Red. Red. Red. Red. Smaug roared as he tensed every muscle in his body and hoped that every emotion he held was gone after that roar. Only disappointment welcomed him after, as he still felt the fear and the anger of being unable to do anything. The anger of being put through this again and again. The hate of being so involved and being unable to severe any ties.

How dare he? He cursed whoever god can hear him, be it the Lion or the Illuvatar. How can they do this?

"Isn't it an irony that you speak of such things when you know nothing of us humans, or Narnia, with such a dragon's mindset to rely on?" Susan's last scathing words as she slammed the door to his face. Last words that he couldn't accept. Last words before she went to her own little mission that she can only do herself. Last words of which no one gave him clearance.

"It is their Majesty's network business." Tumnus could only tell him. "She'll summon her own faction of Narnia. As Edmund's are the strategists, Susan's are those of the assas-"

Assassins! He roared again, spitting fire and clawing the gold he called bed. To take him away when she was to sacrifice her safety? To take him away when her eyes held that insanity!? Another roar, a desperate attempt in erasing the mirage that presented itself amid the heat and the gold.

Susan's screams were the first to follow him when he returned to his mountain halls. Then, her angry words filled with scorn and venom. It was a week before images came along to torment him.

Susan's corpse after a failed war. Susan's mourning figure when dead siblings returned. Susan. Susan. Susan and her tears. Susan and her fury. Susan and her apathy.

Susan. It was after a month when he was proven wrong to the fact that his mind could conjure even worse. Susan's shoulders' marked by teeth. Fingers running through her dark hair. Her skin marked with impressions of fingers, both harsh and soft. Her wrists bound by trinkets of gems and strings. Her lips bruised from meeting with another. Her pale hands running on someone's back.

Her cries. Oh, it was her damned cries that he wanted to erase in his head, more than anything else. He dreaded each moment that it sounded of pleasure rather than pain. When she called that name in a breathless moment instead of spitting it in hatred. There was nothing he hated even more at that moment than to wring someone's neck with his own…human hands. He roared and thrashed almost every room of Erebor that by the time he was done, he was spent of energy.

He questioned if this was the price for this mountain and gold. For every turn to be haunted, not by whispers of revenge by a likeminded kin, but of winter eyes that softened like raindrops. To hear hatred from rose petal lips. To feel anger radiate from ivory. None of which, even an inch similar to gold that he so craved. He had never seen Susan in gold, whether it be her crown or her clothes. Never did she shine as gold to him, stirring his greed to take and own. Close, but never on point.

But by Eru, he wanted to keep.

Today, he had burned all the tapestries in the Great Hall, and watched it with growing disdain. The dreams were getting worse, and he had stayed awake instead of hoping that he would find Narnia again.

"What ill had the tapestries done to rise your ire?" A chuckle echoed to his left, the voice clear as day and echoing. He shuddered. The dreams wouldn't leave him, and now he's hallucinating. "The whole mountain reeks of smoke."

Someone coughed, and coughed, and coughed. The sounds so ragged and sickly that it irritated him. He turned to burn the image away only to halt, when he saw Susan, Susan Pevensie, huddled to a column coughing her lungs out. He didn't think. He moved. He didn't care of his nakedness when he transitioned. Didn't care when he swept her off her feet. Only cared on getting her out of this place where she wasn't meant to be. That she should get her fresh air and have her breath. The whole mountain did reek of smoke. She only stopped coughing when they were at the front balcony of the mountain, overlooking the front door of Erebor and the ruined city of Dale.

"You can put me down now." She whispered. She was so small. Gone was the woman that danced with Kings, and led armies with winter calm. In his arms was the teen that he had almost forgotten, with awkward limbs and chubby cheeks. "Please."

She didn't blush, nor did her eyes move away from his when he put her down. He knew that all that changed with her was appearance and an ache tore in his belly with the wide eyes that regarded him. "Stay." He pleaded. "I will make myself decent. Don't disappear."

