Wow, almost 3000 veiws. I feel so loved right now. I forgot how much I loved this life and seeing y'all reaction to this makes me love it even more.
I promise I'm going to update sooner but I'm not sure if I can keep that promise.
More chapters soon.
XOXO
They all turned toward the forest.
"Come on. We must reach the mountain before the sun sets on Durin's Day." Thorin commanded.
Bilba looked into Emilia's nervous eyes.
"Durin's Day. Let's go!" Dwalin jeered.
"This is our one chance to find the hidden door." Thorin called.
The Company entered Mirkwood wearily. They were following the paved path that started at the Elven Gate. Thorin lead and Emilia and Kili took up the back.
At one point, the path turned a sharp corner.
"The path goes this way." Thorin called.
As the dwarves, Emilia, and Bilba kept following the path through the forest, it twisted and turned over all sorts of terrain such as bare ground, high ledges, fallen tree trunks, and more. The color palette of the woods was blue/gray, and very gloomy. Dwalin thumped the handle of his hammer on the ground to find the paving stones of the trail.
"Please don't let us get lost." Emilia pleaded to herself.
"This way." Dwalin yelled.
"Air. I need air." Bofur complained.
"You alright?" Kili asked.
Emilia shook her head, her heart was pounding in her chest, her head was spinning, her breathing was ragged, and nausea was creeping into her body.
"I'll be fine." She answered.
"If you need to, you know where to lean."
She flashed him a pained smirk.
"My head, it's spinning." Oin complained.
The dwarves suddenly ran into each other as Nori, in front, stops abruptly.
Emilia took the opportunity to take a breath, she rested her hands on her knees.
"What's happening?" Fili asked.
"Keep moving. Nori, why have we stopped?" Thorin asked as he pushed through the crowd.
"The path...it's disappeared!" Nori responded.
"What's going on?" Dwalin asked.
"We've lost the path!" Oin called.
"What?!" Emilia asked, not hearing it completely.
"The path… it's gone." Biba replied as she stood shocked.
The company was standing in front of a steep cliff, and there was no path ahead of them.
"Find it. All of you look. Look for the path!" Thorin commanded.
The Company wandered through the forest. The forest was beginning to affect them mentally, and they staggered about.
After what felt like days of looking Emilia rested her sore body on a large tree root. She listened to the rest of the company yell to each other in a failed effort to find the path.
"I don't remember this place before. None of it's familiar." Balin yelled.
"It's got to be here." Someone retorted.
"What hour is it?" Thorin called.
"I do not know. I don't even know what day it is." Dwalin retorted.
"Is there no end to this accursed place?" Thorin practically screamed.
Kili sat next to Emilia.
"They're going crazy." Emilia said.
"The forest is making us all crazy." Kili replied calmly.
A ringing blasted in Emilia's ears. An ear splitting ringing. It started out small, but it grew louder and louder until it was almost impossible to bear. She pressed her hands to her ears.
"Emilia? Hey, look at me." Kili said trying to calm her down.
Emilia tried to do anything to calm herself but then all she remembered was blacking out.
She stood looking out at a bloodied battlefield, corpses of men, dwarves, elves, and orcs alike littered the ground.
Something wasn't right, nothing seemed to fit.
She gasped at the sight of Fili's body, three arrows stuck out of his body. Tears fell down her face.
Emilia spun around to see anything familiar, anyone familiar, but nothing came out in her mind.
Something called her attention, a yell, a voice that called her name, a voice that belonged to a familiar voice.
"Kili!" She exclaimed before running toward the sound.
As she ran she almost tripped on the long flowing white gown she wore, one she had never seen before. But she picked up the hem and she continued running. Running yet her feet never touched the bloody ground.
She finally reached a series of ruin towers, orc bodies littered the ground.
She heard herself scream as she saw the fearful sight. Demisrie stood in front of Kili sword in hand. Kili's weapon was away from him.
"You took her away from me. She was never yours to take." Demisrie yelled.
"She was never yours to give. She was her own yet you took her away from the world, away from me. Her life was never yours to take. Emilia should have never died at your hands!" Kili almost screamed back.
