Author's Note: Ha! You thought you'd all gotten rid of me, didn't you!? Well...too bad! Once again, sorry for the long wait. But I was busy kicking some thespian ass here at CMU Summer Theatre 'O4, and there was not much time for dallying with this odd little story. I want to shout out some thanks, cuz this chapter owes a lot to a lot of people: first to all you lovely reviewers out there who are still sticking with me, next to my wonderful Betas, Craeft and LaughingWolf, also to Jim Henson for providing the inspiration for Fizzgig, and last, but certainly not least, the magnificent people at Council of Elrond who helped me with the elvish used in this chapter. Thank you all ten thousand times. Peace.

-EC

Another day. Another forest. It had been raining since dawn-- fat heavy curtains of water that rattled through the leaves and pounded the soft loam to mud. And now, evening was falling. Far in the west, a shamefaced sun finally chose to peak out from behind the dark clouds that had obscured it since daybreak and peer down at the world. It lined the hovering mists in silver and shone its faded light on the dripping trees, painting them a watery gold in the evening air. It flashed in minute diamonds as a bluebird shook the shivering droplets from its wings and took to the evening air. Winking a solemn ink-drop eye at the fading sun, it opened its throat and warbled its own sweet requiem as the day breathed its last.

Weylyn threw a rock at it.

"Look, all I'm saying is if Bevariel's map is correct, we should have hit the Silverrush by now. We passed the Gap of Calion almost a week ago but haven't seen so much as a dried up streambed." Weylyn kicked irritably at the damp, bobbing heads of milkweed as he stormed about the little camp. "I'm no landlubber, I will admit, but if this is river country, I'm a half-drowned rat."

The little group huddled damply and miserably around a sullenly smoking fire that did little to push away the wet chill of the evening. Zan cracked an eye open from where he reclined on a piece of canvas stretched fastidiously over the soggy earth. He snorted.

"So, you're saying it's a good possibility then?" He ignored the searing look Weylyn sent his way and stretched lazily. "Put your swash back behind your buckle, my dear fellow. We are entirely on course. The storms must have slowed us down more than we thought they had, and this is undoubtedly why we have not yet reached the river. If you have the wit to show a little patience, I am sure we'll see the Rush splashing its merry way along by tomorrow."

Weylyn nodded with mock solemnity. "Oh, yes." He plunked down onto a felled log and ran his thumb absently down the blade of his rapier, testing the edge. "Or we'll see nothing but forest, forest, and more thrice damned forest as far as the eye can follow until we starve to death. But it will definitely be one of those two."

They had been traveling for well over three weeks and for Weylyn to say the company had been 'exasperating' really didn't give it the credit it deserved. He mulled over the thought in his mind as the fire began to glow brighter in the dying watery light. No...it wasn't so much that traveling with an obsessive albeit relatively polite human, a babbling gnome, and an arrogant, homicidal drow was exasperating... It was more that there were times he felt he would gladly gnaw his own leg off than spend five more blasted minutes on this fool's errand. And now they were lost. Despite Zan's unending pontification to the contrary; he was sure of that much. Icing on the sweet roll of this bloody little jaunt.

He glanced at Zan sharpening his highly polished claws on a dagger. The drow felt his gaze and glanced up; bearing a fang in what might have been a smile. Weylyn shook his head and looked away, feeling the familiar knot of intense dislike clench in his gut.

Zan.

There was a thorn he could do entirely without on this excursion. Weylyn wasn't exactly sure what the core reason behind his hatred of the dark elf was It may have been the elf's perpetual sneer, or his endless, laconic barrage of snide comments, or the aura of 'smug' that constantly surrounded him... He shook his head slowly. Though, in all honesty, Zan had, so far, proved exactly as Bevariel had promised: a good man to have at your back in a pinch, skilled with both blade and spell. Weylyn shrugged inwardly. And an ex-pirate could hardly look down on someone else for being...morally untidy. And yet... He sighed inwardly. Perhaps it was that he had spent enough time down in cargo holds to know when he smelled a rat

Zan growled back in his throat, snapping Weylyn back to the present. "I hate to interrupt what is no doubt a profound reverie, but do I need to remind you that one of us would have no trouble getting the proverbial bird's-eye view of the surroundings assuming we were lost?" He half unfurled his wings with a smug flourish.

