Paralyzed (I'll Move Forward Anyway)
Stone Sickness, the healers had called it. Not that they were good healers, but the had been the best mother had been able to afford when Nori was fifteen. They hadn't had any treatment beyond dosing him with poppy milk and forcing him to move. Even then, it had hurt to move his swollen limbs sometimes. Sometimes they couldn't force him to move, and he would spend the day being carried around by Dori.
People always wondered why Dori was so strong, but he never told them. Never talked about the years where, half the time, he was forced to carry his younger brother on their treacherous journey. Even on the days were they didn't need to travel, Nori had needed help, going to the bathroom, eating, not going slowly crazy as he was trapped, trapped, trapped inside his own body. It had been years, and Nori had always been small and slim, but Dori had never gotten out of the practice of being able to carry Nori's approximate weight around, going so far as to make solid iron sleeves to wear under his everyday clothes to practice.
It had been the sensation of being trapped that had inspired Nori to be a thief, as well as the need to help his family. Nori hated that feeling, hated it more than Thorin hated elves. Hated feeling trapped by his body, by walls, by society, even by Dori and Ori and mother. Nori had spent so long people watching that figuring out how to trick people had been easy, how to appear to be something was stolen from a thousand different memories, each seared across his skull as an escape from the BOREDOM and everyone's belief that the Stone Sickness afflicted his mind as well as his body, making him slow and stupid.
He had kept trying to do things that the healers told him he would never be able to do. Never hold a knife with swollen fingers that couldn't close or open? He had twenty on his person, most of the time. Never reach back to do his own hair, with arms that wouldn't lift above his chest? He had one of the most complicated hairstyles around, besides prim Dori's. He will never run, will be lucky to even walk without needing help. The guards dream of catching him. He not only runs, but climbs, and jumps. He cannot only hold a knife, but is the fastest lock pick and pickpocket in Ered Luin. The Healers were wrong. They were wrong about him being incapable, wrong about him being weak, wrong about him being stupid. They were wrong.
And, if these things had only happened after a decade or two of not being able to, if he had practiced and practiced them until he found himself doing them without thought even before he committed his first theft, well. The swelling had disappeared with time, and he hadn't been paralyzed since he was thirty, and even that had just been for a day. And if, sometimes, when it was cold or damp, it was harder to move than others, or if he felt aches in joints that didn't quite bend right, but had never been broken, well. It had been all the more reason to run away to the South where it was warm, wasn't it?
Dori had been worried when he heard Ori was going on the quest, but had contented himself to go with him. He had been frantic when Nori had stated he was going with them. Dori may openly fuss over Ori more, but that was only because the last time he had tried hugging Nori, Nori had, instinctively, attacked him. And had a small panic attack when he couldn't break free. Instead, Dori listed all of the things that Nori did that he thought were bad for his 'delicate health'. He at least had the decency, in company, to disguise them as lectures on propriety.
Dori loved being proper, and a good dwarf, but Nori knew for a fact that he loved Nori and Ori more. But Dori worried. And Dori fussed. And Dori controlled. And Nori, Nori was so tired of having his life controlled. Ori fussed too, but less than Dori. Ori hadn't been alive when Nori had been, sick. He knew that Nori had been, but not what it meant, except that Nori sometimes favored limbs that had no injury, and got cold far, far quicker than anyone else.
No one else knew. What healer would remember the small red headed dwarfling that was always sick that had the rare, but not contagious or fatal disease after all these decades? Who had had the presence of mind to pay attention to anything but their own in the trek fleeing Erebor? Nori had been, mostly better by the time they had settled in Ered Luin. A little less physical or fast or dexterous than the other children his age, but he had been more willing to practice. No one paid attention to Nori, even when they were.
But on the quest, it was different. On the quest there were thirteen other people, eleven of which he didn't know all that well, looking at him, and often even seeing him. (Except Master Baggins. Poor Bilbo was so confused and twisted around he hardly knew which way was up most days, even if he still managed to be helpful.) Nori, Nori was used to people looking for weakness to exploit, not worrying over possible injuries. It was, difficult, not being able to do his normal exercises. He had, in the beginning, but then Kili had started asking questions, loudly, and Nori had stopped. He still tied knots, kept his fingers loose and limber, and so far his body was cooperating. It was warm, he was well layered, and it wasn't as if he wasn't moving all day. But it couldn't last.
