A Single Dream is More Powerful Than a Thousand Realities

Beneath a Tree

"Master Baggins!"

Someone was helping her to the ground, though she wasn't sure who. Her vision was swimming and her thoughts felt...

Muzzy.

Disjointed.

"What's happened?"

"Why is he covered in blood?"

Thorin?

Lyla was confused. Why was he asking so many questions?

Dwalin's face filtered into focus in front of her. He gently grasped her chin and tilted her head back, his brown eyes sweeping over her. His thumb rubbed her cheek tenderly, barely ghosting her flesh.

Then he sighed and scowled deeply and shook his head.

She tried to rise.

"Alright there lad, easy does it," Bofur whispered a wrapping his arms around her arms to keep her in place, "I've got ye. Just relax."

"Th-thorin?" She questioned as her muscles spasmed and she shivered. Her tongue felt swollen and her throat thick and clogged, "Fili? Kili?"
She had to make sure they were alright. She had to-

"Aye, laddie," Dwalin reassured her gently, patting her shoulders, "Safe and sound. Don't worry yer little head about it. Just rest."

Rest?

My, that did sound lovely. But only for a moment though. She didn't want to cause delay.

Leaning back, her head found purchase against rough fabric that smelled like like smoke and earth. She closed her eyes and drifted.
******
"s'goin' on?" She slurred coming to semi-consciousness. She could feel herself moving, in the arms of...someone...wrapped up like a fauntling.
She tried to wiggle her arms and legs free, but was held firm by a strong grip. Azog's face flashed in her mind as he pressed against her throat, pinning her, suffocating her. She started panicking, arching her back and twisting.

"Easy lass, easy," Dwalin was hushing her, his breath tickling her ear, "I've got ya. Just hush. Relax. Everything's fine." He tightened his grip again.

Everything was fine?

Oh.

"S-sorry,"

Dwalin chuckled lightly, "Aye, don't fret. Just get some more rest. We'll be down on solid ground soon enough."

"M'kay," She inhaled deeply and the scents of cinnamon and pine filled her nostrils, soothing her quaking muscles and sputtering hear and lulling her back towards oblivion.

"Aye lass. Just rest. Ye deserve it."

She wasn't awake to hear the compliment.
******
How could it have come to this?

Thorin Oakenshield prided himself on his sound judgment of character. He could tell the nature of a person by the way they carried themselves, their speech, their demeanor. In fact, his talent for reading people was so precise, he was hardly ever wrong.

How, then, could he have been so utterly wrong and misjudged the hobbit so abominably?

How could he have been so stupid?

When he'd first seen the blood smattered across the hobbit's face, Thorin had been angry with the halfing, supposing the creature to have gotten underfoot and in harm's way out of sheer ineptitude for battle. Indeed the creature had been in the wrong place on the mountain and if it weren't for the hobbit's clumsy footing, his nephews never would have fallen...

The thought of their terrified faces as they tumbled sent a shiver down his spine even as anger had welled up in his heart.

But then the flash of a memory jolted him and his anger dissipated. He remembered with startling, vivid clarity, the orc, that had loomed over him, prepared to sever his head as a trophy for Azog's pride. And he certainly remembered that the orc had been stopped by an impossibly small creature with a tiny blue sword.