The skies above him turned a bright shade orange before transforming into a blinding swath of white. All around him, the screams filled the great hall and the smell of sulfur permeated through the air, making it difficult to breathe.
The dragon had come again but this time, he was ready.
Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, son of Thror, King under the Mountain, gripped his sword and stood by the grand doorway that now began to buckle beneath the heat and the power of the dragon that sought entry behind it. Flanked by his men, he stared at the edges of the doors, the intricately carved metal beginning to melt before his eyes as yellow flames slipped through the space between them, waiting for the dragon.
"In Durin's name," he muttered beneath his breath as his men flanked him on either side and behind him. "May the gods help us."
Suddenly, a movement appeared in the periphery of Thorin's vision and he turned to see two children dressed in their royal robes, calling out for him as their mother, his beautiful princess, grabbed them both and carried them in her arms. They were his little Arkenstones, the jewels that forever graced his own heart.
"Get them out of here," Thorin shouted as servants rushed to help the heirs of Durin out of harm's way. This was no place for women and children, Thorin thought as he watched the three of them disappear behind one of the pillars that graced the grand hallway.
Just then, the doors buckled and flung wide open, its edges melted in the red hot flames. Smaug, the dragon blazed his way through the hallway, searing heat accompanying his glistening form.
The flames that touched every single living thing in its path crumbled into ash, the dragon's tongues of flame leaving nothing but the metal helmets and armor the dwarven army wore just minutes earlier, the swords and axes clattering to the ground, useless. Thorin had charged the dragon when it first burst through the door but the creature's clawed feet knocked the prince to the ground as all around him, his men were reduced to nothing but ash that now threatened to suffocate him.
The ash appeared to dance all around Thorin, like snowflakes on a cold day, when the landscape around Erebor would be coated in white, and children would run outside and play. Only this time, everything around him had turned dull gray, the remnants of his men nothing more than ash that clung to his hair and his armor.
Nothing else moved. No children played.
Then he saw them, as he struggled to his feet, the dragon disappearing into the great hall of his fathers, where the treasures were kept. The three forms stood intact before him just beyond the pillar where they had sought refuge earlier. Only now they were nothing more but three distinct pillars of ash, like sculptures in the fiery dark, their features slowly flaking in the wind spawned by the dragon's wings. Thorin called out their names but none of them answered back, their faces frozen in grimaces of pain and shock, and he screamed with an agony he'd never known before.
And as his fingers finally touched them, the form resembling the youngest of his two children, with their mother's arm still protectively gathered around him as she crouched low, crumbled in his hands. Thorin stared in horror as the embers that had once been the crown jewels of his heart blew away in the gust of wind as the dragon took another victorious lap around the grand hall, red hot flames licking the air, taking with it anyone else who still breathed.
Thorin screamed but he knew that none alive heard him now. In the grand hall beyond, the dragon screeched in victory, finding the hoard of gold and silver, precious metals and everything that the dwarves had forged with their own hands, and with another shriek that echoed throughout the halls of Erebor, it settled upon its prize.
And as Thorin continued to scream in despair, he saw everything around him begin to disappear, the pile of embers before him swirling into the air above him, joining the ethereal clouds above. It left him alone once again, just as they did each and every night when he sought peaceful sleep that would never come. And in the darkness of his dream, he stood up, alone.
It was then that Thorin realized that he was crying. He opened his eyes, the tears jarring him back to reality, feeling the wetness upon his cheeks as he awoke. He leaned his back against the cold expanse of rock, next to a cave where he and the rest of his company had sought shelter in. Beyond the safety of the cave, he felt the cold night wind whip upon his face as the sounds of snoring filled the air just beyond the heather.
Thorin leaned his head back upon the stone wall and sighed. There would be no point in sleeping now, he thought, as he settled himself comfortably against the rock face to await the rising of the sun.
The moment he'd close his eyes, Thorin knew that they'd only visit him again.
They always did.