Mel was thrown roughly into a small wooden cell that resembled a giant wicker basket. There were already five or six women stuffed into the cage, wide-eyed and filthy. The stench of human excrement and bodies nearly made Mel retch. Ella soon followed, unconscious, she rolled lifelessly across the dirt floor, her burgundy curls matted with blood. Mel rushed the door with a feral scream but it was too late. Their captors had shut and locked the door before she even reached it, leaving them all in dusky darkness broken by small slivers of light peeking through the gaps in the wooden walls.

Mel scrambled over to Ella and pulled her into her lap. She pushed her hair away from the large gash on her head. They had tried to orchestrate an escape and it had ended terribly. Now Ella was less than useful and Mel was starting to panic.

"Shit, come on, Ell," she muttered to herself as she tore the sleeve off her tunic. She wrapped it around Ella's head the best she could, trying to staunch the bleeding. "Hey!" Mel suddenly became aware that there were several other women in the cage with her.

"Hey, hey, what is this? Where are we?" she asked, eyes flicking from one woman to the next. No one answered. "Do any of you understand me?" Her voice was higher than usual, shaking at the end of her sentence.

"We've been taken by the dunlendings," a small girl with stringy, yellow hair piped up from the very back of the cage. "We are far from Rohan, west of the gap." The young girl inched closer to Ella and Mel, her bright blue eyes staring curiously at Ella.

"I am Heulyn," she said softly.

"Mel."

"I am of Rohan, do you hail from Gondor?"

"Sure," Mel said, distractedly, she pushed her fingers to Ella's neck, her pulse was blessedly steady.

"As I thought, your accent is very odd," Heulyn made herself comfortable on the ground next to Mel. "I have never been to Gondor." Mel wasn't paying attention to the young girl as she rambled on. She was trying to devise a way for them to escape. Ella, however, needed to wake up first.

Heulyn was about to start on another keel of babble but her mouth snapped shut. Her eyes widened and she started to shake as she hid herself behind Mel. Mel looked up, wondering what had spooked the young girl. Someone was approaching the wicker basket they were held in. The other occupants of the cage shrank as far back as they could, their eyes cast away from the door or all together shut. The lumbering figure stopped at the cell door, yellow cast eyes peered in and a black bladed dagger was slowly dragged across the closely woven sticks of the door. He spoke in a gruff voice, words that Mel couldn't understand, not loud enough to be threatening but the intonation was there. The glint in his dark eyes said all that needed to be said. He ended his speech by slamming his hand against the bars, eliciting a few screeches from the women inside.

"What was that?" Mel asked as Heulyn crawled out from behind her.

"We call him Bwystfil," Heulyn whispered, her eyes flicking from the door to the ground and back again. "He is an awful beast." Mel's mouth set in a hard line and she laid Ella on the ground.

"We have to get out of here," she said. She gently smacked Ella's face, trying to wake her. "Ella please, wake up." She hovered over her little sister, hoping desperately to hear her annoying voice. Suddenly a pale hand pushed her away.

"What are you doing?" Mel's voice rose an octave. One of the other women that was occupying the cage had moved to sit beside Ella. She took one hand and covered Ella's mouth, the other came to close around her nose.

"Stop!" Mel tried to lunge at the woman to stop her from suffocating her little sister but just as she pushed the woman away Ella came to life, gasping for air.

"Ella!" Mel caught her flailing sister, nearly weeping in relief.

"Mel?" Ella's voice was raspy and slurred. "What happened? Where are we?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Mel asked helping Ella to sit upright.

"Getting cold-cocked by a Dothraki wanna be." Ella grumbled lifting a hand to her wounded head. "Wait, where is June?"

"She made it to the forest, I think," Mel said quietly. "Hopefully she makes it to Lothlorien."

"She will," Ella said confidently. "She will. So... where are we?"

"West of the mountains, near Dunland." The woman who revived Ella spoke.

"Great, not anywhere I want to be," Ella said resignedly.

"What is your name?" Mel asked of the woman. She was ignored.

"Her name is Brynmor," Huelyn "She is of Snowbourn as am I."

"Hush child, you do not tell such things to those we do not know!" Brynmor chastised the young girl, her brow drawn deeply in agitation.

"I only wanted to thank you, Brynmor," Mel said, shooting Heulyn a look to stop her from arguing further. The woman only inclined her head solemnly.

"Now, we really need to get out of here."

"There's no escaping them, they will only kill us, or worse," Heulyn said with a shiver.

"Stop that nonsense," Brynmor chastised her.

"'Tis but the truth!" Heulyn crossed her arms and turned away from Brynmor.

Ella looked around her, she took stock of the dirty, fear stricken, faces. All women, all fair haired and young. This was far worse than she had first thought. These women were beaten, stained, abused. Worst of all they were scared. It would be very difficult to convince them they could escape. Unscathed or not.

"Mel," Ella rocked to her knees and pulled Mel's arm, dragging her away from the more occupied corner of the cell. "We can't leave them."

"Ella, we have the best chance if we escape on our own," Mel said quietly.

