Smaug the Misunderstood

That smelly little thief had just visited again. What manner of creature was it? He sniffed. Not a man and certainly not a dwarf, though their taint clung to him. The riddles it had teased him with still echoed in his head, but the clues they contained remained elusive.

"Smaug the Tremendous," the invisible sneak had called him, trying to bamboozle him with this and other such pretty expressions, but he was not fooled. He knew the titles people gave him behind his back: Smaug the Worm; Smaug the Maiden Muncher; Smaug the Thatch Scorcher. It was all lies! He shared no common heritage whatsoever with those brainless, segmented, earth-eating hermaphrodites. Why, they could not so much as claim the title of distant cousins thrice removed! And despite the common belief that maidens were a dragon's favourite delicacy, they were in fact altogether too stringy to make a decent meal out of; besides, they shrieked horribly, their jewellery got stuck between his teeth and their long lustrous hair gave him indigestion. He much preferred livestock.

He might, he conceded, have occasionally charred the odd thatched roof, as well as the house underneath it, but it was all just a terrible misunderstanding. He had long suffered from a most embarrassing speech impediment: whenever he got nervous, for example, when someone was trying to kill him, he would open his mouth to explain to them that there was no need to be alarmed and that he was just going to borrow one or two of their sheep when out would belch fire instead of words. The more he tried to apologize, the more flames he produced until the only sensible thing to do was to fly away before one of their sharp pointy sticks hit its mark.

Wherever he chose to make his home, however, these pernicious slurs followed him, perpetuated up and down the land by those with something to gain: bards selling their tall tales by the fireside, fraudulent professors of dragon-lore whose 'research' stretched no further than their fellow sozzled patrons at the bar of the local inn and those grudge-bearing, axe-grinding dwarves. May their beards be forever singed by dragon breath!

That whole business with the dwarves wrangled even now. For many years a connoisseur of all that glittered, he had first come to the Lonely Mountain to admire the dwarves' fine craftsmanship, rumours of which had spread far and wide. He had hoped, if his expectations were met, to purchase a few baubles and be on his way. But instead of providing the welcome that a potential customer might anticipate, the stunted ones had run around bumping into each other like headless hatchlings before finally pulling themselves together and--there could be no question about it--trying to do away with him. Naturally, Smaug had had to defend himself, and the survivors had fled into the night to eventually end up on the doorsteps of their relatives in far-flung coal mines, playing for sympathy with exaggerated stories of carnage in the hopes of being taken in.

Thanks to these malicious gossip-mongers, every would-be adventurer and hero wanted to pit their wits or their sword against a dragon. However mundane the encounter had turned out to be, if they had ever even managed to locate a dragon at all, they would invariably return to their villages with tales of their daring deeds, clever conversational skills and obligatory narrow escape. In return, they would have more sweethearts than they could ever hope to work their way through in their meager lifetimes and a sensationalist book deal with an advance of quite grotesque proportions. Smaug felt he had much to be grumpy about under the circumstances.

It did not look as if things had got any better either, if recent events were anything to go by. There he had been, fast asleep for a good hundred years, in his private and innermost sanctum when a shadow had fallen across his dreams. He had woken up, gluey eyed and stiff-limbed, to find that somebody had pinched a golden cup from his hoard while he napped. Just like that, without so much as a by-your-leave! Of course, he had more than enough to give away, but that was not the point. It was the principle of the thing. It showed an inexcusable want of manners, in his opinion, and he had felt quite huffy about it for a few hours afterwards.

But he was not one to hold onto a grievance, by any means, except when it came to dwarves of course, and had dampened his inner fire by telling himself that perhaps the visitor had been too terrified to wake him or too considerate of his repose. Maybe he would come back later and explain, though really he might have left a note. Moreover, Smaug had enjoyed a tasty pony snack, his first in ages, and it was payment of a sort he supposed. Thus, he had decided, when he felt a bit calmer, to be as pleasant as possible to his mysterious guest, should he return, and show him just how reasonable dragons could be. Perhaps, at last, he thought, somebody would go away and write a book about how noble his kind were. The Gentle Dragon sounded like a good title, or even simply Dragons: The Truth! might do.

He had a sneaking suspicion, however, that it had not gone quite according to plan. He himself had been charming, remembering to thank his guest for the ponies, but there had been a ring of insincerity in the thief's flattery that had left him uneasy. Smaug had been generous to a fault: "Come along!" he had said. "Help yourself again; there is plenty and to spare!" But he had the uncomfortable feeling that even now his words were being twisted and portrayed as a cunning dragon trick instead of being taken at face value. He sighed. It was all so much more difficult to bear when he was still yawning and not in full possession of his wits.

