Once again, I state that most of this stuff is not mine.

Also, I have no real idea as to where the Glittering Caves are and I'm too lazy to try to find them on the map of ME, so I'm taking my liberties with the locations.

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"Run!" Melime ordered. She gave Clulyan a hard shove forward and followed him into the depths of the dense forest. Immediately, whatever the thing was that had frightened her so badly began to give chase. He could hear the loud, dull thumps of its heavily-booted feet hitting the ground.

Clulyan dared not look back over his shoulder to see what their pursuer was. Even if he had wanted to know, he would only be able to see Melime running behind him. And if he had turned to see, he would have smacked face-first into any one of the numerous trees that surrounded them.

Melime had never seen an orc in her life, but she knew that the thing she saw standing between the trees matched her father's description to a tee. She turned for a moment to find it lumbering closer and closer to them.

Going at the speed that they were, she knew that it would soon be right on top of them. But the young princess was not without a plan. She increased her speed and easily threw herself and Clulyan into what seemed to be a thick clump of bushes. But to the trained eye, it was simply a rather quick but unpleasant short-cut. The brush hid a steep drop that led straight down to the Glittering Caves.

Clulyan got a nose full of dirt as he hit the ground, and Melime landed unceremoniously on top of him. *At least she's light...* he thought. Barely given a moment to recover, Clulyan was dragged to his feet and pushed onward again. "Go! The Caves are near... I'll keep it busy while you warn your people."

"Keep what busy?"

A rustling sound made both of their heads snap upwards. "That!" Melime hissed.

Clulyan's jaw dropped. It looked like a mutated man. Another brilliant flash enabled Clulyan to see its features better. Jagged and greenish teeth stood out against blackened skin. In its hand, it held a long sword. It looked around with its gleaming yellow eyes, then grinned cruelly.

"Go!" Melime snapped, but Clulyan needed no further coaxing after seeing its face. He was already running as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him. She followed his example, as did the orc.

Melime hoped that she could weave around and maybe distract the orc from Clulyan so he might be able to get the secret gates of his father's kingdom open, then they could run inside. Unfortunately, there were hardly any trees after the drop offâ€" just flatlands. Getting it lost and confused was hardly an option now.

Still, she couldn't give up yet. She snatched up a stone and hurled it back at the orc. It hit it square in the forehead, but that barely made it twitch. And while the fall off of the drop had slowed the creature's pace, he was easily gaining on them. She prayed that Clulyan was just as good of a "natural-sprinter" as he claimed to be.

Clulyan nearly crashed into the rock wall and started beating at it with his hands. "C'mon, c'mon..." He was beginning to panic as Melime came up beside him, panting."I thought you were supposed to be keeping it busy!" His voice was more than just a little saracastic. "Well my plan back-fired, okay? Just get us inside!" she screamed. "I'm trying!" Where was it? It had to be here... "Clulyan, hurry! He's coming!"

"I'm working on it!"

She, too, pounded on the seemingly solid rock. "Why don't you know where it is? This *is* your country!" She looked back, then continued to vent as she "helped" Clulyan search for the gates. "Argh! You Dwarves and your stupid hidden doors!"

"If you're so smart, Elf, then why don't you figure something out and I'll sit here and scream at you? I thought you were supposed to be good at this kind of hunting-killing stuff! Why do you have that bow if you don't know how to use it anyway?"

Melime stopped hitting the wall. Of course! Her bow. She slapped herself mentally for not remembering sooner. Her training had included both knivework and archery, but she felt that she was more skilled with the bow; therefore, she felt much more at ease with it than her twin daggers.

She quickly snatched it from around her shoulder and fixed an arrow to the string. Thenâ€" calmly, as though she was safely practicing back in Greenwoodâ€" she turned and, after taking aim, let it fly.

There was a whistling sound, then a choked cry and a thud. Clulyan whipped his head around. Melime stood beside him, a relieved, and somewhat satisfied look on her lovely face. He followed her gaze. Whatever "it" was, was lying dead on the ground, an Elven arrow through its throat. He realized that he'd been holding his breath and let it out in one rush.

"So, you do know how to use that thing..." He shot her a sly smile and resumed his search for the doors while she walked toward the body and ripped her arrow from its neck. "I guess I do," she muttered, coming up alongside of him. "But now the problem is how are we going to get inside?"

"Don't worry. I'll find the gates."

"Like you were 'finding' them two minutes ago?"

He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye that just told her to keep anymore comments to herself and kept skimming the wall with his fingertips. There! He felt the smooth button-like trigger under his hand.

