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Title: Love in the Time of Dragons
Author: Evandar
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst/Romance/Drama
Pairings: Nori/Dori
Warnings: Sibling incest, genderswap (female!Dori), family secrets, murder, prostitution
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The recruitment of the Brothers Ri into the Company. They've done an excellent job of becoming each other's only weakness.
Author's Notes: This was written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hobbitstory Big Bang and there will be art coming soon <3 Thanks to S for being my longsuffering beta, and to R who acted as a sounding board even though she hates The Hobbit.
Dori pulls him close and covers his ears with her hands. Her skin is soft, but her grip is hard, and it blocks out the sounds from the next room. He reaches up to do the same, and he feels her cheeks move as she smiles.
Next door, their mother is making money in a town of Men with one of the only commodities she has: herself.
He cuddles closer to his sister, breathing in the scent of the wool and dyes she works with, and he keeps his eyes wide open, watching even though he can barely see a thing. He can see the glint of his sister’s eyes and the pale shadow of her hair and nothing else. In the dark, the world is Dori and her protective embrace.
…
He leans back against the wall of his cell and folds his arms behind his head. Outside he can hear the guards squabbling about a lack of evidence and “it’s Nori, of course he’s guilty” as if there’s no other possible option. The one arguing for his guilt is correct, but he isn’t about to let them know that. He was lucky to be able to hide the aforementioned missing evidence; he’s not about to come clean now.
There’s a clunk as tumblers turn in the lock. He looks over in time to see Dwalin Fundinson wrench open the door to his cell, his face twisted into the darkest scowl Nori’s seen in his life. It’s a familiar expression. For some reason, his distant cousin (or so his mother claimed) is always the one that he has to deal with when he’s in gaol.
He grins in welcome and unfolds his arms only to raise a hand in a mocking salute. “Officer,” he says.
“You’re free to go,” Dwalin snarls.
Nori swings his legs off the pallet he’s been sitting on and stands. “No apology?” he asks. “Waste of my time, this was.” He’s pushing it, he knows, and it’ll be forever before he can swing by the ditch site for the goods, but what the hell. Dwalin’s fun to mess with.
At least this time, no one’s had to post bail. He might get to sleep in a bed tonight.
The cell door swings shut again. Nori freezes. Dwalin’s in here with him, in front of the only exit, and there’s no other escape. He doesn’t have his sister’s incredible strength, and even if he did, it wouldn’t help him. The penalty for beating up a guard is worse than that of stealing.
“You’ll not be leaving quite yet, bastard,” Dwalin says, as if bastard’s the worst insult he can think of. Nori shifts his weight to one foot. He still has a couple of his knives with him; the guards never find them all, even if he lets them think they do. He tries to look bored instead of as if he’s calculating the fastest way to slit Dwalin’s throat and run before the other guards can catch him. It’s a risk and they’ll have to move again – back to the towns of Men where they grew up – but he’s not overly fond of taking beatings.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Dwalin continues.
Nori blinks. Then he grins, tilting his head and his hips flirtatiously. “Sorry, darling,” he says, “but I don’t swing that way.”
Dwalin’s scowl deepens and a dark flush rises up his throat to his face. “Shut up,” he growls. “Listen. You’re guilty. I know you’re guilty. You know you’re guilty. You might not have left enough evidence for a conviction this time, but it was you and everyone here knows it.”
Nori rolls his eyes. “And what do your suspicions have to do with…propositions?” he asks.
“What if I told you there was a way to clear your record?”
…
His first theft is an exercise in necessity. A loaf of bread swiped from a stall and squirreled away under his jerkin. He keeps walking, his heart racing, trying to look calm as he weaves his way through the traffic of the marketplace. Men don’t tend to look at him all that often. For all that they’re leery of Dwarves, they much prefer to pretend that they don’t exist.
There are no shouts; no cries of outrage, and a few minutes later he lifts a couple of apples before turning for home. He takes a long, winding route, and when he arrives, Dori opens the door. She’s pale-faced and grim, spots of colour high in her cheeks, and there’s a fine spray of fresh blood on the collar of her tunic.
“Where have you been?” she hisses.
“Shopping,” he tells her, and produces the bread and apples as if he’s got nothing to hide, slipping past her as she closes the door. “How is she?”
Their mother is sick and there’s hardly any money coming in because Dori can’t work while she tends to her, and Nori’s wage can’t support the three of them. Hence the theft, even though Dori’s going to be furious when she finds out.
Dori grimaces in reply and shakes her head. “She’ll be lucky,” she says.
Nori bites his lip. The next day, he steals again.
…
“You’ve lost your mind,” he says flatly.
“Thorin Oakenshield is the rightful King of our people: the heir of Durin and King Under the Mountain,” Dwalin says.
“There is no mountain,” Nori snaps back. “Not anymore. The dragon has it and everything in it.”
“And if you’re caught again, you’ll be facing mutilation as a minimum sentence,” Dwalin reminds him.
Nori scowls. Three strikes and you lose a hand, by the laws of Durins folk. It’s why he’s always preferred the towns of Men, but Dori had insisted on raising Ori amongst their own people.
“And if I still say no?” he asks. “A dragon’s a fouler end than losing a hand and no mistake. Honour and glory aren’t for the likes of me. I’d rather live.” There’s no life left to him now that’s not thievery. At least, not one that doesn’t end with a dragon.
“And your family?” Dwalin asks.
Nori has to force himself not to tense. He has to remind himself that no one in Ered Luin knows - no one knows that he and Dori and Ori aren’t the three brothers that they tell people they are. Dori has a harder time with it, of course, but she’s managed so far to keep her head down, and Ori’s managed because he doesn’t know any different either.
Three brothers, nothing more. Three brothers, sons of a whore. One of them, at least, had a semblance of a future – Ori has the mind and the talent to go far, if he wants to (which he does).
“You know fine well they’ve nothing to do with this,” he says, because all of Ered Luin knows that Dori disapproves of the thieving.
“Aye,” Dwalin admits. “But that’s not to say they’re not affected. You think that Ori lad’s really going to get the apprenticeship he’s after with a rogue like you for kin? He’d be better off giving up now and joining you or your brother instead of pushing himself. But if you were a hero…”
Nori grinds his teeth. Dwalin looks smug, like he knows he’s got Nori exactly where he wants him. The Brothers Ri (as they’re known – ah! Infamy) are tight-knit and their only weaknesses are each other. Sometimes it feels like the whole world knows it.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he says. And talk to Dori about it, he doesn’t say, because that would come too close to admitting it. She’ll hate it. He knows she will. And there’ll probably be a fight because there always is, and he probably won’t get to sleep on a bed tonight after all.
Dwalin opens the door to his cell again. “Then you’re free to go,” he says. “To think. Oh, and Nori?” He catches Nori’s wrist as he tries to walk past him. It’s tight as a shackle – Nori would know – and nowhere near as forgiving. “I’ll be watching you.”
Nori flashes his very best smile, or rather, an imitation of it. It comes out more as a baring of teeth, razor sharp and slightly vicious. “You always are,” he says.
…
Dori’s hands are gentle as she cleans blood from his face. “This is why I worry about you,” she tells him, and he digs his fingernails into his thighs to stop himself from saying something he’ll regret later. She presses a cool, damp cloth against his lip and he hisses in pain, but allows it.
He’d been caught and beaten because that’s the kind of justice dealt out by the local Men. He’d still made away with three purses, though, and that’s enough to keep bread on the table for a while. Their mother doesn’t quite get the custom she used to since her illness, and there’s talking about them moving on.
But less custom doesn’t mean there’s no custom, and there’s a rhythmic creaking coming from upstairs. Dori doesn’t cover his ears anymore; he doesn’t cover hers. They’ve long ago grown used to the sounds of their mother pleasuring whatever Men come to her door. Neither of them are embarrassed by the wet slapping of sweaty flesh, or of grunts and moans – at least, not around each other. Nori knows that Dori would rather die than admit what their mother does to an outsider, and Nori knows that he would as well; that there are times he hates her.
Dori rinses the cloth and turns back to him. There’s a little frown line between her eyebrows and it makes him feel guilty. His sister isn’t all that much older than him, but she’s the one who’s always taken care of him and he loves her more than anything.
