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Dori was usually the mother hen of the brothers. He'd had far more practice at it, after their parents passed, and have often lamented the loss of his childhood, left to run after one delinquent of a brother and one shivering frightened little thing. Not that he ever meant any of it; Dori loved his brothers more than anything, had only really agreed to go on this quest in the first place to keep an eye on Nori, who was always getting in over his head and was too stubborn to ever ask for help, and had inadvertently dragged their youngest along with him.
Dori spent most of their quest fussing over his family, dragging Ori back into their group when the Elves surrounded them, throwing Nori from one tree to the next when the wargs knocked theirs down, and just generally making sure his brothers were well fed and looked after.
And now it was their turn to look after him. While Ori and Nori had recovered from the spiders' venom, their Dori was still weak, stumbling about and not all there in the head. Nori was constantly having to reach back and tug him along the path and Ori would catch him from behind when he tripped and usher him along. They aren't sure where the others are, but at least they are together.
Dori, it seems, cannot run any longer, from the number of times he has tripped and the effort it takes them to keep him moving, and Nori glances around, deems it safe enough for the moment at least, and nods to Ori, who is valiantly propping Dori up.
They spread their cloaks on the forest path and gently lay their older brother down on them. He is delirious and slips quickly into unconscious. Nori sighs, watches Ori kneel beside him and stroke his brow, and heads off to find firewood. He thinks, as he gather the kindling, that Dori would reprimand him for leaving Ori behind, and he would have scoffed any other time, called Dori a mother hen who was coddling their youngest and keeping him from growing up, but as he rounds the corner again to where his brothers are waiting, Ori is trying to quickly swipe at his eyes, wide and red-rimmed and wet, with his mittens, and he sighs softly.
Ori looks away, frustrated with himself for being so weak, but it frightens him to see his big brother this way, and they are lost and alone in the woods, and all the courage he'd been mustering up until this point is fast slipping away from him. Ori feels Nori kneeling a few steps away and starting a small fire, keeping his head turned so as to give Ori privacy enough to gather himself, and Ori is grateful.
When the fire is crackling and Ori's eyes are dry, even if his woolen mitts are not, Nori shifts to sit behind his younger brother and pull him back into his chest. He'd never really been there for Ori as much as he should have been, took the death of his parents hard and had often slipped out to delve into less-than-sanctimonious activities and had resented any time he was stuck at home with his brothers. Now, looking at the prone form of his older brother and the trembling one of the younger in his lap, Nori regrets all of this.
Because Dori has always been there, even when Nori didn't want him to be, to pull him out of trouble, to stand with him against the men he's swindled even though he had no part in his brother's tricks, has always had dinner waiting for him even when he slinks home in the wee hours, there was always a bowl waiting for him on the table.
And Ori. The little one always strived to stay out from underfoot, not wanting to cause anyone nay more frustration than he knew he already did, always so self-conscious and timid. But when Nori come home a little worse for wear, clothes ripped, and knuckles bleeding, he would often find a new woolen sweater or freshly knitted mittens on his bed.
Dori always tried to ignore Nori's activities when he could, wouldn't ask where the bag of gold coins on his bedside table had come from, just offered a smile and a nod and went out to the market. And one day when Ori came home with bruises that he wouldn't explain, he found a slingshot he knew to be of Nori's work on his pillow, and the boys who had been teasing were bruised themselves and tripping over their words in apologies the next morning.
And now Ori leans back into Nori, warms himself by the fire and changes out the cool cloth on their elder's forehead. Nori drops a kiss to the top of his baby brother's head, pulls him tighter against his chest, and settles down for the night, keeping vigil on their mother hen.