Happy April!

Hope you like the subliminal cameo in the title :) Enjoy!

Review response(s):

electrogirl88: You're a sweetheart :) I appreciate that

Disclaimer: I only own Aia (her loss) ;)

Chapter 8: Why Couldn't it be "Follow the Butterflies?"

"Acanthe! Look! This one's wrigglin' around. I don't like it."

"Well kill it then!"

"But it'll get cold if I do.."

"You figure it out, Dolomedes. You figure it out. I'm gonna fetch the other two down there before they get away. That one looks injured though. I doubt it'll be doin' any runnin' away." Six thuds sounded before the monstrous, shaggy beast departed. The owner of the original voice, Dolomedes, prodded a dangling, woven sac with his shaggy tarsus. The sac shifted about and a muffled clamor sounded.

"Matter of fact, I suppose I like mine wrigglin'. Tastes bet-"

"Dolomedes! Come 'ere!" With a raucous moan, six more recurrent thuds approached the beckoning voice. "It appears this one's got a little companion." Dolomedes approached the two flaccid creatures. They were both plagued in a stupor: one induced, and the other naturally.

"What's wrong with the girl? I don't smell any venom in 'er." Dolomedes observed.Acanthe, as the observant voice labeled him, moved in on the unconscious girl to verify the lack of venom in her veins. Immediately after stroking the girl's face with his sensitive hairs, he withdrew with a snarled hiss and hacked at the girl. One of his rugged appendages snagged onto her shirt. The shirt was mangled in two, exposing an impurity on her torso.

"Infected! She's diseased! Get away! Take the healthy one and flee!" Dolomedes scooped the "healthy one" into his front two limbs and began manipulating it into a rotation. In a matter of seconds, Kili was bundled in glutinous silk and abducted. Aia had stirred awake when an gust of frigid air pocketed her. She dared not fidget around when the grotesque arachnids seized Kili. She fell limp to her side when the harvestmen were out of her perceptions.

OoOoO

Aia was roused from a void of mauve and ivory churning about and dancing around in her eyes by a twisted, distorted ventilation that echoed and reverberated in the poor girl's head. The whispers. They're back. Aia compressed her swelled eyelids together in an effort to liberate herself from the unending susurrations. "No, no, no! Expel yourself from my mind!" Aia screamed mentally. A searing pain drew from her ribs to her arm to her brain's frontal lobe. Inside, the girl's arms were thrashing about, her hands were shredding her hair from her scalp, her voice was wrenching from exertion. Yet her figure lay apoplectic on Mirkwood's tufted floor. Engulfing sensations of wailing, mangling, shredding, torment, blood, animosity, and of all things, - as well as least of all things, - love smothered Aia's churning mind. Her head and face bloated achingly, her legs and hands throbbed with a swelling torridity and her ribs, oh, the ribs. "Conflagration" would be an understatement. Mentally writhing in torment, Aia felt as though death was a better alternative than this excruciating agony. All at once, before the girl could physically wail out, the whirling shroud of anguish expired. It was replaced by a gentle quivering sensation on her waist. The sensation had a voice. The voice was talking to her.

"Aia?...Hear me?…bo" Aia could only match those words to their meanings in her head. She pried her aching eyes and cracked mouth open to speak.

"Oh, Bilbo! Thank Eru you're here. Spiders, Bilbo. Giant, cursed spiders. We have strayed far too close to their nests. They've taken Kili. I assume they have abducted Fili and the others as well. I need your help. If you reach into my boot, I will be able to mend myself. I have a concoction that I am to use in dire emergencies."

She saw Bilbo's face withdraw. His eyes wide, mouth slightly agape, and brows furrowed. "What's taken Kili? Where are the other dwarves?"

"I've just told you, Bilbo. Spiders. Now, please get my elixir." Aia requested.

