Book Three: Between

Chapter 1

"The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me— Because He's Sunrise—and I see— Therefore—Then—I love Thee"— Why do I love You, Sir?, Emily Dickinson

The sunshine filtered through the thick, stain glass of the kitchen's window and caused the dark wooden shade of the oaken table to be tinged with a lighter hue. It was a warm, early summer morning and accordingly to the station of the year, the kitchen of Bag End was already pleasantly warm. Yet she did not feel so. She had always enjoyed summer, as she had been able to see the flowers in full bloom and would daily enjoy the warm sun shining on her face, as she sat in the garden she had inherited of her late aunt. The birds would chirp their glory song, fully disfruiting of the pleasant weather, the butterflies with their eclectic, colorful wings would flutter around her and each time she would be amazed at the design on their wings, because she had thought that it could have gotten anymore creative or artistic, but she was to be surprised when a butterfly would come by with lemon-yellow wings adorned with blue swirls on the edge of their flying ornament. Spring was certainly a jovial time, as it marked the end of the constantly hard season of winter, autumn was handsome as her surroundings shifted from lush green, to warm shades of brown and red and winter did have its charm, when the snow blanketed the shire and everything around was the purest white. But summer in the shire... that had always been something she loved... loved with an intensity and with a joviality that even rivaled the one she'd held as a fauntling. She loved lying on her back in the meadow of her late aunt's garden with the sun shining upon her face and her eyes closed in blissful contentment, her red hair open like a fiery halo around her head. She loved the smell of recently bloomed sweet peas and daisies and gardenias, that came from Hamfast's garden, as they wafted through the warm air, which's heat only seemed to increase the intensity of the scents. She loved the smell of lemons and other fresh fruits, that traveled the distance from the market to her hobbit hole. She loved how the warm spring air took its seat upon her skin. She loved summer in the Shire... it was her safe heaven, her sanctuary. She loved it there.

She had loved it there. Because this season she took no pleasure of the summer she had previously so adored. The heat no longer kissed her skin, like the lightest and most pleasant companion, but rather seemed stifling. Smothering to such an extent that one day when she had finally dared to venture out into the garden to tend it, as she had cruelly neglected it this spring. She had been unable to stay out for even half of an hour, even when previously she would often remain the entirety of a day in her late aunt's garden, surrounded by the blooming flora. She had been unable to stay outside for even half an hour, when she had started to feel breathless and her breathing had quickened furiously, because she had felt as if her breathing passages had been cut off and the bodice and collar of her dress had, to her, resembled strangling ropes. She had quickly reentered her room and had locked the door and leaned against the door, trying to catch her breath, loosening the tight bodice of her clothes. Her legs had given out beneath her and she had ended up sat on the wooden floor, still breathing heavily and with her eyes burning. She had not gone back, much to Bilbo and Hamfast's disappointment.

She no longer joined her cousin, while he smoked his pipe after first breakfast and sat on the wooden bench beside the front door of Bag End. When spring season had arrived, her cousin had bid her to join him, had bid her to recover their tradition. But she had refused him on several occasions and eventually he had stopped asking, though she would feel his sad gaze on her back, as he exited their hobbit hole. She would steadfastly ignore him, ignore the warmth of his gaze on her back, which left her feeling so cold inwardly. She had refused him with sad eyes and a dreary expression and she had seen Bilbo's worry and his fear for her increasing quickly, as her favorite time of year arrived and she no longer smiled to herself, as she looked out the window of Bag End while she cooked or sat in their living room with her knees drawn and looking over one of his old maps. She could feel his worry radiating off him when he perceived how she tried to avoid looking out at the picturesque landscape of summer, how her eyes increasingly lost their light and her appearance became washed out and ashen, while the world outside her become more vibrant, warmer, more beautiful. Silence was the one thing that now seemed to prevail in Bag End and then one morning she had walked into the kitchen and she had seen Bilbo preparing the tea kettle, while he had been humming the tune she'd always sing in the early mornings. Recognizing the slightly melancholy melody of the nursery rhyme her mother had sang to her during her early years of life, she had turned on her heel and returned to her room, feeling the kitchen and the image of Bilbo's hunched shoulders while he sang her song.

She had tried.

