After Years of Listening

He has considered it, many a lonely night. Always, always he decides against it, convinced that the hobbit would not appreciate the king who so quickly turned on him, so easily belittled him in the wake of all Bilbo had done for them. Surely the halfling would turn him away. It was easier, Thorin decided, to let his pain be his penance. He deserved little else for his treatment of the poor burglar.

“You cannot keep your heart broken forever,” she says after a lengthy silence.

And Thorin, not one to be challenged, answers; “Watch me.”