A/N: Ummm… hi? I know it's been bloody long time since March, and I can't really offer any reason for being this badly late other than the usual "this chapter was a royal pain in the ass", I can't even blame the burnout anymore, since the huge amount of editing this chapter went through, if nothing else, has proved I've got over that. At first I got stuck because this chapter simply didn't work when written from Sara's POV, so after a while I gave up trying to make it work, scrubbed nearly half of it and wrote it again from another point of view, so there's a lot of Thorin coming in this chapter. You've been warned. After that it worked better, but even then I could find things that I've written ages ago and didn't like anymore. Like how crudely I had written the Mirkwood Elves to be THE villains. There were two OC elves who were supposed to make an appearance, and let me say, they were very, very, OOC. There was, of course, explanation for why they acted so un-elf-likely, but I could only grimace at what my past self had written and ended up erasing most of it. And then I of course had to write something to replace those erased parts (some of which were in this chapters and some in the chapters to follow). So, all in all, this chapter has annoyed me to no end, but it's out now and hopefully there will be a lot of chapters coming in between this and the next one that will end up annoying me to no end :D

Sara's POV

Sarainya…

I turned around in a slow circle, taking a look at my surroundings. Or trying to, as everywhere around me was simply impenetrable darkness.

Sarainya…

I turned around again, trying to get any sense of direction for that voice, but it seemed to be coming from everywhere, as if the darkness itself was whispering to me.

Sarainya…

"Who are you?" I asked out loud, and I could swear that the darkness was dampening my voice. "Show yourself."

Laughter, dark and sinister, seemed to echo in the emptiness around me.

You can run, Sarainya Vostovan, but you can't hide.

"I'm not the one hiding here. So show yourself, whoever you are, and I'll show you that I'm not running either."

"Sara?" That voice seemed different from the first, warmer. More solid. It was coming from a certain direction.

The laughter echoed around me again, just as sinister as the first time.

You resist. You will always resist. But in the end, you will kneel.

"I will never kneel." I growled into the darkness around me. "Never, and to no one. Show yourself and I'll prove it to you."

As you wish.

Suddenly the black emptiness turned into a blinding, fiery red light.

"Sara!"

I blinked my eyes open to find Thorin hovering over me.

"Sara", he sighed in obvious relief. "Are you alright?"

"I… yes." I whispered, deeming that I didn't know myself what was the truth. This was the first time the darkness had seemed to be talking to me; before this, my recent nightmares had consisted of me standing in darkness, listening to a disembodied voice whispering my name. Thorin gave me that look, but in the end helped me up without saying anything about it.

Then I realised I was partly covered in some sticky substance.

And suddenly I remembered what had happened.

"The spiders…" I whispered quietly.

"…are somewhat busy at the moment." Thorin finished for me. "But we've got to move. Fast."

I nodded and allowed him to drag me after him, not really paying attention to where he was leading me and the rest of our group.

Thorin's POV

As we hurried through the forest, I kept giving Sara worried glances. I had already been worried for her, her uncharacteristically violent outburst at Nori had made sure of that, but even without that this most recent incident would've been enough reason to worry; Sara was a slow-to-wake kind of person, but it meant that she would wake up fairly easily and be groggy for a while before her mind caught up with her.

After Bilbo had released us from the spider webs, she had been in a not-quite-awake kind of state, not responding to any attempts to wake her up. It could've perhaps been blamed on spider venom, since Sara was small in stature, and as a human her body probably processed the venom differently to a dwarf. With the way she had slightly trashed around and mumbled something incoherent under her breath, though, I was more willing to bet my coin on her having had some kind of a hallucination.

Now that she was awake, however, things were going well enough.

Until the spiders came back.

I could tell the moment Sara noticed their return, could tell it from the panic that began clawing its way into her mind again.

This was not good.

"Come on Sara, they're still just spiders. Just ignore their size." And the fact that these bastards would want to eat you.

"Doesn't help", she whispered in a trembling voice, "when one's afraid of even the tiniest spiders."

Well, she did have a point.

But we couldn't afford to have her lose control, not to panic nor… something else.

It could've been my imagination, born of my earlier worry for Sara's state of mind, but for a moment as she had finally regained consciousness it had looked like something had flashed in her eyes. It had been gone so fast that it really could've been my imagination, or the forest toying with us again. But if it wasn't… if it had been real… then Sara was perhaps in greater danger than any of us – save perhaps for Gandalf, who was not here – understood.