She had tried to find her old enjoyment for this simple facet of her life. She had tried to recover the simple, yet all-consuming joy she felt, whenever she saw the sticky little leaves on the myrtle tree in her garden. She tried to recover her love for sticky little leaves, but this time around the sight of them had simply pained her and she had averted her eyes as she could no longer bear to look at them. She had tried to relapse to her old habits with Bilbo. One morning, a few weeks back, she had sheepishly ventured out of Bag End and had quickly sat beside Bilbo, while he looked out into the Shire and smoked his pipe. She had quietly sat beside him and she had kept her gaze fixed forward. She had not needed to look at Bilbo to know that he had at first started at her sound appearance, before his slightly perplexed look had softened and he had smiled at her and what he perceived as her recovery. And that is why she had not looked at him. Because she could not bear to look at the man, who was her best friend and see hope in his eyes. She had felt him take her hands and they had felt heavy in her grasp. She had kept her gaze forward, even when she could sense her cousin's yes on her. She had kept her gaze forward and had not spoken a word and the scene had felt so excruciatingly wrong, because there should have been talk between them, or in the very least companionable and warm silence, not this silence which was so algid and so heavy and hurtful. She kept her gaze forward with Bilbo's hand resting on hers, warm and wrong. Then she had heard the sound of children's laughter and her face had contorted in heartbreak, as she was painfully, cruelly reminded of all that she had been deprived of. The life she had been deprived of. The hurt was so great that she had to fight the urge to cry out. The sound of delighted children's laughter and the feel of Bilbo's heavy hands on her was too great and she ripped her hand out of his and fled into Bag End, ignoring the sound of Bilbo's alarmed outcry of the nickname he had used when they had been younger.

They had not exchanged a word since then. Her and the man who had been her dearest companion for the entirety of her life. With whom she had shared a bond that only few would understand. They had understood, Laurel would think grieving. The two brothers had shared a similar relationship and they had understood- understood the love Bilbo and Laurel had held for each other.

She had tried. She had tried so hard to overcome her grief. She had tried so hard to become the same Preston she had been before she had gone on that blasted quest. Bilbo had been right, they should never have left Bag End. But the thought of never having gotten to know him and being deprived of the few moments of bliss with him, which already had been too insufficient, would always be too insufficient had caused her so much pain. She had tried to overcome her pain and the gaping hollowness she felt within her. But one morning she had awoken and she could hear the distinct sound of larks chirping on the branches by her window and she could smell the dew hanging heavily in the air. Before, she would have normally felt elation and a contentment flow through her and she would rise propelled by the sun's warmth on her cheek. When she had awoken that morning and had felt a longing to return back to sleep, back to her dreams, she had come to the realization, which had not startled her as she would have expected. She had realized that she no longer cared.

It was a warm, archetypal summer morning in the Shire and she sat on the kitchen table, while keeping her gaze fixed on her wringing hands. She could not bear to see the disappointment and dismay in her opposite's eyes, when she confessed to him in a soft, wilting voice: "Gandalf... I am dying."

She felt the wizard straighten at the sound of her words, when previously heavy and anticipatory silence had blanketed them and he had smoked his pipe and had mustered her carefully and eyed her warily. For a few seconds he did not say a word and she had begun to wonder if her voice was no longer strong enough to carry her words the short distance between the two. She had started to wring her hands with more intensity and she felt his gaze burn into the crown of her head. "You mustn't." she heard him state.

His voice carried no surprise, she knew that he was not surprised at her revelation. Gandalf was a wise man from the many decades he had spent on Middle Earth. Surely when she had opened the door to him earlier that morning and she had stood before him, surely he had seen her deterioration. Surely, he had grasped that the girl, whom he had previously so admired for her fiery and obstinate spirit was wilted and weathered and was a hollow shadow of herself. She would normally have cared, while her obstinacy was something that she had kept restrained while growing up in the Shire, it was always something that she had felt bubble within her, like a fire that could not be extinguished and subconsciously it's presence had soothed her. She felt nothing now and differently from what she had expected, this emptiness did not cause fear to rise in her.

"Would you truly commit the same mistake as your mother, my dear?" she heard him ask and it was not derogatory or even judgmental, it carried an honesty and a genuine wonder that almost made her look up at him, but she was unable to look up at him, lest she see his pity for her. She was unable now to look into anyone's eyes, lest she see what she had become in her mourning reflected in them. She said nothing in response to his question, but through the numbness that now resided and festered within her, like the most gruesome disease, she felt bitter recognition. That she had become like the woman who had hurt her so greatly, when she had become exactly that which she had dreaded. When she had become that which she had sworn herself never to.

