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The Ring took him on the road to Erebor.
It whispered first in regret, not in desire, and he thought of what he had fought for and what life owed him; what he had suffered and hoped and bled for. His fear, his misery, his loneliness. The betrayal of those who should have helped him.
Dwarves have never been welcome in the world of Elves and Men.
The Ring took him on the road to Erebor, and he died to himself only to be reborn as a creature he would not have known the day before.
It began so innocently when a golden ring fell from the Halfling’s pocket. Dwarves have a love for gold and fine things, and so he picked it up to see it at close quarters.
Treasures were few on the journey, and a favour owed a favour. This belonged to Bilbo, and Bilbo would have it back. He intended to return it.
He did not return it that night.
He put it on instead, and the world went grey. He found his companions could not see him, and when the morning came he wondered how he had not noticed before how much he truly despised them.
Merchants, miners, tinkers, toymakers; a cook, a thief, and a scribe’s apprentice.
He watched the Burglar grubbing in the dust, muttering to himself about losing things and retracing steps.
A magic ring of invisibility; useful for cheating and sneaking, for dishonourable theft and distasteful spying.
Magic was the wizard’s domain. Gandalf had engaged the hobbit. Gandalf had tricked them into Rivendell. Gandalf, too, had been the one to force the map from his hands into the sight of a treacherous elf.
And the hobbit, with his pointed ears and big eyes, his silver tongue weaving lies and half-truths with such easy dexterity – risking his life on this quest for what? To help those who were not his kind? For gold?
The signs were there for all to see, Thorin thought grimly, but he had expected usurpers from the other dwarf settlements, not from inside his own company.
He looped the ring to a strip of cloth and tied it to his belt, the gold tucked safely out of sight beneath his coat.
His wounds pained him, and the Wizard would heal no more of his torn flesh. Bade him mend in natural ways, and Thorin bore his hurt because he would not stoop to ask again, not even when the gash in his side broke open and blood slid down to soak his clothing.
He endured it the way he endured everything else – all the misery of his long life, the loss, the loneliness, the heartache – and he endured it alone. Who would he share his burden with? An aging politician? A short-sighted soldier? What were they to a king?
He slipped away after first watch and slid the ring on, the better to hide himself in plain sight.
He could hear the voices behind him, hear the crackle of the flame. He could smell pipe weed and warmth, and the low ripple of laughter kept his face turned resolutely to the horizon where his Mountain pushed up against the sky.
The throne of his grandfather, and his father’s grandfather, the kingdom they forged when Khazad-dum was lost to them, and not only for the Mountain itself but what it had contained when they were forced to flee. The treasures of his people, the gold and precious stones still bright with their hopes and dreams. There, where the dwarfs had been great, and Elves and Men had come to pay tribute to them.
It was no hardship to recall the days when he had taken work in the forges in the villages of Men. The days when he saw his people mocked and ignored, ground down by grief and poverty.
He dreamed that night again of burning heat mixing with the trees lit like torches and the jagged teeth in the open mouths of screaming, advancing orcs, and then he dreamed of a great eye ringed with fire.
He dreamed of power, and strength, and an alliance stronger than any other. For he had seen orcs in their hordes and their bloodlust, and he knew too well that orcs would throw their lives away under rule of a leader they feared.
He woke to horror, and disgust, and held the ring within his clenched fist as though to crack it open.
But he did not.
That day too he tied the ring to his belt, and he said nothing to his burglar, who looked drawn and pale, and he said nothing the day after as well. He said nothing in Beorn’s home, nor in the forest when the spiders came for them.
Elves, treacherous and traitorous, dared to level a weapon at him. They who had betrayed his people’s trust and abandoned them to hopeless exile, dared to insult and belittle them. And why?
The idea formed behind his eyes, watching the sneers and eagerly pointed weapons. The voice whispered of revenge, of beating these serpents into the dust and watching them crawl in fear and regret. The voice whispered that he could reveal himself when it over, and make them see that dwarves were no longer to be sport for elves and men.
He put the ring on with cold-blooded choice, and in the end, the last sight he had of his pitiful Company was of Bilbo’s eyes turning to where he last stood, suddenly wide and knowing.
His heart twisted in triumph and then he leapt.
These elves, he found, had never fought dwarves.
They aimed too high or too low, and made no account for his stockier frame, his shorter gait. They misjudged his stride, his height, his tactics by margins that made it easy for him to overthrow them. The others leapt into the fray with a ragged cry, with foolish enthusiasm and senseless love for violence.
He spared them no thought as he focused on bringing the elves to their knees.
