TIME FOR MIRKWOOD OKAY NEXT CHAPTER HAS SOME ACTION IN IT DON'T WORRY. no promises on when the next update will be though. like i said in the last chapter, it's been hectic this month, and will continue to be so until exams are over.

Quick question: why does school exist? why do we have to wake up so early for it, and come home so late in the day?

All rights go to JRR Tolkien and Peter Jackson; except for Fheon, Elijah, and a couple other OC's.

The tree-line of Mirkwood was like something that had come out of a dark fairytale, with almost no leaves growing on the branches, and the very little that did were as gray as the roots of the tree itself. Even the grass and the shrubs within a ten-mile radius of their entrance were dull, no longer evergreen like they were supposed to be. Gandalf dismounted his horse and walked forward, through two seemingly forged pillars. Vines crawled up the pillars and down the path like snakes. Beneath Gandalf's feet, the grey marble path was littered with dead leaves.

"The Elven Gate," the wizard remarked quietly. "Here lies our path through Mirkwood."

Anxiously, Fheon dismounted her pony but was not followed by Elijah. She heard the caw of a hawk, and then her brother mumbling. "Send a message to Hiram," she told him. "Tell him we're nearing Erebor and that he should stop sending us messages… Cali will be staying there with him from now on too."

"What?" said Elijah, frowning deeply. "Why?"

"It's too risky to have Cali flying with us now, with Azog having a price on our heads. If they see her, they'll hone in on our destination. We're too close to Erebor for us to be able to risk that anymore." Seeing her brother's distressed expression, she softened her gaze and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I'll miss her too. But we'll see her again, when we get back—"

"If we get back," Elijah corrected, putting on a cynical smile as he stroked Cali's feathers.

Fheon sighed, but nodded. "If we get back." She waited for him to pull out a pen and a strip of parchment before turning around.

She followed Gandalf through the entrance and scanned the surrounding area. Something definitely was not right. Fheon could feel it, a heaviness weighing down on her mind, squeezing her heart and closing in on her senses. She felt as if she had been buried alive. Trying to steady her breathing, she squared her shoulders, let out a large huff of breath, and walked about the clearing, trying to make sense of the kind of force they were going to be up against.

"No sign of the orcs," said Dwalin, as the rest of the Company dismounted their ponies. "We have luck on our side."

Luck, Fheon inwardly scoffed. She turned around and shared a knowing glance with Thorin. He looked at her in acknowledgement but said nothing; the situation was far too grim for his liking. Fheon drifted to stand by the stone basin in the middle of the path, running her finger across the dark blue veins instilled within the smooth rock. Doing this did nothing to ease her anxiety. It, in fact, only made her feel worse. Shaking her head, she walked back out to the Company, and out from beneath the looming trees, with wide strides. Past her eyelashes, she sensed something moving, and raised her head to find Beorn standing atop a cliff-face in his beastly form, looking down on the forest they had come from.

"Set the ponies loose," Gandalf ordered, his eyes staying on Beorn. "Let them return to their master."

The dwarves did as they were told, albeit slightly hesitant. Fheon watched as Dori removed her pack from her pony's saddle, and murmured him thanks when he handed it to her. She swung one strap over her right shoulder and, as soon as she felt that her pack was not at all too heavy, resumed with the other strap. There was a flash of pain when she had to move her shoulder a bit in order to accommodate the strap, and she was irked to find that it remained, throbbing, for quite some time.

"This forest feels sick," said Bilbo as he looked down the marble path, "as if a disease lies upon it."

Fheon pursed her lips subtly and said, "If you feel that way now, wait until you walk into it."

The hobbit looked up at her with an alarmed, wide-eyed expression on his face. "Is there no way around?" he asked seriously.

"Not unless we go 200 miles north," said Gandalf. "Or twice that distance south."

Bilbo sighed, and Fheon did the same. She ran a hand across her shoulder as she felt the lemon balm start to take effect, cooling her skin. She noticed that Cali was no longer perched on Elijah's shoulder, and a hint of sadness stabbed at her heart. Doing her best to ignore this, she called her brother over to get her water canteen from her pack and took two large gulps of the coneflower-infused water, grimacing at the taste. Immediately afterwards, she popped a leaf of parsley into her mouth, and then handed a few more away to Bilbo and to the dwarves who wanted it.

From the corner of her eye, she spotted Gandalf walking deeper into the clearing beneath the trees, slowly, as if he were in a trance. While Elijah sniffed the mouth of her water canteen, she narrowed her eyes to find Gandalf standing in front of what looked to be a statue—a stone statue of a woman, which had been covered with vines and weeds over the course of the years.

