Chapter Text
The peace of Imladris was a carefully cultivated thing. A beautiful sight of falling water, rustling leaves and soft Elven song woven over millennia of carefully cultivated craft. It was a peace that, on this particular afternoon, was being thoroughly and noisily shattered by thirteen disgruntled Dwarves.
From his study Elrond Peredhel listened to the distant echoes of an argument about bedding arrangements. And food. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Thorin Oakenshield’s company had been guests for three days and in that time they had managed to offend the kitchen staff (too much green, not enough meat), scandalize Erestor (poor ellon looked like he would start crying soon), and confuse the stable-master (note to himself, keep Glorfindel away from dwarves… Asfaloth too).
A gentle knock preceded the entrance of Gandalf the Grey, his pointed hat brushing the top of the doorframe. His eyes twinkled with a mixture of amusement and apology.
“I see the… vibrant energy of our guests continues to brighten your valley,” the wizard said, settling into a chair opposite Elrond with a weary sigh that was only half-feigned.
“They have… a strong voices,” Elrond replied diplomatically, pouring two glasses of Miruvórë. “Thorin’s mind is a keeping his own counsel and his thoughts are sealed against anyone but his own. He will not show me the map.”
“He is a King without a kingdom Elrond. Suspicion is his understandable. But time grows short. The matter of the dragon must be addressed with more than just the Dwarves. We require a broader council. A more… historically informed perspective.”
Elrond’s hand stilled, the wine decanter hovering mid-pour. A sense of profound foreboding settled over him. “Gandalf, no. You cannot mean to…”
“I do,” Gandalf said, his voice losing its gentle quality and gaining the steel of Olórin, the Maia who had served in the Wars of Wrath. “The Enemy stirs. Smaug is not merely an obstacle to a Dwarven homecoming; he is a weapon, waiting in the north for a hand to wield him. This venture must not fail. We cannot fail. And to ensure it does not we need the best and most ruthless dragon-slayers in Arda.”
“They are not weapons to be summoned at will!” Elrond protested, though he knew it was futile. When Gandalf used that tone the last time, his sons ended up with Gandalf’s fireworks and the result was fire in Elrond’s garden.
“They are my family,” Elrond continued, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. “And they are… settled. Content, in their way. To drag them back into the bloody business of dragons…”
“Is a necessity,” Gandalf finished. “Please. Send for them. All of them. And your grandfather.”
Elrond closed his eyes, already seeing the madness that was about to be unleashed upon his house. He nodded once, a short, sharp gesture of defeat. “Very well. But you will explain it to them. And you will be the one to stop my grandfather from trying to bait the Dwarves to see what makes their stubbornness tick.”
Gandalf’s eyes twinkled with a strange light. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of denying Fëanáro the pleasure of a captive audience. It will be… entertaining.”
Elrond looked as if he had just been told he had to host a balrog for tea. “That is what I am afraid of.”
An hour later the main council chamber of Imladris felt smaller. The room, designed for serene contemplation and high diplomacy, was now packed.
On one side, perched on elegantly carved benches like storm clouds were Thorin and his Company. They were glowering, arms crossed and still smelling of horses.
Opposite them, radiating an aura that seemed to warp the very light around them, was the other party.
At the centre, burning with an inner fire that had not dimmed in all the ages of the world was Fëanáro Curufinwë. He had deigned to leave his forges for this and looked as though he deeply regretted the decision. His grey eyes, sharp enough to flay a soul, swept over the Dwarves before landing on Gandalf. A smirk, both predatory and delightedly familiar, touched his lips.
“Olórin,” Fëanor said, his voice weirdly pleasant, not matching his fierce look. “Or do you prefer ‘Gandalf’ now? Such a… rustic nickname. It suits the downgrade in your wardrobe.” He flicked a dismissive finger at the wizard’s grey robes.
Gandalf’s smile was equally sharp. “Fëanáro. You remain, as ever, the soul of charm and humility. I see retirement hasn’t mellowed your tongue. Or your ego.”
“One does not ‘mellow’ perfection, Maia. One hones it. Why have you interrupted my work? I was on the cusp of revolutionizing gem-cutting.”
“I require your… particular expertise.”
“You require a great many things, it seems. Mostly, I recall, you required me to stop creating things. The hypocrisy is shocking, even for you.”
Flanking Fëanor were five of his seven sons. Maedhros the Tall, his copper hair like a flame, his single hand resting on his knee, his expression unreadable but his posture that of a general awaiting a battlefield report. Maglor the Minstrel, who looked mournful, as if he already foresaw the entire affair ending in a tragic ballad he would be forced to compose. It was always same with his family, he just hoped that they would avoid everything going up in flames. The Ambarussa, also known as Amrod and Amras, seemed more interested in the architectural details of the ceiling. And finally Curufin, the spitting image of his father, who was sharpening an already lethally sharp dagger with a soft shhh-click, shhh-click. While looking straight at squirming Kili. Celebrimbor at least had the decency to look apologetic about his father and grandfather.
Completing the elven set was Glorfindel, whose golden hair and cheerful demeanour seemed utterly out of place amidst the gathered gloom and glory of the House of Fëanor. As Fëanor’s nephew, he was often dragged into these “family meetings,” a role he accepted with the long-suffering patience of an elf who had already died once and found most things less stressful by comparison.
