Life is Precious

AN: Not much to say up here except enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything relating to the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.

Chapter Ten:

He sensed something was wrong before it even happened.

Normally, as a dragon, sleep came easy to him. Choosing when to fall asleep and when to wake up was easy. Usually, he could close his eyes and be fast asleep within seconds if he chose, and he could awaken and be fully alert from the deepest of sleeps in an instant. He'd also perfected the art of sleeping yet being fully aware of his surroundings at the same time. The reason people warned others to not sneak up on a sleeping dragon was because it was impossible. Even asleep, any dragon worth their wings could know when something was wrong in their surroundings.

And annoyingly, he felt that way right now. No matter how many times he opened his eyes to take in his little valley, no matter how many times he scented the air for any new smells that didn't belong, no matter how many times he saw or smelled nothing, he simply could not fall asleep. It was as annoying as it was curious. Why would he have trouble sleeping now compared to any other time? Eventually, he grew frustrated at the feeling and simply shut his eyes and attempted to force himself to sleep. If he was going to be stuck here, he preferred to spend most of his time in the realm of dreams. Being idle while awake was simply boring.

Then, however, his heart skipped a beat. His eyes shot open, and he looked around once more, his chest glowing orange with his fire and growing fury. Just when he was about to shut his eyes again, he heard it. A faint whisper was on the wind. "Help me!" it said.

A wave of cold fear washed over him, and he was on his feet in an instant. He crossed the threshold of the valley, only realizing a few steps later that he hadn't been stopped by it. But that small detail mattered little to him when the fear within him kept growing. The girl was in danger! She had to be! It was her voice on the wind, which meant she was calling him! And if she was calling him to the city...the danger must be great...

She could die at any second! Which meant he could die at any second!

Spurred on by this line of thought, he took to the air silently. It was a moonless night, which would mask his approach. He would circle the city quietly until he spotted the girl. As it turned out, though, he had no need to.

From on high, he could see her attempting to climb down the cliff the city was built upon in the dark. She wore no coat against the cold, and she had no light by which to see. That alone would've caused him to growl at her sheer stupidity. But then, he heard the shouts from atop the cliff. Rohirrim soldiers were running through the streets, some going towards the main gate in hopes of getting to the bottom before she did. Others were standing upon the clifftop, and the glint of torchlight off of metal arrows caused his belly to burn with rage.

He may not like the girl, but she was his to both torment or protect as he saw fit. As far as he was concerned, those soldiers were indirectly attacking him by threatening the girl. With a soft growl, he swooped down until he was almost touching the ground with his claws.

At the last second, he angled his wings to slow down before his two wing claws slammed into the side of the cliff. The shudder was so strong that the soldiers up top stumbled, several unable to keep their feet as they fell backwards against the wall. The girl screamed as the impact also knocked her loose, but she only fell a few feet before she landed upon his face. When she realized she was no longer falling, she looked up, and their eyes met. His were glowing with red hot fury while hers were stained red with tears. "Thank you..." she whispered.

His gaze narrowed before they flicked upwards. Some of the soldiers had regained their senses. "What was that!?" one shouted.

"Never mind that! What's that!?" another screamed. He was pointing into the darkness directly at them, though it was so dark in the shadow of the city that the only part of his body that was visible were his glowing eyes.

"Don't hurt them," the girl pleaded quietly, so only he could hear her. "And don't burn the city. Just take us away, Smaug."

He growled, not just at her but at the soldiers above, as well. He saw several step back in growing fear at the noise. They knew some unknown creature was down there, but it was too dark for them to see exactly what it was. "Hang on," he quietly ordered her. "I didn't save your life just for you to fall to your death now."

His right wing went up, its claws hooking upon the top of the cliff and smashing part of the wall. Already the first screams of "Dragon!" were ringing out as many of the soldiers began running back into the city like the cowardly vermin they were. His left wing followed suit, tearing another chunk out of the wall, and he raised himself up to look down upon the humans.

True to what he was ordered, he did not harm the soldiers, and he did not burn the city. Unfortunately for everyone else, she had not said he couldn't destroy a part of the city, for he had other methods of achieving that. And she had also not specified that she wanted to leave at that moment.

He flattened the closest house with his claws and roared. Now, the streets were utterly filled with fleeing humans. Soldiers were throwing down their arms as they tried to flee, often throwing regular civilians out of their way to accomplish that. "Be grateful that this pathetic pile of tinder is hardly worth my time!" he boomed. "I just came to collect something of mine, but I think I'll be merciful this one time and leave you all to your wretched hovels since she has been returned to me unharmed!"

