Rating:
PG-13

E-mail:
cassia_a@hotmail.com

Spoilers:
For JRR Tolkien’s books: "The Two Towers" & "The Hobbit."

Disclaimer:
Nothing of Middle Earth belongs to me. It is the creation of JRR Tolkien and I am deeply grateful to him for creating such a wonderful world in which I have spent many happy hours of my life. I have no permission to use these characters or settings, but I do so only because they have come so alive to me, and I am receiving no money for this story.

Summary:
While in pursuit of the orcs who have taken Merry and Pippin captive, Aragorn and Legolas remember an adventure they had when Aragorn was in his early twenties and a time when they themselves were prisoners of the orcs.

Author’s Note:
You will notice that several references are made in the story to events which occurred in JRR Tolkien’s "The Hobbit," since the bulk of the flashback part of my story is occurring at roughly the same time, in a different part of Middle Earth. It is not necessary to have read "The Hobbit" to understand the story, but for those of you who have, it will probably be that much more enjoyable because you’ll know what I’m talking about. =D

Also, I wrote this story before starting the "Mellon Chronicles" story series, so it is not exactly cannon with those stories, although I have since tweaked it a little bit so that it does reference how they met as being from that series.

Please note that I do not pretend to be an expert on Middle Earth. I know that the time frame on the flash back is not quite right, but please allow a little literary license. If I got anything else wrong, like spelling, places and dates (which I’m sure I did), please forgive me and try to enjoy the story for itself. Thanks.

Okay, yes, I *will* shut up now and let you get on with the story. =D

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"We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death," Aragorn stated firmly, his hand on Legolas’ shoulder. For a brief moment his gaze held that of the elf as he said this and their eyes locked, blue on grey. For a lingering moment a quiet understanding hung between them, one forged of blood and hardship and of long forgotten pain. Legolas gave a nearly imperceptible nod.

If Gimli saw this unspoken exchange he gave no sign. It was a matter between the elf and the man and not something he would have understood. What he did understand was the determined timber of Aragorn’s words and with that he whole-heartedly concurred.

Aragorn turned towards the forest and the distant, unseen threat of the orc hordes which were carrying the two young Hobbits ever further away from them.

"Leave everything that can be spared behind, we travel light," the Ranger slid his blade into its sheath with a definitive clang. "Let’s go hunt some orc!"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

For days the three hunters tracked the Uruk-Hai across forest and plain, hill and valley, without pause and without rest. The orcs hordes seemed to fly before them as if the very whips of Mordor were at their heels.

Finally, the hunters were obliged to stop. Aragorn and Gimli had to rest, as much as they hated the delay.

Legolas did not sleep, but stood guard over his slumbering friends as the still hours of the night passed by.

Once, in the early hours before dawn, Aragorn half woke. Opening his eyes for a moment he saw Legolas nearby, seated on a rock with one knee pulled close and his bow resting in his lap. An arrow lay across the bowstrings, ready for immediate action if the need should arise. Yet the elf’s long fingers were relaxed on his weapon and he did not seem to sense any immediate danger.

Legolas’ gaze floated over to him as if drawn by Aragorn’s wakefulness. The elf did not speak, but his clear gaze held Aragorn’s for a moment.

"Rest now Aragorn," Legolas’ eyes seemed to say. "And do not be troubled. Tonight I will watch over you." It was times like this when the elf’s perpetually youthful features were belied by the true age in his deep grey eyes, reminding Aragorn that while his friend looked younger than he, Legolas was over two thousand years his senior.

Aragorn closed his eyes once more and drew his elvish cloak tightly about him as he fell back into a restful slumber.

Legolas watched Aragorn fall back asleep. Wrapped close in his grey cloak from Lòrien, the elf could just see that his friend’s hand rested on the hilt of his sword, even as he slept. Aragorn’s dark hair spilled about his face and his care-worn features relaxed in slumber, making him look younger and less troubled, more like the boy that Legolas remembered first meeting, injured by an orc arrow on the eves of Mirkwood nigh onto sixty years ago. In the long lifetime of an elf, sixty years did not seem so long, but those years had changed Aragorn much.

