The Birthday Visit
Upon a stool sat a hobbit, deeply engrossed in writing his memoirs. His hair combed and fluffed like a ball of wiry silver capping his head. Sounds of his quill scratching upon the parchment was all he cared to hear. He dabbed the tip at his tongue to moisten and scratched again.
Bilbo paused when he heard the sounds of feet walking down the hall. His nephew Frodo, holding a plate of cherries, took a bite of one and spat the pit out upon the plate.
Frodo paused, as the floor started to shake. Dishes rattled on their shelves. The terrible sound grew louder and louder. Then, as soon as it came, it stopped.
Silence.
A plate slipped from the shelf and clashed to the floor.
But even with that noise, Bilbo could not be bothered from his work. He scratched along without a concern for who or what just thundered over his home.
Then came a scraping upon the door.
"Oh, dash it all, who is that?!" Bilbo called with a grouchy tone. "Frodo, get the door!"
"I will, Uncle," said Frodo. He set the plate down and came to the door, opening it up and was greeted by a deep, and reverberating thrum.
"Uncle!" Frodo called. "We have...an important visitor."
Bilbo stood from his writing and turned as a beam of golden light filled the living room. A great trembling shook the room, the cacophony of rattling dishes punctuated by a sequence of basso thumps from above. He dove, catching a potted plant just before it smashed to the floor. A sigh of relief escaped, followed by a flush of irritation as he cast his gaze toward the gigantic, cat-like eye that filled the living room door was open. Frodo had stepped aside as a rush of hot wind filled the room.
Bilbo was beaming with a smile.
"Smaug," said Bilbo. "You old worm. It's about time you got here. It's a quarter past 10 and you are late. I can't allow tardy visitors."
"I go where I wish." said Smaug, eyes narrowing at Bilbo's criticism. "You dare resist?"
Bilbo scowled, the expression holding only a moment before a grin cracked his face.
The great eye in the window blinked many times, lids folding over and pulling back slowly across the glassy expanse. The dragon rumbled a deep chuckle and the room trembled once more.
"One hundred and eleven years old," said Smaug. "Happy birthday."
"Is it today?" Bilbo asked, his eyes sparkling.
"Of course, Uncle," said Frodo. "I've been getting invitation replies since last night."
Bilbo clapped his hands, smiling with glee: "Oh, I've almost forgotten!"
With that, he scurried on down the hall, leaving Smaug and Frodo to look upon each other. The large, black slit pupil following the elderly hobbit as he disappeared down the hall.
"Um, Bilbo," began Smaug, his pupil coming to Frodo, casting its spotlight upon him. "Has he been a bit busy?"
"Writing, mostly," said Frodo. "He is so insistent upon finishing that book of his."
The dragon smiled warmly and rumbled a deep laugh.
"His book," Smaug remarked fondly. "To think it's been 60 years..."
"I believe so," said Frodo. "About around the time Bilbo had his 50th birthday, I believe. Of course I wasn't even born then."
"You were barely a twinkle in your mother's eyes," said Smaug. "I can remember when you came to live here. Bilbo didn't know what to do with a boy who seemed to have a bit more Took in him than he ever did. And well, when I came to visit, I hardly knew how to handle little hobbit children. I recall him leaving you with me as well especially when your Tookishishness got the best of him. 'Don't you mind if he chews on some of your big gems, hopefully he won't break a tooth. Just make sure he doesn't try to eat your coins. He'll choke.'"
Frodo laughed.
"I remember bruising myself a few times sliding down the mounds of old elven and dwarven coins you had in your lair," he said.
The scaly lip curled into a grin.
"Well, I am glad you turned out proper despite my horrible babysitting, Frodo. Dragons, I'm afraid, don't make good nannies."
Frodo laughed again.
Smaug's eye turned away as Bilbo stepped back into the living room. The pupil pulsed as he focused upon the old hobbit.
"I could hear your stomping a mile away, Mr. Barrel-Rider," the voice of the dragon sounding like a hot, hushed hiss. "You're getting a little heavy."
"Well, I'm not as springy or as graceful as I was when you met me, Smaug," said Bilbo.
"Your breath sounds healthy and full," said Smaug. "And your heartbeat sounds strong."
"You could hear everything about me," said Bilbo. "Feel my breath, hear me walk…nothing gets past you!" He patted upon Frodo's shoulder. "Frodo, my lad, if you would be so kind, put this on the gate."
He handed him a sign that said 'No Admittance except on Party Business.' Smaug looked upon the sign with a curious eye and then to Bilbo with a shocked 'humph'. The dragon lifted his head to allow Frodo passage down towards the gate. Bilbo followed out the door and waved, catching the the eye's attention.
