Chapter 10

How did I end up here? Leda thought glumly as she continued to walk without end in sight.

After the Blonde had found her panicking in the clearing, it hadn't taken things much longer to go hurtling back to what was her new, shit-out-of-luck normal.

After initially shouting at her until he realised she didn't understand, the Blonde left her with a guard and set to working on reviving Gildor Inglorion. The rest of the infantry began to arrive as he worked, bleeding through the treeline in their twos and threes. A lot of them were in bad shape yet they still limped with their backs straight, carrying others who were more severely injured. Some even carried the dead. Being a Doctor and a Gauling, Leda and Death were old friends- but the brutality and freshness of it all had her gaze skidding sideways whenever a stiff, nearly headless body had been carried past.

When Gildor Inglorion gasped dramatically back to life she tried to explain that if they'd just let her get her stuff she'd be on her way, but as soon as he was upright, the monsters had reappeared and everything had gone to shit.

Shouts had erupted, swords were drawn, and bows were quickly strung. In the distance, the creek and thud of falling trees was accompanied by the screech of birds as they launched themselves into the air.

The monsters broke through the treeline with a roar of snarls and hurled themselves at any free man or woman. She had been so shocked by the quickness of war finding them again that she hadn't even realised that Gildor Inglorion was standing next to her until he was practically shouting into her ear. Belwen was with him, holding him up by the waist. Her silver hair had matted into muddy locs and there were chunks of greyish flesh clinging to her splattered breastplate.

"Odúlen gi nathad!" He shouted.

Leda had half a mind to side-step him and make a run for the river, but soldiers began to fall around them and the thing she wanted most (to just go back home and forget about this hellscape) was looking more and more impossible. And even though she didn't want to, her next options were quickly being narrowed down to the one that would lead her the furthest from home.

Gildor Inglorion's large, cool hand clasped tightly around her own.

He looked close to begging when he had whispered: "Listo."

If 'Listo' meant that in record time she wrapped her arm around his other side and her and Belwen hurried him out of the clearing, then Listo she had.

That had happened hours ago though. Now with sweating feet and aching arms, she was wondering if it wasn't just better if she had said sorry, gotta go, and tried it on her own.

The further they walked, the more Gildor Inglorion had begun to limp. He favoured his left side which, lucky for Leda just so happened to be the side she was supporting. He wasn't heavy. Just big. And awkward. His long legs had begun to bow inward, large feet scraping along the forest floor more than they stepped surely. Him being practically draped across her head kept throwing her balance off. Which meant that she tripped often and would accidentally scratch his bare torso. He would hiss, Belwen would perk up from her stony silence and the two would bicker until Leda cleared her throat and wished, not for the first time, that she had just told Dr Morgan to go screw himself and stayed at home.

Belwen wasn't exempt from the whole straight-up-not-having-a-good-time thing if the arrow sticking out of her left thigh was anything to go by. It was probably for the best that Leda had been taking the brunt of Gildor Inglorion's weight, although she could probably have done without the armpit sitting directly on her head. Leda glanced at the arrow occasionally, gauging what should probably have turned into a mortal wound about three hours ago. But apart from the grimace on her face and the only slight favouring of her right side, Belwen made no other outward complaints of pain. If they hadn't just fled a bloodbath, Leda would liken her expression to someone who had just stubbed their toe.

But they had, and Belwen hadn't, so everything just felt wrong.

By the time the sun began to meander back towards the horizon and their shadows lengthened behind them, the burn in her feet had almost become unbearable.

The thing is, Leda was a work-a-holic. Christmas, Easter, New Years- whatever national holiday she could avoid, she'd work it. She was sure part of the reason Annette had readily agreed to her pretty unbelievable tale about a long-lost sick father was that for as long as they'd known each other, Leda had never taken a day off.

She had been in a continuous state of exhaustion for a decade; that kind of dedication to neglecting ones self didn't leave any time for exercise. The most she had done was walk to and from work, and that was because her pay was criminally low and she was as cheap as she was unhealthy.

This walking for hours, supporting another person's weight as well as her own and the mental strain of being forced into a decision she didn't feel she had any true choice over was all mixing together to create a pretty hopeless mood.

It was only poetic then, that as soon as things looked like they might get better, they got a hell of a lot worse. Regression to the mean, and all that crap.

