It's been ages since my last fanfic. A lot has happened during the last months and one of the highlights was HobbitCon 4 in Bonn. And at the costume contest, two girls coyplaying as Nori and Ori gave a performance that had me - and many others - in tears. I knew right then and there that I would love to read that as a fanfic, and well, this here doesn't even come close to what I saw on stage, I also didn't use exactly the same words, but anyway... I tried.

They are coming

The knock on the door woke Nori from a restless slumber. Groaning slightly, he pushed himself up from the bed. The fire the in the room had died down while he'd been sleeping. He could feel a cold chill in his bones, especially in his right leg that had yet to heal completely. He reached for his wooden stick.

"Come in!" he called and hobbled towards the door.

He recognised the dwarf in the doorway as one of King Thorin's messengers. In that moment he understood.

"King Thorin asks to see you, Nori," said the other dwarf. "You and your brother."

Nori nodded silently. He knew what this request meant. It was true, then. The rumours of Moria and its destruction, of Balin's defeat, they were true. He didn't need the young king to tell him. They had guessed it long ago, when no news had reached Erebor anymore and ravens had been sent and never returned.

And still.

He dismissed the helping hand of the messenger. He could walk on his own, even though it might take a while. His movements were stiff and slow, like that of an old dwarf, and Durin knew he felt older than his years. The battle of Dale had left its mark, both visible and invisible. Nori barely remembered the blow that had almost cost him his leg. The cries and screams of the wounded and dying were still on his mind when he closed his eyes; they often mingled with the memories of the other battle, a long time ago. But more than that he remembered his brother's voice, talking to him, shouting at him, all while pressing his large hands against his leg to stop the blood.

Not you as well. Not you as well. I won't fail again.

With these words on his mind he stopped at Dori's door. He knocked once, twice, but no one answered. Cautiously he opened the unlocked door. The room seemed vacant. A candle on the table had burnt down; the ashes in the fireplace were cold. Nori needed a few moments to adjust to the dim light.

"Brother?"

He found him slumped in his old armchair, the one he had found amidst the rubble, cleaned and claimed for himself. Dori's hair was as white as the snowy top of the mountain itself, and even though Nori couldn't see his face he knew that it was wrinkled, with deep lines around his eyes and mouth, scars not from a blade but from grief. He had known it all along, Nori realised. He hadn't guessed, suspected, feared, but known.

"Dori?" he asked, and his own voice sounded small within the stone walls. "The king wants to see us."

But Dori didn't answer. His gaze was set on the wall, richly decorated with tapestries of gold and blue and red. Today, they seemed only grey. Nori sighed and hesitated.

"Maybe…"

But he didn't finish his sentence. There was no maybe, no silver line of Mithril amidst the ashes that he could hold onto. Deep down, he knew that much. Wordlessly he turned around. His feet shuffled against the cold floor.

The grand hall with the carven throne was empty but for the king and two of his guards. The latter retreated with respectful nods when Nori entered. The former thief still felt slightly uncomfortable whenever he was inside the throne room. Beautiful tapestries were hung up on the walls, with pillars highly decorated with engraved patterns reaching high up to the ceiling. It was luxury and wealth of a kind that Nori had never known for most of his life, and that he hadn't gotten used to ever since he had received his share of the treasure. Therefore he shifted a little as he stood before the king, before he bowed low.

"My king."

"Nori."

The young king smiled almost shyly. It was apparent that he, too, wasn't yet used to being addressed like that. Thorin Stonehelm had become king after his father Dáin's death in the battle of Dale. Just like his father and his famous namesake, Thorin III had fought bravely despite his youth, Nori thought.

Only then he realised that the dwarf was actually older than Fíli had been when –

No.

He wouldn't allow this thought to evolve. It was a memory of a time long past.

"Nori", said Thorin and thus shook Nori from his thoughts. "I take it you know why I sent for you. Gimli Glóinsson gave this to me. It was meant for my father, but…" He hesitated, for a moment himself lost in thought. "I have read the most important parts. I have sent for Dwalin, but he shut the door in poor Vanir's face, so take your time."

He folded back his heavily embroidered cloak and revealed the book in his lap. Nori stepped forward when Thorin gestured for him to come. The book looked ancient, with a deep scratch across the cover and dents in the spine; it was a book that had seen history happening and that had somehow, against the odds, lived to tell it. He barely noticed how he held his breath when he took the heavy, leather-bound book from Thorin. His hands were steady, though inside his heart was racing. He wished Dori was there.

"Thank you", he said with a raspy voice. For a moment he stood frozen in place, unsure whether or not he was supposed to stay. But Thorin gestured for him to take his leave, and Nori retreated slowly. The book was heavy in his arm as he made for his rooms. He leant onto his walking stick and rested for a moment. He knew he was stalling. Part of him didn't want to read the book, while the other almost begged him to open it.

Eventually he reached his dormitory. The door closed behind him, and the rush of wind made the candle light flicker for a moment. His armchair awaited him, but Nori headed for the small wooden table and the old chair with the twice fixed leg instead. It was a shabby thing, uncomfortable to sit upon and only good for lighting a fire, if he was honest. But there was something about that piece of furniture that made Nori keep it. It had broken twice; the first time when Nori had smashed it against the wall after hearing of his little brother's leaving, the second time when Bombur had sat on it during his last visit.

The wood groaned in protest when Nori sunk onto the chair. The dwarf laid the book onto the table in front of him. Tenderly he traced the engraved runes on the leather with his finger. A bit of dust had settled there and he blew it away. The dust vanished. The deep scratch remained. For a moment he only sat there, staring at it, wondering if the same weapon that had hurt the book had killed his brother. Or had he used the book as a shield, holding it against his body to protect himself?

