She dreams of Golden Hope

Tender is the Night

"Already with thee! tender is the night, but here there is no light, save what from heaven is with the breezes blown through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways." Ode to a Nightingale- John Keats

She spent the next week in a disheartened daze. They had long ago left behind Rivendell with its lush green landscapes and endless forests and were approaching the high pass in the misty mountains. And as the company of the dwarves moved towards this path that ran through the middle of the mountains, the landscape grew increasingly rocky, and arid. No longer could one see the greenery she had grown up with, the rolling downs she had become so accustomed to during her childhood overlooking those in the Shire. Now the landscape was lapidarian, making it appear as if nothing could ever grow on this unfertile ground. The terrain was rough and jagged so that walking on it was a challenge and her feet often slipped on the gleasting, perilous path. The sky above her grew increasingly grey and as they continued onwards to the east, the precipitation grew more insistant, resulting in the company spending their nights in the protection of a cave, usually reticent, because they were too cold and rain-drenched for any cheer or song. It was truly demotivating, especially if Bofur prefered to spend his evenings smoking his pipe and shivering slightly in his wet clothes than regaling the company with a humorous tale stated in his heavy accent. It was disheartening that the brothers had currently shed their mischievious and youthful spirit and had chosen to remain in solemn reticence.

Rain-drenched and disheartened. That is the state she was in as she climbed the beginnings of the mountain paths, minding where she stepped, and followed Thorin Oakenshield's company. It had started to rain soon after they had packed up their provisions and left their shelter of last night. She did not know at which time they had left this morning as the hours of the day now seemed to blend together and she could no longer discern the dawn from the late afternoon, due to the lack of sunlight. The sun, something she had taken for granted in the Shire, but which she now longed for with an intensity she had never thought possible. She missed the feel of the sun upon her cheeks, warming them and causing them to stain red from the heat. She longed for anything that was not this rain that pelted down upon them, unrelentingly, like sharp frigid needles that soaked her to the bone and left her shivering. Her braid hung heavily down her back, her red curls soaked with rain water, as were her clothes which did nothing to warm and shield her from the cold, as she had previously hoped, but only added to her misery. She slung her arms around her form in an attempt to warm herself and to control the tremors that wreaked her form and had become more vehement as a northern wind blew by them in a cruel rush.

She looked up at the sky forlornly and yearned for the sun as its absence was causing her to grow increasingly morose. She felt drab and was assured that she looked ashen in appearance. Perhaps resembling the same disconsolate manner her mother had looked during her last days, something she could still remember so vividly as she had witnessed her mother's descent from a lustrous elf to a drab lifeless hull of her former self. She was sure that her Skin was no longer ivory, but only pale and her hair was coopery and washed out in its appearance. Her eyes were dull and empty, the characteristic glint absent for this time being. So that is how she wandered with the company of Thorin Oakenshield- downcast, ashen and utterly alone.

She was alone. All the other members of Thorin Oakenshield's company were up ahead and she walked by herself, alternating between looking at the ground and looking at the forms of the dwarves who had previously been polite to her but now, in the best case, simply disregarded her. She was alone. In the first few days after they had started their march from Rivendell Bilbo had insisted at being by her side and walking with her, but she had shook her head one morning, she could no longer recall how long ago it had been for time had become obsolete to her, and she had told her cousin to walk with Bofur, with the dwarf that had been so kind as to keep an open-mind toward her cousin and to not doubt his capabilities, before Bilbo had even had a chance to prove himself. The dwarf, who Laurel knew wanted to befriend her cousin and she treasured that. She treasured the fact that her cousin had found another friend, other than her, that there was someone with companiable feelings in this company toward Bilbo other than her and that would look out for him. And she wanted to motivate that friendship, even if Bilbo had at first been reluctant and refused. She had insisted and had quite bluntly told him that she wanted him to walk with Bofur, because he was an important part of the quest, because he needed to integrate himself within the company somehow, because, she had lied to him, because she had wanted to be alone. She had cringed slightly at her cousin's crestfallen expression and she had recalled the days long ago, when she had first arrived in Bag End, when she had disregarded the young fauntling who would become dearer to her than all else and even then she had felt guilty at the glint of disappointment and despondency in his eyes when a young recently-orphaned Laurel had ignored him as he had shown her his maps and been unresponsive; when he had wanted to play with her. Bilbo had been hurt by her insistance that he keep Bofur's company, but he had followed her wishes.