𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐘━︎━︎L. Greenleaf

❝CHAPTER EIGHT❞

▌𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ━︎━︎ 𝐄𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 ▌

━︎━︎━︎━︎𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐀 𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌 through the woods, keeping all her senses sharp, watching the path closely as it turned. The dwarves and Bilbo followed close behind her, Thorin thankfully not complaining about her leading the way. They grew deeper and deeper into the woods, Ellaria's shoulders tense the entire time, hand hovering over the dagger that was at her side. The dwarves were starting to be affected, one complaining about needing air, another one growing uneasy, but Ellaria kept herself level headed. She's faced these woods before, she liked to believe that meant it had no tricks left to play on her.

     "Nori, why have you stopped?" Thorin's voice made Ellaria pause, turning to look at him.

     Nori stood there, fear on his face as he stared at the ground in front of Ellaria. "The path, it's disappeared."

     "What's going on?" Dwalin asked from the back of the line.

     "We've lost the path!" Oin cried out.

     Ellaria furrowed her brows. "No we haven't, it's right there." She pointed at the path that was very clearly there.

     "It's gotten to the elf," Ori whimpered.

     Ellaria scoffed. "It has not. The path is right in front of me."

     However, none of the dwarves could see it. "Find it." Thorin ordered.

     "There's nothing to find! The path is here!" She was too late, they all began to disperse. Ellaria frowned, turning her head only to find that the path was in fact no longer in front of her. Instead, she was face with a cliff and had she stepped two feet forwards she would have fallen to her death. A soft gasp left her lips as she stumbled backwards. An annoyed growl left her lips. "Damn these woods."

With hesitancy, she followed the dwarves in trying to search for it, the dwarves question what time it was, what day it was, their minds completely muddled with the curse of the forest. A sound echoed in her ears and Ellaria paused. The sound came again and she quickly turned her head, narrowing her eyes on Bilbo who was sitting by a giant thick web, strumming the strings on it. Her eyes widened as she ran over to him, grabbing his arm to keep him from plucking it again.

     "You do not want to awaken the beasts that come with these webs." Ellaria warned. Bilbo furrowed his brows. "We need to stay together," Ellaria called. "No more of this separating."

     They gathered back together, walking in a line, growing deeper into the woods. Ori walked forwards, leaning down and picking up a brown pouch that was lying on the ground. "Look," he said, his voice sounding far away.

     "There's dwarves in these woods." Dori said, taking the pouch.

     Bofur took the pouch next. "Dwarves from the blue mountain, no less. This is exactly the same as mine."