Sorry for those of you following this! I was on vacation for a few days. ... And also sorry that my chapters seem to be getting shorter and shorter. Ha. I suck.

GoldQuartz- Thanks so much for reviewing again! I heart you!

The Ringbearer

Deep Through Moria

Pt. III

The crackle of boots against beetles roused Legolas at once. He woke furtively, eyes growing sharp and bright, under still, pale, eyelashes. He was tranquil and open to sound, waiting as a spider for the fly.

Suddenly he rolled to his side, snatched up an arrow, and barely had it before his face in time to knock Boromir's sword off balance. Electric blue sparks showered the elf's chest. Boromir pressed his strike so the broad of his blade was locked tight with the arrow shaft. They held for a moment, both men and elf trembling, and the smooth wood creaked and seemed to explode, and the sword drove the breath from Legolas' chest. He exhaled a ragged scrap of air and Boromir's hands clamped around his throat, drove his knees into his legs and pinned him hard against the dust and bugs.

"You shall not give up the ring nor change course, so on behalf of my people I must challenge you for it!" Boromir proclaimed.

Tearfully, Legolas gained a solid grip on the man's fists and began slowly to pry them apart. Blackness sweltered at the edge of his vision.

"If this is a fair duel in the eyes of a man of Gondor, I find my mind growing ever more set to not venture to the city," he said, and threw the warrior from his body.

Boromir gained his feet quickly and seized his sword, and came at the elf again. Legolas had found himself foolishly going after his quiver, and not even for an arrow, but from an overwhelming panic that beat against his ribcage. The ring. He needed the ring!

Boromir grabbed his clothes from behind and swung him sideways and against the shelves. One of them cracked and broke and sent up a cloud of dust and skittering things.

Some of the sleeping Fellowship began to rouse, and Aragorn and Gandalf let out shouts. The dust mounted higher and further and unfurled through the air like smoke. Legolas had lost the arrow he'd had and found himself tearing blindly with his nails, aiming haphazard punches and kicks. Boromir seemed at once all over him, ripping his clothes and searching for the ring. Legolas cried out and landed a fierce blow against his ear. He growled and held his hand to his head, and a thin liquid trickled from under his fingers.

"Foolish!" He howled, and held the elf at the throat again, a grip so tight that something cracked wetly under his palm. Legolas choked, and as he curled his long fingers around the man's wrists, Boromir had him by the hair and dashed his head hard against the shelves.

"Boromir..." Legolas pleaded.

All at once, hopelessness opened on him like a dragon's swallowing mouth. Beating, hot, darkness. His mind left him in a dozen flitting surges, desperate for help, but the rock trapped him and frightenend him, and he sensed no friendly power here. No green things, no water, nothing touched by elves and nothing friend to elves. He was alone, and in the eye of this dragon of despair burned a simple ring.

Legolas' fingers twitched dumbly. The ring. He yearned for the feel of it heavy on his finger. He hungered for it so deeply he could almost taste power on his tongue.

As instantly as he felt all this it was gone, and he was on his knees choking with a raw throat. Aragorn was around him, with the green-blue smell of mountains and the coolness of a river in his eyes. He touched his shoulder and his ripped clothes and held him gently so he would not fall.

The dust hed begun to clear. The hobbits huddled in the corner, swaying from foot to foot with their knives in their trembling hands, wondering what to do. Boromir was bound and gagged in one corner, and Gandalf stood over him like a graveyard tree, back bent with remorse. Gimli shook his head and muttered, his eyes sorrowful, for he had come to like the man for the passion he had for his people.

"What just happened? Why all the dust and the shoutin' and the...the ruckus?" Pippin swallowed and asked.

Aragorn sighed heavily and said nothing as he helped Legolas to stand. He looked the ringbearer up and down carefully, and felt along his legs, ribs, and arms.

"Have you any pain, Legolas?"

Legolas reached with trembling fingers and touched the back of his head. He moaned low in his raw throat, for his hair was warm and sticky. He blinked tearfully in the dust, and squinted at the darkness on his fingertips. His vision kept shuddering into double images, and clearing again, like the plucking of a harp string.

