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His loss of home had overcoming any horror he may have faced in the quakes of hot, dry winds, or the sight of a dragon's belly shifting above his eyes, and then at those that lay near him, already so motionless and placid in expression. He'd never have thought that in such a moment of loss and confusion he'd only feel like a viewer in a far away land, looking through a fire-framed orb of old to witness the atrocity that had taken Dale and Ereborn, their people, their children. No words left his tongue other than those of incoherent proportions when he sauntered out of those high-held, golden gates, father leaning at his side and his own heart feeling as if it were leaning over the peak of a winter's white mountain, and that his fate was to fall with all of his brothers. And there his heart would stay, ruined and bleeding in reddened death at the roots of the Lonely Mountain, an insignificant wash of blood in the fire that danced about it.
There wasn't, in all of the tongues of Middle-Earth, or across the seas, a single word, or many formed in a book of a thousand pages, to tell Thorin Oakenshield's pain in any sort of justice. There was only his words of encouragement to a fleeing people, his own, on their flight down from the mountain and into a damnation that seemed to engulf them in the dead of the night, when all of their breath seemed to be taken at the breath of a giant worm who smote their every truth of life and sent them toppling into a starless sky. Eyes slowly grew dim; steps, wearied and taken by feet blistered from travel, and Thorin felt their pain.
And his own.
"Cold nights call for the warmth of a hearty stew," Balin said, quite into the air. His suggestion was just as the cloud of white his voice brought: filling the air, without a promise, before melting into the black.
Beside him, a larger dwarf muttered of hunger for something hot, and remained seated at the ground to watch the fire.
Searching eyes slowly tore themselves from the vastness of beyond, though it was mainly obscured by the lack of day's sun, and landed on Dwalin. "Pardon, did you say something?"
"I said that there's not one dratted hot meal to be found, nor made, and thus it should not be mentioned!" He then slumped, and said, "I wish that the cook would stop by our fire more often, and fill our pots with steaming soup."
Balin, settling on agreeing silence, absently looked into the fire as well. Then, abruptly, he stood and strode to one of the circling tends. "I think I shall go to bed now," he said over his shoulder, and after seeing that the hunched figure of his brother said not a word in reply, he continued on to pulling back his tent's entrance covers. There inside the grayed dwarf felt no respite from the haunting silence that all but made his soul feel laden with all the whispering gold of Erebor. However, not before he turned his bedroll from his string, something akin to a grunt sounded in his ear. It was coming from the tent beside his.
Then, again, along with the slamming of some ringing, metallic object.
Though weary from the long day of walking, the old dwarf emerged out of his tent to looked around, finding that Dwalin had gone to his own tent on the other side of the circle. Then his gaze skirted far from the reach of their now dimming fire, and Balin's eyes reflected the glints of flickering campfires that seemed to dot across the entirety of the long tundra like candles had sprung from the night and hoisted a gathering of wind-ruffled tents to keep them going through the night. Against the sky they danced, as if to protest as stars brought from earth, reveling for a short time in a stubbornness to live against the hidden lights above. The vaults above kept their secrets ever hidden, and only one spot in the sky held a glowing in the clouds, while all the others were but burnt ash swirling until there was nothing else to be seen.
If the silence held him before, now it grasped his very breath and restrained it from leaving his mouth. Hurried, Balin went to the tent beside his - Thorin's tent - and swept open its front. There, in the center of its confines, stood Thorin son of Thrain, with two silver chalices still rolling about his feet from the mighty throw that'd befallen them, judging from the dents at their lip. He stood with his back from Balin, staring at the blue canvases of his murmuring, rustling tent in the nighttime breeze. Then, he slowly turned to face his distant cousin.
Balin noticed it straight away, and looked at the prince's hands to confirm his realization. In Thorin's left grasp was a set of sheers, and in his left, a small bulk of hair held by a square, gleaming clasp of silver, now all but cut straight from his face and leaving him without his noble and proud beard. His face looked strange without it, and even more so now that his brow furrowed in such a pained, desperate manner, and how his eyes of a pale blue morning were nearly wet of grief.
"Thorin, are you aright?" Balin exclaimed, and quickly made his way to the dwarf's side, who all but stared at the ground in shame. It was unlike a dwarf to clip his beard, nonetheless cut it straight off, as young dwarven males let their thin whiskers grow without interference until their faces were long with braided hair.
"I am no dwarf of Durin, nor am I worthy of his line," the prince whispered severely, clearly edged in distraught, and his eyes remained cast down. "The very lack of earthly sound in this night takes me, Balin; they take my hope and take my heart, if they'd not already been stolen." Then, as if letting go of a feather, or rather by its own will having it slip from his hand, the cut hair fell. However, the sheers in his other hand were not so quietly discarded. At first Thorin seemed solemn and sad, stricken by an untold grief, but it made Balin jump when the prince let out a roar and threw the cutters against an iron chest.
"Steady now, you wouldn't want to wake your father," Balin said, heart beating fast at the surprise, though voice soothing. He placed a hand on Thorin's shoulder, but the prince shrugged it of quickly.
"My father, he has long since been deaf to the noises of anyone other than his beloved treasures, now so etched into his very mind that he hears them glimmer over the voice of his son. He has long fallen silent, Balin, far from thought of his own people, far from-" but he halted, and indeed did steady himself from his ranting words, realizing what words he was saying in regards to his father. Then, after staring wide-eyed at Balin, he covered his face, and his body shook in hushed tears.
Balin took his younger cousin in his arms, and Thorin accepted gracefully, letting his so hidden weaknesses be comforted by means of being wrapped in such a consoling embrace. "Thorin," the grayed dwarf murmured, though the other still shook and wet Balin's clothed shoulder. "Know that if you ask it of me, I will try to help you carry this burden." The burden of his father. The burden of thousands of people, burning like dying candles under an uncaring, darkened sky, and the burden of dragon fire that scorched Thorin's mind and made him tremble with need of vengeance.
The silence continued on till morning.