Elrond sat between the two groups, the perfect embodiment of a diplomatic buffer zone. He looked pained.
Gandalf stood at the head of the table, clearing his throat. “My friends,” he began, his voice booming in the tense silence. “Thank you for coming. We are gathered here on a matter of some urgency.”
Thorin Oakenshield stood, his voice a low growl. “We require no Elvish council on our quest, Gandalf. This is a private matter. A matter for Dwarves.”
“Sit down, Thorin,” Gandalf said and the command in his voice was such that even Thorin, after a moment’s furious hesitation, complied. “Secrecy is a luxury the world can no longer give you. You go to reclaim a kingdom from a dragon. That, whether you like it or not, makes it everyone’s business.”
Fëanor’s eyes glittered. “A dragon?” A flicker of genuine, almost hungry interest crossed his haughty features. “Here? In these diminished lands? How… quaint.”
“Quaint?” Dori spluttered from the Dwarven side. “He’s laid waste to the greatest kingdom in the North!”
“A relative term, I assure you,” Maglor murmured, not unkindly, but with the air of one who had been around for thousands of years and thus found most wonders somewhat lacking.
“His name is Smaug the Terrible!” Thorin thundered, his pride stung. “The Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities!”
A beat of silence passed.
Then, the Sons of Fëanor, in near-perfect unison, burst into laughter.
It wasn’t a mocking laughter. It was the loud and incredulous laughter of veterans who had just been told a fresh recruit had stubbed his toe and declared it a war wound. Amrod actually slapped his knee. Curufin snorted. Even Maedhros allowed a deep, rumbling chuckle to escape him.
Thorin turned a magnificent shade of purple. The other Dwarves looked between themselves, confused and insulted.
“The Chiefest and Greatest?” Curufin repeated, wiping a mirthful tear from his eye. “By whose measure? The local tavern keeper?”
“You find the desolation of my people amusing?” Thorin said, his voice dangerously quiet.
“We find the grandiosity of the title amusing,” Maedhros corrected, his laughter fading but a smirk still playing on his lips. “It suggests a profound lack of perspective. A big fish in a very, very small pond.”
Gandalf held up a hand, though he was clearly enjoying the Dwarves’ discomfort. “The point is, Thorin, you will need help.”
“We do not,” Thorin stated, still insulted.
“There is a dragon,” Gandalf repeated, slowly and clearly as if speaking to a stubborn child. “In your mountain. You cannot simply walk in and ask him to leave.”
“We have a plan,” Thorin insisted.
“A plan which I have not been made privy to and which I suspect involves a great deal of hope and a distinct lack of tactical forethought!”
Fëanor leaned forward, his eyes now alight with a purely academic curiosity. “Enough of this bickering. Wizard. The dragon. Specifications. How big?”
Gandalf blinked, playing along with the theatrics. “Oh, well. Accounts vary, of course. From the descriptions of the survivors and the scale-marks near the ruins of Dale… I would estimate perhaps… twenty meters from snout to tail? Slightly less, perhaps.”
The chamber went dead silent.
The Dwarves puffed out their chests, this was the magnificent statue of the beast that took their home.
Fëanor stared at Gandalf. His sons stared at Gandalf. Even Glorfindel raised a surprised eyebrow.
Fëanor’s face fell into an expression of profound disappointment. He placed a hand over his heart as if wounded. “Twenty… meters?” he said, the words dripping with disdain. “You have dragged me from my forges, interrupted the flow of inspiration, for a… a hatchling? A juvenile. You’ve called us here to discuss the elimination of a child?”
The Dwarves’ collective bravado deflated like a pierced waterskin. Oin’s jaw was hanging open. Balin looked utterly bewildered.
“A… a baby?” Ori whispered, his voice squeaking with horror. “The Great Smaug… is a baby dragon?”
“Well, not a baby baby,” Celebrimbor clarified, trying to be helpful. “More of an… adolescent. A small one. Did it even have time to develop a proper hoard? Its cognitive faculties might not even be fully formed yet. Its fire sacs would be quite underdeveloped. Probably only breathes fire in short bursts. Very inefficient.”
“Y-Yes…?” Gandalf said, looking strangely defensive, as if his presentation had been criticized. “It’s plenty large enough to have destroyed Dale and taken Erebor!”
“Oh, we don’t doubt its capacity for localized ruin,” Maedhros said, waving his single hand dismissively. “But Chiefest and Greatest? Really.”
The Dwarves were a chorus of sputtering outrage. “How can you speak of a twenty-meter long, fire-breathing monster as if it were a mildly inconvenient lizard?” Dwalin roared, hefting his axe.
Fëanor sighed. He looked at the Dwarves as if they were particularly slow students. “Because, child of Aulë, dragons were created for one purpose: to kill Elves. Specifically, my family. We are, therefore, uniquely qualified to speak on the matter.”
The Dwarves fell silent again, their anger replaced by a creeping, cold curiosity.
“Created… to kill Elves?” Balin asked, his scholarly mind overriding his outrage. “What do you mean?”
Maglor took up the narrative, his voice taking on the deep, melodic rhythm of an epic tragedian. It was a story he knew intimately, for he had lived every bloody moment of it. “Literally forged in the deepest pits of Angband to break our lines and shatter our hearts. You see, there was a Vala. A god, you might say. The first Dark Lord. We called him Morgoth. And he held a rather… intense grudge against my father.” He gestured elegantly towards Fëanor, who preened slightly at the mention of his arch-nemesis.
