A torrent of images crashed over Thorin like a wave, and like a wave they caught him up, dragged him under, tossed and overwhelmed him. Where stood the ground or sky, whether he slept or woke, or even if his eyes were open, was lost in a chaos of colors and memories. He stood upon the wall and Bilbo twisted in his grasp, his face pale as he looked wide-eyed to the rocks below. Satisfaction swirled through Thorin to see the hobbit experience even a tenth of his pain at seeing the Arkenstone in the hands of his enemy. He could smell the wool of Bilbo's coat, the dirt of the road, and the sharp tang of the winter wind as it carved the side of the mountain. I will throw you to the rocks, he hissed, and oh, how he wanted to. His fingers dug into Bilbo's shoulder and he could all but taste his terror. To kiss or kill him, the desires warred within him and he leaned in…

But this was wrong. It had not happened like this, with lust and rage as equal fires within him.

He blinked, and Bilbo was gone, as surely as if he had put on that magic ring of his, and Thranduil sat before him on the great throne of antlers in the caverns of Mirkwood. The old familiar hatred burned as a fire in Thorin's stomach, and when he spoke there were no words. Instead, flames washed over the room, licking at the wood and turning the roots of the trees that entwined above their heads to ash. The kingdom vanished from sight behind a wall of glowing red, until there was nothing left but gray ash that opened to a ruined forest.

Yet when the smoke cleared it was not Mirkwood that burned but Erebor, its statues blackened by soot, the walls torn down by the passage of Smaug. It was his people that died in droves, clawing for breath behind locked doors too inconspicuous to interest the dragon. No escape. No help ever to come as their brethren fled across the desolation, abandoning those left behind to their fate. And then it was not the dwarves of Erebor he saw, but the filthy pits of Angband and the huddled Petty-dwarves that awaited their fate, clawing for their children as orcs swept them up and delivered them to the Enemy, to be broken and twisted into creatures of fire and shadow.

Thorin's vision tilted and he saw through the eyes of those who had been changed, roaming halls of stone on all fours, then he was stalking Erebor in Smaug's place. The bodies of the dwarves crumbled to bone and dust with the passing of the ages. He slept upon the piles of gold, growing fat and powerful amongst their radiance, soon overtaking Smaug in size and might. The beat of his wings could crumble walls, his teeth could bite through steel, and the fire of his breath left trails of molten stone in its wake. No force would stand before him, none dared.

Years passed, then decades in the blink of an eye. The dragon grew and the dwarf within shrank. That he'd had a brother and sister, or nephews, became a distant memory, their names beyond recall. Whether he'd had a father he knew not. Old he was, or so he thought, as old as the mountain itself where he had always dwelled. That another dragon came before him faded too into no more than a flash of red, and a memory of hatred, lost as the years marched on and he lounged amongst gold and dust.

Until one day, a fell voice on the air called to him. It spoke of war, and gold, and great armies marching upon a white city. It sang out a challenge, bidding him join the battle and raze the cities of Men and Elves. To rain fire from the sky. In return it promised dominion over all the West, serving only a single, watchful eye. All the gold of the world will be yours. You have been reborn for this purpose, it whispered. Now join us.

Like fire itself he erupted from the mountain, winging his way south to the fields of war. The ground below him turned gray with desolation, the beat of his wings a plague, the fire of his breath a meteor. Against his might the white city stood no chance. The stone cracked and crumbled from the heat of his breath, while the Men left only the flash of their shadows upon the wall. Mirkwood followed, then Rivendell, for the worm of dread had joined the fight, and ever so his foes would fall.

The West fell to ruin, for who could stand against the combined might of a dragon and of his Master? Together they laid waste, until only one prize remained for the taking. Its absence was a thorn in the side of his Master. The one who kept it was a stinging gnat from the depths of his own memory.

In a green land, east of the Sea and west of the Misty Mountains, there was a green door atop a green hill. Like the shadow of death itself he flew, to this place he knew though he could not recall why. The beat of his wings buffeted the land as he hovered in the air above.

Here must the final battle be fought. Here he would snuff out his enemy, fetching back the precious treasure that belonged to his Master. He dove, lengthening his body as he swept downward, and fire built in his throat. He would erase this Shire from the land, leave it as nothing more than ash, and from that ash he would pull the glowing treasure, destroying anything that remained. Like an arrow, straight and true he fell, and landed—

"Let us be the judge."

