Hello everybody! Sorry for the long wait! but here it is, as I promised!

This chapter has been mainly written by my lovely beta-reader (now co-writer) FlufflyToaster, so a big thanks to him!

An even bigger thanks to all who reviewed, you really made my day. Everytime I them the biggest smile on my face would appear!

So please, enjoy!

-Nadarhem

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

- Bilbo Baggins

Rays of gold spilled through the canopy, dimly lighting the ground beneath as Clara, the Doctor and the elves kept a steady, ground eating pace. Still, Legolas looked back with an urging look in his eyes. The wargs could appear behind them any second. Usually, the wood elves would move at least twice as fast, but with these humans joining them, stumbling and falling as they walked through the dense forest, the party was much slower.

The Doctor looked up to the tall, thick trees with their many branches with a mischievous look in his eyes. Clara saw it, and sighed. ''Oh go ahead, you might as well try''. Like an arrow fired from an elven bow, he sped off, nimbly jumping over roots as he went, towards an especially ancient oak. He scuttled up it with surprising speed, and quickly dissapeared in the high canopy, sending a flurry of leaves down, along with a few broken branches.

Legolas' eyes widened with surprise, he hadn't expected the so called ''Doctor'' to be so agile, or brave. Usually only a few chosen scouts frequented the high treetops, to look ahead and plan a path for the main group. As he recovered from this surprise, he looked around and surveyed the party.

Clara looked around uneasily, obviously not adjusted to her surroundings, and she clutched her hand tightly, knuckles white from the effort, apparently trying to hide her pain.

Legolas walked towards her, with a small worrying frown on his face. ''Are you alright?'' Clara looked up with surprise, seemingly only just noticing him. ''Yes, I'm fi-'' She stopped abruptly as she breathed in a sharp gasp of air. ''Okay, maybe I'm not fine. On the clearing I touched some thorny flower, and I hurt myself accidentally. I know it's silly, but it hurts a lot. Kinda funny how something so small can hurt right?'' She said with a small smile.

Legolas' frown deepened as he thought of what this meant. ''Show me your hand.'' His frown deepened even further as he expertly surveyed the cuts. He looked around, and scanned the forest floor as if searching for something. A small ''Aha!'' escaped his lips as his eyed locked on to a strange, leafy purple plant, sprouting from between the roots of a young birch. He walked toward it, plucked a leaf from its stem, and muttered some words in Elvish, sounding thankful. As he walked back he crushed the leaf in his hand, and squeezed the sap over her cuts. Rapidly the throbbing pain flowed out, in thick pulses, and after half a dozen heartbeats nothing remained but a pleasant, soothing feeling. She looked up and showed him a bright, toothy smile. ''Thanks'', she said. ''No problem'', he muttered before walking away. 'Wait! How did you know what flower to look for?' Clara said. He turned around and and smiled. 'You're not the only one to be tricked into trying to pick that flower.'

'So you like flowers to? Or were picking it for someone else?'

Legolas's smile faded and his eyes turned sad.

'I picked them for my mother.' Was all he said.

He turned around and walked away with his shoulder slumped and Clara wondered if she had said something wrong.

As Legolas regained his stern look and walked back towards the center of the party, a massive crashing sound got his attention. His head shot to the left, and at the same time nimble finger pulled out an arrow from his quiver, his bow already raised. As he pulled the feathers to the corner of his mouth, his eyes scanned for movement. A shout came from the trees, ''It's alright, I'm okay! Thanks for asking by the way.'' Clara let out a sound somewhere between happiness and embarassment. ''For gods sake Doctor! Could you stop scaring us to bits!'' He came bounding in from behind a large redwood, ignoring Clara. ''You guys have got to see this! I found some strange pink tree, and a colour-changing mushroom, and a-'' Clara quickly cut him off. ''Alright, alright, what about the spider?'' He frowned, and looked at her suspiciously. ''How did you know that?'' She shook her head, smiling slightly. ''You're kind of covered in webs, Doctor'' He looked down in surprise, as if he only just noticed the thick strands of webbing covering his clothes. He regained his excitement, and continued on. ''But she was HUGE! I tried to speak to her in Spider, but she didn't respond. She did try to hug me though, at least I'm fairly sure it was hugging. And she tried to kiss me! The nerve of some people, or spiders, in this case. Actually, in hindsight, maybe that was a stinger, and maybe she was trying to poison me, probably not though. Oh, and she was kind of chasing me after that, and she may be coming this way, you don't have to worry a bit though, she's very friendly.''

Everyone's eyes had long left the Doctor though, and had fixed on the gigantic mass moving through the shadows behind him.

Clara spoke in a soft, but urgent tone: ''Doctor, you might want to turn around.'' He raised an eyebrow, and whirled, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, and holding it ahead of him like a wand. ''I wouldn't come any closer if I were you'', he said in a confident tone. When she showed no sign of stopping, he dramatically flurried his sonic, which produced a high whine. The spider stopped, shook its head, and continued. Only 15 meters seperated them.

His eyebrow shot up again, and when the same flurry had no effect a second time, his eyes narrowed, and he opened his mouth to speak.

The sound was cut off in his throat when a single arrow, briefly flashing silver in the light, darted from Celith's bow, and hit the spider in one of its eyes.

It shrieked, and turned around in a whirlwind of legs, quickly dissapearing between the shadows of the forest.

The Doctor's head snapped around to look at Celith. ''Was that really necessary!? You could have killed it!'' Celith looked at him coolly, and simply said: ''Nonsense, that was one of the ancient spiders, and one of the few that haven't been tainted by the shadow, I just scared it off.''

The Doctor huffed, but remained silent, and the group carried on.

After some time, Legolas noticed Celith sending him a questioning glance, a small frown on his face, and motioning him to come closer with his head, his long silver hair flashing in the sun. As Legolas approached, his second in command spoke:

''No offense, but why did you tell these strangers your name? What if they were assassins, come here through vile magic, to kill you? And even if they aren't assassins, they're slowing us down massively. Again, no offense, my prince'' Annoyance flashed across Legolas' face. ''You know I hate it when you call me that.'' Celith smiled slightly, but quickly regained his stern appearance. The subliminal message in his words was obvious though, but Legolas would have none of it. ''We won't leave them behind Celith, too many humans have died already in Mirkwood forest. Besides, we're soldiers, protectors, and we'll protect any innocents, whatever the cost. We mustn't let the Shadow over this forest taint our minds and force us to leave innocents humans behind to die.'' Celith looked abashed, and was about to speak, when his words were cut off by a long howl, much closer than expected. The heads of the entire group shot up in unison, and some of them started for the bows on their backs, as they were stopped yet again, by the bone-chilling sound of a dozen howls, erupting all around them.

Thanks for reading and if you want to make my day again, then you would achieve that by leaving a review!

Till the next time!

-Nadarhem