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Thorin knows exactly what he yearns for when it comes to Erebor, and it is not her gold. The rest of the Company envisions dancing images of a home of glory and beauty, light and song and the strength of the dwarrows renewed.
And Thorin cannot bring himself to remind them of the dragonfire in the sky, cannot bring himself to say The Erebor you knew is dead to Balin, who remembers in hazy colors the might of old that lingered in their home, or to say The Erebor you dream of never existed to the others, who know their mountain kingdom only from the tales and songs that memorialize her. Thorin is the only one of their Company who saw the dragon laying waste to their home with his own eyes, who saw as Smaug tore apart Erebor and left her broken and abandoned for nigh on two centuries. He is no fool, he knows that Erebor as she was can never be reclaimed, and despite his desperate hopes that something new can be forged of her ashes, he also knows that it will take decades at best to create something that can even hope to rival the great mountain kingdom of Thrór.
He wants Erebor reclaimed for the defense of his people, but he yearns for her reclamation for himself.
He does not want Erebor to be his home, he does not want her to soothe his wounds and magically turn back time until he is the young unburdened prince again, the son of Thráin whose greatest concern was that he would not be able to show his father and mother the new dagger he just completed at the forge.
But that too is a figment of his imagination: that little prince never existed, not since Thorin was just a wee babe to whom the idea of a little brother was something strange and foreign.
(He tries to imagine, sometimes, what it would be like to have Frérin with him on this Quest and he cannot imagine it, for his memories of his younger brother are like ash in the wind and he cannot remember the sound of his voice, can barely recall his brother's face when not streaked by tears or blood.)
Thorin saw the signs of madness in his grandfather, saw his father taking up the duties of the king and all the while performing a complicated juggling act to keep everyone from realizing the king was not the one ruling at all, and he knew. Since he was only eleven (Mahal, eleven, so horribly young) he knew, and he kept it secret and hidden, a knowledge that no one else possessed. He smiled at his grandfather and ran to hug his family, teased Frérin and played with Dís, and tried not to let anyone else see the shadows under his father's eyes and the concern on his grandmother's face, pretending that all was well when it never was.
His family loved him, loved him with all the fierceness that dwarrows possess, but his grandfather disappeared into the gold as often as not and his grandmother and parents were busy trying to run a kingdom at the same time as they pretended they weren't, and all too often they could not protect him.
("I can take her, 'adad, it's fine," Thorin says reassuringly as he holds Dís' tiny hand in his, his little sister huddled close to him on unsteady legs.
His father bites his lip but Thorin knows there's an important diplomatic meeting with the representatives of the seven families and both his parents as well as his grandmother have to be there in order to accomplish the impossible task of distracting Thrór and getting him to say what they want whilst negotiating with the representatives and concealing every trace of sigin'adad's sickness.
"But what about the others?" he asks nervously, and Thorin feels nervous tension in his back and shoulders at the words.
The others. The other children, all older than him due to Thorin having passed the tests required to escape his studies with flying colors, all nobility but at the age where they will not hesitate to attack with both words and fists if they are truly riled, and in a forge there is far too much that can be used to harm.
Thorin lifts his chin stubbornly and says in as kingly a manner as he can manage, "I am Thorin, son of Thráin, son of Thrór, heir to the Throne of Durin after my father and grandfather, and if anyone takes offense to the presence of my namadith then I can and will destroy them."
Thráin smiles down at him and ruffles his hair but apparently this is enough of a promise to get him to leave for the meeting.
Of course, when he walks in with his baby sister clinging to his hand, the scoffs and sneers are near-universal but Thorin refuses to care. And when one of the children starts being a little too intimidating towards Dís Thorin actually snarls at him, low and threatening, and the other backs off despite being nearly twice his height.
Later, Thorin teaches Dis how to attack with words and an icy demeanor when she has barely learned to talk, and by the time she is fifty she is colder than the slopes of Barazinbar. But no one ever threatens her again, and this is enough for Thorin.)
Thorin knows the darkness within Erebor's heart better than any that yet live, and he does not delude himself that seeing Erebor will heal some cavern in his heart and make him whole. No. The scars he bears, he bears for the rest of his life.
He wants Erebor to be a home, not for himself, but for his people, for Fíli and Kíli and Ori and any of the many other young dwarflings he has passed in the streets of Ered Luin.
For himself, he seeks only the smallest of things, the least of things, simple dreams for one who would be a king.