“Why?” asked Fili, unable to help himself.
“Jealousy. Pure, seething, pathetic jealousy. Because Father was better than him at everything, but most especially at creating things. Father created works of such beauty they captured the very light of creation,” Curufin interjected bluntly. “And because Father rightly kicked him out of our home in Valinor for being a corrosive influence.“
“He killed our grandfather, the High King Finwë, in cold blood,” Maedhros continued, his voice flat and hard, all traces of laughter gone. “He stole the Silmarils, the work of our father’s soul. We followed him to Middle-earth to make him pay. And we were winning.” A fierce, proud light entered his eyes. “Our house and the house of our uncle Fingolfin were holding back armies back quite easily. He feared us. He feared me.” He preened a little bit. “He dared not face me in single combat after I held the passes of Himring for centuries against his host. So he had to cheat. He needed a new, terrible weapon to break our lines. So he made them. Dragons. The first of them were great crawling worms, all scale and muscle and venom, without wings. They were… effective.”
“Effective?” Glorfindel chimed in with a grim smile. “That’s one word for it. I died killing a Balrog but it was a dragon—a winged one, a later model—that broke the walls of my city. They are the ultimate siege weapon.”
“Morgoth used them to personally kill our cousin Turgon, the High King,” Maglor added, his voice dropping to a sorrowful whisper. “He indirectly ordered the deaths of countless cousins—Aegnor, Angrod, all fell to the shadows he unleashed, shadows the dragons paved the way for.”
“So you see,” Maglor said, bringing the history lesson to a close, “we are rather used to dragons in the fifty to seventy meter range. The winged, like the one that killed poor Glorfindel here, were a bit smaller, but no less dangerous. More agile. Your Smaug would be considered a light scouting unit in the wars we fought.”
The Dwarves were staring, their faces a palette of disbelief, horror and a dawning, unwilling respect. The scale of the history being casually laid before them was staggering, making them feel like their own tragedy, the story of Smaug and the Fall of Erebor, was a mere skirmish.
“And if you require credentials,” Curufin said, a proud, almost cruel smile on his face as he pointed his sharpening dagger towards the head of the table, “Elrond’s own birth father, Eärendil the Mariner, slew Ancalagon the Black. The greatest dragon ever to darken the sky.”
All eyes turned to Elrond, who looked as though he wished the chair would swallow him whole.
“He was so vast,” Curufin continued, savouring every word, “that when he fell from the heavens, his corpse shattered the triple peaks of Thangorodrim itself, the very fortress of the Dark Lord, and his unimaginable weight contributed to the sinking of an entire continent. Your Smaug might infest your mountain but Ancalagon was larger than your mountain.”
The Company of Thorin Oakenshield turned as one to look at Elrond. The wise, gentle, diplomatic lord of Imladris, who served them tea, was the son of a being who had killed a dragon the size of a mountain.
Elrond blushed under the combined weight of their awe-stricken gazes. “It… it was a different time,” he mumbled, uncharacteristically flustered.
Gandalf chuckled, the sound breaking the spell. He was clearly enjoying the history lesson and its effect on the Dwarves. “It is all true. I was there, in the host of the Valar and I saw the fall of the Black Dragon. So you see, Thorin Oakenshield, when my colleagues here refer to Smaug as a ‘little one,’ they do so from a position of considerable and hard-won experience.”
Thorin was silent for a long time, his pride wrestling with the evidence of a world far larger and more terrifying than he had ever imagined. Finally, he grunted. “So. You are not laughing at the danger. You are laughing at… the name.”
“Precisely!” Fëanor said, looking almost pleased that the Dwarf had grasped the concept. “The danger is relative. So, yes. Smaug is a little one. Killing him should not be a significant problem. Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Bilbo Baggins piped up from his corner, his voice small and worried. He had been trying to make himself invisible for the entire meeting. Those elves were scary.
“It depends less on size and more on intellect,” Maedhros explained. “Glaurung, the first of all dragons, could enslave a man’s mind with his voice alone. He laid waste to kingdoms without ever lighting a fire. The question is not how big Smaug is, but how smart he is.”
“And how do we determine that?” Thorin asked, his voice grudgingly interested now.
“Well,” Fëanor said, a brilliant, terrifying spark of invention in his eyes. “There are ways. I have some theories on resonant frequencies that could shatter a dragon’s inner ear, causing immediate incapacitation. It would require a precisely calibrated alloy, perhaps infused with—”
“NO!” chorused Elrond, Gandalf, all the Sons of Fëanor and Glorfindel simultaneously.
Fëanor looked offended. “You haven’t even heard the full proposal!”
“We don’t need to,” Elrond said with the weary air of one who had stopped many of his grandfather’s proposals. “We are not using the Dwarves of Erebor as test subjects for your latest auditory assault device.”
“Spoilsport,” Fëanor muttered, crossing his arms and sinking back into his chair with a sulk worthy of one of the Dwarves.
Gandalf seized the moment, his eyes twinkling as he looked at the shell-shocked Dwarves. “The point is, Thorin, you have resources and expertise available to you that you had not considered. The road ahead is perilous and Smaug is but one of its dangers. To have the counsel and if necessary, the aid, of those who have fought the darkness of this world since the beginning of days is not a weakness. It is wisdom.”
