✓ | Forget-Me-Not ~ Fili FanFiction / Hobbit FanFiction / Fili FF

「 Chapter 20 」

The skin-changer led the company from his garden into the neighboring forest, where there were many ponies in the shade of the trees, some horses were among them.
Beorn told everyone to take a pony and offered Gandalf one of the horses. Before the wizard rose, however, he took the giant a few more steps, and both sank into a serious conversation.
"What else do the two of them have to talk about?" Kili asked, who was walking past Ilèyn and approaching one of the ponies. The dwarf did not answer, she had lowered her eyes and was staring absently ahead of her. Kili put his bag over the back of the pony and then turned back to Ilèyn.
"It's almost creepy..." he said in response to Ilèyn's strange behavior. "You should prepare one of the ponies for you." Carefully he held a rope in front of her nose.
Ilèyn took the rope and went to the pony that was closest to her. She was still completely lost in thought, as if she were lingering in another world. She prepared the rope as a reins, placed part of her luggage over the back of the pony, and then waited for the others. Meanwhile her gaze fell over to the wizard and the skin-changer, both of them still deep in conversation.
Ilèyn watched Gandalf's features, restlessness could be seen in his face. Restlessness and fear. If even an Istar feared what was coming, how could this company ever manage to achieve its goal?
At that moment, Bifur led one of the black and white ponies next to Ilèyn and stopped by her. The dwarf with the hatchet in his head pointed to the dwarf, intending to help her with her pony.
Ilèyn nodded briefly and accepted Bifur's help. He crossed his fingers and lifted Ilèyn, who had stepped one foot on his hands, up onto the animal's back.
Ilèyn thanked him briefly and Bifur went back to the other pony, which had been waiting next to them. Fili approached and Bifur offered him help too. The blonde was as fast as Ilèyn on the back of the pony. He looked at her and tried to look as confident as he could.
Because of Beorn, Gandalf, and Ilèyn's reaction to the fact that they were about to cross the Mirkwood, Fili had also begun to be seriously concerned. Beorn had mentioned enough dangers supposed to be in and around the forest. That put the prospect of success in a rather dim light.
"Gandalf!" Fili's uncle called to the two speakers "Time is waisting."
The wizard made his way to them. Beorn looked restless, he was constantly looking around the forest as if he felt he was being watched.
Of course they were being watched.
All the time.
Ilèyn was also getting more and more nervous and worried. However, that was primarily related to every meter they came towards the bleak forest.
Fili wasn't sure what to make of it. It was clear to him that the blonde dwarf was hiding something. But he got more and more the feeling as if her life was hanging on this secret, which she kept so doggedly to herself. Did her restlessness mean that the very secret was about to be exposed?
Gandalf joined the company, mounted himself on the back of a dark horse, and rode ahead.

Nobody said anything, the dwarves were driven too much by the fear that Azog and his pack might catch up with them.
From Beorn's house they rode for a few hours through the green country, over meadows, past forests, through valleys and along the banks of rivers and streams.
At some point, however, the idyllic landscape was replaced by dry, gray trees, cracked earth and the large shadow of a dark forest directly in front of them. Clouds had come in, did not let any rays of sun through and it smelled of rain.
During the whole ride Fili had not left Ilèyn's side, he had kept a close eye on her, whether she liked it or not. And for a good reason.
With every mile they approached the forest, she looked weaker and more drained. She looked overworked after a too long day of effort without a break.
When the company had reached the edge of the forest, Fili thought he saw how Ilèyn's condition got significantly worse again. It was difficult for her to breathe and her already pale skin was almost more pale.
"The Elven Gate." Gandalf said, who had already dismounted from his horse and approached the forest, "Here lies our path through Mirkwood!"
Fili got off the pony's back and picked up his luggage. Then he walked straight to Ilèyn, who was still sitting on her mount and looking with exhausted eyes at the gate into the forest. When Fili stopped next to her and looked up at her, she was about to turn around with the pony and ride as far away from this forest as possible.

