Young Prince Legolas of Mirkwood was dreaming. He had to be. There was no other way to explain what he was feeling, and the emotions he experienced. It was not a nice dream, either, and he was very eager to have it end. But try as he might, he could not seem to wake up. Close his eyes - there was awful pain everywhere, lancing from his right shoulder through every line and muscle in his body; and there was an undignified jouncing about, and a distinct inability to move or speak. Open his eyes, matters were even worse, for not only was there pain and all the unpleasantness he sensed with closed eyes, but there were also Orcs and other strange creatures in the forest, and he could not seem to see the moon or stars, though it was night. He was somehow in a very uncomfortable position as well, to make it all worse. And the stench! Heart of Elbereth, the stench would stop a cave troll in its tracks...

He attempted to make his mouth work, to raise his voice, to call for his servants or his father, but nothing came out save a smothered squeak. His tongue felt like wet, trampled wool, and there was a taste of blood and foulness in his mouth. Legolas tried to swallow, but that did not work either. When had his tongue gotten that big? It had not been like that this morning...

The child realized, with an unpleasant jolt, that the problem was not his tongue. Not directly, at least. No, it was cloth in his mouth, under his tongue in a kind of rolled wad, and more besides - there was a leather scrap of some sort tied over his mouth and chin. No wonder he could not make himself heard. And with his bright blond hair all hanging in his face, was it really a surprise he could not see where he was going? How often had Father said - Princes must always look like princes, little bird. Not like messy little tree-rats that have just fallen into the moss bed and rolled into the river! No, even in a nightmare this would never do.

He tried to raise a hand to brush his hair back. No response from his arms, just a kind of twitching at his sides. He tried again, squirming; Legolas was stunned when something hauled him back by the scruff of his neck and struck at him, cold, fetid flesh and claws slapping him in the face, making his head snap painfully back and opening a gash in his smooth, pale cheek.

"Hold your peace, Elfling!" a voice growled in the Common tongue, low and mean, with hints of an insinuating, hissing cantankerousness. Legolas felt himself thrown forward once more and hung there - wherever there was - in shock, tears of pain in his eyes, unable to breathe until the pain subsided - and certainly unable to think for a long moment.

Nightmares ought not to hit back. He knew what it was to be hit; weapons masters sometimes smacked one in the course of a lesson, and his father had hit him more than once when he committed some error, the better to let it sink in against repetition. His elder brother and various cousins also occasionally took swipes at him, but he was getting better at dodging those, and giving back in kind. In the main, though, there were very few blows or beatings in the life of a child prince. Nightmares ought never to hit princes, he thought, offended, greatly outraged. It just was not fair. It just was not done!

At last the jouncing and jolting seemed to slow, then stop, and Legolas' keen eyes could pick out certain details of the ground - which was all he could see from his annoying vantage point. There was more moonlight here, as well; he could see the outline of the track along which he was being made to travel, and could just make out details of a broad back, covered with dark, rough clothing and leather armor, much-befouled with blood of several different types. Legolas wrinkled his nose, appalled that one of those blood-scents was Elven. But there were animal blood-scents as well, and Dwarven, and something salt-sweet with an after-taste of copper that might have been Man-blood. As his head cleared from the blow, Legolas realized he was flung over someone's shoulder like so much baggage, and that the someone who owned the shoulder smelled like an Orc. He decided he ought not to tell the person this, should he ever have the chance, because the someone might hit him again.

Father will be SO angry when he finds out! Legolas thought, and was cheered by that. Father would most assuredly hit anyone who struck a son of his - and Father could hit hard. Perhaps it was best, then, to let Father deal with it. He was good at handling nightmares. He would come and sit on the edge of the bed, pretending to be put out, wondering aloud why a son of his should be such a mollycoddle. But then Legolas would dip his chin and look at him, big-eyed and patient, and Father would relent and smile, catching him up from the bedclothes to hold him on his lap. He would tell him stories to make the nightmares go away. Then, after maybe one or two times when Legolas would let his gaze go a little too long into the shadows of his bedchamber, Father would realize he had a very sleepy child on his hands, and would make him settle down again, singing softly to him of the Old Times until Legolas really did slide off, wide-eyed and silent, into the twilight realm of proper Elvish dreams...

He raised his head as best he could, trying to look about more. There was something tight about his throat, though, and when he tried to move, the tightness worsened, and oddly enough made his back twitch. But Legolas was able to see a little more, so he looked about in the dimness. All seemed to be dark and foresty behind him. But then suddenly, a leering, grinning Orc face appeared just above his own, and a tongue licked out, tasting the blood that dribbled down his cheek.

"I say we stop and eat 'im now," the face chortled, and nasty, mottled-looking hands came up to take Legolas by either side of his own face, pulling until they were practically nose-to-nose. "Nice, tender little Elfling," the face wheedled, breathing appalling breath into offended Elf nostrils. "Best thing for a big, bad Orc to eat in the night!"

