Author's Note
Tiny spoiler for this chapter: we reach the plains after Bree!
8
The song of a blackbird woke her the following day. She yawned and stretched, then got on the branch she was hanging from by using her tail like a grape plant uses its tendril, coiling on itself and pulling herself on the branch. There she lounged for a while, observing the sleeping Dwarves and Hobbit. Gandalf wasn't there, he was probably away on some business of his own. He would be back, though, before the rest awoke, so they would never notice he had gone.
She practiced the names in silence for a time, while birds all around her started to wake up and began their morning song. When she thought she'd gotten all the names right, she looked at their minds. Were they dreaming? What did they dream?
The sun was too high for dreams, they had all gone hours ago. The members of the Company were all dozing and wouldn't take long to wake up. As she looked longer, she began noticing things. Little things, but they gave her insight into their lives and relations nonetheless.
Most were sleeping together, some alone. Bifur, Bofur and Bombur slept close together, and all three had peaceful expressions on their faces. Bombur snored, the others grumbled every now and then.
Dori, Nori and Ori were about the same, close together with Ori in the middle. Dori, she noticed, slept with his face towards Ori, Nori was facing away.
Balin and Dwalin were silent as rocks, save for their loud breathing. It was almost as loud as Bombur's snoring, especially Dwalin's!
There was not much to remark on Óin and Glóin. They slept apart, both snoring, Óin the loudest (probably because he couldn't hear it anyway).
Bilbo, the Hobbit, was curled in on himself, with a miserable expression on his face. The lack of featherbeds seemed to be hard on him. She would have asked Gandalf why he'd brought him, if he hadn't been Gandalf. There was always a reason to everything he did, and though she didn't always agree, she respected his decisions because he was much older. His fae was huge.
And thinking of... The Wizard came marching into camp, every other step marked by the tap of his staff on the damp ground. His gaze went first to the sleeping Company, doing a headcount and confirming everyone was there. Then he turned to her, glad to see her already awake. She made a soft grunting noise to greet him, ears forward and eyes golden. Then she turned back to the Company.
Fíli and Kíli were both sleeping. Kíli's bedroll was tangled all about him, and she foresaw some trouble for him getting up. Fíli was on watch, though there wasn't much watching involved. He was as asleep as the rest of the Company. She flicked her tail before shifting her gaze to the last Dwarf.
Thorin was the only one not sleeping quietly. She could see he wasn't having a nightmare, but his brows met above his eyes and his hands were clenched into fists. She looked, but couldn't look further without waking him up.
A soft whistle to the left caught her attention. She opened a connection between her mind and Gandalf's and listened to what he had to say.
"Don't wake them, he warned, they'll be intolerable for the rest of the day if you do."
She frowned. "How did you know I was considering that?"
"I've known you longer than they have."
She grunted some, but obeyed.
Apparently the grunting was louder than she'd intended. Fíli awoke, his hands gripping his swords before his eyes were well and truly open. She made another grunting noise, drawing his attention towards her and assuring him there wasn't any danger. Not that he would have noticed it.
She walked away from the trunk, teetering dangerously on the increasingly thinner branch. When she reached the part where the leaves began, the branch began a creaking descent towards the ground. She waited until it touched, then stepped of lightly and walked over to Fíli. The branch swung back behind her.
"If the watching abilities of everyone here are as good as yours, why do you even bother?" she asked.
Fíli looked at her with something of resentment in his eyes, while sheathing his swords and stretching. Maybe she'd been too direct.
"Sorry," she remedied. "But if you are asleep, I can't be."
He relaxed, but looked over at his uncle's sleeping form before answering. "I know. But there's hardly anyone who can stay awake at night. It's so boring. And the worst thing is, you don't notice you're falling asleep, until you're woken."
She looked at him with green-orange eyes. "You don't notice anything when you're asleep?"
"Do you?"
"Most of the time, yeah."
For her it was part of everyday life, but she had learned long ago that her having two ways of sleeping was rather unusual, but very handy. She explained it to Fíli.
"I can sort of slumber, then I'm aware of everything around me, but I don't dream. And actual sleeping what I'm guessing is what you do, dreaming and blind and deaf for the world around you. I can get around with slumbering every night, but every once in a while, I have to really sleep. Slumbering breaks me up after a time, but I only sleep when I feel safe. When there's no one awake, I don't."
Fíli's brows were meeting. "How long exactly is a while?"
"Oh, every two weeks or so."
His eyes widened. "You can go on for two weeks without actual sleeping?"
"Yep." She didn't tell him there was another reason she didn't sleep unless she had to.
He clearly didn't believe her. Thus far, they hadn't believed anything she said without solid proof. The rest was waking up.
"Look, sneak up on me one of these nights and if I wake up, you'll know I'm telling the truth."
"All right."
They left without having breakfast (they ate on their ponies), so she snacked on some plants alone before joining them. The day passed similarly to the day before, she chatted away with the Dwarves as she walked beside them. Thorin called out: "We camp here for the night," and the Dwarves set up camp. She watched as Óin and Glóin made a fire. All the flailing with tinder and kindling struck her as very cumbersome, though she helped gather firewood.
