Nori and Thorin stood there staring into the deep ravine we had come to, dumbfounded.
Finally, Thorin turned back to the rest of the company, face pale, "We have lost the path! Everyone search for it. Stay together and stay in sight of one another!" he ordered and everyone looked in groups of two or three.
We looked for several hours before nightfall came and we had to stop. Night came like a black wall of darkness, with the canopy so thick overhead the light of the moon and stars were not able to reach the forest floor, leaving us in total darkness. We had not been able to light a fire since the first night. That night we had been mobbed by hundreds of giant moths and been forced to put the fire out. As I settled down with my back against a tree, I tried to push aside the horrible feeling of being closed in that swept over me as the darkness became absolute. I had never liked the dark, my element being all about warmth and light. However, I was not going to inform the company about this as they had enough to worry about. As I sat there trying to control the fear inside of me, I heard someone settle next to me and jumped when a large, warm, calloused hand unexpectedly slipped into mine, threading his fingers through mine as his thumb started stroking the back of my hand.
"Easy, it's just me," Thorin said gently.
I took a deep breath, feeling my face flush in the darkness.
"I thought you were on watch," I said a little uncertainly, even though he had settled next to me every night since we left Beorn's there had always been a physical space between us.
Thorin just chucked, "I can watch just as well from here as from anywhere else."
A smile came to my face as joy swelled in my chest at this.
"I don't want to be a distraction," I replied shyly.
Thorin just snorted and muttered quietly to himself, "Too late for that."
However, before I was able to ask what he meant, he slid his hand out of mine and place his arm around my shoulders. Then, pulling me closer to him, coaxed my head to rest on his shoulder.
"Get some rest, it is going to be another long day tomorrow," he said.
I sat there silently for a moment before relaxing and letting sleep take me.
After that night, Thorin became my anchor in the sea of darkness that was Mirkwood. Focusing on his voice when I could not sleep, helped to keep the feeling that the total darkness was suffocating me at bay and gave me the strength to face each day that we were in that diseased forest. However, since we never found the path again and as our food and water supplies dwindled and eventually ran out, the madness that seemed to permeate everything started to play on everyone's minds as hunger, dehydration, and exhaustion set in. One day everything came to a head, as we were walking Dori stopped and picked up a small leather pouch from the forest floor.
"Look a tobacco pouch, there are dwarves in these woods," he said, holding it where the others could examine it.
"Dwarves from the Blue Mountains no less, this is just like mine," Bofur said, taking it from him.
"That's because it is yours! Don't you get it! We are going round in circles! We are lost!" Bilbo said, irritation coloring his voice.
Out of all of us, he seemed the least effected by the magic befuddling our minds.
"We are not lost so long as we keep heading east," Thorin replied, sounding like he took exception to Bilbo's claim.
"I don't even know which way east is, I've lost the sun," Oin shouted and that started an argument between the dwarves about which way east was.
I stood to the side, trying to clear my head.
"East…the Sun..." I thought, and then a thought finally broke through the fog in my mind, "If I could just see the position of the Sun…"
I looked up at the trees and stopped, Bilbo was climbing up one. Obviously, he had come to the same thought and worked out what to do quicker than I had. Quickly, I ran over to the tree and followed him up.
"Bilbo what do you see?" I asked, seeing that he had reached the top.
"A river," he replied.
Finally, my head broke through the canopy and the wind hit my face. I took a deep breath of the fresh air, my head feeling clearer than it had in days, and looked around. I saw the river that he had referred to and a lake.
"The mountain!" I exclaimed, seeing how close we were, "We are close!"
I looked over at Bilbo with a smile, but he was looking in another direction. Something was moving toward us in the trees, something big.
"We should get back down and tell the company," Bilbo said and I nodded.
However, as we started back down, Bilbo's foot caught on what looked to be a bunch of sticky webbing and fell. I reached and grabbed his hand, but, with the odd angle I was bent at, he pulled me down with him. As Bilbo grabbed a crooked branch, to stop our fall, my hand was ripped from his and I came to a crashing halt about five feet below him.
"Oh that's going to bruise!" I thought, having landed on my side on a particularly thick branch.
Right at that moment I heard Bilbo scream and looked up to see him being wrapped up by a spider the size of a house!
"Oh no! Spiders, why did it have to be spiders?" I thought in disgust and tried to climb back up to help him.
