Quote of the Day: Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

A gentle breeze blew through the trees as soft footsteps could be heard traveling down stairs. Erin came to the foot of the steps and walked into the area that the group was meeting in. She watched as the Elves finished stuffing things into their packs and closed them.

"Why are there no horses?" she asked curiously after surveying the area and noting their absence.

"The horses are being brought." Erin jumped as Thranduil appeared beside her, seemingly out of thin air, and spoke the aforementioned words. She grasped at her chest as though she were trying to keep her heart from leaping out of it.

Thranduil raised an eyebrow at her and turned his head toward the rest of the company. "Although the horses are being brought you will not be able to travel with them into the Firien Wood," Thranduil said, looking at Erin harshly. "There are tales of a dark creature," he continued. "It is said to take the horses and they are never seen again, most probably eaten by it. You will, however, be able to ride them through Mirkwood and down through the brown lands, but once you get to Emyn Muil they must return, for you will not be able to take them there."

"Why?" Erin asked.

Thranduil turned his piercing gaze on her. "You are indeed, a foreigner, for if you had lived here you would know, as every child over the age of five does, that Emyn Muil it made of razor sharp rocks and bogs."

Erin raised her eyebrows. 'He doesn't have to be so frickin' mean!'

"There will be many dangers on your journey," Thranduil continued. "In the brown lands, as I'm sure most of you know, though it seems that one in our presence need to be informed of everything like a child," he turned his gaze towards Erin. She scowled at him while Legolas shot his father a warning look.

Thranduil began again. "In the brown lands there will be very little water and you will be in open territory with no trees to shelter you from the enemy's eye."

'Jeez,' Erin thought. 'Isn't he being a little melodramatic? What enemies do we have that would seek us so much?'

"And, Emyn Muil has already been explained. However, the most danger will come when you enter the Firien Wood. Aside from the dark creature it is said that evil lurks there in the form of spirits. They will enter your dreams and will steal your sanity if they can. If you find yourself having a strange dream in which someone you do not know walks you must wake yourself, or they will trap you in the dream forever."

Thranduil stopped, allowing his words to sink in. Just as he was about to begin speaking again he was interrupted by a noise. Slowly, all the Elven heads turned towards Erin, who, at the moment, was trying to catch dried berries in her mouth.

She tossed them up into the air and looked up, maneuvering her mouth so that they would land in it. One fell directly down her throat and she coughed, hitting her chest with her fist to dislodge it. Swallowing it, she turned back to the Elves to find them staring at her, Thranduil giving her a particularly nasty glare. She looked at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes.

"Did you want some?" she asked, holding out a hand full of berries to him. Thranduil's lip curled and he turned away from her just as two Elves approached leading five horses that bore neither saddle nor bridle, for Elves did not need such things to ride. Thranduil walked up to Legolas and hugged him.

"Be careful, son," he said before letting go and turning towards the other Elves, completely ignoring Erin.

"You three watch him and make sure that he does nothing stupid."

"Aye, we will," Glorfindel said.

Thranduil turned and walked past Erin, purposefully not looking at her as he passed. He looked as though he would like to spit on her and then kick dirt upon her face after he threw her to the ground.

'What an ass!' Erin thought, clenching her fists. Legolas saw the anger on her face and gently laid his hand upon her shoulder. Erin calmed slightly but still stomped as she walked over to the horses and mounted Aegnor.

Esgalan, Avarion, and Glorfindel mounted quickly, noticing Erin's anger and wanting to get away as fast as possible before she tried to do something stupid, like jumping the king. Legolas looked back at his home once more before mounting and they headed off.

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Erin shifted uncomfortably on Aegnor's back: her bladder felt like it was about to burst. She leaned to one side, trying to keep some pressure off of it. They were supposed to stop in about five minutes to set up camp, but she didn't know if she could wait that long.

The only reason that she hadn't asked them to stop before was that she didn't want to delay them and become a burden.

She bit her lip and shifted again, thinking about how to best get rid of the discomfort. Every step Aegnor took jarred her and made her bladder remind her, quite painfully, that she had to relieve herself. She tried to ignore it but after a minute of trying, and it not working, she gave up. Perhaps she could distract herself.

'okay, let's see, I'll try to name the plants that I see. That one is........... Hmm, don't know. Ooooooh! I know that one, it's........... nope, don't know. Oh, there's a dandelion! And that one is............'

"We will stop to make camp now," Legolas said, halting his horse.

Erin was sliding off Aegnor's back so fast that the Elves barely saw her before she was running into the woods.

