An AU of my Ettelëa AU, this came about as the result of an idea I had while high as a kite on Vicoden. (Yay nerve damage, except not.) You don't need to read Ettelëa to understand this one, but for those who have, this little might-have-been is the result of Lorna landing in Middle-Earth further down her timeline. This little experiment probably won't be updated anywhere near as fast as the others, but what the hell. It had to be written.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Ettelëa, Lorna is from the series of books I wrote and have done nothing with, though they're up on my AO3 profile. If you're curious as to what happened to her just before the start of this, I direct you to chapter ten of of The Curse of M on AO3. As with Ettelëa, reading those books isn't necessary to understand the fic, but I'd love it if you did anyway.

In Ettelëa, Lorna showed up in Mirkwood after crashing through the windshield of her van. In here, her immediate prior circumstances were…rather worse. Literal mind rape worse.

This didn't occur to me when writing Ettelëa, but Lorna is being exposed to pathogens for which she has no immunity - and the people of Dale have no exposure to her germs. It is, naturally, a recipe for disaster.

When Lorna woke, there was frigid murder in her heart.

She was weary, but not filthy – someone had cleaned her up and changed her trousers and hospital smock while she was unconscious – and so angry that it actually took her a moment to register the change in her surroundings. No longer was she in the Institute, on her hard cot beneath a flimsy blanket; now there was earth under her back, ridged with tree-roots.

The branches above – very far above – her were nearly bare, save for a very few spring leaves. Her vision was blurred, her eyes still burning from last night's tear gas, and her chest felt raw with every breath she drew. She was freezing, too, her body wracked with shivers.

This couldn't be Von Ratched's doing. He couldn't get into her head, not now, and in any event, it felt too real. Had he drugged her? Probably. Still, her dreams, though vivid, weren't anywhere near this vivid. What had he done to her, aside from what she remembered?

Lorna struggled to her feet, rubbing her eyes. If this was a hallucination of some sort, moving around a bit ought to break it, but her legs felt alarmingly weak. Her mouth was parched, her throat sandpaper-dry, and she wondered what the hell she was to do now.

Von Ratched had to die, but she couldn't do anything about him until she shook this delusion. The ground, covered in last year's slimy leaves, was cold beneath her bare feet, and her first hesitant steps were wobbly until her equilibrium righted itself.

While it was true she hadn't been in many forests, she was pretty sure they weren't meant to be this quiet. No birds called, no little animals scurried along the trees. Maybe that was the first sign of the hallucination's flaws. They could always be found, eventually; the human brain wasn't capable of sustaining anything coherent for too long. The trees themselves were massive – they had to be ancient, and so thick that she'd bet no sunlight hit the ground when they all had leaves. It was a hell of a thing for her mind to cough up.

The red-gold rays of dying sunset pierced through them now, and hallucination or not, that made her nervous. She was barefoot, poorly dressed, and unarmed. Thought of spending the night in this place wasn't to be borne –

She wasn't alone.

She couldn't see or hear anyone, but she could feel them – people, not animals, though she had no idea why she was so certain of that. She was being watched.

Lorna paused, glancing around. In her current mood, she wasn't sure she wanted to know what kind of people her mind would come up with. She thought of the infected from 28 Days Later, and immediately wished she hadn't.

Fuck it. "I know you're out there," she said. Her voice was little more than a hoarse rasp, her throat on fire. "If you're going to eat me, you might as well get on with it."

The person who leapt down from the tree above her – yikes – was, tall, pretty, androgynous, and vaguely creepy. She was pretty sure it was a bloke, though his long dark hair looked better than hers ever had. She would have commented, except that he immediately drew his bow and pointed an arrow at her face.

What.

"Nice to see you, too," she said, her heart lurching. Though maybe if he shot her, she'd wake up.

"Man le?" he said.

Oh, great. Of course he'd speak gibberish.

"I got nothing, mate," she said. Her badly fraying temper did not have the patience for this bullshit. Her stamina had mostly recovered, for all she was starving, achy, and thirsty as hell; if he wanted to shoot her, he could damn well shoot her. Either she'd wake up, or she'd die; she couldn't say she'd mind either, at this point.

She gave her would-be captor a humorless grin, ducked beneath his arm, and bolted.

He cried out, but he didn't shoot her, and she forced her aching legs into as fast a run as she could manage, dodging and weaving through fallen branches and sparse undergrowth. Even with all her calluses, her feet hurt like a bastard, and warm wetness on her toes told her the right was probably bleeding. At least she was warm enough now, her heart thundering, adrenaline coursing through her like liquid sunlight. Her eyes stung, her lungs burned, but she was moving, and that was what mattered.