Then of course, it could be that Zan was just an unbearable bastard.

The young pirate laughed mirthlessly. "Do I need to remind you that yesterday that same one of us couldn't find the North Star when it practically came up and bit him in the face? Face it, Zan; we are completely, irrevocably, undeniably, without a doubt lost and thus, into the bargain, absolutely seven ways buggered." He snorted derisively and, shaking the damp hair out of his face, began tearing a stick to pieces and tossing them sullenly into the fire.

He blinked as his dark thoughts were broken by a sudden tug at his head and a girlish giggle floating over his left shoulder. He turned quickly; reaching for the dagger tucked into his boot, and gave a short sigh of vexation as he caught Ellywick with a guilty smile and a fistful of his hair. She had already managed to stealthily braid half of it, and was busily stuffing small, rather bedraggled looking flowers into the plaits. He raised an eyebrow and was about to make a scathing remark when she smiled beautifully and dropped a handful of the little petals into his hand.

"Violets!" she sang. "They look pretty with your eyes."

Weylyn rubbed at his temples and elbowed Tal who was rather unsuccessfully trying to choke back his laughter. Zan smiled wolfishly.

"Ah yes... If we ever get out of this gods forsaken wilderness, you will indeed be the Belle of the Ball." His laughter was cut off as he was pegged square in the face with a pinecone.

"That, my friend," spat Weylyn. "Will depend entirely on how long it takes you to pull your head out of your winged arse and get us unlost in this 'gods forsaken wilderness.' " Icing on the sweet roll...

Zan smirked, half baring his fangs and rolled smoothly to his feet.

"I think I'd much prefer pulling your head from your sorry shoulders and leaving it to the wolves. However, as the wolves never did anything to me...." He turned on his heel and began striding arrogantly away. The effect was slightly ruined, however, as Ellywick immediately attached herself to his leg, alternating a soulful brown-eyed gaze between the two bickering half-elves.

"Please, please, pleeeease don't fight! We'll never get out of these woods if you guys don't learn to be nice and that wouldn't be good at all 'cuz the woods are full of bugs and dark even if they do have lots of nice fuzzies and I don't want to get eaten by bears!" She jumped back to her feet suddenly, planting her little fists sternly on her hips and fixing them both with an impressive glare.

"You, Weylyn, need to remember that Zan doesn't have a mommy and you need to be extra nice to him. And speaking of your mommy, Mr. Zan, she must be ashamed of you-- fighting like a little elfling. What would she say if she were here right now?"

For a moment, the ghost of a wistful smile touched Zan's mouth. It was, without a doubt, one of the most horrible things Weylyn had ever seen. "Oh, I don't know," the dark elf said, straightening his silken shirt deliciously. "Probably something like cough gack...let...let go...I sputter cough...can't seem to...breath...choke gurgle die...'" He blinked, shaking daydreams from his head, and reached down to detach Ellywick, his mouth once again a tight line of distaste.

"But that is neither here nor there. Perhaps if you are all so worried about our present location...not that I have any doubts about where we are of course," he finished hurriedly. "You might ask our ranger friend. These woods are his domain, after all." He sat down in a huff, and pulling an intricate harp from his pack, began tuning it.

"Tal?"

Weylyn glanced at Tal leaning up against a birch tree across the fire and frowned distractedly. The ranger had seemed increasingly...preoccupied ever since they had left Bevariel's tower. It seemed to Weylyn that he had spoken, laughed, and eaten less with every mile they passed. If he knew Tal, the young man was lost once again in dreams of freeing his forest home from the mercenaries that plagued her. Weylyn shook his head worriedly; if the ranger wasn't careful, it was an obsession that would slowly eat him alive...if it hadn't already.

"Tal!"

Tal finally looked up from where he had been shaping willow branches into a snare and shook his head morosely when they had repeated the question. "I'm afraid I won't be much help to you-- at least, not as much as you hope. We are no longer in the Westwood. The range of hills we passed three days ago was the Dead Man's Fingers; they border my forest to the south." He shrugged frustratedly, pulling a strip of bark away from a supple branch with his teeth. "I can tell you that we are most probably somewhere in the western reaches of the Forest of Telperynn, probably to the north of the elven city of Gwilwilith...but even that is only at best a guess. I used to know the ranger that watched over Telperynn, but my kind can be reclusive, and I have not seen him for years."

