The greatest mistake of Dwalin's life was letting Ori go.
They were an unlikely pair, that was true. By the time the company set out to reclaim their lost home with burglar in tow, Dwalin had long since come to the conclusion that companionship was not in his fate. But close quarters and constant interaction can do funny things to such malleable things as hearts, and companionship was indeed to be found for Dwalin, surprising though it appeared in the soft press of lips - barely a flutter against his cheek - by a young and exceedingly polite young scribe.
Dwalin had waited after that, both to give Ori a chance to know himself sure, and to focus on the quest at hand. But when all was said and done, Ori did not change his mind. He came to Dwalin after Thorin's death, when no other dared approach the angry dwarf grieving for his dearest friend, and with only the soft weight of Ori's hand on his shoulder, Dwalin broke down and pulled him close, sobbing into his shoulder until the thick knitted wool at the neck of his jumper darkened with the warrior's tears.
It wasn't terribly long after that Dwalin presented the young dwarf with a set of delicately handcrafted quill nibs, and Ori kissed him again before the surprise had even fully faded to a blush in his cheeks. And so it was, in the short course of a kiss, that Dwalin, fierce and proud warrior, and Ori, kindhearted scribe, despite their differences, became to each other what many seek and never find - true and steadfast companions, bound in the complex knot of an honest love.
Nearly fifty years they spent together, measured over the passing of seasons and in the number of Dwalin's rare smiles, the countless yards of wool Ori's needles knit, the midnight kisses they would share when Dwalin found his lover charting the stars into his journal long after the lamps had been put out for the night. They were of a private mind, and rarely expressed their love so overtly in public, but it was not difficult to see it when Dwalin began turning up in the library more often, and Ori on the training fields, both parties looking wholly out of place but stealing meaningful glances at each other just the same. They quarreled, sometimes, as all real lovers do, but never so much as they laughed, and touched, and loved, and there were no arguments that didn't resolve themselves when pride was given a chance to check itself and find regret in its actions.
It is sad indeed that pride is not always given that chance to redeem itself, and so it was that Dwalin watched Ori walk away, bound for Moria with Dwalin's age-addled brother, intent as they were on getting back the mines after the (questionable) success of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain. Dwalin thought their quest foolhardy, but it truth he would have been at the front of their company had it not been for a promise made to Thorin as he lay dying - a promise to never let Erebor fall again so long as he lived; to stay near the mountain and protect it from any evil that sought to destroy it. He had sworn to Thorin that the king's death would not be in vain, and Dwalin would not see that oath broken, even as his only love packed his quills and books in preparation for the journey ahead.
They fought fiercely about it, stubbornness fanning the flames of their anger until they barely had words to speak to each other. It was an old argument, at its heart, an argument that they might have recognized had they taken the time to calm their strong wills, but that was a skill that did not come naturally to dwarves - even those with kind eyes and gentle nature. Wistful for the thrill of another adventure, Dwalin envied Ori, but not as much as he simply wanted to protect him from the dangers that surely lay in Moria. Ori, as might be suspected, would not stand to be coddled in such a way, not after a childhood so carefully kept in the hands of his older brothers. He was brave in spirit even as he was soft in speech, and railed viciously against any attempt by Dwalin to keep him in Erebor for his safety.
Dwalin berated himself for it later, after years passed with no word from his little scribe. Had it not been Ori himself who, on their first night together, had looked his lover in the eye and asked him not to treat him so gently? Who had always insisted that he didn't need to be a warrior to take care of himself, that he wouldn't shatter like thin glass every time he tripped over his own clumsy feet? Of course Ori would fight to prove himself; he'd been doing it his whole life, after all, sheltered as he had been by Dori and Nori.
Angry at Dwalin he most certainly was, but Ori still came to say goodbye before they set out, finding the warrior angrily slashing at a practice dummy while any living opponents he may have had gave him a wide berth and conspicuously alarmed glances. He stilled when Ori called out to him, tall and proud as ever he was, but Ori never was one to be frightened of his lover, even at his most volatile (a fact that Dwalin both resented and adored). It wasn't until Ori was close, leaning in to press the same shy kiss to his cheek from fifty years previous, that Dwalin caught the uncertainty in his eyes.
"Don't go," was all he said.
"Just wait. I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone," Ori had replied, and then he was gone, and Dwalin most certainly did notice.
Dwalin waited thirty years.
The bitterness he felt at Ori for leaving faded eventually into anger at himself for letting him go. In time, that too began to fade, replaced with the stinging doubt that maybe Ori had left to escape from him, perhaps it was Ori's way of saying he didn't love him anymore and wanted out. He had not heard a single word from his little scribe, but neither had they been sent word from his brother Balin, and Dwalin had thirty years to finally know how fear felt when it settled in your belly like poison.
They sent Gloin and his boy to Rivendell to seek the counsel of Elrond Half-Elven. The elf kept a close watch over Middle Earth; if there was news of Moria, he would know. But when Gloin returned without his son, it was only to report that Elrond had much greater troubles on his mind than the silence from Moria. Still Dwalin waited.