"Ilèyn." Fili said calmly "Let me help you."
While the blonde took Ilèyn's travel bag from the pony's back and threw it over his shoulder in addition to his own luggage, the archer continued to sit apathetically on the animal and did not move.
For Fili it all looked like the illness that had once afflicted his mother, when she looked pale and feverish as if dazed, without a movement in her face, without speaking and without strength of her own body.
But Ilèyn was not sick. This place did something to her...
"Set the ponies loose!" Gandalf announced "Let them return to their master!"
Ilèyn did not respond to the wizard. Only when Fili carefully grabbed her hand did her gaze suddenly rush to him. Startled, she looked at him like a hunted rabbit. The fact that it was him made her visibly calmer.
"Come on." Fili took Ilèyn's other hand and indicated that she had to get off the pony.
The archer slowly slipped off the animal's back, Fili reached under her arms and prevented her legs from giving way when she hit the grass under her.
Ilèyn landed on both feet and staggered due to the lack of strength in her body. She was breathing shallowly and her palms were sweaty.
"Calm down ..." Fili mumbled gently and continued to hold her until he felt her legs reach a firm footing. The dwarf felt how she began to calm down in response to his quiet words.
A light breeze came up. The scent of forest herbs, wood and the iron of her arrowheads, which she tended regularly, emanated from Ilèyn.
As fragile and thin as she felt in his hands, it was hard to imagine that she was the same person who killed swiftly and quietly, who was better at using a bow and arrow than any archer one had ever seen and who cut down her enemies cold-blooded.
The dwarves around them had prepared themselves so far for the arduous path through the forest. When Fili noticed that Ilèyn was no longer wavering, he took a few steps back before his uncle would intervene again.
Fili moved away from the dwarf to take some of the things that were still on the floor.

"You're really cute together." it rang next to him as the dwarf bent down for a rope. The owner of the voice clearly had to pull himself together not to laugh.
"Kili." Fili sighed and looked directly into the beaming face of his brother when he straightened up again. "When do you actually stop to find it all so funny?"
"It's not funny, brother." Kili replied and quickly picked up one of the bags at his feet. "It's cute. Or lovable, please call it what you want. It's good not to see you so serious and so... strict." Kili paused briefly "Well, atfter all, sometimes." he added quickly.
"Get that nonsense out of your head, brother." Fili said. He was tired of discussing those wrong ideas with his brother.
"You know as well as I do that I'm right." the younger grinned "By the way, the others believe that too."
"You tell the others about your unworldly imaginations?" Fili asked horrified.
"Oh what, who do you think I am, brother?" Kili laughed "No no... they'll see it by themselves."
Fili was just about to say something when the wizard came quickly out of the forest to them.
"Not my horse! I need it!" he said quickly.
"You're not leaving us?" Bilbo asked immediately.
"I would not do this unless I had to." Gandalf only answered.
Fili and Kili looked at each other in wonderment. Her uncle also seemed less than enthusiastic about the wizard's decision, which was made without giving a good reason.
"I'll be waiting for you at the overlook!" Gandalf said and strode to his horse. "Before the slopes of Erebor. Keep the map and key safe. Do not enter that mountain without me." He said the latter directly to Thorin, who only nodded slightly and gave Balin a serious look.
In the meantime it had started to rain when Gandalf instructed the dwarves how to walk through the forest. He described the stream, which probably wears a dark enchantment and warned several times not to leave the path.
"It'll seek to enter your mind and lead you astray." the wizard finished with his warnings about the forest and mounted the horse.
Without further ado, Gandalf turned and rode away.
Thorin did not linger long and began to lead the company into the forest.
"Come on." he said "We must reach the mountain before the sun sets on Durin's Day!"
Fili turned around and looked at Ilèyn, who stood hesitantly and indecisively in front of the gate. He walked up to her and looked for her gaze. The moment their eyes met, Ilèyn's eyes were full of fear and panic. Real fear of real things that she feared to find in this forest.
Kili passed his brother and he now also turned to the dwarf.
"Come on, Ilèyn." he said, "Don't worry, nothing will happen to you."
The brothers turned to go and Ilèyn caught up with them. Together they entered the darkness of the Mirkwood.