…
Dori glances at him when he enters the kitchen, and she smiles at him slightly – no doubt relieved that she hasn’t had to fork out for his bail. At the table, Ori is poring over an old book scrounged from somewhere, copying its runes onto a piece of parchment with painstaking neatness. He’s the only one of them that can read more than a few odd words, and Nori’s prouder of that than he can admit.
He makes it through dinner without any questions, and it’s only when Ori’s in bed that Dori turns to him with that frown on her face that means that she knows he’s done something awful again. But when he tells her, it’s not himself that he’s worried about. Dwalin Fundinson has earned himself no love from his sister.
“He’s got a fair point,” Nori tells her quietly. “I’m no good for Ori’s reputation. I fucked my own apprenticeship up good and proper, and no one wants a thief’s kin in their business.”
Dori’s lucky – very lucky – that everyone, everywhere needs a weaver and a seamstress with such a good eye and a quick needle. But still, it’s not the wealthy who come to her, but the ones who are too busy or who have too poor a reputation of their own.
Her hand covers his briefly, squeezing tight before she draws away and busies herself with pouring them both more tea. She’s shaking and he wishes he could steady her, but there’s silence from upstairs instead of snores and while Ori’s still awake he doesn’t dare. Never while Ori’s awake and certainly not while he’s probably listening, because he almost certainly is (Ori’s as sneaky as Nori at times) and there are things that even Ori doesn’t know about them.
“Honour and glory,” she mutters. “Prestige and death.”
“Ori deserves the best we can give him,” Nori reminds her. “We agreed on that.”
They’d made that agreement before Ori had even been born and they’d kept to it. It’s why they’d come to Ered Luin so that he could grow up surrounded by Dwarvish culture; why Dori had run herself ragged weaving and hemming and stitching for anyone who came, and why Nori had truly earned his infamy. They’d paid for an education beyond anything that they’d had and made sure that Ori never, ever had to do or hear the things that they had done or heard.
Dori nods. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she reminds him.
She’s the only one of them who can remember Erebor. She was born there, while Nori was conceived and born while their people fled from the dragon and wandered Middle Earth in exile. To him – and to Ori – Erebor is as distant and mythical as the land in the West where the Elves go and the Valar reign.
“I don’t like it either,” he says. “I’d rather live than die, no matter what shape I’m in.” He’s selfish like that; one-handed he’ll be even less use than he is now. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Fundinson’s right and that I swore to do right by Ori.”
She hears the words he doesn’t say and puts the teapot down a little harder than necessary. “Not alone,” she says.
…
He’s five when he realises that his sister is beautiful but it’s sixty years later when he realises that she’s truly, truly stunning – one of the most beautiful Dwarf maids of their Age. It’s not like the Men-folk of the town notice. The way Dori dresses – in breeches and tunics and jerkins – means she passes for a lad in their eyes. The other Dwarves that pass through, however, do, and Nori comes to hate the way that their eyes follow her whenever she leaves the house.
He’s almost hyper-aware of the changes in her body, but less aware of his own reactions to them. At least, he is until the day his mother slaps him.
“You never, never look at your sister like that!” she shrieks at him, her face shoved in close to his own. She’s so close and his cheek stings so badly that he almost hits her back, but he catches sight of Dori in the doorway – her dark eyes wide with shock – and that stays his hand.
When he goes to bed that night, it’s next to Dori as always – their mother’s room is used for business – and it’s to the sound of their mother moaning. He stares into the dark in silence, forcing himself to picture the uneven beams of their ceiling with their elaborate networks of whorls and cracks. Next to him Dori shifts and sighs and somehow that sounds more intimate than the pants and gasps he can hear through the wall.
“You’re my One,” he tells her.
There’s silence in reply and the sound of a Man’s impending orgasm echoes through the room, but then he feels the blankets shift and her hand rests on his own, lacing their fingers together.
“You’re mine,” she replies.”
…
He approaches Dwalin with his answer a week later, earning a grim smile from the guard and a nod of something that almost approaches respect. Nori holds no illusions over it – he knows he’s less than scum to someone (legitimately) of Durin’s line like Fundinson – but he also knows that Oakenshield has to be desperate for someone like him to be recruited for this madness.
He soon learns that he’s far from the only one, and not the only commoner at that. The Ur line from the Broadbeam clan are tagging along for the sake of glory and free beer. They volunteered, the crazy fuckers; Nori is the only one they brought the blackmail out for, by the sound of it.
It’s at the third meeting that his world comes crashing down around him. Balin Fundinson – older, shorter and wider than his brother, and apparently wiser as well – enters with Ori in tow. Nori feels like screaming, but grits his teeth and looks away, digging his fingers into his thigh so that he doesn’t say something he’ll regret later (a self-destructive habit, he knows).
Ori, he finds out, volunteered. He was listening after all, and he’s decided all for himself that honour and glory, prestige and death are worth the threat of dragon fire. He wants to see this mythical mountain and the hoard of gold that holds their whole race entranced. He’s chosen the role of scribe so that their noble deeds (and deaths) will be immortalised in parchment and ink. Balin sits next to him, filled with pride, and claps him on the back when Ori’s trembling, determined speech comes to a close. Nori feels like putting a knife through Balin’s eye, but keeps a handle on his temper until after they leave the tavern.
The night air is cool, the complete opposite of the rage bubbling in the pit of his belly. He wants to lash out - especially at the sons of Fundin – he wants to scream, he wants to lock Ori away somewhere safe where stupid quests and dragons can’t reach him.
“This is going to break Dori’s heart,” he hisses through gritted teeth.
“I know,” Ori says. “But Dori fusses too much. I’m of age. I can make my own decisions.”
“And you’ve decided on this?” Nori asks. Fuck, and he’s been under the impression that Ori was the smartest of all of them. Apparently not. Not if he’s willingly choosing a dragon over a nice, cushy apprenticeship somewhere…ah, but wait. His apprenticeship – the one that Dwalin arranged in exchange for Nori’s cooperation – is with Balin.
“You did,” Ori says.
…
He knows, intellectually, a lot about sex. He knows the noises and the positions and the fact that people are willing to part with money for it. He and Dori have exchanged kisses and touches in the privacy of their room, wary of their mother during the day. But their mother is preoccupied by packing – the decision to move on to a new town and new clients has been made – and she has drifted once more into her own, selfish world.
Nori prefers her when she keeps to herself, away from them. There are times when he wishes that he and Dori could just leave, but he knows that Dori would never abandon her. Not when she was so ill for so long.
In the privacy of their room, he watches Dori shed layers of leather and linen. He watches her take down her braids and brush out the long locks of silvery hair that so many admire. Loose, her beard brushes the dip of her clavicle, and her hair falls in soft waves to hide the pert breasts she’s only recently started to develop. He steps up behind her and brushes her hair aside to press kisses to her throat; his hands moving to cup her breasts, his thumbs flicking over her nipples. He feels them harden, hears her soft sigh of pleasure.
Dori makes such different noises from their mother. He’s grown up listening to her moans and cries and – occasionally – screams; Dori is near silent when he touches her. He feels immeasurable pride when he manages to draw so much as a gasp from her.
She turns in his hold, leaning up to kiss him deeply before wrapping her fingers around his cock and using it to gently guide him to their bed.
He knows a lot about sex, but knowing is different from the doing. He knew it would be messy – he’s seen Dori clean the sheets enough times – and he knew that it would feel good, or else so many people wouldn’t pay to have it, but he’d had no idea how right it would feel.
By the laws of Durin’s folk, this is a crime worse than his stealing. Dori might be his One but she’s also his sister, and incest is punishable by death. Nori can’t quite bring himself to care. They’ve kept secrets their whole lives; they can keep one more, and to have one this sweet is more a privilege than a burden.
…
Dori goes white when they enter together, and Ori doesn’t need to open his mouth to tell her – she already knows what he’s going to say, and Nori can see her heart breaking already.
“It’s a brilliant opportunity,” Ori says. “Balin says I’ll be perfect for it.”
“I’m glad he thinks so,” Dori says quietly. “And the dragon? You’re hardly a trained warrior.”
“Neither’s Nori and he’s going,” Ori argues.
There’s little point telling him that actually, Nori has plenty of experience fighting. Not dragons, as he’s still alive, but other thieves and scumbags. He’s had more than his fair share of tavern brawls. He can take care of himself – and Dori, given what some of those brawls were about, even though she’s strong enough (fiercely strong) to take care of herself – and he’s not afraid to put a knife through someone’s eye if they push him too hard, but there’s a difference between that and battle.