It was a boy of barely twenty whom Legolas had met. A boy with deep, serious eyes and a ready laugh; more innocent, less equipped and not yet bearing the weight of trial and sorrow upon his heart and soul. After a somewhat rocky start they had actually become friends easy enough, finding kindred spirits in one another despite the vast difference of age and race. They had had quite a few adventures together in those early days of their friendship, but tonight Legolas’ mind was drawn back to a time when their already close friendship was deepened into near brotherhood as their relationship was cemented with fire.

Legolas stared straight ahead. He did not flinch at the memories as one might expect. They held no power over him now. He had long ago learned that one could not hold onto the hurt done to them by others or only served to poison your own heart.

The prince had not thought of that particular experience in years, but tonight it came back to him. He knew from Aragorn’s look at the start of this chase that those memories were also heavy on his friend’s mind. Both of them hoped that dear little Merry and Pippin would be spared what they had suffered. It was hard to think of the lively, impish Hobbits in that kind of pain.

Aragorn stirred slightly in his sleep. He was dreaming. Dreaming that it was over sixty years ago. He was barely into his early twenties, practically still a boy, even by the human standards of Middle Earth. Young, impulsive, adventurous and sometimes over-bold, he sought to learn all the paths, all the ways through the wilderness, following in the footsteps of the Dunédain before him.

Often he traveled alone and saw no living thing for weeks, but ever and anon he would journey with a companion and more often than not, if it were not another ranger, then it was Legolas, son of the Elvenking Thranduil, and prince of the Wood-elves, who accompanied him.

It was a grey, windswept day and the two friends were camped in the foothills of the nameless mountains that graced the southeaster-most reaches of Wilderland, near the sea of Rhûn. To the east flowed the great river Anduin and just within sight to their south lay the imposing Ash Mountains of Ered Lithui, which bordered the northern reaches of the land of Mordor.

Sauron had long been exiled and to the best of everyone’s knowledge the dark tower of Baradur stood empty, yet still, an evil curse seemed to hold sway over they entire area of Mordor and the two friends were loath to go closer without specific need.

"I saw more orc tracks," Aragorn commented as he added wood to their small fire. A rabbit on a spit crackled above the flames. "Could have been at least thirty of them, two days old." He held up half of a broken arrow shaft that he had found. It was obviously orc-made.

Legolas shook his head, pushing a stray lock of golden hair back from his face. "Every year they seem to grown more numerous. Always they have hidden in the wastelands of Mordor, but now they seem to be on the move. They are multiplying and I know not why," he shook his head, his face troubled.

"Too many of them now inhabit the forest around my father’s realm. They darken the beauty of Mirkwood with their presence and breed other evil in their wake." Legolas’ eyes were dark when he said this, obviously unhappy with the spoiling of his home.

"The presence of the Necromancer cannot have helped your situation," Aragorn understood his friend’s troubles. No one really knew at this time who the Necromancer was, but a shadow and a doubt was creeping, whispering of ancient evils not yet forgotten, stirring to walk once more under broad daylight.

"He has had a similarly ill effect," Legolas agreed. "What was once beautiful has become dark and imposing. Since he has moved into the southern reaches of the forest much has turned for the ill. Travelers fear the woods now and always it is a struggle to keep the unwanted out of our realm."

"If travelers fear the wood then at least you need worry less about unwanted guests," Aragorn commented, pulling their dinner from over the fire.

"So it would seem, but even so there is trouble. If it’s not orcs or spiders, it’s dwarves," Legolas shook his head with a ruefully disdainful smile, mirroring the gentle contempt with which all elves held dwarves. The dwarves returned the feeling in kind.

"Not long ago there was a whole troop of dwarves wondering about in the woods, stirring up the spiders and chasing my people about. I was not there, but I have heard."

The two friends crouched by the fire. Aragorn looked older than just twenty-three and Legolas looked far younger than his own years, so at this moment the pair looked to be roughly the same age. The comfortable closeness between them could have made them easy to mistake for brothers if they had not been so strikingly different in appearance.

Aragorn was dark and well-built, leaning towards a sort of rugged readiness in his face and body as he lost the boyish roundness of youth. Legolas was blond and lithe. His darker brows contrasted quixotically with his radiantly golden hair. Extremely fair was the only description that could seem to do justice to his soft, fine-edged features.

"What happened?" Aragorn inquired as they split their dinner between them.

Legolas came as close to shrugging as the elf ever did. "They were captured but they escaped. Nobody knows how. I think I heard that they made it down the river to Lake Town."

