[Kransha]

In the sky, the golden dragon, his wings no longer slapping the smoke-filled air with crazed fury but merely acting as devices to direct him as he glided gently, pondered his situation. He was still slightly hungry, the feast on Dale’s livestock having not been entirely filling, but he had more important matters to look to. He would have to wage a next level of assault on Erebor, the Lonely Mountain, the only obstacle that did not cower and tremble before his shimmering might. Then he could see to further pleasure, and perhaps another belated meal, in Dale. He would have to be cautious, though, and show logic and tact in his offensive maneuvers. He would not delve into the mountain yet, but conquer it from without. After the petty resistance in Dale and those of Erebor were annihilated, he would seek the innards of the Lonely Mountain and the needed treasures that they held. Slowly, whipping his long tale and arching form about in midair, Smaug turned again, more fully, towards weary Erebor. What little specks of sunlight shone through the thick smog clouds were brightened when reflected on Smaug’s scales, illuminating the dragon’s magnificent hide as he suddenly swerved, swiveled, and dove forward towards the oncoming mountain.

Another torrential explosion of powdery dirt, fractured rock, and billowing dust shot out of the wound in the mountainside, rimmed by the bright crimson of Smaug’s flames. The column of fire penetrated the rock and bored through it, plowing into the face of Erebor and causing the mountain to quake as it was uprooted from within. As the outpour of produced smoke bore towards him, Smaug moved aside and directed another precise pillar of his fiery breath at another piece of the mountain, scorching the grayish rock into coal-black rubble. He continued doing this, parallel with the mountain again as he had been when he first attacked Erebor, but this time his attacks were more lethal, more concise, and more destructive. As he circled the mountain, moving in a diagonal spiral so that he moved steadily around the cone of Erebor and towards it dulled peak, he blasted every area that retained itself, causing most of Erebor’s protective stone to crumble, melting off the mountainsides and onto the earth far below. Finally, he’d reached the mountaintop, its majestic tip obscured by flame and smoke plumes still. As his the circles his bulk drew in the sky shrunk around the peak, he honed in on it and let loose countless gusts of the brightest fire which tore the mountaintop asunder, easily destroying its former prowess in the sky and causing rock to fall away, leaving the jutting mountain no more than a looming lump of fiey earth and dust and rock built up by time’s winds.

Satisfied with his work, Smaug soared over the fallen peak and, his wings skimming the mountainside again, flew down towards the land and Dale. His focused and unmoving eyes caught sight of an uncharacteristic hue present on the landscape. It was blue, not bright and gleaming blue, but irritatingly tranquil when superimposed against the sweeping darkness of Smaug’s Desolation. It was a river, winding delicately around, flanking Erebor and swiftly moving. It was the river he’d seen earlier, and taken little notice of, that poured out of Erebor and moved calmly around the fringes of Dale, on its eastern side. Now that Dale and Erebor were so marred by Smaug, the river seemed out of place. At first, the dragon could not think of a way to rectify the problem, but he soon resolved simply to see what advantages he could find in or alongside the river…perhaps another much desired meal. Snapping his jaws gratuitously, Smaug dipped low, his gem-encrusted underbelly gliding along the water’s surface. The river’s gentle waves were pushed aside by the massive gales of wind that Smaug carried alongside him, his two magnificent wings fanning the body of water and sending bursts of river up onto each bank, soaking the swaying trees on both sides. His two beady, gleaming eyes tried to focus, but the spray that shot up from beneath him obscured the dragon’s vision as he searched for his prey.

Finally he saw it, though it was not exactly what he’d thought it was, or hoped it was. A small figure, curled up protectively in the trees’ shade on the unwashed shores, barely visible (except in Smaug’s keen vision), but close below. He grimaced from his hovering perch in the unsettled air, disappointed by the quality of his meal, but dismissed the size of it, guessing that the creature was probably more tender in its youth, and easy prey, not swift or adept enough to escape him. His dark frown twisted malevolently into a grin as he veered expertly sideways, the fringes of his leathery wings caressing the surface of the river. He quickly moved toward it, descending to the lowest point he could reach while flying without being hindered. The dragon aimed himself, now not moving, waiting for his chance, at the targeted tree and tore towards it, his jaws pried open and ready for another satiation of his hunger. He saw the small bundle growing very slightly larger in his sight as he closed in over the river.

But, before he reached his prey, he became aware of an obstacle he had dismissed before. The tree branches were too low and too much in his way for the dragon to reach the ground smoothly. Instead, countless gnarled branches pricked irritatingly at the soft flesh of his wings. He tried to brush the trees aside, but many of them were firm where they stood. He tore off branches, pulled up tree trunks, but could not delve to where the small form lay beneath. He could no longer see it through the disheveled array of branches and guessed that the great commotion of his tearing up the forest had scared it away. He roared angrily, but could do no more than vent. There would be other prey, surely, but Smaug found it easier to be as vengeful as he wished to be just then. His eyes radiating with tongues of golden-red, like the light welled up in his throat, Smaug bore down on the forest and let loose his destructive breath, incinerating the just beneath him, turning them to blackened dust, and as he rose he saw a great, dark mark upon the earth, a crater in the forest where his breath had scorched.

More food to be found in Dale, he thought, and turned that way…