Chapter Text
"You think you can control me?! I am Smaug the Impenetrable, Smaug the Golden, Smaug the Free! And you cannot ensnare me!"
Bilbo dived behind another pillar as a great gust of flames came right at him from the glowing maw that was Smaug's mouth. The heat of it was nearly unbearable and he could see a number of the countless golden coins that were Erebor's great hoard glowing red under the onslaught.
"I did not bend," the great dragon snarled, every word accompanied by a tongue of flame, "when the vermin that is Ungoliant's legacy crept in my fortress, I did not bow when the Shadows grew long and dark, I did not obey when the whispers of death grew louder and I will not break for you either! You will need more," another gust of flames shot out, "than the Dark Lord's sweet lies to enslave me!"
Trying to hold his breath and not inhale the heat of Smaug's flames, Bilbo's sank deeper in his hiding place. There were flames everywhere now, flowing over the gold and turning it molten all around Bilbo – any moment now he knew he'd feel it burn. Surrounded by the hot metal, covered in Smaug's onslaught of flames, there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide.
This was beyond a bad idea – the whole quest was a terrible idea and it was about to get him killed!
Smaug stopped to inhale and Bilbo knew it would be his last chance – the next breath would let loose the molten gold and he'd die an agonising, burning death.
"I am not trying to ensnare you, oh Smaug the Terrible!" he cried out desperately. "However could I even do such a thing?! Surely no power exists that could command a dragon as great as you!"
"Liar!" the dragon snarled and the whole mountain seemed to tremble at the force of it. "You think I don't feel it on you, that I cannot taste its stench?! I can hear His voice, calling from your finger, calling to me, trying to command me! You brought it here to me, to enslave me to His will and I refuse, I refuse!"
Smaug inhaled and in desperation Bilbo rounded the pillar, visible and hands up in the air, trying not to scream as he stepped on the red hot coins. Even hobbit feet could not withstand the lingering heat of dragon fire. "Wait!" Bilbo cried, his eyes tearing. "Wait, please! Whatever you think I have I don't know, whatever you think I'm doing I swear on my life I am not!"
The dragon snarled at him, but did not breathe fire. "The Ring!" he hissed, the back of his mouth glowing hot red. "You have it. Golden and terrible and precious. I can feel it, I can hear it! Take it out!"
The part of Bilbo that had refused to show the magic ring to Gandalf reared its head and was instantly smothered under the sheer immensity of Bilbo's fear. He fumbled his pocked and dug out the ring, looking for a place to put it and catching sight of an iron chest, sitting half buried in the gold. Hurried, he swept the stray coins and jewels off the top of the chest and slapped the ring down on it.
Smaug stared at it and then roared and it was all Bilbo could do to scamper away, heedless of burns, as Smaug unleashed his fire on the ring. The flames were everywhere, spreading out like spilled water, washing over the mounds of coins and bathing the chest and the ring in hot white fury. Again and again Smaug breathed fire on the ring, until he was roaring at a pool of molten glowing metal, until the force of his roar was pushing the liquid gold away as if it was nothing but smoke you could just blow away.
And at the heart of the crater Smaug was making the ring persisted, glowing red only around the middle, where some mysterious text could be seen.
How long it went on, Bilbo wasn't sure. He crawled away, crying with pain, and at a safe distance nursed his burned feet as much as he could. The tough skin on the soles of his feet had saved him deeper injury and his flesh and bones hadn't been seared bare and bloody… but the burns were bad. Too bad to walk, too bad to even stand. Too bad, for any hope of escape on foot.
The air in the throne hall was growing thin and smoky when Smaug finally stopped. There was a crater in the treasure now, a circle of melted gold and seared stone that was smoking under Smaug hateful gaze. And there in the middle, with no chest in sight, was the Ring.
Utterly unharmed.
Smaug snarled at it and turned to Bilbo. "Where did you get it?"
Bilbo winced, cradling one of his feet in his hand. "In the caves under Misty Mountain, I don't know exactly where. A strange, gangly creature had it – he called it his Precious," he said and took a breath. "All – all I know is that it has the power to turn the wearer invisible."
Smaug narrowed his eyes at him, the spines around his head flaring out a little. Then he looked at the Ring again. "A precious little magical trinket to help a thief in his trade, is it?" he hissed. "How cunning."
