'Ashur nurtu kuylê 'la murudmi

(Every day of my life until I die)

Chapter 1.

This is not what was meant to be.

This is not what was meant to be. That was never what was meant to be.

Mahal have mercy upon my words – but You acted wrongly. You took away the wrong souls. You wrote those words of destiny while You were looking away, surely – erase them, just erase them and write them down properly, if You are truly the Maker, the One we put our faith in, the One that should be guiding our steps!

Just look at what You let happen, and try to make amends. Try, if You can, but I won't listen to You anyway, I won't listen, my ears are ringing and my breath is failing me, and I am crying, crying despite of myself, before turning to the one I have always followed, the one I will still try to forgive because I loved him more than I loved You.

And I don't care to be damned – I am telling the truth, I always told the truth, and if it means getting cursed by You, I don't care. You already cursed me, taking my friend away from me, and if You cannot forgive me for that love I still harbour, then I care even less... You are the Maker, are You not? You made me like this, You made him the way he was – You made him suffer and bleed and cry, and still You did not save him... I don't even want to talk to You anymore. I won't pray to You anymore. You are lost to me, because he is lost to me, and since he won't come back, neither will I.

Neither will I.

It is so still, in that hall, so still and quiet. The only sounds are my sobs, and it has long been past, the time where I would cry like this – my father's death, actually, close to the pyres in Azalnubizar, so long ago... Fundin dead, Náin dead...

The unthinkable had happened already that day... The unthinkable for me – my father dead, my rock shattered, his armour rent, his smile gone and his brown eyes closed...

And the unthinkable for you – you who are lying so still here, on that stone, waiting for me to come closer, to touch you, to fulfill my last duty towards you... The great Bear, that Skin-changer, he was not afraid to touch you... He came closer to the place you were stretched, where the Halfling was still clinging to you, where we had only been able to fall on our knees, crushed by the terrible awareness that you had fallen, you, our King, but not only you, our two Princes as well, trying to save your life... We were guideless, and the line of Thrór was broken...

The great Bear bent over you, and he closed your eyes, his broad hand touching your face gently, and suddenly you looked even younger, even more fragile... There were deep rings under your eyes – you had not slept for days, and your cheeks were bloodless – it had soaked the snow under you, soaked the snow, and your jerkin, and your tunic...

Rubies scattered on the snow – your own private treasure leaving your body...

The great Bear gathered you – gathered you body actually, but for me it was you still, even though I had to watch another carry you, because I had no strength, no will anymore, not after that, not after the unthinkable...

There were no weapons in your hands. It struck me, suddenly, as I watched Beorn stand up, holding you close to his bare chest – he did not shiver in the snow, he did not care for the cold, and neither did you... but your face was so pale, standing out against his tanned skin...

Your palms were open, your lips slightly parted – you must have struggled so much to breathe, in the end, there was blood on your teeth and at the corners of your mouth, but still your face looked peaceful, not alive but at peace, that long, raven hair of yours still wet, wavering slightly under the wind's sharp bite...

The sun was setting, throwing a golden light upon you and Beorn, but there was no warmth, no light in my heart, I could only gaze at you, and think that you were leaving, that you had already left, without a word, without a second thought actually – and it hurt, it hurt and it hurts still, it's tearing my chest apart and you are not there to comfort me...

Beorn gazed down at you – and the amber of his eyes was sad. Somehow you had managed to find your way to his savage soul as well, and it must have been because you shared the same pain. Your kin slaughtered, the rage you would feel in your heart, turning you both into beasts every once in a while... Both so strong – and now you were a small, broken body in his broad arms, and he grieved. The great Bear grieved.

He carried you down the steps, slowly, and I followed. I always followed. I did not look at the dead bodies – I was the one who had scattered them, down there, but it still had not been enough, I should have been faster, I should have reached you before that pale Orc... I should have held you back – oh Thorin...

And now here I am, facing you, trying to make my tears stop – what use are they to you, my friend? What use am I to you now – this was not what was meant to be...

'Ashur nurtu kuylê 'la murudmi...

Every day of my life until I die. Until I die. Not you. Never you.

Mahal got it all wrong, I have not pledged my life to you to see you end like this, you idiot – you stupid, crazy, thoughtless, savage, burning little idiot...

Here I am, shouting at you like a fool, and you are still lying there. Not moving, not breathing. You are so calm – you look so calm... Did you know you would end like this? Did you plan it, somehow – you never were whole after Azanulbizar, you just pretended, did you? You only yearned to join him – you thought of him every day, even after a hundred years your heart kept calling for him, your little kudzaduz...

Somehow that wound never managed to heal... But Fíli and Kíli – they put an appeasing balm on that terrible injury, they helped you to overcome the unthinkable for decades, they made you smile and feel warm and loved again, and with them you learned you could still laugh...

You have built so much, in that hard life of yours, you have strived so hard and built so much, you were a King already, why did you search for those Halls, why did you seek the door to that accursed key, why did you leave those soft, blue Mountains where you have indeed been happy, for Erebor's solitary peak...?

What did you expect to find here, I wonder? It was not the treasure that called for you – not when you left, and not when you entered Erebor... Was it the Arkenstone, that stone you had always despised and feared, every time you would mention your grandfather?

Or was it even worse – did you think you could fix it all, call back the dead from their graves and burning pyres, and make them walk through those halls once more, those halls where you had indeed been happy and whole, for a few years when you were only a child...?

