AN: I don't own any of the hobbit characters I am just taking them out of Tolkien's toy box and playing with them.

Ties in with chapters 5&6 in An Unexpected Encounter. Warnings of child abuse and what could possibly count for torture in place for this chapter. Ori is all of fifty when this takes place and there for twenty seven years away from being of age.

For LaurameBob.

Punishment.

Ori was curled up under a thin, rather holey blanket. If his older brother Nori was here he would have said it was more hole than blanket, but his older brother wasn't there or else Ori wouldn't be trying his hardest not to cry. He wanted Nori and he wanted Dori. He bit his lip till it bled, the taste of charcoal strong in his mouth and his cramping stomach clenching tightly on its emptiness.

He should have known better than to approach a meal left out for him on the estate, after all it had been taught to him over and over again. He'd seen others taken to task for daring to eat without the estate manager's permission. He'd seen his own Dori take blows meant for a younger dwarf. He'd witnessed his well-mannered brother carefully treating young dwarrows whose grey skin tone and skeletal frames showed they had broken the rules.

Yes he really should have known better. He bit back a cry and forced down more tears as he tried to move. The rough material of the blanket caught on the edges of the welts on his back and the cold of the stone seeped into his bruised bones. He closed his eyes, he hadn't given them the enjoyment of his tears or cries when they'd punished him so he wouldn't give them it now. He rolled cautiously onto his back, glad they'd left him with his under trousers if nothing else, shifting uncomfortably he leant his burning back against the gritty but thankfully cool wall. He pulled his knees to his narrow chest, setting his bare feet carefully on the floor, wincing as the pain in his left ankle joined the party. He closed his eyes and sighed silently, knowing even if they weren't watching him they were listening. He thought back over his mistakes.

Nori never stayed long, merely turning up covered in black dust and bringing Dori enough money so they could meet their rent and a warm hug for Ori. This time though Ori had been left alone as the estate manager had sent Dori on a message, apparently the other estate manager he wanted contacting was a fair distance away as Dori had been gone four days when Ori ran out of their pitiful stash of food in their rented home, it had been another six days after that when Ori had fallen for their trickery. He'd stumbled into the kitchen of the estates shaking from the cold rain, tired from his fourth sixteen hour shift in a row and slightly delirious from lack of food, when he'd found a simple meal of hard bread and harder bread set out for him. He'd argued with himself, but hunger had won out, in the end hunger and tiredness always won out. They had been watching him from the upper floor and as soon as he'd taken a mouthful swept into the room screaming about him stealing. In his confusion Ori had tripped spraining his ankle badly, and his fall had them circling him like wolves. He'd tried to fight back, but in his weakened state and against four full-grown, healthy males of the race of man he stood no chance. He had taken grim satisfaction in the fact he'd given one a black eye, bust one's nose, knocked the third's bottom front teeth out and made the fourth sprain his own ankle. His fighting back merely made his punishment worse. They forced a concoction of water and charcoal down his throat and soon he was throwing up, it went on until his already painfully empty stomach was spasaming into cramps. They offered him no aid merely held him still until he finally stopped retching. He had thought that was all, but having fought back he was in for a worse time of it, apparently they were going to use him as an example, and use all of the punishments. He was stripped of his outer clothing and his boots before being dragged, stumbling into the central square, where he was forced to his knees before a large wooden block. He tried to fight back again, getting a bust lip in the process as they tied him to it. He clenched his jaw against the pain of the lashes, his dwarven hide barely breaking from the leather thong. Their howls had him smiling grimly through the pain and meeting the horrified gaze of a pair of familiar green eyes. His vision was blurry though and he was focused solely on not sobbing or screaming as they increased the pressure. He dug his fingers into the wood until their tips bled, breathing shallowly through his nose and focusing on those green eyes until they untied him and dragged him across the square to the jail. He didn't aid them any preferring to hang like a dead weight between them and taking satisfaction in the grunts of pain he heard from one of them.

Now though he was in a cold, damp cell in nothing more than his under trousers and with a tatty cloth as a blanket and one pitcher of water. He was bruised in places he didn't know it was possible to bruise. He would bet the only reason he was alive was his dwarven heritage. Thick skin, solid muscled, bones of the very rock Arda was made from. He didn't know whether to be thankful to Mahal for making his children so endurable or to curse him to the darkest depths of Mordor.

He was left without food for several more days, his only company being the rats around him. The heavy cold started to seep into even his dwarven bones. His water pitcher hadn't been refilled and he was down to the last inch in the bottom having rationed it. The lack of food made moving more than to take a drink impossible. Ori shuddered, still desperately forcing the tears back, he didn't have to worry about crying out. He had lost the ability to speak the second day in. He could still tell how many days had passed in the darkness of the estate jail and swore if his captives knew of a dwarf's ability to sense the changing days even while underground he would find a way to kill them, it was another inventive form of torture.

A week later and Ori couldn't even open his eyes, his breathing was shallow, and he'd lost the feeling in his fingers and toes. He could no longer feel the cold or the pain, if it weren't for the very shallow rise and fall of his chest the dwarf that burst through the door of his cell would have thought him dead. The roar of an enraged eldest brother chilled the surviving guards to the bone as three floors above Ori's prison an older brother's grim expression shifted to one that promised pure pain. Green eyes went hard and flat as they strode out of the jail leaving broken bodies behind them.

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Bag End: Present day.

Ori knew his brown eyes probably looked like a rabbit caught by a fox and as he fixed them on his host's face, he had to force down flash backs. He was shaking dangerously and knew he had to convince their host he wouldn't eat without permission. "I don't wanna get in trouble if you are joking with me Master Baggins, 'm really hungry but I know better than to eat before my host and I know better than to eat anything other than what you put on my plate, I … Oh Mahal I'm sorry Master Baggins, I'm so sorry Please…."

AN: Oh God I hate myself.