Wicked Worm Chapter 09

Epilogue

It took weeks to clean up the battlefield. The goblins carried precious little plunder, and their weapons and armor were made of inferior metal and second-rate leather, so the usual spoils of war did not amount to much. The only thing the winners gained was a season of peace.

Dáin II Ironfoot took Thorin's place as King Under the Mountain. He swiftly put the dwarves to work sealing off all underground entrances to the Dragons' Hall, as they now called it, and sounding out the lower levels for a good location for a new Great Hall. He gave one-fourth of Thorin's share of the treasure to the men of Lake Town and one-fourth to the elves of Mirkwood Forest, minus the Arkenstone, which was laid on Thorin's chest just before his barrow was sealed. (He kept the other one-half for himself; that half of a one-fourteenth share still made him a very wealthy dwarf.) The next time the dragon overflew Mirkwood in search of game, the elves saw him, but held their arrows. They never loosed a shaft at him again.

When the people of Lake Town saw the prosperity that Bard's efforts had brought them, compared to their current Master and his high tax rates, they rose up en masse and chased the Master out of town. Bard refused to accept the title of Master, preferring to be called Warder. "But when we rebuild Dale," he said, "then I would be open to accepting my ancestors' title of Lord of that fair town." Construction began that spring.

Bilbo was dismayed to see just how vast his fourteenth share of the golden hoard would be. "Bless me, I think this amount alone would make a fine bed for a dragon!"

"It would make a very find bed indeed," nodded Smaug. "Of course, it will be a bed for no dragons, for it will make its way back west to your Shire with you."

"I would need every horse and wagon in Lake Town to bring home a fraction of it all," the hobbit said. "I cannot even imagine what I might spend it on. Such wealth is wasted on me." Then he paused. "Do you want it, Smaug?"

"It is yours, not mine," the dragon said. "You earned it according to your contract with the dwarves. I have had quite enough of gold that I did not take fairly."

For an answer, Bilbo drew Sting and shouted, "You have insulted my treasure! Now defend yourself!" He took several half-hearted swings at the dragon's huge claws, which were the only parts of Smaug that he could reach, and actually cut a notch into one of them with his final stroke. The dragon flinched and reflexively breathed out a quick puff of flame that singed Bilbo's hair.

"Aiee! I yield!" he shouted as he jumped back and sheathed his sword. "I surrender! You've beaten me fairly. My treasure is yours now."

"Why, you little..." the dragon burst out, then stopped, and chuckled deep in his throat. "Will your cleverness never end? Letting a burglar like you live may have been the wisest thing I have ever done. I thank you deeply, my friend." Bilbo arranged for the dwarves to leave his share of the gold in the Dragons' Hall, except for two chests of gold and silver coins that a pony could carry without straining. The dragon began shifting the gold about, in order to make a comfortable bed for himself.

Five nights later, the dwarves were awakened by a lookout's cry. Something large and dark was flying toward them from the north, and it was breathing out fire as it came. Was this a repeat of Smaug's attack on the mountain a hundred and fifty years ago, but with a different dragon this time?

Smaug saw it, and his heart leaped. "At last!" he shouted, and took flight faster than he had done in years. Now there were two dark shapes breathing out fire as they flew.

Bilbo smiled and made his way to the guards' outpost. "There's nothing to fear," he told them. "It is just Smaug's great dream come true at last. A mate has come to him."

"What if it's another male, hoping to meet a female here like Smaug is?" one dwarf asked.

"Erm... I'd rather not dwell on that possibility," Bilbo shrugged.

The two great reptiles landed in the Dragons' Hall the next morning. The newcomer was somewhat smaller than Smaug, a pale yellow in color, with brown markings. Bilbo woke as they landed, and worried for a moment whether the new dragon would attack him. She looked all around. "I have seen one or two golden beds that were larger than this one," she commented, "but this is certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Yes, it will do nicely." Then she noticed the hobbit, hissed, and stepped back.