What evil promise has been whispered to you – what desperate beliefs and shattered illusions made you break, in the end? What made you shrink from friend and kin, only to lose yourself in the depth where gold had neither warmth nor light...?

Why was what you already had not enough...?

You do not answer. You probably did not have the time to think it all over – I hope you did not, I hope you died at peace, knowing you had killed that Orc at last, that pale shadow that had broken every promise of rest...

Mahal, how could you be so stupid? I have looked at that frozen lake, I have been searching for each step and trace I could find, and even now, I still don't understand. You had him. You made him fall under the ice, he was below you, unable to harm you... But you – you still had to assure yourself, you had made that mistake before on the gates of Moria, had believed you had wounded him deadly, had not made sure his body was indeed lifeless, and he had returned, he had returned to haunt your life and your dreams...

So you followed, on the ice. You stupid little idiot.

And of course he was not dead. Of course he used your worst fear to drag you back to him, and you – you were so weak and so fragile inside, your mind was barely yours again and you had just watched Fíli fall... You did not even think it was a trap, you walked slowly towards him, so slowly... I have seen the marks on the snow, they are deep and dragging, nothing like the hurried steps you took while fighting – those steps of you were like a sleepwalker's...

And so he stabbed your foot. Of course he did, don't deny you have been so stupid as to bend over the ice and look at him, I have seen the blood on your boot, and the red steps you left afterwards on the snow, once he was dead indeed, once you had finished him off and were able to drag yourself to the edge of the ice, taking a last look at that Mountain whom you had given everything...

And after stabbing your foot, he crushed you against the ice, and that is when I fail to understand you... That is when I want to shake you, and yell at you, and call you more that stupid, call you a reckless traitor, a headless fool, because it is so plain to see what happened then, and it makes me weep, calling forth hot, angry sobs I cannot repress anymore...

You just opened your arms and welcomed the blade.

Don't say you did not welcome it. It is the worst lie you could ever tell. You were yearning for that blow, ever since you had seen Fíli fall, and even long before – you were just calling for that blade, any blade, ever since your sun had set before the gates of Moria...

Was there no other way, no other way to kill that pale, accursed foe that followed you through all these years? Did you have to give your life to see him dead...?

Thorin, please – tell me there was no other way. Tell me you did not die to run away from life. Tell me it was no suicide, but a sacrifice, a sacrifice you had not wanted, nor planned, and that was not welcome, that it pained you, that it was the hardest decision of your life and that you still regret it.

But you do not answer.

You only lie there, and suddenly I cannot bear to see you stretched like that, alone and cold on the stone. You have been carried here for me to tend to you – tend to your wounds, remove those wet clothes from your lifeless body, so as to dress you as a King. A King who died, a King whose life was taken in front of the very walls of his kingdom, but a King still...

They don't know that it doesn't matter what clothes you wear, how dirty you might be... Even smeared with dirt and blood, even dressed in rags, even thin and starved and shivering with cold or fever – you were my friend, my cousin, my Prince and my King...

And it has been an honour. Just as it is an honour to be with you still, for that one, last, dark night where I will sit close to you and keep watch – make sure your soul crosses that famous white bridge you once told me about...

Let me come close to you. Shift a bit, silly, let me take your head between my hands and make it rest on my lap once more... I have done that so many times, I have held you against me so often during all these years, ever since that day you came back to me, starved and ill, your gaze haunted by nine weeks of exile and hunger, a Dwarfling still, but a Dwarfling who had seen death, and had been close to die himself...

Well here we are, now. Me, sitting on the stone, and you, lying in my lap, not stirring at my touch, your chest still as marble under my hand, and your forehead cold under my fingers – let me brush that half-loosened braid aside, I cannot see you properly, and I want to.

No one is going to take those last hours from me. No one, not even you.

I am not frightened to touch you, see? I even brush that wound on your temple – where did you get that one, eh? Trying to get the same battle mark as me – well you failed. You are still handsome, your face unspoiled, and I won't stop looking at you.

I won't stop looking at you, and I won't stop talking to you. Yes – I know what your farewell words would have been. You and I, we shared ours years ago – a promise that only spoke of the hope we would never actually have to do it, say farewell and leave the other.

But you did. You did leave me, and this was not what was supposed to happen.

Don't weep. I have reached the sun again.

That is what you would have told me. And I know it is true – just look at your face, you are not smiling, you are not asleep, a child can see that you are dead, cold as the stone that support us both...

But you are at peace. I can see it so clearly – and it hurts, to see that you only truly found it in death, that you never reached that calm, quiet state alive...

Yet somehow, now that I hold you, now that I can stroke your forehead, bury my fingers in your raven locks, and look at your face that has always been my own, private light, my reason to keep going – it also holds comfort...

I am glad you found your peace. I wish you joy, and light, and warmth – everything you lacked in this world, may you get it in afterlife...

But please – before you truly go, before you cross that bridge and leave me, before my life without you begins, and I do not know how I will be able to live through it, Thorin, that's not what I pictured, I always thought you would be the one holding on and burying me, for that's what was meant to happen, that's how it should have been...

Before you cross that bridge let me talk to you. Let me tell you how you found your way to my heart – why I weep now that you are gone... Why it was indeed an honour to be at your side, why I never hesitated to pledge my life to you, while that oath I swore while we were still children has been the strongest moment of my life, one that still fills me with pride and love...

Let me tell you, while I hold you and keep watch for you.

Let me tell you why I followed you, and remember.