There was a faint ringing in Arien's ears as she watched Thorin rub down the horses after they'd rode as far away from that ruined valley as they could. The sun had begun to set, leaving blood-red streaks across the sky. She wrapped her cloak tight around her, though the cold barely registered in her mind. Because beneath that faint ringing there was a wave of numbness, a lack of any sight or sound or feeling.

But she didn't particularly care about that silence. No, as the hours since they'd seen her homeland wore on, she found it suddenly very difficult to bring herself to care about anything at all. Whatever comfort, whatever hope, whatever anything she'd felt wrapped in Thorin's arms had ebbed away, devoured by the nothingness that now gnawed at her.

She was alone. She had no family, no friends. She was completely, utterly and irreversibly alone.

All of it, every death, every last bit of destruction was her fault.

Because she'd fled, because she'd left them, because she'd failed.

She was responsible for her people's deaths, because they were hers to protect. She'd failed. And she was alone.

The faint ringing in her ears turned into a roar.

She was alone. She had nothing and no one left to live for.

It would probably have been better for the world if she had died a hundred years ago.

***

Arien did not remember curling up on her bedroll, boots still on. She did not remember her dreams, or feel the pangs of hunger or thirst when she awoke, and she could barely respond to Thorin when he asked her if she was hungry, or to Shadow when the horse nudged her elbow, as if understanding her mood. And offering comfort. Everything swirled past in dull colours and whispers of sound. But she was still. A bit of rock in a stream.

She did not remember Thorin stalking off into the bush. To do what, she didn't care.

Only when he came back, and said

"Arien, you need to see this."

She caught the flash of the black hilt before she understood Thorin was holding up a knife. It was a joke. The Valar had to be playing a joke. Or they just truly, truly hated her.

The hilt was made of black leather, the same as the sword she wore on her back, the sheath engraved with elvish script. Thorin was watching her, eyes wary. But that knife, the scabbard old and dirty...

It was a Taurhelim knife.

The roaring in her head, the numbness in her body, snapped.

Snapped with such a violent crack that she was surprised Thorin didn't hear it.

And in its place was a screaming, high-pitched and keening, loud as a teakettle, loud as a storm wind, loud as her mother's as her father dropped to the ground.

It was so loud that she could hardly hear herself as she said

"I don't care." She couldn't hear anything over that silent screaming, so she raised her own voice. "I don't care about you, I don't care about your kingdom, I don't care about a damn thing." Trembling so hard she thought her body would fall apart at the seams, she repeated "I. Do. Not. Care."

She couldn't stop hearing the screaming, couldn't hone the anger into anything, couldn't tell which way was up or down.

"Arien..." Thorin began.

She let out a low, joyless laugh and walked away from him.