She dreams of Golden Hope

In the Brillig

„'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe."- Jabberwocky, Lewis Caroll

"You can't, my child. Do not follow your mother's example," Gandalf stated vehemently, as he sat before the red-haired half-elf, who wringed her hands in her laps and refused to meet the disapproving and worried eyes of the wizard. She sighed silently and shook her head in response to the wizard's pleas. Her red curls shook slightly, as she turned her head, but they no longer caught the sunlight of midday in the Shire and shone like a roaring flame. It was as if their colour had been washed out and the palour of her previously vibrantly red hair reflected her visage. She had always had fair skin, which normally shone ivory, but now her palour had an ashen, grey quality, which was cruelly ironic considering that one would now compare her wild, savage mane with an extinguished fire. She knew that Gandalf had been shocked to see her, when she had opened the door of Bag End to him earlier this morning. The wizard's wide-eyed and incredulous gaze had been like a mirror to her and had told her of how much she had changed in the past few months, after her and Bilbo's return from Erebor, after his... Her features contorted with agonized heart-ache and she was not able to finish that thought. She heard Gandalf sigh warily before her, sensing her renewed distress, her constant distress, which haunted her every second of her life. Out of the corner of her eyes, she glimpsed that the elderly wizard had outstretched his hand, no doubt in a consolatory manner and she flinched back instinctively not wishing for his comfort.

Nothing could comfort her now. Any attempts at it only felt false and painful to her. Gandalf's sympathy, Bilbao's constant worry and his persistent patience with her. Oh, Bilbo... She lowered her head in shame and the intensity at which she wrung her hands only increased, a nervous trait that the two friends had shared. She had been so cruel with Bilbo last night, when he had tried to read her her favorite story from her book and she had shouted at him and told him that she did not want to hear any of those 'silly stories'. Her anger at Bilbo had soon morphed to caustic self-deprecating, when she had seen the pained and despondent look on her best friend's face, and her self-hatred had only increased when she had perceived how little she had cared. Once she had stumble upon that realization, she had chased out of the room, as if the heinous Orcs that she had encountered during her quest had returned for her. She had felt ice-cold dread pack her when she realised that she no longer cared that she had hurt the one man, who had been her friend, her dearest friend all her life. She had run, as if she had wanted to outrun the realization that she no longer cared for anything, if she no longer cared for the effect her behaviour had on Bilbo.

She no longer cared for anything.

Gandalf had arrived this morning and he had been shocked to see the deterioration of the young half-elf, who had previously been so healthy and fiery, but was now only a withered shell of her former self. She had not cared that this man, whose displays of magic she had so dearly enjoyed during her infancy had been looking at her with shock and with disapproval blatantly obvious in his gaze. She had not cared that he had been disappointed with her, that he had been disappointed that the fiery half-elf whom he had amusedly commended for her calling out of the king of dwarves was now only a pale shadow, which ghosted across the halls of Bag End. She had not cared that this man, whom she had cursed for recruiting her on the dwarven quest while she had been lying awake at night mournfully, was stood before her. She had not cared that she had been too exhausted to curse the wizard for him having taken her on the quest, thinking that if she had stayed in Bag End she would not been in the dismal state she was in momentarily. She had cursed him for having convinced them to go on this quest. She had cursed him, but then the thought of having never met him, never having gotten to know him had been so painful, that she had to resist the urge to scream with agony.