This is my first published fanfic, so please be gentle.

As always, The Hobbit is owned by J.R.R. Tolkien. I am just a humble interloper who has been inspired by his works.


"So much for joy, Thorin Oakenshield," he mocked himself as he cast aside a particularly beautiful engraved brooch in irritation. "The worm of Dread is slain and dead, and already thieves and robbers come knocking on my door to claim that which they have no right to!"

Struggling to rein his temper back under his control, Thorin could not stop the curses that dropped from his lips.

The soothing current of gold relived some of Thorin's ire, and he began to come back to himself. It was time to prepare the Mountain against the gathering hosts that the news of the death of the treasure's guardian had brought. Already the Men of the Lake had retreated to Dale and it was only a matter of time before they would claim a share of the spoils under the guise of charity. But Men like the Master of Lake-town would never be satisfied and like carrion birds would return to pick at more of his kingdom's wealth until they had pilfered all of it.

None of his gold would be carried off while he still breathed by such Men, Thorin thought, and hastened to see how the preparations went. Climbing one of the long stairs that turned into the wide and echoing ways above the treasure halls, Thorin hurried towards the Front Gate where his Companions would be sealing the rent and blackened remains of the Gate secure against any attacker. Even without the torch-light, he remembered the way to the Front Gate and so arrived there perhaps sooner than any of his Companions expected.

His sister-son, Kili, was carting one of the broken stones in a wooden cart to help fortify and repair the main entrance. Tools like this were to be found in plenty that the miners and quarries and builders of old had used; and at such work his Companions were very skilled. Good hearted lad that he was, Kili was pushing himself to follow Thorin's commands despite Kili's need for recuperation and rest after the Orc attack in Mirkwood.

If the inevitable oncoming battle didn't kill him, then his sister surely would as soon as she could get her hands around his throat, for Kili's long black hair hanged limply around his face, which was still pale and shone with sweat.

With a clatter, Kili released his grip on the wooden cart when he spied Thorin making his way towards the Front Gate. "Uncle!" he exclaimed, leaping around the broken masonry and the other bustling Companions who had not heard Thorin's approach.

They had begun to hoist up great blocks up stone to block the opening with rope pulleys and pallets.

"Up it goes!" exclaimed Bombur's voice as he and some of the other Companions lifted one of the destroyed statues to lie on top of the beginnings of a wall of stone that spanned across the gap made by the Dragon's flight.

"Dwalin said that you wished the Gate to be blocked up! Surely not, Uncle! The Lake-men, they have come to us in need! They have lost everything!" Kili demanded, his voice still hoarse from his illness.

"Do not tell me what they have lost," snarled Thorin in reply, remembering all too well the desolation and how low they had all sunk, to regain only the merest meagre portion of what had been lost the day the Worm had attacked.

At his outburst, the other dwarves seemed to pause uncertainly in their work.

"I want this fortress safe by sun-up," Thorin struggled to explain not just his anger at being questioned, but his desperate need to keep the precious treasure safe. "This mountain was hard won. I will not have it taken again."

He would guard the treasure- the history and work of his people, the heart of his restored kingdom with his last breath. Even as the world outside railed against the Mountain, and demanded what they had no right to, Thorin would wait in the Halls of his People, and gladly stand and guard what was now returned to him. His Companions and the Hobbit might protest his decision, but Thorin felt outrageously happy at the thought of merely returning to the precious sight of his cherished treasure. It was his alone, precious beyond reckoning.

Hadn't he earned it, unlike the detestable Men and Elves who thought they deserved some portion of it? Did he not deserve to revel in the fact that the wishes closest to his heart had finally come true? Every piece of gold and silver, every gem and priceless jewel was his.

"I will not have our home taken again," Thorin said, and his voice shook as he realised exactly what the mysterious feeling from earlier was.

Dragon sickness.

The horror of it washed over Thorin, and for a moment it seemed he had been spared the madness and lust that infected him. Over and over again he could hear the cruel laughter of Smaug the Magnificent, dead and lying at the bottom of the Lake of Esagorath. He must be truly mad, just as his grandfather was, to hear so clearly the amusement of the greatest calamity of the Age and yet still wish for the very thing that doomed him.