Thorin looked at the assembled Elves. He saw the ancient power in Fëanor’s eyes, the grim military bearing of Maedhros and everyone knows the legendary Glorfindel. He saw Elrond, the son of a mountain-slayer. His Company was watching him. His decision would define his kingship before it even began.
He took a deep breath. The stubborn set of his jaw remained but his eyes held a new, calculating light.
“Very well, Gandalf,” Thorin Oakenshield said, his voice low. “We will hear your counsel.”
In the corner, Bilbo Baggins let out a small, quiet sigh of relief. Perhaps, with these terrifyingly competent Elves involved, his own role would be rendered completely unnecessary.
He caught Elrond’s eye. The Peredhel lord gave him a small, sympathetic and deeply apologetic smile that instantly erased all of Bilbo’s hope.
The silence that followed Thorin’s grudging acquiescence was broken by the sound of Fëanor uncorking a small, intricately wrought flask he produced from within his robes. He took a long sip, sighed contentedly and offered it to Maedhros without looking at him. His eldest son accepted it with a practiced motion, took a sip and passed it to Maglor.
“Right,” Gandalf said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them with a disconcerting amount of relish. “Now that we’re all agreed on the general principle of not being eaten by a dragon, let’s move on to the particulars. Thorin, the map, if you please.”
Thorin’s hand went instinctively to the breast of his tunic, his eyes narrowing. He looked from Gandalf to the assembled elves, a lifetime of distrust warring with the dawning realization that these might be the only beings in Middle-earth who considered his epic problem a minor nuisance.
“It is a private heirloom of my house,” Thorin stated, his voice tight.
“And it is currently as useful as a stone in your boot,” Curufin said without looking up from his dagger-sharpening. “A map is a tool. Tools require experts to wield them. Show it to him.”
Fëanor perked up. “Ooh, a map? Is it pre-Beleriand? The surveys of that age were notoriously unreliable. Let me see.” He extended a hand, his fingers twitching.
With the air of a man pulling out his own tooth Thorin slowly withdrew a worn, folded parchment from an inner pocket. He unfolded it on the great table, using a few of the Dwarves’ tankards as paperweights. Elrond leaned forward, his scholarly curiosity overriding his discomfort.
“Ah, standard Dwarven projection,” Fëanor murmured, his eyes scanning the lines with lightning speed. “Adequate for mining tunnels, hopeless for surface topography. See how the mountain’s scale is distorted? Amateur work.” He tapped a long finger on the Lonely Mountain. “And this runic script here, around the margin. Moon-letters. A parlour trick. Elrond, be a dear and fetch the ithildin lamp from my workshop. The one that reacts to starlight, not moonlight. It’s more precise.”
Elrond didn’t move. He simply gave his grandfather a long, flat stare. “We are not using the ithildin lamp. The one that nearly vaporized the last scroll you ‘gently’ examined if you’ve forgot. We will use the moon. It is traditional and less likely to result in a crater where my house currently stands.”
Fëanor sighed dramatically. “Tradition is the crutch of the uninspired. But very well. We shall do it the boring way.”
As they waited for the moon to rise, the Company of Thorin found themselves the subject of intense and deeply unnerving scrutiny.
The red headed twins had drifted over to their side of the room and were examining their weapons with open curiosity.
“This axe has a poor weight distribution,” Amras stated, hefting Dwalin’s prized weapon with a critical frown. “All the mass is in the head. You’d be dead after the first swing against anything with half a brain.”
“Give that back!” Dwalin growled, making a grab for it.
Amras effortlessly held it up and out of his reach. “I’m trying to help. My brother could reforge this for you in an afternoon. Add some mithril to the haft to make it sturdier, perhaps a lightened head with a sharper bevel…”
“It’s a fine axe!” Dwalin insisted, his face turning purple.
“It’s a cleaver for butchering cattle,” Amrod said dismissively. “You’re going to fight a dragon with a butcher’s tool? How brave.”
Meanwhile, Curufin had taken a keen interest in Bombur.
“Fascinating,” he said, circling the rotund dwarf. “The sheer mass. The low centre of gravity. You’d be incredibly difficult to topple. Have you ever considered being used as a mobile barricade? With some reinforced plating you could be a formidable defensive unit.”
Bombur looked terrified and clutched his cooking spoon to his chest.
Gandalf, for his part, was puffing on his pipe and watching the interactions with the glee. He seemed to be taking special pleasure in the Dwarves’ continued state of shock.
“Don’t mind them,” Glorfindel said cheerfully to a pale-looking Bilbo, clapping him on the shoulder and nearly sending the hobbit face-first into the table. “They’re just socially… enthusiastic. It’s been a few ages since they had new people to analyse. You get used to it. Mostly.”
“I don’t want to get used to it,” Bilbo whispered.
Finally, a servant announced that the moon had risen. Elrond led the entire, bizarre assembly out onto a wide balcony where the white light streamed down. He held Thorin’s map up and the moon-letters glowed faintly: Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the key-hole.
The Dwarves crowded around, a wave of murmured awe and excitement passing through them.
The Fëanorians peered at the glowing script.
“Durin’s Day?” Celebrimbor mused. “Is that a specific astronomical event or just a sentimental anniversary? The celestial mechanics of Arda have shifted considerably since the Second Age. The calculations could be tricky.”
