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“Do you year footsteps?”
Ori rolled his eyes at Nori, who grinned back at him without an ounce of shame. “That stopped working when I was fifty,” he told his brother. “You can stop now.”
“Oh, I don't know, you look plenty jumpy to me.”
Ori shook his head at his brother, turning away when he caught sight of multiple car headlights pulling into the small lot of the Shire's Hobbiton National Park.
The Shire had always been known to have once been the home of an ancient race of beings called hobbits, but the actual ancient site of Hobbiton had been found a century before. It had been picked over by archaeology teams from all over Arda – even by a team from Mordor University which had been quite the scandal – and had been turned over as a public park the decade before. Ori had been part of the Ered Luin University's archaeology team, led by Professor Thorin Oakenshield, when their expedition had a chance to visit the site. Thorin had spent almost five years uncovering a good deal of the ancient town, including his particular interest in a place what some records were calling Bag End. Professor Thorin had wanted to stay on but Ered Luin's team only had five years of funding for their expedition. Professor Thorin had gone time and again to the board for more money but had finally been forced to give up when they had threatened to expel him from the university and end his tenure.
Ori had seen how devastated both Professor Thorin and Professor Dwalin had been at leaving the site. Both of them had been adamant that there had been something special about Bag End, something they needed to find, but neither of them could say just what that was. Ori, who had been on an antiquities track at that point, had wanted to see their dream come true.
Then Dori had gotten sick and Ori had dropped out of college, along with Nori (who had been a computer programming major), to help take care of him. Dori had been furious, wanting them to continue with their studies but neither Ori or Nori could stand to see Dori put into a pauper's hospital, to waste away while the doctors – strapped for time, money, and resources – did what they could. No, Ori had put all the knowledge he had of filling out paperwork into applying for bed after bed in the best hospitals all over Arda. He'd gotten lucky when their application had been accepted for Imladris Hospital and Dori had been taken in immediately. Dori had made a full recovery after a year of intense treatments but the damage was done. Ori's applications to other universities had been accepted here and there but the full-ride scholarship he'd had at Ered Luin University was never duplicated anywhere else.
So Ori had just...not gone back to college. It had hurt but what else could he do?
He had a decent job as a bookkeeper with one Balin Fundin, who was the brother of Professor Thorin's husband, Professor Dwalin. Ori suspected that Professor Thorin might have put in a good word to Balin about his application but Professor Thorin always denied it. It paid well and Ori had enough time off to dabble in a new hobby he'd picked up out of curiosity one day.
(Ori was firmly denying the fact that said curiosity had anything to do with Professor Thorin's nephew Fíli and his ArdaTube channel Ghost Adventures with Fíli Longbeard. Stuff and nonsense. Purely happenstance. And if Ori was a subscriber of said channel? Well, Fíli was Professor Thorin's nephew. Of course Ori had subscribed! He was supporting his favorite professor's kin! As one should! That's all. Stop laughing Nori!)
Anyway.
Fíli Longbeard was a professor at Fornost Erain University, who taught digital journalism and media studies. Well, that was his official job. His second, unofficial job was ghost hunting, something he seemed to like a lot more. His ArdaTube channel posted weekly videos of the different sites he went to, most often broken up into smaller chunks, which Ori could understand considering Fíli did have a day job. At over a million followers, some would say that Fíli's position at Fornost Erain University was unnecessary, but he had stayed on nonetheless.
(Ori felt a little weird about calling a professor by his first name but Ori couldn't see Fíli as anything other than Fíli since Ori had binge watched every single video on Fíli's channel. More than once.)
Anyway.
Ori had watched enough of Fíli's channel to know that while Fíli hammed some of the sites up, the channel's true focus seemed to be on proving the paranormal rather than monetizing it. Fíli had no problem calling a site a dud, and went to great lengths to try and find out the real causes of the bumps and knocks that plagued the owners of said sites. Most of the time Fíli was at privately owned homes, with the occasional abandoned site, but his real passion seemed to be the ancient historical sites that most of the time would not allow him entry. Only a few ever did.
To date Fíli had filmed the Barrow-downs multiple times and each time had come away with spooky footage but nothing provable. Ori had to stop himself from arguing with idiots in the comments who tried to paint Fíli as some sort of charlatan or someone who was stringing them along.
(Ori may or may not have a few sock puppet accounts whose sole purpose in life was to argue said trolls but the less said about that the better.)
Ori had been fascinated by the Barrow-downs series and had wanted to go on his own, albeit smaller, ghost hunt to see what it was all about. However to get filming permits to such a site involved a heavy fee and permissions to film overnight were also pricey. So Ori had decided to start small. There were a few sites near Ered Luin that had some interesting dwarven history, which Ori could access due to their family's connections to the mines – with Bofur's approval (and enthusiastic support) – so that's where he had started. He hadn't meant to start his own ArdaTube channel but what else was he going to do with the footage? It's not like he thought anyone was going to watch it – besides Dori and Nori – so Ori had created his channel, Ori's Adventures, and let the chips fall where they may.