"Here, while that keeps him busy, have a look at this."
He came outside as the dragon snaked his neck around. Bilbo held up a leather-bound red book. Smaug watched as Bilbo opened the book to show various collections of notes, drawings, pressed leaves that he had collected over his travels. Bilbo filed through the drawings. They were not of hobbits, but rather dwarves. He recognized one in particular. Thorin Oakenshield. Another was of Balin, and then Dwalin, and the rest of the 13 dwarves who came that one night nearly 60 years ago to ask the hobbit to take a rather important journey with them. Then, Smaug saw another drawing, one of Bilbo in his younger days and then one of himself.
"There I am," he said. "And with a lot less gray hair than I have now."
"If you're not too careful, you'll be as gray as Old Gaffer's," said Bilbo.
Smaug chuckled. He shifted his weight and his eyes spied through the window a familiar object laid out in the living room. Inside the glass case was a map with tattered edges and inked in a mixture of Khuzdul, the language of the dwarves, and regular Westron Common. In the center was a mountain and flowing out from it, a river that emptied into a large lake to the south.
Flying overhead was a red-inked drawing of a dragon spouting fire and an area marked 'Desolation of Smaug'. It was the map of Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.
"Midsummer's Eve is not far off," the dragon said. "And I do believe there is a crescent moon that night as well. We should take the map out and let the moon runes glow in the light once again. Just for old time's sake."
"Perhaps," said Bilbo.
Smaug deeply chuckled, giving the hobbit a gentle nudge from his snout.
"But I am glad you are here," Bilbo said, patting the dragon's snout. "You can do me a big favor and keep guard outside. Chase away anyone who might come by…especially any Sackville Baggins!"
"So, that's why you wanted me to come so early," said Smaug with a heavy sigh. "You want me to play guard dog?"
"Oh it's just for a moment," he said. "So I can have my peace, get ready, finish a little bit on my writing, and all that."
"Sixty years of friendship and I've been reduced to guard dog duty," the dragon huffed a whiff of smoke from his nostrils, but this was just for show: amusement danced in his eyes.
"Don't be that way, old friend," said Bilbo. "It's just for a moment. Besides, if that horrible woman, Lobelia Baggins sees you, she'll turn tail and run before you can even roar and spout fire at her!"
"And I could be labeled a disturber of the peace just as Gandalf," said Smaug. "Oh, wait I was, wasn't I? When you found all your things being auctioned off upon your return. If I hadn't had scared the daylights from their eyes, you would have ended up with a lot less than you left."
"And as always, I am ever so grateful, O Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities," Bilbo clapped his hand to one of the dragon's large, jutting fangs.
The dragon rumbled with another chuckle.
"Oh, I just got a message from…Gandalf. He's coming to the party. He says he's brought some of his best fireworks."
Bilbo picked up his books and papers, heading back into his study again, leaving the door open for Smaug to continue to talk through. Bilbo felt Bag End vibrate again as the dragon followed him upon the roof and he opened a window up.
"Oh, how did you talk to him?" he asked.
The window was suddenly filled with the amber orb of Smaug's enormous eye.
"Butterfly," the dragon replied.
Bilbo chuckled: "I don't see how you or Gandalf can send messages using moths and butterflies. In fact, I didn't know you spoke butterfly."
"It's an easy dialect," Smaug said with a cheeky smile. "Perhaps I should show you some time."
Bilbo paused as he took his quill out. He grinned somberly.
"Yes, perhaps," he said. He turned around and his face brightened. "I would like that!"
"I don't communicate with him very often," said Smaug. "He has been a little busy. Keeping things from me…"
"Well, you know how Gandalf is," said Bilbo as he scratched at his parchment. " He comes and goes as he please, always have, always will."
Smaug replied with a deep, though concerned thrum, which rattled the window.
"And you forgot to greet me in Elvish," said Bilbo, craning up to look at the eye.
"Which one?"
"Sindarin," said Bilbo. "Though I'm surprised you still know some Quenya. You're one of the very few who speak it."
"Which greeting do you wish me to say?" the dragon asked.
"Any of them! Just throw something out. Come on, let's hear one."
"Very well, then," said Smaug. The eye blinked as the dragon thought. "Let me see. Ah, here's one. Edinor veren. Happy birthday."
Bilbo's smile faded and he twitched his nose in disappointment, returning his attention to his writing.
"Oh, is that all you could think of?" he asked. "And you call yourself the Wyrm of A Thousand Tongues."
"No, you called me that," said Smaug. "About five years after you brought me home from Erebor. Among many other fine titles. I never had so many until I met an overly placating hobbit like you."
