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Before, whenever Thorin looked into a mirror he felt false. It was as if he had been on the outside looking in, staring down a stranger, an impostor.
They had moved like him, spoke the words that came to his mind, and matched sensations--fingers running through coarse hair, teeth worrying at chapped lips, nostrils flaring in a huff. Yet, gazing into the despairing depths of glacial blue, this figure before him was more doppelganger than truth. When Thorin envisioned himself--his true self--his figure was more angular than curved, his chest flat and firm, his chin darkened with stubble.
He had felt constantly betrayed by his own flesh, to the point where showering became a near-daily emotional trial. He pinched his burning eyes shut as he quickly lathered up his pert, proportionate breasts, cleaning the genitals he'd been born with yet felt completely foreign to his hands.
Now, as he witnessed his own metamorphosis, it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off of his chest. (Figuratively and literally speaking.) He'd nearly cried with relief when the shadows of hair began to show on his face, and while his breast removal had been a painful and costly process, the sight and feel of his chest afterwards was absolutely priceless.
He still had a ways to go before all vestiges of falsehood were erased, but with each day that passed, with every injection and surgery and lifestyle modification he underwent, Thorin felt like he was closer to himself than he'd ever been before.
And that, he reminded himself, was why this journey of struggle and strife was absolutely worth it.