It’s growing harder to look at Ori and see the adult he’s becoming instead of the tiny, sickly baby or the slender, sickly youth that he’s been.
“I wasn’t given much of a choice,” Nori says, and Ori ignores him.
“I can go if I want to, and I do,” Ori announces. “I’m of age and you’re not my mother, Dori, so you can’t stop me.”
Behind him, unseen, Nori winces.
Dori clears her throat. “No,” she says. “No, I suppose I can’t.” Then she draws herself up and fixes Ori with a look that actually makes him flinch, and Nori knows what she’s going to say before she says it. “But I can come with you.”
…
The new town is as dismal as the last, and the new house just as rickety. It’s a testament to how fucked up they all are that the first priority is sorting their mother’s bedroom – transforming it with candles and drapes from a basic, wood-panelled chamber into a whore’s boudoir. Then it’s business for usual for her, and Nori slinks out of the house every morning to look for someone willing to take on a half-trained Dwarvish tanner and leaves Dori to create some semblance of order in the kitchen and pantry.
It’s easier to fall into stealing again now that he’s amongst strangers and hasn’t known the merchants and vendors and townspeople since childhood. It’s easier to cut someone’s purse when you’ve never chased a cat through their garden or begged them for medicine.
He finds something, though. Not tanning – he suspects his chances are buggered there – but bar work, and he comes to enjoy heaving barrels up from cellars and pouring pints and bantering with customers. He doesn’t rob them when they’re in the pub, but after closing – if they’re too drunk to stand – then sometimes he risks it.
It’s a risk with Dori now, too. Working in a bar means he’s out at night, which means his time with her is limited to whatever can be spared during the day. He steals her from her duties and her own work – she’s taken up weaving and stitching and she’s making a tidy pile out of it – to hitch up her skirts and fuck her hard and fast and quietly so that no one can hear.
He enjoys it – of course he does; he’s got the most beautiful Dwarf-lass in the world in his heart and his home – but he can’t help but wish that they had the time and the space to love each other properly. He would spend hours teasing her, bringing her to climax again and again until she was weak from it and trembling, and he’d cradle her close as her heart thundered in her breast.
She smiles when he tells her – that soft, secret smile that only he sees – and she kisses him, light as a shadow. “You’re a romantic, Nori,” she tells him, “and romance isn’t something we’re allowed.”
“You like it,” he replies. She shakes her head and grins and he knows that he’s right.
…
“You know I can’t stay here by myself,” she says. She’s in her nightgown, undoing her braids, and he’s on the bed that they share in secret, watching. She’s plumper now than she was as a girl, and it’s only made her lovelier. Dwarves – and Nori isn’t an exception – like their womenfolk sturdy. “What am I supposed to do on my own?”
They’ve made a good job of becoming each other’s only weaknesses. He sighs. “I’m not questioning that,” he says. “I’d rather you and Ori weren’t involved at all, but he’s involved himself and… It wouldn’t be right, leaving you. It’s never been right. Only before there was a reason for you to stay behind.”
He can hear Ori’s snores through the wall. He’ll give the lad this: he’s healthier now than he’s ever been. Nori’s had too many sleepless nights, ears pricked for every sleepy shift and snuffle, and Dori has as well. That Ori’s got his own room now is no small triumph for a kid who almost didn’t live out his first year.
“The question is: will Oakenshield take you?”
She snorts. “He will if he knows what’s good for him,” she says.
“He’s turned down others,” Nori points out. “Aye, fair enough, Gloin’s brat’s still in his first stubble, but he’s been trained for the axe for most of his life.”
“And I can bend iron with my bare hands,” Dori reminds him. “What do you think I can do to a person?”
He can’t stop himself from grinning. He doesn’t need to imagine it; he’s seen what she can do to a person when she’s got cause to. That bastard Thrond deserved it for thinking he could get away with touching her, and Nori has taken great pleasure ever since in the knowledge that the damage to his hand will never heal.
“Threatening the king now?” he asks her, and he catches sight of her answering smile – grim and determined and just a little wicked – in the mirror.
“He’s threatened me and mine enough with this quest,” she replies, and he stands. He reaches for her and drapes his arms about her shoulders and presses a tender kiss to her temple.
He takes her to bed that night and loves her for as long as he can, both of them keeping a practised silence throughout their pleasure. Afterwards he holds her close and stares blankly into the darkness, listening to Ori’s undisturbed snores through the wall and trying to pretend that she isn’t lying awake as well.
…
He slips in from work expecting everyone to be in bed as usual. Instead, he finds his mother and sister in the kitchen. Their mother is pale beneath her carefully trimmed beard and the rouge she paints on her lips is as bright and shocking as fresh blood. She’s mussed and rumpled from her night’s work; as false and gaudy as pyrite, and there are finger-shaped bruises on the tit slipping free of her dressing gown.
He’s not as fussed about her as he is Dori. His Dori’s shaking; her trembling hands are clenched into fists, and she’s gone so white she looks like a ghost. He wants to go to her. Needs to go to her, but his mother has seen him and the look in her eyes is dark and furious.
“Whore,” she hisses, looking back to Dori, who flinches back from the irony as if it were a knife.
“What’s going on?” Nori asks. Dori flinches again, and there’s a cruelty to the way their mother smiles.
“Your sister’ll tell you,” she says.
“Dori?”
Somehow he knows. He knows what she’s going to say when she turns to him and he sees the tears on her face. Dori never cries. Not even when they were kids, huddling together in the dark with their hands over each other’s ears did she cry; not when she had to tend to their mother when she was sick or when they were starving. He knows and he doesn’t care anymore that their mother is watching. He pulls her into his arms and holds her tight and presses a gentle kiss to her ear when she whispers in his.
“Nori, I’m pregnant.”
…
Dori comes with them to the next meeting, dressed in a thick black jerkin over a lavender tunic that highlights the silver of her hair. Her breasts are strapped down securely, like they always are in public, and he and Ori know better than to call Dori their sister. They’re the brothers Ri, and that’s all they’ll ever be known as.
Disguise or not, Balin’s look when he spots her is appreciative. Nori’s hand twitches towards his knife, itching to carve out an eye or a throat, and he curses the sons of Fundin heartily in the privacy of his mind. Dori’s a true beauty and he can’t really blame Balin for looking, or even for looking twice, but that doesn’t mean that he has to like it.
It makes it worse that he can’t call him on it. He can’t scream from the rooftops that Dori is his. He’s never been able to and he never will be able to, but he wishes he could. Dori deserves a world where he could.
If Dori notices Balin’s interest, she makes no sign of it. She sits herself at the table next to Gloin and accepts the ale that Nori provides her with. There’s a dark glint of determination in her eye, and Nori’s seen that look before. There’s more steel in his sister than there is in all of Beleriand and while people find Nori devious, he knows fine well that Dori’s just as bad – and when she wants something she usually gets it, no matter what the cost. She’s a Ri to the core.
When the question of her presence on the quest comes up, she bends the poker from the inn’s fireplace into a loop. Iron creaks and the sleeves of her tunic strain over her biceps, but not once does she take her eyes off the king who challenged her.
“Well bless me,” Bofur chirps into the stunned silence, and his words trigger a chorus of admiration from the younger Dwarves – especially the two princes who’ve never been treated to that particular party trick before.
Dori flushes lightly with pleasure and takes her seat. Under the table, Nori hooks his ankle around her own, and her place on the quest is never questioned again. She’s got her way, and now it’s up to him to make sure that that way doesn’t directly intersect with dragon fire and a painful death.
…
”What are we going to do?” he asks her, breathing the question into her hair. He’s curled up against her back, his hand resting on her belly, over where his child is growing. His child. His sister’s child. Their mother’s room is silent for once, barring the occasional cough. She never really recovered from her illness, and when she sleeps she’s almost as noisy as when she’s awake: hacking and spluttering.
Children are precious to Dwarves. They’re rare, so they’re more precious than mithril – for all that they weren’t raised amongst Dwarves or even that well, Nori knows that the baby in Dori’s womb is a sacred thing.