Just as suddenly the face disappeared - somewhat painfully, as it turned out, for as Legolas found himself being turned away from the Orc, said Orc's clawed paws were still gripping his face. He made an unpleasant noise in his throat at the pain, and wearily wished Father would hurry up and wake him. One did want to be brave as long as one could, but this was getting ridiculous.

"Leave the brat alone, Galgrim," said the voice near Legolas' ear - the same voice that had told him to hold his peace. Presumably the one over whose shoulder he was so uncomfortably carried. Presumably - the one that had hit him. Oh, there would be some reckoning when Father arrived, that was a fact! "If anyone eats 'im, it'll be me, for having t'carry the smelly little rat all this way."

Smelly! Legolas was mortified and outraged. Smelly indeed! How dare he! The child squirmed with all his might, straining at his bonds, his nostrils flaring and eyes slit with fury. Does he have any idea who he's talking about? Oh, blessed Valar, give me strength and a weapon!

But rather than being dismayed at the fell fury of the son of King Thranduil, the Orcs simply seemed to find Legolas' infuriated struggling vastly amusing. Other of the vile creatures gathered around then, and there was a general tossing down of burdens, weapons and shields and - Elven princes, not to put too fine a point on it. Legolas found himself face-down on a muddy forest road for several seconds, as the Orcs laughed and called mocking encouragement. Pain of a bright and coiling kind bit through him when his wounded shoulder hit the ground; it knocked the breath from him, brought tears to his eyes, and something whispered deep within: the arrow, it must have been the arrow... Legolas blinked hard, trying not to cry for real. He was a warrior now, and the King's son, and anyway, crying would plug up his nose. Which would be very bad... Father, please, where am I? Where are you?

Realizing this nightmare had long since gone past reasonable by anyone's definition, the child simply stopped participating. He let stillness fall on him as only an Elf could, and turned his face out of the mud, so that at least he could breathe. He did not move, and calmed even his breathing until it would have taken more powerful senses than those of Orcs to detect any hint of motion from him. The laughing did not stop right away, but Legolas took the time to follow his training and attempt to figure out just what was going on here.

He discovered almost nothing that could be considered positive, save for the simple fact of knowing more about his predicament. Legolas' ankles were bound with tight leather thongs, and there was indeed some sort of thick leather collar tight about his slender throat. His arms were secured tight at his sides by thick straps in three places, and there was a rope running from the collar to his belt, and thence to the bindings about his ankles. His legs were bent at the knees - effectively hog-tying him, a most uncomfortable and undignified position in which to be. From what he could see now, here on the ground, there were some twenty Orcs gathered about him, all of them big and stinking and armed to the teeth. He squeezed his eyes almost shut and prayed for help.

Legolas decided, much though he wished it were otherwise, this was no nightmare. Or rather, it was a nightmare - but not the safer, more normal kind he experienced from time to time back home, at Eryn Lasgalen. This was the waking kind, the real kind.

The kind from which one might possibly not awaken...

Large Orc feet came into his line of vision as the sound of laughter died back to the more normal grunting, growling accompaniment one thought of, when imagining the society of Orcs. Swift, angry-sounding words in the Orcish language flowed back and forth, but Legolas knew very little Orc-speech, save for disobliging words learned from his father's warriors, so he understood very little of what went forth. The owner of those feet reached down and picked Legolas up off the ground by the back of his tunic and by his hair, but the child did not embarrass his upbringing. He let the pain flow through him and sang silently to it as it went, a song of stillness and patience, for though he had not yet attained even so much as twenty-five full years of life in Middle-Earth, Legolas understood he must behave properly for the honour of the Elves. He hung there in the Orc's grasp, limp and unresisting, giving no more satisfaction or cause for amusement.

He did open his eyes fully, though, and stared hard at the Orc. Legolas did his best to put everything he was into that stare: I am Legolas, son of Thranduil the son of Oropher, of the Kings of Mirkwood the Great. Prince of the Sindar from the Great Forest, I am the descendant of the Shining Ones of the Teleri, a child of the Eldar, he silently informed the Orc. I was born of the breath of Ilúvatar the Father of All, and Elbereth Star-Kindler shines down on me every night, as she has done since I was born. You will have to kill me, because if you do not, I will kill you. Believe it.

The Orc narrowed its eyes at Legolas, for all the world as if it had read something of those high-sounding, proud words in the blue eyes tinged with flecks of gray.

"Brave little Elf!" the Orc said at last, sneering. "We shall see how brave you are as the night wears on, yes! When we bring you to the Master and he makes of you what he will - we shall see, what brave little eyes you have. Oh yes, we will see then!"

The other Orcs fell oddly silent, which did not reassure Legolas at all, though he would never have ceased being still for anything, now. The Orc captain slung the child over his own shoulder and gruffly ordered his warriors to pick up and move on, as the dawn would be upon them soon. The jouncing and jolting began again, all too well understood now, and Legolas was glad of the darkness, because he did not wish the Orcs to see that there were tears flooding the eyes of the son of Thranduil.