Chapter 4: New Acquaintances, Twice

Humming to herself, Doĵa sketched what she had in mind for the silk; a cleverly draped blouse with billowing sleeves and a flowing underskirt worn under one of her colorful overskirts that she would tailor to be open in the front to reveal the silk skirt. Pleased with her design, she tidied her desk - which amounted to pushing its contents aside to make a clear space for working - and picked up the armband. While drawing the lines of the silk skirt, she had been struck by the similarities of the flowing fabric and the wings she was struggling with. Inspired by her insight, she reached for her tools.

The sound of Smaug's wings and a gust of wind interrupted her thoughts as the dragon returned to his lair. Putting down her tools and the armband, she hurried to see what he had brought back from this foray.

Opening his clawed foot, Smaug dropped his prize on the ledge outside her cell. It landed with a thud and a grunt, rolled over and moaned. Her eyes wide with disbelief, Doĵa stood frozen at the open gate.

"What have you done?" she asked quietly.

Smaug nudged the still form with a claw drawing forth another moan again, "you wanted companionship. I brought you a companion."

Jolted out of her stupor, she said incredulously, "I didn't ask you to kidnap some poor person."

"You said you would not sing another word if you did not get someone to talk to."

Doĵa stomped her foot in frustration, "you know darn well that's not what I meant. I wanted time out of this prison."

"Then you should choose your words more wisely next time," he informed her smugly.

"You insufferable worm!" she yelled at his back as he retreated to his favorite napping spot.

Smaug ignored her and burrowed into the lake of gold, disappearing under its glimmering surface.

Angry at the dragon for his purposeful twisting of her ultimatum, Doĵa turned her attention to the person he had literally dumped on her doorstep. Approaching cautiously, she studied the still form.

It appeared to be a man, though it was hard to be sure. Though he was laying on his side with his back to her, he was much too stout to be a woman. His shoulders were so broad, his head dangled from them, not touching the floor. His sturdy grey and black clothes were masculine in appearance and cut, but it would be a mistake to go by that alone. His hair was the single sticking point in her assessment of his gender. Long and the color of the sun on a warm summer day, it was braided more elaborately than hers. It looked so thick and soft; she felt the urge to run her fingers through it to see if it lived up to its appearance.

She scooted between his head and the bars to her cell, careful to stay as far away as she could. When she could finally see his face, she sucked in her breath. A dwarf! Smaug had kidnapped a dwarf.

And definitely male. His face was rugged and mostly hidden by a full beard as well-groomed as his hair. Heavy brows with bushy blonde eyebrows shadowed his closed, deep-set eyes. A hawkish nose that had been broken on at least one occasion slowly dripped blood onto the stone floor under his head. Other than some scratches on his face and large hands, Doĵa couldn't see any wounds.

Stooping down and creeping closer, she reached out a hand to touch him to confirm that he was indeed real.

Holding perfectly still, Vili heard the rustle of the woman's skirts and she drew nearer. From the few words exchanged between her and Smaug, he surmised she was the dragon's captive, though she seemed to hold some sway over the worm. Why a dragon would want a captive baffled him, but maybe he could use it to his advantage.

Feeling her light touch on his shoulder, he lunged into action, grabbing her and pulling his knife from his belt. He sprang to his feet, pulling her up with him and spun to face the dragon with the knife at her throat.

"Release me, vile worm!" he roared. "Or I will end your little pet's life."

His voice echoed through the ruins of the great hall, his challenge unanswered. Smaug was nowhere to be seen.

"Shut up, you idiot," the woman in his arms spat. "Unless you want him to roast us crispy."

"Like I would take advice from someone in cahoots with the beast that destroyed my home? Not likely," he snorted, pressing the blade firmly against her skin. "Call your master."

"I've been trapped her for ten years. Ending my life would be a mercy," she snapped.

"That's ten years that my people have been banished from their home, forced to wander the lands like beggars. Call the dragon and let's be done with this farce."

"If you truly believe I'm his pet, what do you think he will do if you injure me. Let me go, you imbecile."

"I could easily shove you off this ledge," he threatened.

"Then do so," she urged.

"Do you truly have a death wish?" he was astonished by her lack of concern.

"Do you?"

Making a frustrated noise, Vili released the woman, pushing her to the side not towards the ledge. "Very well, I will kill the beast myself and reclaim this mountain for my people."

The woman laughed, "very well, go ahead. But first you have to get down from here," she motioned to the ledge. "The stairs have been destroyed."

"Ha!" he snorted and strode confidently forward. "You obviously know nothing about dwarves. We were born to places like this. Climbing stone is second nature to us. Mountain goats envy us our climbing prowess. I will be down from here in less time than it takes you to say…," he stopped with astonishment.

