for all the gold || hobbit {completed}

chapter one - thick as thieves

Night was just beginning to fall over the Blue Mountains when I made my way down the long dirt track and into the Ruined Gorge. While this may seem like an adventurous start for my story, the Ruined Gorge was rather my local tavern, and not a place of monsters and orcs. It had been a miserable day, even by the west-laying region's usual standards: grey and drizzly throughout, and things were not much brighter underneath the earth.

By the time I made by appearance, the tavern had fallen into its usual, disreputable state. Old, rotten tables lay carelessly, overturned, across the ground - a fight had just been broken up. There was dirt everywhere, grime up the walls and long stamped into the flagstones; the kind of dirt you see gather under your nails over time. Unwashed dwarves sat about; fresh, smelly and dusty from a day in the mines, drinking deep into chipped tankards. None of them bothered to look up as I opened the door; the broken bell above my head moving without making a sound.

"Ale," I said to the tavern keep as I passed. No hellos. No how-dee-dos. This was not the kind of establishment where polite chit-chat was required. The tavern keep merely pushed the tankard towards me with only a cursory grunt of acknowledgement. As per my usual evening routine, I took the drink from him with barely a nod, and then brought it over to my little corner. The table here, while rickety, was still standing upright, and here at least I could find the bottom of my tankard easily and safely enough, what with the wall at my back and the door well in my line of vision.

It swung open several more times, the bell continuing to move uselessly and silently; the Ruined Gorge was a favourite among the kind of folk who preferred to do their business at night. One particular fellow caught my eye from where he sat but two tables from mine. Who could ignore the red, three-spiked bouffant of dear, old Nori? He may have been only a few yards away from me- not that he would have recognised me straight away as I had yet to pull back my hood - but his conversation was too low and too concealed by the general din of the room for me to catch it. His companion however was interesting to look at - better dressed than any other dwarf in this room, although sadly he was too smart to keep his affluence in an easy to grab pouch on his belt. A respectable fellow this one. The kind who had a profession and a decent name. A grey beard, braided into a case (silver, was it?) and a long moustache. A fine suit: a real dandy then. What would his sort have to do with a common thief like our Nori?

Whatever the two were talking about, it proved to be heated. The respectable fellow's full cheeks were a full ruddy red. He spat whatever else he had to say out, drew his coat closer to him and stormed back out of the door; his tankard just as frothy and full as when the tavern keep had given it to him.

Being a dwarf of some curiousity and having known Nori for far longer than either of us would have liked, I took the opportunity gladly to siddle over and make my presence known.

"Nithi?" he gasped- evidently my arrival had slipped past his guard. "Look, about the money. I'll get it to you by-"

"It's not about the money," I said, although it was. I was just saving that particular topic for a better time, but this was just too good a moment to miss. I pulled back my hood, shook my light braids out, brushed my beard down with my hand. "Who was that?" I added, with a rare enough smile, all friendly like.

"No one," Nori grunted in reply, knocking back his drink hastily. Something about seeing me smile so had really unsettled him and he looked ready to make a quick escape. So I called over to the tavern keep and soon we had freshly refilled tankards.

"My brother," he admitted, finally, after his third drink. "Dori."

"Dori?" I had never, in all the years I had known Nori, heard him mention having a brother, let alone telling me his name.