Chapter 6 - Impression
They walked for hours, in search for fruit to no avail. Every tree, bush or vines were bare. Most of the trees had turning leaves, and some were molting already. It seemed like someone already harvested before they did. Kili's stomach was growling loudly at him and Tauriel's feet were clumsy. Finally she felt dizzy and energy lacking.
"Kili, we must stop. I cannot continue. I need to rest." She said, exhaling each word.
"This is no time to give up, we have to go on, how else will we find something?" He responded.
"Then by all means, continue without me. I'll wait here." She said exhaustively.
"I cannot risk leaving you alone. Just a few steps more." He did not finish his sentence when he saw Tauriel sitting at the roots of a tree.
She looked terrible; extremely pale with dark circles around her eyes, her eyelids could hardly be kept open and her gaze was lost. Her ankles were indeed swollen from the long walk. Kili was terrified. He sat by her side heavily worried,
"Tauriel? Tauriel!" He cradled her head between his arms, frowning.
The angle made her face point up. She opened her eyes slowly to look at him, when a foreign movement high above his head distracted her for a moment,
"Kili, I see fruit in this tree..." She whispered.
"You must be hallucinating, I already looked." He said stubbornly.
"Did you look up?" she asked.
"Tauriel, there is nothing here, trust me." He responded with refusal.
"Then what is that shape waving high on the branches?" She whispered with a faint tone of sarcasm. He turned his face up and there was in fact a small bunch of pears... Way up in the highest branch of the tree they sat at. Obviously, Tauriel could not climb in her current state. Kili gulped, knowing it would be his task alone. So he began to climb.
The way up seemed longer than he thought. He was struggling with some branches that were too high for his dwarf-sized limbs. At a given moment, he almost fell from half way up when a branch broke. He embraced next branch, pushing himself up with difficulty, until he was safe again. He panted with fear.
"Are you alright?!" Yelled Tauriel from bellow.
"Yes, I am almost there!" Kili responded to appease her. But truth is he was only half way there.
Those tremors of a few months past were back, making the ground shake. Loud paces like drum beats felt closer and louder. Kili held tightly to the branch he was at. Tauriel opened her eyes wide, shaking her head to left and right as her dizzy gaze tried to see where the sound came from. This time, it did not die away in the distance. It stopped abruptly, and so did the tremors. Right in front of Tauriel, there was a tree that wasn't there before. She thought her hunger was such her imagination must have invented it. But then she noticed a pair of big bright yellow eyes staring at her directly. She screamed in terror at the top of her lungs.
"TAURIEL!" yelled Kili when he heard her scream. It made him loose balance. He could not grab the branch this time and he fell from the pear tree, screaming. His fall was suddenly muffled by a bed of branches, perfectly interlaced with one another, like fingers of a humongous hand. He looked around himself to the unfamiliar formation he did not remember being there, and then forward. He was petrified with those big yellow eyes staring at him directly. He tried to scream, but terror took the sound before he made it.
"BWWWWRAROOM!" it said loudly. It's voice echoed all through the molting forest. The bark hand where Kili was held began to descend slowly until it was on the ground, placing Kili there safe and sound. His mouth was wide open as he looked at the giant creature that saved his life. Then he witnessed with impotence how it collected the pears he struggled to get before he fell. But it did not keep them. It gave them to Kili instead, along with some other fruits it has been collecting on the way. Tauriel smiled when she realized the tree giant was friendly, "Ent!" she said. Kili fainted at that very moment...
To be continued...