Compos Mentis [Rávamë's Bane: Book 2]

Part I : Chapter 4 ~ The Trees Have Eyes

A/N: Ok guys, short starting authors note this time around because I kid you not when I say I am SHATTERED and am literally about to fall asleep with my face on my keyboard. I know it's been a terribly long wait for this update, but I had good reason which I will go into at the end of the chapter. In the mean time, as always, a high thank you to:

Now, without further waffling from me, here's hoping you enjoy the update, and aren't too annoyed that it took me so long to get it to you. xxx

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Part I : Chapter 4

- The Trees Have Eyes -

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"Alright, I'm not trying to be funny," I said quietly, my voice echoing eerily back at me through the claustrophobic gloom. "But I swear, we've passed that same tree at least three times already."

Gimli — who had been all but riding the backs of my feet since we entered this forest — followed my gaze to the looming, gnarled mountain ash, its branches resembling some monster's grasping claws reaching down at us.

"Because we have! We're going in circles," Gimli grumbled, head twitching and grip on his axe tightening as his own voice echoed back at him through the trees. The sound resonated weirdly, like we were walking through the bowels of a cave rather than a rapidly darkening forest. At some point during our trek, he'd taken the weapon off his back and now held it at the ready across his chest, presumably just in case something ugly decided to spring a surprise attack on us without warning.

A wise if slightly paranoid plan, I'd thought. So I'd done likewise, taking out my hunting knife and holding it in a relaxed but carful reverse-guard at my side.

"That, or the trees are moving whenever we have our backs turned," I suggested, trying to sound light-heartedly casual.

I failed spectacularly. Aragorn and Legolas, who had been stoically leading the way once again, actually paused in their steps to look around with nerve-sharpened eyes, and Gimli all but turned to a statue beside me with tension, his axe at the ready. I had to close my eyes to keep from instinctively rolling them.

"A joke, guys. That was a joke."

'I hope...' I thought, peering cautiously up at the branches, swaying and creaking in the wind above our heads.

The canopy was too thick for the breeze to reach us down on the forest floor, and as a result, the further we ventured into Fangorn in search of Merry and Pippin, the more the entire creepy wood seemed to close in around us. How in hell we were supposed to find two Hobbits in here I had no idea, but I'd spent the past four hours of our walk suppressing the urge to climb a tree right to the top, just to get one gulp of fresh air.

Anything to escape the growing feel of claustrophobia none of us — not even Legolas and his obvious love of enclosed forests — seemed able to escape in this place.

"The air is so close in here," Boromir murmured quietly, mostly to himself from where he once again brought up the back of our single file convoy — though keeping noticeably less distance from me than he had out on the grass planes. "It seems to all but shrink in around us."

"This forest is old, very old. It is but only a remnant of a much larger forest that must have once stretched as far as the western coasts. Yet, even now, it is still teeming with lingering memories, and anger," Leglolas murmured just ahead of me, his hand lingering almost reverently on the bark of a particularly gnarled cedar as we passed it. A sad expression crossed his face, leaking into his voice. "It is strange, something of it reminds me greatly of Northern Mirkwood, as is used to be."