She dreams of Golden Hope

Caught between the weight of all unsaid

"I only knew what hunted thought quickened his step, and why he looked upon the garish day with such a wistful eye; The man had killed the thing he loved and so he had to die."- Ballad of Reading Gaoul, Oscar Wilde

They were just to arrive at Beorn's hall. It had not been a long day's march. The dwarves, Bilbo and him had packed up their camp as the first light of the day brightened the first strip of the horizon before him and the sky above them slowly turned from the inky blackness known at night to a more mellow shade of light grey. They had walked at a leisurely pace and the sun was now stood low on the western side of the heavens above them, likely setting in the vicinities of Mirkwood, as Gandalf led the company of Thorin Oakenshield along the twisting paths lined with lush green, dense forest on either side of them.

No, not the entire company. One individual was missing from their assembly and all the men seemed to feel her absence seeping through their bones, as the humming sound of conversation which was normally present during the day's march was lacking or distinctly muted and did not carry the same carefree amusement that Gandalf had grown accustomed to from the dwarves of Erebor. Who'd think that the absence of such a tiny being would cause such a great impact on them all, Gandalf would at times think with melancholy wonder, as he would allow his eyes to succour each and every dwarf and would see their solemnity in the heavy setting of their brows and detect their guilt in the slumping of their broad, armour covered shoulders. He would look at Bilbo Baggins and he would see his poignancy due to the lack of the sparkle the burglar usually carried in his eyes, that Tookish sparkle, which had told Gandalf that Bilbo Baggins and Laurel Took would have indeed come on their journey despite their initial reluctance. The sparkle, which had assured Gandalf that he would've indeed won the bet he had struck with the dwarves, while they had been riding through the woods surrounding Hobbiton. The sparkle that he had always seen in her bright blue orbs and that had been always more pronounced in his brown eyes whenever he had been around her and her enthusiasm at the adventure the two Shirelings had become involved in had been so great, that not even Bilbo's conservative and more subdued Baggins' side had been able to resist it. The sparkle that was now blatantly missing from his hazel eyes. He would at times glimpse the resentful looks that Thorin's nephews would shoot him. Fili and Kili, the two dwarves which held such a juvenile awe of Thorin and the image they had of him, as a sovereign, just, wise leader. As the image they held and expected of him as king under the mountain. The two young dwarves who took such great efforts to prove themselves to the man, who they idolized, who had been their tutor for all of their lives.

He figured that the most prominent emotion within him was shock. Shock at having lost her. Shock at having allowed the young girl to have been captured. Shock and self-deprecation at having allowed Belladonna's little niece, the girl whom he had been introduced to when she was a slip of a girl barely reaching his knees, who had hid her already lovely features behind a savage curtain of red, but who after his display of fireworks he had caught looking at him with a look of young astonishment in her impossibly blue eyes. Shock at having lost her, when he knew that it had been his words coupled with her Tookish huger for adventure that had caused her ultimate demise. Shock at having lost the one who he had deemed so essential for the quest, because she gave him hope, because he associated with her such genuine and heart-rendering kindness and compassion. Shock at having lost the fiery young girl, whose fierceness amused him but who allowed to hope even as he could feel, in his bones, that darkness was slowly approaching and taking a hold of everything around him. He felt disbelief at continuously perceiving her absence. Disbelief that as he looked over his shoulders, he would perceive the absence of the fiery red mane and of her face which looked down with a slight smile or her eyes which would look up at her walking companion Bifur with such innocent and sincere gratitude. He would not see her ocassionally gesturing at the reticent dwarf with the axe in his head and him responding by looking down warmly at the girl by his side. Now all he saw was Bifur walking with a gaping void by his side, his jaw set and an angry look in his eyes. Blaming himself for her absence, blaming them all for her absence.