With that, he snorted in derision and threw himself into the air, flying north. The girl screamed, clutching onto his face to prevent herself from falling. He was just able to close his left eye before she punched it in an attempt to find a handhold on his brow. "Be careful!" he hissed. "I will not be blinded by a flailing girl after centuries of battles against my own kind!"

"Then land so I can get on properly!" she screamed. Since it was phrased like an order, he didn't have much choice in the matter. The lit city was still in sight when he touched down in the middle of the snowy plains a several miles away. He lowered his head, and she slid off of his face. Now separated from his warm scales, she crossed her arms with a shiver as she stared at the distant city. He watched her for a moment before he also turned to watch the city, though his gaze, unlike hers, was narrowed in anger. "I spent my whole life there..." he heard her whisper. "And now everything I knew is gone..."

He studied her quietly, interested by what her reaction to this sudden shift would be. Would she be angry at the Rohirrim for attacking her? At him for disrupting her life? Would she quietly grieve? Or would depression sink in? He lowered his head until his muzzle was directly behind her. "You should have left with me when you had the chance." There was absolutely no sympathy in his voice.

He expected her to be angry with him for saying that. It was basically his way of turning the blame for this entire situation onto her. However, she turned away from the city and looked him right in the eye. "You're right..." She looked away from him before turning to look at the city one more time. "Maybe my family wouldn't be dead if I had just listened to you." Before he could even say anything to that, she turned and threw her arms around his snout as best as she could and then cried.

The initial action legitimately took him off guard. No one had ever...hugged him before. For obvious reasons. In any other situation, he probably would've just burned whoever it was to ash for fear of catching some madness if he ate them. No one in their right mind would hug a dragon, after all. He recognized this as her way of saying 'thank you', however, and he wasn't one to turn down praise or gratitude, even misplaced as it was.

He allowed her to hug his snout, though he glared at her in annoyance the entire time. The longer she stayed like that, the more time was wasted. He would rather be in Mirkwood sometime tonight if at all possible, but that wasn't going to happen if she insisted on treating him like any other human. After two minutes passed, he grew impatient. "Remove yourself from my face, girl."

She did, albeit reluctantly. "Sorry..." she muttered as she stepped back, unable to meet his gaze. "You're very warm, though. And..." She trailed off and placed a hand between his nostrils. "I guess you're all I have left now...strange as that may sound." She scoffed at herself and stepped away, her hand falling away from his snout. "Can't believe that I, some random girl from Edoras, am expecting sympathy, or at least understanding, from a dragon of all creatures. You're probably glad that my family's dead."

So there were the angered accusations. "Did you honestly expect anything else?" he asked patronizingly. "You force me to do things against my will. You disregard my pride and ride me like I am some oversized horse. Worst of all, you force me to carry other humans, as if you alone weren't bad enough." He narrowed his gaze at her, her own showing that she expected nothing less. "You will get no sympathy from me, girl."

He saw her jaw clench and her fists bunch up. "My name is Earyth!" she shouted in a sudden spike of anger. "And I demand that you start addressing me by my name! I'm not just some girl, Smaug! For some reason, we're stuck together, so the least you can do is show me that much respect!" He growled at her for daring to speak to him like that, but before he could say anything, she cut him off. "You know what? I don't want to hear it. I'm not exactly in a good mood right now, so I'll just say it to you straight. You can make things as easy or as hard as you want them to be. You want to take offense at every little thing I say or do? Fine. I'll make your life miserable in return. Otherwise, you can start treating me with just a modicum of respect, and I'll try to do the same for you. Deal?"

She waited expectantly for his answer, and he studied her long and hard. On one claw, the idea of simply rolling over and doing whatever she wanted of him like some obedient slave utterly sickened him. That being said, he was no fool, either. He needed the girl, so perhaps a little cooperation wouldn't be remiss. He'd still make sure she knew her place when the time came. "Very well, Earyth." She nodded, satisfied. "But make no mistake... I am no slave, and you are not my master. I follow your orders because I have no choice, but your punishment will be severe, indeed, if you take advantage of me. Even bound to your will, I am not as helpless as you might think." That was almost entirely a bluff, but there were ways for him to get back at her should she test him. It just took some clever thinking.

