Work Text:
Ori woke up soaking wet. For a while, it was all he could feel: the thick, clinging weight of it, bitter cold and numbing his skin to a hundred other hurts. Gradually he became aware of a throbbing in his face - on the bridge of his nose, and the side of his face turned up to the air. The other side was submerged, a watery substance bubbling wetly in and out of one nostril. All in his nose and his tongue and the roof of his mouth tasted of blood.
He was laying in it, he realized, and this shocked his limbs into movement. His left arm hurt like fire, pulling in ropes of white-hot agony across his chest and shoulder when he moved, but still he struggled to sit up, wiping his face reflexively as he looked to his surroundings.
All around him was an unearthly stillness. It seemed to have just rained, because everything was wet and gleaming even in the velvet of earliest morning, and a slight mist rose from the ground. Bodies were strewn around him, still and silent, and so covered in mud and blood and twisted armor that it was nearly impossible to separate dwarf from elf and man from orc. Ori shuddered, stomach twisting, and he forced his eyes up.
He was sitting near the top of a small rise. The Front Gate was at his back, and the ruined wastelands folded down in shadowy wrinkles to the lake spread out before him. The moon was a pale shadow in the first dregs of sunlight. He scrubbed at his bloody face with a ruined gauntlet, trying to get his scattered brain into order. Who had won the battle? Was he really the only one left in all this horrible stretch of death?
Down the small hill, amongst a pile of dead, there was a pained groan, so low and rattling that Ori almost mistook it for wind knocking at armor. Someone – or something – was still alive in this mess. With a pounding in his heart to match the pounding in his head, Ori wrapped his fingers around the haft of the axe Dwalin had lent him earlier, and heaved himself to standing.
Oh Mahal, where was Dwalin? Ori sagged, the axe barely keeping him upright. The battle was coming back to him in bits and flashes, many of which included the giant bear of a dwarf fighting furiously at his side, but he had no memory of how it had ended.
“You’ve no proof that he is dead,” he whispered to himself. He stared at the base of the hill, where the noise had come from. “And none that he’s alive. Well Ori, whichever it is, it is up to you to find him.”
Steeling himself, he set off gingerly down the slope. His ankle pained him – broken or twisted, he couldn’t tell – and the going was slow. But after what seemed an age, he reached more even ground and, he guessed, the source of the sound.
“Hello? Is anyone… alive?”
Something moved at his feet. He shrieked, jumping back and falling as his ankle grated painfully in his boot. From the ground, at least, he could see what had startled him, in the faintest light of the new day drawing on: an upturned hand, lined with blood and battle-grit, and fastened with the familiar chains of fierce metal knuckledusters.
“Dwalin,” Ori choked out. Abandoning the axe and ignoring the pain in his shoulder and leg, he struggled with the pile of corpses: all orcs or goblins, their horrible faces gripped by the rictus of death. Some inner fury gave him strength, and at last he cleared away the dead to find Dwalin underneath.
The dwarf warrior was sprawled on his back, pinned to the ground by a long, wicked javelin thrust through his left thigh and into the ground. His armor, though caked with mud and the wreckage of battle, had served its purpose well: nothing had penetrated the mithril, though splinters of wood and metal littered the broad expanse of fur at his shoulders. But he was pale, so pale in the dusky morning. His face was speckled with cuts, and lines of crisp new red ran from a deep gash in his head, deep enough to show the bone beneath. With a trembling hand, Ori rested the tips of his fingers beneath Dwalin’s closed eye, already purple-black with bruising.
Skin fluttered beneath his touch and Dwalin’s eyes shot open, hard as granite and such a deep, deep blue they were nearly black. Ori froze.
“Dwalin?”
That great chest heaved once, rattling. “Well lad, who won?”
“I – I don’t know,” Ori stammered, and stole his hand back.
“A pity.” His eyes fell shut again, reassuming the pretense of death. “I’d have liked to know, before I passed.”
“Before you… before you passed where?”
The rattle turned to a wheeze, a parody of laughter. “The halls of my ancestors, laddie. Or so I hope.”
Something great and terrible opened up in Ori’s chest, a huge chasm that yawned between the curves of his ribs, and he struggled to breathe. “You can’t. You can’t go.”
“I must.” Dwalin’s face was drawn with pain, but something looked peaceful about him nonetheless: a softness in his mouth and brow that Ori had never seen before. “I have served my king and kinsfolk. Now I go to find peace. And my dear Hrokir, Mahal willing.”