On two legs. Thorin stood before the door of Bilbo's home, his hand upraised to knock. A hand of flesh, ruddy and callused from sword and hammer, bound with leather vambraces instead of scales. He looked from his hand to the polished wood of the green door. Light shone through the window, and from within came the sound of laughter.

Thorin remembered this night, when he waited at the door while the Company sang and made merry without him. He had not wanted to interrupt, for Durin knew there would be little cheer upon the road, and there was no doubt of the effect the presence of their leader would have on the Company. Even worse, he had come empty handed, with no aid to offer from the meeting of their kin.

His arrival would mean the start of business, and an ill start at that. He would have no choice but to set the solemn tone of this venture. To Dwalin he must be a commander and shield-brother, to Balin and the others a liege, to Fíli and Kíli a figure of discipline. In the coming weeks he would have to prepare them to take up the quest and leave the last of their childhoods behind should he fall. Either way, there would be little cause for merriment upon the road.

So he waited while they sang, one of many shadows that haunted the hills of the Shire. Inside the fire crackled, and the smell of food wafted through open windows, while he stood alone and in silence.

The door opened.

Thorin blinked as light bathed his face, unbidden and unexpected. It had not happened like this on that night. The green door creaked on its hinges and warmth flooded the doorstep, washing over him.

Bilbo stood in the doorway. The light was golden in his hair, his shirt was clean and white, and his face unlined by care. Yet he knew Thorin as he looked upon him, as he could not have that night, and there was love in the smile that lit his face. Love and welcome, from this one to whom Thorin had owed nothing, who owed him nothing, but who had come nonetheless, and braved the road by his side, staying with him through dragon sickness and terrible wounds, and shame swept Thorin in that moment to have taken so much, and given so little in return.

But Bilbo huffed a laugh and shook his head, as if he could hear every word in Thorin's mind. He reached out his hand.

"Come in, everyone is waiting," Bilbo said, beckoning. Thorin hesitated, looking at the hand, and within. He remembered his own solemn presence, how he could bring nothing but sternness and grief to the merry Company.

Bilbo sighed and seized Thorin's wrist. His touch was soft as he pulled Thorin inward and Thorin started, his eyes widening as he was lead into Bilbo's home, and at the welcoming smiles that lit on the faces of the Company at the sight of him.

The door closed behind them with a click.

Thorin opened his eyes, and thought that this must be what it was like to die, and to return. He felt bereft and oddly lost as the real world swam back into focus, and the warm hearth and golden light of Bag End was replaced by the stone arches of Erebor, cold and dark, a living home exchanged for a dead one. He felt a tug of longing to return, to go back to that night of unwitting innocence, when all had seemed so clear and certain. Now his head pounded, and his body ached like that of a drowning man pulled too quickly from the depths.

Only one part of the vision remained: Bilbo stood before him, but where his face had been bright, now it was drawn and gray with pain. His shirt and armor were gone, and there were bandages wrapped tight around his stomach. Bloodstains, red at their heart and shading to brown at the edges, soaked the fabric and he visibly shook with the effort of remaining upright. There was a bow in his hand, the arrow notched inexpertly and pointed at the ground. Fíli and Kíli flanked him, their hands hovering at his shoulders lest he collapse.

Thorin frowned. Or he would have, but the muscles of his face were stiff and strange, and he shook his head against a rush of vertigo. He was high above the ground, somehow, looking down on Bilbo as if he were mounted on a horse, and he sat back, pressing a hand to his face to clear the haze in his mind. The dream was still with him as strong as reality. He could all but feel the warmth of Bilbo's hearth, and hear the laughter of the Company.

They were not laughing now. They surrounded him, weapons drawn, their faces strained and grim. Anxious.

Then he saw.

The world tilted and a chill of horror gripped through him. Had he ever been a dwarf? If so, there was no sign of it now. Thorin craned his neck, and would have gagged as it turned completely around, long and sinuous as a snake, to take in his own bloated form. The stub of wings beat pathetically on his back, the skin stretched tight over emerging bones that flexed and trembled as they grew. Beyond, a tail stretched across the ground, as long again as the gruesome body itself. He was not sitting as he had thought, but settled back onto his haunches like a beast. Only one gap remained in the scales that covered his body, a patch above his heart where the flesh was gray and pasty as the underbelly of a frog. A membrane that would soon complete the wings stretched from his back and joined along his arms, ending at the sharpened talons. Only his face, or what remained of it, he could not see, but with one taloned hand he felt the elongated snout, the ridges that sharpened to a crown of spikes across his forehead.