Someone else jumped into her path, a woman with a fantastic head of red hair, but Lorna dodged her, grateful for once that she was so small. If she'd had the breath for it, she would have laughed, because the woman looked downright affronted.

She didn't know how long she could keep this up, but she wasn't given the chance to find out – she rounded a tree and nearly ran smack into what looked like the biggest cobweb in the bloody universe.

It brought her up short, and drew an aborted croak of a scream from her. Spiders were just about the only thing in the world Lorna Did Not Handle, but she really didn't handle them.

She scrambled backward, and made the extreme tactical error of looking up – just in time to see a spider the size of her damn van descending toward her.

Yeah, nope.

Lorna would freely admit that she screamed like a little girl when she ran – a scream that cut off when the tree that held the spider all but exploded, dropping it right behind her and spraying her with a shower of splinters. Fortunately, the rest of the tree collapsed onto it; when she hazarded a glance behind her, she found the damn thing had been pretty effectively squished.

The tree beside her creaked and cracked, the branches snapping and crashing all around her, which would at least slow down any more spiders. Coppery wetness on her lip told her that her nose was bleeding, but she didn't care – at least, not until something hit her on the back of the head, and consciousness gave up.

And this day started out so pleasantly, Faelon thought. What in Eru's name a lone Edain was doing so far into the forest, he didn't know, but naturally she could not just cooperate.

Tracking her was easy enough, but even an Edain could have followed the terrific crash of falling trees, and the unmistakable scream. Of course she'd have to go and run afoul of the spiders – but how had she managed to get this far before she did? Especially dressed as she was?

He didn't know, but he had to find out. Provided she hadn't just been eaten.

He found that Captain Tauriel had beaten him to it – a very confused Captain Tauriel.

The Edain herself was unconscious, having been hit on the head by a falling bough. The confusing – and disturbing – thing was the sheer amount of destruction around her. The trees looked as though some great boulder had crashed through them, splintered and broken. The scent of fresh wood and sap hung in the air, along with the stink of spider.

The captain looked at him, and he looked at her, and they both looked at the Edain. The woman was tiny, her strange, thin clothing totally inadequate; her oversized grey tunic had short sleeves, and her pale blue trousers were too long. Her long black hair was much tangled, but it – and she – were too clean to have been wandering the forest for a week, and it would have taken her at least that long to get in this far. It was still very early in the spring – in clothes like these, she ought to have frozen to death once the sun went down, especially since she had no shoes. Between that and the destruction she'd somehow wrought, she presented more of a mystery than Faelon liked.

"We must take her back with us," the captain said, though she didn't sound happy about it. "If there are more like her, we need to know about it."

Faelon glanced at the trees. "Are you sure that is safe?" he asked. Some of them looked like they had been ripped apart from the inside, the pale, splintered wood sticky with pulp.

Captain Tauriel sighed, shaking her head. "No," she said. "But it is up to the King to decide what to do with her. If this was somehow her doing, she could have attacked us, and didn't. If he thinks her too much a danger, he'll send her to Bard, and he can decide what should be done with her."

Faelon wasn't entirely sure he liked that, but it wasn't his job to like or dislike things. He just had to do what he was told.

When he picked up the Edain, he found that her head was bleeding, as well as her nose. His fingers probed through her hair for injury, and found a long, shallow cut on her scalp – too shallow to need binding, though he put pressure on it anyway. She was surprisingly heavy for such a tiny, wiry creature; it felt like she was made of muscle and little else.

Night was falling fast, and even this early in the year, marching in the dark was unwise. They would have to make camp, and he only prayed this strange woman would hold off waking up until they were home.

The presence of their odd mortal kept the usual fireside chatter subdued, unconscious though she was. Tauriel checked her for injuries, and was sobered by what she found.

The woman had a number of old scars, some of them vicious, but there were ugly purple bruises on both of her wrists, and what looked much like rope-burn. She had many faded bruises, too, on her legs and her arms and left side, and her left knee was badly swollen.

Whoever this woman was, someone had been torturing her, and recently. Very recently. And that meant there was likely another stranger in the forest, assuming he or she hadn't already been eaten by spiders – or killed by this Edain.

"Whatever is going on here, I do not think it is simple," Tauriel said to Faelon, holding up the woman's limp arm. "Perhaps she is not the danger we need fear. I want the watch doubled tonight."