"Get what? Aia?" Aia's head was hoisted up when Bilbo asked her to repeat herself. She was becoming slightly irritated. Was he listening to her at all? She has a potion. It will revive her. He just needs to retreat it. "Here, I'm going to rub this on your wound. It's kingsfoil, I found some." A groan escaped Aia's mouth.

"Bilbo! Need I get it myself? This will regenerate with tremendous haste. Kingsfoil is good, but it's no comparison to my brew of alfirin, kingsfoil, and simbelmynë extracts. It's highly potent and rather bitter, but it will heal- Ow!" a biting twinge coursed through Aia's abdomen. She wrenched herself up as best as she could to flee from the pain.

"Aia, I know it hurts, but I must put this on your arm." Bilbo stated calmly. Aia glared in his direction and sloped up to rake her boot off. She rattled it until a dainty vial was delivered. The ampoule radiated an eerie emerald and pearl color. The contents swirled around without being handled. Aia yanked the top from the small flask and downed it in one gulp. The nostrum singed its way down Aia's esophagus leisurely, confirming it snuggled into every crease in Aia's superior alimentary canal. An abrupt thrill coursed through the girl's chest, arms, legs, and head. Without thinking, Aia snatched the bewildered hobbit up to his feet and brushed him off.

"Did you hear anything I was saying, Bilbo?" Aia reprimanded. Bilbo's brows creased.

"You were merely uttering what you were trying to say, Aia. H-how did you-"

"What was I saying? Quickly now, Bilbo. We're losing time." Bilbo shook his head in confusion.

"Erm, well, you said that Kili was taken by something, you asked me to retrieve some entity, and you repeated 'kingsfoil' plenty of times. I thought you were rushing me to apply it to you." Aia widened her eyes. She hardly said anything? But she easily communicated it to him. How could this be? She didn't concern herself with those questions now. She needed to inform Bilbo of the spiders. She grasped the hobbit's shoulders.

"Alright. I'm going to repeat what I thought I told you. You must listen carefully. The giant spiders of Mirkwood abducted the dwarves including Kili. We need to help them in any way we can." She noted Bilbo's eyes shifting from hers to the vial in her hand. "That was an intermixture of various potent healing herbs. It's quite unpleasant if you ask me. Now, we must go as swiftly and quietly as we can. This elixir will only last a few hours." Aia took Bilbo's hand in hers and began to pursue the thieving spiders. She was halted by Bilbo's resistance in her hand. She turned to him and raised an annoyed eyebrow.

"Aia, if that potion stuff is only going to work for a few hours, then you're better off heading to the path. I will get the dwarves. You just follow that path all the way down. The dwarves and I will meet you there." Aia opened her mouth in protest but she shut it. She knew he was right: she would be more of a burden than benefit. She bit her lower lip and nodded reluctantly.

"You're right, Bilbo. This path leads to Esgaroth. They have proper healing equipment; I will meet you there. Just promise me you will bring yourself – at least – back in one piece." Bilbo smiled at Aia's compassion towards him. She's an awful lot like Gandalf. But she's nicer. The smirking hobbit thought to himself. He squeezed her hand.

"I promise you, Aia. I will bring myself and the dwarves back. That includes Kili." Aia's heart painfully fluttered at the reference to his name. She bit her tongue against a false denial of her conspicuous affection towards Durin's youngest heir whom was in the clutches of malevolent spiders. She smiled sadly and squeezed Bilbo's fleeing hand.

"Eru guide you, Mr. Beloved Baggins. Be safe." Bilbo again smiled. Her nicknames for him warmed his big hobbit heart in these dark times. He then liberated his hand from the girl's. Aia could hear his retreating pace mature into a sprint. Aia turned on her heel and pursued the path by sensing the remotely fresher air far off from the right. She angled her temporarily-energized head towards the crisper air. It was only the slightest bit fresher, but after a couple of weeks' residence in the dank forest, she had every one of her senses on full-alert in hopes of getting out quickly. Hopefully she'd rid herself of this godforsaken forest shortly.