Just a quick heads-up: I'm basing this story on LOTR/The Hobbit movies, not the books, so I'm sorry if anything isn't accurate to the original tale.

I imagine these events to happen maybe a year or so before the dwarves arrive in the Woodland Realm so if you came for dwarves or hobbits, sorry, there aren't any here.

Oh, and there are quite a few OCs in this story, humans and elves.

Happy reading, I really hope you like it!

Of Spiders and Elks

Matilda had only ever heard stories about the elves of Mirkwood.

They were woven through the songs and stories of Lake-town, telling of the purity and of the beauty of the ancient beings. She was perfectly aware that her hometown's main source of income was the result of trade with the Woodland Realm elves, but in all her seventeen-and-a-half years, she had never seen one. They preferred to look after their own, the elves, and to distance themselves from the rest of the world. Matilda had heard that King Thranduil Greenleaf, Elvenking, was a formidable, powerful force, not one to be reckoned with, and the people of Lake-town obeyed without question.

They couldn't afford to complain; the people were poor and barely scraped enough money together to last them through the harsh, bitterly cold winters. Matilda's family were no exception; her father had died three years ago, and her mother had fallen ill last spring with a lung sickness, taking to her bed and unable to work. Consequently, Matilda and her older sister found work where they could; Hattie as a maid in the Master of Lake-town's household and Matilda as a hunter with her friends Sam and Jane, who worked in their father's butchers.

Meat was rare and precious; the town was named such for obvious reasons. It was stranded in the middle of a lake, looming out of the fog and gloom. There was a lot of fish, but meat was not in abundance. Every morning Matilda would wake at dawn and make her way down to Sam's little rowing boat. Together, they would cross the Long Lake to the far southern banks where they could hunt for as long as they pleased and return in time for the daily market, which opened in the late afternoon.

The day it all began was no different.

Hattie woke her up with a none-too-gentle thump on her shoulder, and Matilda jerked upwards, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. She rolled out of bed without complaint and tiptoed about the room shared by all five members of her family. Matilda's house was poor but homely. There was a large four-poster bed with a patchwork quilt in the corner, currently occupied by her sleeping mother and little sister, and three straw-mattresses on the floor. It had the distinct impression it had once been a fine house but the owner had been regularly selling her possessions and replacing them with poorer items. This was evident in the fact that red damask curtains hung at one diamond-paned window but the other had no curtains; just peeling blue shutters.

After washing and dressing into a pair of blue breeches which belonged to her brother, Matilda and Hattie were sat together, eating a slice of bread each for their breakfast, when said brother, Teddy, opened one eye.

"Matilda!" he hissed.

Matilda jumped at the unexpected sound. "What?" she whispered back.

"Can I go hunting with you today?"

At fourteen years old, Teddy was irrefutably lazy; he hadn't even moved from under his cotton blanket. He just stared at her beseechingly.

"Don't you have school?"

"School's cancelled. Teacher's sick."

Matilda sighed and nodded. This had an incredible effect on Teddy; he leapt out of bed like he had been scalded with hot water and, since he had slept in his clothes, was washing in an instant. He turned and held out his hands. "Here. How do I look?"

"Scruffy," Hattie replied. She shot her brother and sister a grin, and slipped out of the front door for work.

Teddy always looked scruffy. He had the kind of hair which never stayed flat on his head; it stuck up in all directions no matter how many times he attacked it with a hairbrush. Matilda was glad she looked a little more presentable; her long dark hair was braided neatly down her back, her white shirt was pristine and her father's beloved bow was slung over her shoulder, freshly-polished. She smiled kindly at her brother and beckoned him silently; their mother and little sister were still, amazingly, asleep.

Once they had navigated the maze of wooden steps and bridges and walkways built between the crooked wooden houses which made up Lake-town, Matilda and Teddy arrived at the wharf where Sam's little boat bobbed and dipped on the black water. She turned, stumbling over a bucket, and gazed back at the town; light blared out of quaint little windows and coils of rope littered the walkways. She could hear the sounds of the town waking; babies crying, men calling, the bark of a dog. Jane, Matilda's outspoken best friend, hailed them as they drew nearer. Auburn-haired and freckle-faced with identical grins a mile long, Jane and Sam had a habit of bickering like there was no tomorrow. In fact, they only seemed content in each other's company when they were quarrelling like cats and dogs.