Suddenly, Gandalf brought his hand up and pulled down a large bunch of the creepers. Revealed was a symbol that had been drawn in red onto the statue. It was not a symbol Fheon had been accustomed to, but judging from the way Gandalf did not exactly rejoice at the sight of it, it was sure to be nothing good. The wizard muttered something to himself before whirling around and saying, "Not my horse! I need it!"

By then, Nori had released every last one of their ponies except for Gandalf's black steed. By the looks of it, the wizard had voiced the order at exactly the right time. The dwarves standing around in a huddle raised their heads and voiced their confusion. Fheon could not blame them; she was feeling the same way.

"You're not leaving us?" said Bilbo.

"I would not do this unless I had to," said Gandalf, a determined expression on his face. As he was about to go to his horse, he stopped and turned to the hobbit once more, saying, "You've changed, Bilbo Baggins. You're not the same hobbit as the one who left The Shire."

Bilbo's face seemed to clear up, and he shifted on his feet. "I was going to tell you. I found something in the Goblin Tunnels," he said, and in her curiosity, Fheon found herself inching closer. She noticed his two fingers were in his pocket, and only then recalled that he had been doing that for a while now. A habit, perhaps?

"Found what?" Gandalf urged. "What did you find?"

The hobbit was quiet for a moment, and then he dropped his hand from his pocket and said, "My courage."

Fheon narrowed her eyes slightly in suspicion, but if Gandalf was disappointed by such an answer, then he did not show it. "Good, that's good," he said. "You'll need it." Bilbo shrugged, smiling slightly. It started to rain—only a drizzle, thankfully, for Fheon did not know if her shoulder could carry the weight of her bow, her pack, and a sopping wet cloak.

"I'll be waiting for you at the overlook, before the slopes of Erebor," Gandalf continued, taking the reins of his horse from Nori and then giving Thorin a pointed look. "Keep the map and key safe. Do not enter that mountain without me."

Thorin nodded, but looked quite tentative when he did so.

"This is not the Greenwood of old," said Gandalf. "The very air of the forest is heavy with illusion. It'll seek to enter your mind and lead your astray."

"Lead us astray?" Bilbo repeated beside Fheon, looking at her questioningly. "What does that mean?"

She wanted to ask the same thing, and so she rushed towards Gandalf just as he was mounting his horse. "Gandalf, this is madness," she hissed in impatience. "You can't possibly leave us to venture forth alone—a hobbit, thirteen dwarves, and two humans—into a forest enchanted with dark magic. We will surely go astray!"

He raised an eyebrow. "The mind is stronger than you think, Fheon."

"It is not," she retorted. "Not mine and not my brother's. We are here to protect this Company. How can we do so if you force us to go through such shortcomings?"

"You and your brother are here for a much greater purpose," the wizard said, his tone becoming much more hushed. "And as for the dark magic on this forest…" He turned his horse around, forcing Fheon to back up. She bristled but did her best to show no signs of angst on her face as he concluded, "You must stay on the path. Do not leave it. If you do, you'll never find it again."

He spurred his horse and started to become farther away, but not before he added, "No matter what may come, stay on the path!" Yet Fheon was no longer facing him, but had turned her attention to the Company.

"Alright then," she said. "Thorin, I think it best if you lead—followed by Elijah, then me, then Bilbo and then the rest of the Company." She sighed inwardly. "Now I want this journey through Mirkwood to be as clean and advantageous as possible. The bright side is: Azog would not dare venture into the forest after us. He knows they will not succeed in getting through alive. So here it is: No one strays from the path. You must focus on the road ahead, not on anything else. Do not let your thoughts wander, or we'll all be lost."

Elijah whistled softly and placed a hand on the top of her head, to which she ducked and backed away from. "How very enlightening, sister," he said. "Do tell us more."

She ignored him and gestured to Thorin. The Dwarf King nodded, having a somewhat grateful look on his face, before turning around and taking to the head of the Company.

"Come on," he said. "We must reach the mountain before the sun sets on Durin's Day. It is our one chance to find the hidden door!" The dwarves murmured amongst themselves in agreement as Fheon pulled Bilbo along with her to walk behind Thorin, with Elijah beside her. They walked through the Elven Gate, past the stone basin and the stone statue, and soon, they were surrounded with nothing but trees.

