I do not own anything written by J.R.R. Tolkien or in Peter Jackson's movies, and anything Araceil came up with in Fate be Changed belongs to her.
Sakura stepped back a step, gagging as the warm air from the midnight-black square of the secret entrance poured around the Company. "That ... that ..."
"Reeks," Oin finished for her, pinching his nose shut.
"All the halls must be filled with Smaug's foul stench." Balin sounded odd, like he was trying to speak without breathing. From his grimace, he was failing miserably.
"Right, I suppose I'll just get used to it. Well, there's no point in waiting."
"What!?" All the Dwarves turned toward Sakura, presumably staring at her though she couldn't tell in the gathering dark. Thorin demanded, "You want to go now?"
Sakura shrugged. "Might as well. It's not like any of us willing be sleeping tonight, and if it turns out Smaug is awake the dark will give you a better chance to hide." She pulled her backpack's straps off her shoulders and slid it down her arms behind her back, catching it before it could fall to the ground, unclasped her cloak from around her neck and bundled it up to lay beside her pack, then paused. "Uh ... how am I supposed to see down there?"
"Glowstones, the freshest of them should still be working." When Sakura nodded toward the pitch black of the entrance, Thorin added, "The tunnel will have several turns, so that the entrance location won't be betrayed by light."
"Makes sense." She handed her bow and quiver to Kili, reached over her shoulder to tug on Sting, making sure the strap keeping it in its scabbard was secure, checked her knife in its sheath at her waist, began tugging at the harness holding scabbard and sheath at her back and waist, twisting to make sure she could move freely. "That's a big mountain, where's the Arkenstone likely to be?"
After a moment of oddly tense silence, Thorin replied, "It'll be in the throne room. When the Dragon came, my grandfather tried to retrieve it. He had barely released it from its setting in the back of his throne when Smaug's rampage reached him and he dropped it into the collapsing piles of treasure. I had to pull him away before it could be retrieved and even then we barely made it out."
Sakura stopped twisting and looked up. " 'Collapsing piles of gold'."
There was an even longer moment of tense silence, then, reluctance clear in Thorin's voice, he said, "Grandfather had the treasury stacked in piles in the throne room, flanking both sides of the aisle leading to his throne."
He fell silent. Sakura waited until it was clear he wasn't going to continue, then carefully said, "You've told me that Dwarves are ... attached ... to the products of their craft, but is that ... normal?"
"No, it isn't."
She winced at the curt, flat statement. Right, touchy issue, time to change the subject. "So, if I'm facing the throne, where's it likely to be? Front? Left? Right?"
"Front, perhaps to the right, toward or at the bottom of the steps up to the throne."
"Right." She turned toward the now barely visible entrance, then paused when Thorin lightly touched her arm.
"I'm going with you, as far as the first glowstones."
She hesitated, wincing at the thought of Thorin's big feet (the big feet of any of the Dwarves, really, except for Nori and maybe Fili), but couldn't think of any way to talk him out of it and time was a'wasting. She wanted to be back before morning, so they could be well on their way before the next nightfall. "All right, step lightly. Keep one hand on the wall to guide your path and slowly slide your feet so you don't trip or kick anything. I'll go first."
/\
Thorin had been right, there were several doglegs to block the light before the first glowstones came into view, those in perhaps one in four of the sconces along the walls still faintly glowing.
Pausing under the first glowstones, Sakura waited for Thorin to join her. Looking up at his shadowed face, she murmured, "This is where you stop."
"Yes." Thorin hesitated for a moment, before hesitantly adding, "It would be stupid to ask if you really want to do this — it's why you came, and I know of no one else that has a better chance than you. But you will be careful?"
"As careful as I can. I have a fiancé waiting for me in Hobbiton and a family to start, after all."
"Good."
They stood silently for another long moment, then Thorin offered his hand, and when Sakura reached for it grasped her forearm. Sakura returned the grip as strongly as she could, then noting the way his head twitched and remembering when at Beorn's house the Dwarves had entertained a bedridden Hobbit with tales of their customs, murmured, "Thank you for not head-butting me, that would not had ended well." Releasing Thorin's arm, she turned and silently strode down the passageway, his soft laughter echoing in her ears.
/\
Sakura stepped around the corner of the corridor the lower entrance to the secret entry had opened onto, and found herself on a small platform high on the wall of the throne room. It was all she could do not to gasp at the sight stretching out below her, and for just a moment her control over her Veil shivered. From Thorin's description she had expected untidy heaps scattered about. What she had not expected was to find a singlehuge pile, cascading down around the throne and the freestanding, checkerboard-carved pillars for the glowstones' sconces (completely unlike the tree-like torch pillars of the Woodland Realm's throne room) like an ocean wave sweeping onto a rocky shore.
