Disclaimer: I don't own anything that belongs to Tolkien. See, pretty self-explanatory.

Cyberwing: OMG! This is crazy... I have the greatest writer's block of my life and it's driving me crazy. I would open the file, stare at it for god-knows-how-long and close the file. I wanna cry.

Well, first thing first, I just wanted to clear up the part about Coire "didn't make it" in the last chapter. I was talking about how she failed to inform the guards about the invasion. Coire was confused as to what was happening. She knew that there are people coming into Lorien but she didn't know what has happened to the rest of the people within Lorien.

She was hoping that she will be able to inform people at the border about the intruders. Since there wasn't anyone there, her last hope was to find other people within Lorien, but she couldn't now that she has been knocked out by someone. So, in some ways, she failed to protect Lorien.

"" dialogue &thoughts

Don't Love Me Too Much-ch17

It was never difficult to kill a human, Culina knew. Compared to elves, humans were nothing, especially when a human was facing someone like herself, who had been fighting for almost all her life.

However, this time, something was different. The glow which she saw in Halbarad had caught her attention.

Human eyes should not have a golden glow in them.

It was hard, in some way, to destroy something that used to represent her future. She used to see herself with him twenty years from now, having a few kids as they all stayed in Rohan.

Halbarad wasn't the perfect husband. She doubted that he would ever be. In some twisted ways, she wondered why she would still be even willing to stay with him. On any other circumstances, she would've done the world a favour and killed him.

As she had said before, killing was never hard.

Yet as if she wanted to play dumb, she turned a blind eye on his actions and pretended as if everything was going to be fine when it was not.

She had questioned herself many times. Why didn't she stop him? Why?

Because of her love, many families were forced to separate. Because of her selfish love, she thought that she could actually be influential enough to change him. Because of her foolish love, she had failed to see the monster that Halbarad had become.

Before she headed for Lorien, Halbarad had acted in a queer way. It was as if he was discussing something important with the men and didn't want her and the wives of the men to know. They had been holding secret meetings in the middle of the night. With her elven hearing, she should've been able to hear everything they'd said. With her elven eye sight, she should've seen what Halbarad was turning himself and the men into.

Yet she didn't. She refused to neither look nor see. She didn't want to believe that the man she fell in love with was someone like that. She was blocking herself from reality, from what was actually going on at the farm, in Rohan.

She was a fool indeed.

However, it was time for her to stop being a fool; for her will end this all together. For if she didn't do that, then she will never be able to forgive herself.

He was no longer the man he'd used to be.

It was he who had commenced the attack. That was fine with her--- for she would never be the one who would nor could start the fight.

His movements were different. It was much quicker, much smoother than before. Their swords clashed and Culina had almost fallen to her knee. What in the world had happened? His strength was stronger than those of the orcs!

Culina punched him in the face and just barely had time to shifted away to dodge his kick. Then she heard the sound of the wind changed. Just by instinct, she turned and held up her sword, deflecting the darts perfectly. The darts were nailed onto the trees.

"I taught you guys to use these as last resort against orcs, not for elves or humans." Culina said scornfully, never once looked away from her target. "Who's side were you fighting for? Mankind? Elves? Or for Mordor?"

Halbarad smiled, "We are only doing everything for ourselves. We are on nobody's side but money's. Still, I have to thank you. You have no idea how efficient it is for us to capture women after you've taught as its uses--- weapon expert. I must also say that men around Middle Earth will be forever grateful for the great 'deeds' you had done."

Stay calm, Culina told herself. He was just saying this to anger you and that was something that you can never afford. You must keep cool so that you can still think with a clear head.

Culina took a few deep breaths, calming herself down. Then within a blink of an eye, something that should never have happened did---

Halbarad disappeared.

No! Her elven sense told her otherwise, she could still feel his presence...

He was still here...but where?

"What are we going to do with the elf?" A man asked as he picked up the unconscious Coire from the ground.

"Sell her what else?" A man with the moustache said, "I am sure that the buyers will be pleased to finally have an elf on the market. We'll probably be able to sell her for a good price. On a second thought, bring a few men with you and take her there now. I don't want any mistakes. Better get her as far away from Lorien, where she is unfamiliar with the place as possible. That way, it will be difficult for her to find her way back to Lorien and other elves from finding her."

"Yes sir."

She should've known.

Halbarad was so confident. She should've expected that he had something up his sleeves. Also, that gold tint which she saw before---

It was starting to make sense...

LEFT!

She dove to the right, barely missing his sword. She felt the coldness of his sword as he cut a few strands of her hair off.

When she tried to kick him, he disappeared once again.

Culina looked left and right, trying to find any sigh which could give his location away.

She took a look at her whip, which was on her belt, if she used it, then no one would be able to make it within the area around her without being thrashed. However, then she would be in a complete defensive position. Although she would be able to protect herself from being attacked once more, in the long run, this tactic would not be effective. It was because brandishing her whip was energy consuming and it could be easily avoided since all Halbarad needed to do was to wait till she was tired before striking once more.

Her only long distant weapon was useless.

She must figure out another scheme soon because she wasn't able to tell where he was until he was close enough to her. She was able to dodge the last attack due to her survival instincts and pure luck.

She couldn't even guarantee herself that she would be able to do the same thing again.

Narie and Legolas were on a tree, looking at the campsite displayed in front of them. There were several camps set up and a few men were on patrol, making sure that things were running smoothly. She didn't know what went wrong, the men were so confident in what they were doing that they didn't even bother to conceive their existence yet the Elves who were guarding failed to notify others about the men's arrival. Were they so arrogant that they won't even consider the men to be threatening? Or whether they thought that Lorien would never be attacked by anybody?

She saw as a group of men walked directly beneath Legolas and herself, heading toward the camp. However, what caught her attention was one of men who had a body place over his shoulder.

Narie's eyes widened as she realized who the person was...

Coire!

Legolas and her watched as the group entered the camp and the man who was carrying her disappeared into one of the tent altogether.

"We have two objectives: one we have to rescues the girl, two we have to destroy the black mushrooms. I am afraid that we are on our own on this one, it will take too much time to get reinforcements." Legolas said analyzing the situation.

"How many can you take on Legolas?" Narie asked in a soft tone, never once looked at Legolas for she was still focusing on the tent which her friend was.

Legolas replied, "They don't look strong, taking them down won't be a problem. However, even so, it is still going to take time for me to rid all of them whether if I were to rush into their headquarters head on or to do a sneak attack. The chance of succeeding of rescuing the girl and find out where the black mushrooms are is not high.

"If I were to lure half of those men away from the camp, what chance do we have?" Narie questioned, turning toward Legolas.

"That is not possible," Legolas shook his head in disapproval, "how are you going to protect yourself?"

"Then, Mr. Superman," Narie leaned toward him to gave him a soft kiss, "you make your action swift." With a smile she jumped off the branch and walked away from him.

Legolas narrowed his eyes as he watched her leave. Then he snapped out of it and quietly made his way to the other side of the camp.

Narie turned back, only to see Legolas gone from the spot. She did the easiest thing to attract attention. She simply opened her mouth and screamed to the top of her lungs.

All she needed to do now was to create an opening for Legolas to go in and out... without herself getting caught... that is.

Well this is the end of Chapter 17, what do you think about this?? Thank you for reading!!

PLEASE REVIEW SO I'LL KNOW WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THIS. THIS IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE I AM DECIDING WHETHER I SHOULD CONTINUE THIS STORY OR NOT!