The forest sloped upwards the longer they walked and the trees changed from thin grey-trunks to thick, brown trunked mammoths with branches that swung low and leaves that dragged across Leda's hair and pulled strands away with no thought to her tender scalp. Some time ago a dark mound had appeared in the distance above the treeline and with every step forward it grew higher until now, where Leda could clearly identify it as a mountain of all things. Why were they heading to a mountain? Didn't they have homes- a town? A hospital? Leda eyed the crude, medieval arrow sticking out of Belwen's leg. Maybe 'hospital' was a little too much to ask for.

It was impossible to tell how large the company of soldiers they travelled with was. Every time Leda thought she had counted them, more arrived or more left. They moved quickly and fluidly around them and made no sound- there could have been twenty of them or two hundred. Even Gildor Inglorion, who she was practically dragging, was silent. In fact, the only sounds were her laboured breathing and the skitter of woodland creatures. Every time her clumsy feet snagged against a root or a twig snapped under her weight, Gildor Inglorion's ears flinched and lay flat against his head. It was all unnerving but then again maybe it would be easier to point out what wasn't unsettling at that point.

Occasionally, a group of troops would break from the caravan, hand off their injured or dead to free hands, and turn back the way they had come. The first time it had happened, Leda had slowed and tried to stop one of the soldiers, thinking something was wrong but Gildor Inglorion chittered at her until she frowned and continued forward. The third time it happened, she saw some of the soldiers skitter up into the trees and it finally occurred to her what was happening. They were setting up roadblocks. Whatever the monsters were, they were still following and the soldiers who broke away were putting themselves in the way of danger. Which might have been super cool in a movie if this wasn't reality and Leda wasn't hating every single millisecond of it. Instead she just felt sad.

The trees began to thin and before she knew it the mountain was before them. It was so high that up close, it seemed to skim the sky above. The shadow it cast was cold and she shivered as they neared its dark grey base. What she hadn't noticed before was that there was a crack running down the rock, wide enough across for three or four people. You couldn't see it from the forest and even up close, the cut was so that had you not been looking directly at it, you might have missed it entirely. The soldiers around her slipped through it and Gildor Inglorion allowed her only a second's doubt before he was chanting her name and tugging her forward.

Leda had never walked between a mountain before and she hoped to shit she didn't have to do it again. Her, Belwen and Gildor Inglorion were almost too much for the width of the gap and her shoulder kept scraping against the jagged rock wall and her feet slipped against broken rocks scattered along the floor. Above, the split between the mountain rose impossibly high, and somehow sunlight trickled down to them to light their way.

They hobbled toward the opening as best they could, all three of them bursting into another clearing. The full light of the sun stung her eyes as they adjusted to the open plains. The rocky clearing was split in the middle by a large fissure that ran as far as she could see in either direction.

"Jesus." She whispered, as Gildor Inglorion pulled her along, down the slope of loose rocks to level ground.

The Hollow Earth theory was as dumb as it sounded but as she stood in the middle of a mountain in a hidden pocket of flat land, the concept wasn't sounding so stupid anymore.

As they descended, the sound of running water began to pick up. There was a lone, skinny bridge with no handrails spanning the length of the fissure. It ended at the other mountain wall but there was no door, just smooth rock. However, streams of plain clothed people ran towards them across the narrow walkway. Some had swords, bows, others were empty handed as they ran to the injured and carried them back across the bridge and- wait. Were they running into the mountain?

Leda squinted. That couldn't be right. But as they neared and her eyes adjusted it did seem like the people running back where just running through the rockface. Maybe there was another crack she couldn't see. Another secret entrance to squeeze through.

When the ground levelled under her feet she allowed her soldiers to sag as a plain clothed woman made a beeline for their struggling group. Help. Finally. All they had to do was-

A snarl behind was their only warning.

The woman running towards them caught an arrow in the neck and went down. Belwen yelped and fell, taking Gildor Inglorion with her. He dragged Leda with him and she landed heavily on her shoulder with a groan. Her head bounced off the rocky floor and her vision blurred before clearing slowly. Boots thudded around her from either side but it was Belwen pushing her away that roused her.

Belwen's pale face was scrunched in pain and, focusing, Leda's stomach turned at the two arrows that now stuck out of her back. Holy shit- what the hell had happene-

"Drego!" Belwen screamed.

She pushed Leda hard enough that she scooted back along the rock. Her clothes caught against the uneven earth and tore but she ignored the pain and crawled back to where Belwen was currently shouting the same at Gildor Inglorion and trying to push him away. He looked as worse as he had earlier, but at least he didn't have any arrows sticking out of him.