Bilbo chuckled: "Well, I was trying to save my hide. And you asked me if flattery would save me. It did, more than once!" He turned back to the dragon and grinned. "And you know you liked it, you old arrogant lizard. Admit it."
"Yes, I did," said Smaug. "Smaug the Magnificent. I loved that one the best."
"Fits you."
"Alright, a nice one," said the dragon. "Quenya, here we go. Elen sí la lú menn' omentielvo."
"That's better," said Bilbo, his eyes twinkling in the candle light.
"Or just the Sindarin version," Smaug continued. "Gîl síla erin lû e-govaded vín."
"Now you're just showing off," said Bilbo.
The two headed outside and Bilbo brought out his pipe. Smaug climbed the hill, his far reaches spanning over each mound, filling the countryside until his tremendous girth became the landscape itself. He had grown in the 60 years, as well fed dragons generally do, nearly reaching 462 feet now. Bilbo marked each growth in a journal to account for the dragon's growing mass. And then he added his studies to the memoirs he wrote.
Smaug draped his gigantic paws over the edge of Bag End, crossing them as his long, serpentine tail swished idly. He took great care not to lean all of his weight upon the hobbit hole. The dragon looked down at his old friend with a fond smile.
His smile faded when he noticed Bilbo's hand. It gripped the pocket, each knuckle twitching nervously.
Smaug rumbled and then shook his head. He knew very well what it was that the hobbit gripped and it brought him no end of sadness. He could tell that Bilbo was changing, even back then, and it was that magic ring's fault. Still, there was a part of him that prevented him from reaching out and snatching the ring up from Bilbo's pocket. Something even darker kept his mind occupied enough that when the thought came to tell Gandalf, it left before it could reach his mouth.
Smaug's auburn mane was fading each time his mind touched upon the ring as his strength seeped away from him. He never felt so tired in an age, but sleep would not give him solace of rest. Sleep only made his weariness worse.
"Such a lovely day, isn't it?" Bilbo asked as he puffed out a smoke ring.
The dragon's thoughts tore away from the ring in the hobbit's pocket.
"Yes it is," said Smaug. "So hard to believe how long it has been."
"Yes," said Bilbo. "I seem to recall you were a quite different person…dragon…then. A little bit more uptight, bit more arrogant too. The Shire has changed you."
"Not completely," he said. "I've mellowed, I will admit. But, not by much. You recall, I didn't come here just to have some vacation and then stay." His eyes narrowed. "I have a reason to be here."
"Indeed," said Bilbo as his hand slipped out of his pocket. He patted it. "And I do believe that reason will keep you here."
"Keep me here," Smaug echoed, his eyes drifting away from Bilbo.
Doubt riddled heavily upon his brow.
He could not tell him, not now.
He needed something to distract himself from those dark musings.
He started to hum to himself, a familiar tune that Bilbo once heard those years ago, sung by the dwarves who came to his home. The hobbit joined him in his hum. Smaug softly began to sing the song.
"Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep, and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.
"The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches blazed with light."
Bilbo laughed as he puffed another smoke ring. They sat in silence after that, just watching the white, puffy clouds float on by in the gentle breeze. Despite the cheerful weather of the Shire, a sullen mood swept through his mind, a mood he worked to conceal from his friend. He did not want to ruin Bilbo's birthday with mulling or moaning.
Smaug rumbled and then shook his head. Bilbo was changing. He knew what the hobbit gripped, he knew was at fault. He wished to snatch the source away before it could do more damage, but he could not dare to do so.
A simple object holding a cursed darkness, one sufficient to stay even a dragon's claws.
Bilbo had his own tale to share about the day when Gandalf the Grey brought 13 dwarves down upon his doorstep, with their hopes of regaining a kingdom…by slaying the dragon who took it. But Smaug knew that story was a mere chapter in a larger work.
One he had lived for eons.
Far off in the east, across the Misty Mountains, stood one single solitary peak: Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. Over 200 years ago, a dragon came out from the Withered Heath and attacked that mountain.
Smaug the Golden.
The last of the Great Urulóki, the gigantic, powerful Fire Drakes of Morgoth. No other dragons were a match for a Great Urulokë, but these giants of fire, scales, and wings were fortunately few in number, a legacy of an earlier age.
And so, he attacked Erebor, laid to waste the city of Dale, and burned his way into the mountain to covet the Dwarves treasure and gold for himself.
Yet the Urulokë the dwarves came to know as Smaug the Terrible held a deeper tale. One involving a much different mountain.
And something else made of gold.
But far more precious.