It started in Mirkwood. Beyond the darkness and dreariness of the place, beyond the lack of food and water, beyond the fear that they were all going to die here and no one would ever know, was the damp. Nori could feel it seeping into his skin, into his bones. And every morning it was a little harder to get up, each movement cost him a little bit more. The slow drip, drip, drip of a poison tailor made for him.
'Don't panic. You've had spells like this before. Where it isn't quite pain, but it isn't not pain, either. The ache of approaching pain, the body's early warning system that you are pushing it's limits too far, and it will push back. Don't panic. Stay warm, hard without a fire, without food, but you have your brothers to cuddle with, and plenty of layers. Keep moving. If you stop moving, Dori will try to carry you. He can't, but he'll try. It'll be the death of both of you, all three, if you can't keep Ori with the group. Don't panic.'
Nori can't help but panic. But it's small, and well hidden, and if Dori and Ori or Dwalin, because Dwalin is always watching you, sometimes even seeing you, silly guardsman, notice it at all, they are either too tired and too hungry to ask, or assume it's about your impending death. Nori doesn't want to die, unable to even move away to shit somewhere he isn't lying. Doesn't want to die trapped inside his own body, like a baby, completely helpless.
It's a bit of a relief for everyone when they get captured by the elves, but it doesn't really improve things for Nori. It's still damp, damp, damp, but instead of brothers he has blankets. At least now he has food, and privacy and can rest. And he slowly helps Master Baggins plan their escape.
(He wants the magic ring, except he doesn't. It's the ultimate cheat for a thief, but Nori is a thief because of the physical challenge and the freedom. He doesn't want to cheat, not like that.)
(If he gets sick with the ring on, no one would be able to find him. He would die.)
(Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)
Nori manages, and the ache even goes away, a little bit.
(It's still there, it's always there. Slowly cutting away his options, his freedom, until there's only one option left.
Nori will not live like that again.)
But as their options trickle down. (A magic door? Cells that won't open without the key that locked them? The elves were cheating, the bastards.) Nori and Bilbo both knew, knew it had to be the river. Knew that their escape would have to be the coldest, wettest route that was available, and with fall fast approaching and northern climate, Nori knew that their escape would bring back his cage, bring back the sickness. (Please, Mahal, no. Any god, please, no. Gen, Gen help. Gen, smile upon this thief and keep the stone sickness far far from me. Save me from the prison that is my body!) But there was no other way, and as Bilbo put them all in his barrels, Nori let himself be bullied into one.
He was tense all over. Even if he doesn't get sick, the tenseness will make moving difficult when they get out of these floating death traps. (Nori's been on boats, he isn't fond of them, but he doesn't hate them. These barrels are not boats. He hates the barrels.) Maybe, if it's not to bad, he can play it off as that? Say he was too tense in the cold water, that he's afraid of drowning. Dori would know, and Ori, but maybe.
As soon as they land, he knows he won't be able to. Nori can't open his fingers, they're too swollen. Moving at all is agony, he always forgets exactly how many joints there are in his feet, exactly how often the move, until this happens. Until every shift of his weight makes them scream in pain, individually and in unison. Nori can't make it to shore on his own. Dori helps him, and Dwalin. Basically drag him through the current to shore. He can't even stand up. The idea of straightening his legs all the way, with the fire in his knees, and the anvil on his back, and the rusted gears in his neck, it makes him want to cry.
There's dry land under Nori's feet now, not that it makes a difference. Even shivering is an exercise in torture. This isn't FAIR! He was doing something right, he was being useful! This wasn't fair. But life isn't fair, and if he can't hide it, he can at least own up to it. Can at least make it so they won't think they can use it to hurt him too much. (They can. Anyone can. He hates this. Hates it and fears it and doesn't know anything but this. How do people live, not being afraid every day? Not needing to think about something else, anything else, every moment of every day? Of the moment of terror every time they open their eyes that today will be the day it returns? It must be nice, must be liberating. Nori doesn't know. Was too young to remember a time before as anything other than a haze.)
"Put me by the fire, Dori." Nori said, voice almost normal. "I'm sick, again."
Dori nodded sharply, having obviously expected it, most likely from Nori's willingness to accept help out of the river. But Ori, little Ori who always treated Nori like a hero, gasped, eyes wide and panicked. "Really, Nori? I thought, I thought you'd gotten better."
"Cold and damp." Nori coughed out a laugh. "'Sides, this isn't the kind of thing you get better from, kid." No, the healers had been clear on that. This was forever, or until a secondary disease killed him, because having the stone sickness meant he was weak, meant he would get sick, unlike most dwarves. Illness had always been rare in any dwarves house that wasn't the Ri house. But it hadn't taken Nori yet.
