Here we are, old friends, at our end. What a journey it has been.

Song Suggestion: Mo Ghille Mear (My Gallant Hero) performed by The Choral Scholars of UCD

Thorin did not know how long it had been since the white light but painfully he rose to his feet, scrambling for his sword. All around him men and dwarves alike were still unconscious on the ground or lay groaning in pain. Some had risen, but those that did somehow as he did, realised that whatever battle had raged before was over, and instead they stumbled about, calling the names of friends or relatives.

"Rín." Her name slipped from his lips and at once, he joined them, heading in the direction of the rearguard.

"Rín?!"

"Thorin, here!" Desperately the black-haired dwarf turned, knowing it was not Rín's voice that called him, but Geir's. And was not Geir's eyes he met, but the lifeless, unseeing eyes of his beloved.

Blood pounded in his ears. The world was silent save for the beating of his own heart.

Everything was slow like time, in its confusion, could not make up its mind whether this was real or a dream.

He could feel others about him, but all he could do was hold her to his chest. Press her there like if he held her to his heart long enough, she would take the beat from it and live once more.

"Thorin, she is gone."

The voice was choking with tears and the hand on his shoulder was gentle.

Thorin wanted to shrug them off, but he could not seem to find the energy. She had taken it from him.

Slowly and gently, the black-bearded dwarf laid her back down and gently used two fingers to close soft eyelids over glassy eyes. Thorin had to look away as he did so.

"Thorin…Oakenshield?"

Stormy eyes lifted to meet youthful blue.

"You are the King Under the Mountain. The King who retook Erebor. The Last of the Lords of the Arkenstone." Durin's voice was filled with awe. It was a statement rather than a question. "How is this possible?" He dropped to one knee. "My Lord!"

Thorin sighed. A deep shuddering sound that reverberated through his chest as he leaned over and placed a heavy hand on the young dwarf's shoulder.

"No." he said quietly, looking up to meet the eyes of Durin. "I was a King once, but not anymore. My time has come and gone." Thorin paused for a moment, looking down upon the pale form of Rín and his eyes turned from storm to steel as he looked back at the young King, his voice quiet. "Go and claim what is yours. Do not linger on thoughts of who I once was for it does not matter, what matters now is only who you are. You are a King of legend; Durin reborn. Lead your people out of this War into a new world. That is the task that has been set before you."

Durin was silent as Thorin stared at him, and slowly, the young Longbeard nodded.

Thorin withdrew then and in one move somehow lifted the still form of Rín into his arms. He turned back to the Lord of the Longbeards one more time. "It is your turn now. Unite them and end this. Once and for all." And then, Thorin, son of Thrain left the battlefield with his beloved in his arms, and did not return.

Everything was blue. Not a deep blue, tinged with the darkness of time; but a light blue, full of warmth and possibility. Rín let her eyes flicker open, her chest rising and falling with each lungful of air.

"What is this place?"

The words echoed around the empty space, and it took her a moment to realise they were her own. A shadow suddenly rose up beside her.

"Your words cannot adequately give it a name, Hlífhrím." The Being said, his skin white as Quartz and eyes black as Obsidian. "You did well, and at great cost."

"I am dead then." It was more a statement than a question as realisation slowly formed in Rín's mind and her heart panged with grief.

The Being smiled "Yes. You are." he said "And in dying you have prevented the death of many."

Rín frowned. "What of Pallando then? He disappeared before my eyes, has he died too?"

"Pallando is Maiar, therefore while his mortal body has died he has returned to his true form in the undying lands." the Being said kindly, he must have anticipated Rín's next question for even as she opened her mouth he continued, "Thorin lives and will continue to live, we cannot say for how long, but we think perhaps until he passes of natural means, or at the hand of another. We the Valar do not know Eru's purpose, however we have learned that the Heart of the Mountain was connected to the line of Durin; in more than one way, it was its beating heart. As long as the Heart remained whole, the line would be secure. The Heart is no longer, how shall I say, entirely 'here' it is now part of a living breathing creature and falters as he lives, until, we believe, it will too pass entirely, just as a mortal does."