Erin, having relieved herself, began to walk back towards camp. As she stepped lightly along the path something caught her eye. That was an odd looking tree, and she hadn't seen it on her way into the woods.

'That's probably because I had to go to the bathroom so badly that I didn't notice.........' She thought to herself. Brushing that thought aside Erin continued to walk. After fifteen minutes she was getting anxious.

'I didn't run that far away from them.'

Walking through some bushes, Erin lowered her head and lifted her arm to keep them from smacking her in the face and as she looked back up she froze.

There was a spider web the size of a car.

Erin's jaw dropped and she took a step back. A branch snapped behind her causing her head to whip around to find the source of the noise. There , apparently, was the spider that went with the web, for it was the size of a Great Dane.

She paled as the two stared at each other.

"Ah, what issssss thissss that has come for dinner?" the spider said, moving one of it huge, hairy eight legs towards her.

Erin thought that she could pass out right there. Not only was there a spider the size of a large dog before her, but it spoke.

"Uh, uh, I-I-I'm n-not really h-hungry, th-thanks very m-much," Erin stuttered, taking a step back and not realizing that the web was behind her.

"Oh? But I am," the spider said, leaping at her. Erin turned around and ran, barely avoiding the web as she darted to the side. In her haste to go to the bathroom she had brought no weapon with her.

Erin jumped over a log at such a speed and height that her Gym teacher would have been proud. She glanced behind her and nearly tripped: the spider was gaining on her quickly.

Not knowing which way the camp was anymore, since now she was sure she had been going the wrong way in the first place, Erin let out a scream so that maybe the others would hear her and come to her aid.

She ran and jumped over another fallen long, but made the mistake of not looking on the other side first. As she landed, Erin slipped in a puddle on the other side and continued to slide, on her feet, across the ground and towards a drop off.

At the speed she was going, Erin couldn't stop herself and she fell over the six foot drop off and had the wind knocked out of her when she landed on her back on the dirt.

Her mind began to panic the way one does when they've had the wind knocked out of them. Her mind screamed at itself to let her breath and what was mere seconds seemed like minutes. When she was finally able to fill her lungs she sat up and would have got up and run, had she not felt a sharp pain in her leg.

She turned and looked only to see the spider with its fangs embedded in her leg. Immediately a burning pain stabbed up her leg, shooting through her veins until she screamed in agony. The spider released her and laughed.

"Ssssssilly child. Thought you could get away......"

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Legolas looked over at Esgalan as he unrolled their sleeping mats. Erin seemed to be taking an awfully long time.

"Esgalan, do you think that she's alright?" he asked, worry in his face.

"You worry so much about her Legolas, don't you think that she can handle relieving herself without getting into trouble?" Avarion asked.

"You'd be surprised with her.........." Legolas said, going back to unrolling the mats.

As he turned to grab the next one a high pitched scream shattered the quiet of the forest. All the Elves' heads snapped up. They were up and running in an instant, their weapons at their sides.

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Erin groaned as the world before her blurred. There seemed to be several spiders that blurred in and out of her vision, but in reality she knew that there was only one. She felt herself being dragged across the ground. Something hit her legs and she gasped in pain.

Knowing that she would die if she didn't put up more of a fight, Erin grabbed the root of a tree that she was dragged over and tried to pull herself away from the creature. The spider pulled harder and Erin felt her fingers, already weak by poison, begin to release the root.

She kicked the creature with her good leg and it screeched as her foot came in contact with its eyes. Erin crawled away as quickly as she could, but the poison was spreading quickly and she didn't know how long it would be before she passed out. She felt something roll her over onto her back and she looked up seeing the ugly eyes of the creature as it hissed at her.

"You will pay for that."

As Erin watched it lifted its leg and prepared to stab her through the stomach. She closed her eyes in defeat and waited, but as she waited for her death a sound that she recognized reached her ears. There was a loud thwack! and Erin felt the spider land on top of her. She looked up and saw Legolas and the other Elves release more arrows into the giant spider from the ledge that she had fallen from.

They jumped down, landing on their feet easily, and Legolas ran to her, heaving the spider off and looking into her eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asked, worry in his eyes.

Erin gasped for breath and pointed to her leg. Legolas looked down at it and felt a tight knot form in his stomach. The spider had bitten her and now she was poisoned.

"Esgalan!" he called. "She has been bitten.

All of the Elves were at her side now, concern on their faces.

"Quickly," Esgalan said. "We must get her back to the camp so that I may treat her." The Elves picked her up and began to carry her back to the camp as Erin grew paler.