Guess you guys like the new chapter quickly idea, huh? And this is where it starts getting magical and sci-fi-ish... but it's fiction, and who knows everything about elves, anyway? And thanks to Nea--she helped with some of the imagry when I was stuck.

K'lara 7: Who?

Elainor: Close, but keep guessing.

Thanks, all!

The feeling of things approaching grew stronger. Legolas looked to the north even as Nenya called to Argile, who had gone to investigate. When no response came for a long moment, she looked to the ground, dropping down to where some wolves usually congregated. They weren't there.

Legolas waited as the others slowly realized something was wrong, mostly by watching Nenya as she scanned the forest for her friends. Zetea sped back suddenly, and with a single call Nenya was off and running, speeding through the trees too quickly for the others to keep up.

They did their best, but the wolves and falcons were utterly silent. All they could do was spread out and search for her, not even daring to call her name since they didn't know what had happened. Their search soon led them to trees decorated with spider threads.

Feeling dread well up within him, Legolas gripped his dagger, wishing he hadn't falling into such a comfortable routine that he no longer bothered to carry his bow with him. Sensing Nenya and other creatures, he crept more slowly, careful to muffle every sound he could have made. He brushed back the leaves as quietly as he could, but audibly sucked in his breath at what he saw.

Spiders were everywhere. Large spiders, and Nenya was in the middle of them. She was sitting still, as if drugged, and a spider crouched over her leg, the mandibles fastened into her flesh. Blood trickled down and splashed off her exposed skin, dropping to the branch she sat upon before trickling around the dark bark to drop, one silent drop at a time, to the ground far below.

His indrawn breath had alerted them, and the spiders looked up with their big black eyes as Nenya turned her head. He started towards her, his dagger ready, thinking only of pulling her away.

"Stop him," she hissed.

The spiders swarmed around him, their thick strings securing him to the trunk of one of the trees. He struggled against them, but more and more came until he was unable to move, his dagger falling useless from his fingers. He waited for them to bite him, to sink their poison into his flesh and finish whatever someone had started earlier, but the bites didn't come.

When they were satisfied he couldn't move they moved away from him, returning to Nenya and the spider that was still drinking her blood. As he watched the spider finished, and Nenya wrapped a bit of cloth about the wound, before drawing a small dagger, sticking it precisely into the place just behind the head in the bulbous belly. The dark blood flowed into her palm, pooling there. He watched in horrified fascination as she consumed every drop she had released before binding the spider's wound as she had her own.

"What of him, sister?" one of them hissed.

"Leave him to me, little sister," Nenya murmured back, her voice little more than a hiss.

In flashes he saw all the times she had used that voice, and shuddered as he awaited whatever ill fate awaited him at this Nenya's hands. The spiders skittered off, and Nenya slowly stood up, limped to his side, and crawled up to a branch that grew away right about where he'd been strung up. She turned and faced him.

"Well, I suppose you have no choice but to listen."

He looked into her black eyes, and wondered why he hadn't considered black an odd eye color for an elf before. "Who are you, Nenya?"

"I am the daughter of Garenla."

"And who is Garenla?"

"You will have heard of her only as the spider witch. We prefer the term spider sisters, but undoubtedly you will not wish to understand." Her eyes were bleak, most of the sparkle gone.

Still, he found that though confused, he didn't fear her. Stupid or not, he didn't think she would harm him. "As you said, I now have no choice but to listen. Shall you tell me?"

She sighed softly and rested her head on her hand. "I haven't much of a choice, either, have I?" She shifted and turned so she was no longer looking at him, her eyes focusing on something in the path. "My mother's story is more or less accurately told in the spider witch story, up to a point. After the blood bond she was more able and willing to climb trees than her kin, her senses improved, especially that of night vision. She never became a spider—that's ridiculous. She never looked like a spider, either."

"And she passed those changes onto you?"

"The changes came from the blood. The relationships with the spiders had to be built over years. I have known and bonded with several generations."

"You bonded with one today?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"She was dying. Elven blood is strong, strong enough to help her survive."