"Ready?" Sam asked her, holding out a hand to help Matilda step into his boat. Matilda nodded and smiled at him; it was no secret that in a couple of years' time it would be very likely that she and Sam would be betrothed to marry.

"Can I come too, sir?" Teddy asked, and Sam seemed to grow a couple of inches at the reverence of being called 'sir'. This did not escape Jane, who snorted derisively.

"Of course," Sam said with a smile at Teddy and a glare at Jane. "Know how to shoot an arrow?"

Teddy nodded. Before their father had died, he had taught his son and middle daughter how to hit a target nine times out of ten. Hattie and Sarah had never had much time for combat, and they had teased Matilda for being boyish. She didn't care; she had adored her father and knew that she had also claimed a special corner of his heart shared by no one. Now, his bow was all she had left to remember him by.

The four young people set off in the modest boat; Sam rowing, Matilda navigating. This is how it always was. When Jane tried to navigate, she and Sam ended up screaming blue murder at each other, which wasn't the safest idea when there was a crop of jagged rocks or a ghostly pillar every five metres or so. The rocks were razor-sharp and extremely difficult to navigate; they dissolved out of the rolling mist so quickly and were fatal to crash into, but these were people who had been born and bred in Lake-town. Sam could steer these waters in his sleep. Matilda had always thought that the rocks here looked like a giant had played darts and missed the bull's-eye of Lake-town every time.

Once clear of the rocks and mist, the journey was pleasant. It was late summer and the water was gentle with the rowing-boat, lapping pleasantly against the prow. Jane gossiped happily, not caring whether anyone was listening or not. Matilda trailed a hand in the water, dreaming. Teddy looked excited, like he was about to bubble over with him enthusiasm.

"What?" Jane asked him.

"Will we see elves?" he blurted out. "We're heading for the Woodland Realm."

Teddy had only ventured outside of Lake-town once before. It was rare for the natives to leave their isolated little corner of Middle-Earth, except the bargeman and those with little businesses such as Sam and Jane's father which required resources from outside Lake-town.

"No," replied Sam. "The elves never leave their borders, and we're not such fools to trespass over them."

"But it's Mirkwood," Teddy said. "The edge of the forest marks the edge of the elven borders." He scanned the shore where the boat was directed. "It's all forest."

"Not where we're going," grinned Jane. "The wrath of King Thranduil is said to be very fierce."

"You've never seen an elf?" Teddy looked incredulous.

All three shook their heads.

"Never?"

"I have told you this before," Matilda sighed and shook her head at her brother's inattention.

"Dwarves?" He sounded hopeful.

"There aren't any dwarves in these parts," laughed Sam. "Not for years and years."

Teddy looked disappointed, and fell into silence as they approached the shore. Landing, Sam and Matilda pulled the boat up the shingle (the stretch of muddy land was too narrow to call a beach) and they moored it. Jane and Teddy unloaded the weapons they used for hunting; Sam's bow and a quiver of precious arrows, two spears made from old harpoons and a heavy crow-bill made from a blacksmith's hammer. Matilda wished they had iron-forged swords and spears, but such weapons were locked in the armoury and guarded heavily. If their corrupt and ineffectual Master was afraid of anything it was rebellion, and he took it upon himself to suppress it like it was the plague.

"What are we looking for?" Teddy asked, as the four of them began to make their way into the forest.

"Rabbits, a deer if we're lucky," Sam said, leading the way.

They climbed up a mossy bank, threading between the trees and jumping over the tree stumps. Each of them held weapons, and they split up, spreading out. Creeping along, her boots crunching slightly, Matilda felt a thrill of apprehension. The forest seemed quieter than usual, or was that just her imagination running wild and playing tricks on her?

She froze. Up ahead, a grey rabbit shuffled about in the undergrowth, foraging and completely oblivious to the danger less than five metres away. Matilda strung her bow and drew the feathers back until they were tickling her cheek. She breathed. The rabbit stopped and stood up on its hind legs, its nose quivering as it tested the air. Matilda let go. She was clumsy and awkward at the best of times but she had been hunting for a long time, and could shoot straight without thinking too hard about it. Her arrow found its mark, burying deep into the rabbit's gut. In another time and place, Matilda might have felt sympathy toward the helpless creature, but, when the town was so desperate for food and had a Master who cared little for the abject poverty and starvation of his people, she only knew that this rabbit was precious food and money.