Suddenly Smaug turned completely towards Bilbo, pushing close enough that Bilbo could've reached out to pat his nose, had he lost his mind. The firedrake then inhaled so deeply that it created a current. "Dwarves," Smaug exhaled. "Tell me thief, did the idea to steal from me come to you before or after you found the One Ring?"
"I was… I was hired almost a year ago," Bilbo said, seeing no point in lies anymore. He could not run and Smaug had him – the likelihood of him surviving seemed increasingly slim. "The Ring I only found a couple months back."
"And sensing a better host, it came to you so you could bring it to me," Smaug rumbled in disgust and peered at him, slitted pupil flicking up and down to take him in fully. "You've worn it," Smaug said slowly, pupils widening. "The cold of the Wraiths is all over you. For days and days you've worn the One Ring, haven't you, thief?"
"Weeks, it was weeks. Our company was captured by the Wood Elves, I was the only one who managed to avoid capture," Bilbo admitted weakly. "It took some time to arrange our escape."
Smaug said nothing, just hissed wordlessly from between his sharp teeth and turned back to the Ring. As he did, swishing his tail about like an agitated cat, Bilbo examined his feet again. Maybe… maybe if he bound them…
"On your way here, thief, did you see many Orcs?" Smaug asked.
Bilbo snorted, and shrugged off his coat. It was fine velvet and all too big for him and he had no qualm about tearing it into strips. "Trolls, Orcs, Goblins, Wargs, you name it. And giant spiders too, they're all over Greenwood. And I heard Gandalf -"
"Gandalf?!" Smaug snarled, rounding up on him. "The Grey Wizard? What has he to do with this?!"
Bilbo swallowed dryly. "I – he – he's the reason I'm here, he chose me – he's been guiding our Quest for Erebor -"
"Wizard!" Smaug roared and turned away sharply. Coins were thrown everywhere as Smaug, for the lack of a better word, paced in agitation. "A wizard behind it all – of course. Reclaiming Erebor, are you? A fortress against the encroaching Darkness and enough wealth," he swept his talons through the coins angrily, "to build armies. He sent you to kill me!"
"Well," Bilbo winced. "Just to get the Arkenstone for now, really. Everyone's still a bit unclear on… on the rest."
"And the Ring?" Smaug demanded to know. "Does the wizard know about the Ring?!"
"Er, that is – no. I could bring myself to say, it…" Bilbo shrank a little under Smaug's severe gaze. "It didn't seem important."
Smaug threw his head back and laughed – and if a dragon could be hysterical, that was what Smaug was. "No, of course not – he would've never sent it here, to me!" Smaug roared with laughter and turned to Bilbo. "You, thief, do not even know what you might have done – what you would have done, were I but any other dragon! What a terrible thing a dragon under the rule of the One Ring of Power could be!"
Bilbo watched him warily as he bound his blistering feet. "What's the One Ring of Power?" he asked finally.
Smaug only laughed harder, throwing his head back and bellowing out his deep, resounding guffaws at the ceiling. It would've been ridiculous were it not so terrible, and all Bilbo could do was watch and wait for it to pass.
"What," Smaug finally said, still laughing, "is the One Ring of Power, thief?" he turned and glided over the golden coins, scattering them everywhere as he circled Bilbo, enclosing him in a wall of dragon scales. "It is the Heart of Darkness, the Lynchpin of Death, the Key to Ultimate Power, all these things and more," the dragon rumbled. "Greatest of Calamities you called me – ha! You carried it in your pocket yourself."
Bilbo swallowed and shuddered as Smaug pushed his head close, peering at him with a single eye. "That Ring," the dragon continued. "The One Ring of Power is the greatest of all evils on this Middle Earth – barring, perhaps, for the one who made it."
Bilbo wetted his dry, cracking lips, glancing between Smaug and over his tail at the crater in gold. "I… don't understand," he answered. And he didn't. Smaug was only talking in riddles – and who would know that a dragon was so fond of grand narratives and monologues?
"Whatever are they teaching you, thief, in whatever place you hail from?" Smaug snorted. "You are undoubtedly of the Free People of Middle Earth, and you know nothing of what makes you free."
