He was flying, hanging by his hands from the talons of one of the Great Eagles, soaring over the Misty Mountains and seeing all that was laid out before him from Middle-Earth and beyond. Spread out on the landscape were little bits of star-stuff, such as his Elven-Kin might have been made from all the long centuries ago: shiny, bright pieces of light, like the sun captured within shards of a shattered piece of crystal. They were his pieces, he knew, though he did not know how he knew. They just were, and he accepted that, because he was at an age where children accept such things in absolute, unquestioning faith.

But Legolas also knew he could not hope to get them all back in his own possession, unless a miracle happened. The Eagle swooped down politely whenever he asked, and Legolas was able to gather a few pieces here and there, but he had nothing in which to put them, so they kept falling away again.

Hang on to your soul, little prince, the Elder had said. He had heard him say it, and there was no question in his mind that he should obey. May Eru Iluvatar keep you safe... Tears stung behind his eyelids at the portentous kindness in those words. So, the Elder was not the All-Father. Perhaps he was one of the servants of the Father, then - maybe it was Manwe...

That would explain the Eagles, Legolas thought, and despite the terror weighting him down, he smiled at the thought, wanting to make a song of it, so that he could be brave. If the very Valar themselves were trying to help him out of this nightmare, how bad could it be? Perhaps this was a test... And part of the test was to hang on to his soul. But if his soul was shattered into all those pieces of star-stuff, the ones he could not collect, what then?

The Eagle was hovering now, playing with the wind in its huge, outspread wings, so that it remained aloft but did not move. Delighted with the sensation - it felt like hanging between the worlds, poised somewhere outside of time, or between life and death - Legolas threw back his head and began to sing, pouring out all his longing and fear and hope and joy, unfolding every memory he had gathered in his twenty-three years...

Something struck him across the face, hard, stinging, and his song cut off on a note of pain. Suddenly dropped into blackness, in a place where there were no Eagles or star-stuff, Legolas groped blindly, terror plucking at him with unseen hands that hurt. All around him there was a great and terrible sound, shrieking and hissing and wailing like the Lost, but he could not move to blot it out. He stared into utter nothingness with eyes wide for any glimmer of light - surely there was something Elven eyes could pick out in this hell, something of light and - well, anything?

But when at last he saw it, he wished he could be stricken blind, for his nightmare had come mind-bendingly alive.

Hovering over him, shrieking into his face, was the Black Rider of his vision. It held him by the shoulders, hands like claws digging into his already bruised and agonized flesh; it shook him, and the words it seemed to be screaming were No... no song, cease, be silent, no! Eyes wide as plates, all pupil, glazed with shock, Legolas stared at the thing. It never even occurred to him to wonder if he had gone mad. He had no concept for it, in any case. It simply became a fact of life. He knew what the thing was, for his father had given him delicious chills describing the Servants of the Dark Lord Sauron... But that was thousands of years ago, and all those creatures had died when Isildur sliced the One Ring from the hand of Sauron.

Had they not?

Legolas could not see it, but the Orcs were all huddled, blind and dumb with terror, in the far corner of the little tumbledown hut. Too frightened to go out into the daylight, too frightened to get anywhere near their master, the King of the Nazgul... He might have felt a twinge of sympathy for their terror, to help bring him back to sanity, if he could have seen it.

Fools, the Nazgul hissed. Take a prize and poison it... capture the son of Thranduil and squander a hostage... fools...

The fell creature produced a goblet from somewhere within the folds of its robes, by what means no one knew. It curled a hand into the golden locks hanging in disarray about the terrified face of the Elven child before it, and seized the back of the small skull between its fingers. Thumb and middle finger compressed at the sides of the child's jaw, pressing until the little mouth opened, helpless to resist. Temporarily robbed of the capacity to struggle, the Elf whimpered like an animal, the sound small and strangled on the wind. The goblet descended; the contents were emptied between the trembling lips. The child's head was held upward and back at an unnatural angle until all had been swallowed. The Nazgul had immortal and undead patience, could afford to wait, understood that terror was a powerful deterrent to such things as swallowing. It watched with hovering red eyes until the liquid went down. The face contracted in agony as the lithe Elven body at last arched and fought and struggled in a desperate attempt to escape itself, all to no avail, as the bonds held fast and the hand of the Nazgul was not to be resisted.

Elves. Complicated creatures. Immortal themselves, and wise - usually. The Nazgul sought to comprehend why they would have let one of their precious little ones out into the bad old world alone; found no notion of why, sought the advice of its fell brethren in the Mind they shared, and received no thought beyond It matters not. They have erred and we have taken. It is the way of the World. Even the Firstborn will bow to us in time.

The King of the Nazgul was content. It had given the Elf a powerful potion to counter-act the poison from the Orc arrow that had pierced his young flesh; given time, the child would heal. By the time the Nazgul returned from its next errand, the child would be installed in a tower cell at Dol Guldur, there to await the pleasures of the Shadow. Such things were not the pleasures of the Elves, but that was not the Nazgul's concern. At length the child fell eerily still to outward ears and eyes, his jaw still pinched between undead fingers, and his expression quite blank.

Leave the Elves to their own matters. The child is ours. The advantage is ours. The Orcs will bring him home to us.

It stared down at the child. Such a little thing. It could crush the Elf's skull with the merest pinch. Clever Elf, to be able to scream so and yet make no sound... The Nazgul dropped the Elf back onto the noisome bed and stalked away, Shadow leaking out of its every motion as it departed, mounting up and turning toward the fastness of Mirkwood. Behind it, the Orcs crept out of their corner and stared with confused eyes at the mystery: how the little tree-rat tethered before them could lay there, eyes wide and staring, pupils all open, nostrils flared, otherwise motionless and silent - while somehow, he continued to struggle with all his might against the potion coiling about his inward self, and the helpless torment of his scream went on and on and on.