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IV. Spiders

They continued to trek through the disease-ridden forest, using their combined efforts to haul Bombur over a step beside a deadly overhang before continuing on their way.

"I don't remember this place before. None of it's familiar," Balin called out while the company searched through the area that they were in for the Elven path that they had abandoned.

They were no longer in the huddle that they were once in, now spread out among the trees but none straying too far from the others out of fear of becoming lost and doomed to rot within the soil beneath their feet.

"It's got to be here, it can't have just disappeared!" Dori panicked as he pushed his way up a slope.

"Unless someone's moved it," accused Dwalin.

"Paths don't just get moved," Athena retorted while she searched the forest floor with Kili and Fili, her legs threatening to give out underneath her as she staggered through Mirkwood.

"It's not over here neither!" Ori declared from across the terrain.

If they did not find the path it was unlikely that they would be able to escape the forest, it was of the utmost importance that they found it before they succumbed entirely to the sickness around them.

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Now walking together in a line the company carried on with their task of finding the path. She narrowed her eyes at the trees as they passed, no matter where they went the scenery never changed, she had grown suspicious of the foliage around her.

"Are you following us?" She asked one tree in particular, keeping her eyes on it while she walked, her head turning so that she didn't need to pry her eyes from it. She did not trust it enough to look away from it.

She stopped glaring at the tree when she felt herself bump into someone in front of her, her attention snapping to Ori who she had just managed to walk into, watching as he handed something to Dori beside him.

"A tobacco pouch. There's Dwarves in these woods," first they were being followed by trees and now the revelation of them being followed by another group of Dwarves settled in Athena. It was simply the only logical explanation to this disaster.

Bofur took the pouch and inspected it. "Dwarves from the Blue Mountains no less. This is exactly the same as mine."

"Because it is yours. You understand? We're going round in circles. We are lost," Bilbo remarked after overhearing the conversation.

She had to admit that his explanation made a lot more sense than what she had previously thought, her suspicion of the trees dropping as she allowed common sense to make its way back into her mind.

"We are not lost. We keep heading east," Thorin retorted as he looked back at the cluster of them.

"But which way is east? We've lost the sun!" Óin cried out while he turned his head in every direction trying to find a glimpse of light, but the forest did not let it reach them. There was no way to tell if the sun was even shining above them, they were encased in an endless night.

The Dwarves soon began to bicker amongst themselves, escalating into pushing and shoving. Their shouts and accusations were unintelligible to Athena. The only time that she stepped in was when she saw Fili and Kili immersed into a fight with Ori and Nori, stepping in to try and pull them back before it intensified into something far more serious.

"Enough! Quiet! All of you!" Thorin bellowed, successfully causing silence to fall on them as they looked over at him, "we're being watched."

"Watched by what?" Dori asked.