Fheon kept Elijah close and Bilbo even closer. Behind them, the dwarves were deathly quiet, and she hoped that they were in a state of concentration instead of distracting themselves with the many mushrooms they were walking past. No doubt, at least some of them were thinking about uprooting a few handfuls so they could cook it for stew; none of them even knew if anything in the forest was edible anymore. And so Fheon had to keep glancing over her shoulder and hissing reminders at the dwarves. She knew, however, that they were not the most sturdy-minded beings, and that Thorin had to keep his head if they were going to walk out of the forest in one piece.

Forcing herself to focus, Fheon counted the seconds that passed in her head. Every time she reached sixty, she would start over—always keeping her head down, always checking if everyone in Company was following, and always making sure they were on the right path. It was to her dismay that, early on, they encountered a few problems with staying on the path. There was a fork in the road, but by then it had become almost impossible to see the road through the sea of dead leaves.

"Which way?" she heard Thorin grumble to himself uncertainly.

She rushed forward and kicked away a bunch of the leaves, revealing the path to them once more—the one on the right. The one on the left was merely a dirt road that led downwards, but it seemed that Oin had already lost focus in such an early stage of their venture. "This one, here!" he said, pointing at the left path.

"No, the path leads here!" Bofur argued, referring to the one on the right.

"It goes here though!" said Dwalin, this time, pointing at a valley between two trees; nothing was there. "Can't you tell?"

"Quiet," Fheon snapped. "All of you! The path goes this way." She pointed to the right path. "What did I say about staying focused? Thorin, keep going."

The Dwarf King nodded before proceeding to walk onto the path on their right. Fheon slowly walked on, fingering the hem of her cloak as the numbers in her head continued at 42. But five steps in, someone grabbed her arm from behind and stopped her in her tracks. She turned to find Elijah standing there, his face heavy with concern. "What?" she questioned.

"What are you doing?" he said, pointing to his right. "The path goes this way."

"What—?" Frowning, she returned her gaze to the path before her and found that she was on the dirt road, the one leading downhill. When she turned her head she found Thorin, Bilbo and the other dwarves very much on the right track, walking on the grey brick road. "N-no, I know," she was able to stutter out. "I was just checking something."

"Okay," said Elijah, letting go of her arm. "Just, make sure to catch up, alright?"

"Of course." Fheon watched him return to the head of the Company, with Thorin and Bilbo. She followed close behind him, shaking her head and, in her mind, starting over at the number one.

Thorin continued leading the Company deeper into the forest, never faltering in his footsteps. Fheon made sure to frequently kick the leaves on the ground aside to reveal the path before them, but the weight on her chest was becoming unbearable. Her mind felt overcrowded, and starting over with her counting became a regular happening. Tailing her, the dwarves were not doing any better. They had started mumbling to themselves about the most pointless things. Fheon's reminders started becoming more irregular. Each time she looked back, there seemed to be one or two less mushrooms rooted by the trees.

As their venture wore on, the sea of dead leaves started becoming thicker and the fog much heavier. There were more twists and turns, more forks in the road that they had to spend more and more time on figuring out which one was the right one. Elijah was barely keeping it together, Fheon knew, for she had noticed the way his footsteps were becoming heavier, his stride turning shaky and uneven. Oftentimes he would lose his balance and stumble off the path, but Fheon was just thankful that he always got himself back on his feet.

Another fork in the road came, but Thorin did not call for help. He brought the butt of his axe down, thumping against the ground until it collided with stone. "This way," he said and then continued down the path.

46, 47, 48, 49…

"Air," said Bofur. "I need air…"

"My head," Gloin added. "It's swimming!"

"What's happening?" said Oin bumping into Fheon's back and sending a flash of pain up her shoulder.

She winced, and shouted in return, "Everyone, stay focused!"

1, 2, 3, 4… 1, 2, 3, 4… 7… 7… 1, 2, 3, 4…

"Keep moving!" Thorin ordered, walking past Ori and Nori, who had unknowingly taken the lead. "Nori, why have you stopped?"

Said dwarf raised a shaky finger and pointed ahead of him, saying, "The path… it's disappeared!"

Alarm descended on Fheon and she rushed forward, past everyone else, to see that they had led themselves to the edge of a cliff, a dead-end. There was a sharp turn to their left, but glancing down, she could already see that there was no stone path beneath their feet. Barely keeping the scowl off her face, she turned on Thorin and muttered, "This is why I wanted you to lead, not Nori."

"Do not blame me," he growled back.

"I never was—"

Elijah walked up from the back, interrupting them. "What's happened?" he said.

"We've lost the path," said Ori, sounding very panicked with his small voice.

"Find it," Thorin ordered gruffly. "All of you look. Look for the path!"