He longs for the sight of her jagged peak rising defiantly into the sky as if to tear it asunder, for the taste of the icy winter air in his lungs, for the feel of solid stone beneath his feet and the waters of the Long Lake reflecting the sunset. He longs to rest upon her slopes, wrapped in furs so he will not be cold, and simply sit and feel the heartbeat of the mountain around him.
The elves and Gandalf fear he will fall to the gold madness, to the curse of his line, and while he would be lying if he does not say he too fears it, he also knows that any claim gold may have over him will be short and fleeting.
For his heart has already been claimed by the emerald of Erebor's halls and the mithril of the skies arching high above, overcast clouds with the occasional burst of glittering sapphire as they part, and by the diamonds upon the untouched snow that covers her slopes, by her winter fierceness and the cold that steals his breath from him and the wind, sharper than the blade of Orcrist, that brings tears to his eyes every time he ventures out onto the battlements. His yearning belongs to the sleek-feathered ravens, with wise eyes and wiser words, who are clever enough to know when Thorin desires merely silence and can speak to him about many things when he wishes.
He is the only one, now, who speaks their tongue, who knows their language. They guard it close to their heart, a treasure like unto the dwarrows' Khuzdul, and it is taught only rarely, to the people they trust the most in the world.
They welcomed Thorin into their world, in those days before Smaug, when Thorin knew only Erebor and her icy heart and nothing at all of dragonfire. They brought him into their fellowship, named him kin and ally, and he has seen one of them every year upon his birthday, to know that he still fares well, even though he knows how hard that journey must be for the ravens of the mountain, who still stubbornly roost at Ravenhill, close enough to flee in need but within sight of their mountain.
They ask him, every year, if he is coming home next year.
Not yet, Thorin says, consistently and invariably. But I swear unto you, I will return.
He would have, if only to see Erebor and not to attempt to reclaim her. Given the crown to Dís or Fíli and come to die amongst the ravens, rigged up a device to trigger a rockfall over him upon his death which could be triggered by a single raven, because he knows that they would want to see him entombed within stone, even if it is a messy entombment indeed.
No. He would have challenged Smaug, even if he was old and barely able to move. Gotten himself killed, but he would have challenged the dragon nevertheless.
He would have been willing to see Erebor only with failing sight, and he believed that she would never be able to heal the cracks in his soul, the scars upon his mind.
It is a shock to him when he first catches sight of Erebor atop the Carrock and he feels as if something within him is slowly becoming realigned and it is a struggle to keep himself from crying right then and there, at the longing in him slowly easing even if he still feels it in his chest when they turn away to begin making their descent down and the mountain disappears from sight once more.
It is no less powerful when he finally sees her from upon the waters of the Long Lake, appearing out of the mists like a ghost, a queen of the afterlife coming to beckon him home.
When he finally can walk upon her slopes with the cold surrounding him, his mind feels sharper than it has in years and he feels for the first time since he was twenty-three and leaving Erebor aflame behind him that he is truly alive.
The sky is the same dappled silver above him, the sunset in shades of amethyst and citrine and the sun like a circular ruby hovering in the sky and it feels as if he never left.
Even as he descends the mountain with the ice of northern winter nights setting in and his Company despairing all around him, he feels Erebor's heartbeat alongside his own, sees the diamonds scattered across an ebony sky far above and stubbornly refuses to allow this to be the end. Thorin has just decided that he will go to Ravenhill and see if he can find a raven there willing to take the key and unlock the door from the inside when he hears Bilbo yelling above him about the light of the moon being the light to open the door and Thorin's heart feels lighter than it has in years as he runs back up the staircase with the light of the moon turning the stone around him to mithril.
And as he opens the door, he can still smell the stench of dragon and the horrible odor of burnt stone but above all of that is the distinctive aroma of Erebor, steel and ice and starlight untouchable, and the emerald of her stone surrounds him and encircles him like his mother's warm embrace, and he feels stronger than he has since the mountain fell.
He has forgotten the expanse of the treasury and he has also forgotten the fear of fleeing dragonfire, but something else blazes bright in his heart, the ice of his mountain kingdom and he has longed for her for almost his entire life but now that yearning is abated and she is surrounding him with the steel and gemstones of her heart, mithril absent from her great mines but running through her core nevertheless.
And when he walks out onto the battlements once more to call the ravens to send to Dáin, they surround him in a whirlwind of onyx feathers and glittering eyes and cry out delightedly in their language about their missing him so fiercely and desperately and Thorin thought he knew how much he meant to them but he did not know they yearned for him as longingly as they yearned for Erebor, as longingly as he yearned for them.