To date he had just over a hundred thousand subscribers and was getting enough money to actually invest in some decent camera gear. Ori didn't know quite what to do with himself.
Which led him here, to Hobbiton, his biggest project yet. Ori had been the one to do most of the filing for Professor Thorin's expedition when Ori had been in university, so he knew the ins and outs of the permissions forms for this particular site like the back of his hand. The elusive Gamgee family held a vast area of land near the Westmarch and all of the permits for the rest of the parks that were labeled as ancient sites for the lost race of hobbits were under that family's purview. No one knew much about them, other than they were reclusive to a fault and were the owners of the biggest chain of nurseries in all of Arda. Ori still had one of the family member's personal emails (and his phone number) – due to a rather ridiculous series of events that included sheep, a broken computer, and bats – so when Ori emailed Sam on the off chance that he might get permission to do a small ghost hunt in the ruins of one of the ancient inns, Sam had surprisingly signed off on it.
On Ori's first night there he had captured singing . At first it had sounded like strange static, then a chorus of voices raised in a song Ori couldn't quite make out. Then...then the song had changed? He still wasn't sure, but there had been a melody. Several melodies! He still wasn't sure if it wasn't some illusion, or some field hands playing tricks on him, but still. Singing . Ori couldn't believe it. He had sent the footage to Sam immediately, since he didn't want to publish this and swamp his friend with requests, but to Ori's surprise Sam had asked if Ori would stay and do a proper sweep of all of Hobbiton.
Including Bag End. Ori had been ecstatic. And then petrified. That was a huge job. Ori was just one person, armed with a decent camera, a backpack full of equipment, a long-suffering brother, and enthusiasm. How was he supposed to tackle an entire ancient town ?
So he'd called Professor Thorin and panicked at him. A little. And maybe, just perhaps, convinced his favorite teacher to come help him explore this ancient site with more people. Never in a million years had Ori thought that Professor Thorin would do this though.
“Hello there!” Came a voice Ori knew all too well. Ori felt all the air in his lungs rush out as lights swept over them, revealing a large party headed their way. His mouth went dry and his hands wanted to shake as the first of the dwarves scampered up the embankment. He was mostly a shadow moving in the dark but dwarven eyes were good. Ori could pick out the golden hair and the braids that framed his face. “You must be the Ori that my uncle's been telling me about! I'm Fíli Longbeard,” he held out a hand. Ori took it on autopilot. “I'm so glad to finally meet you!”
“You know who I am,” Ori said and then wanted to brain himself.
“Of course I do! Uncle talks about you a lot! He says your channel is better than mine,” Fíli winked at him – winked! – and then let go of Ori's hand. Which Ori had been holding onto. For far longer than he'd meant to. “Thank you so much for this, by the way,” Fíli said, softer, as Professor Thorin and his husband started to haul their gear up the small hill. “Uncle's been dying to come back here. The Gamgees have never responded to any of my emails, so you're the real hero here in Uncle's eyes.”
“Oh. I. What?”
“You didn't know?”
“I...”
“Ori's been a bit busy, working two jobs and all,” Nori said from Ori's other side and Ori tried his best to break his brother's rib with an elbow. Nori didn't even grunt at the jab. “He's a nine-to-five lad, you know. Never misses a day of work.”
“ Nori .”
“Anyways, so you're the Longbeard fellow that got chased out of Bree,” Nori's smile was the one he wore when he was at his most dangerous. Ori wanted to brain him. “Do take care to make sure you don't ruin my little brother's reputation, will you?”
“Oh. Oh that was –”
“I'll go get your computer gear, Ori. You've got all that other evidence to go through. I'll start with the preliminary watch through.”
“Nori...” Ori blew out a raspberry at his brother's back. “Sorry about him. He's a bit...uh. Protective.”
“It's fine, it's fine.” But Fíli's smile had lost some of its warmth. Ori was absolutely going to put worms in Nori's bed the next chance he got. “So, you're the one calling the shots. Where do you want us?”
Ori put a hand on Fíli's arm before the other dwarf could turn away. “Please don't take what Nori said to heart. I'm really glad you're all here. I barely know what I'm doing, so anything you can think of to help, please speak up. And those Butterbur and Azog fellows...they were really out of line. You didn't deserve to have the police called on you like that.”
Fíli's expression relaxed by degrees. “Thanks for that. You, uh. You saw those clips?”
