From the very first time Thorin touches the Arkenstone, he knows that it is not merely a stone. It is alive, pulsing with a sort of strange energy, and a trace of it remains with him even after Thror takes it back, lingering maddeningly just at the edge of his consciousness.

He can't quite describe what it is, can't quite put the ever-present humming at the back of his mind to words, but as time passes he finds it harder and harder to remember what it was like to be alone in his head.

At night, he lies awake and feels the stone's presence ebbing and flowing, feels it changing and shifting, and over time he learns to interpret the ever so subtle changes. It's almost like the stone has feelings and moods of his own, and sometimes, particularly when he steps out of the mountain and the cold, clear air hits his face, he feels a brief rush of happiness that is not his own. (He wonders, then, if the stone is really the heart of the mountain or if it is a prisoner, damned to an existence that it has no way out of.)

Thorin begins to think of the stone as a person, a person that he shares his thoughts and feelings and dreams with. Maybe he's imagining things, but the presence feels vaguely feminine, and so this is what it becomes in his mind – a woman, locked inside a stone, watching over the mountain and its people.

And maybe that is really what she's trying to do, but there is not much she can do from inside the Arkenstone, is there, and so the dragon descends from the sky and sets the world on fire and there is nothing Thorin can do but run. He feels a sharp, hollow ache deep inside of his chest as he turns his back on his home, turns his back on her, but he belongs to his people above all else, and so he leads them away to safety and makes a silent promise to himself and to her – the promise that this is not the end.

Thorin doesn't feel her presence for a very long time.

He tells himself that this is only because he is so far away from the mountain, but still he can't help but worry that her life is intertwined with the life of Erebor, and now, now that the once mighty kingdom is nothing more than a grave full of gold, the last remnant of life faded, she is fading with it. (It would make sense, too, wouldn't it – the body is dying and the heart is dying with it.)

Thorin feels his hope dwindling, a little more each day, but he keeps up the façade, puts on a brave face for his people, swallows his pride until he chokes on it just so the homeless dwarves of Erebor will survive another winter, another journey towards the unknown.

At night, he misses her terribly. He misses the way her presence would grow calmer, would envelop him like a blanket and lull him to sleep. Now, he can barely sleep anymore.

And then there's the battle of Moria.

All hope seems lost, everything shattered to pieces as Azog the defiler holds up the king's head with a triumphant roar, but then Thorin feels it. A burst of defiance and overwhelming faith, faith in him and the people of Erebor, and his knees almost buckle with relief before he reaches for the nearest thing resembling a shield.

He holds the oaken branch tight but holds her tighter, locks her in the back of his head so she can't slip away again. Stay with me, he thinks and he isn't sure if she hears it, but it seems like she does, because when he raises his sword and lunges at Azog, he can't tell where his fury ends and hers begins.

After the battle, her presence changes. It becomes softer, warmer, as it curls up behind his breastbone and comforts him without words. He can feel her grief – for all he was consumed by the lust for gold in his last years of reign, Thror was always a good king – but he can feel pride too, slowly settling inside of his bones and cementing his decision.

No matter what it takes, he will take Erebor back. He will regain his birthright. He will regain her.

He takes care to not lose her again. Sometimes she grows quiet for weeks at a time but she is always there, a muted humming at the back of his mind.

During those long stretches of time he can feel her sadness, deep and all-consuming. He can tell she tries to hide it, mostly for his benefit he thinks, but it seeps through more and more as their minds intertwine with each other's. When this happens, he tries to send her pictures of Erebor the way it was before, beautiful and bustling with life. He doesn't know if she can actually see them, but she seems to grow a bit calmer when he does it and so he continues, if only to keep himself from losing hope again.

She stays with him through all of it, through finding his people a new home in the iron mountains and through trying to keep their morale up after losing their king, and she's also with him when Gandalf gives him a map and a key and tells him that it is time. He feels her excitement, feels the rush of hope, and knows that there is nothing he can do but say yes.

For all the time she's been with him now, her emotions still puzzle him sometimes. The strange longing that he feels when they start singing about the misty mountains is not his own, and neither is the sudden wave of happiness. She is happier than she has ever been before, and he can't stop the corner of his mouth from twitching up towards a smile.

After that, he takes to singing to her when no one can hear him. He sings her the songs his mother used to sing to him and Frérin when they were just little dwarflings, sings her the songs the dwarves of Erebor would sing during celebrations, sings her every song he can think of. This time, he can tell that she likes it, and her soft happiness keeps him company during long and dark nights spent on cold forest floors.

