DAVINA ⇝ Thorin Oakenshield

Chapter 25

A furious Dwalin stomped down the path leading to the throne Thorin sat upon, adorned in his kingly attire with a dark expression on his face. The Company had been outside the entire time, watching the battle take place right outside the walls of their mountain. They watched as Dain's army and the half of Thranduil's army that hadn't followed the lakemen to Dale struggle against the legions of Orcs. They watched as a familiar head of crimson hair weaved her way through the chaotic battle herself, fighting against the dark creatures that threatened Erebor.

Seeing Davina, the woman that the dwarfs had truly come to consider their Queen, out there fighting a war Thorin had forbade the rest of them to join... it pissed Dwalin off. And as more and more of their kin died at the hands of these orcs, he'd had enough.

"Since when do we forsake our own people?!" He demanded of the dwarf that sat upon the throne. "Thorin... they are dying out there!"

"There are halls beneath halls within this mountain," Thorin said, but his voice was dark, distant... cold. The sickness had completely captured his mind, and all he was worried about was the treasure that lay within Erebor. "Places we can fortify, shore up, make safe." He abruptly stood from his seat. "Yes! Yes. That's it... we must move the gold further underground, to safety."

"Did you not hear me?!" Dwalin snapped, storming after him as he turned away from the warrior. "Dain is surrounded... Davina is surrounded! She is out there, fighting this battle alongside your kin, while you hide away in here! And they are being slaughtered, Thorin!"

The dwarf king turned to face him. His expression only faltered for the briefest of moments before his eyes clouded over again. "Many die in war. Life is cheap," he said. "But a treasure such as this cannot be counted in lives lost. It is worth all the blood we can spend."

"Even your One's?" Dwalin asked him. "Davina may very well die out there!"

Thorin blinked rapidly, his mind at war with itself at the thought of the spitfire of a woman out on that bloody battlefield. But the sickness won again, and his jaw clenched. "She can see the future. She will be fine," he grunted.

"It is precisely because she can see the future that proves she is not fine!" Dwalin argued. "You know as well as I, that when she gets a vision, she is blind to the world around her!"

"Enough!" Thorin roared. "I will hear no more of this!"

Dwalin shook his head, unable to believe that this had been what became of the great Thorin Oakenshield. "You sit here in these vast halls, with a crown upon your head... and yet, you are lesser now than you have ever been."

"Do not speak to me... as if I were some lowly dwarf lord. As if I were still Thorin Oakenshield." The name left the king's lips breathlessly, as if it brought him great pain to speak it. "I am your king!" He shouted angrily, pulling his sword from its sheath.

"You were always my king!" Dwalin told him, his eyes sad as he looked at the dwarf before him. "You used to know that once... But you cannot see what you've become."

"Go," Thorin hissed. "Get out. Before I kill you."

Dwalin left, vastly disappointed as he returned to the rest of the Company to tell them how it had went. 

Thorin was left to himself and the war raging within his mind, and he found his way to the Gallery of Kings. 

The floors were made of gold now, due to it having cooled after their attempt at attacking Smaug when they first returned to the mountain. Thorin walked across it, his eyes dark and expression twisted into a deep scowl. Voices rang inside his head, memories of conversations he'd had and the things people had said to him, things he had said, repeating over and over.