Hey, I know I said you shouldn't be expecting weekend updates but...oops.
My drowsiness started the next day. It felt as if I had fallen asleep that night after my watch, yet I did not truly wake up the next morning. Something kept my brain heavy and hazed. I had noticed that something similar was happening to the rest of the company. It was beginning to worry me at this point, our third day wondering along the path in Mirkwood.
At least we had not had any unexpected meetings with the Mirkwood elves yet. I understood that Thorin hated these elves only slightly less than the orcs or goblins we had come across. I had heard the story, and knew well of the grudge he bore them.
I also remembered Beorn's warning. It was still a curious thing to my mind, and I had the sneaking suspicion he might be hiding something from me. Perhaps he didn't know all of it (he had said he didn't know all the answers, did he not?) but he knew of something. Or at least that the elves knew of something. Whatever that something was. Beorn had said he didn't know all the answers, right?
My memory was becoming as hazy as this forest.
"Balin?" I asked, as he was nearest me. "Are you beginning to feel…odd?"
"Odd?" Balin asked. "How?"
"Like you're walking in a dream?" I asked. "But not quite a dream?"
"I feel wide awake." Balin replied. "And this is hardly a dream."
"Hmm." I hummed. I could feel my mind thinking, but slow and interrupted. I was beginning to think I was seeing shadows come to life. I felt as though I would see something in the trees, or in the distance, if only for an instance.
I looked at the ground. One second I was seeing paving stones, and the next they dissolved into nothing but leaves, then back to stones. "Are we on the trail?" I looked up and suddenly found everyone was gone. I looked behind me and saw no one there either. I realised I could not hear anything either, apart from my own breathing, which was becoming faster. Then a curious rustling of leaves and branches. I looked over toward the sound and swore I saw a figure, dark and shadowy, but it looked like a person.
Was it elves?
No, I realised it wasn't tall enough to be an elf. It appeared more our size than anything. What on earth?
"Rue." I snapped my head forward and saw the company again. I had stopped walking for a moment it seemed. Fili was looking at me curiously, his hand shaking my shoulder, and Kili was staring as well.
"You've got to keep moving." Fili said.
"Why did you stop?" Kili asked.
I looked over to where I had seen the figure but it was gone. "I thought I saw something." I answered. "Something like…"
"Something like what?" Fili pulled me along to catch up with the wandering company.
"Like a shadow. A living shadow." I replied. "Have you ever heard of anything like that?"
"No." Both brothers replied, shaking their heads.
"Maybe it was only in your mind." Kili said.
"Maybe." I mused, picking up my pace to stay with the company. It did make sense, my mind was beginning to wander I realised.
"The trail...it's disappeared." Nori said, and I looked up, surprised to find that I was not where I last thought I was. I must have been walking for some time. I was too startled with my mindlessness to worry about the trail like the others were, or how confused they were becoming. We split up a short ways to look for the trail, but all I could see was dirt now on the ground, no more mysterious paving stone leaves. I gazed around me, still searching with them when I heard my name called softly.
In a woman's voice.
I froze. I tried to rationalize with myself that it was my mind, and perhaps the wind, playing tricks on me.
Then I heard it again, more clearly than before. "Rue…" I looked for the source of the sound and ahead of me I saw figures, this time standing still. I spun around and found there was more still, all standing around me. I could almost see faces.
"Rue." This time it's many voices, all male, joining that first feminine voice.
Then it is all gone. The voices and the figures vanish and all I can see around me is a company of dwarves and a sick forest. I look over to Kili. "You saw them that time didn't you?"
"Who?" he asks.
"The shadow figures." I said. "You must have, they were standing all around."
"I didn't see anyone." Kili replied.
"Did you hear anyone?" I asked. "A woman's voice."
"No, you're the only lady around for miles." Kili replied. "Are you sure you're alright?" He asked, gently.
"It must be my imagining." I responded.
The company gathered and then we continued our walk through Mirkwood. I worried over my wandering mind. It took large amounts of concentration to simply think straight. The dwarves ahead of we began bickering.
"Stop!" I called. "Our minds are so loose already, we should not be fighting!" I shouted at them. "Stop and-"
"Rue." That voice again. I spin around, ignoring the growing chaos of the company. There is a figure standing but a few feet in front of me. "Rue. My sweet girl." The darkness around the figure melts. There was longer is a shadow standing before me.
My mother was standing before me.
I blinked, many times and quickly. But she's still there, smiling and looking at me. "Rue." She repeats.
"Mother?" I called out to her.
"Yes. I am here." Her voice sounds like I remember it.
"What are you doing with dwarves?" I spun around and saw my father.
"Father?" I rubbed my eyes this time but they both still stood. "You're here too?"
"We're all here." That voice is Auric's and then I see all my brothers to the side.
"Impossible." I kept blinking and rubbing.
"Did you miss us?" Gideon asked.
"Yes, but…you're all gone. You died two years ago."
"Did we?" My father asked.
Did they? Or had I simply left? No! I would never leave them if they were still alive! "Yes!" I replied. "You were murdered!"