He wonders, lonely as he is even surrounded by his company, what it would be like if she was an actual person, if he could hold her in his arms and watch her smile light up her face rather than just feel her happiness. Maybe once they kill the dragon and reclaim Erebor, they can figure out a way for her to get out of the Arkenstone. Because by now, he is very sure that she did not choose to become what she is now – a mind without a body, without words, doomed to an eternity locked inside a prison.

Usually, whenever he fights, her presences grows sharper, clearer, gives him strength and focus beyond his own. But this time, it's different.

When he jumps from the tree into the flames, sword raised high, shoulders squared, and prepares to lunge at Azog, it isn't determination that he feels from her, or the fury she filled him with when the king was murdered. It is fear. Pure, raw fear. If she had words, he imagines she would beg him not to do it, but in his mind the memory of Moria is still fresh and so all he does is give her as much reassurance as he can. It's going to be alright, he thinks, mostly directed at her but also at himself, and then he charges.

Just moments later, when he's lying on the cold hard rock, his whole body alight with pain, and sees Azog slowly coming closer even as his vision fades, he retreats into his own mind, retreats into her. She seems both angry and scared, but then her presence changes. It burns brighter, hotter, and Thorin feels it filling him up and burning away his pain before his world goes black.

He comes to with much less pain than he should, considering he took a blow to the chest and was then thrown against a massive rock by a warg. In fact, he feels nothing more than a slightly irritating twinge in his chest when he pushes himself up into a sitting position and looks at the members of his company crowded around him, their eyes full of worry.

"Heavens, Thorin, you gave us quite a scare." Balin says, and that is when he remembers.

Panicking, he reaches for her, and for a brief, terrifying moment he thinks that she is gone, all her energy spent to heal him – because he is very sure that is what she did, even though he has no idea how it was possible – but then he feels her, curled up at the back of his mind, seeming very exhausted and radiating a sort of exasperated relief.

Dwalin helps him to his feet and then he finds himself pulled into a mess of hugs and violent slaps on the shoulder. Bilbo is there, too, and Thorin remembers that the Halfling, of all people, was the one who stopped the pale orc from piercing him with his sword when he lay incapacitated, so he apologizes to the Hobbit, finally putting his doubts about Gandalf's choice of burglar aside. (He feels a faint rush of approval at that. She never seemed to agree with his opinion of Bilbo.)

Later, when they're off the Carrock and have resumed their journey, Gandalf steps up to him with a knowing glance. "You seem to have quite the protector." he says in a low voice, and Thorin only nods his head slightly. He doesn't ask how the wizard knows the truth about the Arkenstone.

For days after that, she sleeps. Or at least he thinks that's what she's doing, because her presence is muted and still, and sometimes he feels random surges of feelings that are not his own, as if she's dreaming. He wonders what she dreams about – Erebor reclaimed, maybe, freedom from the stone, or maybe she has nightmares like he has, horrible visions full of death and destruction.

Once, she awakes with a violent jerk and he can feel her tremble in the corner of his mind, fear radiating off of her in waves. He starts humming one of the songs that he knows she likes, ignoring the confused look that Dwalin shoots him, until he can feel her softening, slipping back into the silent state she's been in ever since she healed him.

Her presence grows stronger again when they enter Mirkwood, maybe because they are getting closer and closer to the mountain or maybe because she has recovered from the effort of healing him.

Whatever it is, he is grateful for it, because in the dark, oppressive silence of the forest it's hard to tell reality from imagination, and she at least gives him something to hold on to, something to keep him sane.

They stand in front of the hidden door, and her excitement is thrumming in time with his. He feels closer to her than ever, almost as if he could only reach out, he could touch her, could pull her close and hold her and never let her go.

His hand is trembling as he raises the key. She wraps him in warmth, in a cloud of reassurance, and it is a wordless promise. Soon.

He takes a deep breath and opens the door.

In his desire to get her back, he nearly loses her.

At first, it is only the Arkenstone he craves, the feeling of holding it in his hand and being as close to her as in that moment he first touched the stone. But the longer he remains inside the mountain, the stronger he feels the pull of the treasure. He could never understand what it was that drove his grandfather insane, but now he can feel it too – that intense craving, the belief that if he only has more gold, more gems, everything will be alright.

