A/N: Okay... there's a couple of things I want to mention before the chapter. First; the translations to Elvish phrases can be found at the end of the story. Secondly, don't go tearing your hair off if you find Thorin and Thranduil slightly OOC, it is purely intentional. I think they would have to be written so in order for this to happen, don't you think? :) Oh, and the third point; the sections written in italics are Thranduil's flashbacks.

Now, enjoy!
~Gwynedd

The silence felt eerie, pressing, after having listened to the clamor of fighting for that long. Even now, several hours after the battle had ended, moaning of wounded, especially of those wounded beyond any help, pierced the silence every now and then like a dagger. So many lives lost, and what for? Dwarves had their stupid Mountain, but the price was high, and it was getting higher still.

"My Lord", a voice called behind my back. When I turned around I saw one of the elven healers standing there.

"Syrena", I acknowledged her. "What news?"

"My Lord, there is nothing we can do." Syrena answered apologetically. "He won't live to see the sunset."

Her words were like a blow to my face, but I forced the calm expression on my face.

"I see. Thank you, Syrena." I dismissed her and turned to continue on my way.

"My… my Lord?" She hesitantly called after me. "He asked for you."

I turned around again, feeling surprised.

"He did?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Right, thank you Syrena."

"My Lord", she greeted once more before heading the way she had come.

He had actually asked for me? I hadn't expected that he would, not with the way he looked at me nowadays.

For a short while I considered not going, fearing he would unloose only insults on me. In the end, though, I found my feet taking me towards him. Once again he was pulling those invisible strings he had tied on my person all those years ago.

OoOoO

Walking through the hallways of Erebor behind a servant I suddenly felt something small hit me from behind. Turning around to see what that something had been, I found myself looking at the smallest dwarf I had ever seen. For a dwarf he was, even if he didn't have a beard. A child, then. As we looked at each other, one standing almost seven feet tall and the other sitting on the floor, barely reaching the height of one foot, I couldn't help but think that this particular being was rather adorable with his dark hair and wide icy blue eyes.

"Hello little one", I greeted the child, kneeling down to be closer to his height. "What's your name?"

The child stood up – he fell several inches short of two feet – before answering.

"Thorin. What are you?"

So this is Thrór's grandson. I thought before answering the boy, a small smile on my face.

"I am an elf. My name is Thranduil."

"Thorin!"

A heavily pregnant she-dwarf was coming towards us from the direction Thorin had come. She was obviously the one who had called the young Dwarf Prince's name.

"Thorin", the woman scolded the boy as she caught with us. "How many times I've told you not to run off like that?" Then she turned to look at me. "I'm sorry if he bothered you, King Thranduil. I'm afraid young Thorin here outpaces me with ease."

"He was of no bother, Lady Ronía", I assured her. "He's quite charming little boy."

"Charming or not, he's in trouble all the same." She said with a significant glance at her son. "Anyway, I won't keep you any longer, Thrór's already waiting for you."

I gave her a graceful nod before turning to follow the servant once again. For some reason I had a feeling that I had a pair of eyes fastened on my back, and also strongly suspected that that pair was a set of wide, icy blue eyes.

OoOoO

Mithrandir and Bilbo Baggins were coming out of the tent I was heading for a little before I reached it. If either one wondered what in Valar's name I did there, neither voiced their thoughts.

"You had asked for me?" I announced my arrival with a nervous edge in my voice as I entered the tent.

Inside the tent, Thorin Oakenshield turned his head – with visible effort – so that he could see me, before nodding. His face was full of small cuts, and I could only guess how badly the rest of his body was crushed.

"I feared you would… would choose not to come." He said, his voice betraying how weak he was.

"I did consider it", I confessed, "but I'm here now." I stopped a couple steps from his bed. "What did you want?"

"I wanted to… to ask you… Why did you turn… turn your back on us when we needed you most? When I needed you most?"

"Thorin, I…" I trailed off. I wanted to answer him, I really did, but words failed me.

"When that dragon came, you brought your armies almost to the slopes of Erebor, but then you turned back. Was that… was that really how much I meant to you?"

"No, Thorin." I whispered and moved to kneel next to his bed. "I thought you'd be better away from the Mountain, away from its hoarded gold. And look what happened when you came back."

"You thought my best?"

"Of course. It was far better than the other option. We all would've died if we had joined our forces to fight Smaug then."

Thorin was silent for a while, and when he spoke again his voice was even weaker than before.

"Do you remember that day two months before Smaug's attack?"

"Of course I do."

A small smile formed on Thorin's bloodied lips.

"Would you mind to remind me?"

"Not at all", I replied with equally small smile.

OoOoO

"Thranduil Oropherion, get your hands off me."

"Why?" I asked teasingly. "I thought you liked this."

"I do, but that's not the point. These parts are far from abandoned, someone might see us.

"Then, if I were you, I'd find us that hiding place soon." I grinned, tracing his bearded jaw with my finger. My grin only widened when a shiver ran through him.