Suddenly, I heard something behind me and dodged just in time to keep from being impaled by the stinger of another huge spider. As I ducked and dodged to get away from it, the spider that had caught Bilbo was able to drag him away. I slipped, slid, and tumbled my way out of the tree, hoping to get the company to help me save him. However when I reached the ground, they were no longer there; the only thing I saw was the sign of a huge struggle. I did not have time to wonder about this, as at that moment the spider that had chased me out of the tree landed about five feet from me and charged. Without even thinking about it I unsheathed my swords and dropped my façade, channeling my talent through and up the blades. Had I had the time to think about it, I would have been immensely grateful for the way Elladan and Elrohir had forged my swords.
They were light and slim, with channels running from hilt to tip so that, when channeling my talent, the flames did not stay inside the metal, but danced along the edges of the blades allowing me to send whips made of flames some ten feet from me. They had also used elven magic so that the swords did not heat up and weaken under the heat and stress. As the spider charged at me I swiped at it, cutting off one of its front legs sending it scrambling backward. It then charged at me again and I ran forward, dropping to a crouch and sliding under it with my blade raised, disemboweling it. Just then, two more spiders dropped down and came at me. I sent a thin whip of flame at the first one, lashing it across its face and setting it afire. Then, I whipped around just in time to dodge the jaws of the second and came up in time to slice it down its side, killing it. I stood there, flames dancing around me and watched as the rest of the spiders retreated, off to look for easier prey. I fell to one knee, panting and trying to figure out what to do.
"I need to find the company!" I thought, shaking my head to keep the fog from coming back.
Looking up, I saw the spiders retreating farther into the forest and decided to try to follow them, as they probably had caught the rest of the company. However, no matter how fast I ran, with how tired I was, I could not keep up and in a matter of minutes they had left me behind.
I stopped to catch my breath, "I can't give up! I need to find them!" I thought and then pushed myself into a walk and began searching for the way they had gone.
After about two hours of searching, I had to concede that I was lost though I was not ready to give up. I kept searching and praying that I would find them in time. Finally, I had to stop to rest, and as I rested on one knee, a strange sound came out of the unnatural quietness of the forest. I cocked my head and listened. It was a lilting sound, like someone singing, but it was definitely not elves. Following the sound, words suddenly were able to be heard:
Old fat spider spinning in a tree!
Old fat spider can't see me!
Attercop! Attercop!
Won't you stop,
Stop your spinning and look for me?*
"What in blue blazes?" I thought in confusion, still following the singing.
As I quietly drew closer, I was able to pick out Bilbo as the singer, as more lyrics were heard:
Old Tomnoddy, all big body,
Old Tomnoddy can't spy me!
Attercop! Attercop!
Down you drop!
You'll never catch me up your tree!*
"Come on Bilbo, keep singing!" I thought, even though I did not know what he was doing I was able to follow his voice and hopefully find the company.
As I got closer to his singing, I noticed the webs overhead getting thicker and I unsheathed my swords in case of more spiders. Finally, I got to where I was sure I heard him, but could not see him, and suddenly several large cocoons fell from above and landed some twenty feet in front of me as several spiders scurried around, trying to find Bilbo. Then I turned as I heard his voice come from behind me and suddenly realized what he was doing as more lyrics rang out:
Lazy Lob and crazy Cob,
are weaving webs to wind me.
I am far more sweet than other meat,
But still they cannot find me!*
"That crazy little Hobbit!" I thought with a smile, proud of my friend's ingenious plan.
As he continued to sing, he was leading the spiders farther from where the rest of the company was struggling from the webbing. I continued to follow his voice, trying to find and help him before the spiders reached him. Finally I rounded a couple of large trees and heard his voice ring out again:
Here I am, naughty little fly;
you are fat and lazy.
You cannot trap me, though you try,
in your cobweb crazy.*
Suddenly, as Bilbo finished his song, more spiders dropped from the trees around me and I channeled my talent up the blades of my swords again. For the next several minutes, all I thought about was killing these foul creatures. How Thranduil could have let this forest house such evil creatures was beyond me and spoke to how sick the forest actually was. As I dispatched the last spider, I heard a sound behind me and whipped around. I found myself facing a very shocked Bilbo, who was standing at the end of my flaming sword taking in my changed appearance with wide eyes.
"Farren, what are you?" he asked, sounding shocked.
"You can't tell the company," I said fearfully, as I pulled my façade back up and extinguished my blades, "I am a Fire Elemental."
*I do not own the lyrics to this song. All rights belong to J.R.R. Tolkien! I am just borrowing. This has to be one of my favorite songs in the book, though it is not one of my favorite parts, since I HATE spiders.
Hope everyone enjoys, I had fun writing this and really like how this chapter came out.
Please let me know what you think!