She doesn't agree, he can tell, but for the first time since her feelings became a part of him, her opinion doesn't at least make him reconsider. She isn't out here, is she, she's just a mind in a stone, so what does she really know about the world? What do her thoughts even really matter?

Hurt and frustrated, she pulls away, retreats into a corner of his consciousness where he can barely feel her anymore. Somehow, he can't bring himself to care.

It is Dwalin who eventually pulls him out of it, Dwalin and the echoes of the past that still fill the mountain. As soon as the shadow of the gold lifts from his mind he searches for her, desperately feels for the presence he has grown so accustomed to. Panic starts building up inside of him at the thought of having lost her, of having driven her away with his irrational lust for gold, but then he feels her, slowly stretching out like a cat after a nap.

He sends her all the apologies he can, but she doesn't seem angry. Instead, she fills him up until he can barely tell the difference between their minds anymore, and then he feels the same fierce determination he felt before the battle of Moria.

He knows what he has to do.

When he falls and the blade pierces his chest, she screams without words.

Her agony explodes inside his head, the deep sadness that was always within her suddenly unleashed. He feels her grief, as powerful as his own, grief for him and Kili and Fili, grief for the line of Durin that will now end, here in the cold, a once mighty line crumpled onto the ice.

I'm sorry, Thorin thinks as he feels the blood gushing from his body and his vision fading. He vaguely registers Bilbo falling on his knees next to him. I'm sorry I couldn't get to you. I tried. I really tried.

Her grief changes then, shifts under his skin, starts glowing with the light of the Arkenstone, warms him from the inside even as the icy cold seeps through his bones. He tries to make sense of what is happening, tries to make sense of the words Bilbo is whispering to him, but he is just so tired, so very tired of fighting.

And so he closes his eyes and lets the darkness wash over him, and the last thing he hears is a voice he's never heard before but somehow knows.

This is not the end.

Thorin wakes with a gasp that is echoed by those crowding around him.

He only notices the dull, throbbing pain in his chest when he has already sat up. His eyes dart across the room, quickly taking in his surroundings. He is lying on an altar of stone, the room illuminated by hundreds of candles. On both sides of him there is another altar, holding Kili and Fili, both sitting up and looking just as confused as he feels. There are people around them, dwarves and elves alike, the whole room holding their breath as they look at them, and that is when he realizes what this is.

It's a funeral – his funeral, from the looks of it. But somehow, impossibly, he's alive, and so are Kili and Fili. The line of Durin restored, through what seems like a miracle. Only it wasn't a miracle, was it, it was her. It was always her, saving him, keeping him alive.

He tries to reach for her, but before he can, Balin, standing mere feet from him, speaks. "The king is alive!" he says, his voice booming through the silent hall. "All hail Thorin Oakenshield, king under the mountain!"

There is silence, for a few agonizing seconds that feel like an eternity, and then the room erupts in shouts and cheers. Dwarves stream towards them, pulling him in, slapping his shoulder in congratulation, and Thorin feels himself being swept away by them, by their relief and happiness.

It's only later, when the dwarves have calmed down somewhat, that Thorin finally feels for her presence. It takes him a while to find her and when he does, she feels different than she used to – like she's not inside of his head anymore but rather somewhere else, connected to him only by a thin thread. Also, she feels like she's deep in slumber, deeper even than after she healed him on the Carrock.

Thorin puts a hand on Balin's shoulder. "Gather the company." he says. "There's someone I need to find."

They find her in the throne room.

She's lying on the ground in front of the throne, hair the color of honey spilling down her back and her bare skin pale in the dim light. He can barely believe it, can barely believe that she is real and here and not just a mind in a stone anymore, but he knows from the moment he first lays eyes on her that it's really her.

He hurries towards her and gathers her unconscious form into his arms, covering her with his cloak. When he turns back to the others – not only the company, but Dain and some of his dwarves too – they are looking at him with their eyes full of questions.

"It's her." he explains. "She saved my life."

He says it with such conviction that not even Dain can doubt him.

The healers say that she's fine, at least physically, that it probably just took a lot of her energy to bring him and Fili and Kili back from the dead, but Thorin still can't help but worry.

He sits with her whenever he can, holds her small hand in his and feels her emotions ebb and flow with her dreams. When he can feel her grow restless, he sings to her like he used to when she was still just a presence inside of his head. If that isn't possible because he has to attend one of the dreaded meetings with dwarven representatives or, god forbid, the king of the woodland realm himself, he hums soundlessly in his head.

