"Have you forgotten what he's done for us? What about everything he said outside the goblin tunnels? Does that mean nothing to you?" Balin tried to get through to Thorin, who was beginning to feel sorry for his words. "What if it was one of us in there? Me, Dwalin, Nori, Ori, Agarwaen? Would you leave us to die for the sake of the quest too?" Thorin looked around at the group, at everyone Balin named. Except Agarwaen. She wasn't there.

"Where's Agarwaen?" He asked suddenly.

"What?" Balin looked over the group.

"Sar em gabura. She went inside." Thorin unsheathed his sword, and Balin looked at him in confusion.

"So you would go in after her, but not Bilbo? What's happened to you?"

"Enough! Stay out here." He yelled before running into the mountain. He stopped before the sea of treasure, the glint of the gold tainting his mind again, filling it with thoughts of greed. He turned when he heard footsteps, and was met with Bilbo and Agarwaen running up the stairs toward him.

"You're alive."

"Not for much longer!" Bilbo yelled back.

"Did you find the Arkenstone?"

"Thorin, the dragon is coming!" Agarwaen yelled as they made for the entrance to the hall that led outside.

"The Arkenstone." Thorin stepped in front of them. She felt her whole body tightening in anger and fear for both themselves and Thorin. "Did you find it?" Bilbo hesitated, not liking the look Thorin was giving him.

"No. We need to get out of here." Bilbo tried to push past the dwarf, but Thorin blocked the hobbit with his blade, causing Agarwaen to instinctively draw her own sword. Everything about him was just wrong. The way he walked, sounded, and acted. It was in his eyes too. She hadn't been imagining it when he told her of the Arkenstone. They looked glazed over, their color a dull grey in place of what used to be a deep blue. Thorin backed Bilbo up toward the edge of the landing they were on, and Agarwaen smacked his blade away from Bilbo with her own.

"Stop it, Thorin!" She yelled warningly. "What is wrong with you?"

"We need the Arkenstone!" He yelled back at her, aiming his sword at Bilbo again. This time, she got in between them, his sword inches from her stomach.

"Um..." Bilbo tried to speak, and Thorin followed his gaze to Smaug approaching from behind them. Now faced with an actual threat, the dwarf king turned his attention away from Bilbo, just as all the other dwarves rushed in from outside. Agarwaen stood behind them with Bilbo, questioning what just happened. The dragon sickness could make him so ill that he would turn on his friends?

"You will burn!" Smaug yelled as he charged them. They all jumped down on the other side of the landing, sliding down a pile of gold and then ran into an old stone room. Smaug's fire followed after them, and caught on Thorin's coat, which he shed as soon as they were away from the dragon. He then ordered for everyone to follow him. Not having much choice, Agarwaen and Bilbo had to listen. Thorin led them through many stone halls and up several staircases, eventually leading them back into a cavern, filled with railless bridges and walkways. The area around them was huge, the ceiling around half a mile high and floor at least fifty feet below them. The walls were intricately carved and inlaid gold. It was unlike anything Agarwaen had ever seen in her life.

Thorin shushed them before they could walk out onto a bridge into the open. He looked around the corner to see nothing but an empty cavern.

"We've given him the slip." Dori said.

"No. He's lived here for a hundred and seventy years. He's too clever and knows the place too well." Agarwaen whispered back.

"Where to now?" Bilbo asked.

"The western cardroom. There may be a way out." Thorin responded.

"It's too high. There's no chance that way." Balin protested.

"It's our only chance. We have to try." Thorin then began leading them out onto the open bridge which led across the massive, mile deep mine. Agarwaen and Bilbo's steps made no noise, but the dwarves' heavy boots were loud no matter how they stepped, greatly annoying the elf. Smaug probably knew exactly where they were simply from the sound of their breath.

They'd made it halfway across, when a coin clinked on the stone below their feet. Everyone looked to Bilbo, who thought it had gotten stuck in his clothes, but they were soon proven that it wasn't actually the hobbit. More gold dropped from above, coming loose from between Smaug's scales. The dragon slank past above them, the deep guttural sounds of him breathing making Agarwaen shiver.

It didn't seem like he saw them though, so they continued to the other side even quieter than before. Once safely inside the tunnel, they picked up the pace and ran down a few halls before being led down a corridor. Thorin turned into a room and stopped cold. There were tens of decayed bodies, those of dwarven women and children who had made for the same exit as the company had, but found it to be caved in. With nowhere to go, they all died there, suffocating and starving to death.

Agarwaen raised her hand to her mouth at the scene and had to push back the tears. These were ones she could've tried to save had Belegurion not tried to stop her. These were the dwarves she wanted to go into the mountain after. But she didn't. After the murder, she ran. There was a chance she could have saved them, and she didn't.

"That's it then. There's no way out." Dwalin said.

"The last of our kin." Balin stepped forward, looking over the dead. "They must have come here, hoping beyond hope. We can try to reach the mines. We might last a few days."

"No. I will not die like this." Thorin replied, walking toward the caved in exit, his eyes falling on each of the dead faces around them. "Cowering, clawing for breath."

"If...if the elves had helped," Agarwaen muttered. "If we had sent an army into the mountain, we...we might have gotten them out." Her eyes were glossy with tears that had yet to fall.

"Don't do that to yourself, lass. There was nothing you could have done." Balin put a reassuring hand on her arm.

"But I could have tried." Her lip trembled.

"You did. And you lost everything because of it. This is not your fault." Thorin looked at her, the dragon sickness no longer plaguing his face. "Even if you were to send a whole battalion into the mountain...none of them would have made it out."

"My people did nothing to help you." The tears finally fell. "Nothing. How could...how could anyone leave people to die like this? The women and children, trapped, just waiting to fall asleep one day and never wake." She wiped her face with her sleeve. "With nothing but each other's cries and embraces."

"Oh lass..." Balin tried to comfort her.

"I could try for a thousand years to make up for the actions of my people, but I would still never be even close. I'm so sorry." She let out a choked sob when she noticed some of the other dwarves were also teary eyed. The action hurt her chest and she nearly fell to her knees.

"Agarwaen." Thorin began, "You do not need to make up for the actions of your people. You speak for yourself and yourself alone. None of what they did was your fault. It was theirs." He came toward her, and grabbed her other hand. "Do not take the blame for any of your kind, for you are responsible for none of it, do you understand me? None." She nodded and looked down at him. Ori sniffed and wiped his eyes along with Bombur and Nori.

"We will get out of here." He looked back at the company. "And we will end that dragon. We make for the forges."

"He'll see us, sure as death." Dwalin countered.

"Not if we split up."

"Thorin..." Balin started. "We'll never make it."

"Some of us might. Lead him to the forges. We'll kill the dragon. If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together." Thorin looked to Agarwaen. "All of us." Agarwaen swallowed the lump in her throat. If she were to die today, it would be as a warrior among friends.

Sar em gabura- may it melt