But Legolas was not asleep.
He usually lay to rest, as all elvenfolk did, with his keen eyes open, while his spirit would wander the streams and pathways of his beloved woodland home. But that night, his open eyes were unglazed, and he stared up into the vastness of the dark. There were not even any stars to comfort him.
His soul was not flying swiftly past the birches and the elms, nor singing with the larks of the forest. It was with him where he lay, against the cold stone floor. And it was cold, to him as well. The passing of all weathers and all seasons had never discomfited before, but now he felt a chill which ached in his bones. He flinched in the gloom.
A prince, no less, my brothers. An elven prince.
The words came back to him, in that harsh, high voice. And I was always so proud, he thought to himself, to be of royal parentage and to have all the wisdom and delight of my kin. Now it seemed a curse, for it was an elven prince that the Nazgul had picked out as his prey, and an elven prince who had to bear the humiliation of the assault. He sometimes thought, with guilt, that it would have been better if he had bled to death by the lake. He was not afraid of death itself, and it would have spared him his disgrace.
And then he thought of the words of Boromir, so anxious for him and so sure. He found it strange how much he was comforted by the attentions of the burly soldier. Boromir had taken all his cares onto himself and stood at his side as if he could not fail. He had never been treated as something so fragile and precious, and as a warrior so powerful, he was surprised it did not irk him.
I leant on him as if he were my brother, he thought wryly. For Boromir seemed older than him, although he must be many years his junior - he had seen more, done more. He had hunted, and gone to war, and made merry, and taken lovers. Legolas felt a sudden wave of nausea at this, for his own body had been untouched until the day the Nazgul had taken him.
And however much the others tried to support him, he knew that they would never reach the core of fear and hurt that sat in his stomach. The memories of it would not be pushed out of his mind, and he could still see the gloating eyes of his attackers, and feel the wretchedness of how his legs had been pushed apart for the monster to mount him. Not one of his companions, however well they meant, would hear what he had heard when the laughter rang out as he began to bleed. Not one of them would hear the creature's gasps of delight at every thrust, or feel him biting their throat when his warm seed spilled forth. He twisted in the dark, the tears starting up in his eyes at the memory, but he brushed them fiercely away. Yet he would never be able to undo what had been done to him, or forget what he had said when they left him, beaten and bloodied on the ground: "Now live the rest of your life with my mark on you, so that all the world may know that a Prince let me rut him like the basest whore of Middle earth."
And they had gone, while he lay so shattered that he could not move or cry out, his blood pooling around him and his mouth and legs sticky from where he had been forced to take the creature's seed. The humiliation and dishonour of the act left him without any defences in his mind to help him heal. It would be a long, long time before he could ever sleep peacefully again.
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