Nikandro
His life in the Withered Heath was now a distant memory. All his travels around the Middle Earth filled his mind with gorgeous sights and memories of innumerable fights. Nikandro barely remembered the time he was just a young dragon, without any parent that cared for him, struggling every day to survive. The scarce food in the heat was contended by the strongest dragons and unfortunately, Nikandro was not one of them. As a cub, he was undersize and rachitic since he survived gnawing the bones and the offal of other dragons. They were often surprised to see he was still alive.
One day, he decided to run away from the Withered Heath, searching for a place where he could eat something more substantial and he never came back. Over the mountains, Nikandro reached the Iron Hills. He had never seen so much trees, a forest that covered the mountains for ten thousand miles, green as his own scales. Everything was wrapped in a lordly silence. Not even the wind dared to disturb it, swishing through the motionless trees. When he arrived, there were only few dwarves, so the wood was a perfect place for a young horse-size dragon to grow. Soon Nikandro gained weight and muscles, hunting ever bigger preys. He slept during the day, flying protected by the cloak of the night.
He didn't suffered the solitude, all the dragons he met in the Withered Heath were always mean or even evil with him. The only law in that desolated land was survive and he considered himself lucky, since no one had ever tried to eat him. During those years in the Iron Hills, Nikandro couldn't complain about his new life: he had his own territory, all the food he wanted and the only thing he had never found in the heat: peace. The young dragon loved listening the gurgling of the river, the singing of birds, and the clattering of the woodpecker, while he was sleeping on a rock after a hearty meal.
When the number of dwarves in the Iron Hills, increased and they started to cut down trees in order to expand their cities, Nikandro decided to move away. At that time, he was already a fully grown fire-drake, with the strength of thousand dwarves, capable of breathing giant clouds of fire that could have destroyed all of those anthills, which dwarves called home. Yet, the young dragon preferred to leave, thinking that mortals weren't just worthy of his time. Furthermore, he had the chance to explore the rest of the Middle Earth. Nikandro was quite sure that everything would be better than the Withered Heath.
Years passed while he wandered around all the known lands. Day by day, the desire to explore and always see new places, grew inside him. Travelling, became the things that Nikandro loved most. The green dragon loved flying all the day, until wings started to ache, while the landscape changed at every wingbeat. He loved the sensation of being the undisputed lord of the sky, the embodiment of freedom and power. The wind guided him from north to south, from east to west, where he saw the sea for the first time. The memory of that endless expanse of water whitening of foam, was one of the most beautiful he had.
Unfortunately, together with the beauty of the Middle Earth, the young dragon soon came to know also the dangers and the monsters he should beware of.
During a stop in the region of Enedwaith, a Black Arrow almost speared his chest. That day, Nikandro killed a group of humans for the first time, but it wasn't going to be the last. Many dragon hunters became attracted by the challenge of killing him: the Emerald Demon, as they started to call Nikandro.
Most of them died burned by his fire or ripped apart by his claws and teeth, but the young dragon never attacked a village or a city. Yet, elves, dwarves, humans, and sometimes orcs hunted him across all the Middle Earth.
Resigned to the fact that the coast was too crowded of mortals, as well as the wood behind the Misty Mountains, the Emerald Demon flew again towards east, until the small sea of Rhun. However, soon Nikandro became bored of this forced exile, despite he had finally found a place without any mortal with his damned Black Arrows.
The option of leaving forever the Middle Earth and explore the unknown lands of the extreme east became very tempting, but then the young dragon remembered that there was still a place he wanted to see: Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, ancient kingdom of dwarves.
According to the stories he had heard in his travels, another dragon, Smaug the Golden, had conquered the kingdom under the mountain and had took possession of the immense treasure that it hid in its halls. The seeds of curiosity grew inside Nikandro more and more. He desperately wanted to see if Erebor's treasure was big as the minstrels said in their songs. Although the desire of gold was natural for dragons, the green dragon never cared much of it, since nobody had ever taught him why it was so important for his kind. In his life, he asked nothing but peace and something that could satisfy his thirst of curiosity, like the treasure in that moment.
Therefore, Nikandro decided to undertake his last journey in the Middle Earth, flying to the Lonely Mountain. He was not worried about Smaug, one of the most powerful dragons of all Arda, thinking that, since no one had seen him for sixty years, he was probably dead.
He couldn't be more wrong, but after this adventure Nikandro wont ever be the same.