Sacred, and forbidden. Children are precious, but incest is a crime. Any child of theirs will likely be fragile and sickly, and will have to be hidden away if it survives to term. They’ll never be able to admit that they’re parents. Different scenarios run through his head. The child dying; leaving the baby on a stoop in the night, knocking before fleeing the scene just far enough that he can still see his baby taken in; running with Dori somewhere far away and raising the babe on the road or in a village where no one knows that they’re siblings.
“We’re keeping him,” Dori says. She’s certain that it’s a boy, and she’s likely right. Girls are uncommon amongst their people. “He’ll be our brother.”
Nori’s silent for a moment, pressing his lips against the back of her neck. “Does she know that?” he asks. There’s only one ‘she’.
“Not yet,” Dori replies.
Their mother coughs again and they hear her bed shift and creak. Nori smiles. His hand slips lower, sliding over the rough material of her nightdress to where it’s tangled around her thighs. He inches it up slowly and Dori shifts in his arms, parting her legs so he can work his fingers between them until she’s wet and squirming. He takes his time for the first time in a long time, teasing her almost to climax before pulling his hand away and kissing her while she breathes curses against his lips. She tips her head back when he enters her, and he trails kisses down her throat and bites at her nipples through her shift. They’re more swollen than usual and they must be tender, because Dori cries out faintly and tugs at his hair, dragging him up for another kiss. He just replaces his mouth with his hand, rubbing circles over the imprints of his teeth and squeezing with the rhythm of his hips.
She climaxes shortly after he reaches his own, crying out into his mouth. He makes it up to her by sliding down her body, not letting her catch her breath, and pressing his tongue into her cunt. He chases the taste of himself, licking and sucking and rubbing his hands soothingly over her shaking thighs. He only stops when she’s reached her pleasure again, and he lifts his head to grin at her.
She wipes her juices from his beard with a rough thumb and licks it clean. “I love you,” she says, and his grin only widens. He loves her too, even worships her, and he loves the baby she’s carrying as well. He’ll do anything for them.
…
They sell most of their belongings in flea markets in the months leading up to the quest. Thorin has already set out, heading to a meeting in the Iron Hills with the other leaders of the Seven Families. He’s left Balin in charge, and the fussy little politician is easier to deal with, for all that’s he’s twice as bright and five times more dangerous for it. Balin’s quick off the mark when it comes to things like organisation, and he’s got a myriad of little tasks and reminders for them all before they set off.
Still, taking care of the house is a priority of theirs. They’re the only ones not leaving anyone behind to take care of their possessions, which is why most of them have to go. It’s Dori who does most of the selling, though Nori and Ori are roped in to pack things up into boxes and crates and to carry them to the markets. Ori skips out on the selling; he’s being kept busy by Balin and since this is supposed to be his big chance to live the kind of life they’ve always wanted for him (minus the impending encounter with a dragon), neither of them complain. When Nori skips out, it’s for a different reason; he’s in search of fat purses to cut. He’s under no illusions about them needing more money than their possessions will bring them.
Packing up the house where they brought Ori up brings tears to Dori’s eyes more than once, though she keeps them to the privacy of their bedroom instead of letting Ori see them. She doesn’t want him to feel guilty – or worse, think her silly and fussy for being so attached to a tiny little place in an area that was little more than a slum – and so it is that he never notices.
Nori, on the other hand, finds her more than once, with tears misting in her dark eyes and her hands tangling in her lap. He wraps her in his arms every time, but says nothing. They’ve said all that they need to say over the years. Ori comes first. He always has and he always will, no matter their own thoughts and feelings.
…
Their mother’s illness returns. As Dori’s belly begins to swell, their mother’s coughing gradually grows worse and worse. Less customers come through their back door, and Nori has to pick up a few extra shifts at the bar and lift some purses to make up the slack.
The baby’s first kicks can be felt by the time he notices something not quite right. There’s blood on their mother’s pillowcase, but there’s no caution in Dori’s actions as she scrubs it out.
“I should do that,” he tells her, placing his hands over her own. “The baby. If you get sick, Dori…”
“I won’t,” she tells him, and when he meets her eyes there’s a look there that he’s never seen before. It’s a hard little glint, filled with iron-hard determination and ruthlessness. He’s seen it in some of the punters at the bar, usually before they stick a knife in someone, but never in her. Never before, and something tells him he doesn’t want to see it again.
He withdraws his hands. She blinks at him. “Nori?”
“You’re forgetting I know you better than anyone,” he replies. He glances towards the stairs. “Fuck, Dori.”
“It’s the only way,” she tells him, and he believes her. They knew the risks even when they started this, and now that there’s a little one on the way, the risks are higher than ever. He doesn’t want their baby to grow up the way that they did.
“I know,” he says. “What do you need me to do?” he asks.
It’s him that picks up yet more shifts when their mother grows too weak to work, and who starts to make quiet enquiries about new places to live. Ered Luin sounds good, he decides; he likes the towns of Men well enough, but his son should grow up around other Dwarves, he thinks. He’ll have something of a chance there, to become more that he and Dori have, and that chance will be worth any cost.
He suggests it to Dori after the baby’s been born. She’s pale and exhausted and there’s a truly horrifying amount of blood drying on her thighs and on the sheets beneath her, and he wants to scoop her into his arms and never let go again. He doesn’t dare. Their son is at her breast, still wet. He’s a tiny thing, wrinkled and red, and he’d made one hell of a racket when he was squeezed out.
The tuft of hair on his head is the same reddish brown as Nori’s own. He’s bizarrely proud of that, for all that a resemblance is no surprise at all. He’s proud of the long, little fingers that are curled into the softness of Dori’s breast as he feeds, and of his tiny feet and hairless face. Every snuffling breath his boy makes is both exhilarating and terrifying to behold.
“He’ll have the best we can give him,” Dori says.
Nori kisses her softly, and strokes his finger lightly over their baby’s cheek as he suckles. In the next room, their mother lies gasping for breath; Dori’s poisons filling her lungs with blood. In three days, she lies dead, and Nori makes arrangements for her to be buried on the outskirts of town, in a quiet place where no one can bother her. It’s an apology, he realises as he fills the grave with heavy clods of wet earth, for his inaction. The townspeople think she died from birthing Ori, and that’s what they needed. There’s no suspicion. The truth is that no one really cares for a dead Dwarf whore or any of her children, or what those children may or may not get up to behind closed doors.
They stay only until Ori is old enough and strong enough to travel safely. The house Nori finds them in Ered Luin is no better than the ones they’ve lived in all their lives, but it’s theirs to raise their child in. For the first time, Nori feels like he has a home.
…
They all leave separately. Dwalin Fundinson goes first with the princes by his side, shooting Nori a cold glance when he goes to see them off. He’s heard, no doubt, of the sudden increase in pickpocketing and Nori’s sure he knows who’s to blame. The princes don’t seem to notice his demeanour – or they’re used to it, which is entirely possible; Dwalin is close to their fallen king, he’s learned.
Balin, thankfully, sets off on his own, leaving Ori to travel with them. There’s always the hope that he’ll find some hideous sort of accident to fall into between the Ered Luin and this ‘Hobbiton’ place that Tharkûn wants them to head to. Nori doesn’t know if he can stand the thought of being stuck watching Balin make advances on Dori all the way to Erebor. The few meetings they’ve already had have been bad enough.
The others, though, he’s on better terms with, and they agree to travel together. Bofur’s a lively sort and funny too, and Oin’s one of those who’ve dedicated themselves to their work so Nori doesn’t mind when he and Dori find common ground in their knowledge of herbs and poultices. He keeps an eye out, getting to know each of them, being as charming as he can. Gloin is easy – they both love gold and if he shows enough interest in his tales of Gimli the Magnificent (his son, and while Nori can sympathise with the sentiments of pride – Ori’s a fine lad, albeit a bit of an idiot sometimes, so he knows – Gloin does take it a bit far) then he’s as pleasant a Dwarf as any. Bombur, on the other hand, is near silent as if making up for his brother’s raucous nature, and Bifur can only speak Khuzdûl (his Iglishmek shows a keen mind, though, and Nori discovers he likes him well enough, though if anyone’s going to find them out on this blasted quest Bifur’ll be the one).
There’s little point in glancing back when they leave Ered Luin. He’s never looked back before and one way or the other, they won’t be going back there.