He tried to stretch but hit his head on the ceiling. His lair, he noticed, was looking rather shabby, with a hundred years of dust and bat-droppings coating the floor. There were scorch marks up the walls where he had obviously been snoring, and the whole place was decidedly whiffy. Yes, it was high time for a spring-cleaning, but before he tackled that job, he needed a freshening up himself. The scales on his forearms were lacklustre, more dullish brown than their usual golden red, and his gem-encrusted waistcoat looked as if it were made from rhinestones despite the thief's professed admiration for it. Perhaps that was why they had got off on the wrong claw. His guest, arriving unannounced, had caught him before he had had a chance to tidy up and now thought him sluttish. If he were to see Smaug and his hoard in all their glory, he might change his mind.

Not sure on the best way to go about it, Smaug tentatively licked between his talons and then twisted his neck down under his belly to get at the more difficult-to-reach parts. He hit his head again and almost fell over sideways. It was ridiculous! He was not a cat, and a quick tongue wash was not going to clean away a hundred years of grime and sleepy dirt. Besides, some of the places where cats put their tongues quite disgusted him. What he needed was a proper soaking, though such a wish would have surprised many a tipsy professor of dragon-lore. In fact, dragons, like cats, proclaimed by all to be afraid of water, are actually rather good swimmers.

He thought of the Running River, which frothed down the valley outside his front door, but really, though some might have thought him old-fashioned, he had always preferred baths to showers. That only left one possibility: The Long Lake. There he could immerse himself fully, whiling away the time and easing his cramped muscles by sculling up and down on his back and sunning the underside of his wings. He suffered a moment of doubt when he remembered the town of Esgaroth, but he had been asleep for so long that surely they had forgotten about those unfortunate incidents by now. Feeling cheerful for the first time since he had awoken, he set off down the winding passages to the gate and launched himself into the air on creaking wings towards the South.

As he arrived and swooped down low over the shining water, he saw a sight that made his heart sink. Boats full of squealing maidens were pushing off from the town, which now resided in the middle of the lake, while the menfolk were running around between the houses and bumping into each other like headless hatchlings. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming. Now some of them were getting organised, sharp pointy sticks and their crude launching devices at the ready.

"No, you don't understand!" he tried to shout, "I just want to take a quick dip in the lake. No need to bother yourselves on my account." Instead, out came a noise rather like "Grrrr wuba vrrrr" and a spout of flame that dry-roasted several boats of small children as they desperately attempted to paddle to safety. Things were not going well, and a little voice inside his head suggested that a shower would be a very pleasant alternative and was in fact more energy efficient. "Humph," he thought. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to take a bath if I want to?" And in an attempt to silence the voice's pious mutterings, he smacked his tail down, demolishing a large and well-appointed house with his frustration.

Just as he was trying to calm himself with the breathing exercises that were supposed to help his impediment but somehow never quite did, a hail of arrows hit him along the length of his right flank, ruining his concentration. "Ouch!" he bellowed, reducing the entire north side of the town to cinders before flapping and flailing his way to a higher altitude out of range. Despite the received wisdom, an arrow, far from bouncing off a dragon's metallic hide with no more effect than a mosquito, actually delivers a nasty sting.

"I've about had it with these bathroom-hoggers, but I'll give it one last try," he told himself. "If they're still not willing to listen, then a shower it is!" and he humphed again. As the intensity and reach of his flames tended to increase with volume, he risked getting a little lower to try and talk to the apparent leader of the foolishness in less sizzling tones. The wind from his wings fanned a few more sparks into raging infernos, but that could not be helped. Predictably, on seeing him approach, the remaining defenders scarpered, leaving the leader, bow still raised toward the sky, alone amongst the smoke.

"Now look here," Smaug started as softly as possible, but whatever he had been about to say, persuasive or otherwise, was never heard by Bard, the only man still standing in Lake-town. Smaug's fire died on the air as a piercing agony smote his breast. He tumbled downwards, neatly severing the town in two as he fell through it and plunged into the briskly refreshing water beneath. "At last," he thought, and then, "Oh, drat!" as it dawned on him that the bath would be an eternal one.

Just before the lake and the blackness of death washed over his head and the steam rose hissing into the atmosphere, creating sauna conditions for anybody who eschewed both baths and showers, he wondered how he would be remembered. Most particularly, considering how things had turned out, he very much hoped that the little thief had no intentions of writing a book after all.