“It is the first day of the Dwarves’ New Year,” Balin explained patiently. “When the last moon of autumn and the first sun of winter are in the sky together.”
“Ah, a syzygy!” Fëanor said, studying the map. “A crude one but a syzygy nonetheless. So you have a specific, astronomically-dependent temporal window to find a hidden keyhole. And you’re doing this with… what?” He gestured vaguely at the company of Dwarves and one very anxious Hobbit.
“We are the heirs of Durin!” Thorin boomed, his pride once again overriding his sense of self-preservation. “It is our destiny!”
“Destiny is a poor substitute for a foolishness,” Fëanor retorted. “This is a task for a surveyor, not a king. Celebrimbor, draft me a sextant. A small one. We’ll need to calculate the precise angle of the sunset on that specific day relative to the mountain’s peak.”
“Grandfather, no,” Elrond said, his voice firm. “They are not taking a sextant. They are not taking you. This is their quest.”
“But they’ll do it wrong!” Fëanor protested, sounding genuinely aggrieved. “The margin for error is minuscule! They’ll miss the window and then they’ll be stuck there, or the dragon will eat them, and it will have been a terrible waste of a perfectly good, if small, dragon!”
“Which brings us,” Gandalf interjected, steering the conversation back, “to the other primary obstacle. The dragon itself. Assuming you find the door and assuming you get inside, Smaug remains. As Maedhros pointed out, the primary danger is not his size but his cunning.”
“He has lain dormant for sixty years,” Thorin said. “He will be sluggish, slow-witted.”
“Or,” Maglor countered softly, “he has been lying in a vast pile of gold for sixty years with nothing to do but think. Gold does things to the mind. It whispers. It amplifies greed, paranoia and avarice. If he was intelligent to begin with, six decades of solitude with a hoard could have made him much older in mind. Glaurung could speak, you know. He could weave lies that felt truer than truth.”
A shiver went through the company. The idea of a talking dragon was somehow more terrifying than a mere fire-breathing one.
“So what is your counsel?” Thorin asked, looking at Gandalf and, reluctantly, at Maedhros.
“My counsel,” Maedhros said, his single hand resting on the pommel of his sword, “is that you do not fight him. You are thirteen Dwarves and a Halfling. You are not an army. You are a distraction, at best.”
“Then what would you have us do?” Glóin asked, exasperated.
“You have a burglar,” Maedhros said, his red gaze falling upon Bilbo, who squeaked and tried to hide behind Bombur. “Use him. Your goal is not to slay the dragon. Your goal is to reclaim your home. If you can ascertain that Smaug is present and then determine a way to… lure him out… that is your best strategy.”
“Lure him out?” Dori cried. “And then what? Let him lay waste to the countryside?”
“No,” Gandalf said, his voice becoming grave. “Then you let others deal with him.”
Thorin’s eyes widened in understanding and fury. “You mean to have us use the Elves of Mirkwood? Or the Men of Lake-town? As a weapon? To clear our problem so we can walk in unopposed?”
“It is a classic siege tactic,” Maedhros said with a shrug. “Let the enemy break upon a stronger wall. Your wall just happens to be an army of Men and Elves.”
“It is dishonourable!” Thorin shouted.
“It is practical,” Curufin shot back. “Honor is a luxury for those who have already won. You are currently losing. There is a difference.”
“There is another way,” a new voice said. All eyes turned to Celebrimbor. He had been quiet, studying the map intently. He looked up, his face alight with a different kind of passion than his grandfather’s—not the fire of creation but of discovery. “The Desolation of Smaug. The area around the mountain is scarred, barren. But here,” he pointed to a section of the map near the River Running, “these are old watchtowers and guard posts, yes? From the days when Dale stood?”
“Aye,” Balin said cautiously.
“Stone and masonry,” Celebrimbor murmured. “Largely intact, I would wager. And what is a dragon’s primary weapon?”
“Fire,” Kili said.
“Wrong,” Celebrimbor and Fëanor said in unison.
“Breath,” Fëanor elaborated, looking proud of his grandson. “Superheated air, charged with volatile gases from their internal furnaces. It is not simply flame. It is a chemical explosion. And like any explosion, it can be channelled. And deflected.”
Celebrimbor’s eyes were shining. “Perhaps we could build a device. A series of acoustic resonators grandfather invited, placed strategically in the ruins. When the dragon’s fire-breath triggers them, the sound waves could be focused, turned back on itself. It would be… disorienting. Painful, even. It wouldn’t kill him but it might drive him out. Or at least give your burglar a significant advantage if he is discovered.”
The Dwarves stared, open-mouthed. The Elves were talking about building a giant, musical dragon-repellent.
“Is that… possible?” Bilbo asked, a flicker of hope in his voice.
“Of course it’s possible,” Fëanor said. “The mathematics are elementary. The real challenge is the material. We’d need an alloy that can withstand extreme heat and vibrate at the correct frequency… I have just the thing! A batch of copper I was saving for a new set of chimes! This is much more interesting!”
Thorin looked utterly lost. His quest, a solemn, sacred journey to reclaim his homeland, had been hijacked by a family of mad, genius Elves who wanted to turn his ancestral home into a concert hall for annoying a dragon.
“We are not building a… a dragon-scarer,” Thorin said, though with less conviction than before.
