The Only Blood I Have Left
A Hobbit Fanfiction by Goldberry-in-the-Rushes (aka Freya)
Crossposted from AO3Author's Notes:I don't own it.
PROTECT DORI AT ALL COSTS HE LOVES HIS BROTHERS AND WOULD DIE FOR THEM.
(See the end of the work for more notes.)
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He was walking through town when he heard it, the whisper that seemed to follow his family everywhere these days. Dori clutched Nori’s small hand tighter and bounced Ori higher onto his hip, ducking his head down and speeding up. Even with mother barely cold in the stone, some dwarrows knew no shame.
Barely of age himself, Dori kept sole charge of his brothers now. They were all he had, his flesh and blood. His father vanished in dragon fire, their fathers lost to the trials of life, their mother gone to a wasting illness, all that remained to him were his little brothers, as like to him as they were different.
They were his pride and joy.
He gritted his teeth against the whispers and hurried towards his shop. He fumbled with the keys and just got the door cracked when he heard it, the low wet noise that usually preceded a rather foul glob of spit lobbed in his direction. Nudging Nori inside and handing him tiny little Ori, he firmly shut the door and spun on his heel just in time to see a nearby tradesman spit in his direction.
Whispers he could deal with, outright hostility was another matter entirely. Dori stepped toward the man with a threatening gleam in his eye.
The man did not take the hint, picking at his teeth with a filthy fingernail. “Yer mother was a *beep*, boy. If ya don’t believe me yer
brothers…” He spat again, “are proof enough. No one wants to purchase anything from the mismatched family of a wh-” His last foul word went unfinished as Dori stalked over to him and laid a solid punch into his filthy mouth, laying him out flat with one blow. Cold fury blazed in his eyes, and he considered stepping on the man’s fingers. No, that was too much, no need to do that.
Instead, shaking with rage, Dori balled his hands into fists as he stood over the man. “How dare you. You know nothing of my family and yet you can stand there and make accusations like that? My mother was a fine dwarrowdam. She raised the three of us as best she could as all three of her husbands died. Died! And left her a widow thrice over. How dare you judge us when our mother lies in the stone?”
The man spit out a broken bit of tooth and a glob of blood before grinning up maliciously at Dori. “Oh, yes ya say these things now, but sooner or later ya will resent yer brothers. They share only half yer blood, deserve only half yer loyalty. Trust me, half their blood may be yer mother, but the other half comes from men who would lower their standards for a *beep*.” His grin vanished at the sudden feral gleam in Dori’s eyes and the warning curl at the corner of the dwarrow’s mouth.
Dori reached down and slapped him hard, before pulling him up to eyelevel (and toes almost off the ground) by the tip of his nose. “My mother loved her husbands. Loved them enough to have children with them, loved them enough to grieve each time they passed in a cruel world away from stone. The same blood runs in my veins as runs in my brother’s veins, you pile of orc-filth. The blood of my strong-willed mother and the last of her proud lineage. They deserve all the loyalty I have, and then some. They are the only blood I have left and I treasure each moment we have. With idiots like you around, each one may very well be our last.” He hauled upward with all his strength and bit back a grin as the tradesman squawked indignantly. The grin faded when the man spat in his face.
Grip like iron on the man’s nose, he spun around to the other tradesmen in the square. “Would anyone like to claim this sack of warg-dung before I toss it to the nearest gutter?” His fury must have shown on his face, because the stalls and shop-fronts were conspicuously silent. Nodding, Dori slung the man away from him by the nose and delivered a swift boot to his rear.
“I’m letting you off easy, but the next time you,” Dori raised his voice, “or anyone else, insults my mother or my beloved brothers, you will walk away with significantly fewer intact body parts. Is that understood?” He stepped slightly towards the man when he didn’t immediately respond, raising his fists and hissing the words again. “Is that understood?”
The man, eyes widened with terror, nodded mutely before spinning around and fleeing down the street. Good riddance to bad rubbish, hopefully the guard would catch him doing something illegal later. Scum like that didn’t last long in the Ered Luin. Insulting dwarrowdams was a good way to get shanked. Which was probably why the other shopkeepers had shut up.
Dori wiped his hands on his once-clean apron and turned back to the shop. He closed his eyes briefly and felt his shoulders sink as he saw Nori standing in the now-open doorway, Ori still balanced in his arms.
How much had he heard?When he opened his eyes though, Nori was grinning from ear to ear. “That was awesome! You lifted him up by his nose like he was nuffin! Am I gonna be able to do that someday? Are people gonna fear me like they fear you? Dori, Nori, and Ori! Frori’s Three Terrifying Sons! We could be legends!”
Dori sank down in front of his brothers, gathering them into his arms. “We could at that,
kêl nadad amê.”
They might be legends later, but for now they were family. Small, but whole.
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End Notes:
kêl nadad amê – my little brother (formal)
This work was inspired by some truely awful character bashing that I felt the need to rectify. Take that for what you will.
. I dont know just a ton about the backstories so I am curious is this fan foc hased on any of tolkiens facts or did you come up with all the info your self?