"Mel…" Ella fixed her older sister with a look that rivaled their mother. "We are not leaving these women."

"Ella…"

"Mel…"

"Fine." Mel conceded. "They're your responsibility though."

Ella gave her a look that suggested it would be an easy task. She crawled back to the group of women, more were showing their curiosity now, their wide, unblinking eyes eerie in the dim light.

"Hey, hi, I'm Ella," She addressed the entire cell, smiling warmly as she would. The blood caked to the side of her face dampened the effect a little. "We have to break out of here and find our sister. It's not going to be easy, but we would like for all of you to join us. We don't want to leave anyone behind."

"It's useless, we won't get far before they capture us again." Another woman spoke up, her voice high pitched but meek.

"Yes we will," Mel said, scooting forward on her knees. "But we don't know this area nearly as well as all of you. We need your help."

There was little time wasted. The women held hostage by the dunlendings were just desperate enough to escape. The threat of what horrors lied with the wildmen drove them to cooperate with Mel's demands. They formed a plan as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the walls of the crudely made cell were stronger than anyone expected. Even their entire strength could not budge the thick wicker beams. They were set upon stone so digging under was out of the question and the dunlendings cruelty was too profound to fake any sort of emergency, they'd be ignored no doubt. Byrnmor told them the men often took women from the cage in the evenings and they were given what barely passed as food once a day. So they waited.

As the sun began to set, the distant sound of horses, men, and even the laughter of children echoed around the intensely silent cell. They all waited with baited breath, watching closely for someone to open the cell door.

The longer they waited the more intense the pain in Ella's head grew. Her stomach was churning without any substance in it and she could barely turn her head without the world spinning. She watched Mel as she napped in the corner of the cell. Her hair was longer now, shaggy and unkempt, it flopped over her face in an almost comical way, hiding her ruddy, sunburned cheeks.

There was a commotion from the front of the cell, some of the younger women, hardly older than Heulyn, had been keeping a close watch.

"Someone is coming!" Heulyn whispered with urgency. Everyone moved quickly into the agreed upon positions. Ella slapped Mel who came awake with a jerk just as the shadow of the man eclipsed the door. Mel was on her feet as quick as a hare, ready for the assault. They were all huddled into the front most corners of the cell, out of sight of anyone who simply looked into the door. The sound of the key scraping the lock open was enough to send adrenaline fueled shivers down Ella's spine… or did she have a fever?

A woman next to her trembled, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, before Ella could reassure her the guard, reasonably confused by their apparent absence, stepped inside.

What should have been a feral, screaming, wild fight by these imprisoned women was a silent attack. Mel brought her sinewy arm around the huge man's neck, cutting off his air supply. Quickly as they could the women converged on them, disarming him. Brynmor held the keys in one hand, his dagger in the other. She was panting, a wild look of horror and pain in her eyes. With a twisted grimace she ran the blade into his belly just as he collapsed from Mel's choke hold.

"Quickly," Mel ushered the women from the cell. They wound their way around to the back and down the hill that merged into the waiting mountains. As the last woman left the cell Mel looked for Ella. She was standing exactly where she had been before the assault, staring at the man Brynmor had killed. "Ella."

Mel grabbed her sisters arm and pulled her out the door, jogging to catch up with the others. By some miracle they made it down the hill and into the shadows of the mountain side. They were safely hidden in the boulders and crags when the first commotion started from below. Men were shouting and hoof beats drummed against the air. They were headed in the wrong direction, another lucky development.

"Keep going," Mel demanded when the women stopped to look back at the source of the sound.

"Where, exactly, are we going?" Asked Heulyn, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Dunharrow." Brynmor said from the front of their group. She never looked back, her face set in determined lines. They could only trust her guidance.

June's tears had finally ceased. Her face was tight with dried tears and her mouth was drawn down in an exaggerated frown. She couldn't feel her rear end anymore and her legs were cramping from being held in the same position for so long. She couldn't will herself to move though. She stared directly in front of her, blinking only when she couldn't stand the dryness of her eyes. Her chest hurt, her body hurt, her soul hurt. She had never known such pain and such numbness at the same time. Nothing could convince her to move from the spot she had settled into. The warm roots of the ancient tree she sat against would be a perfect place to rest for eternity. She was perfectly content with this, so when she pushed herself from the ground and took three unsteady steps it surprised her. She had no knowledge of this place. Only its name. Fangorn. Entwood is what Margaret had called it. Something out of her nightmares no doubt. She stopped, wobbled on aching legs and numb feet, then stepped farther into the forest.

This place was familiar. The world was covered in green, in moss, in lichen; rich, emerald, and velvet. The trees were like elderly men, bent and wrinkled. Some were grumpy, others pleasantly excited to have company. Was she anthmophizing the trees? She shook her head, her feet carrying her onward, towards glittering shafts of afternoon light that filtered through the canopy of green above. The ground was soft but uneven, at some point June had pulled her boots off and was now walking through the plush forest carpet barefoot. It felt freeing, the earth connected directly to her feet, like taking a cool shower on a hot day.