His eyes widened a fraction, and he winced. "I do not envy you your report," he said, looking at the woman's wrist.

Tauriel couldn't blame him. The King had, to her bewilderment, practically forced her post back upon her after the Battle of the Five Armies, and though much of her still didn't understand why, she tried to repay him by being as conscientious as she could. Unfortunately, in this she had little in the way of facts to report, which he would not at all be pleased by.

She wrapped the little Edain in her cloak, and stared into the dancing flames. The nights were still bitterly cold once the sun set, but that was of little consequence to the Elves. However, it made her wonder all the more how this Edain had survived. She had no means of making a fire, and even bundled in Tauriel's cloak she was shivering.

A very unpleasant thought entered Tauriel's mind: perhaps it was only this day that the woman had escaped whoever had been torturing her. That would mean that the person – or people – were not far away.

Nobody was sleeping tonight.

Lorna woke with a queasy, thumping headache, wrapped in the softest fabric she had ever felt. Her eyes still burned, her mouth tasted absolutely vile, and her bladder was about ready to burst. Where was she?

Memory came sluggishly, and she groaned when she opened her eyes. Though it was barely dawn, the pale light seemed to stab straight into her brain, and she shut them again immediately.

This was real. This forest, the spiders – somehow, it was real. How had she got here? Why? For that matter, where was here?

And the others, her friends at the Institute – were they here, too? Out of the three of them, she'd only peg Geezer as likely to survive the spiders, because he was a tough old bastard who could probably live through nuclear apocalypse. If a zombie tried to eat him, it would get sick and die.

She didn't want to movie, or think, but her bladder really did hate her, so she forced herself to sit up. It wasn't just her head that hurt; it felt like every muscle she had ached, and her throat remained sore as hell. In spite of her blanket, her limbs were numb and heavy, and she nearly fell when she tried to stand.

The redhead she'd evaded the night before gave her a look of alarm, but Lorna waved a vague hand to ward her off. "I'm fine," she said, and Christ, her voice sounded even worse today. "I just need to pee."

The woman's expression was completely blank, and Lorna fought a groan. It would be just her luck if none of them spoke English.

She pointed at a nearby bush, and mimed what her youngest nephew called the Pee Dance. That cleared up the woman's expression, and Lorna limped her way along the uneven ground. She'd ripped her big toenail clean off yesterday, she saw, but her feet were so cold that it didn't hurt. Yet.

Pissing outside was never any fun, but having only dried leaves for toilet paper just made it worse. Still, there was one item ticked off her long list of discomforts, and the rest could be dealt with, because she was free. Sort of. She was out of the Institute, which was what mattered. Wherever these people were taking her, it couldn't possibly be worse than that hellhole.

Lorna limped back to the remains of the campfire, breathing in the clean, somehow living scent of smoke. "Can any'v you understand me?" she asked the redhead, as she sat down to inspect her toe. The nail was indeed gone, the bed crusted over with a black scab. Gross. "See, there might be others. My friends." Getting eaten by a spider might not be much worse than enduring Von Ratched and his 'tests', but it was still worse.

"Hannon le?" the woman asked, and Lorna sighed. She didn't know if she should hope the others were here or not. The thought of what Von Ratched would do to them once he found she was gone made her shudder, but the alternative might well be a giant spiderweb, or death by exposure. She would have frozen if not for these people, and none of her friends would be any better dressed than her.

At least the spiders would kill them quickly. Von Ratched would draw it out. She knew too well what he could do to a person's mind.

The memory sent cold horror crawling up her spine, and she leaned over to retch into the fire. There was nothing in her stomach to bring up – all she could do was split bile onto the coals, and vaguely wish she was dead herself. Bad enough he'd gone rooting around in her head like a Cracker Jack box, but what he'd done – what he'd forced her to feel – God, she wished she could puke. Either that or submerge herself in scalding water, until all trace of him and the Institute were gone. She wanted to burn this damn hospital smock, and pee on the ashes for good measure.

Mostly, she wanted to go home. But home wasn't safe anymore; she'd left her family because they would have been in danger if she'd stayed. Even the families of the cursed could wind up in very deep trouble.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Lorna lashed out on instinct – but it was only the redhead, who gave her a stricken look when she scrambled away. No doubt she thought Lorna was off her nut, but Lorna didn't remotely care.

"Don't touch me, all right?" she said, despite the fact that the woman wouldn't understand. "Just…don't."

