She dreams of Golden Hope

Ballad of a Summer's day

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate."- Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare

He was passing a shaky hand over his sweat-drenched forehead. He had once more dreamt about his grandfather and Erebor. It was still the early hours of morning and the sun had just started to rise in the east and the deep blue shade of the night sky was retreating to give way to agrey pallor, with a slight tinge of red. None of the others in his company were awake, but him and Nori, who had taken the last watch for the night and he used this time to reflect on his reasons for this quest, for reclaiming Erebor. He remembered the day of Smaug's invasion and he thought that he wished to avenge this day, which had not only caused him to lose all that had been promised to him, all that he had prepared for his entire childhood, but symbolized the beginning of the downward spiral that his life had become, the beginning of the monotonous, wrath-filled, bitter days that constituted his being. No, he liked to believe that if everything he had lost had been material, that he would have been able to overcome this virulence that seemed to rule him. He liked to believe that he had grown to become such a bitter and angry man, because Smaug's siege on Erebor symbolized his grandfather's death and all the plights Thorin and his people had had to undergo until now. That the taking of Erebor had put a curse of misfortune on the line of Durin and their subjects.

Oh Erebor! He felt longing rise within his chest only at the mention of his old halls. He could still recall the vastness and the immensity of the fortress. He liked to believe that he was undertaking this quest not only, because of his desires, but because of his people. Because he longed to give them a home, to enable them to once more be a part of that proud and strong kingdom that had been Erebor. He wanted to believe that he was doing this, so that his once mighty people that had been brought so cruelly low could reclaim their home and could revert to those days of peace and plenty that Thorin had lived through in his childhood. That he wanted to provide a home to his subjects, whom he felt he owed so much due to his incapability to protect Erebor and fend off Smaug on that fateful day and that he no longer wanted his people to wander Middle Earth like a pack of displaced, homeless hounds, like vagabonds, when he himself had experienced their wealth and had reveled in it. He wanted to believe that he undertook this quest, so that his eldest nephew, so that Fili, who he had been teaching and grooming to be a just and valiant leader, similarly to the way Thror had done with him in his youth, so that his nephew, who already displayed characteristics needed in a leader, could have a worthy hall to reign over, so that he could look forward to his inheritance, so that the line of Durin once more recovered their due. He liked to believe that he was doing this because it had been his grandfather's and then his father's dream, that the two patriarchal figures in his life had longed to see their people reinstated in Erebor and receiving what was rightfully theirs. That he was doing this, because he had failed both his grandfather and his father, when he had been unable to prevent their death, or who knew what fate his father had suffered, under the hand of that orcish filth. That he had been unable to stop that vile, heinous creature before he had taken them from him. He wanted to believe that this quest was amends for his shortcomings toward both Thror and Thrain. He wanted to believe that he was doing this for more than the gold he knew lay in Erebor.

He refused to believe that his dreams of the mountains of riches and gold that he knew inhabited each and every hall in Erebor had anything to do with why he was undertaking this quest. He refused to believe that the streams of gold that ran through the stone of Erebor was the reason why he felt the need to go reclaim his halls. That he was only doing this, going on this quest because he longed, he wanted, he needed to be king under the mountain. He refused that this whole undertaking had only sprung out of his want for power and for his kingdom and for the gold he could still vividly paint before his mind's eyes and which he had dreamt about for so long. He refused to believe that this quest was only a means to satisfy his avarice. And he was a stubborn dwarf. He refused to believe that while he knew of the menace of Smaug and of the Devastation he could cause and he was still leading this company... His company knowingly to this place, where that beast no doubt still festered. He refused to believe that he knew that his company of thirteen tradesmen, tinkers, toymaker and two little, weak Hobbits was ill-equipped to go on this quest, since not even the entirety of the royal guard, the best warriors of Erebor had been able to stop Smaug that day. He refused to believe that he was leading this Company of men, who had so faithfully come forth when he had called upon them, only because he still dreamt of the gold in Erebor's halls. Because there would be too much connotation in that belief. Because it would have meant that he had become too much like his grandfather... Not the man, who had taught him during his youth all there was to know about a just and fair leader, not the man whom he had thought to be the best king there had ever been, the man he had idolized... No he would have become too much like the Thror he had seen in the days leading up to that firedrake's invasion. The man, who had spent uncountable hours in Erebor's main treasure hall, wandering between the vast mountains of precious, shiny rocks with a crazed and delusional look on his face. Thorin refused to believe that he was likely to become sick, that the same disease that had festered and fertilized within Thror might also slumber within him. He did not believe that he could be corrupted like his grandfather had been, that he could blinded by his love of gold and that he could be ensnared by the sickness that had trapped Thror, because he knew that where sickness presided only bad things could follow.