Once, Balin tells him a legend that has long been forgotten, a legend that Thorin is far too young to know. He whispers it to him during two council meetings, like it is a secret that can only be known to the two of them.

"When I was just a dwarfling, the elders used to say that Durin himself was the one who found the Arkenstone. He mined it in the mountains far away from here and when he saw its otherworldly beauty and felt its pulsing energy, he knew that this could be the jewel to ensure his line's continuance. He made a pact with a powerful sorceress; locked her inside the stone with the promise to ensure that his line would carry on." He pauses, briefly, takes a breath. "Perhaps that is what happened here. Perhaps she is the sorceress, and she saved you and the lads to preserve the line of Durin."

Deep inside, Thorin has always known that to be true, ever since he first found himself bound to her. But he can't tell Balin that, and so he only nods his head slightly. "Perhaps." he says. "I only hope she didn't give her own life in the process."

Two weeks pass before she starts to stir.

He feels it first through their connection – a change in her pattern of dreams, a subtle movement, like she's finding her way through the thick fog of sleep. He has Balin cancel all council meetings against his protest – it's his job to smooth over ruffled feathers after all – and sits by her side hour after hour, her hand in his.

The first sign of life is a soft change in her breathing, then a twitching of her fingers, and then, finally, her eyelids flutter open. Thorin can't help but gasp at the sight of her eyes. They are of a bright, iridescent white, just like the Arkenstone, and they dart sightlessly around the room, never focusing on anything. He can feel her fear both through their bond and through the way her whole body tenses, and so he sends her a wave of reassurance and squeezes her hand.

She holds her breath. Slowly, very slowly, she turns her face into his general direction, her gaze slightly off to his left. When she speaks, her voice is barely more than a whisper of air. "Thorin?"

He feels a smile curl his lips, the first real smile in a very long time. "I'm here." he says quietly. "Everything's alright. You saved me."

A corner of her mouth twitches into something that almost resembles a smile and he can feel her content hum in the back of his head. Quietly, quieter still than her first word, she says something in a language he doesn't understand, squeezing his hand weakly, her voice cracking on the last word.

"It's alright." he says. "Don't try to speak. You need time to recover."

She doesn't say anything more after that, and after a while, her eyes close again and she drifts back to sleep. Thorin stays with her for a long time after. He can't bring himself to let go of her hand.

The next time she wakes, it's night.

Thorin is dozing in the chair next to her bed, but he jerks awake abruptly when he feels her mind buzzing alive through their connection. She is looking at him – well, not really looking at him, because he is very sure that she can't actually see anything, but she is facing him and all her attention is focused on him.

"Hello." he says softly and a tiny smile curls her lips. When she speaks, it isn't in the strange language she spoke before but, to his surprise, in Khuzdul. "Is this real?" she asks, her voice still weak and stumbling over the words, as if she's relearning how to speak after millennia inside the stone. "You're alive? I'm not in the stone anymore?" He holds her hand tighter. "I promise you, it's real." he says.

She lets out a breath of relief and her smile grows wider, lighting up her face. He thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

There's silence for a while, then she says: "I can't… I can't see." Thorin's smile falls. He can feel her uncertainty through their connection and tries to give her as much reassurance as he can. "I know." he replies quietly. "But the healers don't really know why. I'm sorry."

She gives him a weak smile, but he can tell that this is mostly for his benefit. "It's alright." she whispers. "I've been without any senses for a very long time. This is more than I could have imagined."

Thorin doesn't know how to reply. He wonders if it was really Durin himself who looked her inside the stone, because if so, she must have been in there for thousands of years. He can't even begin to imagine what that must have been like. It's a miracles she hasn't gone mad a long time ago.

Her voice pulls him from his thoughts. "I remember now." Confused, he raises one eyebrow. "What do you remember?" Another small smile appears on her face. "My name. It's Aya. I… I almost forgot I had one."

"Aya." he repeats quietly. The name tastes sweet on his tongue and he smiles at her, even though she can't see it. It is a relief to finally put a name to the person that has been a part of him for almost all his life. "It suits you."

There is more silence for a while, and she knows what she's going to say before she says it, because he can feel the way the stone walls of the room make her feel like she's still inside the stone, locked away with no way out. "I want to go outside."

Thorin sighs quietly. "Are you sure that's wise?" he asks. "You're still very weak, and…" Aya interrupts him, suddenly sounding very young. "Please, Thorin." she says, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I need to feel the air. Please."

There is really no way he can say no.