"Well dwarves are the least of our worry," Aragorn shook his head, toying with the orc arrow he had picked up.

"Indeed," Legolas nodded. Suddenly he stopped, a wary look coming into his eyes. "There’s something on the air Aragorn, can you smell it?"

Aragorn could not, but he trusted Legolas’ skills of perception. His hand dropped down immediately to his sword hilt. "What is it? What do you sense?"

"Yrch," Legolas said in his own tongue. "Orcs." His nose crinkled in disgust, and he unslung his bow swiftly.

"They must be upwind and close," Aragorn said seriously, drawing his sword and looking around as he kicked out the fire.

As if in answer to his statement an ugly, black arrow whistled through the air, missing the young ranger by only a few inches. The first was quickly followed by another, and another as a horde of angry, swarming orcs burst from the trees to their left.

"Too close," Legolas agreed, whipping off four arrows in rapid succession before stringing yet another with lightening speed. The orcs rushed them and for a few moments everything was a blur of swinging scimitars and whistling arrows.

Aragorn’s blade flashed in the dull sunlight as Legolas continued to loose swift, humming arrows at an almost inhuman speed. There must have been more than fifty orcs in the clearing now.

"Aragorn, I think your tracking skills yet needs honing my friend," Legolas found a spare moment to joke wryly. "You underestimated slightly."

"I’ll work on it," Aragorn shot back, cleaving an orc head from its shoulders and spinning to block the blow of another.

Staying here was beginning to look decidedly unhealthy. Being of one mind, Legolas and Aragorn both broke opposite directions, fighting their way back towards their horses, tethered not far off.

Swinging easily onto their mounts and urging the horses to a quick gallop, Legolas and Aragorn both turned back in their saddles, bows in hand, and loosed a flight of arrows to cover their retreat.

The path before them led sharply upward and the horse’s hooves slipped and slid slightly on the loose earth and gravel underfoot. The orcs were quickly being left behind as they sped up a narrow strip of path that led them farther up the mountain. It was almost too easy.

A sheer drop to their left and a cliff wall to their right, the two horses skillfully picked their way at full tilt along a ridge that only five men could have walked abreast upon.

Aragorn was in the lead with Legolas right behind when it happened.

The earth rumbled and up ahead a clatter of small rocks falling down onto the path were the first omens of doom.

"Aragorn!" Legolas cried out in warning, but it was not necessary, Aragorn was already just as aware of the danger as the elf.

Reining their horses in hard, the pair had only a brief moment to look up and see the dark, hunching form of the orcs on the ridge above and know that they had fallen into a trap, before the cascade of rocks and earth that their enemies had loosed upon them turned into a full-blown rockslide, sweeping down the side of the mountain like an avalanche.

For a moment the two horses struggled to keep their footing as they were carried off the path in a rolling tumble of earth. Their riders clung tenaciously to their backs, attempting to hold the creatures steady. A sudden volley of arrows joined the chaos and Aragorn was shaken by a violent jolt of lancing pain as one of the thick orc-darts found its mark, burying itself deep in the soft tissue of his right shoulder. The power and suddenness of the blow knocked the young man off his horse.

The horse reared in terror and lost its footing amid the cascading rocks. Falling sideways, the huge animal half-landed on its rider. Aragorn rolled in time to miss the crushing weight of its massive body, but its shoulder and neck caught him across his chest and midsection, knocking the air forcefully from his body and making him struggle desperately for breath. An instant later both he and the horse were falling and tumbling apart, caught up in the rockslide.

Aragorn heard Legolas shout his name, then the thundering roar of the rockslide enveloped them totally.

Legolas saw Aragorn fall with an arrow piercing his flesh, but just how grievous the wound was he had no way of knowing. Hugging close to his horse’s neck and whispering calmingly in its ear, the elf tried to fight the downward rush of the slide. Then one of the cascading rocks from above slammed forcefully into the side of his head, opening a long gash across Legolas’ temple and knocking him off-balance.

The horse lost its footing. Dazed and reeling, Legolas had just enough time and presence of mind to throw himself clear of the animal before he could get caught underneath its tumbling weight. Landing hard on the rocks the elf felt a blaze of hot pain stab through his ribs and chest as he was instantly swept up in the landslide and carried over the edge of the path into the steep drop of oblivion beyond.