“I watch all your videos,” Ori chewed on his lower lip. “I really like how you try to debunk things, first. There's so many jump-scare channels out there that make a big deal out of nothing these days.”
That startled a laugh out of Fíli. “Tell me about it! Those NZGL guys, they're the worst. Did you see the one where they tried to say they found some weird winged snake thing in that pit in Mordor?”
“Yes! That was ridiculous. It was a lizard. Everyone could tell it was a lizard. Didn't they get a strike on their channel for that?”
“Well, between you and me,” Fíli's grin was infectious as he leaned in. “I may or may not have reported them myself.”
“Good! They deserved it!”
“Fíli? Oh, Ori, there you are,” said Professor Thorin as he crested the top of the hill. His arms were full of black plastic tubs. Ori flushed a little when he realized that he and Fíli had been standing a bare hands breadth apart. “I have the recording equipment you asked for. Professor Faramir was quite excited to lend it to us.”
Ori perked up, his embarrassment forgotten.“Really? That's wonderful!”
“I think he wanted to come with us but his wife is expecting and I think Faramir is more worried about it than Éowyn is.”
“Professor Éowyn is the strongest person I know.”
“Oh, I agree.” Professor Thorin looked good for his age, with grey streaking the hair at his temples and in his short beard. Professor Dwalin, Thorin's husband, came up behind him and gave Ori a wave from over Thorin's shoulder as he set down his own stack of boxes. “Are we really allowed to film in here?” Thorin's gaze had gone past Ori to the remains of the hobbit hole – Thorin's beloved Bag End – that they were standing in front of.
“Sam said we could. He actually wanted us to start here first,” Ori turned to follow Thorin's gaze.
“We could barely scratch the surface of the roof when we were here last,” Thorin murmured. Dwalin crossed heavily tattooed arms over his chest as he looked on next to Thorin. Both of them had been fascinated by Bag End from the moment they had stepped foot into the site. “I thought the Gamgees weren't allowing anyone inside anymore.”
“I do have official permission, if you want to see it.”
“No, no, Ori. I'm sorry. I trust that you do. I just thought...” Thorin shook his head with a strange smile. “Anyway. Where do you want us to set up?”
Ori glanced at Fíli, who just nodded at him with an encouraging smile. “Let's start at the front door, shall we?”
“The front door?”
“I've been doing some reading,” Ori hedged, scraping a toe on the path. The pale pink petals of the flowering trees that dotted the Shire made strange bright spots in the dark. “The Shire's Red Book of Westmarch says –”
“Oh here we go,” Dwalin sighed and turned away.
“You got permission to read it ?”
“Just. Parts. Sam sent me a copy –”
“A COPY.”
“I can email it to you?”
“Yes,” Thorin said, blinking a few times. “Please.”
“Anyway, so Sam said that Bag End once had a dwarf rune carved into the door,” that captured everyone's attention. “It was said to lead some party of dwarves here, but the part of the book that I have never said why they were here. I thought, well, since we're all dwarves, and well, there's no door here anymore, but we've got plenty of wood lying about...”
“I'll go get some carving tools!” Dwalin hollered as he leaped down from the embankment.
“Yes,” Thorin said. “That – yes. A rune?”
“Supposedly.” Ori shifted a little at the gleam in both Thorin and Fíli's eyes as they stared at him. “I can...bring it up on my phone?”
“ Yes, please .”
By the time Dwalin came back Ori had Thorin on one side and Fíli on the other as they scrolled through the small part of the record that Ori had on his phone. “See?” Ori was showing them as Dwalin and another dwarf Ori didn't know hauled up some large planks of wood up the embankment, along with a bag of tools. “The door was green, too. Or so it says.”
“This Sam fellow,” Fíli said as Thorin bent down so close to Ori's phone his nose almost touched it. “You two are pretty...close?”
“Well, as close as we can be,” Ori said as he scrolled down further when Thorin made an inquiring grunt. “We only talk through emails for the most part. A phone call here or there.”
“Oh, so you've never met him?”
“No, he's pretty busy with his family's plant nurseries and all his kids.”
“He's married?”
“Yes,” Ori pinched and zoomed for Thorin to see the page better. “That's the marking that I think the book is talking about?”
“I see,” Thorin rumbled, face still inches away from Ori's phone. “DWALIN – oh there you are. Good, good, do we have any paint?”
“It wouldn't dry in time you dreamer,” Dwalin laughed as he caught Thorin and hauled him away from Ori's phone. “Send this idiot a picture of that rune, please. He'll be in a snit if he doesn't get to carve it himself.”
“Like you're any better!”
“Thorin, stop squirming – Thorin, I say –”
“They've been like that since they were married,” Fíli said in Ori's ear. He jumped at the warm breath, unable to move away due to where they'd wedged themselves close to the old earthen walls of the hobbit hole. “You saw plenty of it when you were with them during the expedition, right?”