Thorin looked up, staring wildly at the Company and at the gold behind him. All eyes were upon him, yet none had attacked? Why did they wait? Fíli and Kíli watched, and none of the rest had the mercy to strike him down?

A dragon upon the gold. The end of a long road to ruin, and for all the horror that festered within him, he could not find it in himself to reject it, even as a wave of self-loathing stole the strength from his limbs.

The vision returned to him full force, of the monster that he had become rising up at the behest of a nameless evil, to rain fire down upon the Shire and the white city. He felt once more the fierce joy that had burned within him at the destruction of Mirkwood, and at the treasure that was added to his hoard with each conquest. Not a new sensation, not the imposed will of the creature, but a thrill he knew too well from within himself: the rush of victory, of gold, of rising in might to crush his enemies.

All within him, only now given its truest form, his skin reflecting what which was within his heart. What would he have thought, to see himself thus all those months ago at Bag End? The memory was so fresh in his mind that the answer came quickly: hatred, loathing, and disgust. How could the Company not feel the same? Why were they so still, or were they only paralyzed by the sight of him?

He looked down to the hobbit before him. Bilbo was still, waiting for something, and Thorin's expression twisted in anguish that must have been a horror to behold. "Why didn't you kill me?"

The bow and arrow clattered to the ground. Fíli and Kíli cried out in alarm as Bilbo broke free of their grasp, and in a few steps stood directly before Thorin. The hobbit looked up at the dragon that loomed before him, an unreadable expression on his face, and Thorin flinched as he waited for that expression to crumble into one of disgust.

Bilbo surged forward, and threw his arms around Thorin's neck.

"You stupid, stubborn… idiot! Of course we didn't kill you, you great lummox!" Bilbo cried. "Though I may be severely tempted to clout you over the ear if you don't put an end to this death wish of yours!"

Thorin froze, then craned his neck around so he may better see the hobbit, who was on tiptoes with his arms wrapped around the base of Thorin's neck, the lowest and narrowest point of his grossly misshapen body. Bilbo pressed his face to the scales, and Thorin felt him tremble as he whispered against them, "How dare you, Thorin Oakenshield? You quite frightened the life out of me with that little stunt just now! I think you owe all of us an apology!"

"I'm sorry," Thorin said automatically, and a bit stupidly. He blinked at his own words, feeling numb and rather out of his depth as he stared down at the hobbit who was even now hugging him without any sign of disgust. As caught up in surprise as he was, his brain did not have time to catch up to the ache in his heart as he ran the back of his hand tentatively down Bilbo's back to soothe him. The claws were well away, but he still shuddered at the sight of this form touching Bilbo's skin. Bilbo seemed not to mind at all, indeed he sighed and pulled Thorin tighter against him. There was a shuffling from amongst the Company, and it struck Thorin with a considerable twinge of embarrassment that they learned of the closeness that had sprung up between him and Bilbo in this manner.

"Yes, well, you should be," Bilbo sniffled, pulling an arm free to scrub the back of his hand over his eyes. Then he looked over his shoulder at Gandalf. "Well. I think we've waited quite long enough. Gandalf, tell him."

Gandalf took a step forward, planting his staff as he came to stand before Thorin. Thorin started, his eyes narrowing, his neck twisting to shield Bilbo as he brought his head down to glare at the wizard. Gandalf raised an eyebrow, but seemed otherwise unperturbed by the sight. "As I have been trying to tell you for quite some time now, Thorin: the curse upon the gold is gone, and all that remains of Smaug's vengeance is that which you carry in your heart. Will you release it?"

"You speak as if it were that simple," Thorin snapped. "How do I know you will not simply replace one witchcraft with another?"

"No witchcraft," Gandalf said. "Quite the opposite, in fact. Tell me, in all the time you have spent under this affliction, have you ever once wished to be free of it?"

"And what would it matter if I did?" Thorin said. "It would not have changed anything." From the first moment he had discovered the curse, he had known that he was doomed, whatever his own desires on the matter may be. What good would it have done to wish otherwise?