(Not like mother, weakened by a third birth. Not like uncle, wasting away from Dragon Ash in his lung. Nori was ill often, but not yet.)
"What do you mean, sick?" Dwalin demanded, eyes narrowed, and everyone turned to Nori, Oin bustling foreword.
"I mean I can't stand." Nori snapped back. So, so, so jealous of Dwalin. So jealous of his size and strength, of the ease of his movement. How he had clearly never doubted his body's ability to just do things. Sometimes Nori just wanted to scream that he should try living Nori's life, see how well he could manage it before he judges Nori. Before he called knives a coward's weapon, before he said real dwarves stood and fought. Nori had been fighting, refusing to surrender every day of his life, even when all the dwarves around him had given up. "I mean, that I have the stone sickness, and am currently the equivalent of a stone around your necks, except I can see and hear and talk, and shit and eat and generally be a pain in the ass."
"The what?" Kili asked. Unsurprising. Nori had never met another person with stone sickness, outside of his family. There was no reason for the young (healthy, so healthy) prince to know what it was.
It was Ori that answered, mostly because he was the most patient with the pursuit of knowledge, but also partially because he had spent several years learning what little he could about stone sickness. "It's a rare disease that occasionally occurs in the very old, or the very young." Ori explained. "It's, something goes wrong in the joints, the places where the bones connect so that you can bend, causing them to become inflamed, and to swell. It makes movement very painful, and if the swelling gets too bad, impossible. It traps the inflicted in their own body." Nori didn't flinch, he didn't. Not with Dwalin eyeing him like he was something nasty he had stepped in. "In young children, it can cause damage to the bones, causing the child to become malformed. It can also damage the afflicted eyesight, damage their appetite, and cause trouble sleeping. It, it is traditionally believed that beyond the physical symptoms, the infected also gains mental symptoms, losing intelligence, memory, and the ability to function in the world, returning them to a childlike state. Secondary infections are common, as the sick person isn't as strong as normal dwarves, and is inclined to get sick at the same rate as a human." Ori swallowed. Nori knew that this was simple recitation of facts for Ori, just information he had gathered. It was Nori's life, and while Ori was sort of aware of that, he wasn't really. Not like Nori was. Not like Nori had to be. "There is no treatment, beyond poppy milk, and there is no cure. It is a lifelong condition. Most, most healers suggest overdosing on poppy milk, to eliminate the strain on the family and grant the afflicted peace from the constant pain."
"No." Dori said, as firmly and as finally as he had every time the healers had suggested it, even when he had been just a child himself. Every time there had been no money, and mother or Nori had suggested it, however tentatively. And people wondered how Nori knew his brother would always take him back, would always forgive him? Wondered why Nori always, always sent or gave most of the money he earned to Dori, and sent gifts? People always underestimated Dori.
"The disease ebbs and flows. It's non contagious, and non fatal." Nori said in his calmest, flattest tone. "Today, I can't walk. Tomorrow, if I keep warm enough and stretch enough, I probably will be able to, just not very well. Welcome to the joys of uncertain health. Build a fire, leave a blanket, some food, and my knives, and get going. I'll meet you at the mountain."
"I told you the thief was too much of a coward to face the dragon." Dwalin sneered, clearly not believing a word Nori said. "Awfully convenient how this rare disease suddenly affects you now, thief." And, with no further warning, he pulls to straighten Nori's leg.
If Nori had the speed and dexterity he normally did, he could have gotten away, could have pulled on knife on Dwalin before he ever got a finger on Nori. But now, he could do little more then know what was coming, and that he could not get away.
The pain was blinding. Nori would swear that he could hear his knee protesting the movement, but really, all he could hear was his own scream, high and loud, as the pain was too much to bear. He passed out in a haze.
He woke to shouting, as he lay perfectly still. That, at least, was one of the good traits the disease had left him. He always woke with perfect situational awareness and perfect physical awareness. And always still. Some thieves had to be trained in stillness, in quietness, Nori had never needed that.
The shouting was coming from Oin. This was surprising. Nori could easily imagine Dori shouting, fighting with Thorin and Dwalin about the sickness. Or Ori protesting leaving him behind. But Oin? Of all of them, the healer had to have the best sense of how hopeless Nori's situation was.
"-forcing him to move like that! By Mahal, the boy's lucky that his joints work at all with how those backwards halfwits put him through. You could have done permanent damage, you idiot! You know how injuries can affect the body for years to come. You could have crippled him!