Critters could be heard now. Scurrying, chattering, chirping, and whistling among the branches and through the forest floor. She could feel them somehow, their heart beats, through her feet. Everything was thrumming with the forest, living, connected. June stopped and blinked; her feet sinking into the mossy ground. She felt like she was losing her mind, or maybe it was some sort of stress induced hallucination, a fever dream. The world was hazy, laced in golden light that spotted the forest floor, bouncing down from the canopy and shifted whenever the wind blew. The wind never reached her though, the air was still and almost suffocating. She never saw the scurrying creatures that seemed to be following her, she only hoped it was squirrels… The oddest thing was the trees. The trees were shifting. Moving so she had no choice but to follow the path they laid for her. She choked back a sob that was mingled with laughter and shook her head. Of course the forest was moving. She shrugged, unwilling to admit she was in some sort of enchanted forest, and kept walking down the preordained path.

The farther she walked the less reality the forest held. She wandered through a small clearing where it seemed a rather large tree had fallen across her path, determined to keep going she walked the long way around. As she came to the otherside, where the forest opened once more to her, she spotted the rugged surface of the tree. By some form of Pareidolia the rough bark twisted into a gnarled face; eyes firmly shut, as if it were sleeping. Casting only a brief, wary, glance to the face in the tree she followed where the forest lead her. Over a river, down a steep hill, through a thicket of berry brambles she gladly took the sweet fruit from. That was a mistake, for it seemed the berries were not something to be trifled with. Her tongue went numb first then her vision swam. The trees, mocking her with singing, windy laughter, pushed her farther on.

She stumbled onward until she couldn't even feel her legs anymore. She couldn't feel anything. She reached up to her face with fingers stained crimson from the berries. Or was that blood? She couldn't tell. Suddenly the ground was above her and sky below and everything seemed insignificant from this angle. June blinked twice, a thousand multi-legged insects converged on her, or that is what it felt like. She couldn't see anymore. She was falling….

Down…

Down…

Down…

Until darkness seemed a welcoming home.

Light grew in her dim vision, lighter and brighter until all she could see was warm golden light. It was comforting. She didn't want to spoil the ambient cocoon she had fallen into but a persistent and rather annoying picking at her left hand needed to be addressed. Slowly June rolled her head to the left and and peeled her eyes open. A small sparrow-like bird with patches of red and purple on its wings was sitting in her open palm, occasionally pecking at her fingers. June arched her eyebrow and wrinkled her nose.

"What are you doing?" She asked, her voice was hoarse. The bird cocked its head to the side, hopped up her arm a little ways, and then took flight into the trees. June groaned and tried to shake the hazy feeling out of her mind. She looked to her right and above her, she was laying on the forest floor, a shaft of sunlight pooling around her. She wasn't sure how long she had been asleep but the chill in the air and chipper bird calls indicated that it was once again morning. She pushed herself up and as she did the blanket of woven pine boughs fell away from her.

"What the hell…" June curiously picked the blanket of tree limbs up. It was unnaturally soft and smelled less like pine and more like patchouli and peppermint. Exasperated by the increasingly strange events, she put her head in her hands. It was then she felt the stems and leaves of a flower crown that was woven into her hair. She froze, fingers just barely touching the delicate blossoms on the circlet of living plants. She pressed her lips together and blinked a few times. A bubble of laughter broke through her sealed lips. She jumped at the noise, not quite convinced it came from her. She laughed again, the pealing burst of erratic humor shaking her body. Clearly she was having some sort of break down. The absurdity of everything that had been happening in her life crashed down on her as she sat beneath the old trees, crying with insane laughter.

"I'm losing my ever-loving mind," she spoke to no one. She wiped the tears that spilled down her cheeks on the backs of her hands and pushed the peculiar blanket off of her. Her body seemed overly refreshed and her legs twitched to entice movement. She needed to keep going, get through the forest of trickery and find help for her sisters.

Her sisters.

Swiftly June got to her feet, anger and panic boiling in her chest once again. She pulled her boots back on and in some futile attempt to reclaim her self awareness she flung the blanket of twigs upon her back like a cloak. The crown of flowers all but forgotten upon her brow.

She raced as quickly as the forest would allow her, the faster she went though, the more angry the trees became. They lashed out at her with gnarled limbs streaking her face with thin scratches and tearing the fabric of her tunic. She pushed through the tangled brambles, thorns pricking her legs and hands, clawing desperately at each new patch of sunlight she came to. Night fell again and she didn't have the heart to stop. She kept on, ignoring the roaring sounds in the distance and the ache in her legs and lungs. Moonlight spotted the ground before her, the path long gone. She jumped from one glimmering blue pool to the next, desperate to chase the light to a new dawn.

Just as she thought she could go no further, just as her legs began to tremble and go weak, the edge of the forest broke open and the silver painted landscape gleamed like a gilded painting. A sob bubbled to her lips and she stumbled through the treeline and breathed the cool night air. Her knees finally gave way and she rolled through the long thick grass. She came to a stop on her back, her breathing sharp and erratic. Her eyes reflected the dancing midnight stars only briefly before they fell shut and she was taken by sleep.