Bilbo shook his head, but before he could actually think of what to say to that, the dragon explained. Except, he didn't. Instead he read out a poem. "Three Rings to the Elven Kings under the sky," Smaug rumbled, deep and low in his chest. "Seven for the Dwarf Lords in their halls of Stone. Nine for the Mortal Men, doomed to die. One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne, in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."
Bilbo shuddered as Smaug's breath washed over him with each sentence, hot and heavy and horrible. "One Ring to Rule them all, One Ring to find them," the dragon continued. "One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them… in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie."
Smaug chuckled once he was done, and the mound of gold trembled under it. "Even I know this, Celebrimbor's warning and the Doom of Kings. Know you nothing of history, thief? Know you not of the great battles of the War of the Last Alliance?"
Bilbo blinked rapidly at that and turned to look at Smaug. "I know that one," he admitted, his voice sounding oddly small and shivery after Smaug's great recitation. "My mother used to tell me about it – the Last Alliance of Elves, Dwarves, and Men. The Conquest of Minas Ithil, the Defence of Minas Anor and Osgiliath – the Battle of Dagorlad and the Siege of Barad-dûr. My mother used to tell me about them as my bedtime stories."
Smaug rumbled at that in amusement and disgust. "And you thought them fairytales," he guessed, rather correctly. "They are not stories, thief. They are history. And the Darkness fought by the host of Free People is that which forged that Ring," he said and lifted his head to glare at the offending piece of jewellery. "And the loss of which ended that war and the finding of which may begin another. Forged by the Dark Lord that opposed the Great Alliance, to control all the others, to bind all the others to his will, to rule them all."
The dragon hissed at the Ring and then looked at Bilbo. "And to rule everything that comes near it. It whispers to you even now, it whispers to me – can't you hear it? Promises of safety and power and wealth," he snarled. "Sweet, sweet lies by the greatest liar of them all. What is it saying to you, thief?"
Bilbo tilted his head, and honestly he did try to hear whatever Smaug thought he ought to be hearing. But there was nothing there. "I can't hear anything," he said and shrank back a little when Smaug rounded sharply on him. "Honestly, oh Great Smaug, I hear nothing!"
"Nothing?" Smaug snarled. "Then you feel it – you want to take it, don't you, you want to hide it and keep it to yourself, you want to escape into the shelter of its invisibility. Don't you?!"
Bilbo almost toppled over as the dragon roared at him. "I hardly think I could!" he gasped. "You're all around me – where on earth could I go?"
The dragon hissed and pushed close, so close that his snout pressed against Bilbo's belly. His glare pinned the Hobbit in place. "I can feel you, cold and misty and broken. You wore it for weeks, you say, and I believe you," he rumbled, his slitted pupils expanding and shrinking in turns as he looked Bilbo over. "How is it you cannot feel its call? Can't hear His voice?"
There was nothing Bilbo could say to that, so he said nothing – truthfully, he was so frozen by fear that he couldn't have even if he had known what to say. His feet were aching, pulsing with pain, and his throat was dry and cracking with the heat and dryness of the air, and his head had started to pound with the lack of air, and he couldn't think much at all.
"What are you, thief?" Smaug demanded. "What is your desire, what does the Ring promise you? Why did you come here?"
Bilbo wetted his lips again, hesitant. "I am… I am Bilbo Baggins of Bagend," he said slowly, with none of Smaug's grandiose force. "I am a Hobbit of Hobbiton, and of the Shire. I am… a Halfling and not half of anything." He gritted his teeth a little as Smaug bared his teeth at him. "And I want… I want to go home, more than anything I want to go home. And I want – I want to see the Dwarves of Erebor reclaim their homeland. And I want… to not die," he finished awkwardly. "That's… about it, really."
"You want none of Erebor's riches, is that it?" Smaug sneered at him.
"Honestly I haven't a clue what I would even do with them," Bilbo sighed.
Smaug snorted at that, a smoky, acrid breath. "You want no great feasts and celebrations for your great deeds?"
"I wouldn't say no to some nice baked potatoes," Bilbo had to admit a little wistfully, thinking back to his last, sad meal in Bagend – the one Dwalin had stolen from him.
