I don't think I have to say this but warning for triggers of young children dying and losing the ones you love.

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A step forward.

He hoped this day would never come. For days on end, all he had done was sit at home, watching her laying in her crib. 

A step forward.

Most of the time he would hold her though. She was cold. He could provide warmth. 

Warmth that could save her. Hopefully. 

Warmth that her mother couldn't give anymore.

A step forward.

First he lost her. His beloved. The one he had allowed to steal his heart after he lost everything. 

And now his smallest gem lay motionless in his arms. He refused to carry her in her casket. Not when he was still there to carry her. He wanted to hold her for as long as he could. 

He had done the same for his wife. She would be buried with her mother. He would carry them both to their last place of rest.

A step forward.

Almost immediately after giving birth did he lose her. She was bleeding too much. Losing her blood too rapidly. He had known. One look at her face and he had known that she was lost to him. 

There was time to grieve but he kept it to himself. His daughter needed him now. 

She was cold. So very cold. 

He didn't know what to do. The healers told him that she should have been warmer already. Yet she stayed as cold as she was when she was born. No one could do anything for her.

There was nothing Thorin could do to save either one of them.

A step forward.

He would have traveled the whole world for them if it meant that they stayed with him. That he didn't need to see their darkened eyes. He didn't want to watch, unable to do anything, as life left their bodies. 

What he wouldn't give to have her smiling at him one more time. 

To have her squeezing his finger for one more slightly painful moment. 

He ran out of those moments. They were forever lost in time. 

He stopped.

There was no one with him. By his own request.

There was nothing anybody could have said that would lighten his heart. Nothing they could have done to help him deal with the grief that swallowed him whole. 

They would tell him to hold on. To think of the good times they shared. 

He knew all too well about the good times they shared. She had shown him adventure, adventure in day to day life that he hadn't seen for such a long time. It was as if she had re-opened his eyes. As if he saw through the eyes of a child once more.

She took that with her when she drew her last breath.

Now that his little one laid heavy in his arms, he could feel the heaviness upon his shoulders. 

His back started to ache. Something he hadn't felt in a long time. Tiredness once again claimed his body as it had done so long ago. 

He knelt.

Slowly he brought his little one down to the ground. 

He wasn't quite ready to let her go just yet. 

She looked so peaceful. So happy and innocent with her expresionless face now laying in his hands. Her head didn't even fill the whole of his hand. She was so incredibly small. 

All he wanted to do was cradle her close to his chest, breathing life back into her. 

He wept quietly. 

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. So incredibly small, so beautiful, their little loved one.

He leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. Once more did he touch her small, soft nose before he carefully put her in her own casket. 

It was lined with the finest linen, built out of sturdy material to keep them safe. He hoped he wouldn't have to see his beloved so soon again. But here he was. Laying their little one down with her. 

He stroked her hand, trying to remember every little detail about them for this was the last time he would see them.

Closing the casket the first time was almost impossible to do. Now, the second time, it was even harder. He knew he couldn't sit here with them already. He wouldn't join them again until he had passed himself.

Oh how he couldn't wait for that day.

To find them waiting for him in the Hall of Durin. They would wait for him up there. "I won't keep you waiting for long, my love" he whispered.

He wasn't sure for how long he had been sitting with them. As much as it pained him he knew that some time he would have to close the casket and bury them. 

He reached for the lid of the casket and put it back on. Sealing it with great care and dwarven magic he knew that they would be safe here for all eternity. Until the day they would break the protection to allow him to rest with them.

He got up and set to work. 

The dirt landed slowly as if it wasn't sure if it wanted to cover them. He kept on going, trying hard not to think too much about what he was doing. 

The last shovel full of sand landed on them. 

He put knelt down beside them, the shovel resting on his shoulder. 

"Now, little one, you are still so loved even though you are not here with me right now. I will come for you some day. Then I will never let you go again."

Thorin put his hand down on the ground. 

"Go up, my diamond, and paint the stars."