Hrokir. Ori stuffed his fingers into his mouth to keep from sobbing aloud. Dwalin’s Heartsong, the other half of his soul, waiting for him on the other side. Suddenly Ori envied him with a burning, roiling passion. To suffer year after year, and still trudge on through the pain of silent dreams… finally Dwalin was going to find his rest, while Ori would have none.
“Ori.” Dwalin’s uninjured hand, clenched in the leather jerkin at his ribs, moved to grip Ori’s wrist. “Would you do somethin’ for me?”
“Anything,” he whispered, and meant it. It would not be hard, he decided, to lay down beside Dwalin, after. To take the fiercely sharp edge of his borrowed axe and push it into the tender underside of his jaw, until his blood flowed red and hot onto the ground. The thought settled him, and he took his hand from his mouth, smoothing it over Dwalin’s brow. “Anything.”
“I have no kin here to sing me to my end,” Dwalin said, voice gone soft and sore between them. “If you are willing and able, would you do me the honor of giving me my death dirge?”
The thought struck a chill into his heart. How awful, Ori thought, if he should sing and Dwalin would not know, would not hear the answering Heartsong in his voice. But what if he did? Didn’t Ori deserve that, just a few precious moments of happiness before the end?
“The honor is mine,” he said hoarsely. With every movement slowed by pain and cold, Ori shifted to sit more comfortably. Muscles trembling, he got his weight under Dwalin's shoulders and drew the tattooed head to rest against his chest. The cruel reminder of his injury sizzled along his nerves, but he resisted it. The pain would soon be over.
Ori didn’t know many dirges. He’d been lucky as a child to know very little of the passing of a family member. But as his interest in books and history had grown, he’d read much of the great needs and noble deaths of dwarf warriors from ages past, and there was one that bubbled now into his mind: Helbrandr, of the Longbeard Clan, the greatest dwarf warrior ever to take up arms in defense of his lord. His death had been valiant and terrible, and it was said that at his death, dirges were sung in every tongue by every race. It was this song that now came to Ori’s lips, falling soft and tremulous into the air.
“I heard it said,
that as foemen in full fight sole faced each other,
Helbrandr, sword of the king,
Sword of Durin thrice reborn,
and the arm of Melkor, two hosts between.
There warrior and foe, their fighting-gear tested,
Made ready their battle-weeds, belted the sword
O’er their ring-mail, the heroes, who rode to the fray.”
The tune was old and rusty in his mind, but he took each syllable as it came, building them up one by one like stacking bricks into a wall. He focused on the pattern, fear nearly choking him as Dwalin stirred against his shoulder. The movement sent pain stabbing through his chest – but, with effort, he picked up the thread again, letting the rhythm carry him on to the next stanza.
“He unwound from his arm the winding rings,
of mithril-steel wrought, that the king had given him,
Lord of Moria, and thus spake his foe:
‘Most infamous be he of Dwarven folk
who should who should seek match me
from fight with foe! Let the fated one try
whether now his trappings be taken from him,
or both of these breast-plates he boast as his own.’
“Charging with ash-spears, clashed they first,
with sharpest shafts the shields that clove.
Then stroke to the struggle those sturdy-warriors,
hewed in hate on the white-faced shields,
until both of the lindens little grew,
all worn with weapons…”
Ori was halfway through the third verse when his voice gave out. Dwalin was perfectly still, hand still clasped around Ori’s wrist. He bowed his head, letting his tear-wet cheek rest at Dwalin’s temple.
“Why’d ye never say?”
Ori nearly bit his lip in half, startling at the unexpected words breathed coarse and uneven by his ear. “W-what?”
The hand at his wrist tightened. “Why did ye keep silent?”
“Because!” he sobbed, molars grinding together, “I was afraid. I’m no great warrior like you, I’m not clever or skilled – and it wasn’t right. We’re supposed to have one, only one, and you were mine, but you had already lost yours and it didn’t make sense.”
There was an unbearable silence. For a while Ori feared he’d lost him all over again. But that grip never relented, and finally Dwalin stirred again, the coarse ends of his beard brushing ticklishly against Ori’s neck. “Oh, my boy. My poor boy.” He drew in a breath, horrible and gutted with the rattling in his chest. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Ori said softly, honestly. His fingers found the smooth curve of Dwalin’s head and traced it, fingers smearing in the trails of crimson. “It will be over soon.”
With great effort, Dwalin shook his head. “Nay. It will never be over, lad, not as long as you live. You will carry it with you every day – the awful silence.”
Ori smiled. “No.” His fingers moved, slick with blood, drawing over the rigid lines of Dwalin’s tattoos. “No, it will be with me only for a short time.”
