Authors Note: I hope everyone enjoyed the last chapter and that it didn't scar anyone as much as it did the poor dwarves (although some found it incredibly amusing once they were past their initial shock). I based what happened in the last chapter on several events that occurred in my linguistics class last semester, when I volunteered to help English language learners with their comprehension. A lot of our words and their meanings don't always translate. So naturally there were a lot of questions and a lot of instances where I had to get really creative with the explanation of the word (I became quite the stick-figure artist). Given the differences between the languages of Middle Earth and England I didn't think for a minute that every single word would translate, especially the curse words. As far as the next two chapters go—I did things a little differently (because one of the characters demanded it be that way) so the events that unfold in this chapter will be from Lila's perspective and the next chapter will be from another character's perspective.
As always comments are appreciated, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
Disclaimer: Once again, Harry Potter and his universe were created by the wonderful J.K. Rowling. The Hobbit, and all characters associated with his writing are the work of the brilliant and masterful J.R.R Tolkien.
Everything else belongs to me.
To say that Lila wasn't happy would have been stupid beyond all belief. People who forgot their umbrella on a day the sky opened and dumped an unbearable amount of rain on them were unhappy. People who'd previously had their minds tampered with and suddenly found themselves in a similar situation weren't just unhappy; they were bloody furious. And bloody furious she was. It had been years since one of Voldemort's men had savagely invaded her mind in search of the Orders whereabouts and while she had eventually healed from the ordeal, the scars and fear still remained.
Under normal circumstances Lila would have told off whoever it was that was currently tampering with her mind, and she would have done it quite colourfully and with many body parts. However, there was nothing normal about her current predicament or the person that was capable of such magic, so she kept her thoughts to herself and her tongue behind her teeth for the moment. As she didn't think that lady Galadriel would tell her why she had brought her hear or be so inclined to release her from the dream if she let the woman have the sharp edge of her tongue. She knew she certainly wouldn't and she wasn't nearly as understanding as the woman in question.
With something of sigh Lila looked around the library, her eyes shining with the same gleam that a child's had in a candy shop. Admittedly, her situation was helped by the fact that the lady had conjured a library for her to spend her time in and that underneath all her fear and anger she was brimming with excitement over the prospect of meeting the lady in the flesh. Out of all the characters she had dreamt of growing up, Lady Galadriel had always been one of the few that she had admired and looked up to the most. She was not only a wise woman beyond all measure, but she was also a force to be reckoned with. There were very few in Middle Earth whose power and wisdom could be out matched—and she was about to meet her!
To keep from exploding completely from her own excitement or grumble over the fact that she had yet to make her presences known, Lila began to browse through the books on the shelves and examine at leisure the choices that were available. It took no more than a few minutes for Lila to realise that many of the books on the shelves were either about Middle Earth or Arda in some form or another. Was that why Lady Galadriel had brought her here? To help her with her questions? Her forehead puckered in confusion and she couldn't help wondering if that was the reason than why the library? Why not simply come right out and tell her? Why all the subterfuge?
She sighed and went to scratch at the wool cap, mostly out of habit now, only to realise that it was missing. Huh. Well at least it would be nice not to have to wear the blasted thing for a while, even if it wasn't exactly real; any time was better than no time at all. After a moment of consideration Lila turned on the heels of her boots and began her search. She wasn't sure what she was looking for exactly and wouldn't have minded one or two hints to point her in the right direction in this vast library, but she was fairly certain that once she found it she would know.
It took Lila another twenty minutes to find a book that she thought might be useful and as luck would have it the book happened to be on a shelf she couldn't reach…not even if she jumped.
"I couldn't be freakishly tall like a bleedin' Elf." She grumbled to herself as she stomped over to one of the tables and grabbed a chair to drag over to the book case in question. "No, I had to be almost short as a damned dwarf." Her grumbling turned to outright growling when she climbed up onto the chair and realised that even with the chair she was still too short to reach the book. "Well fuck." She pushed up onto the tips of her toes. "I wouldn't have minded a few more inches in this little dream scape Lady Lothlorien." She said to no one in particular as she finally managed to pull the book from the shelf.