"Aha! Told you I'd find it!" he crowed triumphantly. He pushed on the secret notch in the rock, and a grinding noise signaled that he was indeed correct. The rock slid open to reveal a dark opening... and a foul odor.

Melime gagged, clapping her hand over her nose and mouth. Did the Caves always smell like this? Looking at Clulyan, she supposed not. His gloved hand was also shielding his nose. "Ugh... what is that?" she asked, her voice slightly muffled by her palm. He shrugged but stepped inside. Melime, however, didn't move.

"Coming?" He turned around to look at her.

She stared past him into the darkness of the mines. Melime, like all Elves, detested closed-in spaces, and that god-awful smell was making her delicate stomach churn. But she didn't want to stand outside with a dead body in the rain, and Clulyan was relying on her to see Gimli. So with one last glance back at the woodlands that she knew and loved so much, she reluctantly slipped inside the passageway.

It was warm inside the minesâ€" almost overly so. And there was a feeling of closeness, like the walls were caving in on her. Melime drew closer to a now comfortable Clulyan. She didn't know why, but she suddenly felt afraid again. Perhaps it was just some after-effects of slaying her first orc, but something told her she was wrong.

Clulyan chuckled when he noticed the Elf's unease at being in the dark warmth of his home. He gave her a friendly nudge to her ribs "What is the matter, Melime? We're safe now. You have nothing to fear here. Well, except maybe that smell. Don't rightly know what it it myself... Anyway, whatever that thing was is dead and locked out."

" 'That thing' was an orc. And if I remember correctly, they rarely travel alone. Though since the War ended, they were scattered and few remain, I doubt if one would be so eager to attack an Elf and a Dwarf by itself..."

"Well, its friendsâ€" if it had anyâ€" are also trapped outside, now aren'tâ€""

He stopped in mid-sentence as they came to a large hall lit by a few flickering torches. "No..." he murmured. "NO!" The loud wail burst from his lips and bounced off the walls.

Melime looked around the cavern in mute horror. She was suddenly her father, standing in the depths of Moria. Bodies seemed to be everywhere. The blood of who knew how many Dwarves painted the once shimmering walls a deep reddish-brown. The stench of newly decaying flesh filled her nostrils, and Melime felt dizzy and sick. She would have clung to the wall for support, but had no desire to touch anything close to the innocents' blood. Death closed his icy fingers around the two of them.

Clulyan fell to the floor, slamming his fists into the ground hard enough to cause an earthquake. No, this couldn't be. Just days ago, he'd seen these guards alive. They couldn't be dead!

Melime saw Clulyan's small eyes welling up with tears. She knew what must be going through his head. Not only were the dead his friends, but some could be family. If the subjects were dead, then so too must be the lord. Just at that thought, her heart sank.

Wait a minute... As far as she knew, the Caves were a peaceful place. Even Mirkwood was now known to most as Greenwood since the Ring and Its maker had been destroyed in the War. What could have possibly done this? If there was some sort of evil lurking about, wouldn't Gimli's letter be more worrisome? But the old Dwarf seemed at ease, content with the fact that he was growing old. And though Melime hadn't counted the bodies of the dead, she knew there couldn't possibly be enough to be a whole kingdom of them. Only thirty at the most. It just didn't make sense.

Suddenly, as though a bolt of lightning from outside had sparked a flame in the dead timber of her brain, everything came together like a wildfire. The idea that she had would have sounded crazy even to her, but then again, this was no ordinary time.

"Clulyan, may I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Exactly how did you get that letter for my father?"

"He gave it to me, how else?"

"But *how* did he give it to you?" (Okay, those lines just sounded dirty...) "Did he actually put the letter into your hand and tell you to find Legolas and give it to him?" (That sounded bad too :-P)

"Well, not exactly... I was summoned to his chambers. He told me to go as fast as I could to the house of Legolas Thranduillion, then slid the letter under his door. He said it was an urgent message, and he sounded upset, so I did as he said. But it seems I've failed..." His voice was saturated with depression.

Melime's throat tightened. It was just as she thought. She knew what had happened to the Dwarves and what was surely going to happen to them. She felt the "walls" close in more, and she laid a hand on Clulyan's shoulder.

"May I ask you one more thing?"

"Now what?"

"Just how good are you with that axe of yours?"

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*Gasps* Nice little hobbitses thought I really was going to kill Gimli? My wittle Gimlikins? NEVER! ...well not yet, anyway...*crazy laughter*