The forest swallowed them whole.
Apollo felt the transformation immediately as they passed beneath the first true canopy of trees. The grassland's emptiness had been unsettling, but this, this was something else entirely.
Sunlight fractured through overlapping layers of leaves, creating a twilight world of dappled shadows and muted greens. The silence they'd experienced in the open hills seemed to gain substance here, thickening around them like invisible fog.
"Feels like we're being watched," Thorin muttered, his voice unnaturally loud in the stillness. The dwarf's hand rested on his axe haft, fingers tapping an uneasy rhythm against the wood. "Not by eyes, mind you. By the trees themselves."
