"The things we love destroy us every time, lad. Remember that."
Fairies are one of the oldest race of beings in Arda -once they called Numenór home- but Arethusa watched as the sea claimed the island from the helm of a ship as the survivors fled to...
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BEORN had been kind enough to allow the company to use his ponies to make it to the edge of the Greenwood, through open plains they rode hard and swift, Arethusa was in the lead, she knew these paths better than most. On a distant hill, there stood the great bear, watching them and the horizon for orcs. The dense trees were in the distance but something was wrong, she could feel it. A disease of evil. She was the last to dismount, Mazey whinnied, understanding that now she had to return to Beorn's homestead with the other ponies.
The entrance to the path was like a sort of arch leading into a gloomy tunnel made by two great trees that leaned together, too old and strangled with ivy and hung with lichen to bear more than a few blackened leaves. Both she and Gandalf approached the Elven Gate, only she did not turn back when the wizard did. "No, this can't be. The Greenwood of Old." Arethusa rested her hand on the bark of one of the trees, a darkness consumed it; it was dying. The entire forest was dying. "It's sick." To the left of the gate was a statue, now overgrown with vines and in some places cracked from the weather. She recognized the likeness immediately, it was Ithilwen, Thranduil's wife. She had adored the elf when they had met in happier times, but now even her stone statue was crumbling and in a strange way, dying.
The wizard had come back to her side, he looked down at her before reaching out and clearing the vines away from the statue. Arethusa stumbled back, her hand coming to her throat as if she could not breathe. Ithilwen's memorial had been desecrated, marked with a red Flaming Eye of Sauron. Gandalf urged her out of the forest for the moment and Thorin approached the fairy, his hand moved to rest on her cheek, he looked worried. Gandalf was leaving, what she had just seen was enough to tell her it was for a good cause.
Her gaze was almost blank when she turned back to the forest, then she remembered the name that someone had called the forest though she could not believe them. Mirkwood. "Arethusa, you will be alright, yes?" She looked to Thorin and nodded, taking up a spot behind Dwalin and in front of Balin. They walked in single file. Nothing was familiar, the path was covered with leaves, broken and cracked in some places, other areas were becoming distorted by the roots of trees. The path itself was narrow and wound in and out among the trunks. Soon the light at the gate was like a little bright hole far behind, and the quiet was so deep that their feet seemed to thump along while all the trees leaned over them and listened.
Arethusa stumbled along, she fiddled with the gem on her necklace and as if her mother's voice was trapped within she was instantly grounded and with clear thought. She remained on the path, but the others had gone astray. Panic seized her heart, she could not see the company anywhere, but she heard a shout. She couldn't be sure whose voice it was, but she followed, hoping that her senses were well enough intact that she would be led to them.
"Thorin!? Bilbo?!" Arethusa picked up a leather pouch that she had seen one of the dwarves carrying. A tobacco pouch. Looking back up to the forest she screamed, her balance faltering, the fairy fell at the sight of a wraith, it took the form of her mother but it was horribly disfigured. She curled away from the ghostly hand that extended towards her with mangled fingers, pointing to where the necklace lie hidden beneath the coarse fabric of her tunic, nestled between her breasts, then it was clawing and hissing. Arethusa squeezed her eyes shut and tried to block out the sickening screech of her mother's voice as it chanted.
