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Azog was watching in vicious, cruel satisfaction, triumph in his eyes as there had been seeing Thrór's bloodstained head cast to the ground and hearing Thorin's anguished scream echoing in his ears; just 'watching', cold and malicious as he held his Warg-riders back, letting fire extinguish the last of the Line of Durin.
Thorin's hand clenched desperately around the tree, feeling the wood slowly beginning to warm beneath his palm, hearing Dori and Ori crying out in fear and the others grunting with effort as they desperately held themselves on.
Thorin's eyes strayed to Fíli and Kíli, his dear sister-sons, and then to Bilbo, brown eyes wide with terror and reflecting the flickering light of the flames. Fear in too-young faces, white and slicked with cold sweat, and Thorin felt something within him that had been teetering on the edge of destruction for centuries break beneath the weight of it.
And then he was standing, settling his feet on the slick tree trunk and taking in deep breaths to try and settle the exhausted tremors running through his entire body, the result of far too much strain and far too little sleep, and don't think of Smaug, don't think of the dragonfire, don't don't don't -
And he was moving, charging down the tree and through the burning flames, the Warg-riders parting to clear his path and his vision blurring from the smoke.
Azog waited until he was within mere feet of him before he urged his mount forward, and for all that Thorin knew exactly what was coming he was too weary to dodge, the stress of the past century and a half coming crashing down upon him all at once, and he could not help but cry out in pain as the mace knocked him down with shattering force, as the Warg's teeth sank into his chest and whited out his vision with the pain.
When he came to again, there was the taste of blood in his mouth and the cold touch of an orc's blade to his throat. His hand searched uselessly for the fallen Elvish blade and the fiery surroundings were blurring into his memories of Erebor as she fell, and he knew as he heard Dwalin screaming his name that it was over.
The orc brought the blade back and then there was a small blur, even to a dwarf, slamming into it and knocking the fell creature to the ground, a roar of pain that trailed off into a fading gurgle as it died. Bilbo got to his feet, standing between Thorin and Azog with that ridiculous Elven letter opener in his hand and defiance in every line of his body.
And then Azog flung back his head and laughed, Bilbo shrinking back slightly but not moving away, and Thorin wanted to scream for him to run only his breathing was shallow and difficult, and he tried to move but his vision spun and fire lanced through his entire body, and the last thing he saw before his eyes failed him was the sight of Azog the Defiler advancing on Bilbo Baggins.
Consciousness came rushing back and Thorin felt his eyelids fluttering as he fought to draw breath, before a whisper in a language he did not know brought a rush of soothing cold over the wounds on his body and he could breathe again, feeling his injuries healing.
Thorin forced his eyes open, and at the sight of the grief on Gandalf's face the memories come rushing back, and Thorin already knew what had happened but he could not deny himself the ability to hope, even as his entire being prayed uselessly to Mahal to somehow spin back time and change this.
"The Halfling?" he forced out, faint and weak (always weak, never strong enough, never able to save those he loved), but Gandalf only shook his head and Thorin closed his eyes and let the haze of injury claim him, ignoring the worried mumblings around him and the whispering of healing magic.
I am sorry, he thought to Bilbo's spirit, wherever he was now, for he did not know where Hobbits journeyed once they passed beyond the veil of death. I am so, so sorry.
They moved quickly across the Wilderland, passing swiftly into the shadow of Mirkwood, and it was there that the guilt, made worse by the hallucinations and enchantments of the dark forest, truly struck home.
Beside Thorin wandered daily their small Hobbit, sometimes watching him with pained, miserable eyes, sometimes expressing his relief at Thorin's continued survival with his own clothing stained with blood, and worst of all, asking him what he ever did to deserve Thorin's cruelty.
And Thorin wanted so desperately to apologize, to beg his forgiveness for his undue harshness, to tell him that it was no fault of Bilbo's but the weight of having to take up a quest that the fate of their entire people hinged upon, the terrible fear of failing, the unshakeable feeling that he was leading them all to their doom.
And in Bilbo's case, he had.
By the time the elves stumbled upon them, half-mad and near-death with thirst and hunger, Thorin had lost the abilityto muster up resistance, to do anything but follow the Elven guards as they led them away.
Thorin sat in a cell alone, ignoring the words of any who attempted to speak with him and looking up towards the sky far, far above, where he knew the first moon of winter was rising in the sky and their one chance to find the door was slipping away.
He spun the small iron key around and around in his hand and resisted the urge to fling it as far away from him as he could manage, here in this cramped cell.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, voice dry and cracked from thirst and disuse, scarcely audible to even his own ears. In his mind's eye, a small Hobbit who had given his life for Thorin in exchange for weeks of harshness and belittlement lay in a puddle of his own blood, unseeing brown eyes fixed on the dawn sky as the fire rose up to consume him.
I'm sorry. I failed you all.