And with everything else that has happened recently, I found it really hard trying to convince myself that my worry was for naught.

Which was one more reason to get out of this blasted forest sooner rather than later.

After killing yet another spider, I managed to quickly check how Sara was doing. Even though she was far from calm enough to channel, she had her sword drawn and, for now, that was enough. With the number of spiders coming at us diminishing, it was finally starting to look like we were getting out of trouble.

And then the Elves turned up.

The newly arrived group eliminated the remaining spiders with that annoying grace characteristic to their race, and once that was dealt with turned their weapons at us. The elf that came to halt right in front of me, pointing his arrow right at my face as he did so, bore so striking resemblance to Thranduil that he could only be the Elvenking's son and, realising that, a strategical part of my mind briefly wondered if I could remember the elf prince's name and if the information could benefit us somehow. However, just like we had failed to meet face to face before this moment, his name too kept eluding me.

"Do not think I won't kill you, dwarf." The elf prince said. "It'd be my pleasure."

That was when the mayhem began. The elf prince suddenly flew back as if struck by an invisible force and the arrow he had had notched on his bow flew past my face so close that I could feel the fletching brush against my cheek. Seconds later several other elves flew back in a similar manner, while yet others began searching for the source of this sudden mayhem with alarmed faces.

The said source, Sara, had chosen to forego the flamboyant gestures that often accompanied her channelling saidar, staring straight ahead with a cold and calculated frown on her face instead. A part of me was glad that she had managed to collect herself enough to be able to channel, and other part was elated by the fact that she had managed to throw the elves off balance so spectacularly.

But then there was that small part of my mind that had been worried for her state of mind ever since we set foot into this accursed forest. The part that currently, annoying as it was to admit it, was concerned for the elf prince's presence; Thranduil would certainly not rest until he had hunted each of us down if Sara snapped and slew his son in her killing spree.

As if she had been able to sense my thoughts – and she actually might have, in a way – her eyes met mine and she gave me a small, reassuring nod. Glad that she had not lost her senses, I turned around with intent to gather our friends together and use the distraction Sara was creating to slip away from the elves, but barely five heartbeats later sharp pain resonated through the Warder bond and I immediately spun around again, searching Sara with my gaze.

She had not made any sound, but her face was scrunched up in pain, and in the next moment the total of five elves jumped at her, blocking her from my view. When the elves stepped away again, with the exception of one, I could see that her hands were tied behind her back and that there was an arrow sticking out of her right arm just above the elbow.

Pain gave way to cold fury on Sara's face, and suddenly I was struck by a thought that this could in no way end well if it was allowed to continue. And so, in a matter of mere seconds, I made my decision.

"Sanghivasha, imbikh."

The words seemed to have the desired effect, when fury turned into surprise on Sara's face. And on faces of many of our companions, for that matter. That didn't come as a surprise, but since I was certain that these elves couldn't understand Khuzdul and the little lessons I had been able to give Sara meant that she could, speaking in front of the elves was preferable to revealing to them anything about Sara that they could use against her.

In the next moment, however, the surprised look slipped away from Sara's face when the elf that had stayed close to her knocked her unconscious.

"Now was that really necessary?" I snapped, directing my words at the elf prince who still stood close to me. The blonde elf turned to exchange some words in Elvish with the guard before nodding and turning away, completely ignoring me and my question.

"Search them", he ordered, and so it was that Orcrist was taken away from me. The elf's eyes widened ever so slightly when he realised what blade he was holding, and a brief, smug smirk appeared on my own face at the sight.

"Legolas, hîr nín", the guard addressed the elf prince – so that's what his name was – who accepted the offered blade with a look of awe on his face. After muttering something in that language of his he pointed Orcrist at me.

"Where did you get this?"

"It was given to me."

By the look he gave me I knew he didn't believe me. And when he spoke he only proved what I had already guessed.

"Not just a thief, but a liar as well." He said, and then gave an order in Sindarin that caused other elves to begin herding us deeper into the forest like a flock of unruly sheep.

Oh yes, Legolas was definitely his father's son.