Teddy picked it up and withdrew the arrow, wiping it on a patch of grass and handing it back to his sister. He attached the rabbit to his back, and onwards they continued.

Matilda had barely moved three steps when a commotion started beside her. Sam had stepped on Jane's foot, and she had taken it, as usual, as a personal insult. A rather impressive shouting match incurred, the insults of which became increasingly infantile as the argument blew itself out, leaving the siblings grumbling and muttering to themselves.

"We'll never catch anything at this rate," Matilda murmured, exchanging a grin with Teddy. They were grateful that they could at least last five minutes without tearing at each other's throats.

"Let's just keep going," Sam said haughtily, striding ahead while Teddy and Matilda tried to placate Jane, who was still hopping on one foot to prove her point.

The grey rabbit seemed to be the only living thing unlucky enough to be out. The sun climbed higher in the sky, time wore on, and still, they didn't meet anything. Not so much as a hedgehog. Not a bird in the trees. A sense of dread and unease settled in Matilda's stomach, twisting her insides until she felt slightly sick.

"Sam," she whispered. "It's too quiet. I don't like it."

"Nonsense," Sam replied, dismissing her fears. "It's just a slow day, that's all."

They walked onwards into the forest, and the trees grew thicker and the darkness became denser. Matilda looked up; the sun was blocked from her sight. In all directions a great leafy sky covered them, the branches thickly woven together.

Matilda, already unnerved and unusually jumpy, almost leapt out of her skin when Jane squealed from somewhere to her left. They rushed to her; Jane's arm had become tangled in a thatch of sticky silvery threads. Sam couldn't help but snicker. Turning up her freckled nose in disgust, Jane withdrew her arm, picking it off her sleeve and out of her hair. Thinking nothing of it, the four continued deeper into the forest. Jane almost split her sides laughing when Sam, not concentrating, had plunged headfirst into a web of the sticky silvery threads. But when Sam struggled to free himself, the smile faded off Jane's face.

"What is this stuff?" she wondered aloud, looking up.

The thick fibres were everywhere, strung across the trees, and Matilda saw immediately why they hadn't noticed what they were walking into. The silvery strands were laced through the leaves high above them; only a couple of patches had fallen to the ground. Matilda touched a gleaming, sticky thread.

"It's almost like a...web," she said, unsure of why she was whispering. "A spider's web."

"I wouldn't like to run into the spider which made this," Sam said, gesturing to a particularly big web directly above his head. "Look at the size of- oof!"

He was cut off by a swift and unnecessarily hard punch in his ribs, courtesy of Jane. She had frozen in horror, eyes transfixed by something in the distance. Sam, Matilda and Teddy turned to see what it was that had immobilised her so, and Matilda felt all the blood in her body flow cold.

A hundred yards or so away from them was a spider the size of her house back home in Lake-town. Crawling through its web away from them, one of its eight legs was the width of Matilda herself. Its black eyes glinting with evil, it scuttled in the opposite direction from the petrified humans, the hairs stood upright on its body, fangs gleaming.

Matilda was thankful for small mercies; it didn't seem to have seen them. "Yet," a tiny voice in her brain told her, and she pressed a fist to her mouth. With a thrill of dismay and revulsion, Matilda heard a clicking noise above her. Teddy shot out a hand and pulled her down, crouching beside the roots of a particularly thick tree. Another spider skulked through its web right over them, following its kin away. Matilda hardly dared to breathe until both of the giant spiders had vanished into the trees.

"Run!" whispered Sam. "RUN!"

They ran. As silently as they could manage, the four humans fled from the spiders, their legs pumping furiously. They didn't slow until the webs had petered out, and even then, they kept running. Sam didn't need to urge them; strangely enough, they all seemed extremely keen to put as much distance as possible between them and the spiders.

Matilda ran until her heart pounded in her throat, and it hurt to take great, gasping breaths of air. Jane was the first to stop, bending over and clutching a stitch in her side. None of them said anything whilst they all tried to remember how to breathe. Teddy uncorked a water gourd, which they passed round gratefully.

"A slow day?" Matilda hissed when she could finally hear herself think again.

"Shut up," said Sam.