Emilia covered her mouth and she began to cry, she was dead. Dead at the hands of Demisrie.
Demisrie's anger boiled over, the sword in his hand burst into flames before he plunged it into Kili's torso.
"Thievery deserves mutiny." Demisrie taunted.
Emilia watched as the light faded from Kili's eyes, and his heart stopped. Emilia felt herself fall.
She sprung up breathing rapidly. The memory replayed in her mind.
"Hey, you're alright. I got you." Kili calmed.
"What happened?" She asked as she pressed her fingers into her temple.
"You went unconscious." Kili began.
"You were out for a little while." Fili finished.
"What happened, you're pale. Are you alright?" Kili asked as he helped her sit up.
"Just a... " She trailed off, not knowing how to explain her dream.
"Just a what?" Fili asked.
"Nothing, it was nothing. What about the path have any of you found it yet?"
"No one has found it yet, and it's driving everyone insane." Fili answered.
"Alright, then let's find the path."
"You're not well enough to do so. Just sit for a little while."
"Kee, I'll be fine. If I sit here and do nothing, I'll just get worse."
Kili nodded and he helped her stand. All the other dwarves had moved into a small cluster.
They all were muttering and rambling as they wandered about.
Bilba absentmindedly plucked a spiderweb; it vibrated, and the vibrations continued through the various linked spiderwebs and far off into the forest. Bilba plucked the web again. She heard a strange whispering noise.
They continued walking; Bilba looked down and saw herself walking backward, although it's actually just an illusion.
Ori leaned down and picked up a tobacco pouch. Dori then took it from him.
"Look." Ori said, dazed.
"A tobacco pouch. There's dwarves in these woods."
"Dwarves from the Blue Mountains, no less. This is exactly the same as mine." Bofur sad as he took the pouch.
"Because it is yours. You understand?" Bilba retorted.
"We're going round in circles. We are lost." Emilia said running her hands through her hair.
"We're not lost. We keep heading east." Dwalin contradicted.
"But which way is east? We've lost the sun."
The dwarves had started fighting and pushing each other around. Emilia broke up a fight between Kili, Fili, and Ori.
"Stop it, all of you." She commanded, but it came to no prevail.
Thorin stood apart, listening. He heard the strange whispering sound that Bilba heard earlier and muttered to himself.
"What? What's that?" Thorin asked.
The whispering continued; Thorin turned and yelled at the dwarves.
"Enough! Quiet! All of you! We're being watched."
"We have to find the sun." Emilia stated.
"Good, you take Bilba, find the sun and report back to us." Thorin commanded before looking at Bilba.
"Okay," Emilia assured herself before looking at her friend, "You ready?"
"Sure why not?"
Bilba climbed up one of the trees nearby with Emilia following close by; as they crawled, they made no notice to the masses of spiderwebs all around them. Bilba's head broke through the trees and into the air, then Emilia's did; suddenly, it was as if a spell had been broken, and Bilba and Emilia's head cleared. As Emilia breathed deeply, she saw blue butterflies flying all around them. The sun was setting, and everything looked beautiful. Bilba and Emilia smiled and laughed.
They then looked off into the distance and saw several landmarks. Bilba called down loudly to the dwarves below.
"I- I can see a lake! And a river. And the Lonely Mountain. We're almost there!"
There was no reply from the dwarves.
"Can you hear me? I know which way to go! Hello?"
Bilba looks down, trying to see the dwarves.
Emilia noticed something moving in the distance.
"Um… Bilba, take a look at that."
She heard a thumping noise in the distance and looked up.
"Hello?" Bilba asked.
In the distance, trees moved haphazardly under the weight of something approaching. The movement was coming straight toward Bilba, Emilia, and the dwarves.
Worriedly, Bilba and Emilia climbed down a bit and peered around.
Bilba stepped forward, only to trip over a spiderweb and fall several feet, bouncing painfully off branches, and yelling in pain and shock the entire time.
Emilia yelled her friend's name before seeing a creature, a giant spider, appearing in front of her. It opened its fangs and hissed at her causing her to fall back into a web.
