The Adventure of Andrea Baggins

Mirkwood

The first two days went by rather easily. They all felt uncomfortable and were hardly able to sleep through the night, but other than that, they were doing well. As of then, it steady but surely started going down. After the fourth nearly sleepless night, everything started to go slower and took longer to get done. Often, the company would be rattled out of the blurred-out trance they were walking in because someone tripped and landed flat on their face. Ori was running out of band-aids to cut apart to stick up the bleeding noses or hold against the bleeding lips. Every time that happened, Andy jolted up. With a groan she'd rub her eyes, trying to get rid of the tiredness that stuck in her brain and started gripping onto her muscles and bones as well.

The fifth night, a few of them managed to pass out from exhaustion get some forced rest. Sadly, it wasn't very restful, since their dreams were haunted by nightmares. During his sleep, Fili cuddled up to Andy, looking for comfort. His face expression showed he was having a bad dream, his eyes moving rapidly under his lids. Andy, also half asleep didn't push him away and buried her head in his coat, blending out the stares of the dark trees. To her surprise the next morning, she had fallen asleep.

The following nights, Fili cuddled up to her again, feeling saver around her. He had been plagued from seeing his father die. Over and over again. He only knew, what the stories told. But since he was small, his mind tried to picture it. Trying to picture the reason why he didn't come home. To him. To little Kili. To his mother. Andy figured, that his nightmares also got the best of him, so she let it happen. She also found it rather comforting and was glad, to feel some warmth of his body in the cold nights of the forest. It only took about two nights, until Kili joined them.

!!!Trigger warning!!! Flashbacks and Self harm!!!! (Disclaimer further down)

Andy bolted up, one hand going to her throat and the other to her mouth, to stop her scream. Panicking, she noticed how close the boys actually were and how badly that could have ended. Silent tears ran down her cheeks, her chest rose in short, shallow breaths. Her hand muffled the little sobs that escaped her mouth. Looking around in the dark she checked who was there. She was grateful, that all the dwarves had somehow fallen asleep, even Dwalin, who was supposed to keep watch. Still hardly getting air, Andy gently pulled her legs out from under Kili, slipped her arms out of her coat, which Fili was halfway lying on and stumbled away from the company. Once she was out of hearing range, she fell to the ground gasping for air. Her face was a mask of concentration and she forced herself to take deep breathes, not letting her lungs flutter. The cold ground under her forehead helped her connect back to the presence, leaving the nightmares and flashbacks behind. Though she managed to separate memory from reality, she still felt the water slowly filling her lungs. The hands of Fëanor's men, as they tried to drown her, to see if she was immortal like Elves, or in fact was undying, like the rumours said. Without thinking, Andy pulled out her dagger and held the cold blade to her lower arm. With a swift cut, the blade split her skin. As the pain in her arm developed, the water in her lungs faded, the grip on her arms and neck let her go. Andy's body collapsed.

End of Trigger warning

As the company woke up the next morning, Andy was sitting in the middle of them, cross-legged and her daggers loosely in her hands. Her body was tense, her back straight and her eyes starred without blinking into the woods. Her senses were on alert, every sound in a radius from almost one hundred feet couldn't go unnoticed by her. She kept watch over the dwarves, getting alarmed every time their breathing pattern slightly changed or they moved. She'd be sitting there for the last six hours, she roughly guessed. Then again, there was no way of telling the time it that godsforsaken forest of misery.