Then Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that he smiled; and he lifted up his left hand, and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to the former theme, and it gathered power and had new beauty.
But the discord of Melkor rose in uproar and contended with it, and there was again a war of sound more violent than before, until many of the Ainur were dismayed and played no longer, and Melkor had the mastery.
Then again Ilúvatar arose, and the Ainur perceived that his countenance was stern; and he lifted up his right hand; and behold, a third theme grew amid the confusion, and it was unlike the others.
For it seemed at first soft and sweet, a mere rippling of gentle sounds in delicate melodies, but it could not be quenched, and it grew, and it took to itself power and profundity.
And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Ilúvatar, and they were utterly at variance.

- Excerpt from Tolkien's Morgoth's Ring, the tenth instalment of The History of Middle-Earth. A piece from the Ainulindalë, the Great Song, recited by Pengoloð to Ælfwine.

Chapter 7: Escape

Solana was breathing hard as she ran down a small passage. Any goblins that were in the area had to have heard that explosion, and the rockslide that came after the Reducto.

The passage was low and roughly made – for a human at least. For any Hobbit or goblin it was easily accessible. Soon the passage that had been sloping down began to go up again, and after a while it climbed steeply. That slowed her down, despite her magic. But at last the slope stopped, and the passage turned a corner. It dipped down again, and there, at the bottom of a short incline, Solana saw, filtering round another corner – A glimpse of light! Not red light, as of fire or lantern, but a pale out-of-doors sort of light.

She didn't run immediately; first, she cast a few spells to keep herself from being detected because if there was one thing the war had taught her, it was that exits were heavily guarded. After hiding her scent, the sound of her robes, footsteps, breathing, and heart – who knew how good those goblins could hear? – Solana cloaked herself to invisibility with a mental command and set off.

It was interesting how the Invisibility Cloak and the Resurrection Stone worked. After the Final Battle, the Hallows had disappeared, and nobody had ever heard anything about them anymore – except Solana. They were accidently re-discovered by her when she almost got caught by someone else in a stealth mission. Solana wished she was invisible because she was going to fail a mission for the first time if she didn't. A second later, the Muggle peeked in, shone his lantern around, and closed the door again after apparently seeing nothing.

The Resurrection Stone… Solana hadn't yet figured out what use it was. Sure, she could call up her parent's spirits, and Sirius', and everyone else who died, but they got hurt while they were in the real world, and it made her want to commit suicide.

She hadn't used it past that first time.

Back with Solana, she was running as fast as her legs would carry her as she turned the last corner. She suddenly came right into an open space, where the light, after all that time in the dark, seemed dazzlingly bright. Really it was only a leak of sunshine in through a doorway, where a great door, a stone door, was left standing open.

Solana blinked, and then suddenly she saw the goblins: goblins in full armour with drawn swords sitting just inside the door, watching it with watchful eyes, and watching the passage that led to it. They were aroused, alert, ready for anything.

She crept to the door, careful to avoid touching any of the goblins. Now that she had ran such a long while, she couldn't use too much magic in fear of blacking out again and waking up being roasted over an open fire. Solana was almost at the door, and could already see outside into the open air: there were a few steps running down into a narrow valley between tall mountains; the sun came out from behind a cloud and shone bright on the outside of the door. She was shimmying through, careful not to move the door, when –

One of the goblins inside shouted: "There is a shadow by the door. Something is outside!"

Solana's heart jumped into her mouth. She had completely forgotten her shadow! Pushing against the door to make it open wider, she ran away, leaping down the steps like a goat, while bewildered goblins were staring at the spot her shadow was at seconds earlier.

Of course they soon came down after her, hooting and hallooing, and hunting among the trees, seeking to avenge their king. But they, and goblins in general, didn't like the sun: it made their legs wobble and their heads giddy – like a lesser form of the curse on Trolls that turns them to stone.

They could not find Solana with all of her spells on her, slipping in and out of the shadow of the trees, running quick and quiet, and keeping out of the sun; so soon they went back grumbling and cursing to guard the door.

She had escaped.

Oo0oO

And, as was often in those situations, Solana didn't know where she was. She wandered on and on, until the sun began to sink westwards – behind the mountains. Their shadows fell across Solana's path, and she looked back, perplexed. Then she looked back forward and could only see ridges and slopes falling towards lowlands and plains, glimpsed occasionally between the trees.

"What the hell?!" Solana exclaimed, then clamped her mouth shut in fear of predators. Sure, she still had her disguising charms on, but she didn't want any man-eating animals around her, whether they could sense her or not.

Where are those dwarves?! Solana thought to herself. And Gandalf?! I know they escaped the goblins, Gandalf would have killed any that came too close. But where are they, if they did get to this side of the mountains?

She wandered on, out of the little valley, over its edge, and down the slopes beyond. Solana had just come to the conclusion that she had to travel to Erebor herself and meet up with them there – a Point Me, Erebor had to be just as accurate as the map – when she heard voices. She stopped and listened.

It didn't sound like goblins, so she walked forward, down a stony path winding downwards with a rocky wall on her left, and a steep drop to the side. There were dells below the level of the path overhung with bushes and low trees; in one of these dells, under the bushes, people were talking.

Solana walked nearer, and suddenly she spotted an ugly head with a red hood; Balin! She could've clapped and shouted in joy, but didn't. There was nothing accomplished by that, and this gave her time to hear what the others thought of her.

Gandalf was discussing something with the dwarves, and the liberated ponies stood a little ways away. Solana could spot the edge of her photo album peeking out of one of the bags, and smiled widely. They were talking about all that had happened to them in the tunnels, and wondering and debating what they were to do next. Thorin was grumbling, and the rest – well, save Bombur, who didn't talk, and Balin, because it hurt everyone's ears every time he did, but they were nodding along – was saying that they could not possibly go further and leave her behind in the hands of the goblins, alive or not.

