#murder-suicide

Thorin looked down at his hands, not understanding what he was seeing. Thorin knew that the body before him was Bilbo’s. He knew that something had gone wrong, and yet he couldn’t understand why Bilbo was so still before him. Why was he so silent? Why was Fili lying a few feet away from Thorin, his beautiful blond curls drenched in the same muted red that also drenched Thorin, from his face to his scuffed and worn boots.

Thorin looked down at the red of his grandfather’s red velvet cloak, which he had thrown around his shoulders when he had first found it in the treasury, and he wondered why that red was vibrant and bright and yet the red he knew was staining the bodies before him, that was staining his hands, wasn’t.

Was this another trick? Another way that vile wyrm was trying to destroy Thorin and his from beyond the grave?

It must have been, after all, if that was really Bilbo, and Fili …

Thorin looked around at the treasury, the piles of gems and jewels and riches beyond measure that all belonged to him now, and he saw more bodies, more muted red, muted red that became more crimson the longer Thorin looked at it, becoming even brighter, even more insidious than the cloak that he was still wearing.

He looked at another lump. Another body before him, and it took him many long, slow moments before he realised what … who … it was.

The body he was looking at now was Kili. Thorin’s beloved little minum. His precious sister-son. Someone had not just killed Kili; they had chopped his hands off before gutting him, hands that he must have held up in supplication, held up in hopes of mercy from the fiend who had cut him down.

Thorin turned, his circles getting more and more erratic as he spun and saw them all, laid out, dead and bared open before him.

His friends, his family, his Company, all of them were surrounding Thorin, their dead, glassy eyes staring up at him and finding him wanting.

How did he not see this? How did he not hear this? How did he not know someone had come into his mountain and slew his people?

Thorin heard a roar echo around the treasury, the sound bouncing back to him, and it was only then that he realised it was not the roar of a wyrm or an enemy, but rather himself making that noise.

He was heart sore and disoriented, and yet he drew up Deathless, noting for the first time that it was in his hand and he prepared himself to fight whatever had slunk in here and done such foul deeds.

Thorin got himself in a ready stance, standing before the bodies of what had once been his sister's little ones, when he noticed something on Deathless’ blade. He carefully reached forward to pluck the long blond hairs that were encrusted with blood on his blade. Hairs that matched Fili’s perfectly. His beautiful golden boy, who was led on the ground, dead, gone.

Thorin found himself on his knees, unable to believe what had happened.

His memories rushed back into his fractured mind. Memories of screams, of shouts, of the sound Deathless made as it sliced into the flesh of all those Thorin loved.

Thorin found himself leaning forward, retching, unable to believe what he knew. Unable to process what he had done. What the madness that had always itched under his skin had driven him to do.

Thorin knelt there, his despair mixing with the sour scent of blood and fear that surrounded him. The despair was drowning out the anger and gold lust that had ensnared him.

Thorin knew there was only one thing he could do, only one way forward for him now.

Thorin stood on his shaky legs as he gently carried Bilbo away from the bloodbath his madness had caused. He did the same for his precious boys and each member of his Company. He laid them side by side, away from the treasure and in a clear hallway, not wanting the gold to taint their bodies anymore.

He then went and collected all of the flash fire that they hadn't used when trying to kill Smaug. He sent a prayer of forgiveness to Mahal, one to Bilbo’s creator, Yavanna. He begged Mahal to give his sister some semblance of peace as he let all of the fire lose, as he let it roar through the accelerant he had poured, as he sat there, his eyes on Bilbo, Fili and Kili’s dead bodies as the fire roared through every crack and crevice, bringing Erebor down on herself, the bodies of Thorin’s Company, of his One and on himself, ending Thorin’s life under rock and rubble and ruin.

Thus ended the line of Thorin II, and it would be many millennia before anyone was able to get through the rocks of Erebor to learn that the Company of Thorin Oakenshield II had not died under the rock slide that had killed the King Under the Mountain.

No one was sure what had happened, but every dwarf who set foot into Erebor was sure they could feel madness pushing at their minds, that when they looked down at their hands, they felt like there was blood dripping off them even when there was nothing on them.

The legend of the haunting of Erebor persisted through the ages; the sounds of a mad king could be heard as wind rushed through the cracks that had now formed in the once majestic mountain.