When the avalanche settled and the rocks finally stopped falling there was a new mound of earth and broken shrubbery piled high against the base of the cliff.

Choking slightly on the thick air, one very dusty and bruised Elven prince rose slowly to his hands and knees. Blood and dirt clung to the side of Legolas’ face, making his now dust-clad golden hair cling to him. Shaking the earth and the smaller rocks that had settled on him off of his back and clothing, Legolas pulled himself to his feet, holding his ribs. He felt as if a mountain had fallen on him, which it had, but wasted no time in looking around for his friend.

"Aragorn? Aragorn!" he called, moving lightly over the fallen mound despite a throbbing pain in his side, scanning the settling rubble for any sign of life. Doubtless the orcs would arrive at any moment, and Legolas wanted to be gone before they got here. One horse was obviously dead and the second was nowhere to be seen.

A soft moan picked up by keen ears directed Legolas to his friend’s side.

Aragorn lay partially buried under a heap of stones. The arrow in his shoulder had been broken by their fall and only the stub of it protruded from the wound, a nasty bloodstain spreading across his tunic around its base.

For a desperate moment Legolas feared that he had already lost the young man, then Aragorn’s pain-glazed eyes fluttered open. "Legolas?"

Dropping to his knees and swiftly clearing away the debris, Legolas freed his friend and helped him sit up. Pressing his eyes tightly shut, Aragorn resisted the urge to moan. His insides felt like fire and his shoulder throbbed mercilessly.

"We must fly from this place Aragorn," Legolas said urgently as the young man struggled to his feet. The elf unintentionally slid into his native tongue. "The enemy is coming."

Aragorn nodded, not even noticing the switch, since elvish was practically a first language for him. Staggering slightly, Aragorn wavered unsteadily on his feet and Legolas quickly pulled the young man’s uninjured arm over his shoulder, wrapping his own around his friend’s waist and helping to support him. Their clothing torn and bloodied from the rockslide, the two were a particularly sorry sight.

As they picked their way across the rubble, they could hear the shouts of the approaching orcs closing in on their position. Aragorn pulled himself away from his friend, leaning against the cliff wall next to them and holding his injured shoulder.

"Go Legolas, run!" he said, pulling his sword stiffly with his left hand. He knew they would never make it with him slowing them down. But on his own, Aragorn knew Legolas could outrun any band of orcs on Middle Earth. Especially if he slowed them down a little. "Norolim Legolas! Run!"

Determined fire blazed in Legolas’ grey-blue eyes. "I will not leave you to face them alone," he said, drawing the long dagger from his belt. His bow had been lost in the landslide.

At that moment the orcs came upon them. Surrounded on all sides with their back to a wall, the two friends knew their chances were slim to nothing, but they made their stand bravely.

Twelve orcs lay dead before the man and the elf were finally overwhelmed.

Dodging and parrying a sweeping thrust of an orc scimitar, Aragorn was unable to avoid the jarring impact of an iron shield slamming into his injured shoulder. Spinning off balance on the rocky ground he fell hard to his side, his vision blurring.

Legolas jumped to defend his fallen comrade but the orcs were already there. However, instead of simply skewering or beheading the fallen ranger as both of the friends fully expected, the orc held his scimitar pressed sharply against Aragorn’s throat, his heavy, booted foot resting painfully on the injured man’s sword-arm.

"Drop it!" the lead orc demanded with a growl, glaring at Legolas and twisting his weapon against Aragorn’s throat, giving obvious indication of what would happen if the elf did not comply.

Grimly, Legolas opened his hand and let the dagger fall from his fingers. Instantly the nearest orcs seized him and bound his hands tightly behind his back, while others dragged Aragorn to his knees and bound him as well. Neither of them knew why they had not been killed out of hand, and they both suspected that whatever the reason, it was not was going to be very pleasant.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Move you slugs, faster!" the orcs drove their prisoners without mercy, making liberal use of the cruel whips on their belts if they did not feel that Aragorn and Legolas were keeping up a sufficiently speedy pace.

The cords around their wrists were bound so tightly that they cut and bit into the flesh beneath them and neither elf nor man could feel their fingers anymore.

They had gone on thus for nearly two days now. Legolas was weary, but still keeping the pace. However, Aragorn was starting to look like he was ready to drop. He had stamina, endurance and strength of spirit beyond that of many mortal men, but his injuries and the brutal abuse of the orcs was catching up with his young body.

