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It was not a well-known fact that Dwalin had a soft spot for cats, because he didn’t think it was anyone else’s I’ll-cut-your-nose-off-if-you-don’t-keep-it-out-of-my business.
His mother had always loved them. She ran one of the main kitchens in Erebor, and she swore by the helpfulness of a cat or two in keeping rodents out of her larders. As a boy, Dwalin had spent many a happy hour alone with a cat or three. He wasn’t exactly the social type, and suddenly shooting up like an especially broad and muscular weed hadn’t helped him avoid attention. Nor did becoming friends with the third in line for the throne keep people from noticing him, not that he would trade Thorin for anonymity.
Cats were independent, and feisty, and loving when they wanted to be. They ignored you one second and adored you the next, which made them much more interesting in his eyes than dogs could ever be.
They also washed themselves, which was a definite plus.
His favorite was an orange tabby with an ugly, squashed face and an attitude more befitting the King of the Known World than a galley cat. He was bad-tempered and difficult and bossy and huge. And when he was in the mood, he could make Dwalin drop anything he was doing to scratch the one-eared head (the other lost in honorable battle, no doubt) and down the arching back. If Dwalin did an especially acceptable job, he could earn a rough, broken purr and a headbutt that was likely to leave a decent bruise.
When Dwalin fled Erebor, it didn’t occur to him to grab any of the cats.
In a secret part of his soul, he always regretted it.
———
The first time Dwalin saw Ori, the boy was covered in kittens.
It wasn’t a sight one saw every market day, a nearly-grown dwarf sitting on the ground in front of his brother’s stall with a fluffy gray ball of fur on each knee, a striped brown one on his shoulder, and a gray and white puffball hauling itself right on top of one of the worst haircuts Dwalin had ever seen.
It was.
…Adorable.
And adorable wasn’t a word Dwalin thought very often.
He couldn’t even quantify if what made the image so charming was the kittens or the young dwarf they were using as a small, red-headed tree, all wrapped in convenient knitting for their tiny claws to grasp.
A very rusty part of his soul whispered maybe you should go say hello.
The more practiced, oiled part of his soul had better sense. He was the guard and confidant to a king in exile who was planning a serious expedition to retake their lost kingdom from a dragon. He had supplies to buy, and princes to train, and, most harrowing, he had to build up the emotional fortitude to spend weeks in the company of his brother. He didn’t have time to go making friends with ridiculous dwarves half his age who couldn’t keep cats off their heads.
He turned resolutely and walked away.
——
When Ori untangled himself from the pile of dwarves in Bag End’s doorway, Dwalin was immediately surprised to find that the lad was just as fetching without kittens in his hair.
He probably should have taken that as a sign.
And run quickly in the opposite direction.
But Dwalin didn’t have a great deal of experience with these softer emotions.
——
The first time Dwalin sat down and had a proper conversation with Ori, they were in Rivendell. He found the scribe sitting on one of the ridiculous archways, gazing over the trees and fountains with a far-off look in his dark eyes.
He was a lovely thing, this student of his brother’s. Lovely and delicate in some ways, but scrappy and a bit of trouble in others. Though Dwalin, having spent long years training young dwarves to fight, worried more than he cared to admit about whether Ori could back up that scrap in a proper battle.
And so he grunted, “You could use some training, lad,” before he really thought it through.
That statement would have led to righteous indignation from most dwarves, but Ori just tilted his head, gave him a sort of wry look, and asked, “Are you volunteering to teach me, Mr. Dwalin?” with a strange combination of shyness and bravado.
Yes, this was definitely the dwarf who went from politely asking their Hobbit how to care for his plate to threatening to shove cold iron up the nether regions of passing dragons.
“I . . .” Dwalin was a bit thrown. It hadn’t occurred to him to offer. He’d assumed Ori would be more comfortable with Fili or, Mahal forbid, Kili teaching him. But yes, he could certainly do that, and what better way to make sure the lad could handle himself than to train him personally? “Yes. If you’d like.”
