To Torment an Elf

by Mercuria

It was a beautiful day in Mirkwood forest. The birds were singing, the sky was blue above the treetops, and the giant spiders were chasing ill-fated travelers through the underbrush.
The fair Elven prince, Legolas Greenleaf, was taking a leisurely stroll through the woods, reveling in the beauty of nature and the tortured screams of the unwilling spider-food. Several small furry animals approached Legolas and rubbed up against his legs, knowing in their tiny brains that since he was an Elf, he would be inclined to feed them and pet them and sing to them.
"Ah, good morning little friends," Legolas said in delight. "How innocent and guileless you are! You would never use your tiny size and furriness to manipulate people into being kind to you."
The woodland creatures, feeling guilty, slunk away. Legolas shrugged and walked on.
Eventually he came upon a lovely little clearing and proceeded to sit down, for although he was not very tired he was quite hungry, being as his leisurely stroll had begun at six in the morning when his father had discovered that his favorite hound was stuck full of arrows.
"I thought it was an Orc," he muttered to himself, munching on a wafer of imported lembas. "In the dark, it really did look like an Orc, especially since it was standing on its hind legs and drooling. Maybe it had rabies! Elbereth, my father should be thanking me ..."
The prince's reverie was interrupted by the arrival of about a score of Orcs.
"Ai!" Legolas cried, leaping to his feet. "What are YOU doing so far into Greenwood?!"
The Orcs laughed. Legolas cringed.
"Hahahaha," chuckled one Orc, a chuckle more like the sound of a small child choking on a fishbone, "we disguised ourselves by wearing these bushes atop our heads and crawling along the forest floor!"
The Orcs all nodded, their floppy green bush-like hats flapping back and forth.
"Our knees are very sore," the same Orc continued, "so if you wouldn't mind coming with us quietly ..."
Legolas growled. He was completely surrounded, and had left his knives and bow back in his room.
"Come quietly?" the Prince of Mirkwood repeated in an affronted tone. "No way in hell! I may not have any weapons, but I can still fight!"
The Orcs blinked.
"He has no weapons?" one said. "GET HIM!"
"Damn," Legolas muttered.
A rock flew at his head, and Legolas dodged. A ferocious battle ensued.
That is, it WOULD have ensued had not another rock flown from the opposite direction, connecting with Legolas' skull and sending him into a state of unconsciousness.
***************
"We have an Elf, boss!" the same Orc who had conversed with Legolas called.
From one of Orthanc's numerous high balconies, Saruman the Self-proclaimed Of Many Colors Who Used To Be White yelled back, "You have a WHAT?"
"An ELF!"
"Oh!"
Saruman chuckled gleefully.
"Brilliant!" he shouted down. "Set it at the very top, all right?"
"WHAT?"
"THE TOP!" Saruman shouted. "PUT THE ELF AT THE TOP OF THIS TOWER!"
The Orc blinked.
"But boss! There aren't any stairs that lead to the top!"
Pause.
"DAMN! I keep forgetting! Uhhhh ... fine, give it to me, and I'LL put it at the top!"
"Okay!"
"WHAT?!"
"OKAY!"
***************
Legolas woke up with a splitting headache. Had someone hit him with a rock?
Oh, yes, the Orcs. Right.
The Elf dazedly gathered that he was sitting on someone's lap, and that that someone had one hand on his chest and the other one resting perilously close to his groin.
"Awake, my prince?" a voice whispered in his ear. Legolas gasped.
"YIKES! SARUMAN!" he shrieked, leaping up into the air. Unfortunately, he was currently situated atop Orthanc, which gave him little room in which to scream and leap about. After beholding a drop of more feet than he cared to think about, Legolas eeped and clung desperately to one of Orthanc's black pillars.
"W-what's going on here?" Legolas demanded.
"Well," Saruman said conversationally, "I was planning to torture you with whips and strange metal devices until you have no clue who you are and then make you my mindless slave."
Legolas stood still for awhile, trying to take it all in. Saruman cackled diabolically because he could.
"Wow, that's nice of you, but no thanks," the Elven prince said finally.
Saruman grinned evilly.
"Now, now, sarcasm will get you nowhere," he chuckled.
Legolas blinked.
