Sansûkh (Bagginshield & Gigolas)

Chapter One

Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, came awake with a sudden start and a strangled shout of alarm. It was utterly dark, and his shout echoed in the stifling blackness. He tried to blink his eyes, and found it made little difference.

"Peace, Child of Durin," said a voice, and he gritted his teeth.

"What is this place?" he asked, and the voice chuckled.

Where was the Hobbit? Where was the frozen lake? Last he recalled; he had been bleeding to death at the edges of the silent battlefield. His madness had passed, but it had exacted too high a price. His family was spent and gone, his nephews cold and stiffened in death and rent with many wounds. Their soft-handed and great-hearted Burglar had forgiven him, even as he wept over Thorin's broken body.

He did not deserve such forgiveness.

"You have come to a place of rest, Thorin son of Thráin," said the voice, and Thorin blinked furiously, trying to make out the voice's owner in the gloom. His excellent Dwarven dark-vision did not seem to be working, and he began to push himself up onto his elbows. He was unclad, and his skin shivered and prickled in the icy darkness.

"Explain," he snarled. "And show yourself!"

"Patience," the voice chided. It did not sound angry at Thorin's disrespect. Rather, it sounded fond, even fatherly. "Do calm yourself. Your sight will return."

"Where am I?"

"As I said, you have come to a place of rest. Here you may finally find peace."

"Peace? There shall be no peace in me until I have your answer!" Thorin growled. He was tiring of these riddles. "Speak plainly! Where am I? I was last upon the withered heath before the gates of Erebor. Have you moved me? What have you done to steal the light from my eyes?"

"Perhaps I erred when I made you so hasty," mused the voice. "I say again: Calm yourself! I will not repeat it another time -- three times is quite enough. And you are old enough to think better of asking such foolish questions, unlike your chattering nephews. However did you manage to control that temper of yours? They are nearly as curious as Hobbits, and that is no understatement."

"There is a trick to it," Thorin said as a strange and horrible suspicion began to dawn. "You listen for the words they do not say. Those are the important ones."

"Ah. Naturally."

Thorin steeled himself, and then asked, "Am I dead?"

There was a pause, and then the voice said, not unkindly, "Yes."

His ribs clenched tightly around his heart, and Thorin's head dropped against his chest as he murmured, "I am in the Halls of my Forefathers."

"Yes."

Thorin squeezed his eyes shut. Of course, they couldn't possibly be his eyes, not really. This was not his hand, clenched into a shaking fist by his side. The heart hammering fit to break his chest apart was not his own. This was a body remade, renewed and purged of all its mortal flaws and weakness. No wonder he could not see -- his eyes had never been used before.

Here he would wait until the Breaking of the World, when the Dwarves would rebuild Arda Marred and restore her to her full glory. Here he would grieve for his sister and cousins, left behind to deal with the results of his madness and pride. Here he would bow under the weight of his shame, knowing he had stolen his nephews' bright young lives before they had even seen a century. Here he would break beneath the guilt of what he had done to a cheerful, peaceful, gentle creature who had only ever sought to help him.

"Are you my Maker?" he eventually croaked.

The vast presence moved closer, and he shuddered as the power within it stroked at his mind and brushed over his new skin. "I am."