Title: Trust
Author: surreysmum
Disclaimer: Tolkien made the characters. PJ made the movies. I make no money.
Rating: PG for violence
Length: just over 200 words
Summary: a moment on the battlefield

The sounds of battle were deafening, and chaos was all around. Beset by two orcs, Legolas swung his daggers in dangerous arcs, dispatching one neatly, the other less so.

Shouting a cheerful "Forty-six!" to Gimli, who was doughtily engaged nearby, he looked around for Aragorn.

It all happened in less than a second - the seeing, the reacting. Aragorn rising from his kill, unaware of the orc's sword descending towards his head from behind. The arrow released from Legolas' bow and the shout from his throat at the same instant. Aragorn's startled dodge - Legolas had known, simply known, how far, how fast, which direction - and the muffled thud of the arrow into the orc's chest, followed by the louder thud of its body on the ground.

When Legolas reached him, Aragorn was still breathing hard. "That was close," he gasped. They stood together for a moment in a bubble of silence, oblivious to the cacophony of battle. Aragorn was still alive.

Legolas swallowed. Too close. A fractional hesitation, and Aragorn could as easily have died upon the arrow as upon the orc's sword. A slight tremor in Legolas' grip upon his friend's shoulder belied his calm tone.

"I trusted you to move."

finis