"We are here now, darling." Mother soothed. "Follow us. Come with us."
"Yes! Come with us!" And then they ran to they took off running.
"I can't,…the company…" I protested with them.
"Come with us Rue." Gideon stood, smiling like he always had. Then he suddenly turned serious. "Do you not want to?" He asked.
"Of course I want to." I smiled at him. "But-"
"Then come on! Follow me!" He beamed. He sprinted up to a tree and began climbing. "They're up here!"
"Gideon wait!" I demanded, but he paid me no attention. "Gideon please, you have to explain…"
"Follow me." He smiled. I huffed at his flightliness , he had always been one to run off. I ran up to the tree he was ascending and began to climb.
"Gideon." I called for him and he disappeared into the thick of the branches. "What about the company?"
There was no reply. Only a weird clicking and snapping noise. "Gideon?" I asked.
I reached a large limb that was strong enough for me to stand on. "Gideon?!"
Behind a curtain of branches I heard more clicking and snapping. "I'm here Rue." I saw him, but he appeared shadowy again. "I'm alive and here."
The rest of my family appeared behind me. "All of us." They echoed.
My head swam trying to think clearly. My family was dead. My family was alive? My family was dead? What was that clicking noise? My family was dead. My family was alive. Where was I? Was the company alright? My family was alive. My family was alive.
With a great mental shove that seemed to drain my strength I shook my head, suddenly and surprisingly aware for the first time in days. My family was dead.
I drew my sword from it's scabbard and pointed it at the image of my dear brother. "You are not Gideon!" I hissed.
And then I stabbed him. His image gave a high pitched cry, something not human. The world around me became clearer. His image melted, transforming before me, growing large and black and sprouting too many limbs.
A spider. A spider even bigger than a wolf.
It shuddered, screamed and died, my blade lodged in his head. I shrieked at the top of my lungs as I saw giant spiders where my family had been. I tried to fight but the things were awfully fast and even though I managed to cut a few legs, many more grabbed hold of me and began spinning me around, winding me in something sticky.
Soon I could not see past the webbing covering me. Plunged into darkness, and unable to move in the harsh confines, I was as helpless as a child. A spider picked me up and carried me off. My heart pounded. I was be taken away from the company. Something bumped into me and I realised it was a body.
They had found the company too.
This did not off me any comfort though. I knew very well what the spider's would likely do with us and I cringed thinking of it. Dying in battle was honorable, getting squashed by a troll was quick at least. Having an abnormally large spider eat me alive was not how I had hoped to meet the end of my days.
My heart continued to pound as I hung in the web, feeling a strange mix of weightlessness, tinged with the pull of gravity. Ever so often a spider leg would brush past me and I shuddered.
Then they left, as suddenly as they had come. I heard another one shrieking in pain. What was happening?
The webbing was cut and I fell, my yell of surprise muffled by the webbing. Something loose and hanging (smaller webs I imagined) caught my fall though and soon I landed on the ground with a light thud. Certainly not a graceful fall, but one that had nicely torn loose some of the encasing webbing. I ripped it off me as soon as I felt a solid surface on my back.
The company surrounded me, all covered in webbing, pulling the tangled bits from their clothes. I grabbed my sword which had been stuck to my side.
"Oin, Glion, Balin…Dwalin, Ori there you are, Dori, Nori, Fili and Kili, Bofur, Bifur, Bombur, Thorin…Bilbo?" Not again, I thought. He was forming a habit of disappearing it seemed.
I heard the now familiar clicking and snapping noise and realised that spiders were crawling and dropping down from the tree canopy.
"Look out!" I yelled, jumping to my feet and holding my sword in front of me. Everyone grabbed their weapons, still covered in pieces of web, and started to fight.
I dashed in between dozens of spindly, sharp legs. I tried to dismember as many limbs as I possibly could, while avoiding pincers and footfalls. Slicing through another leg on a spiders left side it lost balance and toppled over.
I stabbed it in the pit of it's stomach. The air around me was filled was shrieks and yells. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the company literally pulling a spider apart. I grimaced, but was happy that there were safe, and defending themselves well. I turned my attention to Ori, who still only had a slingshot and kept close him, cutting my way through the spiders.
I saw nothing but the spiders and dwarves and the dim glint on their swords and axes. Finally we had killed enough of them to get ourselves away. Only to have more drop from the trees. The company stopped short. We couldn't fight this forever.
We didn't have to.
Men jumped down from the sky as if the distance were but jumping off the bottom step of a stairwell. Tall men. Elvish men. I frowned, Beorn's words circling in my head.
They killed many of the spiders, expertly so in fact, but within a mere moment I had an arrow pointed toward my face. Perhaps this was what Beorn had been speaking of.
I was pulled back from the arrowhead and straight into a group of dwarves. I stared at a blond elf in front of us, who spoke in words icy enough to match Thorin's " Do not think I won't kill you Dwarf. It would be my pleasure."
Clearly the dislike the dwarves held for these elves was mutual.
