Once Upon A Dream || The Hobbit ¹

20| 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓬𝓱𝓻𝓸𝓷𝓲𝓬𝓵𝓮

the lonely mountain, erebor

— "NO ONE RESTS UNTIL IT IS FOUND!" The words echo through the chambers of the mountain, accompanied by the clinking and jingling of coins as the Company continues on looking for the Arkenstone. Thorin seems to grow more impatient by the hour the longer the stone evades him.

Scarlett might feel bad that they're searching for something they won't find, were her attention not elsewhere. Her boots tread lightly over the stone pathways and corridors of Erebor as she follows a strange, instinctive sort of feeling through the mountain. The closer she gets to wherever it's leading her, the stronger the pull. She follows it along through paths she never saw whilst evading Smaug. In fact, the places in which she finds herself appear entirely abandoned – more so even than the rest of the mountain. If she had to guess, she'd say these passages have been forgotten for centuries, at the very least.

She follows them as they grow smaller and smaller and smaller until she comes to a set of wooden double-doors, deep in colour and exquisite in design. The lock, however, is strange. The door is barred by what appear to be living branches growing out of the walls on either side of it, woven thickly together.

Scarlett raises a hand to them. She doesn't know if it'll work, but it's worth a try at least. "Máthair iontach, crith talún ma éist." As the blue energy weaves around her fingertips, the branches tense and shift slightly. Then they retract, and the door opens just a crack with a small groan of protest at having remained unmoving for so long. Curiosity overpowering the instinct to be cautious, she puts her hand against the dark wood and pushes it further, peering through.

On the other side lies a vast cavern, unexpectedly filled with light. Stepping fully into the space, her breath catches softly in her throat as she takes it in. An enormous crack splits the top of the cave to let sunlight spill down over the scene. The higher walls are clumped with thick vegetation, ferns and great trees alike, and flowers of all different colours are in full bloom. Despite the cold beyond the mountain's walls, this cave feels comfortingly warm. Walkways made of woven roots line the walls around her and a wide stone bridge stretches out before Scarlett; one whose edges drop down to splashing water below, connecting this place to the lake. Braziers burn all around the base of the chamber where the stone floor encircles the watery plummet, and the significance finally clicks; all of the elements incorporated into one place. The elements that happen to be key to her magic, no less. But what is this place? All around the chamber, the walls are carved with phrases in the same tongue she speaks her spells in, but they aren't the centrepiece. They aren't what draws her in.

Down the bridge before her, in the centre of the room, stands a thick spire that is both stone and tree roots, interlaced together. And atop the spire, those roots connect to an enormous tree that overlooks everything with its grandeur. The aura it emits is thick with magic – with life. That is what brought her here, she realises. Her eyes continue to flit about the room as she crosses the bridge before coming to a stop at the tree's base. A few short steps lead to what appears to be a dais, and there a sort of pedestal seems to grow directly up from the roots of the tree a mere couple of feet before the massive trunk itself. A closed book lies on it, its cover too heavy with years of dust to make out.

Cautiously, Scarlett leans down, blowing out a breath through her lips that clears most of it. Scrunching her nose, she waves a hand in the air to clear the dust, her other gently wiping the last of it from the book cover. When it's cleaned off completely, her lips part slightly with amazed intrigue. The leather cover is blacker than obsidian, but through it run veins of gold that spiderweb out from the centre. They almost seem to pulse, the closer she looks, as if some form of magic runs through them.