Land of Loss and Love; Thranduil Love Story (On Hold)

Creepy Crawlies and Elves

          Honestly, when Gandalf said the forest would mess us up, I didn't mind. If anything, I could finally chill.

      By the time you reach our early twenties in the city, you've done weed. Congratulations to those who didn't. whether synthetic or the real shit, everyone reacts differently. I learned early on that I couldn't do synthetic, I would only get the chill vibe with authentic. Just an hour into the woods it started to feel like a bad high. I could feel it creep into the edges of my mind, thoughts becoming muddled. Then the dissorintation set in.

    The trees canopied above us so thickly you couldn't see the sky, it felt suffocating, the scent of rot hung in the air, choking your senses. The path was just a spattering of bricks on the forest floor, warped and winding for the aged woods. It was hard to keep track of, Thorin and Dwalin leading the group constantly searching for the next step.

     I didn't pay much attention to them though, simply following along. Because I could feel those damn eyes on me. And as the hours, days?, carried on the more far of field my mind became, the more I started to believe I was hallucinating the fast movements in the trees, the glimses of yellow. And when I voiced those thoughts aloud one of the dwarves piped up.

     "Elves probably," There was venom in his tone. "Watching us, waiting. I'm sure if we were to let our guard down they would leap upon us."

     Elves. It made me giggle with the ludicracy of it. Then remembered I was with a group of dwarves and only laughed more. The implications that our guard wasn't down was also a joke. Looking at all of their unfocused eyes and stumbling steps they were all already losing it. It finally struck a chord when Nori didn't recognize his own tobacco pouch. Bilbo seemed clear of mind enough to tell him this, stating we were going in circles. Had we? If we were I couldn't tell.

     "No we're not. We keep going east." Dwalin shouted.

     "But which way is east? We can't see the sun." Another said.

     Then we lost it. We just lost the path.

     So we scattered. Dwalin angrily shouting as fear swept through us, all of us lumbering along desperate to find the path again, to show us the way out of this misrable forest.

       But I couldn't focus, my brain addled, the only thing I searched for was that penetrating gaze and who it belonged to.

     I looked around like a mad woman, my head snapping left and right, the deep throbbing and pulsing sent me into a frenzy. But there was only the stillness of the barren branches, no wind, no movement at all.

      Where are you?!

     I had to find it, had to make it stop, leave me alone. I scrambled to the nearest tree and used the growths on the bark, the chips and whorls and

climbed

  climbed

     climbed.

I would find it, I would, and finally make it

             stop

      stop

stop. I haven't climbed trees in years, not since middle school, but ambition and pure determination fueled me. I pounced higher and farther, limb to limb, slip of a foot and I grasped onto another, didn't let a mistake slow me.

     I climbed as far as I could, perched in between two limbs. My breathing heaved, gulping down the nausea that came from that burning, throbbing in my head.