"You don't want power? The Ring can give it to you, you know. Power to control the minds of others. Power to rule."
That last word seemed to echo through the entire hall, bouncing off the walls, growing more terrible with each echo. Bilbo made a face at it and at Smaug. "Why would I want to rule anyone?" Bilbo asked. "I've met two kings and many leaders and they're all a varyingly unpleasant lot and I think that has quite a bit to do with the power they have – it goes to their heads." He harrumphed and then considered. "Well, Elrond wasn't half bad, but we had to escape even his house."
"Elrond," Smaug repeated with a sneer. "The One Ring of Power, the Grey Wizard, and now Elrond the Half Elven? Your story is starting to seem more and more interesting by the moment."
Bilbo eyed him for a moment and shook his head. "It has been," he paused to look for a word, "a long year."
Smaug snorted at that. "And at the end of it, it brought it to me," he said and lifted his head, taking a deep, resounding breath. "It's the day after Durin's Day, isn't it? A Dwarvish new year."
"I guess," Bilbo murmured, shaking his head. The Hobbit year ended and started midwinter, and for a moment he wondered longingly if Dwarves celebrated their new year like hobbits did. He missed the fireworks now – even the ones made by old Bolger, while not as splendid as Gandalf's, were a sight to behold. But maybe fireworks and caves did not go too well together.
Smaug was quiet for a while, staring over the coils of his long tail at the Ring in its crater of cooling gold. Bilbo waited tensely for him to do something, to say something, but when the dragon merely laid there, thinking, he let his attention wander. He swayed a little in the silence, feeling more than a little faint now. The pain of his burned feet and the thin, smoky air was getting to him and after a while his eyes began to droop listlessly, not really looking at anything.
"What to do about this?" Smaug finally murmured through his teeth, gazing narrowly at the One Ring of Power. "The Darkness moves again. It has for a while now, creeping out of its barrows and crevices and over hills and mountains. This place…" the word trailed off into a sigh that seemed to come from all around Bilbo, "has been secure, but for how long? Ungoliant's descendants creep over everything, Orcs and goblins move further and further south and further and further west. Trolls too, you say. And now the Dwarves of Erebor are here, to reclaim their homeland at the behest of the Grey Wizard. What else, thief? What else is out there?"
Bilbo shook his head. "Gundabag Orcs," he said, rubbing at his ankle in a faint attempt to stop the pain from spreading further up his legs. "Led by Azog the Defiler. And there's a sickness in Greenwood, that I don't think is just the spiders," he paused for a moment. "And I head Gandalf say something about… Morgul."
Smaug hissed and the quietness of it was somehow more startling than the loud rage from earlier. "What of Morgul?" the dragon asked. "What did the Grey Wizard say?"
Bilbo shrugged. "There was another wizard, Radagast. I was, uh, spying, maybe, a little bit," he took a breath. "Radagast found a blade. Gandalf called it a Morgul Blade. I don't really know what it means, but he seemed… nervous."
"It is the art of the Diseased Steel," Smaug said. "Fashioned by the Witch King of Angmar. Minas Morgul was his tower, and there he made weapons that poisoned the soul itself, and rotted the body from inside. The Morgul Blades were the weapons of the Nine Wraiths of Sauron – his most powerful slaves. Nine Kings of Men poisoned by the Nine Rings given to mortal men, doomed to die – and not."
"And… not?" Bilbo asked, blinking.
"The sweet lies that imprisoned them – immortality and eternal life," Smaug said and chuckled, dark and deep in his chest. "Trapped they were, somewhere between life and death, and so they could carry Morgul Blades without fear. You cannot kill what isn't alive, and cannot rot what is already ruined. Where was the Morgul Blade found?"
"I… don't know," Bilbo shook his head. "I just heard the name and saw Gandalf shudder at it – that's all I know."
"Well – it matters not. A Morgul Blade means that the Wraiths are back also," Smaug said and finally lifted his head. "And only one being could call them back."
"The… Dark Lord?" Bilbo asked hesitantly.
Smaug didn't answer, rising to his feet and glaring at the Ring. "Spiders and Goblins and Ring Wraiths – and now this," he said and spat a gust of flames at the Ring – a show of distain rather than another attempt to destroy it. "He is back, and He is starting to consolidate power again – and as He grows stronger, the Ring starts to move. It has a will of its own – it wouldn't have come to you if it had chosen not to. And here it is, and still it whispers to me. It's trying… to get to its Master."