Aragorn gently sat him down, holding his head against his shoulder, and bid Gimli bring him his pack. He pressed a motley rag against the seeping wound, and, fearing the time it would take to ready water, chewed two leaves of athelas and pressed them to the gash. Legolas pulled at Aragorn's sleeve, but did not cry out. In moments, the athelas threaded through his veins and he breathed easier.

Gimli came forward and offered the elf water. Legolas' throat felt at once swollen and dry, and he thanked the dwarf in relief, and took careful sips.

Finally, Legolas brought himself to look at Boromir. The man was still seething. The swell and depression of his heaving chest made the ropes squeak with strain. His eyes were wild under sweat-dampened hair.

Aragorn turned the elf away, and spoke close to his ear. "It is our fault. The Ring tested him, and we were not wary enough. We were lucky to catch him just in time."

He stopped, but his lips moved without sound, as if he wanted to say something else.

Legolas pressed his hand. "Tell me."

"I hesitate only because I know you need no reminding. But it is not entirely his fault. Forgive him, for my sake at least, because we are both fallible men." He grinned a little, but the concern did not drain from his eyes.

Legolas nodded. "I will speak to him when his madness has passed, and when my voice sounds less like Gollum's."

Gimli elbowed them aside to be privy of their talk. "Here now, let's not keep secrets from one another. What madness has overtaken fair Boromir?"

"Of course, it is the lure of the ring, Gimli," answered Aragorn. "With hope it will pass, but be wary... none of us are above its temptation, and we cannot know where the eye will seek next."

Gandalf soothed the hobbit's fear and worry, and coaxed them to bed for a few more hours. Aragorn sat near Boromir in the corner, at first simply watching him, and then speaking, in dulcet tones as one would a wild animal.

Legolas perched up on his rock seat and shivered a little. His quiver he'd moved across the room, as far away from his own grasp as possible. Even when the attack of Boromir had ceased, the incessant hunger of that golden touch had not left his mind. It ate him up like flies on dead flesh. It invaded his mind, where lived the memory of clear, star-spangled skies and sproutlings along rivers, and filled it with a blackness that ate up these memories and left death and fire behind.

He ran his fingers through his tangled hair and despaired for a moment that he may go mad. His temples felt tight and hot, a drum skin that had been pulled far too taut. Even through the pain-blurring athelas, he ached with every pulse.

Gimli put a strong hand on his knee.

"Don't ye worry a moment more, elf. It's high my turn to take on the watch, and I'll protect ye from anythin' evil around this sorry excuse for a pantry." He brandished his axe and paced a few steps. Legolas couldn't help but laugh.

"My thanks master dwarf, but I think I shall find it difficult to sleep now, not that I need any more. Please, rest yourself, and let me do the watching."

"And I will watch as well," Aragorn said, and gave the dwarf a confident smile. "You'd better rest, so that your eyes may be their sharpest tomorrow. You would not want to miss a significant piece of rock at your feet, or a memorable notch on a wall, would you?"

Gimli looked about to protest, but then growled warmly and dropped his axe to his side. Sleep sounded passing fair at that time, whether for the benefit of his eyes or not, and he would not argue against it.

Gandalf came to Legolas and whispered silent apologies and words of concern, and took a seat near Boromir. The wizard announced he would be stealing as many minutes of sleep as the vagabond would allow, but Legolas doubted he would allow even an eyelid to slump.

Legolas and Aragorn sat alone on a pile of gravel at the head of the Fellowship. For a long time they watched the yellow, acrid, dust settle and said nothing. Then,

"Where is the ring?"

Legolas stirred, tremored a little. "It is in a hidden place."

He wanted to turn then, to search the eyes of Aragorn, son of Arathorn, to see the roots from whence his simple question came. To judge them good or evil. But with Boromir quivering in the corner, he could not do it.

Through the night, echoing hazily through Moria like sound under deep water, Legolas listened to the sonorous shudder of unknown breath, and the gurgle of its delighted laughter.