Kili yelled out for help behind us. "Kili!" My words were an echo of Fili. A spider had grabbed him and the breath caught in my throat. Kili had momentarily lost his weapons. There were more spiders racing for him, seeing him caught.
Out of nowhere she appeared.
Her hair was a combination of autumn leaves and fire. And she killed the oncoming spiders, moving with gracefulness and pure force. Then she rushed boldly up to an arachnid and held it back with a single blade. I was in awe. I had never seen another woman fight so great (or fight at all) in my life.
Another giant spider came crawling towards a weaponless Kili from behind. "Throw me a dagger!" He shouted at the red haired elf maiden. "Quick!"
"If you think I am giving you a weapon, dwarf," She said in a voice that was lovely as any elves but more fierce, "then you are mistaken." She threw a blade into the spider's head easily, stabbing the spider she was holding off in the stomach.
Now it was Kili who was in awe.
"Thank goodness." I sighed in relief seeing my friend unharmed. Fili relaxed visibly beside me.
"Search them." The blond elf commanded.
I knew that they would take away our weapons. And the last thing I wanted was to be around these elves unarmed. "Ori!" I hissed quietly. "Give me your slingshot!"
"Why?" He whispered back as the elves made their way closer to us.
"It's the only weapon I can wear around my leg!" I whispered back. "Quickly now!" Ori tossed it to me and I quickly stepped through the 'Y' of the slingshot, bringing it up snugly around my thigh. They wouldn't dare search under my skirt. Now I would have a weapon.
It did hurt to see my beautiful blade taken from me though.
"Hey, give that back it's private!" Gloin demanded. I noticed that the blond elf had taken the keepsake frame from his pockets. The elf then insulted the portraits, referring to Gimli as the spawn of a goblin.
Fili was having knives taken away from him left and right. With each one they took I thought it would be the last and then another appeared out of nowhere.
Dwalin looked as though he wanted to strangle the elf who took hold of his war hammer and axe.
Thorin's blade was taken as well and this was handed to the blond elf, who seemed to recognize it.
This was not good.
"Where did you get this?" He asked Thorin.
"It was given to me." Thorin spoke harshly, but honestly.
The elf glared and pointed the tip of the blade to Thorin's throat. "Not just a thief, but a liar as well." He spat.
"He does not lie!" I hissed, lowly, as I knew an outburst would end badly. I did not care for our leader to be threatened so. However, the elf turned to me as though I had spoken outright.
Elves had rather keen hearing I realised.
"Are you the maid we heard screaming?" He asked.
I frowned, but nodded.
"What are you doing with them?" He inquired, his distaste clear in his tone. "Were you kidnapped?"
"We would never do such a thing!" Dwalin shouted.
"How dare you accuse us of such a crime! " Dori exclaimed.
"I am part of their company." I replied.
"Milord," One of the elves spoke up, holding my sword, the symbols shining. "Her blade is not dwarvish."
"And she is certainly not a dwarf herself." The elf maiden observed.
The blond elf, who must have been a noble at least to have such a title, examined my sword. The maiden said something in elvish, but her eyes wandered to the symbols, so I knew she must have been inquiring about them.
"I saw a blade like this centuries ago." The blond elf spoke. "It's nymphian."
Every elf present eyed me up and down. "Where are you from?" The elf maid asked me.
"My homeland is a fortnight's journey from Mirkwood." I said. "I was born and raised in the great forest of the East." I eyed them curiously. "Why?" I was a bit disturbed by the looks I was getting.
The auburn haired and blond elves shared a look. The maid looked down at me "I assume you left the East forest during your life?"
I did not answer , but the look in my eyes must have gave me away. The blond elf gave a sharp command and then we were walking toward the domain of Mirkwood. The dark, sick trees gave way to fresher, greener ones.
I began to worry, for I could not see Bilbo yet, nor had anyone else. I closed my eyes and prayed he would reappear again like he had the last time.
"Fili…I'm worried. I don't like the way they're staring at me." I whispered. "Beorn said I should not meet with the elves of Mirkwood, that I should stay away."
"Stay strong. We'll get out of here as soon as we can." He whispered back.
"I had hoped we'd never cross paths with them." I replied quietly.
"If we hadn't I'd be dead." Kili whispered at me. "How do you suppose she learned to fight like that?"
"Maybe she also has seven brothers." I joked, despite the growing sense of dread in my stomach as we were forced through the great gates. I looked behind me, hoping to see Bilbo, but I saw nothing.
He must have been the one to free us from the webs. He had drawn the spiders off, he had killed one of them. He had been so brave…and now I didn't even know if he was alive or dead. I hoped he was alive and safe somewhere far away from those dreadful things. And out of the dreadful thick of the forest where our minds had become so muddled.
But I did not have much time to worry over him, dear as he was.
We were swiftly guided through the corridors and then into a large, open room, the focal point of which was a magnificent throne. And on it sat another blond elf, similar to the one in the hunting party.
An elf I had never seen, but had heard the name of.
Thranduil, the elven king of Mirkwood.