Chapter Text
Water lapped against their boat as Bifur and Glóin let it push through the lake with hard thrusts of their paddles. The fanfare behind them was slowly fading, some of the musicians stopping in what they were doing, but the cheers of the Men of Laketown did not grow any less enthusiastic.
Nori’s eyes were fixed on the deep black surface of the lake, his hands clenched around the boat’s rail. It was one of the bigger ones he’d seen in the town, and like everything else it had a vague smell of fish clinging to it. They were headed towards the mountain, cutting the travel time short with the straight line. He couldn’t quite bring himself to look at it, nor could he watch the small town that had welcomed them grow smaller once they were past the last houses.
Before them lay a dragon, and almost certain death, behind lay a place they surely had only been welcomed in for declaring that they would get rid of said dragon. It was too late to run away now, Nori knew that, but he felt more apprehensive with each few yards the boat came closer to the mountain.
The wind picked up after a while, when the boat was out on the open lake and they could no longer hear the sounds of the town. Nori was glad for the cloak he had worn the day before, at the night of his wedding, as the old material was providing an additional layer of warmth. Most of the others were wrapped in blankets they’d taken from their packs, but Nori liked to think that none of those were as comfortable as the cloak.
After some time had passed the paddles were passed on to the next Dwarf. Everyone was gazing towards the mountain, looks set with wonder, hope, determination, and a little apprehension among the younger Dwarves, who had only ever heard the glory of their halls described by elders full of nostalgia.
Nori couldn’t bear to look at anything but the water and his hands.
Whatever hopes of riches and a perfect home he had were dashed as soon as he thought them up. For the first time in his life he felt like he had anything he could ever ask for, and like he wouldn’t mind returning to Ered Luin to live there, even if it was in the poverty of his youth rather than the relative comfort just before leaving. What could he want more in life anyway? He had his wife, and his son had his mother. It had taken six decades for all of them to be reunited properly again, and this time he wore the braids to prove that he belonged with Dwalin.
They had brushed and braided each other’s hair gently the night before, just before going to sleep. It was nearly startling to look up at Dwalin and see the small braids in her wiry dark hair, put there by his own hands. Nori could barely believe that this was all real, that he truly had married Dwalin in some old forgotten town of Men.
It also brought fear to Nori’s heart when he thought of how easily they could be parted now. He didn’t trust battles anymore, not even if the odds were so much better than theirs on their way to slay a dragon.
While dying with Dwalin’s braids in his hair was significantly better than having to live parted from her, Nori would prefer having both the braids and his life. If it weren’t too much to ask. Married for a day and then falling in battle was the stuff of ballads, and while it might have suited Dwalin, it did not really suit a thief and good for nothing Dwarf like Nori.
He took a deep breath and glanced back to where Ori sat at the very back of the boat, his journal open on his knees, quill hovering over the paper as his eyes would not leave the mountain before them. He wouldn’t even look away when Fíli said something to him quietly, and he didn’t look at the prince as he replied either.
There would be a better future awaiting both of them, if they reclaimed Erebor. If they lived. It was a strange feeling to dwell on all that could go wrong now that they were nearly at their goal. Especially as so much of what Nori had always wanted was finally in his grasp. Though maybe that was the issue as well. He had been given so much of what he’d been denied over the years, surely there would be a price to pay for it?
The boat shifted a little as the weight distribution shifted briefly. Wood creaked as Dwalin stepped to Nori’s side and sat down next to him, arms crossed over the rail as well.
“We’re nearly at the end,” she said, looking towards the mountain, her body radiating warmth this close to Nori.
“I wonder what the price to enter the Lonely Mountain is,” Nori said, a little bitter as he thought of all the lost campaigns he hadn’t been part of. Nobody but Dwalin heard him, as there were other muttered conversations and he spoke quietly.
He could see her turning to look at him from the corner of his eye.
“You think we’ll fail?”
Nori glanced up at her, and then back at his company.
“No,” he said after a while. “I just don’t know how many of us will live through this.”
He didn’t add his fear of somehow being separated from Dwalin, and losing any hopes of a future together. He didn’t need to, judging by the look she gave him.
Dwalin’s hand wrapped around Nori’s shoulder and she pulled him closer against her warm side. He relaxed a little as he closed his eyes and leaned against her. Whatever else happened, he had Dwalin by his side and safety for the rest of the day.
“We will all live,” she said, voice firm.
Nori wanted to believe it, but the worry was still there, and Dwalin must have noticed how he tensed up again.
“Stay by my side,” Dwalin whispered, her voice quiet but the words a soft rumble Nori could feel in his chest. “Whatever else happens, I won’t let anything part us again.”
“What if we die together? One fiery breath and we’re gone.”
Dwalin shrugged.
“We would die fighting. And we would enter the Halls of Waiting side by side, you a warrior and me proud to wear your braids.”
Nori looked down at the water, slowly turning more blue than black as the fog eased off and let a little more sunlight reach them.
“I’m not afraid of dying. I just don’t know if the Maker would let me keep this. There’s… there’s a price for everything, right? You just don’t get handed nice things and fate doesn’t suddenly turn kind to you.”
Dwalin didn’t say anything for a while and Nori closed his eyes, just letting himself enjoy her body pressed to his. The world turned to a warm red glow even through closed eyes, and he didn’t need to look to know that the sun had finally fought its way through the clouds.
“If so much was taken from us for so many years, then maybe Erebor is the gift to make up for it,” Dwalin said after a while. “It’d be about time.”
Nori rubbed his hand over his face, sighing. He had thought of it that way before, but now it was harder to trust in it, with the mountain in sight. He cracked open an eye to glance at the Lonely Mountain, now bathed in sunlight where the clouds had parted. With his vision still a little blurry from rubbing at his eyes it looked as if somebody had dipped the mountain in honey.
“Do you really think it works that way?”
“You said something bad will happen because we were given good fortune recently? How’s that different from getting good fortune cause we got dealt shit for years.”
Nori let out a strangled snort, not able to keep his laughter quiet fully.
Some of the conversations behind his back stopped, as he was no doubt stared at, but Dwalin’s chuckle made the others return to what they were talking about, deciding that it was just some joke between lovers.
“I suppose that’s true,” he said, now gazing directly at the mountain. It would be amazing to live free of any worry, now that he already had so much of what he wanted.
Dwalin’s hand rubbed over his shoulder until she pulled him closer yet, so she could press her forehead to his.
“We won’t be separated,” Dwalin told Nori, her words a promise, and it was easy to believe her, with her voice so full of determination and her blue eyes burning into his. “I promise you this. If we go to the Maker’s Halls, then we go together, and I won’t wait for the Second Song to be reunited with you.”
The fingers of her other hand twined with Nori’s, firm and rough, familiar and cherished.
“If we go to the halls,” he muttered, looking at their hands for a moment before turning back to the mountain. “I will personally break into Mahal’s rooms and hold my knife to his privates to demand to know why we’ve been dealt a bad hand like this.”
Dwalin snorted.
“I’ll guard the door for you if that happened.”
For a moment both of them snickered like they were young again, amused by their own inappropriate jokes, before sobering up a little and turning to the mountain with sombre expressions. Nori lips curled just a little in a smile, as he thought about what lay ahead with much less trepidation than before.
He had stolen much in his life, perhaps he just had to get used to being given something. Perhaps he had to get used to be in the right for fighting for what was his.
With a smile Nori pulled the cloak closer about his body, and squeezed Dwalin’s hands. Whatever was to come, he would not be parted from her. He would hold her hand, and have a real family with her, and no dragon or army would ever change this again.