Alyssae didn't look over her shoulder when she entered Mirkwood for the second time. The tendency to go back to the others was strong, but she knew her mind would never find rest. She would always blame herself and drown in guilt because she had done nothing to find Fili.
While she went off the path and climbed into a tree she cursed the fact she hadn't asked for Kili's bow, which she could use more easily than that stupid orc sword, which hung on her hip unhandy and bumped to her right knee the whole time.
Her fingers clung to hidden crooks in the gnarled ancient tree and she left the ground behind. As soon as she pulled herself up, she got the feeling the wound in her shoulder was ripped open and she was afraid she would keep a permanent injury if she kept going.
Still, that was exactly what she was doing. She swallowed the pain and climbed higher, where she knew how to cover large distances through the tree tops. Gasping for breath she wiped away her dark hair that hung before her eyes and took away her sight to the ground.
It took long before Alyssae's eyes got used to the darkness, but in the end it became easier to distinguish shapes. Now and then she went by enormous nets, spun by monstrous spiders. A dismal feeling crept on her, while she tried to banish the fear out of her heart that one of those monsters had overwhelmed Fili. She wished there were animals with which she could share her quest, but she saw only dark squirrels that run away as soon as she noticed her.
Alyssae lost her sense of time. She was exhausted, but she didn't dare to sleep, afraid she would never wake up again. She was still bleeding steady and she attracted predators without a doubt.
How much time had passed? Inside these woods there seemed to be another reality than in the rest of Middle Earth, since it was always dark here. She decided not to wrestle through the thick leaves again to see if it was night or day, because it would take a lot of time before her eyes were used to the darkness again.
Still she had to rest. She wouldn't find Fili when she was dead. Then she would never see Thorin again. She tried to find a comfortable gesture on the branch on which she was sitting while she stared in the distance. She tried to keep up her courage by thinking about Thorin's words. He trusted her. He believed she could do this, otherwise he never would have let her go.
Would he ever figure out what she had said to him? Alyssae didn't intend to tell him and she hoped he wouldn't ask for it – if she would ever see him again. If not – those had been beautiful last words, straight from the heart.
I love you.
Something she had never said to anyone before and she possibly would never say it again to someone. Maybe those had been the last words she had spoken to anybody, before cold powers took her away from this world.