She is a bit unsteady on her feet, but she manages to keep her balance by holding on to his arms, and his skin prickles where he can feel her touch through his clothes. He leads her to a small balcony, and as soon as they step into the cool night air, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

He can feel her happiness, but he can also feel longing, a strange, hollow kind of longing, like she's missing something she can't really remember but knows she had once. It doesn't take a genius to find out what it is she misses – her sight. And so he looks at the stars scattered over the dark sky, tries to give her a sense of what it feels like to look at them, how magnificent they are.

He doesn't know whether it works – perhaps she only picks up on his mood – but she smiles regardless. "Thank you for this." she says, squeezing his arm slightly.

Thorin wraps an arm around her waist without thinking.

Later that day, he brings Fili and Kili with him to see her.

She is awake, and she sits up when she hears them enter. "Ah." she says, a tiny smile on her face. "The princes." They seem a little taken aback by her use of Khuzdul, and also by the fact that she knows it's them. Thorin, however, doesn't. He asked her how she knows Khuzdul, and the answer was quite a simple one – she picked it up from him, in the decades they were bound to each other, which is also how she knows Westron.

His nephews quickly get over their surprise and drop into a deep bow. "It's an honor to meet you, my Lady." Fili says. "You have our deepest thanks for saving our lives, and that of our uncle."

She gives them a wide smile. "It was my pleasure." she replies. "And please, call me Aya."

Shortly afterwards, Thorin gets called away to a meeting with Bard, but he can tell that Aya likes Kili and Fili – her mind has a soft, content quality to it – and so he doesn't have any qualms about leaving her with them.

Thorin doesn't kiss her until two months later.

She is living in the royal quarters now, in the room right next to his, and she moves around the mountain with an almost eerie confidence, despite her lack of sight. When Thorin asked her about it, she told him that after the centuries she spent inside the mountain, experiencing it through their bond, she knows every corner of it. It would probably make the other dwarves streaming into Erebor from all over middle-earth mistrust her, if it weren't for the fact that she saved Durin's line and therefore, in the eyes of any sensible dwarf, can do no wrong. In fact, they all sink into reverent bows whenever they see her, awestruck by the sheer impossibility of her deeds.

The day he finally does what he has been aching to do ever since he first touched the stone and found the woman inside is a Tuesday. Aya is waiting for him in his room, supper already spread out on the table in front of her – it has become a sort of tradition for them to eat dinner together every day – and her face lights up when he enters. All the stress of the day seems to melt away at the sight of her smile.

Her smile turns knowing as she undoubtedly feels his relief through their bond. "You seem exhausted." she says, walking up to him and running her hands over his tensed-up shoulders. He feels himself shivering under her touch, though it is hardly the first time she's touched him, and before he knows what he's doing he has his hands on her waist and her body is only inches away from his.

"I apologize." he says, his voice strangely hoarse. "I didn't mean to…" He trails off mid-sentence, suddenly forgetting what he had meant to say. She is so close, her sweet scent filling the air around him, and he can feel his own feelings echoed in hers – a desperate, all-consuming want.

"I want to kiss you." he whispers, and she tenses in his arms. "I'd like that." she replies softly, and then his lips slam into hers.

They melt into each other, their emotions pulsing as one, and this, Thorin thinks, this is what happiness feels like.

The wedding, when it happens, has long been overdue.

If anyone was ever truly meant to be queen under the mountain, it is her – the savior of Durin's line, the heart of the mountain, become flesh. Her eyes shine with light of the Arkenstone, and a breathless silence fills the room as she places her hands in Thorin's.

"Will you be mine?" he asks, too low for anyone besides the two of them to hear it, and she smiles.

"I've always been yours." she says, and he slips the ring onto her finger.

The Arkenstone has given the line of Durin so very much. It has given them life, a future, and a queen. Now, it has given them something more – a heir.

Thorin holds the tiny bundle in his arms, feeling like he's about to burst with happiness and pride. Aya is next to him, her head resting on his chest, exhausted but just as happy as he is. Her eyes are closed but he can tell she's awake, her mind a bright glow in the back of his.

Very quietly, he starts singing one of the songs his mother used to sing him. His son wiggles slightly in his arms and makes a soft, content sound, and Thorin smiles.

Ever since Smaug came and brought destruction with him, the lonely mountain was a place of death, of madness and pain and fire. But now, as the king falls asleep with his son in his arms and his queen next to him, it is a place of life, of happiness and hope and love.

It would remain like that for a very long time.