A Better Place - The Hobbit Fanfiction

Eighth Entry - Spiders and Captors

I was one of the first ones up the next day, unfortunately. I was better equipped to deal with hunger than the dwarves and poor Bilbo, but that didn't do much for my mood. What did cheer me, at least temporarily, was when Bombur rolled over of his own accord and sat up. "Where are we?" he wanted to know, utterly baffled at our surroundings.

"Bombur!" I exclaimed. "You're awake!"

"Well yes," he said, looking doubtfully at me. "But who are you?"

I stared at him. "Oh hell." I reached out a foot and nudged Oin in the shoulder. "Oin, wake up. Bombur's awake."

Oin had been perfectly inclined to ignore me until he heard that, at which point he scrambled up and faced his fellow dwarf, face wanting to show happiness but wary because of my worried tone. "Bombur?"

"Oin," Bombur greeted, still looking around uneasily. "Where are we?" He looked askance at me again, but my explanation could come later.

The others were waking now, and besieging Bombur with questions even as Bombur besieged them. The portly dwarf didn't remember anything of the last weeks, or even the last months. Last he could recall he had been feasting at Bilbo's house at the start of their journey. He wasn't at all pleased to have woken up after such a lovely long dream of feasting as he'd had, particularly when we had to tell him there was no more food.

"Why ever did I wake up!" he cried. "I was having such beautiful dreams. I dreamed I was walking in a forest rather like this one, only lit with torches on the trees and lamps swinging from the branches and fires burning on the ground; and there was a great feast going on, going on for ever. A woodland king was there with a crown of leaves, and there was merry singing, and I could not count or describe the things there were to eat or drink...."

"You need not try," Thorin grumbled. "In fact if you can't talk about something else, you had better be silent. We are quite annoyed with you enough as it is. If you hadn't waked up, we should have left you to your idiotic dreams in the forest; you are no joke to carry even after weeks of short commons."

So on we went. Our only chance of surviving now was to find the end of the forest, and that we could not do while we sat idly by. I trudged with my hunger in silence, but Bombur wailed at the weakness of his wobbly legs and the others all bellowed at him that his legs could take care of themselves now that they had done the last week's work for them, and no one was much patient with his complaints.

We slept in a jumbled line again that night, because there was no other way. Distant strains of laughter like dark, oily ribbons kept me awake longer than I normally would have had to wait for sleep to find me, but eventually it did, and I relinquished myself gratefully.

I was no longer aware of myself when I stood up. My feet were far away and the rest of me felt like water. Somewhere in my consciousness I saw that there was a ring of flickering lights off and to the left of the path, white and glowing. I could hear flutters of song and chatter. Their ethereal voices called as though to me alone.

"Mabyn!" Bofur was calling my name, but I couldn't hear him. There was no one between me and the lights, just a few trees, and when I lifted my foot there was nothing to stop me from going to them.

"Mabyn! Stop!" He was cursing as he tried to hop through the dwarves between us without robbing them of their highly coveted sleep. I heard him stumble but his panic didn't register with me. I was three steps off the path already. The dwarves Bofur had woken were erupting into grumbles and curses of their own, but as soon as they saw the cause of Bofur's desperation they joined him in their efforts to call me back.

"Mabyn! Mabyn, come back!"

"Mabyn, stop!"

But I couldn't hear them. The lights were still sparkling like a twist of stars through the trees ahead of me.