Chapter Text
Cover Art by me.
Nori considered himself very fortunate that he still had had their ‘amad to explain the important things in life to him. Kori had been a great Dwarrowdam, the best if anyone asked her sons, and theirs were the only opinions that mattered anyway. She had been realistic in her outlook on life but had had enough hope to last them through the hard times until first Dori and then also Nori could do their part to help. Men had an expression he thought fit her very well, even if no one else seemed to quite understand how one Dwarf could be more `down to earth´ than another.
Kori had taught them of arukhaz santorva - the inner need of every Dwarf to master a specific craft – of sanâzyung – a Dwarf’s one love that made all others pale in comparison – and of hagulhaz âzyung – the need to create a specific item for their One and only them.
That item, commonly called ‘agalhaz sanâzyung, the Gift, varied from Dwarf to Dwarf. Most reported that their Gift hadn’t made any sense at all until they actually met their One, and it wasn’t always at their first meeting either. Anything was possible, and their ‘amad had had many stories to teach her sons just that. There was the one about the carpenter who carried with them a wooden staff for several decades, sometimes to replace the broken handle of a war-hammer, sometimes it was the perfect height to serve as a crutch for their One. It was rather obvious that not all of those stories were true, but that wasn’t important. Important was only that Dori and Nori grew up knowing with absolute certainty that it didn’t matter at all what their craft was or what The Calling made them do. It would be perfect for their respective One either way, worth it, and having that knowledge to fall back on was invaluable whenever disaster struck.
Neither Nori nor Dori had ever asked their mother if she had felt The Calling and which if any of their fathers (the first lost to the Dragon, the third to a mining accident, the second simply gone) had been her sanâzyung. However, one time, their ‘amad had spoken about how sometimes Dwarrow never felt The Calling for one reason or another, and the thought haunted Nori for many years especially when the war started.
Nori had been far too young to fight at Azanulbizar himself – Dori, too, and their mother had thanked Mahâl for that every day for the rest of her life – but he had seen how many left and how very few returned. It had made him wonder why one should feel The Calling when their One had already died or vice versa, and it made him watch those returning and those that had stayed behind.
Nori took two lessons from his observations: 1) it was possible and perfectly alright to love and desire someone not your One, and 2) finding your One was no guarantee for happiness. He concluded that love was always imperfect, though Nori was willing to consider that there might be one who could prove him wrong, so he called them santhadulur and gave up correcting people when they assumed he was especially dedicated or romantic. Those that knew him noticed soon enough that he most definitely wasn’t any more faithful to someone he hadn’t met yet than the next Dwarf anyway.
Nori was convinced Dori had felt The Calling but never asked about that either. It was a private matter, and he would find out when the time came. That he hadn’t felt the hagulhaz âzyung himself never bothered him. There were other things to worry about, after all, most importantly the survival of his family.
They lost their mother the day they got little Ori. It was not a fair exchange, not at all, but they loved their little brother all the more for it, though they certainly showed it differently; Dori through nurturing and fussing, Nori through providing by his own means and teaching Ori what their older brother would not. They both knew Ori would likely need that particular knowledge, even if Dori would never admit it, as it was with many things.
It would have been easy to say Nori turned to thievery because it was the only way for an underaged orphaned Dwarfling to provide for their family at the time, and there was a truth to it, certainly, but that wasn’t the only reason. The important part was that Kori’s second son liked what he did and couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Thievery was not an honourable craft; most wouldn’t even call it a craft to begin with, but Nori begged to differ. They said everyone could be a thief; he said everyone could be a smith. The difference was the quality. Thievery was dangerous; so was being a warrior. In fact, Nori was sure he actually got the better deal in comparison. Stealing was illegal; so were the prices some merchants demanded for wares crafted by apprentices who were never credited or paid fairly for it. Nori would never claim to be a law-abiding or honest person, not even a good person on most days, but he certainly wasn’t the kind of criminal the guards should bother with. (Unless he antagonised them for the thrill of the hunt, of course, but that was an entirely different ore to mine).
In the end, it didn’t matter what other people said anyway. Nori knew he had followed his arukhaz santorva; he just couldn’t speak about it in public as others did. And he had his brothers, alive, healthy, and doing as well as possible given the circumstances. He was content with his life as it was, happy even, and didn’t worry about The Calling at all ... until Ori started to ask questions.
