I never knew daylight could be so violent
"I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that can walk unseen. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of the bag and no bag went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am the Ringwinner and Luckweaver. I am the Barrel-rider."
Bilbo had been starting to find himself quite pleased with his riddles, as pleased as a Tookish hobbit can be when facing down a dragon of swirling gold eyes and dark red, blood like skin. His heart aches where it rests under the Ring. The whispering ring. The ring that catches the gaze of Smaug who smiles -- for all dragons can smile, though it is a rare occurrence -- and tilts his head on his pile of gold.
"I was to say that some of those don't sound so credible," he scoffs playfully. "But these last sound better. Don't let your imagination run away with you." No dragon can resist riddled talk, after all, but it is not riddles that Smaug wants now.
The Ring whispers to him and promises him more than any gold found in Erebor if he waits. If he breathes his magic like fire into the halfling's heart, there will be no way to stop him from having all the gold in Middle Earth from now until the end of all time.
And this is exactly what Smaug does, for one does not ignore a ring of power, not clever dragons at least who were there before their forging, and who sang their songs before such things could be known.
Bilbo sinks into himself, into the golden eye, slips between the hollow of the ring, and when the hobbit returns to the group of thirteen, he is no longer their lucky number. His eyes burn gold.
Bilbo had been starting to find himself quite pleased with his riddles, as pleased as a Tookish hobbit can be when facing down a dragon of swirling gold eyes and dark red, blood like skin. His heart aches where it rests under the Ring. The whispering ring. The ring that catches the gaze of Smaug who smiles -- for all dragons can smile, though it is a rare occurrence -- and tilts his head on his pile of gold.
"I was to say that some of those don't sound so credible," he scoffs playfully. "But these last sound better. Don't let your imagination run away with you." No dragon can resist riddled talk, after all, but it is not riddles that Smaug wants now.
The Ring whispers to him and promises him more than any gold found in Erebor if he waits. If he breathes his magic like fire into the halfling's heart, there will be no way to stop him from having all the gold in Middle Earth from now until the end of all time.
And this is exactly what Smaug does, for one does not ignore a ring of power, not clever dragons at least who were there before their forging, and who sang their songs before such things could be known.
Bilbo sinks into himself, into the golden eye, slips between the hollow of the ring, and when the hobbit returns to the group of thirteen, he is no longer their lucky number. His eyes burn gold.