Bilbo hesitated, looking between Smaug and the Ring. "And if it does?"
Smaug glanced at him and bared his teeth. "Then, thief… there will be war like none you can imagine."
Bilbo shuddered a little and looked down, not at the Ring but at the gold all around them. It was still smoking from Smaug's rather excessive attempts to destroy the Ring. If it was truly as terrible as Smaug said, and if dragon fire, which was supposed to melt everything, hadn't even made a dent in it… "Is there nothing we can do? Is there really no way to destroy the Ring?" Bilbo asked wearily.
Smaug didn't answer, but his eyes narrowed and his pupils contracted. "We?" he then said, and in that single word rode the implication of an arched eyebrow. "We?"
"Well," Bilbo started and stopped, swallowing. "Um, well, that is… I mean… Uh…"
The dragon snorted a smoky breath at him, half annoyance and half amusement. "We indeed. A dragon," Smaug snarled. "And a thief foolish enough to try and steal from his hoard – against the forces of Darkness. That would be a fine tale indeed."
Bilbo considered. "It would," he said, because it sounded like just the sort of tale to get your blood pumping, the kind of tale he would've loved to listen to as a young faunt. "It would be the greatest tale ever told."
Smaug looked a little taken aback by that. "Would it?" he asked, the ruff of horns flaring out and slanting back as if uncertain. He settled on snorting at Bilbo with disgust, but there was a thoughtful look about his scaly face now, and when he looked at the Ring it was with contemplation. "And what would I get out of it?" he murmured. "A loss of my hoard and shelter and home," he snarled. "Lost to the Dwarves. Ha!"
"To be fair – you stole it from them," Bilbo commented and winced back when Smaug snarled at him. "You did, and I hear it was a great and terrible battle too. All know the stories."
"Oh, I know," Smaug said with derision. "And they all end with and one day we will reclaim our homeland and slay the beast where he lies."
Bilbo grimaced a bit at that. "Well," he said and shrugged. It was pretty much spot on. "You did start it," he then said.
Smaug snarled and said nothing, the end of his tail swinging about angrily again. Bilbo eyed his profile for a moment and then looked down at his feet. Thorin and the others were waiting at the hidden door for him to return with news, and he couldn't walk. Worse yet, he hadn't found the Arkenstone – Smaug had woken first, and oh so angry. And now he was… what? What was he doing? He didn't know.
"If the Ring is so terrible, and you don't want to be enslaved by it – and I don't want there to be a great war of any kind," Bilbo said. "Then… can't we destroy it? Is there no way?"
"We again," Smaug grumbled and cast a slanted look at him. "Would you, thief? Would you destroy the Ring?"
Bilbo shrugged. "If I knew how," he said. "Yes. It's a useful little trinket to be sure, but if it is so evil and so dangerous… then yes. Of course."
Smaug eyed him narrowly. "Down past the Greenwood and the entirety of Rhovanion," he said slowly. "Over the Brown Lands and through Dagorlad, down and over the Ered Lithui, the Mountains of Ash. There is the land of Mordor… where the shadows lie. There is a mountain there – Orodruin, Mount Doom, that is hotter than Dragon Fire." Smaug paused, his eyes narrowing even further. "That was where the One Ring of Power was forged. And it is there… where it can be unmade, in the fires of Mount Doom."
Bilbo swallowed dryly, and even sitting down his knees felt faint and his feet ached at the thought of it. "That sounds like a long way," he said faintly.
"Oh, it is," Smaug sneered. "Too long for such a little thing."
"Not too long for a dragon, though, is it?" Bilbo commented, arching his eyebrows.
Smaug snorted in answer and didn't say anything for a while, staring first at Bilbo, then at the Ring and then at the great golden hoard of Erebor. He lifted himself up and slowly spread out his wings, stretching with his wing joints crackling, the spikes of his head and spine flaring out. It was very impressive.
"Greatest story ever told, you say," the dragon murmured and it echoed deeply in the throne hall. "The Thief and a Dragon, against the host of Darkness. That would be a great story, wouldn't it?"