"Please." He waited until she nodded, before rushing to the first room with curtains still intact to make himself decent by men's standards. She was looking out the view when he returned. At that moment, all thoughts and words that he wanted to say were lost. He stood there confused and relieved, hurt and happy, that she was alive and before him.

"Your land sings a sad song." Her voice was barely audible. He wondered what she saw with her human eyes. He could see past Dale and could still figure the shapes of Laketown. It was a moonless night and the stars surely weren't enough for her to appreciate what he saw. "I never really pictured such desolate ground."

"Few listen to the song. Few are blessed to hear it in the first place."

"Who would hear, better yet, who would listen?"

He moved to her side, watching as the wind raked fingers through her hair. Echoes of the older body remained in younger limbs, but it all came out awkward. He leaned to the stone and stared out, straining to the song she heard.

"The elves, for one."

"They seem to be the epitome of goodness here."

"There are no epitomes of goodness in this land. I have seen elves fall and wander with guilt while hoping that they could die."

She whispered something he could barely hear. Maybe it was his imagination.

"The Ents too. They would listen and would still remember."

At her inquisitive glance, young lashes and lids over old eyes, he continued.

"Living and breathing and moving trees. Not like your dryads of which their souls can manifest to move. The Ents are Trees. Moving forests. They also take everything slow, that your brother Peter would get a tick waiting for an answer to a question."

"To be a witness of everything changing and the old world fading."

"To be given such gift, would often be paired with a curse."

"What do you hear?" Her eyes were on him, but like that horrid time, she was seeing through him. "What do you listen to?"

"Gold." Clashed with blue. "Treasure."

The slight curl of her lips was of fatigue and politeness.

"Because there's nothing else calling."

"I still hear them." Her voice cracked. "I still see them both in my sleep and waking hours."

He closed his eyes. The pain in her voice was enough to make him fist his hands and tighten his jaw. Even with her younger body, she was still the same queen he argued with. Her tone doing its best to not betray the emotions struggling to come out. It only made the pain worse.

"I asked that we go no further. That we leave the hunting another day. They are my family though, and…"

He opened his eyes and saw her white knuckled fists. He expected another disconnected emotion like before, where her face was blank but her hands were shaking. This wasn't one of them. Her face showed everything. "Wherefore by my counsel we shall lightly return to our horses and follow this White Stag no further."

She shook her head.

"I should've insisted. I should've begged that we stop. Let them think me a coward or spoilsport for doing so. Now, we're back in England and in bodies too small."

He turned his back to the scenery and took her cold hand in his own. How could his pain compare to hers? He was selfish and all he had to care in Narnia was Susan. From her stemmed her siblings, and that was all. He wouldn't be crippled with grief with the others' absence. "How long?"

"Fifteen years." Goose bumps decorated her pale skin. "I wake up frozen by the mere thought of how they are faring. How long Phillip waited for us only to know that there's no return. How Tumnus would bear the guilt that he shouldn't even. Would they ask if they did something wrong to have us taken? Or, would they think that we did a grave sin to be led back?"

He encased her hand in his until they warmed, then took the other to give the same treatment. She gritted her teeth to keep them in control.

"Tell me." He prompted before he thought that she would shut herself down.

The struggle was clear.

"Lucy said that Aslan would take care of them. It is Aslan's will that we returned. I know them enough that they are suffering and I do not want to add with these worries. Oh, I do my best to believe in her words, in Him, but I cannot leave it at that."

He stopped her fists from clenching by lacing their fingers. It gave her a pause, made her look at him. Another shaky breath. "Faith can only do so much." She whimpered.

What could he say, dragon that only cared for riches, to a mother of a nation?

"Sometimes Susan, it's the only thing we can do."

He saw the retaliation flaring and he relished it. He didn't know though which he wanted more. The fire or the softness that followed?