"And you!" Oin had clearly picked a new target. "What were you thinking, not bringing this to my attention as soon as we started this quest! There are medicines, techniques, I could have helped him long before this. And this wasn't a sudden onset, stone sickness doesn't work like that. He would have been suffering for over half the quest, and you kept that from me, your healer."
He, he was yelling at Dori, who always did everything in his power to protect Nori. Time to speak up.
"Dori's always taken care of me, and he didn't want me to come anyway." Nori snapped. "…Someone help me sit up." He ordered, having expecting to be ignored. Instead, Kili and Ori rushed to help him.
"The best way to take care of you was to take you to a healer." Oin triumphed, coming over to fuss over his patient.
"He did. Well, mother did." Nori replied, unable to escape the healer's prodding, and so ignoring it. "I've the stone sickness. It won't kill me, but it'll make me wish it did. Try and keep moving, so I don't turn to stone entirely, and drink enough poppy milk that I forget what it's like not to be drugged. And plenty of good families slip a little extra poppy milk so as to get rid of the burden of a stone stupid, stone heavy, stone useless curse on the line." Nori knew there was cold hatred in his voice. He didn't care.
"Yes, a century ago!" Oin half shouted. "Now we know better. We knew better in Erebor! What healer gave you that diagnosis? I'll have them brought up on charges of medical malpractice, if I don't just take their beards!"
"All eight of them?" Dori asked, voice calm and level. "How about the midwife that offered mother herbs to end his suffering quickly? Because we tried to find a different way."
Oin looked like he had been slapped.
"They weren't the best doctors, we couldn't afford better. But we tried." Dori continued. "I carried my brother for years, and when things got bad, and we couldn't afford poppy milk? I carried my brother and listened to him scream at every shift, at every step. So, tell me, what more could I have done?"
"We are the brothers Ri." Ori said, voice clear. "We do not have much, but we have each other. 'And never will one let the other fall."
"I am you and you are me. Blood and bone bound to be.'" Nori finished the family saying. Learned in the cradle, if not the womb itself, and lived daily.
"So, go on to your mountain, oh king and guard, whose health has not failed you." Dori said, every inch the royal blood that no one was allowed to say they had. "Go and march on a dragon with the able bodied troops who have never fought to gain movement and recognition. And when you fail, and we follow, wonder what a clever thief could have contributed. Or the strongest dwarf in Ered Luin. And one of the cleverest scholars in Ered Luin. Because despite everything, that is what we are. And imagine, guardsman, what we could have been, if Nori's health wasn't what it is."
And Nori wanted to laugh, and to cry. But Thorin met his eyes steadily.
"We can wait a few days." He said calmly. "We are all tired and cold."
Three days later, Nori was able to join them on their trek to Erebor. And if he wasn't completely recovered, well. Everyone always made sure he was closest to the fire at nights, and no one commented when he did his stretches every day. No one commented when Dori and Ori continued to knit, blankets, gloves, sweaters, extra layers that, at one point or another, Nori was often seen wearing. No one commented when Nori occasionally fumbled when rolling a coin or knife across his knuckles, or walked a little slower.
Nori didn't comment when climbing the mountain, Dwalin walked next to him, blocking the wind, and covering his much smaller hands in his large warm one. Guilt was better at teaching compassion then anything other than similarity.
So, this is very, very loosely based off of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Obviously not entirely accurate, as to the best of my knowledge no one has ever thought that arthritis affects the brain, and poppy milk is, perhaps, a little too strong to treat it. Arthritis can paralyze the afflicted by swelling their joints to the point that it's impossible to move, and cold and damp do exacerbate the symptoms. It can also affect the eyes and cause bones to be malformed. If you've ever looked an an older ladies hands and seen that their twisted up it is probably caused by arthritis.
This was written when I was having flare ups from my own JRA, but in no way reflects my own experience or thoughts on my own battles with the issue. That said, some of Nori's frustration with his limits, as understated as they are here, come from me. Especially about forgetting how many joints are in your feet.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit in any forms, or Nori. I am not a doctor nor any form of trained medical professional.
This is my first time posting, though I've been a long time reader, and writer, of fan fiction. I had planned on expanding this when it was first written, but don't believe that I can do the story justice without delving a little too deeply into my own issues. If any one wants to take this idea and run with it, do it with my blessings, but please give me a heads up so I can read with interest.
Have a happy!
-Reni