Well, of course the Dwarfling asked questions; especially the kind of uncomfortable questions all children tended to ask. Dori and Nori tried their best to make their mother proud, even if it sometimes meant bending the truth or flat-out lying. And why the blazes should they tell the lad the truth so early anyway? Honouring their mother by calling themselves her sons was better than being fatherless bastards, no matter if the men themselves had been honourable or not. And when Ori asked about hagulhaz âzyung, they told him the same stories as their mother had told them and added their own, and the little one looked up at them as they had looked at their ‘amad and understood.
They had done that together, Dori and Nori, but when the lad asked how one knew they felt The Calling, Dori only offered a short `you will know´ before leaving Nori with a confused child and no idea whatsoever how to respond to that. It must have been revenge for all the times the middle brother had left on similar occasions, had to be. The alternative would be that the topic caused Dori grief and Nori didn’t want to consider that. They might not always get along, but that didn’t mean they wished each other ill, and Dori deserved someone good in his life.
Ori started to ramble, not so much talking with Nori than talking at him. He theorised that, since every Dwarf was unique as a person and in their craft, no two smiths or warriors were alike. Thus it only made sense that The Calling would feel differently for everyone and result in different ‘agalhaz sanâzyung.
“What do you think it will feel like for you?”
It was a good question; one Nori had never actually asked himself, content with what he had and neither hoping nor dreading that he might feel The Calling one day. Now, however, his baby brother had him thinking.
He always imagined it as waking up in the middle of the night, bathed in sweat and unable to rest until he had completed a certain piece that may not make sense at that moment, but might be worth it in the long run.
But he didn’t craft things, did he? He stole. He stole information and items; sometimes to sell them in order to support his brothers, other times because he was paid to do it, needed that particular item or information, or simply because he wanted it. He had several hidden caches all over the world, stashes with tools, emergency supplies, but mostly trinkets that wouldn’t sell for much and had no particular use, things stolen and kept because he fancied them.
That night, Nori did wake up in cold sweat, though it was definitely not The Calling rousing him but questions, thousands of them. What if The Calling wasn’t as powerful as he imagined? What if he had already felt it? What if he had met his santhadulur and Nori didn’t notice or, worse, something terrible had happened to them because Nori didn’t have his ‘agalhaz sanâzyung with him?
Nori’s moral compass was admittedly as bound to fail him as Thorin I-can’t-find-my-way-out-of-an-open-box Oakenshield’s rumoured sense of direction, but santhadulur was something to be cherished. He might not need them – though Nori was fully prepared to change his mind about that particular point if it ever came up – and might not gain any happiness from the experience, but them coming to harm, maybe suffering the same doubts or doubting their own worth because of him ... that was unacceptable. So the next day the thief packed his travel pack, bade his brothers goodbye, and left to hunt down every single cache he had, some as far as Gondor and Rhûn, relentlessly sorting through it all and getting rid of everything that meant nothing to him or had no use.
When Nori returned, it was with a few more scars, knives, and numerous new pockets in his clothes to store the few trinkets he could not make himself give away. Most were things that reminded him of their ‘amad, some he associated with his brothers, but nothing he could pin on anything he knew about hagulhaz âzyung or santhadulur.
It was not a very satisfying result in regards to a potential One, but Nori slept better being sure, and as a little reward for himself and because he never returned without gifts, he made a short detour before heading for Khagolabbad.
Armukhakkar was a small strip of land inhabited by the oddest creatures to ever walk the face of Arda. Melekûnh had no beards at all and were always barefooted. The most valuable thing to be found in their dwellings was the odd piece of cutlery – usually family heirlooms whose value was mostly sentimental and hardly ever worth the effort of stealing. Their cooking, however, was delicious and the drinks even better. Also, they lived underground. It might be just lush green hills, lacking any and all fortifications, but Nori was willing to give them points for being more sensible than the taller races. They also had more children running around than grass on their hills, so the Hobbits – the few he had talked with in Bree insisted they were `not half of anything´, and they could be quite vicious in their own ways, so Nori was careful about what he called them in Westron, especially in their presence – had to be doing something right.
He bought tea for Dori, a toy and candied fruits for Ori, and, out of principle, stole some tomatoes for himself from the garden of a newly finished burrow, the paint on the green door still wet. Then Nori went home to his brothers and his old ways, content with his craft and not having felt The Calling. He stole and wandered, and no one would be any wiser if he questioned himself more often now on why he kept some things. And if his wanderings led him through the Shire more often than strictly necessary and he continued to lift tomatoes or whatever was ripe at the moment from the same garden around a burrow with a green round door under a hill, well, it wasn’t as if the Hobbits were starving, and it certainly wasn’t his fault that this Hobbit knew how to grow tasty plants.