Around them, the people in plain clothes and soldiers who could fight were hacking away at the monsters but there were too many. They had to get across the bridge and they had to go now.

At her frantic hand gestures, her and Gildor Inglorion managed to get Belwen up and standing between them, each gingerly trying their hardest not to touch the arrows at her back.

Belwen hissed and clicked her teeth at them and even tried to push Leda away.

Delirium and fear made Leda copy the taller woman, and she hissed back at her and even bared her teeth like a frightened dog.

"Oh my God!" She spat. "I'm not leaving so shut up and help me help you!"

Belwen didn't understand of course, but her frustration must have transcended the language barrier because Belwen huffed, nodded stiffly and began to walk without being dragged. Leda tried to ignore the screaming from around them. She couldn't stop and help of they'd all be dead and above everything, Leda very much wished she didn't die all alone in a place where no one understood her.

They were a metre away from the bridge when something bowled into them from behind. They all dropped, precariously close to the fissure. As her head swung over the edge, she spied the frothing, rolling water below- very far below.

She rolled onto her back and with a shriek, threw her arms up in defence as a monster swung its jagged sword down for her neck but the beheading never came. The zing of metal hitting metal made her eyes fly open and she stared, shocked, as The Blonde stood above her, long sword hovering just above her nose, holding the monster at bay.

The sun shone around his head like a literal fucking halo and made his Blonde- no gold hair shine. Her thoughts were a jumbled mess but through the adrenaline one stood out: Holy shit, did he just save me?

She didn't have a chance to ask though. Because with a grunt he pushed the monster back. While it got its footing, he swung his great sword just shy of her face in an arch. It split her attacker from belly to head and she squealed as the spray of its blood splattered her face and chest.

Its body fell in a heap and the Blonde spared her only one, assessing look before he was bunding off to kill something else.

Dazed, she sat up and pushed herself onto her hands and knees to crawl to where Belwen lay unmoving, face down. The arrows sticking out of her back were still.

Leda gulped and her hands shook as she touched Belwen's shoulder. "Belwen?"

After a tense moment she groaned and Leda's knees threatened to fold beneath her.

"Thank God- can you stand? Come on. I can hel-"

Someone swooped in front of her cutting her off. Within one blink and the next they had picked up Belwen and ran across the bridge. Another plain clothed person crouched by Gildor Inglorion and slotted their arms underneath his moaning chest. But he didn't leave. Instead he turned to her and barked some words at her as she stood shakily. She took it to mean follow and she was more than happy to get the fuck outta dodge so legged it across the bridge after them.

Towards the end of the bridge she saw that she was right- there was another crack in the mountain. Hidden in plain side. The guy carrying Gildor Inglorion passed through it and she steeled herself for another mountain pass. She peaked back just as she slipped through the gap.

The tide had turned. The monsters were beginning to flee but mercy was lost. The soldiers cut them down before they could get back to the passage. It was brutal. And distressing. And Leda quickly turned back and scuttled into what was definitely not another narrow passageway.

They were in a small dark, small cave. It was dimly lit by two torches on either side but there was no doorway- no staircase no way out that she could see-

"Tolo!" The thin faced man barked ahead and, like with the split in the mountain, disappeared in a man-sized crag in the wall she hadn't even noticed. Whoever Gildor Inglorion's people were, they loved a good optical illusion. Logically, she could be about to walk into a trap. Or she could find someone that speaks English and this will have all just been a weird misunderstanding including ocean currents and amnesia and visual hallucinations or-

The man shouted Tolo back through the crag and, despite her misgivings, Leda squeezed herself into the tight space and immediately regretted it. It was tighter than the other passageway and there was no sunlight. Pieces of rock dug into her sides and claustrophobia had her gripping the sweating walls.

She glared at the man's shoulders- or where she thought they were. She only knew her was there because eventually, light began to peak around his frame. How the hell was he carrying Gildor Inglorion through this tight space?

Feeling like something was touching her back she ran the rest of the way and tripped out into a large courtyard that took the breath from her lungs.

It was insane. She had thought the valley outside perfectly summarised the Hollow Earth theory, but this was what Edmond Halley had meant.

There were people everywhere. Running, scurrying, walking. Carrying things, not carrying things. They were all tall and pale and willowy like Belwen and beautiful, despite the terror on their faces.

Somehow the hallway had blocked all the noise but now it rose high; shouting, talking, swords unsheathing, bows being strung. And crying- people were wailing, and it was making her head spin. People shoved past her, twisting her around until left was right and up was down. She pushed forward against them, desperate to get as far from the only way in or out. Everything threatened to overwhelm her. She should have felt safe. But all the noise and movement was making her skin prickle.