It warmed Solana's heart to realize that these dwarves, even though they only knew her for a few weeks, were prepared to go back into goblin tunnels to rescue her – or at least bring her body back to be buried. Thorin she didn't care about, the asshole could go fuck himself for all Solana cared.

Gandalf was arguing with Thorin. "Why did you leave her behind? You were standing right next to her when Dori accidently dropped her!"

"How can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark, everybody falling over bodies and hitting one another! You nearly chopped off my head with Glamdring, Fili was stabbing here there and everywhere with that dagger – Thing or something – and I was chopping up goblins with Orcrist! All of a sudden you gave one of your blinding flashes, and we saw the goblins running back yelping. You shouted "Follow me everybody!" and everybody ought to have followed. We thought everybody had. There was no time to count, as you know quite well, Gandalf, until we had dashed through the gate-guards, out of the lower door, and down here. And here we are – without the burglar!"

Solana had never seen the Dwarven king argue like that before, and it was quite the funny sight, Thorin staring up and Gandalf like he was a pest. She giggled from her place a few steps next to Bombur, and took off her charms when they started looking around for a fairy.

"Here I am, Thorin! I'm glad you missed me so much." Solana giggled again at his surprised red face and the shouts of glee from the other dwarves before turning to the closest dwarf – Fili. "Thank you for caring enough to be prepared to go back, everyone." She said, gave the little dwarf a small kiss on the cheek in thanks, and went to stand next to Gandalf, fully aware about the heavily blushing Fili she left behind.

Of course, the dwarves asked about her adventure, and they were impressed about her spells, remarking things like "I wish we'd had that exploding one back when we were hollowing out the Iron Hills!" and "Ooh, if only we had those back when the Orcs invaded Moria…" which in turn sparked questions about Dwarven history from Solana. After she was told about the kingdom of Moria, about the Halls of Erebor at the height of its prosperity, about the way Dwarves came to Arda, and about the individual Vala – she was especially intrigued by Vairë and her husband, Mandos – it was already nearly dusk, and Gandalf announced that they had to move on, lest they be captured by goblins once more.

They saddled up their ponies, and started riding on and on, while Solana nibbled on a piece of bread and rabbit. The rough path disappeared. The bushes and the long grasses between the boulders vanished, and they found themselves at the top of a wide steep slope of fallen stones, the remains of a landslide. Solana hardened the path temporarily, and the ponies and horses clopped down the slope calmly.

However, when they reached the bottom and Solana removed the spell, small pebbles began rolling down. Soon, larger bits of split stone went clattering down and started other pieces below them slithering and rolling; then lumps of rocks were disturbed and bounded off, crashing down with a dust and a noise. Before long the whole slope above them seemed on the move, and the horses and ponies were spurred on the run away with the company on their backs, huddled on the saddles.

It was the treeline that saved them from the onslaught of stones and rocks. The animals galloped into the edge of a climbing wood of pines that stood right up the mountain slope from the deeper darker forests of the valleys below. The branches and trunks brought protection, and soon the danger was over, the slide had stopped, and the last faint crashes could be heard as the largest of the disturbed stones went bounding and spinning among the bracken and the pine-roots far below.

"Well! That has got us on a bit," said Gandalf brightly, as if they hadn't just almost died from being crushed in an avalanche. "And even goblins tracking us will have a job to come down here quietly."

"I daresay," grumbled Thorin, "But they won't find it difficult to send stones bouncing down on our heads." The dwarves – and Solana – were feeling far from happy, and were rubbing their bruised and damaged legs and feet.

"Nonsense! We are going to turn aside here out of the path of the slide. We must be quick! Look at the light!" The sun had just gone behind the mountains. The horses and ponies galloped along now as fast as they were able down the gentle slopes of a pine forest in a slanting path leading steadily southwards. At times they were pushing through a sea of bracken with tall fronds rising right above the dwarves' heads, and Solana went in front to cut them all down; at times they were marching along quietly over a floor of pine-needles; and all the while the forest-gloom slowly got heavier and the silence of the forest deeper. There was no wind that evening to bring even a sea-sighing into the branches of the trees.

"Must we go any further?" asked Kili, when it was so dark that Solana could only just see Bombur's beard wagging beside her, and quiet enough that she could hear the dwarves' breathing like a loud noise. "My backside feels like it's about to fall apart, my back aches, and my hands feel like someone's just put them in molten gold."

"A bit further," Gandalf said to the other's chagrin.

Indeed, after but a few seconds they suddenly came to an opening where no trees grew. The moon was up and was shining into the clearing. Somehow it struck all of them as not at all a nice place, although there was nothing wrong to see.

They tethered the horses and ponies to a tree, and sat down in a circle to discuss what they were going to do in the morning.

Instead of joining them, however, Solana started expanding her pockets, and loaded her photo album and the art case she got form Lord Elrond in there; it wouldn't do to have another episode like with the goblins and lose any of them for real. She put food in as well; a whole bread, a few freshly-plucked apples, a large handful of blackberries, and she was just standing up to tell Gandalf that she was going to go hunt a few rabbits when all of a sudden they heard a howl away downhill, a long shuddering howl. Solana recognized it from Gandalf's imitations when she asked about the most dangerous creatures on Middle-Earth that they might meet.

Wargs. And everyone knew, where Wargs went, Orks followed.

Skendo: Really? I always found both Gollum and Sméagol extremely nasty…

DragonMistressOfRedemption888: That's true, but he didn't specify what the heaven and hell was. What is known, though, is that he didn't want to bring his religion into his books. And that is why he didn't make a heaven or hell.

Thank You to the other reviewers, again.