"Do you wish to speak of him?" Aragorn asked after a month of traveling. He noticed moments when she would quiet, staring at the space in front of her and he knew she was thinking of someone.

She did not answer him at first, instead she sat atop her horse and rode in silence. She had grown to like Aragorn, he was a quiet man – a kind man, noble. "He should have hated me," she said softly, almost too quiet to hear.

"Why would he hate you?" Aragorn questioned, not seeing how anyone could – her yellow eyes were misleading, she was actually fairly pleasant company.

"Something I did," she said quickly, letting it pass without explaining. That was something else she liked about him, he was patient with her. "I hated me for it."

Aragorn stared at her face, seeing the sorrow and the pain. "Perhaps that is why he couldn't," he told her. "You punish yourself enough, perhaps he saw you regretted your actions; whatever they were."

She rode along in a thoughtful silence. "Perhaps," she agreed, thinking of his golden hair and blue eyes – of the understanding and compassion that laid in their depths.

Aragorn let her have her quiet until they tied their horses and settled for the night. "What of the man who died?" he asked, the first he had ever spoken of the dead man to her.

She turned to Aragorn surprised. "What of him?"

"You mourn him, Erytheia. He meant something to you." Many things about her confused him, this the most. He did not understand the way she cared for people, the way she loved; it seemed as though she had loved the man who died, and yet she cared for the man she'd left almost as strongly. It took him a long while, a year later to be exact, that he learned she cared too deeply – and it destroyed her nearly every time. But at that moment in time he laid beside her confused.

It was a while before she answered him, she had not even spoken his name since he'd died. "He was a dwarf," she told him and he nodded remembering the thirteen who had been with her in Rivendell.

"Was it the leader of the Company, the one who did not seem to like you?" he asked, seeing he was right by the surprise on her face.

"Yes," she said before trying to form his name on her lips, "that was him," was what she said, unable to say Thorin.

"Did you love him too?" he asked gently, almost afraid she would refuse to answer.

"Not in the ways of man, no," she answered sighing, confused herself.

"In what way did you love him?" he asked her curiously, not understanding her in the slightest.

She threw her arm over her eyes. "I don't know," she whispered, her thoughts turning to Smaug. She had loved him, as much of a brute as the dragon was, but it was not the same love as men; or even elves or dwarves. There was nothing like it, except in animals. They were mates, in nearly every sense of the word, but losing him had meant nothing to her – sure it had saddened her for he had been her companion for years, but it did not cripple her with sadness. Neither had the death of Thorin; it had hurt her, more than any other loss she'd faced; but she was not so sad anymore. All Erytheia knew was that the only person who haunted her every moment was one who was not dead, the one she'd left – the elf.

Aragorn had been watching her face, seeing the utter confusion, and then she sighed and rolled away from him.

…

She hissed at him, and he in turn growled dangerously. But even then she did not back down. He circled her, lunging for her throat every so often only for her fight herself free from his grasp. His frustration grew the longer she refused him, his need to mate so strong in him. And she was in heat, he could smell it on her – so it confused him to no end why she did not lie still.

She whipped her tail at the ground, keeping it curled slightly around her to protect herself from him, and still he came. There was an ache, so sharp and painful, she did not understand. She knew what he wanted and she knew she should not allow it; what she could not remember was why not. And so she held her ground, keeping her back end away from him and trying to keep his teeth from her neck – for the moment he caught her it would all be over, a thought that made her ache more.

He could tell she was weakening to him, seeing her refusals grow less firm; she did not move so quickly away from him, she did not throw him off her so roughly – she was almost ready to give in. And so he waited, pushing himself closer than she would allow, waiting for her to back away from him snarling. This continued for a long while, until she did not move fast enough away.

And then he was on her. Her struggles grew more fervent when he held her around the back of her neck. She tried to twist her neck from between his teeth but his jaw was too strong and he held fast. She did not settle until he forced himself atop of her, and then there was no choice – she was a female and he a male, both at the start of mating season.

The sound of dragons mating is a terrifying thing to hear; there are snarls and growls, roars and whimpering. Most are frightened away by the sound, for to other ears it was the sound of fighting; but underlying each ferocious noise was a purr, one only the two could hear.

He released her when he'd finished, feeling her panting beneath him. She was not entirely happy when she stood but she let him nuzzle her, and she bumped him back a spare few times. He heated the rocks beneath them and he waited until she curled herself up before he curled his large red body around, nestling his head over hers as they slept. She smelled of him entirely, and to other dragons that meant one thing: she was his.

Something about Smaug and Erytheia in terms of mating; in the hobbit when Smaug attacked Erebor he said he was very young - so during his time with Erytheia he was younger so this could be his first mating season where he was of age. And at this point Erytheia is very young as well, at least by dragon standards - and in human form she would be an old teenager; so about 18 or 19, so that was basically her first time. Only at this point she's been a dragon for long enough that she's starting to lose the human to her, so this was all dragon instinct.