She dreams of Golden Hope

Book One: In a Hole in the ground there lived two hobbits

Elauriel was shaked out of her self-pity by the feeling of a small, warm body wriggling in front of her, trying to become more comfortable on the horse that transported her. She looked down and the first thing she saw was a mass of untameable, impossibly vibrant red curls, that belonged to her child. She sighed silently and gathered her daughters curls together and bound them carefully, intent on not waking her young girl. And as she regarded her daughter's red hair, she once agin felt like a sharp knife had been twisted in her gut. This unwordly colour of red, that gleamed so brightly in the sun that it was almost blinding in its beauty reminded her of her husband's hair. His hair had been of the same colour and it had been one of the first things that had amazed Elauriel. One of the things that had fascinated her about him. She closed her eyes and tenderly ran her thin fingers through her daughter's soft curls and she remembered the day she had first met Benji Took.

She had been riding further away from Rivendell then she had ever gone. She had been upset at her father and had been trying to escape the reality that he would no longer tolerate her rejecting all the suitors that he had found suitable. He would no longer accept her misgivings and he had told her that she was too wild, that she did not comport herself like a lady of her standing should. He was determined to force Elauriel into a loveless marriage and he was willing to accept her misery in an eternity-long, unhappy marriage for the sake of his high-standing in elvish society. When her father had informed her of his impatience and had insisted on her speedy betrothal, Elauriel had felt like one of those princesses, who were given to a barbaric, cruel, avaricious king and who suffered silently. She had felt betrayed by her father, who had always indulged her in her infancy, but whose patience with her was now over. So she had saddled her horse and she had ridden out of Rivendell and for the past day she had been wandering aimlessly on her trusty stead. She knew that she was bound to return to Rivendell, there was nowhere else she could go, but she still continued riding further and further away from her childhood home and deeper and deeper into the forest she was now in, with its dense growth and its almost ominous appearance. She could sense her horse's exhaustion and decided to rest herself, since she too felt weary. So she had dismounted her horse and had sat upon a nearby log of a fallen tree and had stared off into the distance, pondering the unjoyful fate, which awaited her when she returned to her homeland. She had been ripped from her thoughts, when she heard a branch breaking beneath the foot of a person. The sharp sound had caused her to become alarmed and she had whirled around to face the certain menace, which now approached her, no doubt with nefarious intentions. She had been expecting a bandit, one of the members of the race of men, who pried on the riches and innocence of helpless young women as her. Perhaps it was an orc and as she remembered her father's description of the vile creatures, a shiver coursed down her spine. She did not want the distorted, foul visage of an orc to be the last thing she viewed before she died.

But what she saw when she turned around was not what she had expected. She did not see the leering, lustful sneer of an emaciated forest bandit, she did not see the scarred, marmour-like skin of an orc and its malicious, yellow-toothed grin. She saw a small, chubby man, whose surprise at what he saw reflected hers, if his startled facial expression was anything to go by. She scrutinized the man before her, he was much shorter than she was and his plump and stocky stature lead her to believe that he could not be of the race of men. Her suspicion was confirmed, when she saw his large, shoeless, hairy feet. Yet it was his face that had her fascinated for he had such a youthful and innocent appearance that she would have assumed him to be a child, where it not for the wisdom in his eyes and the smoking pipe he held clutched in his hands. She had been so engrossed by her study of him that she had forgotten the hazardous situation she was in, but her worry would have been wasted, because as she studied his warm, oaken-brown eyes she could detect nothing, but kindness and anemity within them. She was equally awe-struck when she saw the mass of red curls on his head. She had never seen such a vibrant shade of red, which seemed to gleam, eventhough the dense shrubbery of the forest only allowed minimal sunlight to shine upon them. „You're an elf." He said and he almost seemed in awe.