"I often forget that you are so much older than I am."

He puffed his chest, folded his arms and stared down at her. "I am fire. I am death. I am the Greatest Dragon of this age."

Susan chuckled. "And you act like a child. I thought no one can overthrow Peter in reciting titles."

He raised a brow. "Oh? And how does he do it?"

Her face went to an impression of her brother's. "High King Peter the Magnificent, Emperor of the Lone Islands, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion." Then she broke to soft laughter as if the very introduction was taxing to her. "We asked him once how he could recite it with such a calm and serious face. How he could be so kingly in listing such details when the heralds would do the same."

"And his answer?"

"He feels superior." She wiped tears on the corners of her eyes. "I doubt it was it though. I think he just liked messing with us."

"I still think I win."

"I didn't say it was competition."

"Have you ever seen me doing that in dragon form?"

She shook her head, more of exasperation than answer. "I can imagine."

She went back to looking out and he followed her with his eyes. She settled beside him. He turned around and leaned back. This way, she looked out the land and he looked into the mountain. "It would be far from the real thing though."

"I think not."

"How come?"

"You would just puff out your chest. Give your wings a shake. Look down at me like I am a mouse." She shrugged. "And be all grinning."

It was his turn to chuckle. "Spot on. You are quite hard to impress."

Their eyes met. Hers of memory and his, a challenge. "I don't remember it that way."

He rolled his eyes. "Believe me. After your first visit, it's the truth. It wasn't even me that impressed you, but the trinkets and toys the dwarves made. That music box in particular."

"Who wouldn't be impressed with a dragon?" She scrunched her nose. "I would prefer a dragon over an ass."

"An ass?"

He stared at her. She stared at the desolate land. He waited. If there was anything he knew of Susan, it was that she would always give what was needed, especially to those who were important to her. Would that mean that he considered himself important to her? Wasn't it that she's the only one to decide? He definitely would want to think himself as an important person—being—in her life. Doubt curled in his belly. What had happened when he left her in Narnia? What happened to her whenever she left him? Did she even wonder how he was when she leaves? Did she consider him important to her as he did her?

What was she to him? How important was Susan Pevensie? That thought made him pause.

"That's what happened to him."

It didn't sink in as quick as he wanted, but when it did, he felt the scales on his back bristle and cover more skin. His fingers changed to talons and the tips of his ears hardened to scales. He gritted his teeth together as the images that tormented him came flooding back. He could feel his hair getting tangled when his horns started growing.

"I think you should know at least." Another pause. He wondered if she could feel his distress with how close they were. Surely she wouldn't miss it. Would it be too much to want that she say something for him? He started when he felt her chilled hand on his bare arm. She chilled so easily. She was looking at him with worry and he felt relief in it. Strange a reaction it might be. "Are you well?"

"Tell me." He wanted peace. "Then, I will be fine."

There was no shiver when she pulled back. Smaug couldn't help but think that she was suited in the cold. She seemed to like it more, adapted to it more. Narnia called her most beautiful and he believed that the unspoken untouchable part was truth.

"During the march to Anvard, there was someone that informed Lune of the approaching army. I believe you knew of this. Kot came bearing the message. The boy that came was the missing crown prince of Archenland and Corin's older twin."

"Rabadash?" That was all he wanted to know. All he wanted to know was that he was dead.

"The warning gave them time to prepare. However, they were still overwhelmed. Anvard could fight them, but it would be a long battle if Edmund and Lucy didn't come. They cut off the Calormene's rear and closed any chance of escape."

Now a new question came up to him. "And your assassins?"

She smiled at that. Small secret smiles that women always seemed to perfect. "They killed anyone that was brave enough to make a chance of escape. I wasn't in the field. There would and should always be a monarch in the Cair. More often than not, it would be me."

The image of her corpse slowly weakened and he was able to push it to the back of his head.