The platform had narrow, open walkways leading away from it along the wall in both directions — almost invisible from the floor, Sakura thought, given how they were well-above the rows of glowstone pillars and without wall or railing to draw the eye — but the most direct way down was another zig-zagging stairway disguised as wall carving, the same as the stairs outside leading up to the secret entrance.
As she slowly made her way down the stairs toward the floor, Sakura was further amazed at the sheer variety of stuff piled up below her — coins, yes, and bars, but also vases and goblets, plates and their covers, armor and weapons, jewelry enough for any dozen dynasties scattered carelessly about, all shining softly with the reflected light of the few still-functioning glowstones. The only things keeping it from being the most spectacular sight in her life were the reek that filled the chamber and the feeling in her soul that Death haunted these halls. (And after what Mirkwood did to her, she couldn't just blame that feeling on nerves.)
Where did it all come from? She wondered, as she tried to estimate just how much treasure was piled up, how many piles it would make between the throne and the entrance, how high, before giving up. She had more important things to worry about, after all, such as the location of the current master of these halls — the one thing she couldn't see was so much as a glimmer of red or gold scales. Smaug must sleep farther out, between the gates and his hoard. Lucky her, she wouldn't have to sneak past a sleeping dragon, it seemed the secret entrance had been more useful than she'd expected. So let's not let that luck go to waste, you have an even tougher job than you imagined.
Making herself so light that a breeze would have wafted her away, she ghosted down the last of the stairs leading to the throne room floor and cautiously moved out onto the edges of the pile.
Several long, tedious hours passed. She'd had no problem finding the general area where Thorin had said the Arkenstone was most likely to be found, but it was about a third of the way up the pile — high enough that she had to dig down to search, low enough that there was plenty of treasure to slide down and bury her if she wasn't careful. So she laboriously shifted incalculable wealth to the sides and down in an ever-widening circle to prevent a collapse — and even as careful as she was she couldn't avoid the occasional clink and tinkle of plates or goblets shifting or coins rolling 'downhill', bringing her heart into her throat every time.
As the time flowed by, she'd found it increasingly difficult to keep herself featherlight and veiled from hostile eyes, She had simply never tried to keep herself so light for so long a time, and at last she carefully allowed her full weight to push her almost ankle-deep into the coins. She had taken to sorting the treasure as she dug — weapons and bits and pieces of armor upslope; coins and ingots downslope; plates, goblets, pitchers and silverware (goldware?) toward the stairs she'd come down; exquisite jewelry to the outside; and now as her bare feet slid and sank ankle deep she was happy for her flight of whimsy.
Slowly and carefully, she pushed several swords almost twice as long as she was tall tip-down into the bottom of the upslope edge of her pit and draped some silver-washed, amazingly light chainmail from the hilts, hoping that the makeshift barrier would stabilize the wall of the deepening, widening excavation.
And it did ... for a while, as she extended her makeshift wall along with her pit. But in the end, under the mounting pressure of passing time, she dug too deep and undermined the swords. The inevitable collapse buried her under a tinkling, clinking wave of coins and plate, an ingot bouncing off the back of her head sending her face down flat with star-sparkled vision, her Veil shredded to nothing.
"Ow." Sakura pushed herself up out of the sea of gold she'd been buried in, sat up as she brushed fiery hair out of her face, glanced up-slope ... and froze at the sight of a massive, red-scaled eyelid peeking out of the mounting pile — Smaug wasn't between his hoard and the front gates, he was under it!
Oh. My. God. Okay, Sakura, don't panic. He's still asleep, so — The eyelid twitched, and she dropped back into her pit. Don't panic don't panic don't panic deep breaths don't panic... Eyes closed, one deep breath after another, she ignored the rustling tinkle of more treasure falling, sliding to bury her again as she fought for the calm she needed to once more draw the Veil about her.
"WELL, THIEF ... I CAN SMELL DWARF ON THE BREEZE, THE STINK OF FISH, BUT I'VE NEVER SMELLED ANYTHING LIKE YOU BEFORE. WHAT KIND OF CREATURE ARE YOU WHO INTERRUPTS MY SLEEP?"
The deep, rough rumble of the Dragon's voice filled the chamber, and Sakura winced. Dwarf? Breeze? But how ... oh, crap, both doors to the secret entrance are open, there's a draft! Okay, kick yourself for being stupid later, you have to get out of here. Another wave of displaced gold washed over her and she took the opportunity to push herself up out of the pit and slide downslope, praying that she was calm enough to keep herself wrapped in the Veil, that the Veil would even work on a creature as large as a Dragon was supposed to be... Her slide slowed to a stop, and she rose to her feet and twisted to look behind her, and gasped at the sight.
