Chapter One

The forest of Fangorn was a dark and foreboding place. The last home of the Ents it might have been, but they could not lift the darkness that hung over it. Yet to the two young hobbits, Meriadoc Brandybuck, and his cousin, Peregrin Took, it was a safe haven, all be it one of shadowy trees that seemed to watch their every move. The two young hobbits have traveled far already, but they had yet to see such a place as Fangorn Forest, quite simply because there was no other place in Middle-earth like it. For as had been done by Melian long ago in the first age, her great-grandson, Elurín Arrain, had woven a gild around the last home of the Ents, a net of spells meant to repeal any servant of darkness. It was into that gild, unknowingly, that the two young hobbits stumbled, and began a chain reaction the like of which had not been witnessed in Middle-earth since the days of Lúthien Tinúviel.

After a time wandering through the dark forest, with tree roots coming out of nowhere to trip them, the two young hobbits, Marry and Pippin, collapsed at the base of a mighty tree to try and take stock of themselves.

"Pippin," Marry said after he got his breath back. "So you remember which way we came in?"

"No," the younger hobbit replied. "Was I supposed to?"

"Of course you were!" Marry cried, anger and fear welling up within him. "I told you to,"

"I'm sorry," Pippin said, and he was too. "I thought..."

Marry rounded on him. "What did you think!" the older of the two yelled. "That when we were done running, twisting and turning all the while, that I would be able to remember how we got here!?"

"It's still your fault were lost," Pippin muttered under his breath. He was to upset to think about what he was saying, unfortunately, his cousin heard him.

"How can it be might fault were lost, you were the one who was supposed to remember the way out!" Marry demanded. His temper was rising, he was scared to, the forest unsettled him, and he wanted to leave as so as possible.

"I thought you were watching our direction too," Pippin said, his voice was higher than normal, for he was frightened as well.

"I told you to do," Marry's face was becoming flushed, and his eyes were wide.

"It's not my fault I didn't hear you," Pippin pointed out. "Anyway, I thought you knew a lot about woods and things, your the one who lives by the Old Forest back home,"

"Living next to a forest, even one as strange as this one is not the same as knowing how to navigate in one, Pippin, even you should know that!"

"Maby we should have stayed with the orcs, at least we knew where we were going when we were prisoners," it was a stupid thing to say and Pippin knew it, but he was scared, and he hated fighting with Marry, especially when so much else was at stake.

"If you keep making so much noise they will probably find us again Pippen, so why don't you shut up!" Marry knew that his cousin had not really meant what he had said, but that did not change the facts.

"You're the one who started it!" Pippin shot back just as Marry, who was looking over his cousin's shoulder, saw a shadow leave the shelter of another, darker shadow, and began to move towards them.

"Be quiet," he snapped at Pippin as cold fear flued his veins.

"Don't tell me to be quiet, no when your the one that started it," Pippin 's voice was far too loud in the silent forest, the shadow, which was tall, like a man or elf, or... Marry did not let his thoughts trail that far, moved closer. "Behind you Pippin!" he managed to choke out. And then the world went black.

Elurín had heard the voices from a mile off, although he had not needed his sharp elven hearing to tell him that strangers had entered Fangorn. He had left his small cabin after the trees had begun to speak of orcs approaching the edge of the woods. He knew that he would not be needed, should it come to a fight, the Forest of Fangorn was more than capable of defending itself, and the Gild he had woven would have dealt with any orcs who escaped the wrath of the tree. Still, Elurín knew that he could not be too careful, and so he had armed himself with Angmîr and gone forth.

He had never reached the place where the battle was joined, inset he was drawn away, towards a pair of hobbits who fled from the blood. Under differing circumstances, he might have ignored a member of the Free People entering Fangorn, but hobbits rarely left their homeland, which Elurín knew lay somewhere in the North, and so, by curiosity more then anything, he was drawn to the pair. When he found them, they were standing under the massive limbs of a tree, arguing about who had been supposed to make sure they knew how to get back out of the forest. By their talk, Elurín was able to gather that they had been prisoners of the orcs and that they were now lost, something he had already know.

For it was impossible for anyone, except Elurín and the Ents, not to become lost in Fangorn Forest. Once someone entered, they could only leave if Elurín told the trees to allow them to, or and Ent escorted them out. Otherwise, they would wander in the woods until they died, Elurín knew that it was a little cruel of him to raise the Gild in such a way, but it was for the protection of the forest, and of himself, and so he used it without mercy.

After a few minutes, Elurín left the shadows and began to move towards the hobbits, the once facing him, who was the older saw him and panicked. Elurín watched with a little amusement as he fainted after doing his best to warn his complain of Elurín's presents. The younger hobbit turned to face Elurín his eyes wide with fear.

Stopping some feet away, Elurín held out his right hand as a sign of peace, before he spoke in the common language of the West. "Greetings young hobbits. I am Arrain, the elf guardian of Fangorn Forest. I am sorry that I frightened you, I mean you know harm unless you mean this would harm,"

Elurín hoped that, whatever news the two hobbits had, it was important enough for him to bother with, he did not want to hear about that year's crop of pipeweed after all.