Another silence, but this time Ori could feel Dwalin’s mind racing, trying to connect the dots even in its slowed state. “No.” His fingers squeezed, painfully, but it was no match for the agonizing twist in Ori’s heart. “You must not. Promise me, lad, promise me you won’t.”
“Shhhh.” Ori bent, pressing his mouth gently to the top of Dwalin’s head. “I’ve made my choice. You are taking my Heartsong from me – don’t take this as well.”
There was no reply. Dwalin’s breathing was labored, but it didn’t stop. Ori held him close, watching as the sky grew light by slow increments. There was something beautiful and intensely private about watching the night recede, and it put Ori in a strange, detached sort of mood. All around, frosted things began to thaw. The watery autumn light brushed across his face, and spilled like translucent ink over the body heavy in his arms. Gradually the weary stiffness in his body overtook him, and his eyelids grew heavy. By the time the moon had fallen below the pinkening horizon, Ori was asleep, his cheek pillowed on the bloody curve of Dwalin’s head.
When Ori woke again, he was warm and dry, and everything hurt. He closed his eyes tightly against the burning white light and groaned, struggling to wet cracked lips with a tongue made from cotton.
“Shh, shhh. You’re all right.” Something touched his mouth, cool and wet, and he opened to a ladleful of cool water. “There. That’s better.”
When he’d swallowed every drop, Ori cracked his eyes open again. He knew that voice and that shape, even if it was no more than a silhouette against the bright white fabric of the tent. “Dori?”
“Aye. I’m here, and Nori’s just there, and all is well.” His older brother’s eyes crinkled, but Ori’s heart plummeted. How could he have been so stupid as to fall asleep? He’d missed Dwalin’s passing, and the chance to end everything. He struggled to sit up, but the pain and Dori’s gentle hand pressed him back onto the cot. “Lay still, you foolish child! You’re fair riddled with wounds, you are.”
“But I – I –” What could he say? I need to go kill myself, please let me get up. With a panicked sob, Ori realized he would be stuck here for days, maybe weeks, all in cold, dead silence. “Dori, please, I have to –”
“That’s enough,” Dori interrupted gently. Something else was at his mouth, and he drank it down without thinking. Too late he tasted the bitter herbs, mixed with something heavy and malted and sweet – brandy, to take the edge off. “Sleep now, my love, and you’ll soon feel better.”
Ori struggled a little more, but it was useless – the mixture was spreading through him swiftly, weighing down his limbs and warming his belly. Miserably, he gave up the fight and sank down into darkness.
In his dreams, he wandered the empty corridors of the Mountain. Everything was dusty and abandoned; but, strangely, there was no wreckage or destruction left by the dragon’s coming. All was perfectly pristine and in its place, as if the entire dwarven population had packed their bags and left without need or warning.
It was perfectly silent. Ori trailed his fingers along the wall, the only hint of sound in the whole place: the barest whisper of skin against dusty stone. His feet were bare, and he was dressed in something light and soft. It was open at the neck and wide at the sleeves, hanging to his calves – when he looked down, he could see the wrappings over his injuries all underneath the thin cotton, but there was no pain. Just the gentle throb of his heartbeat and the touch of rock at his fingertips.
He came to a grand set of stairs, wide and curving. The roof vaulted over his head into clinging shadow and he breathed into the space, wondering what would happen if he should throw himself down the stairs, down the endless slope of them to the floor far below. But as he stood and stared, a sound drifted up to him from one of the many halls that branched out below his feet like the spokes of a wheel: a low, rumbling sound, like the cacophony of grinding rock forced into order, a tune he barely remembered. Standing there at the top of the stairs, he began to tremble.
Somehow, with the unbidden strength given in dreams, Ori stepped lightly down the stairs, the bare soles of his feet settling into the worn smoothness of generations of dwarven footsteps. Although the stairs were long and near-unending, it took only a few moments to reach the bottom. There he stood, with the ceiling stretched so high above him that it might as well have been the sky, his feet planted on the carven flagstones, and a whisper of a song in his heart, like an avalanche heard from miles away.
Nori was at his side this time, one arm in a sling and a rakish bandage slung over the side of his forehead. He grinned to see Ori awake and twiddled his fingers at him. “Hullo there. Feeling better?”
“Much,” Ori croaked. His neck was stiff and nearly impossible to move, but he strained to look around him nonetheless. “Where am I?”
“A healing tent. You woke up just in time, they’re bringing food around shortly.”
He hadn’t noticed it before, but the mention of food made Ori painfully aware of the shrunken cavity that was his stomach. But something more pressing was on his mind. “Where is Dwalin?”
