✓ | Forget-Me-Not ~ Fili FanFiction / Hobbit FanFiction / Fili FF

「 Chapter 25 」

The guards pushed Ilèyn up the stairs.
Those elves who remained at the cells began to take the jackets and coats from the dwarfs and went deeper with them towards the cellar.
On the long walk through the palace, Tauriel joined the small group.
"Tauriel!" Ilèyn said angrily. "What's that supposed to be, where are you taking me?"
"Thranduil asked for you again." the Elf said and hurriedly strode alongside the dwarf. "He looked extremely... indignant."
"But what does he want from me, I can't help him. I won't either." Ilèyn said.
Tauriel was about to answer her when someone interrupted her and joined them.
"The King thinks about this a little differently, Ilèyn." Legolas said, who had now appeared next to the dwarf.
Tauriel on her right, Legolas on her left, guards at her back. Ilèyn frowned and looked grim.
"Great." she growled.
They were already on the plateau in front of Thranduil's throne. The king stood in front of the round staircase and watched the action.
The guards stopped and made Legolas, Tauriel, and Ilèyn step forward.
"You wanted to see her one more time, father." Legolas said and led the dwarf by one arm closer to the woodland king. Ilèyn pulled her arm out of Legolas' grasp and looked up at her uncle.
"Exactly." Thranduil said calmly, "That measly dwarf leader didn't thought it would be necessary to give me the information I was hoping to get." Ilèyn saw in the corner of her eye how Tauriel and Legolas exchanged a brief look.
"Are you sure you didn't lie to me?" the king asked in a razor-sharp voice.
"I don't know what you want from me, uncle." Ilèyn said "These disputes between you and Thorin Oakenshield are none of my business." It took Ilèyn a lot of effort not to start another heated discussion with her uncle.
"Execute me, banish me again, throw me to these spiders to eat, do what you want." She looked straight into Thranduil's blue eyes. "But don't lock me up."
"You..." Thranduil began to answer, but one of his guardsmen rushed over and interrupted him.

"Hîr Thranduil!"
The eyes of the four present flew to the Elf warrior.
"The dwarves escaped from their cells! We can't find them!"
The archer was frightened. She had to catch up with the company immediately.
Instantly Tauriel dashed off, three guards joined her.
Ilèyn looked at Legolas, who nodded briefly to her and ran off at that moment.
"Ilèyn! Dartho!" Thranduil shouted in foreboding.
The dwarf did not hear, attached herself directly to Legolas' heels and left her astonished uncle behind.
"She hasn't changed a bit." he growled to himself.
While Tauriel and the guard ran into the basement, Legolas and Ilèyn ran straight to the main gate.
"What you up to?" the dwarf called.
The warrior did not answer.
The two reached the palace entrance, the gate was already open. Legolas stepped onto the stone bridge and looked down the river. Ilèyn followed his gaze and saw several barrels being carried away by the water. Thorin and his followers sat in some of these barrels. Ilèyn couldn't believe her eyes. A guard leader appeared next to them.
Legolas immediately ordered to give the order to close the gate. The elf obeyed and blew a wooden horn. Its cutting sound penetrated down the river.
Ilèyn jerked her head and looked in panic at the small border bridge that led across the river. The elves posted on it took a defensive position, a small iron gate closed and prevented the dwarves in the barrels from their breakneck onward journey.
"Let them go, Legolas!" Ilèyn hurried to the blond elf with quick steps. "Please let them go!"
Legolas saw the despair in the dwarf's eyes, coupled with the fear for her companions.
He started to wrestle with his conscience. He wasn't going to disappoint his father because of his cousin. Wasn't he?
Ilèyn turned over and over, looking down at the border bridge. In the meantime the barrels had built up and the dwarfs were stuck in the narrow channel.
The Elven warriors were about to move when one of them tipped over without warning. With an arrow in his back, the soldier fell between the dwarves in the Mirkwood River.
Behind him the ghastly rifleman jumped onto the walls of the bridge.
Orcs.
Ilèyn's eyes widened.
"Legolas!" she roared.
The Elf spun around and saw the orcs in front of his eyes as they had already slaughtered the border guards.
"Come on!" Ilèyn called on and ran over the bridge to the bank of the river. There she climbed one of the trees over a large root, the branches of which protruded far over the river. Legolas was close behind her.
In the corner of her eye, Ilèyn recognized Tauriel's figure, who had left the cellar and now, together with the palace guard, was also in pursuit.
Ilèyn turned her gaze to the front, where a whole group of orcs had already jumped out of the bushes and immediately pounced on the defenseless dwarfs.
Ilèyn ran as fast as she could. She felt the air of Mirkwood revive her old hunting and fighting instincts. Even as a bounty hunter, she had never lost it, but the forest turned her back into the elf she was once trained to be.