Ivy stood on the brink of a chasm. Below her was darkness. Above her was darkness. There was a light coming towards her, slowly at first then faster and faster, until the light engulfed her. The scene switched. She was standing in a great hall. It looked as though it had once been a great city. Along the far wall, was a great door, with steps leading up to it. The door looked as though it had been carved out of the mountain. Littered along the sides of the walls were skeletons and skulls. Skeletons of those that had entered here before, yet not prevailed. Ivy feared them. They were all that she was not. Ivy's gift was life, theirs was death. Legolas stood beside her. His entire body was stretched like a rubber band. He was tense. His fingers twitched as though they longed to reach up and grab an arrow. There was a noise in the distance and Legolas looked at her. He looked at her, but not really. He looked through her at the man standing beside her. Ivy looked to her left and saw Aragorn. She saw the look they gave each other, a look of understanding.

"They have been summoned" Legolas said quietly, as the mist encircled them.

"Who enters my domain?" came a voice from the steps.

A ghostly figure appeared at the base of the steps leading up to the door. Ivy thought he looked as though he had been a king once, for he was wearing a crown upon his head and he was carrying a large sword.

Aragorn looked taken aback for a moment, but regained himself.

"One who will have your allegiance" he said.

"The dead do not suffer the living to pass"

"You will suffer me" Aragorn claimed.

The ghostly figure began to laugh, a hollow sounding laugh that echoed throughout the hall. Other ghostly figures began to march toward them from the back of the hall.

"The way is shut" the ghost king said, "It was made by those that are dead, and the dead keep it. The way is shut"

Legolas looked alarmingly from side to side and Gimli clung to Legolas.

"Now you must die"

Legolas moved quickly, removing a bow from his quiver and shooting it straight through the ghost king's head. The ghost king ignored this and continued marching toward Aragorn.

"I summon you to fulfil your oath" Aragorn said quietly.

The King began walking faster.

"None but the King of Gondor may command me"

Aragorn moved so that his sword was between them.

The ghost king struck, but instead of his sword going straight through Aragorn's, as you would expect a ghost to do, it made contact and struck with a loud clang that echoed off the walls.

"That blade was broken!" The king spat.

"It has been remade" Aragorn said with some effort, as he pushed the king off of his sword.

"Fight for us" he said, looking around at the others, "And regain your honour"

Aragorn stared them out.

"What say you?"

"Och! You're wasting your time Aragorn. They had no honour in life, they shall have none in death" Gimli piped up, feeling much safer now.

"I am Isildur's Heir. Fight for me, and I will hold your oaths fulfilled"

"What say you!" he cried.

The king began to laugh and they disappeared into the mist.

The hall around them began to collapse, skulls drowning them.

Ivy sat bolt upright in bed, her breath slowing now she was awake. The dream had been real, this she knew. Ivy pressed her hands to her forehead, searching for some clue. Some clue that Legolas and the others were alive. Nothing. They had gone beyond a place where the plants grew. She knew this before she asked the plants for help, but she was clinging to one hope that they might have made it out of that cavern.

Ivy roused from her bed. She began dressing, today they would move on, it was expected that they would arrive in Gondor tomorrow. Ivy began to absentmindedly pack some of her things. She would need to prepare for departure tonight and she longed for the distraction the arduous task offered. Ivy looked up when she heard sounds outside her tent. She crossed the tent and opened the flap, looking for the origin of the noise.

"…but where are their riders?" came a voice.

" I fear the worst" said Eowyn.

Ivy walked outside to see what the commotion was. Aragorn's horse, Brego and Legolas' horse, Arod, had returned but with out their riders. Her stomach lurched at the sight of the two stallions, they could not be dead! She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind. The plants could not fail her now.

They whispered to her with sadness and fear, fear of the growing shodow. No plants dwell where her friends now trod, all living things were banished from that relm but they had entered safely of that much she could be certain.

"They entered safely, what befall them now I can not tell, till they leave that forsaken place," looking pointedly at Eowyn, "They will not fail. Their horses ran from them when they reached the Paths Of Dead."

"How do you know this?" Eowyn said, slightly hysterical.

"The earth and its life has spoken to me" Ivy said simply.

"The plants?" Eowyn sneered, "You say the plants tell you. What proof is there of this witchcraft?"

Merry looked at Eowyn disgusted.

"Ivy has had this gift since before I was born! Can you not see she is special look at her!"

Ivy looked at Eowyn.

"I do not feel that I need to prove myself to you, Lady Eowyn. If you do not choose to believe me then that is your prerogative. But let me ask you this. Who do you think controls the rains that your city is greatly appreciating at this very moment. It is helping their crops, giving them fresh drinking water. It is I that controls that. Did you not hear of the rainstorm that happened at such a fortuitous moment at Helms deep?"

Ivy walked up to the horses and led them to the makeshift stables where they could be watered and fed.

She leant against Arod's flank as he drank appreciatively and she let her consciousness fall away and flow into the earth, she drifted across mountain and lakes doing what she could in these uncertain times to keep the weather steady and the life on the planet continuing. She sensed every change always even when she slept, but it was not often she had the change to engage in it actively. She was snapped out of her reprieve by a small struggling tuft of grass that clung to a rocky out crop far from where she stood.

"They live! They live!" she felt other life around join in the chorus and smiled. Patting Brego's rump as she left the stable to help prepare for the departure she now anticipated greatly she would be reunited with her friends and the battle for her middle earth was really about to begin and for her, loosing did not mean a life of servitude to the dark lord it meant death for her and all her living creatures.