Zan raised the corner of his mouth in half a mocking grin. "Well, I hate to say I told you so, but..." He paused, arching a silver eyebrow in thought. "Wait. No I don't. I told you so." He chuckled dryly. "I may leave you to the wolves yet, hero."

Weylyn growled softly as he felt his fingers start itching. In an almost subconscious movement, he reached for the dagger tucked into his boot. As his hand closed over the handle, however, he bit back a hiss of distress as the familiar burning pain lanced through the tattoo on his arm, reminding him of his limitations when it came to people he didn't particularly care for. His arm gave an involuntary spasm of agony and the boot knife dropped unused from his fingers.

Releasing the breath he had been holding through his teeth, Weylyn sighed in frustration and, shoving himself to his feet again, stomped out of the clearing.

"Weeeeylyyyyn!" called Ellywick. "Where are you going?"

The young pirate paused, rubbing his temples. "I'm going to see if I can find our bearings." He flipped his walking stick up off of the ground with his foot and caught it with a snap. "And if I can't find those...I'm going to find at least five bloody minutes of quiet and relish them."

"But I'm not finished with your hair!"

He bit back an irritated retort and grinned over his shoulder at the little gnome. "Beauty can wait for a few minutes, my lovely. I'll be back shortly."

Tal looked up from his work again, shaking the brown hair out of his eyes. "Mind yourself, my friend. These woods are not my domain, and I cannot begin to guess whether or not any great dangers lie hidden here. We do not want to lose you at this point in the game."

Zan barked a short laugh. "Oh yes... Gods forbid."

Weylyn tossed them all a mirthless smile, flipped Zan a subtle obscene gesture, and stomped on his way again, the small forest creatures flying in his wake. He walked for a good twenty minutes or so, his jaw clenching tighter with each step. Coming upon a large black oak, he leaned his forehead against it with a resigned sigh.

'The belle of the ball' indeed. I ought to strangle the smug right out of that bastard. He snorted. And yet I highly doubt, somehow, that the outright murder of one's comrades in arms would be considered "heroic" by a certain meddling deity. His grip on his walking staff tightened until his knuckles turned white. No matter how satisfying it would be to wipe the grin off of his face with a really big stick.

In an abrupt burst of fury he attacked the tree before him with his staff, beating his frustrations out on the unyielding bark which suddenly seemed to bear Zan's snide smirking face. With each vicious whack he muttered his own dark mantra to himself.

"A hero does not kill his traveling companions. A hero does not kill his traveling companions. A hero does not kill his traveling companions. A hero does not..."

A skittering laugh raced through the air, chilling the young pirate and causing him to pause mid-swing. He knew that voice.

"I know a few druids who would say that a hero also does not attack innocent plant life. But...I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on this one."

Weylyn closed his eyes painfully, discontinuing his persecution of the oak and resting his sweaty forehead against his staff with resignation.

"What do you want, Olidammara?"

The colorful little god laughed, suddenly popping into being in a high fork of the oak's limbs. "What does anyone want, young laddie-me-buck? Life? Liberty? Happiness? They're nothing but candles in the wind, my lad. Candles in the wind..."

Weylyn glared up into Olidammara's diamond eyes with impotent anger. "Candles that I am currently not in possession of; thanks to you I might add." He swept the sweat dampened hair out of his eyes and shifted his grip on the smooth wood of his staff. "Now; to what do I owe the extreme displeasure of seeing you again?"

Olidammara's eyes glittered dangerously, but his laugh was light and genuine. "Oh...just thought I'd check up on my favorite little gamble. See how the new mantle was settling on your shoulders and all that. Apparently not too well, judging by your little slip up with your drow friend over there."

Weylyn narrowed his eyes. "I can get abuse quite easily back in the camp, Olidammara. I don't especially need it from the gods as well. So, unless you have something especially important to tell me, I think I'll be on my way..."

He turned, and was not shocked to feel the familiar bands of power tightening around his arms and holding him in place. To his surprise, however, no vicious beating followed. Curious, the young pirate glanced over his shoulder at the rogue god, arching an eyebrow in question.

