Returning Home: A Hobbit Fanfiction

Chapter 49 - Home for the Holidays

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

Laurel watched the fireworks explode in the sky into a burst of red, white, and blue with an unmoving expression. She'd been startled by them the first time she'd seen them when she ended up in America several decades ago - she'd lost track somewhere during what was apparently the second world war. 

But now, she expected them, and with what remained of her sensitive hearing, she could even hear them soaring through the air before they exploded. Elena and Celia had always loved the fireworks, dragging her out to see them each year until she grew to enjoy them as much as her daughters.

They brought her no joy this time. Not when she stood at the edge of the crowd, hidden by the drooping branches of a weeping willow as the city officials shot off fireworks across the river and lit up the night sky. Not when her daughters weren't there with her to drag her out to the middle of the crowd to find the best spot. Not when every attempt to find them again had failed, leaving her once again alone in a world that was not her own.

Not when her daughters grew closer to death with every step they took in her dreams at night.

She'd been so eager to try and find them again, she'd never considered that the gate might still be closed to her, that she wasn't yet meant to cross over. That there was still something - and it better be darn near crucial to saving the world, or she was going to be ticked that she'd been separated from her children for so long - that she needed to do, or to learn before she could leave.

Night brought her no respite from her struggles, only serving to increase her fears. Gone were the peaceful dreams of nights at the hobbit's - Bilbo Baggins - or in Rivendell. In their place were dreams of what she could only hope were a possible future, as opposed to a certain past. 

She dreamed of a pale orc with a claw for a hand throwing Elena into a ravine, of the blond dwarf prince falling after her, blood trailing from the mortal wound in his back. Of Celia, standing defenseless before the same orc, her bow falling from nerveless fingers as he descended on her, gutting her. Of the dragon, flaming Elena as she was trapped between him and a madman, or tearing down walls in his efforts to reach Celia. 

Not to mention the Master. If he was still alive when - not if, she refused to believe if - she got back, it wouldn't be for long. She had no idea why Thranduil still entertained an alliance with the man, he was positively disgusting. And demeaning. And evil. And she would put an arrow - or seven - in him if she got the chance. 

It wasn't all bad, though, not completely. She had to admit that the night she dreamed of Celia holding a blue eyed babe and sitting on the lap of the dark haired prince, she squealed a little when she woke up. Grandbabies had featured prominently on her mind for the rest of the day, and she couldn't get the image out of her head until she managed to paint it and lock away the page in the little journal she'd started keeping in an attempt to keep things straight in her head.

A particularly loud explosion brought her mind back to the present as a firework screeched into the sky and burst into a shower of color. She would have just ignored it and left, but she couldn't do that to her daughters. Not to their memory. 

So she stayed, watching the rest of the show with a solemn expression, and applauding politely when it was finished with the rest of the crowd. She stayed through the reading of the Declaration of Independence - and wouldn't that have been an interesting concept, back home! - before returning to the same empty house she'd inhabited since her daughters had left. It wasn't a home anymore, not really.

She shut the door behind her with a click, heading up to her room, wanting to just go to bed. She flopped onto the bed face-first, only to have to wiggle around as something sharp dug into her stomach. Turning around, only to wince as some of her hair got caught underneath her back, she managed to dig out the offending object. She frowned when she saw the title: Return of the King.

It was the last book in the trilogy that she had eventually decided to read. She'd just finished it this morning, and tossed it on her pillow. So... how did it end up in the middle of the bed? She shook her head, dismissing the notion as forgetting where it had landed, and tossed the book towards the end table. 

It landed on the floor, facing the door, and tumbled a few inches closer before falling still. 

Now she was confused. Rolling out of her bed, she picked up the book and tossed it back towards her bed, only to have it fall back to the floor and roll towards the door once more. She bent down to pick it up to check for signs of tampering, lifting a hand to brush the hair out of her face. 

Except her hair hadn't fallen in her face. It had literally lifted away from her body and was straining towards the door. And now that she had become alert, she became aware of a tugging sensation in her stomach, leading towards the door. She instantly dropped the book again, eyes wide as she experimentally stepped closer to the door, feeling the tugging sensation increase in response. 

Hardly daring to breathe, her heart pounding in excitement, she darted towards her closet and tugged off her regular clothes, pulling on her regal garments. Slinging her bow and quiver over her shoulder and strapping on her daggers, she grabbed her travel bag she'd been keeping just in case for just such an occasion, and practically sprinted down the stairs. 

The air was sucked from her lungs as soon as she'd stepped outside, the tugging sensation almost dragging her down the driveway and towards the path out of town to the forest. Gasping for breath, she locked the doors and tried to stay still as she hid the key and turned to the road.

Almost giddy with excitement, she eagerly followed the feeling, retracing the steps Celia and Elena had taken almost seven months earlier. The feeling only increased the closer she got to their old campsite until she was practically running, her quiver slapping against her back as she moved. 

She burst into the campsite and nearly tripped over a log, but kept going past the river where she had found Elena's ripped sketchbook. It was somewhere in the forest, she could feel it. It was calling to her, trying to bring her to it. 

A sudden brush of wind rushed past her, tangling her hair and nearly sending her into a tree before the tugging sensation suddenly disappeared, and her only hope of direction with it.

Suddenly aimless, she wandered around the dark forest with determination, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary, her bow at the ready. Even with all her caution, though, it was only the slightest whisper of wind in a place it shouldn't have been that warned her, and she spun around, arrow already drawn.

Only to find another aimed at her, before the face behind the bow gasped, releasing their hold and dropping to the ground in a bow.

"Queen Aredhel! You have returned to us!"

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A/N: So, I apologize for the shortness of this "intermission", I guess. The business and plans associated with the holiday have really thrown me for a loop, and rather than not post with no warning (because I completely forgot about it, go figure), I decided to post a brief bit with Laurel/Aredhel instead.

I hope all my fellow Americans have a wonderful Independence Day. And to everyone else... may you have a great Wednesday, I guess. :D

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! :)

General Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit, just Elena, Celia, and Laurel.