"I told you so?" she completed his sentence for him, laughing harder.

The wall below the ledge was smooth and slick like the finest mithril. No handholds marred its gleaming surface from the ledge to the gold mounded up at the bottom.

Gold. He was speechless. All the treasure of his people filled the floor of the great hall like a crucible ready for the smelter. It was deep enough to reach halfway up the steps to the king's throne and spread out in mounds of various heights. The faint rays of sunlight that reached this far down were reflected and multiplied millions of times by the metal and the gems scattered among the coins, giving everything in the hall a golden hue.

Forcing his eyes away from the treasure heaped carelessly on the floor of the hall, he swept the rest of the chamber taking in the familiar features that he hadn't seen for over 70 years. He had just sprouted his first whiskers when Erebor had fallen, but he remembered it well. In all the years since, despite Thorin's resolve, he had never allowed himself to believe he would see these halls again.

Behind him, the woman's laughter had quietened, and her soft steps retreated. Turning away from the hall, he examined the cell. Originally meant to hold prisoners before they were taken before the king for judgement, she had obviously made it her home. He frowned at the tapestries that hung from the bars, once magnificent works of art depicting the history of his people, now singed and tattered, a sad reminder of how far his people had fallen.

Shaking his head, he stomped to the entrance of the cell and peered inside. Filled with an odd combination of rustic wooden furniture that was worn with age and ornate furniture carved by dwarven craftsmen, the floors were covered with thick carpets woven by the humans that had once inhabited Dale and all the stone walls covered with small tapestries and paintings that escaped destruction, it was surprisingly welcoming. Hanging from one of the bars near the entry, a butterfly ornament made from fine mithril wire and colorful jewels caught the light and shimmered with color. Examining it closely, Vili could see that it wasn't the work of a dwarf, it was far too crude to even be the product of a dwarven child, yet it held a quality that he couldn't define. Other similar ornaments hung throughout the cell, sparkling, and sending a rainbow of color around the area.

The woman was sitting at a desk, obstinately ignoring his presence. Vili took the opportunity to study her without interruption.

Long hair the color of imperial topaz, with its fiery golden hue, with fine braids adorned with trinkets and pulled up into a topknot at the crown of her head. Even pull up high, the ends reached past the midpart of her back like a flow of molten gold. She was shorter than him by more than a head, and plumply curvaceous, though not quite a sturdy as a dwarf female. She certainly wasn't a human or an elf, leaving him at a loss.

Doĵa only pretended to tinker with the armband, keenly aware that the dwarf was staring at her. In their travels, she had seen dwarves on occasion, but had never interacted with any of them. The wares sold by dwarven merchants were soulless artifacts whose only worth lay in their monetary value. For a people that carried little by the way of coin, they could neither afford the wares nor were they interested in them for their value. The trinkets sold by her family held very little in value, colorful ribbon for hair, flowers carefully dried and pressed then framed in handmade frames, tiny baskets woven from fragrant grasses, and hand knitted caps and mittens. Most of their goods were beneath the dwarves' standards, therefore of no interest.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him examining one of her butterflies. It was the first one she made, and she had hung it by the door so she could see it every day. Her skills had improved since then, but that one was her favorite because it was her first. When he let it go with a frown, she flushed. Typical dwarf! Judging an object by its extrinsic value instead of its intrinsic worth.

"What are you?" he asked.

"I beg your pardon?" she set aside the armband and turned to him.

He touched one of the tapestries she had scavenged from the ruins, tracing the words across the bottom, before turning his intense stare on her. "You're not a human or an elf." He stated matter-of-factly.

She hopped down from her chair and approached him with her hands on her hips, "of course I'm not. Are you daft?"

Standing only a few feet away, she was acutely aware of how big he was compared to her. More than a head taller and more than twice as wide, even his hands dwarfed her, making her feel dainty and delicate, something she had never considered herself. Built like the rest of her people, she was short and plump. At one of the villages her family had stopped, she had overheard a townsman remark that she was what you got if you took and elf and squashed it down to half its height. That man had found large pile for fresh, steaming manure in the back of his wagon the next morning curtesy of Doĵa and her cousins.

The dwarf rolled his eyes, "so what are you, then?"

"What are you?" she countered.

"What do you mean? Anyone with two eyes can see I'm a dwarf," he snapped.

"Anyone with at least one eye can see I'm a halfling," she snapped back.

"Finally!" he threw his arms up. "By my ancestors' beard, is getting answers from you going to be this difficult?"

"Wait a moment," she couldn't believe his gall. "You just held a knife to my throat and threatened to throw me off the edge, and I'm being the difficult one? You have a lot of nerve, dwarf!"