Nori blinked at him. “Dwalin? Ah, yes, you were found together. We’d given you both up for dead.” A darkness passed over his face, but it didn’t linger. Nori’s uninjured hand came down to rest on his brother’s brow. “He is alive, barely. He is in another tent. Gandalf said he nearly died during the night, but the healers managed to bring him back.” Nori paused. “Were you with him when he fell?”
“No.” Ori swallowed hard. “I was knocked unconscious. I found him later, as he lay dying.” For a moment he wanted to tell Nori about the Heartsong, but the words stuck in his throat, and Nori didn’t press him.
“Well let’s get you sat up,” he said instead, though his eyes were sharp and shrewd under his bandages. “And then we can get some proper food in you.”
Ori was too tired and sore to be embarrassed by his brother’s babying. And the whisper of his Heartsong still lingered in the back of his mind, cheering him in spite of his infirmities. He allowed Nori to sit him up against the pillows, singed things salvaged from the abandoned rooms of Erebor, and when the soup came around he sat quiet and placid as Nori spoon-fed him in small bites, as if he were no bigger than a sparrow.
“Can I see him?” Ori asked finally, when the soup had been finished and Nori was settling in with his own helping.
Nori looked up, spoon sliding slowly from his mouth. “See who?”
“Dwalin.”
Very patiently, Nori set his bowl on the floor and leaned close, folding his hand over Ori’s. “Brother, is there something you’re not telling me?”
Ori stared back, and found he couldn’t drag his eyes away. In the quiet of the tent he whispered, “He’s my Heartsong, Nori.”
Nori’s face pinched unhappily. “Ori, that’s not possible –”
“I know it sounds insane,” Ori interrupted, refusing to break his gaze. “But there’s so much we don’t know yet, about – about Heartsongs and fate, and I knew, the first time I heard him sing in Ered Luin, that he was mine.”
“And does he know this?”
“He does now.” Ori licked his lips nervously. “When I found him, he – he asked me to sing his death dirge. And I was the only one there. So I did.”
Nori bowed his head, and Ori could see that his older brother was coming to terms with the horror of taking on such a task. “How could you?” he rasped, his voice a broken wreck. “To be united with your Heartsong at their death…”
He never would have breathed a word of this to Dori, but Nori was different. Something sad about his manner, but a resignation to match it, as if the sadness were his own choice. That, Ori could sympathize with. “I planned to end it. When he died I would follow.” He huffed a miserable laugh. “But I cocked it up, of course.”
“And yet things seem to work out in your favor regardless.” Nori lifted his face again, strained but smiling.
“Don’t tell Dori. Not yet.” Ori clung to his brother’s hand. “I don’t think he’s ready.”
“Nay, nor do I.” Nori squeezed his fingers gently and released him, bending to pick up his bowl. “Go to sleep, little brother. I’ll see about changing your tent assignment.”
Ori woke again to a peaceful sky above him, rocking slightly to the movement of his cot. Craning his neck, he saw Nori by his head and an unknown Iron Hills dwarf at his feet, bearing him stretcher-like through the winding grassy corridors at the foot of the Lonely Mountain. All around them were tents – some clearly of healing, others simply for dwelling – and folk passing by with supplies or scrolls or tools. Many glanced his way in curiosity, and Ori closed his eyes again, ears burning with embarrassment at being the center of attention.
The cool sunlight behind his eyelids was struck dark without warning, and his eyes popped open to a roof of canvas and the dim warmth of a smaller, more private healing tent. Nori and the dwarf from the Iron Hills settled his cot down on fresh struts, and he looked around. Here it was dark and quiet, with thick rugs on the dirt floor and a brazier kept warm and glowing in the corner. A few other patients lay in quiet rows – royalty, he imagined, or at least those who were more important than he – but the one that drew his gaze was the dwarf beside him, resting on a cot piled with furs.
Dwalin slept, his face drawn and stern. Ori’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes prickled with tears. He didn’t even notice Nori drawing blankets up to his chin and leaving the tent. Only the Iron Hills dwarf, making the rounds to each bedside, paid witness to the quiet tears sliding down Ori’s cheek into his beard.
Dwalin was in no shape to be up and about, but he insisted on coming to the funeral anyway. Ori stood beside his makeshift stretcher-chair, leaning on a crutch, and together they watched as Thorin’s body was lowered into his tomb and sealed. No one said anything about how close they stood, or about the hand Ori rested on Dwalin’s shoulder as the older dwarf bowed his head in grief.
Fíli and Kíli were laid to rest beside their uncle, one on each side. All three tombs were covered over with heavy marble, their likenesses carved deep into the stone as cold and lifelike as if they only slept.
