A Promise- a LOTR Fanfiction (Legolas) ❤︎ ✓

Chapter 8: We Cannot Get Out

EDITED 23/07/16

The darkness is unsettling and smothering, like a thick blanket held down at all four corners of a bed, unyielding and trying to suffocate you. It spreads across the caves, causing the lightly coloured hairs on my arm to stand on end.

Not knowing where we are frightens me, and whether or not we are safe. If we get ambushed by the goblins that are possibly still here, we won't know until it's too late.

Gandalf's staff casts off dim light, which I am grateful for, but whenever he moves, I see shadows dance on the stone walls. Sometimes I see shapes, dancing to the sound of our footsteps rather than a drum. It's unsettling to say the least. I can feel the tension in the air, making everyone jump slightly when something moves along the wall, rather it be a beetle or a shadow. The hobbits scuttle behind Gandalf nervously, glancing a couple times down into the shadowy chasm below us out of curiosity. 

We are walking in silence, on a narrow cliff. I know there is a long drop below, so I don't look down.

Instead, I focus on Boromir's shield in front of me.

"The wealth of Moria was not in gold or jewels, but Mithril." Gandalf mutters, touching a silvery vein on the rock face on our left. He turns towards the ledge and tilts his staff downwards, peering over the edge. I suddenly feel the urge to look, and see what's down there. I cautiously stick my head just a little bit past the drop of stone, seeing that we are treading on the top of a high, stone wall that doesn't seem to end. The shadows gobble up any possible ending.

"Bilbo had a shirt of Mithril rings Thorin gave him." Gandalf says, his voicing cutting through the silence. I remember the old hobbit back in Rivendell, finishing his book. He arrived a while back, and I talked to him once or twice. He told me about his adventures back when he was younger, and let me see a few pages of his precious book. I glance at Frodo, knowing that he was his beloved nephew, but the hobbit's face is clouded with a different emotion.

"Oh, that was a kingly gift!" Gimli says as we continue to walk. I wish that Gandalf would walk faster, so that we could get out of here faster. I guess an old wizard can only walk so fast... Gandalf leads us- slowly, may I add- to an extremely steep set of stairs, almost like a ladder. I gaze up the stairway, at the skeletons and rubble scattered on random steps. I do not look forwards to climbing these.

I grab a hold on a shelf of stone and pull myself up with little difficulty when it comes to my turn, avoiding bones and loose rubble that could cause trouble. Empty eye sockets stare at me, almost daring me to fall. My knuckles begin to ache from gripping so tightly, and my legs burn from the unceasingly steep steps.

Pippin, a little bit ahead of me, slips and almost falls down the stairs but grabs on last second to a rock jutting out of the stairs, continuing to climb. My heart leaps to my throat, breathing ragged.

Merry whispers from in front of me, "Pippin!"

We climb, the only sound being our feet, breathing and the constant sound of someone shifting a pile of debris out of the way. Minutes later, I reach the top of the stairs and pull myself up, panting. Legolas springs up lightly, breathing regulated and forehead dry. I glare at him in jealousy and he smiles innocently, a twinkle in his eye.

"I have no memory of this place," Gandalf murmurs. That is not good... "Take some rest, I will try to remember the way."

He sits on a rock in front of three passages, beginning to light his pipe.

I swallow hard and scrub a hand down my face, trying to ease my nerves. After a moment I sit beside Aragorn on a rock, and grasp the hilt of my daggers.