"Bilbo, this is Aurelia of the Golden Horn, my new mate," Smaug introduced her. "Aurelia, this is Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit."

"Why are we not killing this intruder in our halls?!" she demanded. She drew a breath that probably meant fire.

"Bilbo is not an intruder," Smaug corrected her hurriedly as he stepped between them. "He is a Dragon-friend."

"He is a what?" she asked, baffled.

"The elves are pleased to name certain members of other species as Elf-friends," Smaug explained, "so I am within my rights to name Bilbo Baggins as a Dragon-friend. He has rendered great service to dragons... and also to dwarves, men, elves, and even wizards, although most of them are unaware of what he has done for them."

"Oh, " Aurelia said. "I did not expect this. Out of respect for you, I will not kill him. Still, he should not be here. This place is for us and our egg."

The hobbit bowed to her. "Bilbo Baggins, at your service. But I suppose I need to find another place to sleep now. You will be wanting this hall for your own purposes."

"You are quite correct," Smaug agreed with a nod toward his new mate, "but please do not feel like you are being rudely evicted. It is because of you that this day has finally come for me, and I am thankful, as I should be. But Aurelia will not lay her egg for nearly half a year, so I have some time before me. As a final gesture of gratitude for all that you have done, I will take you anywhere in Middle Earth that you wish to go... except here."

"There is only one place I wish to go," Bilbo said without having to think about it, "and that is back to the Shire. But I fear that your appearing there would cause quite an unpleasant stir."

"Then I will take you to the outskirts of the Shire, and you may walk the rest of the way without revealing the fact that you are a Dragon-friend," Smaug decided, and so it was done. Bilbo said his farewells to the dwarves, gathered such belongings as he had acquired on his journey, and climbed onto Smaug's back. The flight from the Lonely Mountain back to the Shire was done in five days; it would have taken him months to walk or ride that far, and it was by no means certain that such a return journey would have brought him home safe and unharmed.

"Farewell, Bilbo Baggins, burglar, Barrel-rider, and Dragon-friend," Smaug said courteously as the hobbit dismounted. "We will probably never see each other again. I count it a privilege to have known you."

"The privilege was mine," Bilbo said. "I, too, fear that we will never meet again. But meeting you once was, well, amazing. Not many can say that they have spoken face to face with a dragon and lived. I am able to count one as... a friend." He hesitantly reached up and touched the great creature's nose. "Farewell, Smaug the Golden. Fly high and free. And, if you will, take Gandalf's warning about Sauron seriously. He is seldom wrong about such things."

"I will, my small friend. May the hair on your feet never grow thin!" He turned, bounded into the air, and flapped slowly away toward the east. Bilbo watched him until he was out of sight.

He returned to Bag End, and was surprised to find an auctioneer setting prices on all of his belongings. "We thought you were dead," the auctioneer said apologetically. Had he arrived much later, all of his worldly goods might have been sold, and Bag End would have been taken over by the Sackville-Bagginses. Those unsavory relatives were quite put out when he reappeared and publicly announced that he was still very much alive.

He lived comfortably after that, occasionally spending a few coins of his treasure on gifts for his relatives. He never left the Shire again, until near the end of his life (but that is another story). Gandalf visited him from time to time, sometimes bringing Balin or one of the other dwarves with him. The wizard always inquired about Bilbo's ring, which struck the hobbit as odd. The other hobbits, in turn, regarded Bilbo as odd. He paid them no mind; he was comfortable with who he was. He used his spare time to write a book about his travels, which he called "There and Back Again (On Dragon's Wings)." In general, he lived a contented, peaceful life, as befitted a hobbit of means.

Many years later, Sauron did, indeed, attempt to seduce Smaug with enticements of power. He sent one of his Nazgûl on a fell winged beast to the Lonely Mountain. But the Dragons' Hall was empty; Smaug, along with Aurelia and their son Bilbothorin, had flown back to the northern wastes years ago (after leaving firm instructions with the dwarves that the golden hoard was not to be touched) and Sauron's messenger could not find him. The dwarves of Erebor could do but little against a Nazgûl, but Sauron's servant had no cause or desire to fight them, so he left them alone and flew back to the land of Mordor, his mission unaccomplished.