Each rending of sinew and flesh made his blood sing, each crack of bone was one more soothing balm to ease his wounded pride.
The fair-haired one had keen ears, and almost did make his mark. Once, just once, and for that, Thorin in his black rage knocked the bow from his hands, kicked the back of his knees and strangled him with his own bow string.
The she-elf came from nowhere.
Had she not aimed with almost equal instinct as her captain, Thorin would not have loosened his grip.
But she did, and he did, and the leader spouted no more acid as he crawled blindly on hands and knees choking on the agony of his abused windpipe.
Thorin looked around him, at the defeated elves and his cheering companions, at the she-elf so easily overcome. Kili had her fast in his grip, bow and quiver taken away, but as Thorin watched he saw his nephew raise his eyes to her face and it needed no magic to see his fascination.
The knife twisted, because elves could be beautiful. He knew to the pit of his stomach how beautiful. And yet while they stood in this glade, starving and travel-sore and covered in spiderweb, victors over those who had denied them aid or mercy, who had threatened them and insulted them, all his wretched sister-son could do was stare like a lovesick puppy.
Thorin was disgusted, and the victory was sour on his tongue.
What use was a handful of unconscious elves against centuries of wrongdoing?
He thought then of Thranduil, self-serving and uncaring, and of Elrond, who had sought to stall them in his cursed valley. Of Gandalf, who left them when they needed him to fight the enchantments of Mirkwood and then had the audacity to command Thorin to stand outside his Mountain like a guest until he rejoined the quest at his leisure.
He grew aware of the burglar, walking agitatedly around, whispering to what seemed like no one.
He drew closer to listen, and heard only a litany of pleas to give the ring back. To return what was his.
Thorin fingered the ring.
The hobbit raised his voice, frustrated by his growing petulance, and demanded the return of his treasure.
Treasure.
And Thorin thought of his own treasure, upon which a dragon slept. The Arkenstone he needed to bring the seven clans to his cause. The hobbit’s treasure was one ring, a single golden trinket which granted its wearer the greatest gift of all.
With the ring, he realized, he needed none of them. For he had the map, the key, and now he had the means to take the Arkenstone himself. He could travel fastest without the burden of their plodding complaints.
He left then and there, and never looked back.
He heard Fili shout his name but the sound echoed in the forest, and he knew it would only bring more elves down upon them. He damned his sister-sons for fools and children, and traced his steps as best he could with little left to hold him back.
In the dark of that first night the voice whispered to him that the dragon could be brought to a reasonable alliance as well. Perhaps could be persuaded to seek more viable treasure in other mountains or cities of Men in the West.
He scorned the thought, for he knew that dragons answered to no one.
He spent all day searching for the path. Cursing the forest and the darkness and the bitter taste of evil that lurked beneath the canopy of leaves.
He removed the ring when he was far enough away, but slept badly in his paranoia.
No doubt there would be others, searching for him in the forests. Elves, orcs, wargs. He slept in the trees and travelled on the ground with his sword drawn.
By chance he found himself upon a path, and by that path he followed it to a bridge that forded a deep ravine.
That bridge was a walkway to a ruined fortress.
The ring sang.
He lost himself that day, for the Necromancer took great pleasure in retrieving his stolen property, but in return he was offered another ring. This one a ring he recognized from the short years of his childhood, and then from the hard years of exile, when he watched his family sell whatever they could for food and shelter and clothing. All of it, except for the ring he was given.
This was his last moment of clarity, when he realized that the ring had been pulled from his father’s dead hand here in the very dungeons of Dol Guldur, that only one being in all Middle Earth controlled the Rings of Power, and that he was an honourable dwarf, an heir of Durin, that his nephews and his company were good dwarves and true, and trusted in him to be a king worthy of their allegiance.
Then Azog was brought before him. Tall and pale, with his clawed hand and pitiless, bloodthirsty smirk. His fangs were bared as he grinned down at the dwarf he considered his prey.
Thorin steeled himself for death, and got revenge.
He was gifted Azog’s severed head and the teeth of the pale warg upon a necklace. He was gifted his father’s ring and bidden ride with a host of orc to reclaim his lost kingdom.
He asked about his Company, and the voice whispered that Sauron had no personal interest in twelve filthy dwarves.
Something in Thorin squeezed tight and he called to stop the shadow from retreating.
“You do not seem to realize that my companions are in the dungeons of the Elvenking,” he said, “Or perhaps you have no interest in removing a plague of elves from marching distance of your stronghold?”
The shadow stopped, and turned, and the fate of the Greenwood was decided upon that day.