He sighed, "I think we got off on the wrong foot."

"The wrong foot? That's what you call it?"

"In my defense, I was just snatched up by a dragon."

Doĵa remembered how she had felt all those years ago when Smaug had done the same to her. Her ire melted. "I suppose I can't blame you for reacting the way you did." Wiping her hands on her skirt she gave him a shy smile, "I'm Doĵa."

"Thank you," he nodded. "I'm Vili son of Gili."

"Welcome back to Erebor, Vili son of Gili."

"I would say 'thank you' but…," he let it trail off.

She sighed, "why don't you have a seat? Can I offer you anything? I have plenty of water and a few bottles of wine."

"No ale?"

"No, the last barrel Smaug stole did not fare well on its journey back here."

"Water, then."

She went to a cupboard and took out a golden goblet adorned with jewels the size of robins' eggs. Normally, she wouldn't have kept it for herself, but it had been the first item from his hoard Smaug had let her keep. Filling it water from the barrel, she handed it to Vili.

"It only seems fitting to welcome you back," she offered as explanation.

Filling a plain cup that she had scavenged, she took a seat opposite him.

Vili drained the goblet before turning it in his hands, "you've been here ten years?"

"Yes. In two months and three days it will be eleven."

"How did you end up here?"

"We took a shortcut to get to a gathering of our people and caught Smaug's attention," she started. She then told him the story of the dragon attacking her family's camp and then plucking her from the lake.

"I have no idea if any of them escaped and Smaug hasn't bothered to tell me. He claims to have eaten a lot of them," she sniffed. The pain of losing her family was still present, though blunted by the years that had passed. "I don't have the heart to ask."

"When Smaug attacked us," Vili told her, "a lot of dwarves disappeared. Many that nobody could say for certain had died that day. Brothers, mothers, husbands; all lost. It is hard to properly mourn someone when you still have hope that they live. Even after 70 years, there are some that still hold on to that hope despite everything."

"That is how I feel," she said softly. "I want to mourn them, but how can I if I don't know. It's like I'm trapped emotionally as well as physically."

They sat in silence as the light dimmed with the coming of dusk. Quietly, she rose and dug out some spare blankets from a trunk that had belonged to her aunt. Using some of the tapestries from the kings' throne, she made Vili a pallet to sleep on. Then she made a simple meal of fish stew that they ate while talking about less emotional subjects, such as her attempt to mimic the dwarves plumbing for her use.

"It seemed simple enough," she shrugged, "just connect the piping to the existing pipes and let it all drain away. But without the right tools, well…," she flushed red remembering how embarrassing it was to be scolded by Smaug for her waste ending up on some of his precious treasure.

Vili grinned as if he had the same mental picture and she flushed even redder.

Her rerouting of the water pipes was more successful. All she had to do was cut it off at one of the many valves and reroute the pipe to her barrel. It wasn't pretty, but it worked for the most part.

After they ate, Vili thumbed through some of the books she had accumulated, spending a lot of time over one of the more recent history books. She knew he was thinking about all that his people had lost because of Smaug.

"Was I really brought here to be your companion?"

Vili had been trying to come up with a way to slip the question into their conversation over the course of the evening but had given up and taken the most direct approach, as usual.

Doĵa blanched and took her time answering, "I guess so," she sighed. Then quickly added, "but I didn't ask him to do it. I was trying to convince him to let me go to Lake Town. I've been here for ten years with nobody but an irritable dragon to talk to, and let me tell you, that's not a lot of fun. Plus, he sleeps most of the time. He's like a cat. Sleeping 20 hours a day," she huffed.

"So, you threatened not to sing for him anymore if he didn't give in?"

"Yes."

"And after ten years, you thought it would work?"

She shrugged, "it was worth a try."

"So, I suppose I should thank you."

"For what? If it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be here at all."

"Exactly. Smaug would have burned me to a crisp without another thought. Instead, I'm alive and ready to fight another day," he grinned.

"Yeah, but if he hadn't been out there looking for someone, wouldn't you have been okay?"

She had him there.

After they went to bed, Vili lay for a long time, turning events over in his mind. Unlike Doĵa, he told himself, there was no way he was going to be the dragon's prisoner for the next ten years. Despite the smooth wall preventing him from leaving the ledge, he was sure there was another way for him to escape. After all, the dragon had come to trust the halfling enough to let her explore the ruins. If he couldn't find another way down, maybe he could do the same. Then he could escape and return to his people with news of Erebor and Smaug. Even better if he could devise a way to kill the beast.

With that thought, Vili fell asleep with a smile on his face.