The next morning she was up early and disregarded Gandalf's orders from before, waking them all at the crack of dawn. She couldn't wait to reach the plains. She walked beside Kíli, who noticed and commented on her excitement. She said nothing.
As soon as they were out of the woods and she saw the waving grass plains before her, she let out a trumpeting bellow and raised her head to the sky.
He gasped for breath. Two creamy white wings had sprouted from Skyfire's back, swiftly unfurling to their full span of four meters each. They were similar to a dragon's, with a thin membrane stretched taut over five ribs, the fifth was the edge.
He watched stunned as they rose, throwing shadows over him. Before anyone had recovered from the shock, she slammed them down.
Her heart felt like it would jump out of her chest at any moment, willing her to go faster and faster, up and up and up. She was spinning, beating her wings to go higher without any regard for flying straight. This was where she belonged, with the wind under her wings and closer to the sun than anyone else could possibly go.
When the sun became too bright and began stinging in her eyes, she levelled off. She looked down and saw a line of ants, tiny from her perspective, which she knew were the Dwarves. She couldn't see it, but knew they were probably gaping up at her. She was even too high to sense their emotions.
Once she'd caught her breath, she began spinning, somersaulting, and performing other acrobatic tricks she didn't know anyone besides herself capable of pulling off. She zipped with vertical wings, one down and one up, making the circle she was describing ever smaller, until there was no more circle and she was spinning in place with her wings wide. Once she began plummeting, she pulled back up and glided for a minute, enjoying the feeling.
Then she felt fire climbing up her throat and finally, finally let it out.
He saw her shooting through the air like a fish through water, and was consumed by contradicting emotions. First of all the anger for the Dragon that had deprived him of his home. As he saw her tumbling through the sky he saw embers flying through the air above a burning city, and his ears were filled with the wailing of children and women and the terrible screaming of those whose bodies were melted alive. Above all, he heard the bellowing and the whoosh of air as the Dragon swooped down, bringing fire and death with him, and then invading their Mountain, trampling their brave warriors like they were nothing but bugs.
He turned to Gandalf, as it seemed now clear to him he was the one responsible for bringing her into his Company.
"A dragon?" he asked, voice shaking with rage.
"Not a dragon, Thorin," Gandalf responded, his calm voice piercing through the red haze before the Dwarf's eyes. "She is not Smaug. Try to see beyond your hatred and give her an honest chance. You won't regret it."
That was the other side of the coin. He had seen the first drops of her lake of capabilities, and he had to admit he was curious what other secrets she held. She certainly was an asset to his Quest. No matter how much confidence he tried to show in front of the Company, deep down his heart sank when he looked at them. Loyalty, honour, a willing heart indeed, but those had not been in short supply in Erebor. Balin's words were gnawing at him. A dragon was a more than formidable opponent, and he would need all the help he could get. But why did she have to be so much like a dragon?
He looked up and to his shock, saw her breathing a cloud of fire, then diving into it. He felt fire raging all around him as he hid behind a pillar and saw children's kites being swallowed by the flames. But then she came out on the other side, unhurt and somersaulting, and doubt began to form in his mind.
She heard Gandalf's enchanted whistle and knew it was time. She relaxed her tail and pulled her left wing to her side, causing her to fall sideways with her tail trailing behind her like a tail on a kite.
She plummeted down, all limbs relaxed so that her body was twisting as she fell, seemingly out of control. She closed her eyes, waiting. She didn't need her eyes for this part, she just enjoyed the air whipping past as she approached the ground.
She felt the familiar shiver sliding up her spine, and stretched out her tail, angling herself into a nosedive. She opened her eyes again, waited, and judged it the right moment. She snapped open her wings and bent her wingfingers, shifting her tail so her legs were lower than her head, and landed front feet first on the ground.
She took a moment to calm down, then raised her head and looked into Thorin's icy blue eyes. Her own were black. She could have folded her wings and tucked them against her sides, but she decided against it. She kept them open for all to see.
He looked at her. Her eyes were black and piercing. He couldn't deny that he was impressed, he realized she had been in full control during every moment of her flight, including the plummeting at the end. Somehow, she'd known exactly when to pull up so she didn't crash into the ground. He realized she was talking to him. He knew he was the only one who heard her words, and her voice was deeper than it had been when he had heard her speak.
"This is who I am, and I will neither change nor hide it. It is now up to you to accept me or send me away. If you choose to expel me from your Company, I will leave. I will not hold a grudge, nor hinder you in any way. But let me stay, and I will help you in any way I can. I will give my life for yours if need be. The choice is yours alone."
He took a deep breath, looking into her eyes. They were black, but restless as the ocean. He knew she had spoken the truth. He also knew it was not a promise made lightly.
He was the first to look away, and nodded. Her front legs left the ground and she rose vertically, three meters tall, wings spread. She roared, and breathed a column of fire over their heads.