The little god shifted uncomfortably in the high branches of the tree, his mocking eyes almost serious. "You didn't think I would throw you out into the world of 'do-gooding' without a little help once in awhile, did you?" He plucked a leaf from a branch, reflectively tearing it to pieces as if he could find answers within the crushed stems. Apparently he didn't find what he was looking for, as he shook his foxy head in frustration and sighed. "Something big is happening, Weylyn. Something bigger than this piffy little quest you're currently amusing yourself with. Something that has clouded my vision like a locust's swarm." He raised a hand to wave away any questions Weylyn was about to ask. "Even I cannot see the entire picture right now, but I do feel new winds are blowing...and I don't like it one bit."

Weylyn shivered despite himself. A careless, infuriating trickster god he was by now used to. Seeing Olidammara actually apprehensive about something that he apparently couldn't even describe was more than a little worrying. The corsair shook his head, shrugging the unwelcome feelings of doubt off in favor of impudence. "I don't see what you want me to do about it."

Olidammara sighed theatrically, as if apologizing for what he was about to do. Quicker than thought, Weylyn found himself lifted into the air and slammed painfully into the trunk of a tree. He let out a low moan of pain, dizzily trying to pull air back into his lungs as the rogue god's power pinned him there immovably. He had expected this; very rarely had his confrontations with the god of rogues leave him with anything less than a few good lacerations and a terrible headache, but it took his breath away nonetheless. He tried blinking away the explosions of white and yellow before his eyes and the world came slowly back into a blurry focus.

Olidammara tumbled gracefully out of his perch to stand staring furiously up at the young half elf.

"I want you to start taking things a little more seriously, if that's not too much to ask!" Olidammara hissed, the air around him alive and fairly humming with the power of his surprising intensity. "I have put too much effort into your sorry hide to see you go and get yourself killed because you were too thick to listen to a fair warning. From a god nonetheless! By the scythe of Nerull, boy, just how stupid can you be?!"

He sighed, and turning released Weylyn, letting him slide slowly to the forest floor where he lay gasping like a half spent fish. "As much as you are loath to do it, Blackwolf; you must trust me. Something powerful is coming—something even my eyes cannot fully see, and you may find yourself dumped ass over teakettle into the middle of it." He turned once more, locking gazes with Weylyn, his diamond blue eyes dark and unfathomable. "Watch your back, Weylyn Blackwolf. A god watches over his children, my boy; but there is only so much I can do."

"Weylyn? Who on earth were you talking to?"

Weylyn spun as there was the sudden sound of snapping twigs behind him, and by the time he turned back to the oak, Olidammara had gone. He wearily released the breath he had been shakily holding and sank to the earth.

"Oh...no one, Ellywick. I was with the trees to find the correct direction of...of moss growth in correlation to..." He looked down to see her gazing at him in wide-eyed skepticism and shook his head irritably. "Look, it really doesn't matter. It's an elf thing, okay?"

The little gnome arched an eyebrow and carefully laid a hand on his forehead, checking the half elf for signs of fever.

"Are you sure? I had an uncle Neville once who used to talk to trees like that and it wasn't two weeks before we found him hanging by his toes in a tulip maple in nothing but his alltogethers and singing the most awful song about hedgehogs..."

The young pirate laughed in spite of himself and plucked her hand gently from his forehead. Despite Ellywick's impressively high ability to irritate and nearly endless arsenal of mind numbing chatter; Weylyn was finding to his mounting annoyance that he just could not stay angry when in her company. As the weeks had trudged on since the little mismatched group had taken to the road, he had almost come to take a comfort in her presence. With Tal retreating into his own thoughts the farther they got from the Westwood, and Zan... Well...with Zan being Zan; Weylyn had found himself increasingly glad of her company.

If Rellan could only see me now, I hope to everything holy he'd put me out of my misery. By the gods, what a nursemaid I've become. He gave a rueful smile. Ah, well. I aear siria ias anira...

"Rest easy, my dear. I have no intention of ending up anywhere in my...alltogethers. At least not while Zan is within five hundred miles."

Ellywick threw her head back and laughed, her golden hair catching the last dying light. "That's good. You'd look silly."