All of the dwarves had also been captured by giant spiders; the spiders had hung them upside down from tree branches.
Emilia woke up to a spider dragging her to the others, but they were far enough where the other spiders were not paying attention.
Emilia's eyesight was blurred, a side effect of the poison, but her mind was as sharp as it normally was. The spider that dragged her was smaller than the rest, most likely a juvenile. Emilia waited until the creature moved on top of her, and at that moment she struck, shooting two small coils of fire that wrapped around it's legs and under its bony plates. The spider let out a screeching hiss before it fell off of the branch landing hard on the ground below.
Brushing off the sticky restraints off of her body Emilia saw Bilba stab one of the spiders before moving toward Emilia.
"We have to get them out of there." Emilia stated.
Bilba nodded before speaking, "You stay until I distract them, the get the dwarves."
"How are you going to distract them?"
"They cannot attack what they cannot see."
Emilia stared at her confused. Bilba slipped a ring on and disappeared.
"Ok, guess I'll just wait." Emilia said to herself.
The spiders surrounded one wrapped dwarf, Fili; he kicked, but he couldn't do much when wrapped up so tightly.
Emilia watched as a twig through itself into the forest, Bilba's doing. The spiders began to follow the sound giving Emilia a chance to move. But something stopped her. One spider had stayed behind and prepared to eat a wrapped and squirming Bombur.
The spider dropped Bombur to the tree trunk and prepared to eat him. An invisibe Bilba snuck up and struck it on its rear with his sword. The spider spun around and hissed, but Bilba is invisible to it. Bilba kept slicing at it, slicing away a leg and part of its head.
Bilba pulled off her ring, revealing herself to the spider and Emilia. She gave a twisted smile before she spoke.
"Here!"
Bilba thrust her sword directly into the spider's head.
Bilba pulled out her sword and the spider, dead, crashed to the ground. Bilba looked at her sword in admiration. Emilia began to move toward Bilba.
"Sting. That's a good name."
"No time to gush over your sword, come on."
Bilba used Sting to cut down all the dwarves, while Emilia slightly burned one of the sik strings letting the other one help the fall.
Emilia helped Kili last, using his restraint as a way down to the floor.
The others landed on the forest floor and they proceeded to rip off their wrappings, cursing and yelling the entire time.
"Everyone alright?" Emilia asked as she helped some of the dwarves stand.
"Where's Bilba?" Bofur exclaimed as he shot up.
"I'm up here!" Bilba called from one of the higher tree branches.
Just then, a spider jumped at Bilba from underneath the branch she was standing on, and it pinned her underneath it. However, she managed to put her sword in front of her just in time, stabbing the spider through the belly. As the spider fell off the branch, Bilba, entangled in its legs, fell with it.
"BILBA!" Emilia screamed. But then more spiders began to crawl toward the dwarves and Emilia. They all brought out their weapons.
They fought against the spiders with their various weapons.
Bombur was knocked to the floor by a spider, and it stood over him to bite him.
"Grab a leg!" Dwalin yelled.
The other dwarves grabbed each of the spider's legs.
"Pull!"
The dwarves pulled at the spider's legs, and they managed to pull its legs right off its body. The dismembered body of the spider landed on Bombur.
The dwarves cheered in their victory, but the celebration was short lived as kore spiders began to crawl.
The dwarves were still fighting the spiders. A spider managed to grab Kili.
"Kili!" Fili yelled, which gained Emilia's attention. She moved to run after him, but an arrow almost hit her making her freeze in her tracks.
Thorin raised his sword in preparation to fight more spiders, but paused and looked up. A blonde Elf, ran through the treetops, then swung down a spider's silk in order to land on it and kill it. He slid on the forest floor under the spider facing Thorin, slicing it in half, and came up kneeling with an arrow nocked in his bow and pointed at Thorin. Several other Mirkwood elves appeared, drawing arrows and pointing them at the dwarves.
"Do not think I won't kill you, dwarf. It would be my pleasure."
Emilia stared into the eyes of the elf that stopped her.
