE you, but that is a power now beyond me, and has been for many a year. I cannot grant you easy death, but I bid you rest, even though you cannot hear me, kin of mine, and Men of Gondor.

After a short time, he was thrust into a tiny room, stinking of vomit, excrescence, and blood.

With a thrill of revulsion, Thranduil saw that the chamber's previous occupant was lying sprawled on the floor, completely unidentifiable, merely a mutilated mess of torn organs and shattered bone.

He reached out, his hand stopping, palm out, only inches from the twisted corpse.

"If you be Firstborn, rest in Mandos," he whispered. "If you be mortal, pass beyond. Whoever you were, be at peace in death, and free from pain."

And then he slumped down in the cell's opposite corner and fell into an Elven sleeping trance.

" " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " "

A/N: Hi, Starwind Rohana here. This fic is going to be continued, and so is Where The Present Meets The Past, in which I destroyed Valinor- okay, so I put it back together, lay off- and ditch all the Elves (and a few Maiar) in Roman times. So far...well, just go read, willya? Please? Look, I have added a few OCs, but they are strictly non-Sue/Stu, to the best of my abilities.

Please also note that I have exams coming up, and so I might be updating less for the next few weeks, although I shall still do as much as is mentally and physically possible. Signed, SR.