"Rabadash was pinned to a wall by an arrow through his collar." His growl of disapproval wasn't quiet enough. "It is done Smaug. I am just telling you what happened. Disappointment wouldn't serve you now."

"I am free to feel it."

She sighed at that. "Aslan came. Before their eyes, he changed Rabadash into an ass. He would only turn back to his human form when he arrive at his land's great temple during the solstice. If he wants to stay as such, he wouldn't go far from said temple."

"It would've been better if he was dead."

"King Lune would be the one to decide that if Aslan didn't show up. I am...content with his fate. I would've preferred the peace over the war that would come if there is a new Tisroc."

He pushed himself off the wall and turned to her. "So, how old are you now?"

Her mouth opened, then closed. He let her decide that for herself. Instead, he offered a hand and a charming, ineffective, smile. "Come dearest. The smoke would've dissipated by now."

In the darkness of the night and the mountain, she looked like a ghost. It was a peculiar sight. Here she was young as she had been before Narnia but older as well. Old eyes. When he looked at her eyes, he could clearly see the older Queen's visage. Stuck in between and only three could ever understand her. "Aren't you still Susan Pevensie?"

Something clicked in her gaze and the smile that touched her lips this time was of amusement. She reached out to take his hand. "I am."

There was no falter and to Smaug, that was good news.

Somehow, they've walked through the halls of the mountain in darkness. Given, he was leading and he made sure that they went through those that he cleaned up, but it was an epiphany. She trusted him. It took him a long time to have it sink in, but when it did it was horrifying and joyful. She trusted him enough to tell her these troubles and-

"Do you tell me these just because I have nothing else to do but listen? I am the most advantageous outlet and storage." He made sure to make it sound like a jest, but by her expression, she detected something that he didn't even know what. Aside from craving, anger, boredom and glee, it was a slight difficulty for him to name other emotions. Even with his age, there was a lack of instances where he felt emotions outside the regular spectrum. Jealousy? No. That was when he wanted to kill the ass and kill him again. Disappointment? No.

She pulled them to a stop. They stood there in the dark hallway close the gaping door. There was significance in it that Smaug would realize late, but that point was a transition. One among many, but important all the same. "I tell you because you do not judge me as I've experienced people would."

She took a quick breath. "And because in some way you understand. If you didn't, you try your hardest to do so. I just hope that you know when to accept defeat to things that will never be understood. I'm sorry for every inconvenience."

He grinned at this, pulling her out of the dark hallway and into the familiar hue of the still untouched royal library. "Nonsense. It's the most fun I've had in a long time. I cannot deny that I am craving your companionship. You gave me a taste of an adventure that's new and exciting."

And of course the mere fact that Susan was brave enough to still stay even after all the stories of his villainy against Middle Earth. He wouldn't say that though. Too sappy.

"I wanted to come. We've been out of home for a month now and I was close to breaking. You were the only one that I could speak to without repercussions of stilted interaction after." It was a marvel, for the lack of a better term, to see the Queen and the lass overlapping. Her tone showed the old age that she had, but the free release of emotions made her wring her hands. The latter being a signal that she wasn't really given much of a chance to be a teen. "Also, I must, and want to, apologize. The last time wasn't the best of partings and it troubled me so on how you would've thought of me after snapping at you. I cannot stop thinking of the possibility that you will hate me and push me away."

He halted her tirade with a raised hand. Their arms still intertwined, he was thankful that she was still sensitive enough of the nuances. "I don't think I can hate you. I can push you away, but I don't think I can hate you."

It took a few moments to sink in, even to him.

"I'm sorry all the same."

"I accept your apology."

There was an almost visual lifting with how her shoulders rested easier. It was very minimal and he thought it was only the fact that she was so much younger. It took some of the mask into rest.

"Did you realize that that might've been our first angry argument?"

"Really? I didn't notice. Didn't we argue of the advantages of dragons in a community when I was twelve?"

"Y-yes."

"And we had a row about the other music box."