"Then it is true, our people will pass just as the Elves passed long ago." Rín's mind reeled at the information and the Being seemed to sense her disquiet for he smiled kindly once more and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"It is true, that the kingdom of the Dwarves, will never be the same again, but your people will continue, if only in a different form." he said. "Aulë, Mahal, will raise the dwarves at the end of all things, and you will create Arda anew. Death, is only the beginning."

Rín closed her eyes for a moment and Thorin stood there, the same smile she had seen on his face the last time she had seen him. So much possibility that would never come to pass. Tears leaked from beneath her lashes "I wish-"

"It does not do well to dwell on wishes and dreams Hlífhrím." Mandos said gently. "You will see him again, but now, it is time to sleep, until the world calls you back once more."

The sun was beginning to set as Skøldjor continued to direct his men about the battlefield and helped them to move the bodies of the fallen. A shout went up that alerted him to a pair of approaching riders. The light of the sun bathed them in an orange glow and it was as they grew closer and closer that he was able to work out the details of their cloaks, their blonde hair flying behind them in the wind.

Skøldjor sucked in air quickly between his teeth. "It cannot be." but as they grew closer, his feet began to move of their own accord and the next thing he knew he was running, running towards the horses.

Skøldjor was not ten paces away from the pair when they skidded to a halt and the first rider jumped free of their saddle and hurtled towards him, throwing themselves into his outstretched arms.

"Sjöfn!" His baby sister was grinning from ear to ear, healthy and happy as he lifted her up and spun her around before setting her back on the ground. "I thought you had died! How did you get out?! You look healthy, completely cured! How is this possible?!"

Sjöfn laughed, "So many questions brother." she teased before her face became serious, "That day, before the fire, an old man dressed in blue came to me and did something. I do not know what it was for I was fading in and out of consciousness but when I came to, it felt like I was featherlight and free. I knew no sickness."

Skøldjor recalled the old man - Pallando he had said his name was, who had entered into the building just as he had left and nodded in confirmation. "But I saw your shawl…on the remains of a body-"

"Rosmértá." Sjöfn said sadly as she took his hand in hers, "I don't know what happened, but suddenly everything was on fire, there was smoke everywhere. We were about to leave when she went to get my shawl. The roof was on fire and one of the beams fell from the ceiling, killing her instantly. I would no doubt have died also were it not for Cynered."

It was then that Skøldjor looked over to the second rider, his closest friend, who was standing holding the horses and watching with some trepidation. "Skøldjor, I am sorry, but our people needed you to lead them. We disappeared only because I knew that if they could, Sjöfn would be used as a bargaining chip to control you. We have followed the army every step of the way from Roskilde."

With every word Cynered took, Skøldjor moved closer to him, Sjöfn's hand still in his. Sjöfn watched the pair of them carefully a small, worried frown creasing between her brows.

Cynered tried to continue but Skøldjor held up his hand and he fell silent. "Cynered, you have cared for my sister when I could not, how could I hate you for doing so?" he smiled at the look of relief on his friends face, and pulled him into a one-armed hug. "How can I ever thank you enough."

The other blonde man smiled sheepishly as he pulled back. "Well, I, that is to say, we, well - ahem. We errr-" he and Sjöfn both were blushing a furious red.

"I wish you both the greatest of happiness." Skøldjor interrupted, pressing a kiss to his sister's knuckles, before placing her hand in his best friend's and covering both with his own. "And I give this union every blessing I am able."

The Mountain rumbled, deep and dark, high above the heads of several miners. Anxiously, they looked to one another, before slowly, slowly, they tugged the ropes that held them in suspension and were pulled upwards. For the Mountain bade them move and the mountain would not be denied.