Smaug was huge ... dinosaur huge ... brontosaurus huge! And like brontosauri there was nothing snake-like about him, even if his neck and tail were long and sinuous. No Chinese dragon here like her mother had told her bedtime stories about, no symbol of wisdom and good luck — no, this was the brute force of nature that Sigurd and St. George had faced. She'd been told before, of course, but it had been an intellectual sort of knowledge. Now, her wide eyes traced the length and breadth of Middle Earth's red- and gold-scaled apex predator and she felt very, very small indeed. Throughout her War she had often been hunted, sometimes for days, but she had always known that she was at least as dangerous as those hunting her — that given the opportunity, she could turn and savage her pursuers. Now, as she watched Smaug's gaze roam about the throne room, the distant thought flashed through her mind that this must be what a mouse felt like cowering before a cat.
But apparently a Veiled mouse, she thought as the Dragon's gaze swept across her without pause. Struggling through her shock and exhaustion to once again make herself light enough to float on a breeze even as she kept herself hidden from sight, she began to inch along the mountained hoard toward the wall and the inconspicuous stairway up to the secret entrance. The lower door was out of sight of the throne room, she could close it behind her without alerting Smaug if she could only reach it —
"SHOW YOURSELF, THIEF!" The angry Dragon's tail smashed into and across his hoarded wealth, flinging a horizontal hail of gold across the room.
Sakura lifted her hands to cover her face as that hail hammered into her, breath bursting out as an ingot slammed into her chest and another into a knee, knocking her off her feet. She skidded several paces down-slope, the treasure she plowed into heaping up to quickly stop her. Silence filled the chamber as the last tinkling of skipping, rolling coin came to a stop, and she slowly looked up to find Smaug staring down at her.
"THERE YOU ARE, LITTLE THIEF." Smaug reared up, his massive wings spread wide, and the golden scales covering his chest glowed red as he sucked in a deep breath.
Instantly Sakura was up and running as best she could, slip-sliding across the pile, desperately hoping to reach one of the pillars ... fire washed over her, turning the world red as she closed her eyes and dropped and rolled. She beat at burning hair with blistered hands, wincing at the sharp pain of bursting blisters on her neck, even as she rolled back to her feet. Why aren't I dead — the gold! Smaug couldn't make his breath really hot without risk of fusing his pile into a single molten mass.
The Dragon must have come to the same conclusion, because he roared down the pile toward her, the cresting wave of treasure arcing ahead of him knocking her over again. She somehow managed to regain her feet, plunged down the pile herself as fast as she could manage ... and a massive crystal glowing white arced through the air over her head. The Arkenstone! It couldn't be anything else, and she snatched it out of the air on the bounce. But Smaug was almost upon her...
Just as she was sliding by another of the freestanding glowstone-sconced pillars she threw the Arkenstone ahead of her to draw Smaug's attention, grabbed the pillar and whipped behind it hopefully out of sight, and her weight reduced to no more than a cat scampered up it, tiny fingers and toes digging into the checkerboard carving for purchase.
She reached the top glowstone sconce just as Smaug passed below her, his shoulder smashing into the next pillar in line and snapping it off at the base. As that pillar thundered down, she closed her eyes and did her best to ignore her heart hammering away in her chest as she fought for calm.I'm a speck on the wall, a leaf of parchment on the wind, a piece of tattered cape caught on a sconce ... nothing to see hear...
"THIEF! THIEF!" Smaug's bellow seemed to shake the chamber, and Sakura opened her eyes to find the Dragon twisting around, his swinging tail sending another pillar thundering down. Then Smaug reared up, his jaws widened as his chest again glowed red with heat, and more fire gushed out, sweeping across the hoard as he whipped his head about. He didn't know where she was. She was safe!
Yeah, right ... safe. Sakura slowly, silently pulled herself up past the sconce and onto the flat top of the pillar, where she sat cross-legged and watched Smaug rampage about below her. Now what?
/\
For the Dwarves, the night had at first been joyful, exhilarating as the open door of the secret entrance had validated all the stress and pain of their long journey. Then it had been eager as they waited ... and waited ... and the eagerness had turned to anxiety.
There were a few moments of distraction as, at Dwalin's suggestion and Thorin's order, they moved all the baggage into the tunnel and, using the dim light of the first glowstone that Nori was sent to fetch, examined the door to make sure they could open it from the inside if they needed to close it. But after that they simply sat or lay about the entrance's porch (as far from the reek of the tunnel, though that faded) wherever they could find some space or comfort and waited, and as the hours passed — except for Thorin, Dwalin and Nori (the King, the Warrior, and the Poacher) — one by one drifted off to sleep ... until a booming roar echoing up out of the tunnel jerked them all awake.
"What was that!?" Kili demanded, jolted to his feet and swords in hand, staring at the tunnel as another roar boomed out.
Behind him, Balin laboriously clambered to his feet. "That, my boy, was a Dragon."
Yeah, no long, obsequious/boastful conversation this time, Sakura's a bit more 'get a move on, seize the day'-ish than Bilbo. And no knocked-over pillar shaking the entire mountain enough to be noticeable to the Dwarves. I mean, I don't care how big Smaug and the pillar seemed, really?
