A/N: My last fic of 2014-right in under the wire! Got a random inspiration. As one does.

The crown is so heavy on his brow.

He knows now why Thror looked ever-laden, ever-burdened, though he walked fey and tireless amidst the vast, cold honey-glow of the treasure.

He is not his grandfather, but they are—were—both kings, and the crown and the gold and the Mountain are the same.

He used to watch. He stood in shadows and he saw Thror rule over a silent multitude of gems, his most beloved subjects. He was but a lad—and a fool, for he did not know, then, the beauty of it.

It is all he knows now.

He stands on gold, in gold—their gold, his gold—and he remembers his grandfather, remembers the sickness of his smiles and the hunger in his eyes.

(Is it madness? He had thought it so, then, and thought it even until the very moment when—)

Gold. It is a living thing, and yet so still. So distant, but it warms to the touch.

He is not his grandfather. The words are driven through his mind like so many stakes, demarcating the territory of his being as long as he has known. He cannot remember now why it was so important to mark them so.

(Was not Thror a great king?)

He is not his grandfather. But the only distinction that remains—his only lasting failing—is that he does not have the Arkenstone. He, too, can be a great king.

But only if he rules.

He is not his grandfather. Not yet. But it is coming—if they search but a little more, sift through an hour's worth more of coins—he will have it.

(Is it not simple?)

If only Thror were here, to stand beside him, to share this madness—if madness it even is.

(There is a corner of his mind that wanders, wonders if his nephews will return, if they will see the sickness in his smile and the hunger in his eyes.)

But there is little time to think of that. For there is so much gold, so much to be counted, coveted, kept—and the crown is so heavy on his brow.