It was the wind that woke Smaug that night.

It was the wind that told him that something was wrong.

It was the wind that forced him from his deep slumber and snapped open his eyes.

Smaug jolted upright, his heart beating faster, faster, faster. Something is wrong.

The events of the last time he had been awake came rushing back to him. A magnificent orange-scaled dragon shielding him from a scrabble of filthy dwarves. A magnificent orange-scaled dragon transforming into a young, auburn-haired girl.

Ryla, Smaug thought, remembering the gorgeous color of his wife's scales. Cestai, he thought, for the girl in his memories was surely her.

The name seemed to set off an insistent chirping from the wind. Cestai, Cestai, Cestai.

"Cestai," Smaug breathed. It was then that he realized what felt so wrong, why the wind felt so empty, whose perpetual presence had been missing from the air.

He launched himself towards the stairs leading to her bedroom. The stairs seemed so small to him, each step shorter and thinner than any one of his claws. But he gingerly leaned over the staircase so that his face was directly in front of her door. "Cestai," he whispered. "Are you there?"

A silly question. For he knew, in his heart, that she was not there.

Fumbling with the miniscule handle of her door, he finally twisted it open, half-expecting to find his daughter's smiling face hiding behind it, laughing at her father. "I got you," she would say. "You thought I was gone? I would never leave, Papa! Never!"

But it was only darkness beyond the door. Darkness, and a terrible, terrible emptiness.

"Cestai?" he called out, his voice catching with a fear he had only felt once before in his life. "Cestai, please, come out," he sobbed, forcing his head as far as he could through her door and looking around, only to find that it was completely and utterly vacant.

I failed Ryla and now I have failed my daughter, he thought to himself, his breathing filled with ragged heaves. My daughter… my dear, dear Cestai…

Where was she now?

Smaug pulled back from his daughter's empty room, huge tears streaming from his bright orange eyes. I tried so hard to keep her safe, and yet...

And so it was, that the great and mighty dragon was broken for the second time.

"Lady? Are you awake?"

Cestai, assuming that the 'Lady' could only refer to her, especially amongst a camp full of men, sat up, looking around for the speaker. She had only been pretending to sleep, having found it nearly impossible to tear her eyes away from her new surroundings, her senses utterly fascinated by the chilly winds and the chirping of nocturnal birds.

"It's me," the dark-haired dwarf, Kili, if she remembered correctly, was nestled in the bedroll next to hers, his dark eyes wide with excitement. "Kili."

"Hello, Kili," Cestai said awkwardly, unsure of how else to continue the conversation.

"I can't sleep," Kili said, scooting closer. "And I saw you fidgeting, so I thought you might still be awake too."

Cestai bit her lip, yet again left at a loss for words. The way the dwarf looked at her with expectant, puppy-like eyes made her want to laugh, but also made her slightly uncomfortable.

"Everyone here in this company practically raised me," Kili piped up. "I know each of them like I know myself. But I don't know you very well. And I like to know everybody," Kili added, taking a moment to breathe after his torrent of words.

"How long have you known everyone here?" Cestai asked.

"Ever since I've been alive, practically," Kili admitted. "And I'm seventy-seven, so that's a lot of time."

Cestai, having studied Dwarven lore, knew that seventy-seven wasn't very much time at all in Dwarven years, but thought it best not to correct the dwarf's proud self-image. Besides, it wasn't like she was one to talk. By her own calculations, she herself was younger than Kili, standing at a mere fifty years.

"How old are you?" Kili asked, as if reading her thoughts.

"I'm fifty," Cestai confessed, watching the shock form on the dwarf's face.

"Fifty?" Kili exclaimed, his eyes widening. His cocky grin straightened into a frown. "That's too bad," he mumbled to himself, seeming to be counting something on his fingers, as if performing some sort of mathematical calculations.

"Too bad?" Cestai probed, confused.

"Uncle is one hundred and ninety-five," Kili explained. "So that complicates things a bit."

"Complicates things?"

Kili gave a mischievous smirk. "You really don't know?"

Cestai shook her head, wondering why she would know what he was talking about.

"My uncle has lived for a long time," Kili said. "But he's never found his One."

Cestai recalled reading something about One's in a book once. They were supposedly your one true love, someone that you were destined to be with. "So?" she asked, impatiently. "How does this apply to me?"
"Don't be so hasty, Alyssa," Kili laughed, holding up a hand as if to calm her down. "I'm getting there." When she sighed, signalling for him to continue, he added, "I've watched people meet and fall in love with their Ones, and I know what it looks and feels like when you first meet the person you're destined to be with."

"Have you met your One?" Cestai asked, not liking where the conversation was going and eager to direct it elsewhere.

"Well, yes, I think so, but..." Kili trailed off, the glimmer in his eyes dulling for the briefest of moments. "Don't try to change the subject," he scolded, whilst, she observed, changing the subject himself.

"Alright," she smirked.

"Anyways," Kili said, unfazed. "My uncle has lived his whole life thinking he'll never find his One. Until you came along."

"Me?" Cestai laughed, her amusement disguising her alarm.

"When my uncle first saw you, I saw something change in his face. A look that he usually only reserves for me and Fili."

"Hold on," Cestai said, incredulous. "You're saying that some dwarf prince who is nearly triple my age is destined to be my lover? You must be joking."

Kili raised his eyebrows. "There's something between you two. I can sense it."

"Oh, and what are you? A love expert?" Cestai snorted.

"Perhaps," Kili grinned.

"I'm sorry Kili, but… me and Thorin? That…" She trailed off, remembering the mission to kill her father. "That could never happen."

"We'll see," Kili mumbled, easing himself back into his bedroll. "See you in the morning, Alyssa."

Thank you for reading! I'd like to especially thank a Guest reader for suggesting that I do a scene from Smaug's POV when he realizes that Cestai is missing.

Also, I'd like to mention that I'll be using Kili as a sort of trolls-from-Frozen-love-experts/little brother character in the story. I know that Thorin and Kili are basically the only two characters I ever really develop in full detail in any of my fictions, but HOW CAN I RESIST? lol

Please check out my other two stories (both for the Hobbit), Smoke Screen and The Moon's Dream!

Review, fave and follow! :)