тнє нєαℓєя[тнσяιи σαкєиѕнιєℓ∂]

Chapter Thirty - Trust

The next morning was a chilly one. The Dwarves were already in the feasting room enjoying a hot breakfast. Maura bathed and got dressed and walked down the hall to join her companions. The healer looked around and sure enough found Thorin, who was looking at differently then he had in the last few weeks or even the way he looked at her last night. She instantly turned away and searched for Bilbo and went and sat beside him to get something in her starving belly.

While she ate, it suddenly occurred to the healer, last night's conversation. She wasn't even sure what compelled her to tell Thorin of her past. She was so confused. What the prince nearly did, caught her off guard, she almost wanted it to happen...but then flashes of her dead husband and child appeared in her mind and she couldn't go through with it and left. And then the last thing she expected was the prince to follow her out and hold her as she cried into his chest, after telling him her tragic past. Maura wasn't going to lie that she did indeed felt something while dancing with Thorin, something she hadn't felt in a very long time, or thought she would ever feel again and that's what scared her.

She loved her husband, Dorgol, she always would. He will forever hold a special place in her heart. Years after his passing, she never let anyone come close to her heart again, fearing she would lose them too. Until, the most unlikeliest person had somehow awaken something in her and now she didn't know what to do. Wasn't Dorgol her one and only love? Maura had been through so much pain in her life, that she didn't think it was possible to find love again. The healer had never felt so unsure about anything as much as she was about this? And what about the future event that Lord Elrond had foreseen of her? Was life that cruel it would give her a possible chance at happiness, only to be ripped away by her own death?

"Aunt Maura, are you alright?" Bilbo asked. The healer had been so deep in thought that it took her a moment to hear Bilbo repeating himself for the third time.

"Yes....I'm fine, I just need to get some air." Maura said, getting up from the table. Thorin noticed this and narrowed his eyes as the healer left the feasting room, so abruptly. Thorin stared at the door for the longest time, before following in the same direction as the young woman disappeared to. The rest of the company all looked at one another confused, wondering why their woman companion seemed so shaken up this morning. The Dwarf prince knocked on Maura's door to her room, but got no reply when he called her name, and he opened the door and found it empty and her satchel gone. Thorin pushed open the grand doors of the Master's home and scanned the streets and found no sign of the healer. He cursed under his breath, wondering how she could disappear so fast, in such little time. The Dwarf prince walked down the steps and began his search for the young woman in the market square.

Maura, wandered through the street's of Laketown, looking into windows of stores, searching for an apothecary. Something was not right about Kili's wound. He was not getting any better, he was growing ill with each passing day. Maura glanced at the young Dwarf, this morning, before catching Thorin looking at her. The poor lad was as pale as someone who was dying. He limped in pain as he took a seat beside his brother at the long table. Like his uncle, he hid just how much pain he was really in. The healer finally found the store she was looking for and opened the door. The shop was completely empty. The woman greeted the shop owner, and began her search. It was clear to her now, that the arrow that struck Kili was laced with some sort of poison.

The woman examined the jars and pouches on the shelves. They were covered in layers of dust and cobwebs. Maura tried to recall what Lord Elrond had told her of certain herbs and plants that could heal someone of poison, but most Elven remedies had to be done by one who was pure Elf, which Maura was not. Feeling defeated, the healer could not find anything in that shop, that could help the young Dwarf, she felt guilty to admit that she barely had any knowledge of how her own kin healed their wounded. Maura left the apothecary, and barely got five steps down the street, when suddenly a hand, clamped over her mouth, muffling the gasp she barely got out. The healer struggled against her attacker as he pulled her over to an ally.