The sun shone through the small window in the corner of the room, bathing Harriet in a crown of golden light. Thranduil burst in, and circled her bed like a tiger and it's prey,
"I must know what you are! You may be the end to this world! Whatever disease you are riddled with, it may kill us, I must protect my people, tell me who you are!" He demanded menacingly.
"I told you before, I fell from the sky, from another world." She said dryly.
"You lie! I know you fell from the clouds, but there are no other worlds, who sent you here, did you ride the eagles?!" He began to grow angry and fierce.
"There is nothing else, that is the perfect truth." She repeated.
Thranduil scowled, "Guards!"
Two tall muscular elves entered, expression blank, like robots they cam to her bedside, one on her left and one on her left. Grabbing her arms they dragged her out, she struggled briefly but it did not last; their grip was firm. She cried aloud as her wound pounded, burning like painful fire. As she smiled Thranduil turned to face her, "I warned you, tell truth, or you shall suffer."
She stumbled down countless, twisting turning tunnels in silence, past fountains and large locked doors, great halls and marble statues. They went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the kingdom, until they reached a black barred door. The guard slid the bolt back with a dull clank and revealed the room within.
It was similar decoration, carvings of flowers and pillars, except for the stone was not ivory white and shining but a deep black. It was dimly lit, and she squinted around the room, scouring it for any trace of Anna, Jem and Jemima.
The guards threw Harriet down with force and she landed heavily on the ground, crying loudly as her the slit in her side throbbed again.
A soft voice from the shadows danced across the room, "Harriet? Is it you, please, have you come to save us?"
It was the fragile voice of Anna. "Anna? What have they done to you? Anna?" Harriet said urgently, now turning her gaze to the guards she pleaded, "Please, let me go to her?" The guards turned to each other and nodded in agreement, releasing the grip from her shoulder. Harriet scrambled to the corner where Anna lay.
"What the hell did they do?'
She showed her arm to Harriet, Harriet gasped. Anna flinched when she looked at it. They had cut runes into her arm, blood oozed from the cuts forming a pool around her. "Harriet?" she breathed weakly, "where are the others, do you know?" Harriet shook her head.
"Harriet? In the books the wood elves were never this brutal!" Anna breathed, wincing as more blood poured, but she could not stop the flow for her unharmed arm was bound in chains to the wall.
"Books are never like real life Anna, people in real life surprise you, books are much lighter than life, life can be dark." She answered, looking disgusted at Anna's arm. "Thranduil, is also very scared, we are like aliens falling to earth, no one knows what we are, for all he knows, we are here to destroy middle earth."
"That is enough" spat a guard elf, who had been watching, "come here you scum," he spat. Harriet, squeezed Anna's hand and went to the guard willingly.
He grabbed her roughly by the hair and she squealed, the other guard bound her hands together and threw her into a isolated corner of the dungeon. As they left the doors swung shut and the light faded, leaving them in a nearly pitch black. The last candle stood alone, like a light of hope, till it burned out.