"Thorin, where's Bilbo?" Bofur asked quietly as the elves ushered him past me, and it was in that moment that I realised that Bilbo indeed wasn't anywhere to be seen. The thought of the peace-loving hobbit lost alone in this accursed forest was one that definitely didn't sit well with me.

There was nothing any of us could do about it, though, except to hope that Bilbo hadn't ended up as spider food.

My talk with Thranduil – polite people might've called it an audience, but in truth it was an interrogation – didn't go well. Not that it had been expected, with the history of our families, but I could see in my mind's eye the disapproving frown Balin's face would've adopted if he had been present.

Nevertheless, I couldn't bring myself to regret my stubbornness as the guards dragged me deep into their prison. There was just no way that I would give in to some arrogant elf's attempts at blackmailing me.

So now I sat alone in a dark cell deep in the elven prison, my only companion the small bundle of Sara's emotions in the back of my mind – although that, too, was… blank, for the lack of better word, since she had not yet regained her consciousness.

Thinking of Sara made me remember the arrow wound these elves had given her as their welcoming gift. I could only hope that they would have the decency to treat her wounded arm properly; we had already had to learn the hard way about the quirky way Sara's body reacted to infections and, for her sake, I wished that the elves wouldn't let the situation go so far that they'd receive a similar nasty surprise.

As the hours ticked by, though, I began to lose what little crumbles of faith I had for Elves, as all I could sense through the Warder bond was the dull ache of Sara's arm. There had been no sign of small, sharper twinges of pain that usually accompanied cleaning and binding of a wound.

But what truly angered me was the way they treated Sara when she actually regained her consciousness.

Confusion and anger had been what had alerted me to the fact that Sara, in her own cell somewhere north-east of my own, was waking up. Just a couple of heartbeats later she felt alarmed, after which followed a sensation that she was choking on something.

Stuck in my cell as I was, I could only hope that it was simply a dose of drugs that Sara was refusing to drink.

The whole situation couldn't have lasted for more than couple of minutes at most, but for me it felt like an eternity. Afterwards her feelings returned to that state of blankness from before, which suggested that I had been correct about the drugs.

So I sat alone in my cell, the only concrete proof of time's passage being when a guard brought in some food. The meal was no rich by any means, but after being lost in the forest for Mahal only knew how long even that meagre meal smelled delicious.

Nevertheless, my pride still had me make sure that the guard had left before digging in. These elves would not get so much as a "thank you" from me, especially not so long as they kept treating Sara the way they did.

One surprise fit into the day, too, when Thranduil's son suddenly turned up outside my cell.

"So", he began, "you turned down Father's offer for a deal."

"You have a very interesting definition for a 'deal'." I pointed out. "Last time I checked, 'give me the Gems of Lasgalen or rot here for the rest of your lives' sounded like extortion to me."

"He offered you his help in return for those gems."

"His help?" I scoffed. "Tell me, Prince Legolas, when has your father ever helped my kind? Did he help us when the dragon came? Did he help us when we came to his doorstep starving, freezing and with no home to call our own?"

"It is true I'm not proud of all Father's decisions, but –"

"Indeed?" There was no way I could've kept the heavy edge of sarcasm out of my voice even if I had wanted to. "Because the way you have been treating our female companion implies to me that you're no different from your father."

The elf prince's only outward reaction to my comment was a slight raise of one of his eyebrows.

"She attacked us using magic", he replied after a moment of consideration. "Until we can be sure that she is no threat to our kingdom, we need to keep her sedated."

"And that justifies almost drowning her in the said sedatives?"

Once again his only outward reaction was one raised eyebrow.

"I assure you, my guards treat her just as fairly as they have treated you." He replied before turning to walk away.

"How's her arm?" I asked his retreating back. "Since it was one of the men under your command who thought it such a bright idea to shoot an arrow through her arm, I had hoped that you'd make it your responsibility to see that it was treated too. Alas, it seems that I have once again been shown that any faith put in the Elves is wasted effort."

The elf prince stopped abruptly when I spoke, but he didn't turn around, nor did he offer any kind of reply before walking away.

A/N: "Sanghivasha, imbikh" is as crude and rudimentary translation as they come. Sanghivasha means "perfect treasure", and imbikh means "do nothing". So, in this context, Thorin is basically saying Dwarven version of "honey, don't even think of doing anything (stupid)". "Hîr nín", on the other hand, means "my lord" in Sindarin.