Flames

3.4

"How could you do that?" Azalea demanded. "He was your friend!"

"He betrayed me," Thorin said.

"He tried to help you! He tried to end this before it began!" she exclaimed. "He's right, Thorin, you're not yourself."

Her voice reverberated through the cavernous room.

"This is who I am, Azalea!" Thorin yelled back. She pretended that didn't hurt.

"I have not been awake for very long, but I know that this sickness has consumed you!" Azalea said. "Are you really willing to go to war over some stone?"

"Yes," Thorin replied.

"You're willing to let innocent people die over something that doesn't matter?"

"It matters to me!"

"But why?" Azalea demanded. "Why does it matter more than the lives of people you once said you loved?!"

"If you're talking about yourself-"

"I'm talking about all of them! Fili, Kili, Balin, Bofur, Dwalin, all of them! The dwarves you once said you'd burn with! You are now sending them into the flames you started!" Azalea explained, furious.

"How dare you speak to me like this?!" Thorin demanded.

"Because everyone else is too afraid of you to do anything!" Azalea shouted. "I, for one, am not afraid of you. I love you far too much to let you go on like this! I love you too much to watch you suffer like this!"

No one spoke until her voice stopped echoing.

"How, exactly," Thorin began, his voice dangerously quiet, "do you plan to watch anything?"

Shock made Azalea's blood go cold, but anger reheated it almost instantly.

"How dare you?" she whispered, fighting back the urge to punch him.

"It's an honest question."

"It's a horrible question," Azalea said. "I know I'm blind, Thorin. There's nothing I can do about it. It was a figure of speech."

"I find it funny how you sit here, trying to help me, when I don't need you."

Azalea froze.

"You don't mean that," she assumed, her voice thick. "You can't mean that."

"We have Erebor back," he elaborated. "You've filled your purpose. Why are you still here?"

"You asked me to stay," she reminded him.

"And now I'm asking you to leave!" Thorin exclaimed.

His voice faded out before anyone moved a muscle.

"Please go before I make you," Thorin requested. Azalea thought there was something sad in his voice. She chastised herself, saying she was imagining it.

Azalea turned to leave. She took three steps forward, then froze.

"I hope this sickness consumes you entirely," she snarled, venom dripped from her voice. "I hope it kills you."

Then, she stormed out of the throne room. She really hoped she was going the right way.

"Azalea?"

Kili's voice broke through her rage. She knew then that she'd left the room.

"I'm leaving," she announced.

"What?" several dwarves gasped.

"I need to break something," she growled through her teeth.

"There's a vase to your left," Kili said.

Azalea reached out to her left and found the vase. She held it in her hands, trying to get a feel for the vase. Then, with a loud cry of frustration, she hurled it across the hall. It shattered satisfyingly.

"Okay, I just require my possessions and then I'm leaving," she said, much of the emotion in her voice gone.

"Why?" Balin wondered.

"I've helped you get your mountain back. I have no reason to stay," she explained. "Not anymore."

"I'll get your pack," Kili said sadly.

Azalea leaned against the wall, wrapping her arms around her stomach. She dropped her head, trying to stop shaking.

A half hour later, she strode across the now-empty grounds, having no idea where she was going. And at that moment, she didn't care.