“Why not?” Gandalf asked, his eyes twinkling. “It seems an elegant solution. Non-lethal, for the most part. It utilizes the environment. It plays upon the dragon’s own nature. It is, in its way, an interesting solution.”
“It is a fool’s plan,” Thorin insisted.
“It is a Fëanorian plan,” Maedhros corrected. “There is a difference. Fool’s plans rely on luck. Our plans rely on the fundamental misunderstanding our enemies have of the laws of physics.”
The debate raged for another hour. The Dwarves arguing for tradition, honor and a direct approach (however suicidal). The Fëanorians proposing increasingly elaborate and terrifyingly effective-sounding technological and psychological warfare tactics. Gandalf moderated, clearly enjoying every moment, poking holes in everyone’s arguments and stirring the pot.
Finally, as the moon began to set, a compromise was reached, brokered by a thoroughly exhausted Elrond.
The Company would continue as planned. They would journey to the Mountain, they would find the hidden door and they would send in their Burglar.
But.
Celebrimbor would provide them with a single, small device. “A whistle,” he called it. A small, silver, intricately engraved whistle.
“It emits a frequency most reptiles find acutely unpleasant,” Celebrimbor explained, handing it to a bewildered Bilbo. “It won’t stop him but if he discovers you, blow it directly into his ear canal. It might buy you a few seconds to run. And it… it might make him angry. So use it sparingly.”
Bilbo held the whistle like it was a live coal. “You want me to annoy the dragon?”
“It’s better than nothing,” Celebrimbor said with an encouraging smile.
Furthermore, Gandalf extracted a promise from Thorin. If they succeeded in rousing Smaug and luring him out, they would not simply hide inside and bar the door. They would send word to Mirkwood and Lake-town. The dragon, once airborne, was everyone’s problem.
Thorin agreed, though his expression suggested he was swallowing broken glass.
As the meeting broke up the Dwarves filed out, looking shell-shocked and mentally drained. The Fëanorians were already deep in a heated debate about the tensile strength of dragon scale versus a properly tuned harmonic resonator.
Bilbo lingered for a moment, looking at the small silver whistle in his hand. Glorfindel walked over and put a friendly arm around his shoulders.
“Cheer up, Master Baggins!” the golden Elf said, his voice booming in the quiet night. “You’re going to have an adventure! And you’ve got the most powerful, chaotic and intellectually terrifying family in all of Arda as your… well, I wouldn’t say ‘backup.’ More like your ‘deeply interested and mildly concerned audience.’ It’s more than most get!”
Bilbo looked up at him, his face a mask of pure despair. “They’re all mad.”
Glorfindel’s laughter echoed through the courtyards of Rivendell. “Oh, absolutely! But they’re on your side. Mostly. Just try not to let the dragon eat you. It would really put a damper on their whole ‘reformed, helpful citizens’ project they’ve got going on.”
And with that less-than-comforting thought, Bilbo Baggins pocketed his dragon-annoying whistle and went in search of a very strong cup of tea. The road ahead seemed longer and far, far stranger than it had just that morning.
The peace of Imladris had been restored. The Dwarvish Company was but a memory, the council chamber was once again a place of quiet contemplation and the only sounds were the familiar ones of falling water and Elven song. For Elrond Peredhel it was a relief. A quiet morning without anyone fighting or shouting. He was in his study, enjoying the silence, when a familiar, gravelly voice echoed from the courtyard.
“Hail, Lord Elrond! Might a pair of weary travellers beg for a moment’s respite?”
Elrond groaned but rose and went to the balcony. Below, looking travel-worn, older and yet somehow lighter, stood Gandalf the Grey. And beside him looking even more travel-worn but with a new, unshakeable steadiness in his eyes, was Bilbo Baggins. The Hobbit’s clothes were finer than those he’d arrived in but they were dusty from the road. A small, elegant sword was belted at his waist.
A genuine smile spread across Elrond’s face. “Gandalf! Master Baggins! You are most welcome. Come, you must be hungry.” His smile faltered slightly. “I take it your… audience with the White Council in Mirkwood is concluded?”
“It is,” Gandalf said, his tone suggesting it had been as tedious as expected. “And before Master Baggins returns to the Shire, there is a tale to be told. And a certain… family… who will be most aggrieved if they do not hear it firsthand.”
Elrond’s heart sank. He knew that tone. “They are all here,” he said with a sigh. “Even Caranthir and Celegorm rode in from their hunting grounds a week ago. They’ve been… restless. I believe they expected a messenger raven.”
“Then let us not keep the most impatient family in Arda waiting,” Gandalf said, his eyes twinkling. “And have the kitchens send up something substantial. Storytelling is hungry work.”
Less than an hour later, the main hall felt like a scene of eerie déjà vu. The same players were assembled but the atmosphere was vastly different.
The Sons of Fëanor were not scattered in bored disdain as they did with Thorin. They were gathered like a council of war, their focus absolute. Fëanor himself was at the centre, leaning forward, almost shaking with anticipation. Flanking him were Maedhros, Maglor, the twins, Curufin and a newly arrived Caranthir, his dark brows furrowed in concentration and Celegorm, who looked like a hound on the scent. Celebrimbor was practically vibrating with curiosity. Glorfindel lounged to the side, a bowl of grapes in his hand, the picture of relaxed anticipation.