A woman approached her quickly.

"Excuse me-" Leda tried.

But she ignored her, continuing to run past with a steaming pot of something that smelled bitter.

Leda spied someone else coming towards her. "Sorry- Could you please-"

They shook their head and hurried through the dark passage, tacking armour into place along their forearm.

She bit her lip. "Can anyone-"

Someone touched her shoulder and she whipped around. It man with the thin face who had been carrying Gildor Inglorion but his arms were empty.

He crooked a finger at her before walking in the opposite direction.

"Tolo." He called over his shoulder.

This time she didn't hesitate to follow, wanting to get away from the busyness of the courtyard.

She hadn't realised but the walls had open doorways cut into them. People ran in and out of them, down dark hallways like the one she had clambered through to get there. They were tunnels, all leading from one central space. Maybe Gildor Inglorion's people were more like ants. Maybe the mountain was one big anthill with tunnels connecting hubs like that one. If their species was close relatives it might explain why their eyes were so big. Maybe they came from ants the same way humans came from apes.

The man led her into another dark hallway that split off into several others. They turned left, then right and left again until they reached another smaller chamber. Unlike the main antechamber, the walls were lined by actual doors. There was no sunlight but along the walls, strange blue-flamed lamps were spread evenly. It cast the space in a cool glow and served to alienate her even more.

The man slipped a brass key from his pocket and unlocked the furthest door. It swung inward and when she gingerly peeked inside her shoved and she stumbled inside.

The door slid shut behind her and the lock slid back into place with a click.

"Hey- wait!" She spun around and slammed her fists against the door. "Let me out!"

But he never came back. No matter how hard she shouted.

When her fists were bruised and her throat felt scratchy she gave up on trying to escape through the door and turned her attention to the room and anything in it that could help her.

Everything was comically big. The couch, coffee table and two armchairs to the right were so high she was sure she'd have to climb onto the seats like when she was a kid. The bookcase along the back wall towered from floor to ceiling and the white stone desk to the left spanned the length of a couch and was flanked by two high-backed ornate chairs.

The desk was scattered with brown pieces of parchment paper and when she picked one up it was covered in indecipherable Cyrillic. Behind the table was a large window, clear but patterned on the edges with metal that mimicked vines. And despite currently inside a mountain the view beyond the glass was of a large garden bathed in the orange light of what she assumed was the setting sun.

The only thing particularly useful to aid escape was a discarded pen. And it wasn't even a real pen. It was a quill, for Christ's sake. Still, she pocketed it just in case. She might not have been tossed in a jail cell, but the locked door wasn't indicative of much better.

Inspecting the bookcase didn't turn up anything promising either. Thick tomes lined the shelves, interspersed by rolled brown parchment. Some of the rolls were sealed with blue wax and a crest she couldn't even begin to make sense of. With a huff she picked the thinnest book she could find (which incidentally was as large as her torso) and carried it to the couch. She knew she couldn't understand a word of what was written, but she had to try something.

She felt like a child as clambered onto the plus settee and for a moment allowed herself the amusement of noting how her legs hung off the end. On the large coffee table there were three cups, all with varying amounts of what smelled like fruit juice in them. So mass murdering giants liked tea. Even war criminals must like sugar. As dry as her throat was, she wasn't about to screw around and drink the local liquid and fuck up her stomach so she ignored the impulse to down them.

Absently she flicked through the book as the light in the room turned from bright orange to burnt umber and the shadows deepened around her. It seemed to be a picture book. Of what, she wasn't entirely certain, but she assumed it was telling a story.

The first fifty or so pages seemed to be about some weird looking people. At least Gildor Inglorion and Belwen had humanoid features. The sketches on the page barely resembled anything human- they were more akin to monsters. One had a shock of black hair and a thousand tiny jewels for eyes, another had fish scales for skin and a shock of green, matted hair. Next was a man-ish thing with pointy teeth and two antlers sprouting from a mess of tangled twig hairs. A small patch of Cyrillic's accompanied each picture and she quickly flipped past them all, not even bothering to attempt to understand.

For the next twenty or so pages there were pictures of fauna and small diagrams of bowls. Could it be a recipe or medicinal book?

She snorted. Just her luck to pick up a book about bread-making during a crisis.

The light was almost gone, and she was nearing the end of the book before she saw anything remotely familiar and when she did it left her with more questions than answers.