"Thorin loved you. It would have pained him to see you like that." The words Gandalf spoke were double-edged, because in the first moments they caused the old longing and warmth she associated with the grumpy king under the mountain to return with such an intensity that she flinched, yet they only caused her more pain, because they roused those feelings. Bitter amusement, as she laughed sardonically and voiced Thorin's true feelings for her: "He resented me." She shook her head, as she was reminded of the several times he had mistreated her, when she had felt his self-deprecation for having fallen for her. "He may have loved me, but even if he had lived an eternity he would have never said so." She felt the wizard before her start, as if wanting to reply to her words. He had never told her he loved her, but he hadn't needed to, because she had known. She had known that night when the trolls had captured them and she had felt his gaze burning into her, while she had been shedding her clothes. She had known that night when she had first found out that he was the man in her dreams and she had been too caught up with the shock of her discovery to see him reciprocating her bare gaze with equal vulnerability only for her. She had known that time when she had hurt her ankle while rescuing Kili and he had carried her and she had found comfort in his warmth. She had known those several times, when his gaze had softened for her... only for her. But that had not stopped him for hating her, just as much as he loved her. "He could never forgive himself for falling in love with an elf." she confessed to Gandalf and at her words, the wizard let out a wary sigh, silently confirming her words about the dwarf's stubborn prejudice.

"Bilbo needs you, Laurel. You must let Thorin go." Gandalf beseeched her and his voice was no longer calm and raspy, but she could now detect an unmistakable alarm coating his words. She shook her head and said: "I have tried. I have had to let him go so many times." She closed her eyes and whispered heartbroken: "And I am tired. I am so tired of it."

She kept her eyes closed and her cold hands draped over her lap, when suddenly she felt a shift in the air around her and she furrowed her brows, as she could almost painfully perceive an unidentifiable shift in the air around her. He skin prickled and her spine straightened out of its own accord. She pursed her lips and shifted on her chair, in a subconscious effort to accommodate to the change. She opened her eyes slowly and looked up into warm, sad silvery eyes.

She was in awe. She was in awe of the elven woman before her. She was beautiful, no doubt. Her beauty containing an ethereal factor, and while all elves possessed it, it practically radiated off the woman before her. In response to Laurel's shift of attention to her, the elf's beatific smile widened and she looked down at her with amenity and compassion in her eyes. Seeing the woman's emotion, Laurel subconsciously perceived the urge to lower her eyes, but was unable to do so, as she was spell-bound by the woman before her.

"Elandili." the woman addressed her and Laurel's eyes widened, as she realized that this was the same voice she had heard after she had departed from Rivendell and which had comforted her when she had been alone due to the dwarves' prejudice and distrust toward her. As the woman addressed her, she felt her insides warm and she no longer felt cold and bereaved, but warmer. Her jaw slackened and she continued to look at the woman lost for words.

"You must survive." the woman beseeched her and took her hands and they were encased by a warmth, that was so motherly and soothing that at first she did not even perceive the connotation of the woman's words. Yet as soon as they dawned on her, she shook her head and felt old despair rise within her. Breaking the spell, she lowered her eyes and shook her head vehemently, while whispering with distress: "Do not ask this of me. I live in hell. Do not ask me to let him go, not again."

The woman's grip on her hand tightened and she raised her eyes in response and through blurred vision, she saw the woman, undeterred by her frantic pleas, state: "You must wake up now, my dear."

In response, Laurel looked up at her at first confusedly. She furrowed her brows at the meaning of the woman's words, at describing this situation as a dream. She furrowed her eyes and looked at the woman, silently bidding her elaborate on her cryptic words. But then it came back to her. It came back to her, the fight on the cliff, her capture and her situation now in Azog's dungeons.

She closed her eyes, fear walling within her and having completely forgotten her mourning and her defeat. She looked up at the elf woman and she stated: "I am scared." It was only a statement. She knew she needed to wake. It would not do to remain in this artificial world. The elf's smile only widened and became warmer, as she said: "I know. But you must have hope, elandili. When our courage leaves us, it's all we have left." Laurel lowered her head and closed her eyes and as she felt everything disappearing around her, the elf's warm hands were the last to go.

She opened her eyes and was met with the sight of the damp prison stone walls. She lay on her side on the hard cold floor and she looked at the walls before her with numbness coursing through her, which was slowly giving way to utter fear. The blood rushed by her ears and she could hear the rapid thumping of her heart and it was loud and ominous that she wondered if anyone else could hear it. The air was rancid and smelt of foul decay, which hung heavily and coldly on her skin and she shivered as a cold gust of wind flowed through the barred windows. Her head throbbed painfully from her dreaming and the only source of warmth in this forsaken place was the glowing diadem on her chest, which she grasped as a source of comfort as she felt its heat diminish. She drew her knees tighter to her chest and held onto tightly to Lord Elrond's gift. She held tightly onto her pendant the only thing around her that did not seem poisoned with the viciousness of the trolls.

