The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls.

"Poison." Óin had said. "Fíli is dying."

You should have known this would happen. Things had gone from bad to worse ever since the Battle. You had woken up, they'd told you that you'd won, but they never told you what you'd lost until you found him.

He was lying there on the infirmary bed, howling like a rabid dog, mangled and bloody and clinging onto the last threads of his life with a grim determination. Dark hair was matted with blood and stuck to his dirty face, the stark white bandages blossoming with crimson as stitches broke and broke and broke again. Wild eyes darted around the room, delirium making his head swim in thoughts and things that weren't there, that made him call out for people who were long dead. Hands clutched at thin air as he begged and pleaded for someone to kill me! End it! I don't want this-I don't want-don't- can't- only for his words to descend into delirious moans and howls again.

You see Fíli by his side, weeping openly. He pleads and begs his brother to stay awake, ignoring his cries. He will not end Kíli's life for him. You can see yourself and Frerin in that moment. You see you holding your dying brother in your arms, lying beside a dark and windless Mirrormere, the sounds of battle fading as it ended. You stay with him, you count the breaths and tell him stories, and you stroke his hair and free it from tangles.

You count until you're the only one breathing.

When you look at Kíli again, you felt white-hot fury spit and crackle up through your veins and into your heart, threatening to claw its way out of your ribcage. Your vision tinted with red, the blood from your wounds seeped into your eyes as you watched your Kíli die. The brave, wild, untameable Kíli. Even Death would have to take him fighting.

But then the howling stopped.

It took four Dwarves to restrain you. You almost killed the fool who tried to reason with you. You hid yourself away for days; the only time you left your lonely cavern was to be with Fíli. Most times, you would find solace in each other's grief. Other times, it only ended with you clawing at each other's throats.

So now, when you stood from your throne, Durin's hall seemed to grow dark and tense in the way that storm clouds would roll in, threatening to break loose upon the earth.

"No." You say, although it is quiet and as if you are talking to yourself, which you eventually decide that you are.

You take a step down and you look at Óin.

Something breaks inside you – you can feel it snap. Some small glimmer of hope just shattered into a thousand shards that tear through your chest.

There is no hope for Erebor now, you think with a bitter pang of despair.

You don't say anything for a few moments more, choosing instead to look around you. You see Dwalin and Balin either side of you, faces laden with grief, as though Fíli has already passed. You know he hasn't, but your heart feels heavier and heavier with each step you take away from them, as though the grief is following you.

You see your Company, your loyal Company who have stayed with you, even now. They're watching you with careful expressions, wondering when you will strike. Because you will. You know you will.

Before you realise it, you've turned back towards the throne again. Your throne now, you remember. Something catches your eye. A glint in the dark. You see the Arkenstone, sitting above the head of the throne. A dark desire takes root in your heart and you rip it from its place in the stone, the light spilling across the hall in cascades of silver and gold and everything in between. It stares back you, taunting you with its brilliance. You fought for this; you drove yourself mad over this. A pretty little stone in a desolate mountain.

You laugh bitterly, and the sound turns quickly into a nasty sneer that even Dwalin flinches at, you notice out of the corner of your eye.

In a surge of emotion, you turn and you fling the Arkenstone as far away from you as possible, as though it would take all the grief and loss with it.

It doesn't.

"It wasn't worth it!" you cry, your voice fills the hall. It's raw, you realise, raw and brutal. You've worn it out with your cries of Du Bekar! and Baruk Khazâd! but you no longer care.

"I gave the lives of my heirs!" You turn back to Óin, helpless. "For what?"

"Fíli still lives, Thorin! The poison-" Balin steps forward. Brave Balin. He knows how to manage your outbursts, always has done. Something sinister creeps from the depths of your mind, however, and you suddenly find yourself spitting out words, laden with malice.

"Poison." You laugh bitterly, the sound rippling and ricocheting off empty cavern walls.

You shake your head. No.

"It's not the poison that's killing him."

You meet Balin's gaze, and it takes a moment for the old Dwarf to recover from your words (and you notice that you barely feel any regret, or shame at what you've just done), but slowly, he nods.

You know Fíli will not live without his Kíli.

He will refuse to do so, until the ages pass and Erebor is turned to dust and the memory of the Dwarves are long-gone, hidden in ancient runes carved upon crumbling doors; the ruins in a new age of Men.

He will refuse to do so, until he is allowed to pass into the Halls of Mandos too.

You turn on the spot, feeling like a puppet whose strings have just been snapped. You slump over in your stride, which reduces in length and your feet fall clumsily, lacking surety.

Fíli had been your rock after Kíli died. Even though he would shout and scream at you, blame you, accuse you of leading his beloved brother to his death, you knew he could never hate you.

And you needed someone to blame you, to accuse you; you wanted to feel guilty, you wanted to feel the weight of the dead upon your shoulders, because your boys shouldn't have come at all.

Sometimes, you'd taunt him, bait him. Fíli would always rise to it, your little lionheart, always straining for a little scrap here, a little tussle there.

But now you completely and utterly hated yourself for it, you loathed what you had become. Cold hearted, and lonely, and grief-stricken, but unable to feel, truly feel, that you were still loved.

In all honesty, you'd long forgotten what that felt like.

But you are the eldest child of Durin's line through Thrain, son of Thror. You were born with this curse upon your crown.

You know, in your heart, and so do the others, that your desire of gold has grown too fierce.

You can feel the sickness in your bones. It's weighing you down, making you feel old and worn out. You know it's making you do strange things, say things you don't mean, but you can't stop yourself, and you gave up trying long ago.

There's nothing that can be done.

You remember Thror, vividly. How his love of treasure and trinkets had overcome him. He was your most beloved family member for quite a considerable time of your disturbed childhood – Thrain was always busy, and your mother had Frerin and Dís to look after, so you often found yourself trailing after Thror, who gladly took you with him wherever he went. So when the sickness found him, the grief was almost worse than the loss of Erebor had been.

You still remember having to pull him from the vaults, from Smaug. You can't forget that. You can't forget how he barely recognized you, how he could barely recall your name in the throes of his sickness.

And the Arkenstone, you remember with disdain, glancing down into the darkness from whence it came, was all it took.