"On the contrary, our wishes carry a great deal of power, else we would not be cautioned to have a care with them," Gandalf said. "For example, your wish to reclaim Erebor brought you and the Company all the way here from Ered Luin, across innumerable dangers, and led to the defeat of one of the greatest calamities of this Age."

"It is not the same," Thorin said.

"And why not?" Gandalf said, leaning against his staff. His tone was conversational, gentle even, as if they merely discussed the details of the road. As if Thorin had not taken the form of the very calamity he had set out to defeat. "Why is it that you can accept that you have come so far, accomplished so much through such a supreme effort of will, but you cannot acknowledge that there may be hope at the end of this road?"

"Again I say to you, it is not the same," Thorin said, his voice dropping to a growl. He felt trapped by the wizard's gaze and would have backed away if not for Bilbo's arms around him. Gandalf did not budge, and seemed to be waiting for more, those eyes of his piercing and demanding. "That we are here now was at least within the realm of possibility, and even then I did not achieve it alone."

"And you are not alone now," Gandalf said and Thorin winced.

"What do you wish me to say?" he shot back. How could he hope to explain it now, when the Company surrounded them? How could he admit that the quest had nearly ended in ruin because of him, that he had brought them nothing more than greater danger. Azog and his orcs, the burning of Laketown… Even the dragon he had set out to defeat had been killed by another while he was helpless within the mountain. The very battle for Erebor's fate had been decided while he lay insensate! He might wish for a thousand different outcomes, but his doom was certain, and what hope had he to throw off a curse that had haunted his line for thousands of years? "This curse is beyond any of us, Gandalf. Let it end here, now. If my life is the price, then it is a small one."

"On the contrary," Gandalf said. "It is a price that is much too high. To throw away a single life on a crime that was not committed is a waste beyond measure. And there are many here who would keenly feel your loss."

"Erebor no longer needs me," Thorin protested.

"Erebor does not need anything," Gandalf said. "Erebor does not exist, except in the minds of the dwarves who believe in it. It does not lie in the mountain, or in the treasure. You and your people have carried Erebor with you for over a century. And regardless of how you define it, you have already given more than any could ask. You have accomplished what you have set out to do, and regained the homeland for your people."

"Then what more is there to do?" Thorin exclaimed before he could bite the words back. "And why should I, who have only brought ruin to them, be allowed any part of it?"

"The more topical question is what do you wish to do?" Gandalf said. "There is a great deal that can be done to make Erebor strong again, but it need not be your responsibility. You may instead seek a new path, though many have found that to be a far more terrifying and dangerous road than any you have ever walked. Yet you are not alone in it. Even now you are surrounded by those who wish to travel it with you, if you will have them."

Thorin recoiled, and looked about, to the dwarves that had gathered around him, and the hobbit that held him, and a shiver ran through him. He felt as if something broke within him, like a crack that raced through the great shelves of ice that enclosed the mountain when spring came. He saw afresh the gathered Company, not as intruders come to gawk at his ruin, or executioners there to secure the future of their home. Wariness gave way to shame as his own words flooded back to him, when he had called them subjects and abandoned them to his enemies. "After all that has happened, it would be well within their rights to demand my life."

It was Dwalin who spoke up then. He gave an exasperated snort and rolled his eyes as he said, "Enough with the dramatics, Thorin. None of us are here just for the kingdom, we're here for you, as we have been from the beginning. And it was a damned long hike up those stairs, so I'll have your hide if you waste it."

Thorin blinked, beginning weakly, "I banished you…"

Balin stepped in then. "And we're all alive and well, which is a sight more than we can say for you. Don't worry about us, lad. For once, see to yourself first."

It felt like permission, and it struck Thorin far deeper than he could ever admit, or express. He looked to each of the Company in turn, and saw their nods and a few good-natured shrugs. All seemed to be in agreement with Balin or Dwalin, respectively. He looked last to Bilbo. The hobbit kept his gaze downcast, but sensing Thorin's eyes on him he ran a hand along Thorin's shoulder, where the long neck met the breastbone. Under his breath, too quietly for the rest of the Company to hear, Bilbo murmured, "Men lananabukhs menu." Thorin's breath caught in his throat.

"Very well," he said, looking back at the wizard. "What must I do?"