Ori smiled at him, a crooked, bright-eyed thing. “I would,” he said politely. “Thank you.” He scooted over a bit. “Would you care to sit down?”
Dwalin eyed the seat for a moment, not aware that his expression implied that he expected a snake to materialize out of it any second. Ori raised his eyebrows and patted the wood (carved into curves, of course, since elves had no appreciation for straight lines).
Dwalin sat, his armor creaking.
Dwalin was just remembering what a horrible conversationalist he was (five minutes in and his tongue felt like lead), when a small, sleek cat appeared at his feet, studied him for a moment, and then invited herself to hop into Dwalin’s lap.
She immediately started kneading her claws into his hauberk.
Ori laughed. It was the first time Dwalin heard it without the clang of pottery and roar of other dwarves in the background.
He suddenly hoped it would not be the last.
Knit-covered fingers were presented, and the kitten attacked them happily, rolling to her back on Dwalin’s thighs.
"Strange looking thing," Dwalin said. She was, pale on her back but dark on her nose, ears, legs, and tail. Exotic. Elven, he supposed, with sneer.
Ori smiled up at him. “They call them points,” he said.
Thanks to a lifetime of experience, Dwalin knew that if he asked for any clarification on this issue, he would end up with a three-hour lecture on elvish cats. He recognized that scholar’s look. Balin had it. He’d learned to avoid it at all costs.
But this was.
Different.
"Points?" he asked.
He was right, mostly. It was only thirty minutes about the cats, but that was followed by peppered questions about his axes, and then the boy had a sketchbook in his hands and was taking notes and drawing pictures (which Dwalin, who couldn’t draw anything, found fascinating), and the next thing Dwalin knew it was well into the dark hours of night.
The pale elvish cat followed him to his room and curled up on one broad shoulder.
——
Deep in the dungeons beneath the Mirkwood, Dwalin allowed himself a few minutes to wallow in how angry he was.
He’d earned it.
Months of the road. Months sneaking around like they had something to be ashamed of. Months running from orcs and being attacked by goblins, riding eagles and visiting bear-mean. And then this elf-infested forest, full of magic and spiders and-he growled.
And something that wriggled into their minds and changed them, turning them on each other like a pack of rabid dogs. He could still remember grabbing Ori and pulling the smaller dwarf away before he could get in too far over his head with Fíli. The prince was vicious when roused, especially where his brother was involved.
Ori had been fierce and surprisingly competent in the goblin cave, and again against the spiders. But he’d have been in danger if Fíli thought he was actually going to hurt Kíli, in the state they were all in.
Not being in control of their own minds had been . . .
“Mr. Dwalin?”
Dwalin jumped at the whisper in the dark, but he knew the voice right away, that strange mix of shy diffidence and daring. “Ori?” he asked, and shifted to the edge of the bars.
Ori sounded pleased to be recognized. “Yes. Dori’s asleep. He sleeps like the dead.” His voice was fond. Ori had a level of patience with Dori that Dwalin couldn’t understand. The eldest brother fussed and prodded and worried, and though Ori didn’t need it, he allowed it with a sort of exasperated fondness. “But I’m wide awake.”
Dwalin nodded, though Ori couldn’t see it. “Aye, me as well.”
They were silent a moment, taking in the sounds of soft breathing and snores, of the boots and occasional voices of the elven guards. Dwalin, pressed to the bars in the cell directly next to the one Dori and Ori had been thrown into together, heard Ori take a slow breath. “Mr. Dwalin,” he said, and Dwalin interrupted him roughly.
“Just Dwalin will do, lad.”
Ori let out a little laugh. “I’ll do my best,” he said, and Dwalin could imagine the sparkling brown eyes and self-deprecating smile. I have been watching this lad too closely, he chastised himself.
A beat of quiet again and then, “Was there something you needed, Ori? Are you – you’re not hurt, are you?” Something like humor twisted at Dwalin’s mouth, unfamiliar but not unwelcome. “I can’t imagine your brother wouldn’t be caterwauling if you were.”
