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The hobbit had been uncharacteristically cheerful since Laketown. The dwarves had marked it down to sunlight and fresh air, now that they were free from the dungeons of Mirkwood. But while the dwarves grew somber and discouraged at the sight of the Desolation of Smaug, Bilbo practically thrummed with excited anticipation. Bofur even swore that he heard him humming some merry tune quietly to himself.
“Thorin,” Balin rode up beside his king, lowering his voice. “We think the hobbit’s gone a little…”
“He’s madder than a March hare!” Dwalin butted in, snorting. “Creeping around those elf caves must have cracked him more than we thought.”
Thorin’s shoulders stiffened, but he did not so much as take his eyes off the mountain. “The hobbit has proven invaluable to this quest. So long as he’s still capable of fulfilling the terms of his contract, I have no issue with the Burglar’s…irregularities.” This said, he spurred his horse further towards his once and future kingdom.
***
“No one will blame you if you wish to wait ‘till morning, laddie,” Balin put in, eyeing the darkening horizon cautiously as they stood before the newly revealed door. “I don’t know much of the night vision of dragons, but you’ve said yourself it’s not well for hobbits. You will help no one going in at a disadvantage.”
“This moment is what this whole journey was leading up to. I’ve been waiting for this since the moment you dropped that damn map on my kitchen table,” Bilbo said quietly, hand resting against the stone. “No. Best get it done quick,” he added louder, pulling his shoulders back.
“Only be careful, Bilbo,” Ori said, worrying at his lip. “If the wyrm sees you, you might not make it out.”
The hobbit chuckled, cracking his knuckles. “Incineration, wasn’t it? One way or another, I imagine Bilbo Baggins won’t be making it out.” With a grin both manic and bitterly melancholic, he clapped a small hand on Thorin’s shoulder. Blue eyes bore into blue with a gravity the smaller man had rarely shown.
“I’m very glad I met you, Thorin. These have been the best days of my life, and not for the reason I thought.”
Without waiting for a reply, the hobbit gave one last bow, and disappeared down the dark passage, his call of “Thank you all for your service!” lingering for a brief moment after him.
The dwarves stood staring into the impenetrable blackness solemnly. Eventually a single voice rose, “We’ve sent him to his death, haven’t we?”
***
The mood was glum as the dwarves sat around the door, stars pinwheeling impossibly slowly overhead, waiting for any sign of their hobbit’s return, or of the dragon.
“He’s very quick and quiet,” Nori spoke up. “Startled even me a time or too. I’m sure he can get in and out without disturbing a single piece of gold, much less a sleeping dragon.”
Almost as if to contest him, at that exact moment a great gout of flame burst from the doorway, searing the stone black. Over the whoosh of the flames, the dwarves could hear triumphant laughter echoing off the walls down the passageway. When the fire died, there was nothing but silence for only a moment, before a roar shook the ground at their feet.
The dwarves hardened their hearts and clenched their weapons, ready to fight or flee at their leader’s command, when they heard something else that stopped them cold.
Another roar, overlapping the first, from a different beast entirely.
“Quick, it-they will try to escape via the front gates!” Thorin bellowed, already running down the slope.
12 dwarves took after him, Bombur trailing behind, face white and moaning, “We can’t fight two!”
***
“What’s the plan?” murmured Fili, hunched down next to his uncle behind the rubble near the front gates.
“Close quarters are our best chance,” Thorin whispered back to the Company. “The beast is large; it can’t maneuver well in close quarters. If we don’t let it into the open air-” Thorin was interrupted by the appearance of the dragon.
It was far larger than he remembered. Easily half again the size of the monster from his memories and in place of scales the color of spilled blood, its hide gleamed like molten gold under the light of the sinking moon.
“Mahal…”
“The beast has grown fat on our dead, and painted itself with our inheritance,” Dwalin growled, knuckles white and face red. “I can take no more insult!” With a roar he charged with his axes in his hands, only to be immediately pinned with an enormous claw.
“Dwalin!” Balin gasped aloud. When he rushed out from behind the rocks, he was caught by the dragon’s stare.
“Balin,” it rumbled in a strangely familiar voice. “I am hungry. Bring me something to eat, but quickly. I fear I soon won’t be able to stop myself, but as we are friends, I will try to eat Smaug first.”
From among the confused dwarves, Ori stepped forward hesitantly.
“…Bilbo?”
The dragon, Bilbo, lowered his head until it was nearer to the ground as well as the scribe, ignoring the way Dori pulled his younger brother back behind a protective arm.
“I must reiterate how important it is you find me something hearty to eat very soon, young Ori. We have in common now that greens neither tempt nor will fill me.”