Tauriel was at something of a loss. The little Edain obviously didn't want to be touched, but they had half a day's walk ahead, and she had no shoes. Still, Tauriel had a presentiment that picking her up would be a spectacularly bad idea. She could be allowed to walk until she was no longer capable.

The sun rose, lending golden beauty to the forest. In the five years since the battle, the darkness that marred it had retreated considerably; the spiders lingered, but their numbers were diminished, and the strange blight on the trees was fading. There was much to be grateful for, but the idea of some new foe taking up residence in it unnoticed made Tauriel very uneasy.

She wished the woman could tell her, but she seemed to have no more understanding of Westron than she did of Sindarin. Tauriel knew no other tongues of men, but surely one of the scholars would. This bedraggled creature might not wish them ill, but whatever had tortured her certainly would.

She kept up, at least, though her face grew ever grimmer. While she wasn't old, Tauriel didn't think she was overly young, either; her swarthy face had seen its share of weather, and there was silver threaded through her long black hair. She was the tiniest adult Edain Tauriel had ever seen; Tauriel was on the short side for an Elf, but this woman's head barely reached her chin.

Someone, somewhere, had to be missing her. Her age might be hard to guess, but she was definitely old enough to have children. Her complexion, however, suggested that she was not from anywhere near this corner of Middle-Earth.

How did she get here?

There was no way to ask, though the woman occasionally spoke, and Tauriel had a feeling she was trying out different languages, searching for a common one, and growing ever more frustrated when she failed.

Tauriel was still wondering what in Eru's name she was to tell the King when the blast of a hunting horn split the morning air. The Edain froze, her eyes darting from tree to tree, poised for flight.

"It is all right," Tauriel said, hoping her tone would soothe, even if her words wouldn't be understood. Naturally, it had no effect. Not that she could really be blamed; the thunder of approaching hooves could only belong to one animal, and few Edain would have seen its like.

When the hunting-party approached, most were on foot. Only the King and a few of his generals were mounted – and as soon as the Edain woman saw the great elk, she let out what could only be a curse, scrambling backward.

"Cad é an ifreann é sin an rud? An raibh sé ag fás suas in aice le radaíocht sceitheadh fuilteach?" she said, the words a strangely musical gibberish.

"It is only an elk," Tauriel said, a little helplessly. There was no point. She bowed to the King, as did the rest of the patrol, but the Edain looked ready to bolt. At least she wouldn't get far if she did.

All right, enough was enough. There was no way in hell that was a real animal.

All of these people were pretty creepy, but the bloke riding that monstrosity was by far the worst. She'd never seen anyone so pale, and his eyes looked like a god damn zombie's. Thankfully, they didn't linger over Lorna for very long.

She'd thought meeting up with these weirdos wasn't such a bad thing, even if they did dress like medieval nutters, but one look at that guy was enough to make her seriously reconsider. The song of a bitch was even more intimidating than Von Ratched, and that was really saying something.

He was saying something to the redhead, who kept shooting her nervous glances. Oh, great. Lorna was glad she probably looked like hell; at least she couldn't be counted as a threat.

She had to find a way back. She didn't want to, but she was of no use to anyone here, and Christ only knew what Von Ratched was doing to Ratiri in her absence. She never, ever wanted to face that fucker again, but she had to. There was no way she could leave her friends to his non-existent mercy. And really, these people would probably be glad to be rid of her.

Thranduil did not at all want to hear what Tauriel had to say – especially as she seemed to be certain of next to nothing. She would not lie to him, however, nor withhold information; what she told him was what she knew.

Thought of some monstrous Edain taking up residence in his forest was not a pleasant one, but Edain were easily dealt with. This one spoke no tongue anyone recognized, but he doubted there was much she could tell him anyway. Her expression was terrified, yet calculating – he didn't need to understand her to know she was contemplating flight.

She needn't have worried. He had no interest in taking her back to the halls. Yes, there was something peculiar, something off about her, but that only gave him all the more reason to be rid of her. Let a guard or two take her to Dale; she could be Bard's problem.

Just now, she was staring at him. That wasn't surprising; Edain often stared at Eldar, especially those unused to them. The wariness in her eyes was familiar – the puzzlement, however, was not. They flicked over his face, but kept straying to the left side, and an unwelcome curl of unease unfolded in his heart. There was no way at all she could be able to see what lay beneath his glamour, and yet –

And yet.