Author: Evandar
Fandom: The Hobbit
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Angst/Romance/Drama
Pairings: Nori/Dori
Warnings: Sibling incest, genderswap (female!Dori), family secrets, murder, prostitution
Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit and am making no profit from this story.
Summary: The recruitment of the Brothers Ri into the Company. They've done an excellent job of becoming each other's only weakness.
Author's Notes: This was written for the
hobbitstory Big Bang and there will be art coming soon <3 Thanks to S for being my longsuffering beta, and to R who acted as a sounding board even though she hates The Hobbit.Dori pulls him close and covers his ears with her hands. Her skin is soft, but her grip is hard, and it blocks out the sounds from the next room. He reaches up to do the same, and he feels her cheeks move as she smiles.
Next door, their mother is making money in a town of Men with one of the only commodities she has: herself.
He cuddles closer to his sister, breathing in the scent of the wool and dyes she works with, and he keeps his eyes wide open, watching even though he can barely see a thing. He can see the glint of his sister’s eyes and the pale shadow of her hair and nothing else. In the dark, the world is Dori and her protective embrace.
…
He leans back against the wall of his cell and folds his arms behind his head. Outside he can hear the guards squabbling about a lack of evidence and “it’s Nori, of course he’s guilty” as if there’s no other possible option. The one arguing for his guilt is correct, but he isn’t about to let them know that. He was lucky to be able to hide the aforementioned missing evidence; he’s not about to come clean now.
There’s a clunk as tumblers turn in the lock. He looks over in time to see Dwalin Fundinson wrench open the door to his cell, his face twisted into the darkest scowl Nori’s seen in his life. It’s a familiar expression. For some reason, his distant cousin (or so his mother claimed) is always the one that he has to deal with when he’s in gaol.
He grins in welcome and unfolds his arms only to raise a hand in a mocking salute. “Officer,” he says.
“You’re free to go,” Dwalin snarls.
Nori swings his legs off the pallet he’s been sitting on and stands. “No apology?” he asks. “Waste of my time, this was.” He’s pushing it, he knows, and it’ll be forever before he can swing by the ditch site for the goods, but what the hell. Dwalin’s fun to mess with.
At least this time, no one’s had to post bail. He might get to sleep in a bed tonight.
The cell door swings shut again. Nori freezes. Dwalin’s in here with him, in front of the only exit, and there’s no other escape. He doesn’t have his sister’s incredible strength, and even if he did, it wouldn’t help him. The penalty for beating up a guard is worse than that of stealing.
“You’ll not be leaving quite yet, bastard,” Dwalin says, as if bastard’s the worst insult he can think of. Nori shifts his weight to one foot. He still has a couple of his knives with him; the guards never find them all, even if he lets them think they do. He tries to look bored instead of as if he’s calculating the fastest way to slit Dwalin’s throat and run before the other guards can catch him. It’s a risk and they’ll have to move again – back to the towns of Men where they grew up – but he’s not overly fond of taking beatings.
“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Dwalin continues.
Nori blinks. Then he grins, tilting his head and his hips flirtatiously. “Sorry, darling,” he says, “but I don’t swing that way.”
Dwalin’s scowl deepens and a dark flush rises up his throat to his face. “Shut up,” he growls. “Listen. You’re guilty. I know you’re guilty. You know you’re guilty. You might not have left enough evidence for a conviction this time, but it was you and everyone here knows it.”
Nori rolls his eyes. “And what do your suspicions have to do with…propositions?” he asks.
“What if I told you there was a way to clear your record?”
…
His first theft is an exercise in necessity. A loaf of bread swiped from a stall and squirreled away under his jerkin. He keeps walking, his heart racing, trying to look calm as he weaves his way through the traffic of the marketplace. Men don’t tend to look at him all that often. For all that they’re leery of Dwarves, they much prefer to pretend that they don’t exist.
There are no shouts; no cries of outrage, and a few minutes later he lifts a couple of apples before turning for home. He takes a long, winding route, and when he arrives, Dori opens the door. She’s pale-faced and grim, spots of colour high in her cheeks, and there’s a fine spray of fresh blood on the collar of her tunic.
“Where have you been?” she hisses.
“Shopping,” he tells her, and produces the bread and apples as if he’s got nothing to hide, slipping past her as she closes the door. “How is she?”
Their mother is sick and there’s hardly any money coming in because Dori can’t work while she tends to her, and Nori’s wage can’t support the three of them. Hence the theft, even though Dori’s going to be furious when she finds out.
Dori grimaces in reply and shakes her head. “She’ll be lucky,” she says.
Nori bites his lip. The next day, he steals again.
…
“You’ve lost your mind,” he says flatly.
“Thorin Oakenshield is the rightful King of our people: the heir of Durin and King Under the Mountain,” Dwalin says.
“There is no mountain,” Nori snaps back. “Not anymore. The dragon has it and everything in it.”
“And if you’re caught again, you’ll be facing mutilation as a minimum sentence,” Dwalin reminds him.
Nori scowls. Three strikes and you lose a hand, by the laws of Durins folk. It’s why he’s always preferred the towns of Men, but Dori had insisted on raising Ori amongst their own people.
“And if I still say no?” he asks. “A dragon’s a fouler end than losing a hand and no mistake. Honour and glory aren’t for the likes of me. I’d rather live.” There’s no life left to him now that’s not thievery. At least, not one that doesn’t end with a dragon.
“And your family?” Dwalin asks.
Nori has to force himself not to tense. He has to remind himself that no one in Ered Luin knows - no one knows that he and Dori and Ori aren’t the three brothers that they tell people they are. Dori has a harder time with it, of course, but she’s managed so far to keep her head down, and Ori’s managed because he doesn’t know any different either.
Three brothers, nothing more. Three brothers, sons of a whore. One of them, at least, had a semblance of a future – Ori has the mind and the talent to go far, if he wants to (which he does).
“You know fine well they’ve nothing to do with this,” he says, because all of Ered Luin knows that Dori disapproves of the thieving.
“Aye,” Dwalin admits. “But that’s not to say they’re not affected. You think that Ori lad’s really going to get the apprenticeship he’s after with a rogue like you for kin? He’d be better off giving up now and joining you or your brother instead of pushing himself. But if you were a hero…”
Nori grinds his teeth. Dwalin looks smug, like he knows he’s got Nori exactly where he wants him. The Brothers Ri (as they’re known – ah! Infamy) are tight-knit and their only weaknesses are each other. Sometimes it feels like the whole world knows it.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he says. And talk to Dori about it, he doesn’t say, because that would come too close to admitting it. She’ll hate it. He knows she will. And there’ll probably be a fight because there always is, and he probably won’t get to sleep on a bed tonight after all.
Dwalin opens the door to his cell again. “Then you’re free to go,” he says. “To think. Oh, and Nori?” He catches Nori’s wrist as he tries to walk past him. It’s tight as a shackle – Nori would know – and nowhere near as forgiving. “I’ll be watching you.”
Nori flashes his very best smile, or rather, an imitation of it. It comes out more as a baring of teeth, razor sharp and slightly vicious. “You always are,” he says.
…
Dori’s hands are gentle as she cleans blood from his face. “This is why I worry about you,” she tells him, and he digs his fingernails into his thighs to stop himself from saying something he’ll regret later. She presses a cool, damp cloth against his lip and he hisses in pain, but allows it.
He’d been caught and beaten because that’s the kind of justice dealt out by the local Men. He’d still made away with three purses, though, and that’s enough to keep bread on the table for a while. Their mother doesn’t quite get the custom she used to since her illness, and there’s talking about them moving on.
But less custom doesn’t mean there’s no custom, and there’s a rhythmic creaking coming from upstairs. Dori doesn’t cover his ears anymore; he doesn’t cover hers. They’ve long ago grown used to the sounds of their mother pleasuring whatever Men come to her door. Neither of them are embarrassed by the wet slapping of sweaty flesh, or of grunts and moans – at least, not around each other. Nori knows that Dori would rather die than admit what their mother does to an outsider, and Nori knows that he would as well; that there are times he hates her.
Dori rinses the cloth and turns back to him. There’s a little frown line between her eyebrows and it makes him feel guilty. His sister isn’t all that much older than him, but she’s the one who’s always taken care of him and he loves her more than anything.