Ori allowed himself to be pulled back into the protective huddle of the group, but turned questioningly to Thorin, as did the others hesitantly, eyes flickering between the king and the monster, though it seemed content to stay where it was.
“Are you truly our burglar, then? Are you a skin changer, like Beorn?” Thorin finally asked.
The dragon threw its enormous head back and laughed. “A skinchanger? Ha, yes, perchance I am, though not by choice and I do not intend to change my skin anymore.”
Thorin scowled, not understanding. “Give me one reason I should feed you and not just kill you where you stand.”
“Could you kill me?” was the reply. Smirking at the dwarf’s stricken expression, he casually added, “You could not kill Smaug, untested and weak as he was. Maybe I will just hold onto this collateral.” To make his point, he flexed his claws, causing Dwalin to cry out in pained rage.
“How do I know you will keep your word?”
“I must eat something, little king.” As the dwarves watched, the familiar blue of the former hobbit’s eyes was gradually eclipsed by a cold flat silver. “And all you have to offer right now are dwarves.”
Thorin grit his teeth, and went as far as to raise his sword, but finally commanded, “Kili, take your brother and your bow. You’re going hunting,” to immediate protests from the Company.
“Surely you can’t mean to negotiate with-” “-monster” “-know it’s really Bilbo-” “-utter betrayal-” “-there’s nothing living in the Desolation-”
“Enough!” Thorin roared. “Fetch a wretched animal if you have to pray to Eru to call it forth from ash! That is an order! The rest of us will stay here to guard against Bil-, the beast.”
The two departed sullenly, leaving the air tense, full of fear and confused anger. No one broke the silence, nor did the dragon seem to care to.
The sun had lit the world when the dragon gave an exasperated growl, and sprang up in a great frenzy. The Company rushed for their weapons, but it merely cast Dwalin onto the ground and turned and throttled through the doors of the mountain and down a passageway with great speed.
“We’ve traded one dragon for another!” Dori lamented. But Bilbo returned, dragging Smaug along behind him, the red dragon easily dwarfed hanging from the gold dragon’s jaws. Bilbo dropped him to the stone, and it became clear that Smaug’s neck was snapped, head lolling at an unnatural angle. Bilbo rolled the body onto its side, revealing a spot of soft skin visible against the gold-crusted belly precisely above the heart. A cruelly curved claw drove into the flesh and yanked, tearing the body open to the groin and spilling entrails onto the dirt.
Fili and Kili returned dragging an emaciated doe in time to spot him lick ropes of intestines from his claw like a cat cleans its paw.
***
When the dragon finished his meal, which many of the dwarves had been forced to look away from, he sat down and remarked, “If anything remains to be said between us, let it be said now. I will not remember any of you shortly. Already my years as a hobbit fade and fall apart like wisps of an unpleasant dream.”
“Ori. And…” The beast titled its head in thought. “…Bofur,” he remembered at last. “You both were kind to me, I believe. You may have Smaug’s teeth and claws. They are highly valued, I’ve heard, for their strength and sheen and so on.”
The two warily eyed the gaping maw of the hollowed and picked apart corpse.
“Ah, my apologizes.” Bilbo wrenched the jaw open so both halves lay flat, the fangs jutting up into the air like stalagmites. “They should be easier to remove now.”
When no one moved or spoke, he added, “And if one of you could see that Drogo Baggins receives custody of my old hill, that should satisfy.”
“This is how it ends? You’ll let us be forgotten?” Ori whispered brokenly. “I thought we were friends.”
‘Isn’t there someone among us you want to remember?’ hung in the air unspoken.
Bilbo drew himself up in anger, silver eyes flashing.
“Why should I want to remember any of it? Bilbo Baggins was like a puppet, ultimately hollow and insubstantial as felt. He was controlled by my motivations, and while for a brief time I was him, he was not me. Now he is dead, and I am free to move and think and choose as I’d like.”
“So what do you choose?” Thorin’s low voice spoke, his expression hidden behind his long hair.
“I will take a nap for a week or so. I will look for a less habited mountain when I awake.”
Gloin stepped forward angrily.
“Bilbo, you said you will not remember us. What is to stop you from eating us when you wake? Do you have so little honor you would kill and steal from your former Company? You signed a contract.”
The dragon sniffed haughtily. “You have your mountain back, and Smaug is dead. The contract is fulfilled, and I am free of any obligation to you.” But then he sighed, a great whoosh of air from his nostrils that knocked the younger dwarves back a step.
“But you did do me a great favor, sending me to a hobbit’s death by dragon fire. Killing you when you do not have such fine forms to win does seem ungrateful.”
“Then be gone.” Thorin finally stepped forward, hate burning in his eyes. “Erebor will never harbor a dragon again!”
