Title: Omerta
Fandom: The Hobbit
Character: Nori
Disclaimer: I don't own any recognisable characters ... they all belong to J.R.R Tolkien
Length: 410
Content Notes: Post BotFA/everyone lives!
Summary: Nori struggles to reconcile himself to his new life in Erebor.



Omertà.

The understanding – the silence – between criminals.

Honour amongst thieves.

Call it what you will, it was the only code that Nori, son of Vuori, had ever truly lived by. The only thing more important to Nori than abiding by the code was his family and they were the reason that Nori had become a thief in the first place; an apprenticeship hadn’t been an option with their mother dead and Dori struggling to look after himself, Nori and an infant Ori. If they wanted food, clothes and a roof over their heads then Dori needed help and that was exactly what Nori had provided, even if Dori didn’t approve of his methods.

Besides, Nori liked his job, loved it even. He wasn’t made for a reputable life, wasn’t interested in one. He was disreputable, mischievous, a trickster and a bloody good thief. So good that he had never been caught, much to the eternal exasperation of one Dwalin, son of Fundin.

It was for this precise reason that Nori had struggled to adapt to life in Erebor once more.

The Company had traversed Middle Earth, escaped from the Elven King, slain a dragon, fought an orc army and reclaimed Erebor; they were fêted as heroes throughout all of the remaining dwarrow kingdoms. In response, and in thanks for all that they had done, one of Thorin’s first acts as King-under-the-Mountain had been to raise all members of the Company to positions of honour within his new Council. Every single member of the Company, regardless of their humble origins, was now in a position of no little importance within Erebor.

And therein lay Nori’s problem.

Nori wasn’t respectable and he didn’t want to be raised to a position of importance within Erebor. Vuori’s son’s may be of Durin’s line but that wasn’t why Nori had joined Thorin’s quest, he had joined to keep an eye on his brothers. He liked being the disreputable one, liked being a thief and, just because they had somehow managed to reclaim Erebor, he didn’t see why that had to change. To Nori’s relief, Thorin felt the same way and Nori had been rewarded with a position that allowed him to remain in the shadows, that didn’t require him to conform and didn’t require him to abandon the code that he’d lived by.

After all, what better role for the best thief that the dwarrow kingdoms had ever seen than that of Spymaster of Erebor?