Perhaps he should have asked his sister to let him borrow her makeup; that seemed like the best those days to hide the black circles under his eyes. It was so much better than sleeping, so much better than seeing him. Though, as Thorin followed the man along, he was not quite sure any longer if he was asleep or not. No, not with the way that things were taking place. It was a tragedy of a play, and he was the audience who could only watch, not stop what was happening.

He came like he did any other night. Looking back, Thorin could not remember just quite when it started. He did, however, have trouble remembering just when it had not happened. Oh, he knew that once his nights had been peaceful. Once, he had been able to sleep at night. Sometimes he had been given the stray wet dreams, other times ones that made no logical sense. Still, those dreams had not been horrifying, more of a strange tale to laugh upon later.

He had just appeared one night, shown up out of the blue. He had smiled, a cup of red wine in one hand and a lock of Thorin's dark hair in the other. Oh, he had not looked like a monster. No one expected a monster to be pale skinned, blond haired, and blue eyed. No, he looked like a rather well off man. At the time, his hair had appeared short. When it had suddenly started to grow, as had his fingernails, Thorin had screamed. That had only drawn a chuckle from his lips.

Before, there had been a life beyond trying to find ways to stay awake. There was a life beyond excessively drinking coffee, thinking up lies, and trying to stop something that he could not control, let alone understand. Thranduil, as he called himself, did not like revealing much himself. Oh, but he knew so much about Thorin.

And there were those "adventures" that he dragged Thorin along in, those nightmares. Some days he would be the dwarf king of some fantasy land, other times the leader of a group of pirates, or even the owner of a coffee shop. Whatever he was, he was always terrified. All he wanted was for it to stop. What was worst was that all of his friends, all of the people that he held there, were in front of him. His friends, his family, all suffering. He would watch them die, mutilated in some way or the other in each so called "adventure".

"Wakey, wakey sleepy head," Thranduil had said once when he had tried to escape. "It looks like half of your company is dead. Or maybe more. How about the two of us go check?" And then he would smile, only because no one else in this nightmare could.