"It is a simple matter, if you allow it to be," Gandalf said, a twinkle of amusement in his eye that Thorin found wholly unbecoming of the gravity of the situation. "You need only cast off your raiment, Thorin, son of Thráin."

"Riddles again—!" Thorin growled. After all, he wore no raiment. It lay in tatters on the floor from the final throes of the transformation, and if the wizard would only use this opportunity to toy with him then he would have nothing to do with— Thorin felt a light swat against his shoulder, and he looked down to see Bilbo giving him look as if he could divine Thorin's thoughts, and was thoroughly unimpressed by them. He bit back the rest of his retort, and bowed his head, looking away as he admitted, "I do not follow."

"A dragon's form is nothing more than that of an exceptionally large lizard, is it not? And lizards, as you may know, shed their skin," Gandalf said, and then more gently, "You are still in there. Remove the scales, and come back to us."

The last flicker of outrage within Thorin sputtered and died within him, and he flinched as a lump gathered in his throat that had nothing to do with chemicals or flame. Still in there? What an absurd notion. As if his own form was somehow nested within this twisted body, rather than torn apart and rebuilt into a nightmare beyond reversal. Absurd and impossible.

As impossible, perhaps, as reclaiming Erebor had ever been.

Thorin looked down at his arms, at the pulsing flesh that even now knit together to complete the transformation. His claw hovered over the inky black scales. Hesitated. The points were wickedly sharp, sharp enough to pierce mithril as he now knew all too well.

He shook his head, mentally chastising himself at his own cowardice. Had he not welcomed death not a moment before, and now he feared pain? He brought the claw down, unable to prevent a wince of anticipation. The hooked tips caught the edge of one of the glinting scales, indenting it but doing no further damage. Then, after a moment's give, the scale tore away with the sound of shredding paper and a long strip fluttered to the ground.

All, remarkably, without any hurt at all. Instead there was a deep, satisfying sensation, like scratching an itch. Thorin stared after the fallen scales, pale and hollow as an empty snakeskin. Tentatively, wondering if perhaps the first layer had only been a fluke, the worn outer skin that was no longer part of him, Thorin scratched the opposite arm. There the skin fell away too with equal ease, but not totally without sensation. A bone-deep thrum of relief rang through his body, as beneath the dark outer scales there were more, but thinner, and of a grayish hue.

Bilbo released his neck, staring with awe and more than a little distaste as the skin flaked off of Thorin's body in thin scraps and fine flakes with every fresh tear. He backed away, though he seemed reluctant to do so even as it gave Thorin more freedom of movement, returning to Fíli and Kíli's side. Thorin stopped long enough to watch him go, but Bilbo shooed him to get on with it, then leaned heavily against Kíli.

With the loss of his touch, Thorin felt as if he was unbalanced, off-kilter, and even as he dragged the claws down over the scales he heard an echo within his mind that until then had been silent.

What are you doing, Oakenshield? We had a deal! snarled a familiar voice from within his head. Familiar, but somehow changed. It no longer came from all places at once, but rather from a single source, a small one at the back of Thorin's mind.

He paused, claws digging into the scales but making no attempt to tear them free. Thorin closed his eyes, opening his senses as he had when searching for the claw, wandering those paths between waking and sleep where he had once been trapped against his will. Now he moved through them freely, finding them as familiar as the tunnels of Erebor somehow, though surely it could be nothing more than his imagination. Yet he started as a face blossomed from the darkness. Monstrous and twisted with rage, its golden eyes wreathed in flame.

"We did," Thorin said, not knowing whether he spoke aloud, but he saw the creature draw back in shock and he flashed his own teeth to see it recoil, feeling the same thrumming satisfaction roil through him as when he had seen the scales fall, and before, in those first moments when Smaug toppled from the sky. "And I have fulfilled my part of the bargain. I have allowed you in. But I made no provisions for the aid of my companions, or for the wizard."

The creature's eyes narrowed. "The wizard has played no part in this. All of this you do unaided. What I want to know is why. I have granted you power. Through me you may know dominion over the West, see your people rise in might. Why then do you seek to expel me?"