There were no Dwarves this time. Just two weary travellers, a platter of excellent food and a circle of the most dangerous and brilliant Elves ever born waiting for a debriefing.
Bilbo, under the combined weight of their gazes, looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. He nervously patted a large, heavy pouch at his side.
“Well?” Fëanor demanded, dispensing with any greeting. “The whistle. The dragon. The mountain. The battle. Start with the dragon. How intelligent was he? Did the resonant frequency theory of the whistle have any merit? I need data, Halfling!”
“Grandfather, let the poor Hobbit breathe,” Elrond chided, pouring Bilbo a large glass of wine. The Hobbit drained half of it in one go.
“It’s quite alright,” Bilbo said, his voice a little squeaky. He cleared his throat. “Right. Well. It’s a long story…”
“We have time,” Maedhros said, his voice a low rumble. “Skip the walking. Get to the dragon.”
Thus began the tale. Bilbo, with occasional interjections and clarifications from Gandalf, told them of the journey, the spiders, the Woodland Realm, the barrels and finally, the Lonely Mountain. He spoke of the hidden door and the terrifying, soul-shaking moment he first stepped into Smaug’s lair.
He described the dragon. The overwhelming, terrifying presence. The heat. The smell of gold and burning. The sheer, ancient malice in his voice.
“He was… terribly intelligent,” Bilbo said, shivering at the memory. “He spoke. He knew about the outside world. He knew about the Dwarves’ return. He tried to play mind games with me… turn me against Thorin. It was horrid.”
A wave of satisfied, grim nods went around the Fëanorian circle.
“Just as we suspected,” Maglor murmured. “The gold had honed his cunning, not dulled it.”
“The whistle, Master Baggins,” Celebrimbor pressed, leaning forward. “Did you use it?”
Bilbo’s face fell. “I… I’m afraid I rather lost it. During the… the initial encounter. I was trying to be terribly clever, you see, engaging him in conversation and I must have dropped it when I… well, when I ran for my life. I’m so sorry. It was beautifully made.”
Celebrimbor looked crestfallen for a moment, then waved a hand. “A trifle. I can make another. Its loss is irrelevant if the data is gained. Did it have any effect before you dropped it?”
“I don’t believe he even noticed it,” Bilbo admitted.
Fëanor made a sound of disgust. “Useless. We need to rethink the entire—”
“The dragon, Bilbo,” Gandalf prompted gently, steering the story away from another Fëanorian invention spiral.
So Bilbo told them of the rest. Of the riddles in the dark, of noticing the bare patch on Smaug’s jewel-encrusted underbelly, of the frantic escape and the dragon’s wrathful exit from the mountain.
“He was going to Lake-town,” Bilbo said, his voice heavy with guilt. “Because of me. I’d angered him, and he went to destroy them for helping us.”
“A classic punitive response,” Caranthir noted clinically. “Eliminate the enemy’s support base. Predictable but effective.”
“But he didn’t!” Bilbo said, a spark of pride entering his tale. “There was a man there, a bargeman named Bard. He was descended from the Lord of Dale. He knew about the weak spot! He had a black arrow, a great huge thing, passed down for this very purpose. And he… he shot him. And Smaug fell. He came crashing down right on top of the Master’s house and most of the lake-town fleet, I’m afraid but… he was dead.”
A moment of silence filled the hall.
It was Celegorm who broke it, a look of profound disappointment on his face. “A man? A mortal with a bow? That’s how the ‘Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities’ met his end? How… anticlimactic.”
“It was plenty climactic for those of us there!” Bilbo retorted, a little stung.
“The method is irrelevant,” Maedhros stated, his voice cutting through the mild derision. “The result is what matters. The dragon is dead. The mountain is retaken. This is the outcome we desired. The means are… pedestrian but effective.”
“But that’s not the end of the story,” Gandalf said, his face growing serious. “Is it, Bilbo?”
Bilbo’s shoulders slumped. “No.” He took a deep breath. “Thorin… he was changed. The gold. The dragon-sickness. It had him in its grip. He would not honour his word to the men of Lake-town or the Elves of Mirkwood who came seeking aid and recompense. He barricaded himself inside the mountain. He became… paranoid. He was not the Dwarf I journeyed with.”
The Fëanorians exchanged looks. This, they understood. The corrupting influence of treasure, of oath-making, of a mind turned inwards by pride and possession. It was a story written in their own blood.
“What broke it?” Curufin asked, his voice sharp. “What snapped him out of it? It usually takes a death. Often several.”
Bilbo looked down at his hands. “It… it was rather my fault, in a way. You see, during the… the unpleasantness with the dragon, I may have… acquired something.” He slowly, hesitantly, untied the heavy pouch at his side. He reached in and pulled out a large, white gem. It seemed to capture all the light in the room, holding it in a heart of pure, cool fire.
A collective, sharp intake of breath came from the Fëanorians. They didn’t need to be told what it was. They felt it. The echo of a light, similar to the one they had once seen, the shadow of a creation that had defined and doomed their house.
“The Arkenstone,” Bilbo whispered.
Fëanor was on his feet, his eyes blazing with a mixture of artistic awe and pure, unadulterated fury. “You took it? You stole the heart of the mountain from the Dwarf-king suffering from gold-madness? Are you utterly insane?”
