(Setting: The dwarves early descent into Mirkwood. Gandalf has doubled back to check on them and try a bit of magic after feeling a strange premonition.)
Deep in the woods, the dwarves slept. It had been a long campaign, a long day, and an even longer time since they had slept through the night. Hidden in the shadows Gandalf kept watch, smoking and thinking.
"Would the incantation work?" he thought in silence. His smoke rings on the air left paths like skipped stones on the river, soft ripples dissolving into the night.
"I must try. If for no reason but to be reminded of my own shortcomings. I cannot let this quest continue down its doomed path." Gandalf stood, keeping his pipe aloft. His eyes scoped his snoring company and raked back to the fire. He gripped his walking stick, threw his head back, and began conjuring smoke shapes of enormous size that snaked through the night. One pair of wary eyes, studying, watched on in wonder.
Unexpectedly Gandalf twirled, and disappeared in a dizzy cacophony of sound and color. The sound reverberated off the metal and leather of the tightly armor bound dwarf horde as it vibrated visibly across the trees. The pair of eyes widened in shock and gave a cry of alarm.
"Gandalf? Gandalf!" exclaimed Bilbo Baggins.
The dwarves awoke to find themselves in the middle of a technicolor firestorm. Coughing and eyes watering, they gathered their weapons and drew them to their chests, forming a tight circle in automatic protection of their brethren.
"What is the meaning of this? What kind of black magic has occurred here? Gandalf? Are you here?" Thorin Oakenshield, displaced King Under the Mountain, demanded through a throaty yell.
"Gandalf came back! He was practicing some sort of magic and was gone in a puff! Then it all became a bit muddled, and the next thing I knew the entire clearing was filled with the sorcery around us. It made a terrific noise, nearly shook me right out of my shirt," Bilbo choked.
In a flurry of wind, the woods began to drain of light and brilliance. The last rays bounced off the eyes of the dwarves, calling to them like the refraction of light through sparkling gems. Thorin himself lustily soaked in the last reflections as eagerly as if they had been the genuine article. As the travelers' eyes adjusted to the blanketing darkness descending upon them, Bilbo suddenly noticed a figure where Gandalf had been standing.
"Gandalf! Thank goodness, we were so worried…" Bilbo stopped. For the fire had lit again, flickering and roaring in the night, throwing illumination on the tall dark shape standing before them.
A human girl, clothed in anachronistic warrior garb and armed with weapons that gleaned and shined in the firelight, turned quickly around to face the unfamiliar voice. Her face changed from bewilderment to fear, and in a large intake of air, she gasped audibly. Her eyes searched the faces of the unknown creatures who stood before her, darting from face to face in shared loss of understanding. She locked eyes with the tallest in the company, a startling aquiline visage gleaming with haughtiness. She found herself unable to speak and unable to look away. Emanating from him was a steely appraising danger of neither familiarity or welcome. Drawing her courage, she met it with new-found resolve. No one would ever best her with a gaze, even in this alien nightmare.
The usually loquacious dwarves, shocked speechless by the spectacle in front of them, looked to their leader Thorin for their next move. The seconds ticked by agonizingly slow as neither their king nor the girl made any attempt to speak or break eye contact. It began to fill the air with an unsettling discomfort, and finally Balin forced himself to break the silence.
"My lord..." was all he managed before the whizz of an arrow resounded through the clearing and lodged itself emphatically in the tree above his head.
"ORCS!" roared Thorin, finally shaken out of his spell. "Arm yourselves, and to me my brothers! Bound the girl, we will deal with the enchantress after we have dispatched her minions! For Gandalf!"
"For Gandalf!" the shout to arms echoed.
Meanwhile, the enchantress in question looked shell-shocked. Her voice found itself at last. "ORCS?" she incredulously asked. "Where in the blazes am I?" Rough hands answered her from behind, and she had no time to struggle before she found herself bound and gagged, robbed of her weapons and thrust headfirst into a nearby log. The fight filled the night with the heady sounds of clashing swords and bubbling bursts as blades found their marks. The girl heard none of it.
"WHEN the blazes am I?" she asked, muffled behind her gag.
Time had passed, but just how much Quinn couldn't be sure. Left alone with the impenetrable blackness of the bindings around her eyes, she found herself unable to process anything beyond the tactile reflexes of her immediate surroundings. The sinewy edges of the hemp rope bounding her had long since rubbed raw the inside of her wrists and ankles. Even the smallest movement brought intense discomfort and burning. Every breath drew flakes of bark from the rotting wood encapsulating her, itching every surface of her exposed skin. The log had become a torture chamber of mildew and malevolence. To this she was more well suited than most- part of her training had consisted of long exposure to traditional torture techniques, even ones so archaic as this.
Her training was what kept her alert, waiting for the moment her strange captors would come to check on their prize. And what strange captors they were! Quinn's mind raced with her visions of them, examining each snapshot of the encounter as it replayed over and over in front of her closed eyes. Her quick defeat in the blinding confusion that followed her sudden emergence in the unknown forest thumped against her consciousness like a shameful swat of a scolding mother's hand. Gone was the incredulousness of earlier. In its stead came a swift thought that ebbed through her ruminations.
"I've been drugged." Quinn realized with a start. "They drugged me, and that's why my sleep was so restless. This is my final test. I've been dropped somewhere remote, and I don't remember how because I was still asleep. The colors, the smoke spirals, the strange way the men looked- it all makes sense now. It's why no one ever talks about their last stages of recruitment. Who would believe them if they did? And now I've gone and made the first rookie mistake by letting them capture me! Well, we'll see who has the flag at the end of this little exercise," she mused.
But a nagging doubt hovered just along the edges of her regained confidence. Gandalf. Orcs. The choice of weapons, the palpable murkiness of the trees, the air. Something was off, but Quinn forced it from her mind, quick to find logical explanations.
"All that panic over their codewords! Haven't we used such fantastical ones before? I've been outfitted with ancient weapons and so have they. And of course it feels unnatural to be around so much nature again. It's time to start planning," she resolved.
Her scheming was cut short. The unmistakable sound of boots crunched towards her.