"Help!" Kili yelled in the distance.
"Kili!" Fili yelled. Emilia sprung into action, knocking the bow away from the elf and running after Kili's voice. She darted through the trees, jumping from large root to large root. More spiders began to pour from the trees. Using her flames like arrows, they shot out of her hands, killing spiders left and right. With one last jump she landed on the spider, jamming her long dagger into its head. The thing died, freeing Kili from its grasp. Three more spiders came out of nowhere, Emilia shot them down in a fiery blaze.
Kili looked on in amazement.
But their moment was ruined by Elves. Three male elves grabbed Emilia and she tried her hardest to fight them, until one of the raised a dagger to her throat. The look on Kili's face caused her to freeze solid.
"Search them." The lead elf, Legolas commanded.
Legolas began to search Emilia, but the first thing he did was pull back some of her hair.
"What is a she-elf doing with a band of dwarves?"
Emilia froze staring at Kili, her eyes gazed over to Thorin, who looked furious and betrayed.
"And is that any of your business? I didn't think so."
"Someone search her." Legolas commanded. A female red-head elf came over and began to search Emilia, which made her feel slightly more comfortable. THe elf took away several knives, her bow, and her arrows.
"Why does one have so many weapons?" She asked harshly.
"You can never be too careful in this world can you?" Emilia retorted with a smirk, knowing her most prized weapon was still safe.
The elves approached the dwarves and started searching them. An elf confiscated two of Fili's knives. Legolas pulled a picture frame with two pictures out of Gloin's pocket.
Emilia shot an apologetic look toward Thorin who glanced away harshly.
"Hey! Give it back! That's private!" Gloin protested.
Legolas looked at a picture of a dwarf.
"Who is this? Your brother?"
"That is my wife!"
Legolas looked at the other picture, which is of a dwarf child.
"And what is this horrid creature? A goblin mutant?"
"That's my wee lad, Gimli."
Legolas raised his eyebrow at Gloin in contempt.
Meanwhile, the elf searching Fili found even more knives all around his person. Fili sighed when the elf finds even some in a secret hidden pocket.]
"Gyrth in yngyl bain?" [Translation: Are the spiders dead?] Legolas asked Tauriel, the female elf.
"Ennorner gwanod in yngyl na nyryn. Engain nar." [Translation: Yes, but more will come. They're growing bolder.] Tauriel replied.
Fili opened his jacket to show the elf searching him that he had no knives left; however, the elf found another one hidden in Fili's hood.
An elf handed Legolas Thorin's sword, Orcrist, and he inspected it.
"Echannen i vegil hen vin Gondolin. Magannen nan Gelydh." [Translation: This is an ancient Elvish blade. Forged by my kin.]
"Where did you get this?" He addressed Thorin.
"It was given to me." Thorin answered harshly.
Legolas pointed the sword at Thorin.
"Not just a thief, but a liar as well."
"Enwenno hain!" [Translation: Take them!]
The elves began to lead the dwarves away. As they began to walk, Bofur turned and whispered to Thorin.
"Thorin, where's Bilba?"
Thorin looked around, but saw no sign of Bilba.
Thorin then looked at Emilia, whose face was purely white as she saw the Elven Kingdom, a place she wished never to see.
The dwarves were led over a bridge and into the Woodland Realm. After they passed through, Legolas addressed the guards of the gate.
"Holo in ennyn." [Translation: Close the gate.]
Bilba, invisible, was running along the bridge and toward the gate. Legolas turned, sensing something, and looked down the bridge. Seeing nothing after a few seconds, he turned and walks through the gates as they closed. Bilba, unseen, slipped through the gates before they closed.
The dwarves were led through the raised wooden walkways of the Woodland Realm. The entire place was built out of tree roots in a subterranean cavern. Emilia saw the King of Mirkwood, Thranduil, Legolas's father, sitting on his throne. He stared at her for a moment before she turned away.
The dwarves and Emilia were pushed, protesting, into several cells.
"This is not the end of it! You hear me?" Dwalin yelled.
Emilia sunk down in her cell, tears began to stream down her face, making a pool on the floor. She then looked out the door to see Tauriel pushing Kili into a cell across from her.