"I..." She trailed off and nodded with a small sigh. "Fair enough. Look, you need me, and now I need you. I just think that if we're going to be stuck together, we might as well try to get along."

"Yes, I imagine with your small, frail body, you will need me to protect you," he rumbled, unsure whether to be annoyed by the burden or flattered by the admittance that she needed him. In Mirkwood, especially, he'll need to lay down some ground rules to make sure she didn't get herself, and therefore him, killed. He decided to think of her more as a defenseless hatchling to raise, which didn't help much. He'd never actually raised a hatchling before, so he had no prior experience to draw upon. "And I shall...provided you actually listen to me. Mirkwood is not Edoras. Being burned as a witch would be pleasant in comparison to some of the fates that would await a helpless girl in that forsaken forest."

She pursed her lips but nodded in acceptance. In response, he laid his neck down so she could climb on. He still abhorred the fact that there was a human riding upon him, but there really was no other way to carry her. Loathe as he was to admit it, she was correct in saying they did need to cooperate. Without him, she wouldn't last a day in Mirkwood. And without her, the likelihood of him dying without warning dramatically increased, which was something he planned on telling her in exactly never.

Once she was settled, he flew north towards the forest of Mirkwood, his—their—new home.

Truthfully, he expected the flight to be a silent one. "Do you have a family, Smaug? Or did you at one time?" The question came mere minutes into the flight. Over the wind, she apparently felt the need to shout, though he could hear her just fine.

At first, he remained silent, a hint of suspicious coloring his expression as he could think of no reason why she wanted to know. "Why do you ask?"

"Just to talk," she responded, and he glanced back at her, not believing for a second that that was her real reason. "I mean, you met my family. I guess I'm just curious about yours."

Ah, so she wanted to keep her mind off of her family's gruesome end with mindless conversation. He didn't say that aloud, of course. There was no sense in alienating her again...just yet, at least. It really was a delicate balance. He had no intentions on becoming 'friends' with her, yet he didn't want to make her so angry that she forced him to do something...unsavory. Actually, he wasn't sure how far she would go. Would she order him to torture himself? Bite a wing? Tear off some scales? Poke out an eye? She didn't seem to be that type, but getting to know her a bit better wouldn't be a bad idea in this case. The more he knew about her, the more confident he would become in pushing his boundaries.

"I had a sire and a dam, as all living creatures do," he answered, taking her by surprise if her expression was any indication. "For dragons, mated pairs do not stay together, so I was raised by my dam for my first five years. Then, another dragon killed her, and I was left on my own. As I aged, I grew bigger and stronger than the other dragons within the Withered Heath, so I killed the one who killed my dam. I never learned the identity of my sire until years later when I found him dying in the snow, a black arrow in his heart and dwarf bodies littering the ground around him. He told me who he was with his dying breath." He paused and glanced back at her again. She seemed sad for him, which was foolish. He had no need for pity. "I took my mountain not long after," he finished.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Do you wish you could've had the chance to get to know him better?" The poor girl had no idea how dragon society worked, did she?

"I may not have known he was my sire until the day he died, but I knew Diatarad long before then. He was my only real competition within the Heath, so we fought many times for wealth, food, territory, or for the right to mate. More than once, he stole my hoard from me when I was too small to fight back." He chuckled maliciously. "So I was glad he died. With him gone, I claimed his hoard and became the apex predator within the Heath." He paused in thought. "Though, admittedly, life grew rather dull with no one else to challenge me. I left, ambitious and strong, with the hopes of finding a far greater prize."

"So what's the Withered Heath like? Are there still dragons there? Could we maybe go there?"

He answered those questions in order. There was almost always a blizzard blowing through the region, and the entire place was blackened with dragonfire. Anyone not prepared for the extreme temperatures and dangerous denizens would surely meet their end.

As far as he knew, there might be a couple of dragons left up there.

And no, they definitely would not be going there.

She asked a few other questions about dragons in general that he absent-mindedly answered, the conversation quickly growing tiresome. Eventually, however, she did stop talking, and he glanced back to see that she had fallen asleep. At first, he thought of waking her. She wasn't strapped in, so if she rolled, she was sliding right off. However, he decided against it, simply because he preferred the quiet.

He'd just make sure to keep a close eye on her, and keep the flight steady.

AN: And so the Edoras arc finally comes to an end. Next up is an intermission with Gandalf and Bilbo, and then we'll be right back into the thick of things. Leave a review if you so choose. I read them all.

Until Next Time

AdmiralCole22