A/N: Thanks to anybody who's sent me a review! You're among my first! Hope this installment will keep you interested for a while, and please let me know what you think afterwards.

Without further ado...

Chapter 2: Lorien

The woods had changed, he could feel it. The trees were taller, and around him there was unnatural silence. He sat down and looked around him, resting his back against one of the strange trees. He had been walking all week with little food or shelter, and he'd been lucky to escape the keen eyes of Eomer's riders that had arrived at the battlefield, searching for their prince's body.

All his life, he had heard fireside fairy tales of the magical lady of the woods of Lothlorien. She was evil, some said, beautiful but evil. He had dismissed the stories with a wave of his hand. Elvish magic did not scare him; he did not believe in it to begin with. Yet there was still something strange about these woods. They seemed… unnatural. No forests in Rohan were this quiet.

In his early life, he had always aimed to stay away from these woods. Why was he here now, he asked himself? As magical and weird as they were, the tall golden trees gave wonderful shelter after the open plains, and from the sight of orcs.

Despite the silence and his paranoid checks of the woodland around him, he could not help but feel he was being watched. He glanced quickly over his shoulder. Had he just seen something? He moaned and put his head in his hands. What was he turning into? He'd never been worried like this before.

"Stand up."

He froze, cursing in his head. He looked up at the speaker. An elf, no…he counted quickly…eight elves. Tall and fair, they seemed to glow with a white light, their legendary pointed ears showing through their long, straight hair.

"Stand up," their leader repeated. He rose slowly, showing the palms of his hands in a gesture of peace. Their bows didn't move; the arrows nocked firmly in each one stayed still. However many battles he had fought in, the prospect of eight Wood Elves each pointing an arrow at his chest was not a nice one.

"Where are you from?" The elf's piercing blue eyes looked into his own, cold and severe. The arrows stayed nocked in their bows.

"Rohan," he said quickly. "The city of Edoras."

"Why are you here?"

"I-" he paused.

"Why are you here?" There was an element of anger in that stern, commanding voice, and he answered quickly.

"I seek shelter here."

"You wish to stay with the elves?" The piercing stare was highly intimidating.

"Or I could always return to Edoras."

"Return to Rohan?" The elf smirked. The anger in his voice had been replaced with a slight element of humour. "Oh, I don't think returning home is really an option."

He didn't say anything. He hadn't thought it would be, to be honest.

The elf turned to one of his companions.

"Bind his hands," he commanded. "We are taking him to the Lady."

A female elf behind him lowered her bow and looked at him in shock.

"Bring him to Caras Gladhorn?" she asked in their native tongue. "You cannot be serious, unless you have messages from Imladris of this one too."

Their prisoner looked at them blankly, unable to understand a word they were saying.

"He will be brought to the Lord and Lady," the first elf said confidently. "Passing over the borders of Lorien is not an act to be taken lightly. Once you do so, there is no going back on your decision."

The female eyed him sternly. She nodded at length, though still doubtful.

"Very well," she said in the common, raising her bow once more.

At a nod from their leader, a tall dark haired elf stepped forward to bind the prisoner's hands before blindfolding him.

"None but our own kin may look upon the entrance to the city in Lothlorien," he said in explanation.

The Rohirric prisoner was starting to wonder of there were some elements of truth in the old stories of this land. The elves' speech was slightly unnerving to one who was unfamiliar with it, but, it seemed, it was too late now.

As his last glance of the woodland was obscured by the blindfold, he heard the leading elf speak again.

"You are brave indeed, young man," he said. "For no man of Rohan has dared enter this land for many a year."

The man shuffled uncomfortably, unsure whether to take this as a compliment.

He was led away with a steady hand on his shoulder, but instantly tripped over a stray root.

These woods just kept getting better and better.

(-End of chapter 2-)

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lama xxx