The bar Nori worked at closed awfully late, and it took him some time to get home after it. That meant that, unless he went to party after work, Ori never saw him until lunch. When he dropped himself in Ori’s bed, waking her up, her room was filled enough with light to know that a) he hadn’t come straight from work, and b) it was way too soon for her to get up.
“Go away,” she mumbled. “You’ll tell me about your sexual exploits over lunch.”
“Who says I got lucky?”
“The hour. Your hickeys. The smell.”
“I took a shower!”
“The smell of a different soap, you idiot.” Nori wasn’t getting up, it seemed, and Ori couldn’t go back to sleep with him there. “Alright, then. What do you want to tell me?”
“Do you remember Dwalin, the guy I met some weeks ago?”
“The old guy huge as a mountain?”
“I didn’t say he was old, just older,” Nori pointed out. “But he is indeed huge as a mountain… all over.”
“Extremely unnecessary information!”
“Well, I can’t discuss this stuff with Dori, right? And neither can you, whenever you tumble with a girl, so you’ll have to hear me out like I do.”
“Fair enough,” sighed Ori. “So, Dwalin. What about him?”
“It turns out he was a famous player, a couple of decades ago. A really famous player, you know, not like the ones that pretend it just because they think that’ll get them cheaper drinks.”
“Really? What band did he play at?”
Nori’s smile was huge and malicious.
“The Lonely Mountain.”
Ori sat up straight, her hearth beating much quicker than ten seconds ago. The Lonely Mountain!
“Really? He is that Dwalin?”
“I knew that would mean something to you,” her brother said, laughing. “Well, not the group itself, but…”
“They were good enough,” Ori said, but to be honest, TLM had only ever been a secondary interest of her –a result of the wild, complementary, desperate research you do when you are a fangirl. Not that she was about to admit that, of course. Nori would tease her enough as it was. “I am more surprised that you didn’t recognize him. They were pretty famous when you were a teenager.”
Nori snorted.
“Excuse me, do I look like I cared about folk groups when I was a teenager? Britney was playing back then, you know.”
“Right.” Enough of that, anyway. “So, if he was in The Lonely Mountain…”
“Yes, yes. He is the uncle of three of your imaginary girlfriends.”
“They are not that!” As if. She would bed any of them in a heartbeat, of course, but even if she ever met them, all members of Erebor Retaken were way out her league; she couldn’t picture them as her girlfriends even in own mind. Besides, Kíli and Tauriel were openly and famously in love, and Fíli and Gimli were private enough that she didn’t know if they even liked girls.
Nori looked pointedly at the walls, abundantly covered with Erebor Retaken merchandising. Alright; she wasn’t as delusional as he suggested, but there was no denying she was a little bit obsessed. At least tonight she hadn’t slept with the sheets of the band that her brothers gifted her as a joke.
“Whatever your call them,” Nori said with a smirk. “In any case, my dear little fangirl, you better be thankful for my sexual exploits, as you say. Dwalin’s promised to let us into their next concert, and the party they will throw afterwards as well.”
“Really?” If Ori’s heart had started to race when Nori talked about The Lonely Mountain, now it seemed to skip a few heartbeats. “We are going to go to one of their private parties?”
“We are.” He elbowed her. “Get yourself something nice to wear and add something for me too. I’ll need to look my best if I have to make Dwalin happy enough that he’ll offer to introduce you to them.”
“You think he would do that?” she said, afraid to hope as much.
“Leave it in my hands, sister dear. I’ll take care of it.”