She dreams of Golden Hope

my fingers laced to crown

"Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf how the heart feels a languid grief laid on it for a covering, and how sleep seems a goodly thing in Autumn at the fall of the leaf?"- Autumn song, Dante Gabriel Rosetti

The metallic clang of the sword-fighting permeated the early autumn morning air as Laurel stood on the front porch of the skin changer's home and the sun bore down on her. She had found herself strangely dependent on sunlight. Ever since she had awoken and found herself alive and rescued, she had insisted to spend the most possible time outside absorbing the saturating rays of the sun. She did not wish to continue inside in the dark and she already feared the approaching winter season, when she would once more be deprived of light. When she would once more be thrust into darkness. She did not allow herself to linger on those thoughts, on the prospect which awaited her and would undoubtedly come due to nature. She did not allow herself to think on the darkness and the snow and the cold, because it would cause her breath to quicken and her heart to sped in her chest, with something akin to panic rising within her.

She shook her head imperceptibly, as if wishing to shake off the thoughts. She had allowed her gaze to fix on the distant horizon, her thoughts distance from what was before her. She once more focused on reality and her lips twisted into a small smile as she watched the brothers cockily instructing Bilbo on the arts of sword-handling. She mainly focused on her cousin and watched his progress, and though Bilbo was still as talentless and clumsy as before, she could detect a certain confidence, a certain degree of pride in his stance as he lifted his sword and practised the move Kili demonstrated. And she would marvel at the change in him. She hadn't been in the dungeons so long, but she viewed Bilbo now in such a light that he was foreign to her. As if they had been separated years, eons, lifetimes. She could not recognize him and she despaired because it was obscure to her if it was he how changed his manners so completely due to an unknown, hated stimulus or... if it was her who viewed him differently. If the time... if the incident had truly impacted her perception so greatly. And it grieved her. It caused her such pain that her lifelong companion was so unfamiliar to her. That she would watch his actions with a certain degree of vigilance and governance and that the littlest instances would involuntarily raise suspicion in her heart.

So she watched Bilbo. Intent, desperate, to reacquaint herself with her best friend.

Occasionally, she would feel the heat of eyes on her and in response she would look up to find Kili or Fili watching her with a degree of longing in their eyes. She would not respond to their gaze and would quickly avert her eyes with a feeling of discomfort and irritation weighing her down. It was the latter reaction that would cause her self-deprecating and encourage her feelings of guilt. She resented herself for feeling such exasperation and such acridity towards her friends. She was not oblivious, she may have been earlier when she was more careless and free. She was no longer oblivious and she knew that Fili and Kili bore feelings towards her that she could never hope to requite. Perhaps if her life had been different, perhaps if her fate had been different, perhaps if she had not dreamed. Perhaps... if she had never met him everything would have been different. But now she found herself in an uncomfortable situation which caused her unwished for resentment. She did not want to feel irritation towards the two of them. She did not want to resent their feelings, especially as she understood so clearly how painful it was to bear feelings toward one who would never respond. Yet she was left bitter and jaded at Kili and Fili's displays of admiration.

The herbal scent of pipe smoke invaded her senses and she felt the wooden floor vibrate slightly beneath her feet. Without taking her eyes off her cousin's sword practice, she glimpsed out of the corner of her eye a tall figure with a grey hat. For a time, she and Gandalf provided reticent company to each other, her unwilling to break the silence and fearful of what he may ask her, wary of his intent; him, comfortable in the tense reticence.