Bilbo just laughed. “What of my treasure, little King? I was promised a 14th share.”
The dwarf king charged forward with a roar, raising his sword, only for it to crack against the gold scales, while Bilbo smirked.
“Relax, little king. What use have I for gold? My own scales are far more lovely.” He sighed again, wistfully, with a hint of blue again in his eyes.
“I wish I had my beautiful china still. That was a horde of lovely things, but it is back in the Shire and I won’t fit even if I were welcomed.”
Fili and Kili exchanged glances. Hopefully Bilbo did not recall how they threw his china about the night they met.
The blue flickered before silver glossed it over once again. Talking more to himself now, he added, “I never found a roost. Cavorting about Middle Earth was too much fun, but the long years have worn me down and I’m very tired of it all. I think I’ll fly across the sea and see what the elves find so pleasant there.”
Turning a final time to the tiny figures gathered below him, he flapped his wings twice, and muttered, “May we meet in another life, Thorin Oakenshield.”
Then he took off and was gone, leaving twelve dwarfs and a crownless king to their lonely mountain.
***
One week previous:
Bilbo was absently chewing on the stem of his unlit pipe and watching Bombur stir the stew when the princes returned to the campsite, dumping an armload of firewood each besides the fire.
“Tell us a story, Bilbo,” Kili said, as he and his brother plunked down on either side of the hobbit.
“Yes,” agreed Fili. “We’ve traveled together so long, and you’ve heard all our best stories, but haven’t told us any of your own.”
“You wouldn’t be interested in hobbit stories of Shire life.”
Ori sat down quietly beside Kili. “I’d be interes-” Ori started before Kili cut him off.
“Then don’t tell us a Shire story,” the brunet said, settling his chin in his hands. “You spent an awful lot of time in Elrond’s library. You must have read something interesting. But no elves,” he added, making a face.
Bilbo looked contemplative, before eventually stating, “Well, seeing as I will be meeting a dragon face to face in a few days, maybe I should tell a dragon story.” Seeing how the older dwarves were not so secretly listening in, he added, “If it won’t offend, of course.”
Thorin waved him off with an indulgent look. “A story of a dragon’s defeat, perhaps. To bolster our spirits.”
Bilbo’s returning smile was a bit tight lipped. “Then you are in luck.”
“Once, long ago, but not so long ago that living minds do not remember, there was a dragon. This dragon was large and fierce and arrogant, and like most, despised the company of his own kind.
One thing it is important to understand is that dragons guard jealously where they sleep when not squatting in mountains or razing cities…”
At the incredulous looks he received, the hobbit raised an eyebrow. “Surely you did not think Smaug spontaneously spawned fully grown from the slopes surrounding Erebor? He came from somewhere.
In fact, dragons will roost on an inhospitable rock in the middle of the sea so long as it is off all maps and a thousand miles from any other dragon or living thing. So when his fellows gradually vanished from Middle Earth, the beast gave no thought to where they went, other than good riddance. And, rightfully or wrongfully, he soon came to see himself as the last dragon alive.”
“But he was wrong,” Nori cut in. “Smaug’s proof of that.”
“For the sake of the story,” Bilbo sighed, “the only thing that mattered is that he was not the only one to believe it. May I continue?
One day as the dragon was sleeping in a glade in a wood, he awoke to a woman standing before him. Some say she was a fairy, others a witch, but what they can agree on was this: the father of her child, a kindly man who loved his garden and never spoke a foul word nor thought a cruel thought, had been killed during an assault against the beast. He had been caught in the fight thoroughly by mistake. The dragon likely did not strike the deathblow himself, but she knew if not for him her beloved would live still. So she sought revenge.
On the day of their handfasting, she had made a vow to her gentle husband to never do harm again, and she refused to tarnish his memory by breaking that vow, as much as she wished to kill the beast. So instead she summoned all her mystic powers, and placed a curse on the dragon.
Her spell transformed him, trapping him a new body, soft and frail and only good for gardening. In fact, she gave him the exact form of her late husband. Imagine the irony.”
To the dwarves’ variously smug to dissatisfied reactions, the hobbit merely leaned forward with a stage whisper, “But what was most spiteful was the cure she dangled before him. He could only become again what he was through dragon’s fire. Cruel because he could no longer produce it himself, and they both believed there were no dragons left.”
Bilbo leaned back against the log he was sitting against, and struck a match off the bark for his pipe. When it became apparent he was not going to continue, Kili asked with a whine, “But what happened next?”
“Hmm? Oh, well legend says she hung herself from a tree at the edge of the glade almost immediately after. But nobody knows where the dragon-no-longer went. Eaten by forest creatures, I imagine.”