The orcs stopped to rest somewhere after midday on this, the third day of their long and arduous journey. The prisoners were allowed to sink to the ground in judicious exhaustion, but they were not long left in peace.

One of the orcs intentionally kicked Legolas in the side as he walked past. Another ran his thick, twisted hands through the elf’s golden tresses. Laughing mockingly, the creature grabbed Legolas’ chin between gnarled fingers and jerked the prince’s head up, running his hand over the side of the prisoner’s face and mocking the elf’s fairness, which contrasted sharply with the hideousness of his captors.

Legolas met the twisted creatures’ eyes steadily. That angered the orc, who struck the elf’s head to the side roughly.

Although they tormented both their prisoners, the orcs seemed especially fond of visiting their cruel attention on Legolas. Somewhere in their twisted hearts they had never forgotten that they had once come from the tortured, mutilated, perverted descendents of Legolas’ people, and for that reason all orcs both hated and feared the elves with intense passion. In their dark evilness, they despised anything that was good and beautiful, the elves most of all.

Aragorn’s eyes were flashing angrily and he stiffened as the orc suddenly drew back his lash and whipped Legolas across the face, cutting a raised, bleeding welt from the elf’s cheekbone to his chin. Another orc rammed his knee into Legolas’ stomach, doubling him over.

Aragorn struggled to pull himself to his knees, fighting the trembling weakness that had been slowly creeping over his body these past few days.

"Peace Aragorn," Legolas caught his friend’s eyes, giving his head a warning half-shake as he pulled himself back upright. His hair had come loose of the small braids he wore in front to hold it back and now it hung about his face as he made himself sit back up, still hunching slightly over his knees. Blood ran down his cheek, but his gaze managed to remain amazingly calm.

Legolas did not want the orcs’ attention to turn towards the injured ranger. Yet it was inevitable that it would.

Intentionally grabbing Aragorn by his wounded shoulder, the orcs half dragged him upright, jeering and prodding.

"We watch you both a long time," they accused. "Always sneaking around and spying. Now the boss wants to know what you’re up to. You’ll answer his questions very prettily. The boss isn’t nice when he asks, oh no, not nice at all," they laughed, dangling the threat in front of their prisoners as they had been doing for days. Yet try as they might neither Aragorn nor Legolas could get anyone to divulge just exactly what ‘boss’ it was they were being taken to.

They were being driven northwest, towards the Brown Lands and the southern reaches of Mirkwood. Both of them wondered if it was the hands of the Necromancer for which they were bound, but they could not be certain. Therefor, where their final destination lay remained a mystery and they knew not the answer.

When their captors were done tormenting them, broken-lipped bottles of orc-draught were shoved against the prisoners’ lips, the only rations of either food or drink that they had been given since their capture.

The dark liquid burned its way down their throats. For Aragorn, the draught was strangely sustaining in a foul sort of way, but it always made Legolas feel violently ill. He choked and tried to spit it out, but the orcs did not let him, forcing him to swallow the disgusting drink.

Rest time over, the orcs roughly dragged their prisoners back to their feet and drove them onward once more.

Halfway through the afternoon, Aragorn was weaving on his feet, his strength spent. When he finally fell to his knees he could not rise again. His body burned with fever and his untreated wound was starting to fester. Legolas knew he could help, if only the orcs would free his hands and let him treat the wound! It was maddening.

"Come Aragorn, we must keep moving. Lean on me, I’ll help you," Legolas tried to encourage, tried to help his friend rise before the orcs should take their impatience out on him, but it was too late.

The orcs shouted harshly and their whips descended, slicing cruelly through Aragorn’s shirt and cutting his back as they tried to drive him back to his feet. Once he rose and carried on, but even with Legolas helping as much as he could, he stumbled and fell a second and a third time, and on the third time not even the pain of the orc whips could drive his failing body back to its feet. His head swam and his mind was cloudy. Infection and pain were beginning to win out.

The whips fell without mercy, tearing his shirt and his flesh. Heavy orc boots landed sharp, painful clouts to his midsection and shoulders. Aragorn gasped in near-delirious pain. They were going to kill him. If they did not stop, they were going to kill him whether they intended to or not.