"No!" Fheon argued. "We must go back. We must have lost the path back there. It would not be here—"

"It would not be back there either!" said Thorin. "It is here… Everyone, keep looking!"

Fheon bristled; she had thought they had formed a bond of some sort—that he would trust her more than he currently was, after everything they had shared. She tried to keep in mind that it was the forest weakening his mind, and did her best to continue to contend, but none of them were listening anymore. The dwarves had started scrambling about, nearly on their hands and knees as they shoved piles of dead leaves away to reveal nothing but dirt of the earth. Bilbo was not taking part in the search, thankfully, but he had started fingering the hem of his pocket again. And as much as Fheon wanted to know what it was on him that had him so distracted, she could not let Thorin lead the Company astray any further.

"Elijah," she called; though her heart dropped when she found him searching alongside the dwarves, eyes glazed over and mouth hanging slightly open.

Before she could get any closer to him, coldness seeped over her body. Thoughts of walking around in the dark forest for eternity started becoming a much more appealing idea to her as the moment passed. She remembered how her family had died, and was suddenly filled with such sadness; then she remembered the things Thorin had said about she and her brother being weak and useless, and she was filled with a hot anger for the dwarf. Before she knew it, her hand had drifted to the hilt of her sword. The sound of Bilbo's voice brought her back to her senses.

"What is it?" he asked. "Is something there?"

"N-nothing," she managed, shaking her head vigorously. In an effort to regain her senses, she unclipped her water canteen from her belt and took a large swig, allowing the strong taste of it to burn down her throat. It tasted even worse with warm water. "Bilbo, you believe me, right?" she continued. "That we have to go back?"

He frowned. "Well, yes, I-I suppose… Where is back, exactly?"

"No one will listen to me. They're too far gone… We'll have to find it ourselves and come back here." She grabbed his hand and started leading him back the road they had come from. There, she discerned that they had never been walking on a path in the first place. How had she gotten so distracted as to not notice that before?

"Fheon, I don't think that's a good idea," said Bilbo.

"What? Why?"

"Don't you think that, when we have to come back, we'll get lost as well?"

Sighing, she glanced at him disapprovingly. "Thank you for giving me such a wonderful, happy thought, Bilbo."

"Sorry."

"How is your mind, by the way? You've been doing better than the rest of us, I've noticed."

"Oh, not much better," said the hobbit, clearing his throat. "I would have started crawling around with the dwarves just now, if I hadn't noticed you start to pull your sword out. Why were you doing that anyway?"

He looked at her, but she did not do the same. "Like I said, your mind is in much better shape than mine." Then they came across a fork in the road, and she found that she did not remember which way they had come from. "We came from the west, right?"

"Thorin has been leading us east," Bilbo clarified. "The problem is, none of us remember which way is east."

"These damn trees are keeping us from seeing the sun." She bit the inside of her cheek in frustration, glancing down at a mushroom on the ground. A memory sprung to mind—of her keeping Bombur from uprooting the very same mushroom—and she knew which way they had come from. She gestured for Bilbo to follow, ignoring the fact that he had muttered something to himself—something about getting above the canopy of his bed—and strode forward. "Come, Bilbo. I've remembered. It's this way!"

Choosing the path on her right, Fheon surged forward with renewed vigor, grinning mindlessly as she went. Another turn came, and she took another swig of her drink, refurbishing her sanity. The smile disappeared from her face and she hurried on, resuming the countdown in her head once more, doing her best to keep herself lucid. But with every twist and turn, she found herself barely being able to know which path was the right one. It was driving her mad, ever so slowly. But there came a time when there was a hump on the ground. Unknowingly, she tripped over it, and only just kept herself from landing on her left shoulder.

A grimace made its way onto her face as she pulled herself back onto her feet, glancing down at the hump that had caused her fall. But her heart leapt up into her throat when she saw white stone peeking out from beneath the leaves. She excitedly got down on her knees and swept more of the leaves away, managing a smile of triumph when she discovered more of the Elven path. She had found it.

"Bilbo!" she called. "Bilbo, I've found the path! Bilbo!"

When still no reply came, she finally tore her eyes away from the path and looked over her shoulder, only to find that the hobbit was no longer trailing behind her. She searched for him behind trees, even above her—for perhaps he had decided to climb up to get a better view—but he was nowhere in sight. Cursing under her breath, she turned around and backtracked, but this time making sure that the path could be seen easily. She kicked the dead leaves off the stone road, slowly and carefully making her way back to the dwarves. All the while, she kept yelling for Bilbo, for surely no one else was in the dark forest with them.

Or, at least, as far as she knew.

DUN DUN DUUUUUUN

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