She did not remember much of her capture, perhaps her shock and her fear had caused her temporary, blissful oblivion. She could only remember how she had pushed Bilbo off the cliff and onto the back of a giant eagle and then she was being carried over an old, unsteady wooden bridge and she was surrounded by Orcs. Orcs standing on rock spurs that jutted out of the fortress like sharp sabers. Orcs on raised hides of wood, which creaked and groaned mournfully. Orcs on bridges above her and below her. She was conscious when she had arrived in the Orcs' fortress and to hear it had seemed like a desolate place in the sallow light. Only rocks upon rocks, as they traveled deeper and deeper into their settlement and her deeper and deeper into the hopelessness of their grasp on her. They had bound her, and they had carried her and she had kept her gaze lowered to the cobblestones below her in fear of what she would find. Especially when the landscape of rocks retreated and they entered a larger hall, which was lined with the cells, like the one she was kept in now. Stock gates with thick wooden beams preventing any type of escape, of hope. She had not seen who or what the Orcs kept imprisoned within their cages. She had not wanted to see, but no matter how intent she had been to keep her eyes on the floor below her, she had been unable to drown out the dismal, unharmonious melody of their cries and groans.

Roughly she had been pushed into the cell and there she had remained. She no longer knew how long she had stayed in the same position on the ground. Lying on her side with her knees drawn tightly to her chest- a bundle of red and fear. She knew not how long she had stayed in the same position, her frail form wreaked by bouts of shivers. No light of day ever reached this abyss and the darkness was artificial and not serene like the blackness of night, it was interspersed by the flame light of the torches as the threw flickering and dismal shadows on the ground before her, on which she kept her eyes fixed. She did not know how long she had kept her eyes fixed on that very same russet spot on the grey stone before her. She did not how long it had been since that was the only thing she saw, when she did not dream. When she did not dream of a situation she knew not if it was better, for it confused her greatly. She could not make sense of her dream and at this moment she did not want to. She did not want to understand why she felt such great sense of defeat and abandon in her dreams. She did not want to know why she longed to once more dream of him. She did not want to know why she yearned to once more feel the same familiarity that she always felt whenever she was with him, in her dreams. And she did not want to know why she longed for Thorin Oakenshield, the man who had abandoned her, mistreated her, misjudged her, with such intensity. She did not want to know. She only gave in when her wishes were fulfilled, with wild abandon and for her to be soothed for a matter of a few seconds. Because in those few seconds she was at peace, she was carefree and she did not fear.

Fear... Fear, the menace that lurks in the path of life, never visible to the eyes but sharply felt in the hear. The father of despair, the brother of procrastination, the enemy of progress, the tool of tyranny, for how often is fear used in repression. Born of ignorance and nursed on misguided thought. It has darkened more hopes, stifled more ambitions, shattered more ideals and prevented more accomplishments than history could ever record. Like a changing chameleon, it assumed so many disguises, masqueraded as caution, sometimes known as doubt or worry. Whatever the name of it, it was still fear... the obstacle of achievement. She realized now that she had never felt fear before in her life. Not when she had worried over her mother's morning as a young girl, not when she had grown up and as a young woman she had cared for her ailing aunt Bella, not when she had gone of this quest and she had constantly thought about her and Bilbo's safety. She had had the fortune to, up until now, never experience this caustic biting feel that freezed her insides and left her unable to do anything except stare at the ground before her with wide eyes, left her catatonic. She'd never had to experience fear up until now.

Through the sound of blood rushing in her ears, she perceived the sound of stirring behind her. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor not alarmed by the sound, as she knew that it was the other prisoner in her cell. Before she had entered into her fear-induced waking coma, she had seen that another was with her in the cell. The strip of sky that she had been able to glimpse from the narrow window on the wall behind her had told her that it was night, and she would have surely missed him if her eyes had not succored his location at the exact moment the moonbeam had fallen upon him and his white blonde hair had shone, palely. Uninterestedly, she had realized that he was an elf judging by his long flowing hair, his sharp ears and his fine features. He had been crouched on the back most edge of the cell and had pressed himself into the brick wall, as if he wanted to melt into it, escape somehow. She had seen his perturbed state and his washed out, ashen appearance and for a moment she'd felt such pity for this creature yet at the same time such resentment for in him she saw what was bound to become of her. Quivering, looking at her surroundings with fear and with wide and bloodshot eyes, muttering unintelligibly. She had kept her back to him, unable to look at this mirror image of her future.