…
Dori glances at him when he enters the kitchen, and she smiles at him slightly – no doubt relieved that she hasn’t had to fork out for his bail. At the table, Ori is poring over an old book scrounged from somewhere, copying its runes onto a piece of parchment with painstaking neatness. He’s the only one of them that can read more than a few odd words, and Nori’s prouder of that than he can admit.
He makes it through dinner without any questions, and it’s only when Ori’s in bed that Dori turns to him with that frown on her face that means that she knows he’s done something awful again. But when he tells her, it’s not himself that he’s worried about. Dwalin Fundinson has earned himself no love from his sister.
“He’s got a fair point,” Nori tells her quietly. “I’m no good for Ori’s reputation. I fucked my own apprenticeship up good and proper, and no one wants a thief’s kin in their business.”
Dori’s lucky – very lucky – that everyone, everywhere needs a weaver and a seamstress with such a good eye and a quick needle. But still, it’s not the wealthy who come to her, but the ones who are too busy or who have too poor a reputation of their own.
Her hand covers his briefly, squeezing tight before she draws away and busies herself with pouring them both more tea. She’s shaking and he wishes he could steady her, but there’s silence from upstairs instead of snores and while Ori’s still awake he doesn’t dare. Never while Ori’s awake and certainly not while he’s probably listening, because he almost certainly is (Ori’s as sneaky as Nori at times) and there are things that even Ori doesn’t know about them.
“Honour and glory,” she mutters. “Prestige and death.”
“Ori deserves the best we can give him,” Nori reminds her. “We agreed on that.”
They’d made that agreement before Ori had even been born and they’d kept to it. It’s why they’d come to Ered Luin so that he could grow up surrounded by Dwarvish culture; why Dori had run herself ragged weaving and hemming and stitching for anyone who came, and why Nori had truly earned his infamy. They’d paid for an education beyond anything that they’d had and made sure that Ori never, ever had to do or hear the things that they had done or heard.
Dori nods. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she reminds him.
She’s the only one of them who can remember Erebor. She was born there, while Nori was conceived and born while their people fled from the dragon and wandered Middle Earth in exile. To him – and to Ori – Erebor is as distant and mythical as the land in the West where the Elves go and the Valar reign.
“I don’t like it either,” he says. “I’d rather live than die, no matter what shape I’m in.” He’s selfish like that; one-handed he’ll be even less use than he is now. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Fundinson’s right and that I swore to do right by Ori.”
She hears the words he doesn’t say and puts the teapot down a little harder than necessary. “Not alone,” she says.
…
He’s five when he realises that his sister is beautiful but it’s sixty years later when he realises that she’s truly, truly stunning – one of the most beautiful Dwarf maids of their Age. It’s not like the Men-folk of the town notice. The way Dori dresses – in breeches and tunics and jerkins – means she passes for a lad in their eyes. The other Dwarves that pass through, however, do, and Nori comes to hate the way that their eyes follow her whenever she leaves the house.
He’s almost hyper-aware of the changes in her body, but less aware of his own reactions to them. At least, he is until the day his mother slaps him.
“You never, never look at your sister like that!” she shrieks at him, her face shoved in close to his own. She’s so close and his cheek stings so badly that he almost hits her back, but he catches sight of Dori in the doorway – her dark eyes wide with shock – and that stays his hand.
When he goes to bed that night, it’s next to Dori as always – their mother’s room is used for business – and it’s to the sound of their mother moaning. He stares into the dark in silence, forcing himself to picture the uneven beams of their ceiling with their elaborate networks of whorls and cracks. Next to him Dori shifts and sighs and somehow that sounds more intimate than the pants and gasps he can hear through the wall.
“You’re my One,” he tells her.
There’s silence in reply and the sound of a Man’s impending orgasm echoes through the room, but then he feels the blankets shift and her hand rests on his own, lacing their fingers together.
“You’re mine,” she replies.”
…
He approaches Dwalin with his answer a week later, earning a grim smile from the guard and a nod of something that almost approaches respect. Nori holds no illusions over it – he knows he’s less than scum to someone (legitimately) of Durin’s line like Fundinson – but he also knows that Oakenshield has to be desperate for someone like him to be recruited for this madness.
He soon learns that he’s far from the only one, and not the only commoner at that. The Ur line from the Broadbeam clan are tagging along for the sake of glory and free beer. They volunteered, the crazy fuckers; Nori is the only one they brought the blackmail out for, by the sound of it.
It’s at the third meeting that his world comes crashing down around him. Balin Fundinson – older, shorter and wider than his brother, and apparently wiser as well – enters with Ori in tow. Nori feels like screaming, but grits his teeth and looks away, digging his fingers into his thigh so that he doesn’t say something he’ll regret later (a self-destructive habit, he knows).
Ori, he finds out, volunteered. He was listening after all, and he’s decided all for himself that honour and glory, prestige and death are worth the threat of dragon fire. He wants to see this mythical mountain and the hoard of gold that holds their whole race entranced. He’s chosen the role of scribe so that their noble deeds (and deaths) will be immortalised in parchment and ink. Balin sits next to him, filled with pride, and claps him on the back when Ori’s trembling, determined speech comes to a close. Nori feels like putting a knife through Balin’s eye, but keeps a handle on his temper until after they leave the tavern.
The night air is cool, the complete opposite of the rage bubbling in the pit of his belly. He wants to lash out - especially at the sons of Fundin – he wants to scream, he wants to lock Ori away somewhere safe where stupid quests and dragons can’t reach him.
“This is going to break Dori’s heart,” he hisses through gritted teeth.
“I know,” Ori says. “But Dori fusses too much. I’m of age. I can make my own decisions.”
“And you’ve decided on this?” Nori asks. Fuck, and he’s been under the impression that Ori was the smartest of all of them. Apparently not. Not if he’s willingly choosing a dragon over a nice, cushy apprenticeship somewhere…ah, but wait. His apprenticeship – the one that Dwalin arranged in exchange for Nori’s cooperation – is with Balin.
“You did,” Ori says.
…
He knows, intellectually, a lot about sex. He knows the noises and the positions and the fact that people are willing to part with money for it. He and Dori have exchanged kisses and touches in the privacy of their room, wary of their mother during the day. But their mother is preoccupied by packing – the decision to move on to a new town and new clients has been made – and she has drifted once more into her own, selfish world.
Nori prefers her when she keeps to herself, away from them. There are times when he wishes that he and Dori could just leave, but he knows that Dori would never abandon her. Not when she was so ill for so long.
In the privacy of their room, he watches Dori shed layers of leather and linen. He watches her take down her braids and brush out the long locks of silvery hair that so many admire. Loose, her beard brushes the dip of her clavicle, and her hair falls in soft waves to hide the pert breasts she’s only recently started to develop. He steps up behind her and brushes her hair aside to press kisses to her throat; his hands moving to cup her breasts, his thumbs flicking over her nipples. He feels them harden, hears her soft sigh of pleasure.
Dori makes such different noises from their mother. He’s grown up listening to her moans and cries and – occasionally – screams; Dori is near silent when he touches her. He feels immeasurable pride when he manages to draw so much as a gasp from her.
She turns in his hold, leaning up to kiss him deeply before wrapping her fingers around his cock and using it to gently guide him to their bed.
He knows a lot about sex, but knowing is different from the doing. He knew it would be messy – he’s seen Dori clean the sheets enough times – and he knew that it would feel good, or else so many people wouldn’t pay to have it, but he’d had no idea how right it would feel.
By the laws of Durin’s folk, this is a crime worse than his stealing. Dori might be his One but she’s also his sister, and incest is punishable by death. Nori can’t quite bring himself to care. They’ve kept secrets their whole lives; they can keep one more, and to have one this sweet is more a privilege than a burden.
…
Dori goes white when they enter together, and Ori doesn’t need to open his mouth to tell her – she already knows what he’s going to say, and Nori can see her heart breaking already.
“It’s a brilliant opportunity,” Ori says. “Balin says I’ll be perfect for it.”
“I’m glad he thinks so,” Dori says quietly. “And the dragon? You’re hardly a trained warrior.”
“Neither’s Nori and he’s going,” Ori argues.