"Unaided?" Thorin blinked, for a moment seeing the real world, his own claws poised over the scales. Saw Gandalf beyond and indeed the wizard's staff was dark. He leaned against it now, only watching. Thorin closed his eyes again, and the twisted visage was before him. He frowned, and experimentally scraped the tips of the claws further down his arm. He felt nothing, but the creature winced in visible discomfort. "You say you would grant power to my people," Thorin mused aloud, "And yet you cannot even hold on to this much?"

The creature snarled, its expression pained. "I have no need to hold on. Greater powers than you have rejected me, and their names are lost to time," it said. "You are mine."

Thorin's lips curled back as his hackles rose. He felt the first stirrings beneath that despair that had drowned him these past weeks, of something more than that mean, instinctive anger. This was fury, righteous and cleansing, surging from beneath that suffocating paralysis. Fury that this… thing, this small, pathetic creature that did not even require magic of any kind to expel, should claim him as its own.

And he had almost surrendered to it.

"I am nothing of the sort," Thorin retorted. "Know this, worm. If not for Bilbo's life, that bargain would never have been struck, and I would have thrown myself to the rocks before accepting a scrap of what you have to give. Erebor was never yours to rule, neither were my people, whatever your whispers. You have no claim to me, to my person, or to my home. Not to the lives of my companions, my ancestors, or to my mind. I allowed you in because there was no choice. And this? This is me forcing you out."

He dug the claws in deep, tearing off the scales from his arm and the creature howled, writhing, its lidless eyes burning with hatred. Yet its risen voice did not grow in volume—if anything it shrank, along with its size. The dragon spat curses and blasphemies down upon his head, which he ignored, enjoying only how freeing it was to do so as the creature's voice receded to no more than a buzzing.

Then it vanished, as if it had never been. For it was of no account or importance, only a voice of old shadows and hatred.

When he opened his eyes again he saw that the flesh of his arms was lighter now, gray and slick. The layers of scales were falling away in great pealing chunks, like removing the outer layer of an onion layer by layer. Something else was happening too, something thoroughly strange and impossible that seemed to distort his vision, for he knew that his efforts were concentrated at his arms and shoulders, but with each tear he felt as if his entire body changed in size, returning to its proper height. There was a glow beneath his skin as if he looked into the heart of a flame, and with each new tear it brightened.

He remembered then the gold as he once had, as a beautiful metal to bend to dwarven will, a canvas for the minds and hearts of his people. Of worth to be traded for other items of beauty, for time, for the goods of life. To be given as gifts or made into wares, but nothing more. Just as the Arkenstone had no true power to bewitch, but was only a symbol of power. His grandfather had forgotten this, lost himself to the jewel's beauty in the act of possessing it, and he had passed on that hunger to his son and grandson. Obsessed them with the need to hold it, to hunt and regain it even at the cost of their lives, and the lives of their kin, their children, of Fíli and Kíli, who could so easily have died upon the quest.

Thorin did not know when he began to weep, he only knew that dragons should not be able to shed tears, and he moved to brush them away, looking up to the vaults of Erebor. Yet the hand that brushed his face was soft, the fingers blunt and callused, and he looked up at them, at the torch light that shone between his fingers, marveling at the ruddy flesh free of the obsidian glint of scale or even the gray stain of illness. The breath left him in a rush, and Thorin felt for his hair and beard and found them miraculously intact, not fallen away in clumps. His fingers fisted in his unbraided hair as he struggled for breath, his throat tight as he was overwhelmed by relief so searing it was an agony of its own. The tears gathered and fell unhindered, for each one seemed to carry out with it a piece of the darkness that had found a home within him, until he was left empty, exhausted and shaking.

He looked about him through his blurring vision, and saw that he sat nude at the center of a ring of scales, claws, and broken wings. Yet even as he watched they lost their color, the deep black scales and yellow bone fading, and crumbling until they were no more than mounds of colorless sand that scattered at a breath, fading like a nightmare in the morning light. Once the tears subsided he looked up, seeking someone to share this moment with, seeking his nephews, Balin and Dwalin, Bilbo, and the others.

He found them, gathered together in a tight circle, and a cold chill trickled down his spine. They were clustered together and staring at a single spot, but it was not at him. As he looked, Kíli glanced back at him, his eyes wide and face pale, and stepped aside to reveal what was at their feet. The blood drained from Thorin's face, and with it all joy.

Bilbo lay still upon the floor.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Author Note: Thank you all for reading this far. Next chapter is the epilogue! Please do consider leaving a comment.