Visions of Gold

by Naivim

Dreams of the long-lost splendor of his home plague the mind of the prince-in-exile Thorin, who realizes he has inherited a duty that goes beyond the mantle of leadership. This is the story of how he set out to reclaim Erebor, with the aid of unlikely companions, among whom he finds friendship, loyalty, and the unexpected warmth of love. Thorin/OC.

1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The crackling of the fireplace broke the silence with what little strength it had left. Small flames danced at the very center of ash-ridden logs that were burnt beyond recognition. Thorin Oakenshield lay wide awake, although his eyes remained closed. His mind was racing with images of the dream that had interrupted his rest. These images were hardly new, but the effect they had on him seemed ever greater as each night he woke sooner and sooner until he felt he would never know sleep again.

He dreamt of his home. But not the old, abandoned, dull home that now lies at the feet of a mountain. But of the glorious sight it once was when he was young. In his mind, the streets of Erebor seemed brighter than what older dwarves may remember. The houses seemed full of merriment, and the people full of joy. His grandfather's halls seemed to glitter with the shine of gold and jewels displayed proudly on each wall, on each step, on every place to which the eye may wander.

His grandfather, had he still been alive that night, would have also remembered the glow of the jewels and the bright shine of gold above anything else. He would have remembered the Heart of the Mountain, a rare jewel of inexplicable beauty, as the symbol of his house hanging without a base over his height as he sat on his throne. But the King was no longer among the living, and it was those glittering thoughts of exaggerated wealth that reduced his fate to blood. Now similar thoughts plagued the mind of his grandson, the prince-in-exile, the oaken prince, not anymore the young lad he was on the day the great drake came.

Had he been but a few decades older, or had he not been in the royal halls the day that Smaug the Terrible descended upon his family's mountain, had he been but a dwarf commoner walking along the stone streets of the city below, he might have secured in his mind memories quite different from the ones he safeguarded now. He might have remembered the terror hunting among the people like a wild bear, the sight of stone falling upon stone, crushing everything on its path, kind or wicked; the heat of the flames melting metal upon skin or the smoke rising like a black veil over everything that was once fair.

He remembered only the cries of those who were still inside the city as those few dwarves whose names never made it into legend, closed the blazing gates in hopes of allowing those who had already escaped the inferno to reach a safe distance from the great beast; binding not only their fates to darkness, but also the fates of all others who had not had a chance to escape. More than one noble dwarf was slain by the despair of their kinsmen on this day, but this, Thorin never knew. He only knew the echoing cries and had never dared to imagine the rest. The presence of this memory upon his mind, however faint, always turned his heart to icy stone.

And now, thoughts of how Erebor stood proudly under the sun, unaware of what awaited it in the coming years, and glorious both in wealth and in power, plagued the oaken prince's mind, coursing through his being like the disease that had afflicted both his father and his father before him. But young Thorin, young in comparison to how old his forefathers had lived, knew that he had inherited more than Durin's name. He had inherited a burning pain, a vibrant vengeance, and the desire to see his homeland restored in the name of Durin.

Young as though he was, Thorin was far wise, both in his own thought, and in heeding the thoughts of those wiser than him. He vowed to himself not to fall prey to the same mistakes that had taken both his father and grandfather to an early end. If he was to reclaim Erebor, first he needed a plan. Armies he had none, soldiers he had few, and gold was a sight he had not seen for many decades. The way to dethrone Smaug and release the mountain from his grasp was not to be achieved through the strength of his people's arms; that Thorin knew. How, then, could such a feat be done? Thorin's mind grew empty as no answer was found, and there on his bed he laid still until well after the sun had risen from beyond the mountains.