There’s little point telling him that actually, Nori has plenty of experience fighting. Not dragons, as he’s still alive, but other thieves and scumbags. He’s had more than his fair share of tavern brawls. He can take care of himself – and Dori, given what some of those brawls were about, even though she’s strong enough (fiercely strong) to take care of herself – and he’s not afraid to put a knife through someone’s eye if they push him too hard, but there’s a difference between that and battle.
It’s growing harder to look at Ori and see the adult he’s becoming instead of the tiny, sickly baby or the slender, sickly youth that he’s been.
“I wasn’t given much of a choice,” Nori says, and Ori ignores him.
“I can go if I want to, and I do,” Ori announces. “I’m of age and you’re not my mother, Dori, so you can’t stop me.”
Behind him, unseen, Nori winces.
Dori clears her throat. “No,” she says. “No, I suppose I can’t.” Then she draws herself up and fixes Ori with a look that actually makes him flinch, and Nori knows what she’s going to say before she says it. “But I can come with you.”
…
The new town is as dismal as the last, and the new house just as rickety. It’s a testament to how fucked up they all are that the first priority is sorting their mother’s bedroom – transforming it with candles and drapes from a basic, wood-panelled chamber into a whore’s boudoir. Then it’s business for usual for her, and Nori slinks out of the house every morning to look for someone willing to take on a half-trained Dwarvish tanner and leaves Dori to create some semblance of order in the kitchen and pantry.
It’s easier to fall into stealing again now that he’s amongst strangers and hasn’t known the merchants and vendors and townspeople since childhood. It’s easier to cut someone’s purse when you’ve never chased a cat through their garden or begged them for medicine.
He finds something, though. Not tanning – he suspects his chances are buggered there – but bar work, and he comes to enjoy heaving barrels up from cellars and pouring pints and bantering with customers. He doesn’t rob them when they’re in the pub, but after closing – if they’re too drunk to stand – then sometimes he risks it.
It’s a risk with Dori now, too. Working in a bar means he’s out at night, which means his time with her is limited to whatever can be spared during the day. He steals her from her duties and her own work – she’s taken up weaving and stitching and she’s making a tidy pile out of it – to hitch up her skirts and fuck her hard and fast and quietly so that no one can hear.
He enjoys it – of course he does; he’s got the most beautiful Dwarf-lass in the world in his heart and his home – but he can’t help but wish that they had the time and the space to love each other properly. He would spend hours teasing her, bringing her to climax again and again until she was weak from it and trembling, and he’d cradle her close as her heart thundered in her breast.
She smiles when he tells her – that soft, secret smile that only he sees – and she kisses him, light as a shadow. “You’re a romantic, Nori,” she tells him, “and romance isn’t something we’re allowed.”
“You like it,” he replies. She shakes her head and grins and he knows that he’s right.
…
“You know I can’t stay here by myself,” she says. She’s in her nightgown, undoing her braids, and he’s on the bed that they share in secret, watching. She’s plumper now than she was as a girl, and it’s only made her lovelier. Dwarves – and Nori isn’t an exception – like their womenfolk sturdy. “What am I supposed to do on my own?”
They’ve made a good job of becoming each other’s only weaknesses. He sighs. “I’m not questioning that,” he says. “I’d rather you and Ori weren’t involved at all, but he’s involved himself and… It wouldn’t be right, leaving you. It’s never been right. Only before there was a reason for you to stay behind.”
He can hear Ori’s snores through the wall. He’ll give the lad this: he’s healthier now than he’s ever been. Nori’s had too many sleepless nights, ears pricked for every sleepy shift and snuffle, and Dori has as well. That Ori’s got his own room now is no small triumph for a kid who almost didn’t live out his first year.
“The question is: will Oakenshield take you?”
She snorts. “He will if he knows what’s good for him,” she says.
“He’s turned down others,” Nori points out. “Aye, fair enough, Gloin’s brat’s still in his first stubble, but he’s been trained for the axe for most of his life.”
“And I can bend iron with my bare hands,” Dori reminds him. “What do you think I can do to a person?”
He can’t stop himself from grinning. He doesn’t need to imagine it; he’s seen what she can do to a person when she’s got cause to. That bastard Thrond deserved it for thinking he could get away with touching her, and Nori has taken great pleasure ever since in the knowledge that the damage to his hand will never heal.
“Threatening the king now?” he asks her, and he catches sight of her answering smile – grim and determined and just a little wicked – in the mirror.
“He’s threatened me and mine enough with this quest,” she replies, and he stands. He reaches for her and drapes his arms about her shoulders and presses a tender kiss to her temple.
He takes her to bed that night and loves her for as long as he can, both of them keeping a practised silence throughout their pleasure. Afterwards he holds her close and stares blankly into the darkness, listening to Ori’s undisturbed snores through the wall and trying to pretend that she isn’t lying awake as well.
…
He slips in from work expecting everyone to be in bed as usual. Instead, he finds his mother and sister in the kitchen. Their mother is pale beneath her carefully trimmed beard and the rouge she paints on her lips is as bright and shocking as fresh blood. She’s mussed and rumpled from her night’s work; as false and gaudy as pyrite, and there are finger-shaped bruises on the tit slipping free of her dressing gown.
He’s not as fussed about her as he is Dori. His Dori’s shaking; her trembling hands are clenched into fists, and she’s gone so white she looks like a ghost. He wants to go to her. Needs to go to her, but his mother has seen him and the look in her eyes is dark and furious.
“Whore,” she hisses, looking back to Dori, who flinches back from the irony as if it were a knife.
“What’s going on?” Nori asks. Dori flinches again, and there’s a cruelty to the way their mother smiles.
“Your sister’ll tell you,” she says.
“Dori?”
Somehow he knows. He knows what she’s going to say when she turns to him and he sees the tears on her face. Dori never cries. Not even when they were kids, huddling together in the dark with their hands over each other’s ears did she cry; not when she had to tend to their mother when she was sick or when they were starving. He knows and he doesn’t care anymore that their mother is watching. He pulls her into his arms and holds her tight and presses a gentle kiss to her ear when she whispers in his.
“Nori, I’m pregnant.”
…
Dori comes with them to the next meeting, dressed in a thick black jerkin over a lavender tunic that highlights the silver of her hair. Her breasts are strapped down securely, like they always are in public, and he and Ori know better than to call Dori their sister. They’re the brothers Ri, and that’s all they’ll ever be known as.
Disguise or not, Balin’s look when he spots her is appreciative. Nori’s hand twitches towards his knife, itching to carve out an eye or a throat, and he curses the sons of Fundin heartily in the privacy of his mind. Dori’s a true beauty and he can’t really blame Balin for looking, or even for looking twice, but that doesn’t mean that he has to like it.
It makes it worse that he can’t call him on it. He can’t scream from the rooftops that Dori is his. He’s never been able to and he never will be able to, but he wishes he could. Dori deserves a world where he could.
If Dori notices Balin’s interest, she makes no sign of it. She sits herself at the table next to Gloin and accepts the ale that Nori provides her with. There’s a dark glint of determination in her eye, and Nori’s seen that look before. There’s more steel in his sister than there is in all of Beleriand and while people find Nori devious, he knows fine well that Dori’s just as bad – and when she wants something she usually gets it, no matter what the cost. She’s a Ri to the core.
When the question of her presence on the quest comes up, she bends the poker from the inn’s fireplace into a loop. Iron creaks and the sleeves of her tunic strain over her biceps, but not once does she take her eyes off the king who challenged her.
“Well bless me,” Bofur chirps into the stunned silence, and his words trigger a chorus of admiration from the younger Dwarves – especially the two princes who’ve never been treated to that particular party trick before.
Dori flushes lightly with pleasure and takes her seat. Under the table, Nori hooks his ankle around her own, and her place on the quest is never questioned again. She’s got her way, and now it’s up to him to make sure that that way doesn’t directly intersect with dragon fire and a painful death.
…
”What are we going to do?” he asks her, breathing the question into her hair. He’s curled up against her back, his hand resting on her belly, over where his child is growing. His child. His sister’s child. Their mother’s room is silent for once, barring the occasional cough. She never really recovered from her illness, and when she sleeps she’s almost as noisy as when she’s awake: hacking and spluttering.
Children are precious to Dwarves. They’re rare, so they’re more precious than mithril – for all that they weren’t raised amongst Dwarves or even that well, Nori knows that the baby in Dori’s womb is a sacred thing.