And then a familiar bird flutters down to rest on the battlements beside him: Roäc, son of Carc and the newest chieftain of the ravens, whose hatching Thorin was present for mere days before Smaug came thundering down from the north and brought desolation trailing in his wake. Thorin remembers the raven as a young chick, with barely a trace of his now-sleek ebony feathers, but now there is age in the other's eyes and he moves slightly stiffly, a bit of a limp and a flicker of pain whenever he puts weight on his left leg.
He is old now, just as Thorin himself is.
But he volunteers to carry the message to Dáin with scarcely a thought, and as Thorin sees him winging away he feels oddly sad, as if he will not see the other again in this life.
And when he turns back to reenter Erebor there is an odd flutter of fear in his chest, something within the mountain that the cold of her slopes banishes from him, and he wishes he could just remain out here until night falls, feeling the biting wind whipping through his hair and hearing the chatter of the ravens around him.
But then Balin is calling for him, and he has no choice but to venture back into the strangely cloying warmth of the inside of the mountain, into that world of darkness and gold and emerald and flickering firelight, even as his heart remains upon the slopes in his kingdom of ice and diamond and mithril and silent friends upon obsidian wings.
Roäc comes in to land beside him, cawing in the raven tongue with concern deep in his eyes despite the tiredness from flying day after day to reach the Iron Hills and back, and though he suspects the others think Roäc is telling him of Dáin's imminent arrival Thorin already knows that if Roäc is here than Dáin will soon follow, for he has faith that his cousin will answer his call now that he needs not fear the total destruction of whatever army he sends at the fire of Smaug.
Instead, Roäc asks with concern and alarm and the slightest hint of fear, Thorin, are you well?
And as the others react with astonishment to Dáin's arrival, Thorin looks down towards Bilbo's still-pale face and thinks, No, my friend. I am not.
And then he disappears into Erebor's halls and Roäc does not follow, though he remembers the other ravens roaming the mountain kingdom as they pleased and he knows it cannot be Smaug's lingering scent but he does not know what they could have to fear.
But when he feels the urge to run Dwalin, his shield-brother, through with his sword, and can only utter a desperate plea to leave before he actually loses control enough that killing Dwalin could become a possibility, and then he understands that there is something horrendously wrong with him, something that any sane creature would fear.
Thorin blinks and finds himself in Erebor's halls and cannot account for the lost time in between. His feet falter upon the gold floor newly bestowed upon the Gallery of Kings, and the accusing words of those who are both kin and not echo in his mind, the molten gold surrounding him and drowning him before he manages to shove himself to his feet, the gold crown clattering away from him and breaking the spell, but still he finds himself lying upon the gold with the concerned caws of the ravens in his ears and Roäc nudging his cheek in quiet attempts to rouse him.
He manages to force himself to his feet, swaying all the while and feeling horribly ill, as the ravens flutter on ebony wings around him and Roäc settles on his shoulder, a reassuring warmth tucked against his neck.
Why are you still here? he asks, words echoing in the hall and he closes his eyes against the gold floor glittering enticingly around him.
Because you are our kin, Roäc whispers in his ear. Because you are our king. And your people need theirs.
And at those words Thorin recalls the battle raging upon the plains leading to the mountain, and then he is running from the Gallery towards the armoury, swiftly exchanging his golden armour for a simpler chainmail and black surcoat, Roäc fluttering from his shoulder and calling the ravens to arms.
And as he charges from Erebor with his black coat fluttering around him and his breath crystallizing in the frigid air, he feels as if he cannot be broken, as if he is as untouchable as the mountain at his back, and even though he fights on for what must be at least several hours he never feels the touch of exhaustion, not when he stands amidst the diamond snow beneath Erebor's mithril sky.
And even after he takes Azog's blade through his chest, he still manages to rise and walk to the edge of the river frozen in the exact shade of white opals and look out over a field stained garnet and ruby, towards Erebor where she stands sheathed in a veil of silver clouds and untouched snow, and he feels the terrible longing quieten within him, for he has walked her halls once more and ventured out beneath her sky of silver-steel, and he can know peace once more.
Thorin Oakenshield, the Raven King, dies upon the frozen surface of the River Running with a child of the Shire at his side and the ravens of Erebor clustered upon the silent stone around him, and he knows peace in that moment before death claims him for he has felt the touch of Erebor's icy wind and seen the diamond of her snow and the silver of her sky before the end.