A light laugh, “I’m fine, but, it’s interesting you chose that word. I was actually just going to tell you that I have a visitor in my cell.”’
Dwalin didn’t like that word, cell, in connection with their scribe, and he growled under his breath.
“And I thought, well. I suspected you might . . . well, here.” There was a bit of shuffling, and then, in front of his bars, clearly the victim of a shove to the hindquarters, appeared a glossy brown cat with black stripes.
Dwalin stared at it.
It stared at him, all narrow-eyed suspicion.
“I promise he’s nice,” came Ori’s whisper, “he just looks like a great bear covered in pointy metal things, but actually I suspect he’s quite fond of cats. . . . But that can just be our secret.”
The cat flicked his tail disdainfully, and then shoved his sleek head imperiously at Dwalin’s palm.
And, quite despite himself, Dwalin started chuckling, down low in his chest.
When he heard Ori’s distinctive giggle in the air, overlaid by the low murmur of the cat’s purr, the knot in his shoulders loosened for the first time since the Carrock.
------
There were cats all over Lake-Town.
They were rangy, hungry, damp things. Seeing them in that condition pissed Dwalin off (admittedly not very difficult after barrels and fish and toilets). Cats were meant to be treated better than that. They kept the Men’s homes free of pests and the self-righteous giants couldn’t even be bothered to put out a pillow or an old blanket for them, much less leave out some clean water or a bite of fish.
If that didn’t define the race of Men, Dwalin didn’t know what did.
On their third day in town, Ori caught the grumpy warrior fussing with a pile of dry cloths and threadbare bits of towel in a corner of the house they’d been given. “What are you up to, Mr. Dwalin?”
"Nothing," Dwalin grunted, “and just Dwalin, I told you before.”
“Very well then,” came the polite response, “what are you up to, Dwalin?”
“As I said, nothing.” He plopped an old pillow from one of the too-large-too-soft chairs Men preferred down in the middle of his improvised nest.
And he would have gotten away with it if his borrowed pack hadn’t chosen that moment to meow.
Ori’s bushy eyebrows went up and he invited himself to peek inside (only this lad would have the cheek, Fili and Kili were more appropriately afraid of Dwalin).
He smiled.
"I’ll get some milk and fish," he said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
The mama cat and her four kittens were all curled in Dwalin’s lap, sleeping peacefully, when Ori leaned down, hand scratching the mama cat’s head just behind the ears where all cat-lovers know to, and kissed him.
——
The first one’s name was Narvi. Ori chose it, of course, within moments of Dwalin’s appearing on their doorstep with a curled-up ball of bright orange fluff in his massive hands and an embarrassed look on his face.
(Erebor was still being rebuilt, it seemed the funerals would never end, and here he was with an orphaned kitten. But he reminded Dwalin so of the crusty old tom of his youth, the one-eared beast that Dwalin now resembled in his own weird way, and some little part of him wanted to believe that this babe was descended from the companion of his childhood.)
"Well of course he’ll live with us!" Ori said officiously, without even waiting for Dwalin’s prepared excuses. "He’s not even old enough to be without his mother yet, are you, little one?"
He didn’t take the kitten from Dwalin’s hands, as most would, thinking that such a big dwarf, all muscle and glares and ink, couldn’t be trusted with such a delicate little thing. Ori only laid his own palm on top - tough and calloused now from battle and not just the scritching of pens - and his fingertips curved over Dwalin’s thumb. The kitten immediately began to thrum with a deep, pleased purr.
When Ori smiled crookedly up at him, Dwalin put a name to the unfamiliar feeling unfurling in his chest.
------
Two days later, Dwalin asked Ori to marry him properly, and Ori asked what took so long with an exasperated/fond look and a lazy kitten poking his head between the ribboned braids.
Dwalin didn’t have words to explain, but luckily Ori didn’t need them. He just grinned that shy/saucy/awkward grin of his and tugged Dwalin down to kiss him while Narvi batted at their cheeks.