Bit of a time jump, we're looking back on what has happened until she is about thirteen and in school. Yay!


She lost track of time over the next eight years. Of only three things was she absolutely certain; she was a good hunter and gatherer, Smaug was a better hunter than her, and their mothers were never going to come back.

The first few months had passed pleasantly, though she had been constantly aware of the dragon's nature and had always sought to find meat for him. After watching him eat the last bits of her mother, she had refused to eat meat. She had spent the first months foraging, using what little her mother had managed to tell her about edible fruits, nuts, fungi and roots, and Smaug had quite happily torched any poor squirrel who had come looking for shelter in their cave.

Then winter had come, bringing new hardships. She had resorted to stealing from nearby villages, quite proficiently, until she had been caught by a blacksmith who had threatened to skin her the next time he saw her. She hadn't been able to return to Smaug, so he had... Panicked. Catching her scent, he had rampaged through the village searching for her, setting houses alight until he had found her, huddled in a freezing cell in the village gaol, and had brought her back to the cave.

Word had spread quickly, lynching parties had been sent off, each returning a little singed but all in one piece.

And then the snowstorms hit.

The entire countryside had been coated in thick, pure white snow, the roads in and out blocked and people began to die from the cold, that seemed to seep into their very bones. All except for the little girl with bare feet who ran around the village at night, taking food where available and leaving blankets in her wake.

Smaug came with her a few times at first, tentatively sticking his vast nose out to test the air, then gambolling after her like an oversized Labrador, melting the snow with his firey breath and red hot scales. The villagers had watched in fearful awe as they watched her command the colossal beast with ease, melting the snow for them twice a day.

They began to leave the little girl food in return, and then books and paper and pens, for they heard her sometimes, on wet days, sunny days, on days where the hills were hushed with the peaceful silence that accompanies fresh snow and the only sound was the girl's gentle voice telling the beast fantastical stories about far off places, mountains of gold and treasures untold, all awaiting them just around the mountain top.

She taught herself to read, and devoured the books left to her, on maths, English, poetry, even physics and chemistry. She loved the science text books, and would dissect and animals Smaug caught and hadn't gotten around to flaming yet, observing their intestines and little hearts, taking their brains and slicing into them, fascinated at their workings.

Simple things got past her though, like addition and subtraction, writing proved to be much harder than reading the words, and she absolutely hated the smell of blood.

She had gone home a few times, to take what little food was left and clothes of hers and her mothers', and had given away her father's clothes long ago. Ever practical, she had realised that she was going to grow; having watched how very swiftly Smaug did, she knew it would happen to her too. She had noticed how different she was to motherly figures, so rationalised that she too would change to have hips, and breasts, so had saved some of her mother's slimmer tops, trousers and skirts. She didn't know when she'd need them, but she knew she would.

As the years went on, her hair had grown long and wild, clothes tattered and worn, but always clean, thanks to her mother's voice in her head constantly ordering her to pull her socks up and straighten her skirt, and make sure they were clean.

The most remarkable things were, however, her eyes, which seemed to glow like Smaug's, though darker and lit from within as though a fire burned at the bottom of a long, dark tunnel and the light was only just surfacing.

She liked her look.

Wild and untamed, the children of the villages had been warned away from her, but when she was reading aloud, leaning back against the scales of the dragon that should have burned her beyond recognition, she seemed harmless and peaceful and the children wanted to play with her.

It was the dragon that put them off. Fairy tale dragons are all well and good, but having one that had created such damage in so little time, in living memory no less, they head learnt to respect the beast, treating him with reverence and always searched for the strange little girl with glowing eyes, muddy feet and soft, strangely carrying voice.

She had so much power over the dragon, yet she didn't understand it. He was her only friend, even if he had eaten her mama. If anything, that had made them closer. She knew what he could do, and also what he wouldn't. All she had to do was bring home cabbage every night for a week and he'd be as gentle as a kitten and as apologetic as a spaniel.

However, all good things had come to an end and their combined attempts hadn't dissuaded the local schools from trying to make her attend. Smaug had burned one of them down several times, yet still they persisted. The other had had Molly come in and vandalise the whole place using paint made from berries, mashed bone and animal blood, which hadn't deterred them either.

They had sent groups of children her age to the cave, which had just made them scared of her. They had sent the working men, which had also made them scared of her.

None of them would say what she had done.

But the villagers stopped leaving her books, locking the library doors, sealing every house with access to books as yet unread by the fiery nymph.

Smaug hadn't cared. All he wanted was food and stories and he didn't care if she told him the same ones over and over.

Then they stopped giving out food.

Smaug persuaded her to try school, at least for a day.

So began a new chapter in the hellion's life, solitary still, but choosing to be alone, staying silent and deliberately stuttering and appearing shy and revealing her inner dragon whenever some injustice arose.

Clever and unassuming, the teachers adored her, never calling upon her unless she volunteered the information, which was frequently of a far higher standard than was expected. And still the little issues, such as spelling and pronunciation, continued to plague her. No matter how she tried, she couldn't seem to grasp the "I before E" rule, arguing vehemently that only around forty English words used the silly rule, and there were numerous words that had the "E" before the "I".

She was an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, crammed into an undersized over bright youngster. They didn't know whether to send her to the city to learn how to survive there, and hopefully get the attention she needed, or stay and be pushed up several years, so that she could learn with students closer to her intelligence, but suffer from lack of appropriate social interaction. Either way, she was bound to suffer.

Besides, going to the city was out of the question. She refused to leave the dragon, and all of the villages in a twenty mile radius couldn't bear to think about the consequences of her leaving the monstrous beast alone for weeks at a time.

It had been bad enough with it's mother. He was growing to be a size at least twice as big as she had been, and thrice as volatile. Without the the gently authoritative girl there to keep him in line, they'd all be dead within a week.

School changed Molly. She was still adventurous, with an almost comical desire to learn and explore, but she had learn to control it and keep it hidden. A master of situations, she had seen how the older children ridiculed the younger, more academic students and had thus learn to keep to herself, but did not let them bully her. She could hold her own in both a verbal spar and a physical one, at least once a month having to be hauled, kicking and screaming, off an unwitting victim, usually some child whom she had observed bullying another child regularly.

Strangely enough, she was never bullied.

However, she could see that Smaug was becoming both restless and more agitated, listening to her less and less as his strength grew. She had had to speak to him sharply on occasion, and he had threatened her physically, reminding her of his power and what his kind do to humans who overstep their boundaries.

She always reminded him of who had kept him alive during those months when he was too young and weak to hunt alone.

Yet despite what would appear to be rifts forming between the two, they would defend each other to the death if needs be. Especially Smaug. On numerous occasions he had left the cave purely to defend his odd little human, who had saved him despite his barbaric and irritable nature.

Even he could see she was unique among humans, who so often killed or feared the unknown, and hated his kind on sight. She had been afraid, yes, but for a very good reason. But she had gotten past that swiftly, had trusted him with her life countless times and had seen past his bravado into the scared baby he had been so many years ago.

That was why they would always be friends, family, even.

They were all they had left in the world.

He would kill before he let anyone take her away from him.


So hey! How was that? I think I'm going to go down the intervening years, where she is advancing intellectually and emotionally, whilst keeping the core of Molly's kindness and compassion there (the fighting is kinda like Molly in S3. I imagine her to be such a wildcat in her younger years!). And then, Sherlock will explode into her life, driving her into the shy, stammering, withdrawn Molly we see in the series. Sound good? I hope so, cause that's the way it's going! ILY all.