“It seemed a good idea at the time!” Bilbo squeaked, clutching the gem to his chest. “I thought I could use it to bargain with him! To stop a war!"
To everyone’s surprise, it was Maglor who spoke, a strange, sad smile on his face. “Of course you did. It is in the nature of such things to promise peace, even as they sow the seeds of war. What did you do?”
“I took it to Bard and the Elvenking,” Bilbo said, his voice small. “I gave it to them to use as a bargaining chip. When they presented it to Thorin… oh, you should have seen his face. The betrayal. The rage. He… he threatened to throw me from the ramparts.”
A grim nod from Maedhros. “Predictable. The possessor sees the theft of the prize as the ultimate betrayal. But such a thing would have cemented his madness, not broken it.”
“But it didn’t!” Bilbo insisted. “That’s when the whistle finally came into it! Well, not the whistle itself, but the… the principle!”
All eyes were on him now, utterly confused.
“You see,” Bilbo explained, “when Thorin was yelling, his voice was echoing terribly off the stone inside the gate. It was all just a horrible, roaring noise. But then, for a moment, he stopped to draw breath. And in that silence, Dain Ironfoot’s army arrived and a horn blew. And it was a very high, sharp, piercing sound. And Thorin… he flinched. He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. And he looked at me, on the wall, about to be thrown and he looked at the armies below and he looked back at the mountain behind him… and I saw it. How his own nephews shield away from him. How the Company refuse to follow. The madness… it cracked. Just for a second.”
Bilbo’s voice grew stronger. “He didn’t give the order to throw me. He looked… confused. Dwarves helped me to escape to Gandalf. And then the Goblins and the Wargs came. Everyone forgot about me and the stone in the face of a common enemy. And Thorin… Thorin shook it off. He rallied his kin. He led the Dwarves out of the mountain to fight. He said, ‘To me! To me! Elves and Men! To me, O my kinsfolk! Shall we not repay with our last breath the treachery of men and the folly of elves? Who will follow me one last time?”
The hall was silent. The Fëanorians were listening, captivated. They understood the shock of a moment of clarity in the midst of madness. They understood redemption, even if it was fleeting.
“The Battle was… awful,” Bilbo said softly, his eyes distant. “I was knocked out for most of it, thankfully. But when I came to… it was over. And Thorin… he was alive. He was wounded, mortally, they said but he was alive. And he was himself. He asked for me. He… he apologized. He said I was never a grocer but a friend. And he took back his threat. And then… he… he…”
Bilbo’s voice broke. He couldn’t continue.
Gandalf placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Thorin Oakenshield died of his wounds,” the wizard said, his own voice thick with emotion. “But he died as a King, under his mountain, his mind his own, having made his peace. His nephews, Fili and Kili also fell, defending him with unsurpassed valour.”
A respectful silence fell. Even the Fëanorians, who had mocked the Dwarves, bowed their heads. They understood sacrifice. They understood a good death.
It was Fëanor who finally spoke, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, all the fire replaced by a sort of grudging respect. “So. The sharp, high-frequency sound, applied at a critical moment of psychological stress, did have a neurological impact. It acted as a reset. Fascinating. The principle was sound. The delivery mechanism was simply… unorthodox.”
Bilbo stared at him, tears in his eyes. The greatest Elf-smith of all time had just reduced Thorin’s redemption and death to a successful field test.
“Grandfather,” Elrond said, his voice a warning.
“What?” Fëanor said, looking genuinely puzzled. “It is a significant data point! The dragon is dead, the King is dead but redeemed, the mountain is secured. The mission was a success with acceptable, if regrettable, casualties. And we have confirmed that sonic disruption can be used to break compulsive possessive states. This has been an enormously productive venture!”
He looked at Bilbo and for the first time there was something akin to approval in his gaze. “You, Halfling, have more courage than sense. It is a potent, if reckless, combination. You did well.”
For Bilbo Baggins of the Shire it was the strangest, most back-handed compliment he had ever received. And from Fëanor, he suspected it was the highest praise imaginable.
“Thank you,” he said, utterly bewildered.
“Now,” Fëanor said, his business-like tone returning, “about that gem. It’s a crude piece, obviously. The cut is primitive, the light is unfocused, it lacks any subtlety… but the raw material has potential. If you’d allow me to examine it, I could—”
“NO!” chorused Elrond, Gandalf, all the Sons of Fëanor and Glorfindel simultaneously.
Bilbo quickly stuffed the Arkenstone back into his pouch and held it protectively.
Fëanor sighed. “Spoilsports.”
Later, as Bilbo prepared to finally begin his journey home, laden with gifts and a heart full of impossible memories, he found Celebrimbor waiting for him by the stables.
The Elf-smith handed him a small, beautifully crafted box of polished wood. “A parting gift,” he said. “A new whistle. Just in case.”
Bilbo opened the box. Inside, on a bed of velvet, lay a new silver whistle, even more intricately engraved than the last.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Bilbo said. “I’d only lose it again.”
“Take it,” Celebrimbor insisted with a smile. “Consider it a reminder. And if you ever have any more problems with dragons… or difficult relatives… you know where to find us.”
Bilbo Baggins pocketed the box, a slow smile spreading across his face. The road behind him was long, and the road ahead led to home. And he knew, with a certainty that both comforted and terrified him, that he now had the most peculiar and powerful friends in all the world.