More probably he had shielded the book with his skin and bones, and paid the price.

Nori's eyes were moist when these thoughts whirled inside his head. His hands were shaking. Carefully, ever so slowly, he opened the book and began to read.

We drove out the orcs from the Great Gate and guardroom and took the First Hall. We slew many in the bright sun in the dale. Flói was killed by an arrow.

The words conjured images in Nori's head, sounds of fighting and dying and sometimes even laughter. He saw figures drenched in red and black, their shapeless bodies entwined with the hastily scribbled words.

Balin is now lord of Moria.

He could see him as if he was standing right before him. The white beard, the twinkle in his eyes that had still been there, albeit not as bright as it once had been. Once, before the quest, before the battle before the gates of Erebor that had claimed the lives of those he had loved. Maybe his fate had been decided back then. Maybe he had known from that day that Erebor would never be his home.

"But why you, Ori?" Nori whispered. "Why did you have to go?"

And why, the mean voice in his head asked, didn't you try to make him stay?

He focused on the words, trying in vain to shut out the voice, and he squinted at the letters before him. Some words were barely decipherable, others not readable at all where pages had been stained and torn.

Yesterday being the tenth of November Balin, lord of Moria, fell in Dimrill Dale. He went alone to look in Mirrormere. An orc shot him from behind a stone.

He could hardly breathe when the handwriting suddenly changed. He knew the shape of these letters. Often he had mocked Ori for his attempts to learn to write in the Elven script. But Ori had laughed and carried on, ignoring his brother's jest.

"When did you laugh for the last time, brother?"

He ran a shaking hand down his face. Balin gone, slain by the enemy. It made Nori wonder if the old dwarf had seen himself in the dark waters of Mirrormere before he died, or if he had only seen the black depth. He thought of Dwalin, the warrior who had fought and lost everything.

We have barred the gates, but doubt if we can hold them long.

He could almost hear Ori's voice, the slightly high-pitched tone he had always teased him about. You sound like a lass, he had said, and Dori had chucked him over the head for that while Ori had grumbled very un-ladylike words into his non-existent beard. Even after the quest for Erebor, the slaying of a dragon and the Battle of the Five Armies, his younger brother had never seemed fully grown up.

"I guess we only wished for you to be a child for just a while longer," Nori sighed and remembered many a night of brotherly bickering and quarrelling. It hadn't been easy for Ori to grow up without a father, but with a mother who had a reputation in the village that Ori had yet had to understand when the neighbours whispered behind his back.

"Who were they to talk, hm?"

Furiously, Nori balled his fist. Their mother had loved her children, and Ori most of all. Nothing else mattered. The memory of her made Nori's eyes burn. She would never know how her two eldest had failed her baby boy.

Her baby. His brother. His brother, who had had a heart too big and loving for the world he'd been born into; who had been too kind for the cruelty and madness of life beyond the safe wall of home.

If there is no escape it will be a horrible fate to suffer, but I shall hold.

His brother, who had had the heart and courage to fear no dragon, to follow his kin through fire and flame to stand and fight by their side. He could see him, eyes set firmly onto the stone walls, an axe in his hand, the echoes of broken cries in his head, never wavering, never running. Loyalty, honour, a willing heart, aye, and courage and love beyond measure.

We cannot get out. We cannot get out.

"Did you regret it, then, my brother? Did you wish you had never left?"

Nori spoke to the runes before him, wanting to understand, to know, and at the same time wishing he had never started to read.

The words blurred before his eyes as the tragic events unfolded in his mind. Óin, dear old Óin. He wondered how Gimli had taken the news. The former apothecary had been his uncle, after all, and Mahal knew it was always a close relationship between uncle and nephew.

He wiped his hand across his eyes. Too many had been buried, uncles and nephews, fathers and sons, old and young, and for what? He stared blankly at the black ink on white paper laid out before him. The script changed, became less neat, until it was but an almost undecipherable blur of lines that somehow still formed words. But he knew the hand that had written them. This was no ordinary history book. It was so much more.

The end comes soon.

Drums in the deep.

They are coming.

Maybe it was with these three words that Nori's world collapsed. The book fell from his hands, hit the stony ground with a dull thud, and remained still.

"I am so sorry, my brother," Nori rasped, and when a low sob escaped his chest he pressed his hands against his face and let the tears fall that he had held back for so long. It didn't matter. No one would see, and who was to blame him, anyway. Many years ago had said farewell to his brother, but it was only now that he felt his absence so profoundly, deeply in his heart that he wanted to scream. Only now he understood, with full clarity, that he would never talk to him again, not in this life. They would meet again in Mandos' halls, he clung to that hope, but it was of little comfort in that moment of agony.

"Please tell me we'll meet again," he whispered. "Please…"

A tear found its way past his fingers and hit the ground like a hammer would crash onto an anvil. Another followed. The third landed on the old leather of the book. It crept into the deep wound that a weapon had carved into its front and slowly rolled towards the broken spine.

The dwarf froze when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He didn't need to look up.

"He is gone, Dori," he said with a voice heavy with tears. "He is gone."

For a moment his older brother didn't reply. Slowly Nori opened his eyes to face him. He had cried, and he looked older, but then it was the elder one who found the strength to pull Nori into a tight embrace.

"He is gone, Dori."

"Aye. But we shall hold."

The words were spoken quietly, though with a strong will that Nori hadn't heard from his brother in ages. He held on to these words, for they were everything he had. These words, and his brother.

"We shall hold."