MIRKWOOD

The air was gray and the color was dense...or, maybe it was the other way around. Jeanne didn't know anymore. She felt her lungs burning and head spinning the longer her and the company traveled through Mirkwood. It was an old forest and everything about it feel murky and heavy. It was hard to keep up with the path too because of how badly overgrow things were. Dwalin had to tap his hammer on the ground and feel around for the sound of concrete.

Jeanne dragged her feet and kept her eyes firmly on the ground and tried to focus only on the path. The moment she would look up though is when her stomach began to turn and feel sick. It was strange because it felt like she was swimming through water, or maybe something thicker like mud. It was hard to move and stay focus on your own sanity at the same time when the long claws of the forest were creeping in on you. Mess up once and you will be wist away into the darkness, never to be heard or seen of again. Even Thorin's voice sounded like it was miles away when she knew for a fact that he was right in front of her. Jeanne had to keep a grip on the back of his coat to make sure she wouldn't get lost because It felt like it would be easy too.

"Keep moving," Thorin said when the company came to a sudden halt, causing everyone to jolt into each other. "Nori, why have we stopped?" Thorin marched up to the front (With Jeanne still clinging to his back).

Nori stood in front of the group and lifted a shaking finger to the path. "The path...it disappeared." Before him was nothing more but a cliff that led to an unknown abyss.

Jeanne felt her heart began to speed up when this dreading feeling washed over her.

The path was gone?

But we were supposed to stay on the path.

Are we lost?


Whether it was a couple of minutes or a couple of hours, Jeanne didn't know. Was it still daylight or night time, she still didn't know. Time awareness seemed to have slipped from her mind. They spend what felt like all day searching for the path, retracing their steps but found nothing but growing anxiety and dwindling hope.

"I don't remember this place before. None of it's familiar." Balin said.

"What hour is it?" Thorin asked.

"I do now know. I don't even know what day it is." Dwalin said grimly.

"Is there no end to this accursed place?" Thorin raised his voice and yet, in his own muddled mind, he didn't realize that Jeanne released to the back of his coat and had wandered off.

The Dwarves began to fight and shove among each other as Thorin stated quite, listening to some strange whispers that carried through the wind.

"What's that?" He mumbled before turning around and raising his voice to everyone. "Enough! Quiet! All of you!" His voice dropped. "We're being watched."

Bilbo squinted his eyes and turned his head around to see if something was lurking in the darkness, yet something caught his attention. "Red..." He mumbled and his heart dropped. "Jeanne?"

Thorin flinched at the name and snapped his head behind him, now realizing that Jeanne had disappeared. "Jeanne?" He and the Dwarves begin to pick up on the severity of the situation and look around frantically for any sign on red in this dull color palette. "Jeanne!"


The blackness begins to seep into her eyes and she feared that she would pass out. The air was hot, humid, dry, dense and maybe even poisonous. Jeanne even refused to look behind herself anymore because last time she did, her shadow was morphing into this figure that she did or...did not recognize. All her senses and emotions were beginning to split away and all she was doing now was mindless wandering. Jeanne took in a deep breath but it didn't satisfy her and made her heart feel at ease. There was nothing in this world right now but dull colors and black skies. The sun had abandoned them and so had...

Sun...?

"Sun." She finally spoke through a cracked and dry voice. "Where is the sun?" Jeanne picked her head up and gazed to the trees that had blocked out all light. "It's almost like Valnora forest...the trees blocked out the sun." Something began to move again in her heart and her blurry eyes slowly widen. "Sun...That's right. We need..the sun."

She placed her hand firmly on the tree in front of her and began to make the grand climb with weak limbs and almost blackened eyes that could barely see 5 feet in front of her. She pushed herself urgently though through the thick brush and past even thicker spiderwebs that went unnoticed by her almost useless eyes. The only thing she could focus on now was a little splinter of light that started to bleed through the thicket.

Almost there!

Almost...sun!

Her hand broke through the leaves and she climbed out. It was as if the spell was lifted and her eyes cleared up and the strength returned to her body in one solid breath filled with fresh air. Jeanne could finally see the sun once again that set before eyes her, half-hidden behind the mountains.

It was daybreak.

"How wonderful." Jeanne smiled and looked to her left, spotting a lake not so far, and a bit off in the distance was the Lonely Mountain.

Her chest felt light once more without the heavy air from the forest bellow her, but her skin suddenly felt like it was burning. A reaction that only happens when something was wrong. She only now realized that she couldn't hear the ramblings Dwarves bellow her anymore. Jeanne frowned and looked back down in the dark brush of the forest but saw nothing...when the shaking of tree leaves caught her ears. Jeanne looked back up above the trees and saw something shaking them in the distance, getting closer with every second as these voices in her head began to speak.

"Food! Food! Food! Glorious Food!" Said the multiple scratchy voices that hissed out their words.


Author's Note:

I hope those spiders like the smell of ash and burning flesh. Jeanne is afraid of a lot of things...but she ain't afraid of freaking spiders that are about to eat her friends. And I would imagine that Jeanne wouldn't need to ring to understand the spiders like Bilbo had to do.