"You help spiders live? When we've been sent to destroy them?"

"Not those spiders, Legolas. Or were you so startled your eyes failed you?"

Legolas frowned and thought back. Every last spider he had seen was white. "I guess that explains why you always said only to kill black spiders."

"Yes," she agreed softly. "The spiders I call sister or brother are not the black ones. Those you just saw have had generations of bonds with elves—my mother and myself. They are changed, and they fight their dark former kin."

"Do they." He was understandably dubious and that score, and his words came out sarcastically unbelieving.

"Yes. It is why Thranduil sent for me. I know spiders, and my spiders and wolves fight with me when I fight the black spiders."

He closed his eyes and tried to think. "Good spiders?" he asked, still rather incredulous.

"Aye," she agreed, closing her eyes wearily. "I know it must be hard to believe, but if they were evil, they would have killed you instead of trapping you." She touched the symbol of his house, the emblem sewn on the shoulder of his tunic. "Your father trusted and believed in her. Do you choose to be as your father to the daughter in that?"

"Was it white or black spider poison in my blood?"

"They cannot be distinguished, but my spiders would give their venom to none, and none have recently enough been killed."

He sighed softly and shook his head. "What a day. Would you release me, please?"

She heard some of the others coming closer, doubling back since they were without sign of her, or of him. "It depends. Shall your first act as a free elf be my destruction?"

He shook his head again. "No. Why would it? So you've spider blood in your veins. That's okay."

"Need some time to think, huh?" she asked dryly, cutting him loose.

"That's an understatement." He tried to shake off the sticky strands but had little luck. "Ugh. I suppose you know some way to get these off?"

"You probably won't like it."

"I just want them off."

"Come with me," she murmured, leading him away from the calls. She stopped after a few minutes, and made a soft clicking noise with her tongue. The white spiders came to her, some of the young ones crawling up to rest on her shoulder. "Would you remove the strands, please?"

"Very well, little sister," two hissed together, coming to him.

He forced himself to stand still as they removed the strands. "Thanks," he managed when they were done. He held his arms out, looking at the moist trails that covered the majority of his body. "Spider spit. Great."

Nenya laughed softly. "I told you," she chided softly. "You can always…" her voice trailed off. She swayed slightly, began to fall.

Before he could move two spiders jumped off the branches, catching her quickly. They brought her back up as Argile cried above them. "Elf takes spider sister to rest," they hissed. "Too much blood needed for her sister."

He nodded and took Nenya from them, checking her pulse once she was safely in his arms. He sighed in relief when he found it, weak, but there. He stood and began walking back when the group came into sight.

"Legolas! Move!"

"No, Dareklien!" Legolas yelled, halting the arrow Dareklien was about to release. "They are friends of Nenya's."

"Friends? Then why is she unconscious?"

"Blood loss. They are her friends. Leave them be." By the time he had finished speaking, the spiders were gone once more, only a few threads remaining to prove they had ever been there.

He sighed and shifted Nenya, who moaned softly and tossed her head. She was slipping in and out of coherence by the time they returned to the flets, so he asked her where she wanted to go. She directed him through the two flets that were off limits, and to a third. A crude bed was against one wall, an unsteady table beside it, with an ink well and a store of paper. He settled her on the bed and glanced around, taking the chair by the table as he waited for her to stir.

His mind circled back again and again to the scene with the spiders. So she had spider blood in her veins. So did he, apparently… at least until his own blood overwhelmed it. It explained how the cure to the venom was in her blood, he supposed. Sort of. There was an old tale that the cure was the blood of a spider, but that had been tried without success too many times for it to be believed. Maybe it had to be living blood—not that taken from a dead spider and carted to the ailing patient who was usually leagues away.

Nenya stirred and blinked, shaking her head slightly as she began to get up. She winced and looked down at her bandaged leg, before her eyes jerked to his.

He waited for her to search his eyes for a long moment, and then he reached out and touched her cheek, kissing her forehead before rising to return to the male flet for rest. "Sleep well, my friend."