There was no feast afterward. Instead Dwalin and Ori returned to their tent – empty now, but for them – and Ori made him eat a little broth and half a loaf of new brown bread with oil. He was beginning to find that he had a great deal of leverage with Dwalin, and he was determined to take advantage of it. He would not see his fated partner waste himself away with grief.
“It does not seem right,” Ori said as he tidied up the dishes, “that I should have this bright kernel of joy inside me when all around me is only sadness.”
Dwalin grunted, his bandaged head turning on the pillow. “Not only sadness. Though we will suffer a great deal of that, I think, before all is said and done.” He watched Ori bustle about through half-open eyes. “Will ye not sit down? You’re givin’ me a headache.”
Ori flushed crimson and smoothed his palms on the front of his tunic. With careful steps he returned to Dwalin’s bedside and sat on the stool there. “Sorry.”
Dwalin let him sit and stew a little in his own uncertainty for a while. “Here, lad,” he said at last. “There’s no shame in being happy. The Maker knows I feel the same, in spite of everything.” His massive hand, free of its usual dangerous trappings, left the mountain of his ribcage to settle on Ori’s knee. “Better to find joy amidst the dark times than be swallowed by them.”
Ori nodded, and brushed his fingers over Dwalin’s until they tangled together. “I’ve wanted to ask – if you don’t mind – about Heartsongs. Well, about yours.”
“Ask away, laddie.”
“When did you first hear me?”
Dwalin’s eyes grew soft and retrospective. “I heard it all along, I think, only I didn’t know it. Hrokir had such a rolling, bell-like voice – not those liddle tinkling bells, but the big ones they ring out in the towns of Men. Yours was soft and nearly quiet by comparison.”
“But you heard it.”
“Aye, at least in the back of my mind I knew it – but I never listened for it, nor did I recognize it for what it was. Perhaps I only thought it was a shade of Hrokir’s, a sort of counterpoint. When she died… well, for a while I heard nothing at all. ’Twas the shock of it, I think. The horror.” His voice trailed off, and Ori tightened the grip of his hands, waiting. “And then,” Dwalin sighed, “when I did begin to hear it, I thought it only a trick of my imagination.” He turned his dark eyes on Ori. “And you, lad? You only ever heard one voice?”
Ori nodded. “But she… she died, before I was born.”
“I wonder,” Dwalin mused. “Had she lived, would you have heard two voices?”
“Did – did she never speak of a second voice?” Ori wondered timidly.
“Nay. Never to me. But sometimes… sometimes she would look at me, with this queer look in her eyes, as if she were looking for someone else, someone I was hidin’ under my cloak.” His eyes crinkled with silent laughter. “Perhaps she was. I reckon I could fit you under my cloak with none the wiser.”
Ori flushed again, unused to Dwalin’s gentle teasing. “I still have some growing to do.”
“Aye, p’raps so.” Dwalin chuckled to himself, eyes closing as he tugged at Ori’s hand. “Come here, lad, I feel a chill.”
“I can stoke the brazier,” Ori offered, but he went unresistingly, letting Dwalin pack him in beside him underneath the furs.
“Leave the bloody brazier,” Dwalin grumbled, and tucked Ori’s head beneath his chin.
“What if someone comes in?”
“Then they can go right out again. You needn’t fear, I shan’t impinge upon your honor.”
“I know that,” Ori grumped, somewhat regretful, and was rewarded as Dwalin’s belly danced with laughter. He settled closer, injured arm spread carefully over the broad expanse of Dwalin’s chest. “Are you going to sleep?”
Dwalin grunted. “In a bit.” His hand came up, stroking the disordered fall of Ori’s coppery hair. “Sing me to sleep?”
Ori smiled brilliantly, unseen but not unfelt in the nook of Dwalin’s throat. “What would you like me to sing?”
“No more dirges. I’m sick of 'em. Sing me somethin’ sweet: a lullaby, if you know any.”
Ori could never have pictured singing a child’s sleeping-song to this grizzled warrior, but he had no trouble thinking of just the right one. A song his mam used to sing to him, when he was naught but a wee bairn.
“Hush ye, my bairnie,
Bonny wee laddie,
When you're a man
Ye shall follow your daddy.
And many good things
Ye shall bring to your mammy:
Hare from the meadow
Deer from the mountain
Grouse from the moorlan'
And trout from the fountain.
“Hush ye, my bairnie
Bonny wee dearie,
Hark to your Song,
An’ wait for your laddie.
Sleep! The evening is
Heavy and weary.
Closed be your eyes
For rest ye be takin'
Sound be your sleepin'
And bright be your wakin'…”