Dropping back down onto the balls of her feet, but not yet getting off the chair, Lila ran her fingertip across the smooth leather of the cover. She felt and unmistakable surge of magic and power as her finger took in the feel of the gold threads that made up the tittle of the book. There was obviously some sort of power within this book and Lila was almost certain that's what had called to her when she had been searching this shelf. What surprised Lila the most about the slim volume, was that despite the power she could feel radiating from it –and there was quite a bit of power– she didn't sense anything that she should be ultimately afraid of. In fact, the books essence was almost warm and inviting, as if it were an old friend inviting her home. Yes, this was definitely what she was looking for. Having decided that the top of the chair was as good a place as any to see what was in the pages of the book, she stood there with her back to the rest of the library and carefully looked through the warn pages.
Lila couldn't be certain how long she stood there, losing herself to the words in the book, as the smell of parchment soothed any remaining fear she may have felt. She was however certain the moment she was no longer the only one in the library. Again, an unmistakable surge of magic and power coiled around her, only this time it was three times as powerful as the book. Lila couldn't say why or how she knew, but somehow, she knew that whoever had joined her in the library was not Lady Galadriel. Perhaps it was the magic and power itself that told her. Cold and almost calculating it didn't feel anything like what she would have imagined Lady Lothlorien's magic to feel like. Or perhaps it was the simple fact that she had yet to announce her herself. She didn't think for a minute that Lady Galadriel was so rude or a damned creeper who liked watching people.
"It's rude to stare." Lila carefully closed the book and after a moment she turned to face whoever it was that was still staring at her despite her words. There were very few times in her life that Lila could say that she was honestly intimidated by the mere sight of a person, but this was certainly one of them.
Like all that belonged to the race of Elves the man that stood before her was the very definition of beauty: Skin so fair that it almost appeared to be spun from the finest threads of the moonlight, hair the colour of frost, and eyes like pale blue diamonds. He was what every woman dreamed of and hated all in the same breath (what woman wouldn't hate a man prettier than her?). The elf's visage was of course not what Lila found so daunting. In all fairness, who would be afraid of someone's face? Unless of course they had face that looked like it had been hit by a bag of spanners, then she could understand. But as the elf didn't look like he'd been in the hardware section of his local shop there was little to fear in that area. No, what unnerved Lila was the intensity of his gaze. Powerful, unyielding, and unforgiving, it took every bit of stubbornness that Lila possessed to hold the elf's gaze and keep her feet firmly planted on the chair; a fact that she wasn't exactly pleased about. It was one thing to be unnerved by what a person could do and how they wielded the power they possessed and quite another to be that way because their gaze was creepy as hell.
It also didn't help matters that Lila had finally figured out who the elf was or what she could see gazing back at her from depths of his cerulean blue eyes. He had seen centuries of life, knowledge, death, and more sorrow than she could possibly comprehend, let alone wrap her mind around…and it was unsettling to be around someone that old and who had endured so much. The average wizard only lived to be a little over a hundred (much shorter than the life expectancy of an elf), and even then, Lila didn't think that any had seen as much as the King of Mirkwood had or suffered such demons; and if she remembered his history correctly the demons that haunted him were some nasty ones.
Getting the distinct impression that the Elven King wasn't going to back down from the little staring contest they entered and not one to back down either, Lila slowly let her eyes drift together and gave the king a cross eyed look. Her cross-eyed expression had its desired effect; Thranduil blinked once at her and then slowly arched a single brow. Unfortunately, for the both of them his expression only served to draw her attention away from his eyes to the things he called eyebrows. Whatever apprehension Lila may have initially felt shriveled up into something the size of a raisin as she stared at the massively hairy things above his eyes…and sadly her mouth and brain didn't seem to be on the same page because before she realised what she was doing she blurted out.
"They're like two big arsed caterpillars trying to mate on your face."