She dreams of Golden Hope

Verse of the Eremite

"Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art- Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night and watching, with eternal lids apart like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,"- Bright Star, John Keats

Laurel watched in amazement as the dwarves proceeded to set up camp for the night. When she had dismounted Kili's pony, she had groaned at the soreness in her back, resulting from riding the entire day. It had been a long time, since she had last been on a horse. The last occurrence being two decades ago, when her mother had brought her to Belladonna Took. Since then, Laurel had never ridden and similarly as her cousin she had been most disconcerted, when thrust on the pony without prior practice. She should have been thankful, that Kili had taken it upon himself to have her ride with him, but she had been incredibly embarrassed by his forwardness and her shyness had rebelled against the closeness of their bodies. Yet Kili had not listened to any of her interjections and soon Laurel had acquiesced, especially after she had perceived her cousin's difficulty with riding on his own.

They had ridden the entire day and now the dwarves were sitting up camp. Bilbo was sitting on a log, adjacent to the clearing, where they would be resting for the night and he was currently enjoying a pipe in the company of the wise wizard Gandalf. She supposed she could go join them, but she had never liked the burnt and deeply herbal scent of pipe smoke and she was enthralled watching those creatures, which she had read so much about in her childhood and which she had always admired for the stories she had read about them. So she simply sat beneath a myrtle tree, which's shade protected her from the warmth of the late afternoon sun, that was setting and disappearing in the horizon behind her, with her knees drawn up and her chin resting on her kneecaps. She observed the individuals of the race, she had always raced off into the woods, surrounding Bag End in the hopes of finding. Her cousin had always been obsessed with elves and he had always looked for her kin, but she... She'd always held a fascination with these sturdy folk. If asked about the origin of this interest, she would have been unable to answer. It was simply something she had possessed, since the earliest days of her childhood. She could at times recall the fastidious ways her late mother would talk about dwarves. She recalled snippets of conversations between her mother and her father and she remembered that one of her father's companion in his last quest had been a dwarf and she could remember how disapproving her mother had been of this company. With amusement she thought of how her mother would react, if she could see Laurel in a company lead by the proudest of dwarves. Perhaps her fascination was a petty way to spite her mother, a mechanism of revenge that she had unconsciously adopted to avenge her mother's abandonment. But as she looked on at the working men with a curious expression, she knew that it was not so... That there was something profounder about her interest.

Not for the first time, Laurel compared the dwarves with the male Hobbits of the Shire and again it did not fail to amaze her, how different the two were. Even the tallest Hobbit man in the Shire was still about a head smaller than Thorin Oakenshield, who was almost unnaturally tall for a dwarf. Laurel remembered that after she had dismounted the pony, Thorin Oakenshield had come up to her and ordered her to fetch water. During that time, she had once more been reminded of how imposing their leader was, because she was so much smaller than him, she only came up to a little below his shoulders. She had grown flustered and intimidated at his proximity and at seeing his distinct height advantage and, without uttering a sound, she had quickly scampered off and gone to do her task. So averagely, dwarves were much taller than Hobbits and much stockier, which made them appear stronger and more battle-hardened. Like warriors, Laurel would often think in childlike awe and then she would shake her head in self-deprecation. She was no longer a starry-eyed infant and these men, while courageous no doubt, were not the idealistic and heroic motifs she had read about in her and Bilbo's books. It would not do to idealize them, especially since she would travel with them for a few months at the least. Yet as she watched the dwarves quickly and efficiently setting up camp, she could not help but feel respect for them, due to their efficiency. They were hard-working folk and their naturally weathered demeanor, opposed to the comfortable and soft appearance of Hobbits, hinted at their persevering dexterity. It wasn't that Hobbit men were useless and lazy. No, it would be unfair of her to say so, considering both Hamfast, who worked relentlessly in agriculture and Bilbo, who was most proficient and often helped her in her chores. But the dwarves... She knew that they worked much more and she wondered about the women of their race, if the men relied on the women to do homely chores.