Legolas and Kili glared at each other.
Dwalin and several other dwarves threw themselves against their cell doors, grunting in their effort. Balin finally yelled at them.
"Leave it! There's no way out. This is no Orc dungeon; these are the halls of the Woodland Realm. No one leaves here but by the king's consent."
"Are you alright?" Kili mouthed to Emilia. She brushed away some of the tears.
She shook her head.
"I never wanted to see this place as long as I lived."
"Why?"
"My mother was from the woodland realm. This is where she ran away from all those years ago."
Meanwhile, Thorin had been brought before King Thranduil, and Thranduil addressed him.
"Some may imagine that a noble quest is at hand. A quest to reclaim a homeland and slay a dragon. I myself suspect a more prosaic motive: attempted burglary, or something of that ilk."
Thranduil looked closely at Thorin.
"You have found a way in. You seek that which would bestow upon you the right to rule: the King's Jewel, the Arkenstone. It is precious to you beyond measure. I understand that. There are gems in the mountain that I too desire. White gems of pure starlight. I offer you my help."
"I am listening."
"I will let you go, if you but return what is mine."
Thorin turned and slowly started walking away.
"A favor for a favor."
"You have my word. One king to another."
Thorin stopped walking. Still facing away from Thranduil, he spoke. His voice got louder and louder as he spoke.
"I would not trust Thranduil, the great king, to honor his word should the end of all days be upon us!"
Thorin spun around and pointed at Thranduil. He was now shouting.
"You lack all honor! I've seen how you treat your friends. We came to you once, starving, homeless, seeking your help, but you turned your back. You turned away from the suffering of my people and the inferno that destroyed us! Imrid amrad ursul!" [Translation: Die a death of flames!]
Thranduil leaped down from his throne and put his face right in front of Thorin's.
"Do not talk to me of dragon fire. I know its wrath and ruin. I have faced the great serpents of the north."
As Thranduil spoke, his face contorted, and Thorin saw his face covered with what appeared to be burns and scars from his past encounters with dragons. His left eye was milky and unseeing. He drew away, and his face returned to normal.]
"I warned your grandfather of what his greed would summon, but he would not listen."
Thranduil turned and walked up the steps to his throne.
"You are just like him."
Thranduil motioned, and guards grabbed Thorin and hauled him toward the dungeons.
"Stay here if you will, and rot. A hundred years is a mere blink in the life of an elf. I am patient. I can wait. And when you come back, bring me the she elf, I have a deal to make. And be careful with her I hear she has a fiery spirit."
Thorin noticed a shadow looming around. He stared as the dark man removed his hood.
Demisrie smiled evilly at Thorin. Thorin simply stood there, shocked. He may have been angry at Emilia for lying about being an elf, but she was still part of the company.
Thorin was thrown into a cell beside the other dwarves, and his jailer walked away with a ring of jangling keys.
"Did he offer you a deal?"
"He did. I told him he could go 'Ish kakhfê ai'd dur rugnu!' him and all his kin!"
Hearing this, Balin closed his eyes and sighed wearily in frustration.
"Well...that's it, then. A deal was our only hope."
"Not our only hope." Thorin said.
Kili stared as the guard chained Emilia and dragged her out of her cell. He practically threw himself against the cell door.
The guard practically shoved her onto the platform where the throne was.
"Why is a former Ithil member, a she-elf, traveling with a company of dwarves destined to fail?"
"Does it matter? To you I am nothing. To you I am worth nothing."
"Oh, but there you are wrong. Your life is now worth my son's life. You life holds the future of my line."
She stared at him confused, all before realizing what the King had done.
"You traded my life for your son's." She breathed.
"You must understand I had no choice."
"No I understand, completely. He is your son. But tell me one thing… Why did my mother hate the Woodland Realm so much?"
"Your mother?" The king stopped confused.
"That is of no importance to her." A voice said behind Emilia. It made her go completely pale.
"No," she gasped as tears fell.