Deja vu washed over her as she squinted down at the new drawing. It was a picture of two large trees, one gold and one silver. They grew apart but at the top, their branches intermingled and glowed whitish yellow. It was mesmerising. Especially because the way it was drawn it seemed to emit a small glow itself.

But hadn't she seen something this strange before?

A frown tugged at her eyebrows as she absently rummaged in her pocket and pulled out the handful of leaves she had taken from The Island. She held up the cluster of gold and silver and looked between them and the book.

Huh.

She wasn't much of an artist or a Botanist like Sarah, but they sure as shit looked a hell of a lot like the leaves on the page.

Astrid had said she hadn't ever seen a leaf like it before and someone with that much money had probably seen everything before. How had leaves from The Island ended up in this book? Or maybe that wasn't the right question. Maybe it should be the other way around: how had leaves from this book ended up on The Island?

She was so engrossed in the mystery that she didn't hear the door open, nor the footsteps that carried in the new inhabitants close until one of them spoke.

"Laurelin?"

She screamed and jumped up so fast that the book went flying into the coffee table. The teacups fell and the liquid pooled onto the stone surface as she legged it to the bookcase. Her heart shuddered in her ears.

Where the hell had they come from?

One of them, a man with silver hair bent and snatched the book from the table before any of the liquid could seep onto its pages. The other, one with dark hair, inched towards her. She yanked the pen- quill out of her pocket and held it out in defence.

If he came any closer she would- well she wasn't sure she had it in her to do anymore harm, but she wasn't going to let him to whatever it was giants did with normal sized people who go rifling through their books.

She looked to the doorway but sagged when she saw it was flanked by two guards with wicked looking swords both pointed towards her.

"Laurelin?" The brunette called again. He didn't sound angry or particularly pissed that she was holding his own quill up against him. But then again, he didn't look much like anything. His face was blank, framed by loose hair that was more black than brown. It glowed slick navy in light of the lamp he held which was currently spilling blue light across the entire room. He wasn't wearing any armour and she was a little weirded out by seeing him in actual normal clothes. That is, if a belted silver tunic was normal.

His gaze tracked her heaving chest, her half-bent body and the way the bookcase wobbled as she tried to push herself into to get away from him and he paused his journey to her.

He said some words and the guards, after a tense pause, lowered their swords but glared at her. She didn't know where all this hostility was coming from- she wasn't the one threatening lost women with sharp weapons.

The brunette's head dipped into a curious tilt and he pointed to the leaves still clutched in her sweaty hand. "Laurelin?"

She frowned and the quill drooped in her grip. "What the fuck is a Laurelin?"

Words: 4546

Hi everyone!

I'll start by saying that posting this was difficult. I want to get this write and I hope this chapter hasn't disappointed anyone like the last one might have.

Ok. I've re-written this chapter four times. I've tried to make it shorter/longer/less-actiony/more-actiony/more theory/less theory. I've basically tried everything. But it won't work. But if I didn't get over this stupid bump, then I never would so here it is. I keep having to remind myself that this is still an exercise, so I'm trying not to be too hard on myself but this story is kind of kicking my bottom as are the two dissertations that I'm neglecting lol.

But I am sorry this took so long. Overhauling everything, taking your advice and really looking at the story I'm trying to write was hard. I can't promise that I'll update regularly. I can't, even at this point, promise that I'll finish. But I'll try. I understand that that means a lot of you will forget about this, or lose faith in me, and that is completely understandable. But thank you for sticking around this long. I hope we can continue on this journey together, despite how unreliable I am.

Also- you guys are the BEST. You took a crappy chapter with a misguided message and instead of giving up on me, you guys wrote the most thoughtful reviews and really tried to help me work through everything. Thank you for commenting and telling me and everyone your most hated romance tropes, I hope we all enjoyed the discussion.

As always, if you want to talk to me (or shout at me for how long it takes me to write) you can find me on Twitter under: aobh_fanfiction

I hope you're all well. That you're all happy in these stressful times. Please take care.

All my good will and joy-

Aobh x

On Parf Edhellen, Bel is used in words for strong i.e. Beleg, Belda and the Noldorin noun Bellas for bodily strength and Wen is suffix for maiden. So I've taken Belwen's name to be 'strong maiden'.

Odúlen gi nathad – (S) - I'm here to save you

Listo (fan invented from the -also- fan invented Lista which means to show grace,kindness)- (S) - Please

Drego – (S) - Flee

Tolo – (S) - Come