"I remember."

"And there's the golden-"

"Egg."

"-Sphere."

He paused midstep and glared at her. She merely raised her brow at that, paired with a slight curl of her lips. If he was a lesser being, he would've taken it as insult, instead he smirked. "You, my dear, are infuriating."

"Thank you."

The library, was as mentioned, untouched by fire or any further destruction after Erebor's fall. Smaug often visited to read through the records and literature there. It was an extensive library, ranging from the royal family records, accounting of mined treasures, to an unfinished journal of a travelling dwarf lady scribe. The last one took his utmost interest because it reminded him so much of Susan. Too many secrets along so plain lines.

"This is new." She took the seat closest to the windows without stopping her eyes from roaming. The shelves were carved from the mountain, as well as some of the large tables. The seats though, were wood and cloth for comfort. There were some paintings here and there, but it was too dark to see, especially with the lack of moonlight. Smaug wondered what she saw. Would it be her people or the dwarves that once thrived here? Or would it be him, perusing the tomes, that she saw? Was it really that hard to ask? He thought not, but the question stayed stuck.

He didn't want to turn his back from her, but he blew fire to the long abandoned fireplace. Warmth erupted and shadows danced, making a peculiar show that none could really decipher. He stood and turned to her, shrouding her form in shadows. His imposing form would've struck fear to men and women of great renown, but Susan was looking at him with curiosity and honest kindness. He took a greedy few moments to imprint this in his mind. He needed something to get him through the next months, and this was it.

"What do you plan now?" He sat on the chair across her and observed how the firelight fought away the darkness with kisses.

"Do what I can." Her back didn't touch the chair and her hands were folded on her lap. Her legs were closed with ankles crossed. A familiar stance, but stiff and lacking something he couldn't find the label to. "Do what I should."

"Detail me the differences." He had folded his legs and leaned back with his elbows on the armrests.

"Be a good daughter to my parents. Be a sister to my siblings. Be an Englishwoman." She seemed lost as to how she would live to be such. "Woman."

Silence.

"How does one act as a lass?" Her shoulders sagged and her forehead scrunched.

"My childhood is all but clear. It's been, I believe, centuries." He was mirroring her expression when he said it. "Why do you need to act as someone you're not?"

"Because people will talk. They will think us queer already with how Peter and Lucy will be. Edmund will be able to go for a middle ground. My mother will rack her mind on what exactly happened in the country that we changed so drastically. She's waiting for us to be what she expected. The children that needed her caring still."

"You do need caring."

"But we already lived a lifetime."

"You misunderstand. Let me finish." She sat straighter, grace gripping her bones and her body reverting to old norms. When he was sure she was listening, he continued. "Your birth world is a place you barely know, spending only a tender twelve to thirteen years. You may have lived in Narnia but whatever you learned there will be translated differently to another place. The cores are always similar, but the delivery is always different. And so you need guidance and caring still."

"To learn the lessons of Earth?"

"Yes. To see the differences in delivery so you know how to translate what was learned from one world to another."

A fierceness came to her face and lit her eyes aflame. The smile that paired it was demure, dangerous, and very familiar. It was a strange mix of vengeance and understanding. It made him wonder what the Lion would say about it, not that he ever met said Great Cat.

"You reminded me of my own principles that I forgot in my grief."

"I am glad."

She blinked. "You wouldn't ask what they are?"

"What will we talk next time then?"

"What if this is the last time?"

He could feel the distaste crawl on his face as his heart dropped. Way to turn the topic around. "Definitely not."

"We were taken out of Narnia without explanation or preamble. There's no saying our situation is any different."

"We met before Narnia."

"We were prophesied before our births."

"You're family isn't the only one to have two lads and two lassies."

"But-"

"And Middle Earth hails different gods than your own Lion."

"You don't understand."

"And as first of many, I don't want to." He growled.