Wrenching free of the hands that held him, Legolas dropped to his knees beside his friend, covering the younger man with his body, absorbing the blows meant for the ranger and offering the only aid and protection he could. The whip caught the elf’s back then, slashing burning lines of pain across his shoulders.

Legolas’ golden hair spilled about the his face and down onto Aragorn’s shoulder, half concealing the elf’s grimace of pain as he knelt protectively over his friend. But Aragorn still heard his friend’s gasping intake of breath, felt Legolas’ body tense and jerk against his as the sweeping slashes tore the back of his tunic and his bound arms, shredding the green cloth and staining it red with elven blood.

"Legolas, no..." Aragorn tried weakly to push the elf away. He could not abide anyone being hurt on his account, much less a dear friend.

Legolas’ lips were pressed into a tight line and his brows were knotted in pain. Behind him, his bound hands balled tightly as he knelt in the dust, but he refused to move from his friend’s side, offering himself in Aragorn’s place.

The angry orcs tried to pull Legolas away from Aragorn, but the elf was stubborn. Breaking from their grasp, he proved that he did not particularly need the use of his arms to become a handful for them to deal with. Spinning and kicking he took down three of their number before the other orcs overwhelmed him and bore him down to the ground.

If Legolas had wanted to take their attention away from Aragorn, he had succeeded, but the price he paid was a terrible one.

Swift, vicious kicks by heavy booted feet caught Legolas in the chest, groin and shoulder before centering painfully on his ribs. Kicking him again and again, the brutal blows made the elf curl helplessly into a fetal position on the ground, unable to protect himself with his arms bound uselessly behind him.

The enraged orcs yanked Legolas partially upright by his bound arms and hair, although the gasping elf tried to remain hunched over his screaming ribs. He knew from the fire chasing itself around inside him that more than one of them were broken.

Holding Legolas fast, the orcs forced him into a kneeling position and pinned him there firmly. Bending him over his knees they forced the elf’s head to the ground before laying into him with a malicious fury. Boots, clubs and whips seemed to rival one another for the most blows, until the hideous creatures decided that the use of the lash suited their twisted rage best.

They were angry, yes, but it was almost a game to these creatures as well. They enjoyed causing pain and any excuse to vent that malicious pastime upon the elf was reason enough for them.

The orcs jeered and laughed as the lash came down, tearing clothing and flesh. Pain flashed like summer lightening, hot, swift, and terrible.

Legolas’ breath came quick and ragged as he tried to stifle any sound of distress. His injured ribs screamed agony throughout his being as they were ruthlessly crushed against his knees. Helplessness washed over him as his tormenters drew line after line of burning, hellish fire across his exposed back, arms and sides. He twisted his wrists in their bonds until they bled, but it accomplished nothing. An orc boot on the back of his neck kept his forehead pressed firmly against the earth, while his own hunched over position trapped his legs to uselessness. He had no option but to submit to the cruel beating and accept the orcs’ abuse, and that was a horrible knowledge to hold.

When Legolas’ shirt hung in shreds from his back the orcs stopped long enough to strip the prisoner before devising new torture to visit upon their unruly and unfortunate captive.

Aragorn was barely conscious. He could not move, he could hardly breathe, but he saw. And what he was forced to watch seared his heart and soul and brought tears to his eyes.

Legolas refused to give his tormenters the satisfaction of hearing him cry out, refused to let them hear and revel in his pain, no matter how badly they hurt him, or what they did. Yet Aragorn saw his lips moving silently as the orcs’ cruel instruments laid stripe after stripe upon already welted flesh. Legolas whispered something under his breath, his lips trembling slightly and his face tensing in agony that he could not conceal. Aragorn could not hear what he said, but it was obviously elvish and Legolas was clinging to whatever strength the words gave him.

Aragorn tried to raise himself up on his elbows, but an orc boot slammed down on his back between his shoulder blades, pressing him sharply into the earth. The stub of the arrow still lodged in his shoulder was ground deeper into his wound and he felt a dizzying wave of pain sweep over his senses.

Before the orcs were finished with him, Legolas was unconscious. Aragorn was not far behind. The ranger was only dimly aware as the orcs wrenched him to his feet. The abrupt upright position came too suddenly, before his body could compensate and bright yellow flashes danced before his eyes; solidifying into darkness they pulled him under and he knew no more.