"Mahal…" He muttered. "You really want to get both of us killed, don't you?"

I just flashed him a smile, a smile which he so gladly returned. For some time we walked in a comfortable silence, which Thorin finally broke.

"Here it is." He said, speeding up to be little ahead of me, and then seemed to walk into the wall.

"Thorin?"

Reaching the spot where he had disappeared, I saw that there was a smaller hallway, almost looking more like a natural crevice, wide enough for a dwarf to walk sideways and tall enough for an elf to walk with one's head bowed.

"You expect me to go there?" I asked Thorin, who was already a couple of yards into that crevice.

"Are you saying that you won't fit in?" Thorin asked teasingly. "I didn't know you were so stiff-necked."

"I'll show you stiff necks…" I muttered and crept into the crevice after him.

We edged on in a silence broken only by a sound of dripping water. I was starting to feel uneasy, with walls seemingly pressing on me, when the crevice finally widened into a large open space.

"A lake inside a mountain?" I asked as I took in our surroundings. "How fitting."

"Unfortunately a little late-evening swim comes into no question, as people could get suspicious if we both turned up with our hairs damp." Thorin said regretfully. "But here we won't be… interrupted."

"Well, let's make ourselves comfortable, then." I said and sat on the surprisingly smooth stone floor. Thorin soon came to sit next to me, suddenly seeming ever so shy. But it was always like this; we had had so few chances to be together that neither of us ever had time to grow accustomed to this before we had to part our ways again.

It began with a slow, shy kiss. A kiss by which we searched that familiarity we knew that existed, learned to know each other again. Eventually the kiss deepened, along with disappearance of Thorin's shyness.

"You have a really bad effect on me, Thranduil." He whispered hoarsely as I pulled off his shirt. "Do you realize how many traditions you have made me violate in course of these five years?"

"No. How many?" Despite asking, I gave Thorin no chance of answering, making him gasp with a little touch at the right place. And then it was his turn to get rid of my shirt.

I lost track of time as Thorin's hands, those hands that had at first been so hesitating and careful, now expertly found all the right spots, making me shiver with pleasure. To think that a dwarf could make me feel so… but he wasn't just any dwarf. He was Thorin, and that made all the difference in my head.

"You know, I still say that you're far too tall." Thorin whispered while nipping the point of my ear with his teeth.

"No, Anfangen, it is still you that is far too short." I chuckled and tugged his braided beard. "But I wouldn't have you any other way."

OoOoO

"To be so young and naïve again…" Thorin sighed.

"I was neither young nor naïve."

"No, you weren't. But I was."

Silence fell between us again, and smoky blue eyes met icy blue ones. One hundred and ninety years since we first met, his eyes had lost that wideness of a child, but I could still see that little dwarfling on his face.

"You… you know why I was so angry with you?" He asked finally, and went on before I could answer. "I was so angry because… because I loved you, and then you turned your back on me. It hurt more than any other wound I received that day."

"Thorin –" I began, but he interrupted him.

"I know better now. And because… because of that I want to say that… that I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to forgive. I played my part in how we fell apart, too."

"I guess we both are fools." Thorin said smiling softly.

"And big ones", I agreed.

Watching Thorin in the following silence I was grimly reminded of how our time was running out. Thorin's breathing was clearly labored and irregular, and his lips were already blue under all that blood. And, knowing the signs to look for, I could see from his eyes that he was in pain.

"I wish you wouldn't have to die." I whispered and took one of his hands in mine.

"We… we always knew that I… was going to die one day." He said weakly, laying his other hand on my arm. "It is time I was on my way now. Farewell, Thranduil."

I put my other hand behind his head and lifted him, touching my forehead with his.

"Hiro le hîdh ab'wanath, Thorin Thand'o'doron." I whispered an elvish prayer before gently lowering my lips against Thorin's bloody ones. When I pulled away he let out a small breath, as if a sigh of contentment, and then, after his hand had limply slid off from my arm, he was completely still.

Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, King Under the Mountain, was dead.

OoOoO

Thorin's funeral was held two days later, when dwarves had finished making a coffin for him, and for his nephews, too, as both of them had died trying to protect their uncle.

It was only one more sign to tell that he was dead that I was able to keep my calm easily in his presence, something I had never been able to do while he lived. Only this time it wasn't normal elven serenity type of calm. No, this time I was calm because I felt… empty. As if a part of me had died with him.

After Bard had laid the Arkenstone on Thorin's tomb it was my turn to say my goodbyes. Without saying a single word I walked next to his tomb and silently laid Orcrist, the sword taken from him when my son had arrested him and his companions, right next to the Arkenstone.

Farewell, Thorin Oakenshield. May Mahal bring you home.

Translations

Anfangen = my dwarf (anfang means literally "one of the Longbeards tribe")

Hiro le hîdh ab'wanath, Thorin Thand'o'doron = May you find peace after death, Thorin Oakenshield (Thand'o'doron literally meaning "shield of oak tree")