Title: Thoughts in the night chapter Twelve

Author: Dís Thráinsdotter

Disclaimer: I don't own Tolkien´s characters, I merely borrow them.

Rating: M

Summary: Glóin sits thinking about his life one night when he can't sleep. Post Hobbit but before LotR.

When we arrived at the meeting place the Men who brought the ponies overland were waiting for us. We helped the sailors unload the supplies, which took the better part of the day, but the Men were unwilling to wait until morning before they returned to their city. The stories they had heard about the Dragon must have scared them badly, not even the fact that darkness fell would make them stay. As we were carrying the crates I suddenly heard Thórin laugh, we all looked at the crate he carried and saw that there was a letter tied to it. Thórin took the letter, opened it and read it aloud to us. It was written by our healer in Laketown and showed that she had thought about the dangers we were facing and sent medicines and bandages accordingly.

The following morning we packed as much of the supplies as we could on ponies, leaving the remainder in a tent. We knew that there were none in the area who could steal them but we still made sure that it couldn't be seen by anyone unless they were looking for it. We mounted the remaining ponies and went towards the Mountain. Reaching the Desolation made Thórin and Balin look sad, they told us about the grooves they had seen when they grew up that had been tended by the Men of Dale but now we could only see blackened stumps. Reaching the Mountain we went to the western side; to make camp before the Front Gate would have put us in the direct path of the Dragon but Balin, Fili, Kili and Bilbo went to take a look at it. They looked sad when they returned, followed by crows that gave us very rude names.

Our first task was to find the Back Door that Thrór and Thráin had used in order to leave the Mountain and that took some doing but finally Bilbo, Fili and Kili found it. Once the door had been found we tried to open it, using the mining tools we had brought but they were useless against the door. It must have been harder than we had expected, probably also protected by some magic. Now that I look back at it I think we forgot the moon letters on the map and their message, Bilbo was the only one to remember them. He saw the Sun and the Moon together in the sky, and then he saw the thrush knocking on the stone in the middle of the clearing and called out to all of us. At last we saw the beam of light hitting the door, a flake fell off and the keyhole was revealed. Thórin used the key to unlock the door; we opened it and stood looking at the entrance.

Thórin had a tendency to give longwinded speeches when he thought the situation called for it and now he started on one when Bilbo spoke up, saying that he knew that Thórin meant. He went into the passage together with Balin while the rest of us waited for them to return. When they did Bilbo had a cup in his hands, to us it was a good omen and I was amazed when I looked at it. Then the Dragon woke up, we heard that he became angry and it was only Bilbo´s quick thinking that saved us from disaster. We were able to get inside the mountain and Smaug couldn't see where we were but we were still scorched by Smaug´s fire. It was a good thing the healer had sent a jar of paste with us that we could use on the scorch marks so they wouldn't become infected.

Bilbo went down again the following day and had a conversation with Smaug, by the looks of it he had almost fallen under Smaug´s spell but he recovered from it. That evening Smaug smashed the side of the Mountain where the door was, ruining the platform we had been sitting on and blocked the door. He then left us sitting in the passage, not knowing if he had returned to his bed and we had to go through the chamber in order to get out of the Mountain.

TBC