She said nothing, though it looked as though she wanted to. When she reached up and touched her own left cheek, he didn't think she was even aware of her actions – but even so, a strange, heavy dread curdled in his stomach. She saw it. She saw it.

How?

"Feredir, grab her," he said, his voice entirely steady in spite of his disquiet. He would not explain himself, but he did not need to. No one dared question him.

The warrior did as instructed, catching her by the arm. He wouldn't hurt her, though if she fought him, she might well hurt herself.

Her eyes, those oddly intense green eyes, widened – and she hauled back and punched him with surprising force for one so small. It wasn't nearly enough to make him release her, but she grabbed the fingers of the hand that held her and pulled.

A truly hideous crack split the air, followed by a hiss of pain, and that won her freedom. She didn't linger to take satisfaction in her victory, however; off she went, as fast as her tiny bare feet could carry her.

Thranduil didn't need to order the guards after her – they spread out of their own volition, following much faster than any Edain could run, let alone one so small. He needed to know what she was, and if the other in the forest was like her.

What he would do with her after that…he didn't know.

Fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck this

It really was amazing, just how fast adrenaline could make a person run. Lorna had no idea where she was going, or if there was even a 'there' to go to – all that mattered right now was away.

What the hell was wrong with creepy guy's face, and why could she only see it sometimes? She didn't know, and wasn't nearly curious enough to stick around to find out. The bloke who'd grabbed her had been far too strong – as strong as Von Ratched, or nearly. Either way, not someone she wanted having hold of her, thanks so much.

Those people, whoever they were, whatever they were, were all much faster than her. She didn't have a chance if she didn't bring down a few trees, but her telekinesis wasn't anything like precise, and if she overdid it, she'd just pass out again. She yanked as she went, a branch here, a splintered trunk there. All she had to do was slow them down enough to give her a decent head start, or so she hoped.

Civilization was what she needed, but at the same time, it might be even more dangerous. A town or city full of these creepers would be even worse, but she had no shoes, no food, completely shite clothes, and no way to make fire. Alone out here, she'd be dead inside of two days, and that was if she didn't get eaten by a spider first.

And yet it was still better than the Institute.

The snap of wood and tear of massive roots ripped from the ground sang within her veins, shoving aside some of her pants-pissing terror. She wasn't going to get caught. She wasn't going to get locked up again – not by them, not by anyone. No, she wasn't willing to kill anyone to ensure that, but Lorna had never had a problem with hurting people. And in that regard, Von Ratched had only made her worse.

She couldn't hear her pursuers, but she could sense them, sparks of life and thought fanned out behind her – not far enough behind her. Though her legs ached and her lungs burned, she put on what little extra speed she was capable of, spiky bushes slashing at her clothes and skin. Christ, she was going to come out of this so banged-up she'd probably scare off anyone else she met.

Dammit, there was a dropoff ahead, but she had too many people on either side for her to deviate course. All she could do was pelt toward the sunshine, and hope like hell she wasn't about to leap to her death. Even if she was, she'd take splatting like a bug over being shut away again

Faster, faster, until she skidded to a halt at the edge of the cliff. It was a cliff, too, albeit not overly high, a wide, churning river at its base. It was probably a survivable fall, though Lorna was no great swimmer. At least her clothing wouldn't weigh her down.

Her pursuers were still eerily silent, but she felt their approach, and when she looked up, she saw an entire line of them. One or two actually had bows out – why the hell hadn't they shot her? – but the rest were simply there, watching, not even remotely out-of-breath.

The tall one, the extra creepy one, was looking at her in a way disturbingly reminiscent of Von Ratched. It was a look that said, You are intriguing, but subhuman, and she wasn't about to stick around to endure whatever it might herald. She looked at him, and at the group, grinning a little. She'd split her lip on something, probably one of the spiky bushes, and she could taste the salt of her own blood, her heart thundering, high off her own adrenaline.

"Yeah, fuck off, twats," she said, gave the lot of them a double-barreled finger – and jumped.

Yeeeah, very different from Ettelëa, even if some things remain universal. Lorna will meet up with the Elves again, in not much time at all – but not before she's done a few things she'll come to deeply regret.

Lorna can't mind-rape Elves. She can, however, mind-rape humans, and just now she is beaten up, psychologically traumatized, terrified, and very, very desperate. She had Von Ratched in her head literally yesterday. That kind of thing leaves a mark.

Pity the first human she meets.

What Lorna says about the elk is, "What the hell is that thing? Did grow up near a bloody radiation leak?" in Irish. Drop me a review and let me know what you think of this little deviation.