Sacred, and forbidden. Children are precious, but incest is a crime. Any child of theirs will likely be fragile and sickly, and will have to be hidden away if it survives to term. They’ll never be able to admit that they’re parents. Different scenarios run through his head. The child dying; leaving the baby on a stoop in the night, knocking before fleeing the scene just far enough that he can still see his baby taken in; running with Dori somewhere far away and raising the babe on the road or in a village where no one knows that they’re siblings.
“We’re keeping him,” Dori says. She’s certain that it’s a boy, and she’s likely right. Girls are uncommon amongst their people. “He’ll be our brother.”
Nori’s silent for a moment, pressing his lips against the back of her neck. “Does she know that?” he asks. There’s only one ‘she’.
“Not yet,” Dori replies.
Their mother coughs again and they hear her bed shift and creak. Nori smiles. His hand slips lower, sliding over the rough material of her nightdress to where it’s tangled around her thighs. He inches it up slowly and Dori shifts in his arms, parting her legs so he can work his fingers between them until she’s wet and squirming. He takes his time for the first time in a long time, teasing her almost to climax before pulling his hand away and kissing her while she breathes curses against his lips. She tips her head back when he enters her, and he trails kisses down her throat and bites at her nipples through her shift. They’re more swollen than usual and they must be tender, because Dori cries out faintly and tugs at his hair, dragging him up for another kiss. He just replaces his mouth with his hand, rubbing circles over the imprints of his teeth and squeezing with the rhythm of his hips.
She climaxes shortly after he reaches his own, crying out into his mouth. He makes it up to her by sliding down her body, not letting her catch her breath, and pressing his tongue into her cunt. He chases the taste of himself, licking and sucking and rubbing his hands soothingly over her shaking thighs. He only stops when she’s reached her pleasure again, and he lifts his head to grin at her.
She wipes her juices from his beard with a rough thumb and licks it clean. “I love you,” she says, and his grin only widens. He loves her too, even worships her, and he loves the baby she’s carrying as well. He’ll do anything for them.
…
They sell most of their belongings in flea markets in the months leading up to the quest. Thorin has already set out, heading to a meeting in the Iron Hills with the other leaders of the Seven Families. He’s left Balin in charge, and the fussy little politician is easier to deal with, for all that’s he’s twice as bright and five times more dangerous for it. Balin’s quick off the mark when it comes to things like organisation, and he’s got a myriad of little tasks and reminders for them all before they set off.
Still, taking care of the house is a priority of theirs. They’re the only ones not leaving anyone behind to take care of their possessions, which is why most of them have to go. It’s Dori who does most of the selling, though Nori and Ori are roped in to pack things up into boxes and crates and to carry them to the markets. Ori skips out on the selling; he’s being kept busy by Balin and since this is supposed to be his big chance to live the kind of life they’ve always wanted for him (minus the impending encounter with a dragon), neither of them complain. When Nori skips out, it’s for a different reason; he’s in search of fat purses to cut. He’s under no illusions about them needing more money than their possessions will bring them.
Packing up the house where they brought Ori up brings tears to Dori’s eyes more than once, though she keeps them to the privacy of their bedroom instead of letting Ori see them. She doesn’t want him to feel guilty – or worse, think her silly and fussy for being so attached to a tiny little place in an area that was little more than a slum – and so it is that he never notices.
Nori, on the other hand, finds her more than once, with tears misting in her dark eyes and her hands tangling in her lap. He wraps her in his arms every time, but says nothing. They’ve said all that they need to say over the years. Ori comes first. He always has and he always will, no matter their own thoughts and feelings.
…
Their mother’s illness returns. As Dori’s belly begins to swell, their mother’s coughing gradually grows worse and worse. Less customers come through their back door, and Nori has to pick up a few extra shifts at the bar and lift some purses to make up the slack.
The baby’s first kicks can be felt by the time he notices something not quite right. There’s blood on their mother’s pillowcase, but there’s no caution in Dori’s actions as she scrubs it out.
“I should do that,” he tells her, placing his hands over her own. “The baby. If you get sick, Dori…”
“I won’t,” she tells him, and when he meets her eyes there’s a look there that he’s never seen before. It’s a hard little glint, filled with iron-hard determination and ruthlessness. He’s seen it in some of the punters at the bar, usually before they stick a knife in someone, but never in her. Never before, and something tells him he doesn’t want to see it again.
He withdraws his hands. She blinks at him. “Nori?”
“You’re forgetting I know you better than anyone,” he replies. He glances towards the stairs. “Fuck, Dori.”
“It’s the only way,” she tells him, and he believes her. They knew the risks even when they started this, and now that there’s a little one on the way, the risks are higher than ever. He doesn’t want their baby to grow up the way that they did.
“I know,” he says. “What do you need me to do?” he asks.
It’s him that picks up yet more shifts when their mother grows too weak to work, and who starts to make quiet enquiries about new places to live. Ered Luin sounds good, he decides; he likes the towns of Men well enough, but his son should grow up around other Dwarves, he thinks. He’ll have something of a chance there, to become more that he and Dori have, and that chance will be worth any cost.
He suggests it to Dori after the baby’s been born. She’s pale and exhausted and there’s a truly horrifying amount of blood drying on her thighs and on the sheets beneath her, and he wants to scoop her into his arms and never let go again. He doesn’t dare. Their son is at her breast, still wet. He’s a tiny thing, wrinkled and red, and he’d made one hell of a racket when he was squeezed out.
The tuft of hair on his head is the same reddish brown as Nori’s own. He’s bizarrely proud of that, for all that a resemblance is no surprise at all. He’s proud of the long, little fingers that are curled into the softness of Dori’s breast as he feeds, and of his tiny feet and hairless face. Every snuffling breath his boy makes is both exhilarating and terrifying to behold.
“He’ll have the best we can give him,” Dori says.
Nori kisses her softly, and strokes his finger lightly over their baby’s cheek as he suckles. In the next room, their mother lies gasping for breath; Dori’s poisons filling her lungs with blood. In three days, she lies dead, and Nori makes arrangements for her to be buried on the outskirts of town, in a quiet place where no one can bother her. It’s an apology, he realises as he fills the grave with heavy clods of wet earth, for his inaction. The townspeople think she died from birthing Ori, and that’s what they needed. There’s no suspicion. The truth is that no one really cares for a dead Dwarf whore or any of her children, or what those children may or may not get up to behind closed doors.
They stay only until Ori is old enough and strong enough to travel safely. The house Nori finds them in Ered Luin is no better than the ones they’ve lived in all their lives, but it’s theirs to raise their child in. For the first time, Nori feels like he has a home.
…
They all leave separately. Dwalin Fundinson goes first with the princes by his side, shooting Nori a cold glance when he goes to see them off. He’s heard, no doubt, of the sudden increase in pickpocketing and Nori’s sure he knows who’s to blame. The princes don’t seem to notice his demeanour – or they’re used to it, which is entirely possible; Dwalin is close to their fallen king, he’s learned.
Balin, thankfully, sets off on his own, leaving Ori to travel with them. There’s always the hope that he’ll find some hideous sort of accident to fall into between the Ered Luin and this ‘Hobbiton’ place that Tharkûn wants them to head to. Nori doesn’t know if he can stand the thought of being stuck watching Balin make advances on Dori all the way to Erebor. The few meetings they’ve already had have been bad enough.
The others, though, he’s on better terms with, and they agree to travel together. Bofur’s a lively sort and funny too, and Oin’s one of those who’ve dedicated themselves to their work so Nori doesn’t mind when he and Dori find common ground in their knowledge of herbs and poultices. He keeps an eye out, getting to know each of them, being as charming as he can. Gloin is easy – they both love gold and if he shows enough interest in his tales of Gimli the Magnificent (his son, and while Nori can sympathise with the sentiments of pride – Ori’s a fine lad, albeit a bit of an idiot sometimes, so he knows – Gloin does take it a bit far) then he’s as pleasant a Dwarf as any. Bombur, on the other hand, is near silent as if making up for his brother’s raucous nature, and Bifur can only speak Khuzdûl (his Iglishmek shows a keen mind, though, and Nori discovers he likes him well enough, though if anyone’s going to find them out on this blasted quest Bifur’ll be the one).
There’s little point in glancing back when they leave Ered Luin. He’s never looked back before and one way or the other, they won’t be going back there.