“Yes,” Ori bent his head and managed to take a decent screenshot of the rune and sent it to Thorin's phone. “It was really nice to see.”
“Oh?”
“Our Ma got left with us when I was just born,” Ori frowned down at his phone, trying to adjust the focus some more. “It's what made Nori so protective.”
“I see.”
“Huh? Oh, sorry, I'm blocking you in,” Ori looked up to realize that there was no way Fíli could leave the little alcove they were in without Ori moving first. “Sorry about that.”
Fíli smiled at him. “You're fine. Want to walk me through the rest of your plan while Uncle and Dwalin are off arguing about who can carve that mark better?”
Ori couldn't help but laugh. “Sure. I figure we should start with EVP recordings first. We might get lucky there with a knock and question session.”
“You created that communication style I noticed,” Fíli didn't move away as Ori gestured towards empty door frame. “What made you think of it?”
“Uh, common decency?” Then Ori blushed, wanting to smack himself in the face. “Not that you don't –”
Fíli's laugh filled the alcove, making Ori blush harder. “That was your first viral video right?”
“You...you know about that?”
“I may have watched all your videos,” Fíli's expression was hard to read in the darkness, even with their kind's night vision. “I really like your style.”
“Oh. I. Uh. Thank...you? I, um, I really...”
“Ori! There you are,” Nori, of course, had to come and ruin the moment. “You might want to come down here. I think the lovebirds are about to have a fistfight over who gets to carve this rune you were talking about.”
By the time Ori went down and mediated the argument – and got introduced to Kíli, Fíli's brother and his wife, an elf named Tauriel – it was getting to the deepest part of the night. It was just hitting three in the morning when they fitted their faux door to the empty frame where all expeditions agreed the front door had been. Ori felt strangely nervous as Nori turned on the cameras and Ori went through his usual intro for his channel, giving an introduction to the site and a brief history of the area.
(Or a not so brief history, since he had Thorin and Dwalin and Fíli Longbeard with him, since all of them chimed in from time to time. This video was going to be a beast to edit.)
He had agreed with Fíli's production manager – and wasn't that a shock to realize that Fíli had his own editing team and manager, but none of them had come with him for this trip – that they would both shoot videos for their own channels, covering the site. Kíli was Fíli's cameraman and together with Nori they both set up their shots side by side. Fíli did his own intro (with less interruptions from Thorin and Dwalin) and before he knew it Ori was at the fake front door, ready to knock.
It seemed like a trick of the eye, but it almost looked as though the rune on their fake door was glowing. It had to have been the new-cut wood reflecting what little moonlight there was. Their recording instruments were on. Everyone was silent. Ori drew himself up, feeling some sort of strange hum go through his bones as he knocked once, twice, three times on the fake door.
The echo sounded...odd. Ori felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He raised his hand to knock again but something told him to stop, to step back, to hold out his recorder and wait.
The minutes ticked by. No one said a word. Then that strange shivering feeling passed and Ori gave himself a shake, blinking a bit as the shadows about the faux door seemed to shift in the changing moonlight.
“Alright there Ori?” Fíli was by his side in a second.
“I'm fine. Just, you know,” Ori shrugged and tried to laugh it off. “Let's see if we got anything.”
“But you didn't ask anything?” Kíli said and then yelped as his wife cuffed him on the back of his head.
“Sometimes it better not to ask something when you first knock,” Ori fought down a blush and absolutely did not glance over at Fíli. “Nori, do you have my...thank you.” He took the headset from his brother and plugged it in, going to the recording and hitting play.
The knocks were almost too loud for his ears on the playback, but he waited, catching his lip between his teeth. There – something...there was a sound...
And then. And then.
...Ori?
Ori threw his headset off with a gasp and stared down at the recording in his hand. There was no way. There was no way.
“What did you hear? Did you get something?”
Ori nodded, still shaken to the core. “We need a computer and the best sound we equipment we have. Right now.”
That caused a stir but by the time they were in Thorin's camper – it was the same camper he took on all his expeditions, so Ori was rather used to it – huddled around Ori's laptop, he felt a bit silly about it all. Surely he'd heard it wrong. Surely it was just a – a cricket or the sound of petals on the wind or – or something explainable. Maybe someone had murmured his name? There had to be a rational explanation for this.
Except there wasn't. And there was more.
...Ori? Said that soft voice on the recording, louder than it could ever be through the headset. Everyone was frozen in their seats. Ori? I can't...where are you? Is that...Thorin? Dwalin? Where...
There were footsteps. The sound of a hinge creaking. A door opening. Then nothing more.
Absolute chaos exploded as the recording came to an end.