Far more gently than he had ever done anything in his life, Thorin laid down his dwarf lady on the bed of their tent. In one hand Thorin clutched the Arkenstone, clinging to it like it alone might save them. In the other, he threaded his fingers through Rín's cold fingers, praying to Mahal that she might be saved. That He might in turn save his own selfish heart from the agony of her loss. For Thorin knew, deep in his soul, that he could not do it; could not live without her. Had he so displeased his maker, that not only should he lose the nephews he loved like sons and be taken from his Kingship in his first life, but in this second face the loss of the one he loved.

He prayed, but it was hopeless.

And so there, away from the fields filled with the dead and grieving, Thorin leaned over Rín's body. With trembling hands, he slipped the stone between her cold fingers and pressed a kiss to her brow. "I am sorry. Kurdeluh." Thorin only just managed to keep his face impassive as he left the Heart of the Mountain and the Heart of the Once-King both, in her hand, where from now on, they would forever lie.

Tears streamed down the Once-King's face, and suddenly, the enormity of loss hit him. He could feel her dancing about him, her quick smile, her laugh ringing in his ears. She was gone. Thorin could hold it back no longer and free from the scrutiny of soldiers, he began to cry. Slow, wracking sobs that nearly tore him in half.

How long he cried, he did not know.

All of a sudden, beneath tear soaked lashes, Thorin saw blue and his eyes snapped open.

Hlífhrím was covered in blue light, light that radiated from the Arkenstone. Thorin stood frozen, when suddenly, something in his mind ticked over. As the light began to fade, he took her cold hands in his own, letting the now dull Arkenstone slip from their grasp and fall to the hard-packed floor, bouncing once, twice, before shattering on the rocks.

"Please." he begged, ignoring the broken gem. "Please come back to me."

Thorin closed and wished it, prayed to Mahal harder than he ever had before. Pleaded as he had never pleaded in his life that she come back to him. More than a few moments had passed, who knew how long he had sat there like that, and he opened his eyes, but still there was no movement, nothing. Desperately, he pressed his lips to her knuckles, as if that could do what he asked and make her wake up and look at him with those laughing green eyes.

But nothing. It was not meant to be.

He was alone.

The mountain rumbled and Dwarves, men and Orcs all ran in fear.

Friend was not known from foe as all ran towards where the sky radiated blue.

The mountain's rumbling grew louder and from the very tip of the highest peak, a single boulder fell. Then another, and another, and another.

Suddenly, Erebor began to crumble and the mountain collapsed in a groan that shook the earth from the tip of the sky to the deepest roots of a tree.

Slowly, Thorin pulled himself to his feet, and cupped her hands in his, resting his forehead against hers in a final goodbye. "I love you, Hlífhrím, keeper of my heart, now and forever."

"Goodbye." It broke him, more than he could ever say; that single moment of absolute loss.

Time slowed.

The air was charged.

Cupped in his hands, Thorin felt the faintest of movements as Rín's finger twitched.

The earth began to shake and it felt like something was lifting from his soul.

Breathe in.

"Thorin?"

Breathe out.

He who was once King, was now merely a dwarf, and Thorin knew, somehow, that everything would be alright.

Fin.

Kurdeluh: My heart of all hearts

A/N:

Quoting The Mummy and Dumbledore here, because we need a bit of fandom intersectionality every once in a while.

This story has taken approximately four years of my life to write. Time passes us so quickly that we sometimes lose track of who we are and who we have been. When I began this story, I was a teenager with a spark of an idea who knew little of the world. I had only imagination and ideas to fill it.

Now I have known loss so indescribable that it pulls the breath from your body and makes tears fall from the well of your soul. I have known hard work and no work, adventure and comfort. I have known romance and infatuation, and am just now discovering that love is something I'm beginning to truly understand.

I am not the girl who started this story, but I do not look down on her, for she is instrumental to who I am.

This story is more than just a story. It's evidence of how I have changed and who I have become.

I hope, readers, that you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it over the years and I thank you for your continued support (despite my slow penmanship and erratic postings).

Your support has meant the world.

Love you all to Middle Earth and Back,

or, perhaps There and Back Again.

~ CeffylGwyn