But in one way, both Smaug and Bilbo turned out to be quite mistaken. At the end of Bilbo's days in Middle Earth, as the white ship from the Grey Havens set sail with himself, his nephew Frodo, and Gandalf on board, he noticed a shadow on the water next to them. He glanced up and saw a huge dragon flying along with them, making his way to the Undying Lands right beside them. Smaug glanced down at Bilbo and grinned. "So we meet again after all, my small, clever friend."

"Smaug!" Bilbo exclaimed with a huge smile. "You're going on this trip with us?"

"I think it is best," the dragon replied solemnly. "The world is changing around us. Men will soon rule everything, I might be the last of my kind, and there is no longer a place here for me. It is time for me to seek a forever-home, even if it means leaving nearly all of my gold behind. I have heard that there are much greater wonders in the place where we are going."

"Nearly all of your gold?" Bilbo asked. "How are you able to carry any gold at all?"

"The dwarves did some clever work for me before I flew north," Smaug replied. "They cut out the centers of a few hundred of my golden coins, leaving the outer rings. They kept the centers as their payment, and they fashioned the rings into links in a chain, which they fastened around my neck. They also attached one other treasure, which I had come to value above all others." Bilbo looked carefully and saw, hanging from the chain, the golden drinking cup that he had first burgled from Smaug's hoard. The cup that had started it all.

Frodo turned to Gandalf. "How can this be? I thought that the dragons were the creations of Morgoth, the evil one, and that the ships that sail to the Undying Lands were for the elves and the ring-bearers."

"Smaug was a ring-bearer, from a certain point of view," Gandalf answered. "I happen to know that one of the Seven Rings of the Dwarves fell into his possession for a short season, long before your time. He never actually wore it, of course, and possessing it had no effect on him, for it was never meant for dragons. Sauron contrived to reclaim it before much time had passed. Still, that was enough to qualify him for this journey if he was inclined to go, and it seems that he is quite willing.

"As for the dragons' nature, Morgoth did bring them into being for evil purposes. But he permitted them to have intelligence, and with intelligence comes free will. Most of the drakes gladly chose to follow Morgoth's way of greed, power, and hate. But this one dragon turned back into the way of reconciliation and honor. He truly did much wrong in this world, but he admitted his wrongdoing and did whatever could be done to make it right. The Undying Lands will not turn away such a one as that, any more than they would turn away a certain pair of trouble-making hobbits."

The graceful ship steadily sailed away, with the great dragon slowly flapping and gliding next to it, until both passed forever out of sight.

The End

o

A/N
Those of you who have followed my many "How to Train Your Dragon" stories will know that I hate to see a dragon get an unhappy ending. Usually, that applies to good dragons, but in this case, I decided to work with a not-so-good dragon. I portray Smaug as a complex, conflicted character driven by a sense of honor, but one who is still a dragon in every way. He does not suffer fools gladly, he refuses to be swayed by technicalities, and he still loves his gold and silver.

I confess, the tone of this story is uneven. There are places where I tried to emulate Tolkien's style in the original book, and there are other places where my own style of writing is more prominent. This was not deliberate; it just came out that way. Duplicating Tolkien's style (or anyone else's style) is hard over the long haul.

Most of my fanfics are filled with cultural references, but I did very few, if any, in this story. There are two lines from the original "Star Trek" scattered here and there, but I included them only because they perfectly fit the situation, not because I was going for humor. I almost had Smaug throw in a "Princess Bride" line at the end of Chapter 1 as Bilbo was sneaking out of the main hall - "Good night, Barrel-rider. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning," but I finally decided to leave it out because it didn't fit the tone of the story.

Somewhere after the posting of Chapter 8, this story got its 1000th view.