The elf behind her was rising but she showed no acknowledgement of that fact, simply expecting the silence around her and the sound of blood rushing in her ears to be accompanied by the constant muttering of the elf. She flinched when he started screaming. She drew her knees tighter to her chest and her breathing quickened as the elf screamed with agony, piercingly and she gritted her teeth. Had she not been so consumed by fear and so shaken by the pure horror she heard in his outcry she would have admonished him to keep quiet, lest he pull the attention of the stationed Orcs, which sat around listlessly, occasionally taunting their prey. She was left to feel helplessness, as she continued to listen to the elf's scream willing herself to speak up and tell him to keep quiet, calm him down, but not finding her voice.

She let out a panicked sob, when she heard the sound of a heavy, steel sword clattering against the wooden beams of their cage. The Orcs' attention had been pulled to them!

Silent sobs wreaked her slight form and she buried her head in her arms and drew herself impossibly tighter together, wishing to take up the least amount of space possible and to possibly disappear. She closed her eyes and felt tears of terror run down her cheek as the screams of the elf mingled with the shrill cries of delight from the Orcs. She heard the sound of the cage door being opened. The shrill creaking of the hinges scratching painfully on her ear. She heard the sound of rushing and felt heavy footsteps pass her by, before the sound of struggling joined the dismal melody and the sound of the elf's fear became more pronounced. She kept her eyes closed and her head buried in her arms, hidden, as she heard the Orcs yank the elf out of the cell. The elf screamed and shrieked and then she heard the sound of a heavy palm colliding with flesh and for a moment, silence rained over her. She held her breath, as the sounds had subsided and she hated that. She hated that everything was so silent now, because she had longed for the noise to come to an end, but now that silence spread throughout the location, she felt intense horror, it was the calm before the storm and she hated it.

But then, the eery silence was replaced with the sound of tearing fabric and tearing and the elf's scream of excruciating pain and she had to resist the urge to scream out loud in her agony. Then suddenly the sound of his screams ceased and was replaced with more tearing and the sound of the Orc's grunts and the sound of obscene chewing and biting. Immediately, her hands flew to her ears. She screwed her eyes shut tightly and gritted her teeth and her form was trembling. She gritted her teeth, as she tried to drown out the sound of the Orcs devouring her previous cell mate.

She did not know how long she had remained in this position, tears streaming down her face and nausea overcoming every inch of her. She did not perceive how suddenly, the sounds of the Orcs ceased and silence once more blanketed her. She was only roused out of her catatonic shock, when she felt something being thrown at her and impacting with her legs. Gingerly, she looked up not knowing why and she looked down and was met with the sight of the elf's head, his fair features contorted into a pained grimace and blood splattered over his ashen skin. Her jaw slackened, her eyes widened and she felt the scream that longed to rip out of her throat lodging itself in the middle of her throat. She wanted to scream, but no sound came out as she looked down at the severed head of the elf who had previously sat crouched in her cell. For a few, endless seconds she looked down at the remains of the elf, shocked into paralysis.

When her eyes flickered up and to the remains of the elf in the hall, so much blood gnawed rib bones, only then did she emit a wet sob and scrambled away, turning her back to gruesome sight before her.

She felt despair and pure and undiluted fear, she felt helpless and a worrying sense of defeat was starting to make its way through her body. Deranged by fear, she did not ponder on anything else and simply sobbed, and amidst these sounds, she managed to cry out: "Please, Thorin... I need you." It did not cross her mind that he was the first person she thought of in her fear, in her attempt to dispel it. She did not ponder that he was the only thing she thought about momentarily. She did not think that she needed him... only wanted him at this moment, that she wanted this man who hated her surely. She did not think that subconsciously she realized... that she loved him. That he had somehow, despite his bitterness and his coldness toward almost everything managed to make her love him, even when she had sworn to herself that she would never fall in love, lest she become like her mother. She did not think about the fact that she now knew that she loved Thorin Oakenshield with an intensity and with a fierceness that even startled her at times. That she would love him even Long after her last autumn had passed. That she loved him and not the heroic motif of her dreams. She thought of nothing else, but her wish that he would save her. She did not ponder on the fact that she was cruelly aware of the fact... that he would not come for her. She only knew that she needed to get out of here, dead or alive she ceased to care. She only needed to get out of this hell, or she'd go mad for sure.

AN- First of all let me say thank you, for your awesome Reviews last chapter! You guys rock! 3

I know what you must be thinking. Seriously ria, you are starting the third book with such a gruesome chapter. Well... yes! (blushes)

I just though that it was necessary to be a bit more explicit and dramatic, especially as she is in Azogs dungeon. Well all know Azog, he isn't really daisies and sunshine is he? Poor Laurel though!

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed (?) the chapter and please read and Review (as always your kind words Keep me going)

QOTW: How do you think our Little Hobbit will get out of this Situation?