Weylyn raised an eyebrow...and just decided to let it pass. "So," He plopped down in front of the oak and patted the ground next to him, motioning Ellywick to join him. "What's a delightful little thing like you doing in my neck of the woods?"

She plopped down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder with a tired sigh.

"Trying to hunt you down, you big silly. You could get even more lost than we already are (but don't tell Zan that I said we are) and that wouldn't be very good at all!" She tapped his nose and giggled. "So don't go running off where I can't look after you."

Weylyn put on a mock serious face and saluted grandly. "Your wish is my command, sweet lady."

Ellywick giggled again then shook her head, trying to be serious. "Stop being so silly!" She leaned closer to him, excitedly. "There's another reason I came to find you. I think I have a way out of here, Weylyn! I was thinking and it came to me all of a sudden after you left, so I came after you to tell you that I think I can get us unlost! It's in here." She bent over and started digging furiously in her backpack, pulling out bits of string, shiny objects and random spell components as she searched.

Weylyn raised an eyebrow as he dodged a flying crow's foot. "What on earth are you...?"

"Here he is!" she sang. "Look!" She thrust the open sack dramatically towards Weylyn's face with a triumphant grin.

He peered into the jumbled depths with some trepidation. There, perched on its haunches on a stack of scrolls and making quiet purring noises sat...well...something. It resembled nothing more than an oversized brown fuzzball with eyes. It gazed soulfully up at Weylyn and chirped.

The young half elf's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He reached a finger carefully into the bag to prod the little oddity. "What...?"

He never got farther than "what." With an earsplitting snarl, the fuzzball leapt straight at Weylyn's outstretched hand, its mouth suddenly much larger and full of dozens of razor sharp fangs. Weylyn yanked back his hand with a feminine shriek, his eyes wide and staring.

"WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS IS THAT !?"

Ellywick exploded into childish laughter, rocking herself back and forth in the damp leaves and cradling the once again docile fuzzball. "It's a Fizzgig, silly! He's my familiar and he's gonna help us out of here!"

Weylyn arched an eyebrow as the little creature jumped out of Ellywick's arms and snuffled around his feet.

"How exactly is this...thing...going to help us?"

Fizzgig growled at Weylyn as Ellywick tickled its ears. "He's really, really smart. I bet you he can sniff his way out of this forest! Or at least to the nearest town or river or...or...something!"

Weylyn rolled his eyes incredulously and let his head fall back to rest against the trunk of the tree.

"Wonderful. A walking dust-bunny with teeth is going to get us out of this mess." He closed his eyes. "How apropos."

Ellywick shot the pirate a look, but was quickly distracted as Fizzgig went suddenly streaking across the clearing, yipping all the way. The little fuzzball stopped dead in front of a thick copse of trees, growling low in its little throat.

Ellywick shrieked with joy. "You see? You see? I told you he'd find the way out of here!"

Weylyn cracked an eye open lazily. He opened his mouth to comment, but paused suddenly, as he began to notice an unnatural quite gathered around them. He cocked his head, listening curiously. No. No birdsong. No rustling of scavenging rodents. No sound but that of Ellywick's nonstop babble. It was as if the forest was holding its breath. Waiting.

He eased himself slowly out of his sitting position, bracing himself against the rough black bark of the oak.

"Ellywick? Come over here, will you? Slowly."

The little gnome looked up and raised an eyebrow at him. "Really, Weylyn. This is hardly the time to be afraid of a silly old forest. We're gonna be out of it soon so just relax and I'll look after you."

The corsair shook his head. "I really think... What in the nine hells...?"

Fizzgig, pacing on his short legs at the edge of the clearing, had stopped his growling and started a high pitched yapping that shrieked eerily through the stillness of the forest glade. Weylyn stood up, straining his eyes to see what the odd little familiar was so upset about, his hand resting uneasily on the hilt of his rapier.

In a heartbeat, the air was full of the furious snapping of branches and whistling of leaves as a ragged man burst into the clearing, gasping for breath and searching the clearing with wide, staring eyes. His clothes were in tatters and stained so dark with blood, the original color could hardly be told. Fixing his mad glare on Weylyn, he bounded over to the young half elf and grabbed his shoulders in a boney death grip. His breath came in heaving sobs, leaving him only enough air for one word.

"Run!"

I aear siria ias anira— Elven for "The sea flows where it desires..."