They grinned at each other; relieved to be out of danger. It was only then that they began to look at their surroundings. If they had thought the trees were dense before, it was nothing compared to the forest now. Forming almost a solid wall of tree trunks and foliage, they had to walk single-file to weave through the trees, following the intricate labyrinths of roots that patterned the forest floor. The trees were now so tall that Matilda could hardly see the branches and leaves above them, stretching to the sky. Matilda began to feel slightly light-headed and dizzy, almost like her feet didn't belong to her. Maybe she was tired, or maybe she had looked for the tops of the trees for too long.

Time began to lose itself, and Matilda lost all sense of direction as they wandered deeper and deeper into the Forest of Mirkwood. She could not locate herself on the ground, and time became more and more evasive as she tried to tell when in the day it was. Matilda had the horrible sensation that a whole year could have passed without her knowing or her consent.

"Look!" Teddy breathed, stopping so suddenly that Matilda bumped into his back. She peered round him, blinking hard to clear her woozy head.

Ahead of them, in the centre of a clearing, stood a large and magnificent creature, the like of which Matilda had never heard of, let alone seen, before. Its body was taller than the top of her head, and its short glossy brown fur reminded her of a stag. And yet it was unlike a stag for it was thick and stocky, with a short but elegant neck extending upwards. It had ears, like she had seen on deer before, but its antlers were a thing of a beauty; great ivory structures extending majestically out from either side of its head. The creature bent its head to the bubbling spring from which it was drinking.

Beside her, Sam drew his bow and arrow. Matilda put a hand on his arm and shook her head, wide-eyed. Sam looked at her, and Matilda was startled. She took a step backwards. Sam's eyes were strange; his pupils were so big that only a narrow ring of green-blue surrounded them. He looked quite unlike himself, almost as though he was in some kind of trance.

The beautiful creature raised its head. Its ears twitched once, and then, to Matilda's horror, it looked straight at them. Its long-lashed celestial eyes gazed at them reproachfully, and Matilda found she could not tear her eyes from it; it was like the creature could see into her very soul.

Sam's arrow whizzed through the trees. In that instant, Matilda prayed that it would miss its target but the unmistakable sound of metal finding its mark filled the glade. The creature didn't utter a sound from its mouth, not a howl, not a grunt, not a scream, but its legs folded and it fell with a thud to the ground. A deep, unexplainable sadness rooted itself deep in Matilda's core and she suddenly felt as though she could never feel happy again. Jane turned to her, mouth open, and Matilda knew she had felt it too. Behind her, Teddy had an odd expression on his face; like he couldn't decide whether to cry or to give into hysterics.

The two girls ran to the animal, and fell to their knees. Its mouth was open and a trickle of blood ran from it. The beautiful brown eyes were glazed and Matilda wanted to cry when she gazed into them.

"Something's wrong," Jane whispered beside her.

Matilda looked up sharply, and into her friend's panic-stricken eyes. Jane clutched at her head as though she would anchor it to her shoulders.

Suddenly, an ear-splitting din sounded, cutting through the silence like a knife. Matilda and Jane fell backwards in fright, and the two boys ran forwards to them. It was trumpeting, loud and resonating. Whatever it was, it didn't sound good to the four young humans.

Sam seemed to jerk awake, as though from a dream, and his eyes dilated in panic. He stared down at the beast as though it had suddenly appeared there. Looking panicked, he whipped around, trying to find the source of the sound. "Elves!" he said.

"What?" Jane shouted so she would be heard above the pandemonium of the horns.

"Let's go!" Sam yelled, sprinting to the edge of the clearing.

The blood in Matilda's head pounded and her thighs burned. She was already exhausted from their flight earlier and being unused to running (there was nowhere to run to in Lake-town), made her heart feel like it was going to pound right out of her chest. Her knees were fit to buckle beneath her but Teddy caught hold of her hand and pulled her along. They chased after Sam and Jane, but suddenly arrows and daggers appeared on all sides. They were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of elves, all armour-clad and heavily-armed, and, most worryingly, all wearing furious, hostile expressions on their faces.

Matilda gulped.

They were well and truly surrounded.

So this is the first chapter of my Legolas story, I hope you like! Drop me a review, a favourite and a follow – I love to hear your views.

I promise it gets more exciting now the elves are on the scene!