"No, no, that's not sarcasm!" he said. "You mean you didn't know?"
"Know what?" asked Saruman suspiciously.
"About my weapons and metal torture device fetish?" Legolas said. "I love that kind of stuff! And I'm also into BDSM."
Saruman's eyes widened for an instant before he managed to regain his normal composure.
"Ah," he said. "I see."
There was a long moment of silence.
"Please excuse me while I try to think of a new plan," Saruman said quickly.
Legolas nodded.
"Of course."
******************
Thranduil looked around, tapping his chin with his finger. Something was not right.
'There haven't been any huge catastrophic disasters all day,' he thought to himself. 'My son must not be here!'
"You," he said, grabbing a young Elf by the arm. "Where is Legolas?"
The Elf blinked.
"Um ..." she said intelligently. "He's ... uh ... out?"
Thranduil shoved her out of the way and marched down the hall.
"Where is my SON?" he roared.
******************
It was getting dark, and Legolas was getting bored. The destruction of the nearby Fangorn forest reminded him of a song they used to sing in Greenwood, so he started to sing it in the hopes of holding onto his sanity for a few more hours.
"When spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain-air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!
When Spring is ... oh, damn, I always forget the Entwife part ... grr, THINK, dammit ..."
The Elven prince's voice, alternating between singing and cursing violently, drifted down towards Saruman, who was still trying to hatch a brilliant plan to torture the Elf without the Elf getting off on it.
"He's impossible!" Saruman thought aloud. "An Elf who likes torture! While it is very frustrating for me, it is also slightly arousing! Scratch that, REALLY arousing. I'd love to-"
Pause.
"Okay, I need to focus here."
Then a marvelous idea came to him.
"Mwahaha!" Saruman cackled. "If I play my cards right, I won't NEED to focus ... I'll just [unprintable] and then maybe [unprintable] with a little [holy smokes, is that even POSSIBLE?] afterwards."
A chuckle was heard emanating from the depths of Saruman's palantir.
"Going to have a nice fun-filled evening?" came the voice of Sauron.
"YIKES!" Saruman cried, leaping up into the air. "HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LISTENING?"
Harsh laughter was the only reply.
Back on top of Orthanc, Legolas was rapidly discovering that he couldn't completely remember ANY Elvish songs.
"Maybe I can make one up ..." he said. "Hmm ..."
But before he could start singing, a giant eagle flew by overhead.
"Wow," Legolas said, eyes round, "a giant eagle ... YEAH, I'M SAVED!"
Legolas began jumping up and down in an undignified manner.
"Hey! Giant eagle!" he yelled. "Over here!"
The giant eagle turned gracefully and landed on a spiked pillar. It sat there for a moment, preening itself.
"Hello, Elf prince," the eagle said. "What reasons have you for sitting on this high tower?"
"The reason of imprisonment!" Legolas said, miraculously regaining the ability to use proper Middle-earth speech. "Saruman's Orcs captured me and brought me to this place ... will you help me escape?"
The eagle appeared to be thinking. Then it looked behind Legolas and made a sort of gulping noise.
"I am sorry," the eagle said quickly, "but you are too much of a burden for me to bear. Besides ... I only perform rescue missions on Tuesdays."
"But ... it IS Tuesday!" the distraught Elf cried.
"Every ... erm, every OTHER Tuesday," the bird clarified.
It then flew away, leaving Legolas to wonder why it had refused to help him.
"Legolas ..." came Saruman's voice. Oh. THAT was why.
Legolas backed away from the white wizard slowly.
"Hello again," he said. "Have you formulated another plan?"
Saruman pointed his staff at the Elf, paralyzing him.
"Hmm, yes I have," he said, stepping up to Legolas and brushing a golden strand of hair out of his face. He smirked evilly and whispered, "I thought we might [OH MY GOD, I really did NOT need to think about that]."
Legolas gasped.
"Um, no, that's all right," he said quickly, "you don't need to- AI!"
And so Legolas got his torture after all. For miles around, his screams of anguish could be heard, cutting through the still night air.
"PLEASE tell me that's a magic marker poking into my back!"
"EW! Don't TOUCH me there!"
"What the hell are you going to do with THAT?"
"GET BACK HERE AND RESCUE ME YOU DAMN BIRD!"
******************