"Oh yes darling. It's been a while." Demisrie turned to the king, "Your son is safe, thank you for my prize." He grabbed Emilia by her upper arm. She fought him with every ounce of energy in her body. She kicked, she screamed, she cried. Nothing work, his grip was like iron.
"You will stop fighting me, or that prince of yours never makes it out of the realm."
"No," she sighed. She stopped fighting, she just walked calmly with Demisrie to a room, a room far from the dungeons. Far from Kili. He pushed her in and closed the door behind them.
"Running away, joining the company of Thorin Oakenshield, and… taking a fake romantic interest in a dwarven prince. You know I could just kill you know… But what's the fun in that?"
He shoved her onto the ornate bed, fumbling at his robe. Emilia felt herself begin to cry.
In his cell, Kili inspected the turquoise stone. He flips it in the air and catches it on the back of his hand. Tauriel was checking on all the prisoners; she paused at Kili's cell.
"The stone in your hand, what is it?"
"It is a talisman. A powerful spell lies upon it. If any but a dwarf holds this stone, they will be forever cursed." He joked, it was the only thing keeping him from going crazy after they took Emilia away.
Kili quickly held up the stone toward Tauriel, and she stepped back slightly. She began to walk away, but stopped when Kili spoke again, in a laughing manner.
"Or not, depending on whether you believe that kind of thing. It's just a gem."
Kili smiled, and Tauriel smiled as well.
"Honestly, I don't quite understand what it is. I keep it to hold onto an important promise I made to someone."
"What promise?"
"That I would protect someone."
"That she-elf, Emilia. I know you worry about her."
Tauriel looked down, guilt clouded her mind.
Kili nodded.
"Do you know what happened to her?"
"She means a lot to you?" Tauriel asked avoiding his question.
Kili shook his head, which gained a distressing look from Tauriel.
"She doesn't mean a lot to me, she means everything to me."
Tauriel smiled again.
He smiled and tossed up his stone. He missed when he tried to catch it, and it rolled out of his cell, but Tauriel stopped it with her foot before it can roll into the deep pit outside the cells. She picked it up and inspected it. The blue gem glowed slightly, and the coloration glinted on her face. Kili went up to the bars of his cell, then heard elves laughing in the distance.
"Sounds like quite a party you're having up there." He noted.
"It is Mereth-en-Gilith, the Feast of Starlight." Tauriel responded.
She stepped slightly away.
"All light is sacred to the Eldar, but Wood Elves love best the light of the stars."
Kili began to remember the long beautiful conversation he had with Emilia about Starlight:
"Have you ever looked up at the stars and wondered what they see, where they go when the sun comes up?"
"I find starlight a dead cold light without emotion. It is far away, out of the grasp of us."
"Logical answer, common for a dwarf."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Dwarves have a common logical sense. Most tend not to even have an imagination."
"I have one!" Kili retorted and Ember shot him a look of question.
"I just tend not to use it often." He admitted.
"There it is." She said and smiled.
"Dwarves may be a lot of fun, but they look for the logical answers and tend to think before they act. But then again I do the same thing upon occasion."
"Only upon occasion?" Kili asked with a hint of flirtatiousness in his voice. Ember rolled her eyes.
He smiled sadly.
"I always thought it is a cold light, remote and far away."
"It is memory, precious and pure. Like your promise."
Tauriel smiled and hands Kili back his stone.
"I have walked there sometimes, beyond the forest and up into the night. I have seen the world fall away and the white light forever fill the air."
"I saw a fire moon once. It rose over the pass near Dunland, huge; red and gold it was, filled the sky. We were an escort for some merchants from Ered Luin, they were trading in Silverbuck for furs. We took the Greenway south, keeping the mountain to our left, and then, this huge fire moon, right in our path."
Kili stopped talking.
"You never did answer my question, what happened to Emilia?"
"A man, his name was Demisrie, came looking for her. It was shortly after the spiders came back. He has her."
Kili's face was pale and cold.
"What do you know this man?"
"He's going to kill her. He wants her dead. You have to help her, please."
Tauriel looked into the fear in Kili's eyes.
"I'll do what I can to help her when he leaves."