"Isn't it better?" The pain was clear. "To expect that this would all end and we won't see each other again at some point of time. We can both prepare for what is to come! I don't want to hurt you because I have no power in this."

"STOP IT." He roared, pushing himself off the chair. The poor wood cracked with the force and turned over. "You don't want to hurt yourself. Stop talking about this thinking that you know how I feel. Do you think you're the only one who lost everything so suddenly? Do you think you're saving me with your martyrdom? Do you think I am innocent to such pains?"

He wanted to do something. If he was in his dragon form, he would've flown out the mountain and destroyed something. He couldn't. Not with the pain clawing at his chest and the pain held back in her eyes. He wanted to shake her to reason and to hold her in his arms for comfort. Not knowing which of which, he paced with his hands flying through gestures.

"I am the last, Susan. I am. I have gone through time with only memories to keep me and a hope that somehow I did my ancestors justice." He laughed and it echoed across the room. "Gold and desolation. That's all I could substitute to a glory I barely remember."

A deep breath.

"So do not think that I know what such words would hatch. You are one of the very few good things I was ever blessed and I will be damned if I just sit around to let you—this—go."

"If I will fall, then I will do so gladly." He stopped and turned to her, wanting with every fiber of his being that she understand what he was speaking. "But do not give me distance with the words you just uttered. I've lived long enough to know the vicious cycle."

He trembled, which was a first in a very long time. This intense pain was crippling compared to any fight he won. "I will lose this kingdom and all these gold, but-"

"I don't want to lose you too." Her whisper crashed like a wave.

(Someday in the future, Smaug would know of what transpired within that month 'out of home'. Tears and panic when the shock wore off. How Susan was the first to come to and tumbled as she stood and reached for the wardrobe, because everything was too weak and too short. Edmund's realization followed when he moved to prevent Susan from falling but failed. Almost immediately was his softly uttered 'no'. He scrambled to pull his famous calm together. Lucy shrieked and wailed. Small hands came to a chubby face contorted with grief. Peter, High King and eldest, was looking onward to where the Professor stood. His expression that of his world crumbling and he wasn't even given a chance to watch it.

It was almost instinct that they went back to the wardrobe almost every night, staring at the wooden back and wondering how much time passed. How long they all have been waiting. For something to happen. They sat together, sometimes alone, praying and asking.

"I pray that Philip stop waiting." Edmund whispered to her when it was their turn to sit side by side inside the wardrobe.

This was only one of many.)

That crashing wave was a wake up call for understanding. Smaug may be old and wise, but he was stubborn and impulsive. The demand for understanding always came when something snapped.

What was he supposed to say to that?

And so the sound of crackling fire and hurried breaths reigned.

"Would you stay, Susan?" Amid his hurricane of thoughts, the line emerged victorious.

"No." Her countenance showed her surprise and quick decision. He took a step toward her.

"Do you want to stay, Susan?"

"No." No falter.

"Do you want to come back here, Susan?"

Her face showed her surprise in being asked of such question. The clear 'do you really have to ask' swiftly understood.

"Do you want to come back here?"

"Yes."

"Will you come back?"

"Yes."

He stood before her now and Susan was as regal as she was when they danced. He could easily recall the smell of lilies on her hair.

"For me?" He breathed out. "To me?"

"Yes. I will." Her everything at that moment declared such words law.

Smaug knelt then, his mind racing for traditions where dragons made promises. However, dragons and promises never mixed.

"Then I'll be here to welcome you." He took her hands in his. "And when the time comes that can turns to cannot, I will come to you."

A thousand questions passed through her eyes then, doubt taking precedence.

"I promise you."

I apologize for all the trouble that happened. I know that this fanfic had been gone from FF for so long. It's just that I planned on translating this to an original story, but given that I don't have the time for it with the bulk of stories I wanna write before that, I better just carry this on. I will also try to carry on writing this past the chapters that I already have.

This is something I really am happy to write.