It was not long after the destruction of the Ring and the start of the Fourth Age that Gandalf - white now - returned to Erebor, having deposited the ringbearer back in the Shire and rid it of the evil that waited for them there, and he brought with him the ill news that the dwarves had long expected. Moria was lost. All were dead. He did not need to say the words to Dwalin for him to know; Gandalf's eyes told him that sweet Ori had fallen beside them.
There are many volumes in Erebor's library that bear Ori's careful handwriting - histories, and books of lore and legend, and tales of the far-off edges of Middle Earth. But there is only one volume wherein Ori wrote some of his own adventures, namely covering the nasty business with Smaug the Terrible and the trouble surrounding him. The dwarves who would later open this volume often lamented that many of the words had been smudged out almost illegibly, but there are those who remember how it happened, who recall the story of the fearsome warrior Dwalin crying for his lost love over the pages of that book. Dwalin did not set foot in the library ever again after that day, so heartbreaking was his memory of that place to which Ori had given so much of his dedication.
There were times when Dwalin half expected to feel the press of a careful hand on his shoulder just as he had after Thorin's death, to know in its steady comfort that he was not alone, but the touch never came. Who was left to know that the toughened fighter needed the reassurance, now that his dearest friend, his brother, and his only lover were no more? Dwalin allowed himself three days to mourn the passing of Balin and Ori, and on the morning of the fourth day, when the smoky scent of their empty funeral pyres had finally faded from the air, Dwalin squared his shoulders and settled his stern expression firmly back into place before returning to the frayed threads of his life alone. Frayed threads, however, do not necessarily break.
There was not a single dwarf - least of all Dwalin - who expected their lost scribe to come stumbling back into Erebor one afternoon, but that is exactly how it happened. It was Dwalin on the wall that day, as it often was (for the dwarf would haunt the place even when it was not his turn to watch), and he thought at first he had lost himself in a fantasy, if his waking dreams had ever been so vivid. But when he climbed - nearly tumbled - down off the wall, it was not to the bashful, rosy-cheeked Ori that peppered his memories. The dwarf before him was travel-weary and too thin, his hair streaked with the fast onset of grey and his skin creased with the shallow lines of forming wrinkles and healed scars alike. But it was Ori, unmistakably Ori, and when he turned his tired eyes to Dwalin, the latter remembered what it felt like to be seen again.
"But you died..." Dwalin's disbelieving voice shook as he reached out to push the overgrown bangs from Ori's face. "You died in Moria..."
Ori shook his head, his big eyes searching Dwalin's face - but for what, neither was certain. "I didn't," he said, and his voice sounded different than it had thirty years before.
"Gandalf saw your bones," Dwalin told him. "He took the journal from your hands! How can you be standing here now?"
But Ori just shook his head again, and reached into his tunic. "It wasn't me," he said. "If he had just looked at the quill he would have known." And from inside his shirt, where he kept it tucked safely against his heart, he pulled out his pen and held it up for Dwalin to see the same delicate nib he had made with his own hands and given to Ori nearly eighty years before.
Dwalin could hardly push through the sudden tightness in his chest. "You've been gone for thirty years," he choked.
Ori dropped his gaze then, his shoulders slumped in exhaustion. "It was only by a stroke of luck that I escaped the mines at all. I got separated from the rest, and the orcs were so focused on them that none noticed me. It felt like an age before I ever found my way out without drawing attention to myself, and the journey back was no less difficult." When Ori looked up at him again, Dwalin could see the hope and uncertainty of youthful romance in his face, a reflection long since tarnished but still just visible. "I am no warrior," Ori whispered, and for a moment, it felt like he had never gone, and they stood together talking just as they had when everything was as it should be.
"Even warriors would not make it through such perils," Dwalin answered, and in the space of a step, they were together again, pressed as close as they could be, and Dwalin had never tasted lips so sweet as those he had waited thirty years to capture with his own again.
The guard dwarves saw less of Dwalin on the wall after that, busy as he was ensuring that Ori regained his strength as much as possible. Ori caught his lover staring so often that he jokingly offered to draw him a self-portrait to stare at instead, but in truth, Dwalin only wanted to catch up on every year he had missed, to chart their time apart in the scars and grey hairs and crows' feet that had bloomed during their long separation.
If Ori had asked (and he would have asked, this time around) to leave and go on another adventure, Dwalin would have let him, for he was sure now as he had never before been that Ori could handle himself, warrior or not. As it were, it was never a problem in the days that followed, because Ori never asked. He had had his fill of adventures, and wanted only to plant his feet in the mountain where he belonged, next to his unexpected mate.
They had ninety more years together after Ori's return, and Dwalin was quite old indeed, even for a dwarf, before his death. It was a matter of heated debate for many years to come whether it was the dwarf's own stubbornness or his love for Ori that kept him alive until his lover passed away first, but the answer to that was irrelevant really. Dwalin would not waste another day that could be spent at Ori's side, and so he made death wait to take him until Ori's own time was up.
In the years they had left, Dwalin never forgave himself for letting Ori go, and he carried the memory of that heartbreak with him until he breathed his final breath. It was indeed the greatest mistake he ever made, but as his little warrior-scribe fell asleep tucked against his chest every night for his remaining years, Dwalin would pull him close and kiss his scattered scars, for mistakes in this life are inevitable, but redemption, when it comes, is more precious than all the gold in Erebor.