Monster - [Smaug the Magnificent]

4. I was Never One for Pretenders

First, she realized that the dust swirling around her was not just dust, but ash. She’d stirred much of it up, and it was thick like a fog. Then, as she turned towards the bed, she realized what she had thought to be rubble was not rubble, but corpses. One thick framed, and two smaller ones, huddled together. Their bones had dried, and the ash had covered and stained them. Dinah covered her mouth in shock, and it proved that her predicament was not the worst there was. She rushed back out into the hallway, desperate to get away from the horrific scene. She tripped once again, managing to save the lamp but busted her lip in the process. She looked down and discovered what she had assumed to be a spider’s nest was a skull, smashed against the wall, and blackened by ash. The dwarf’s beard was withering like dead roots in winter, most having been singed.

She gave out a surprised and horrified cry, and gathered herself before running out of the corridor and back to the gold room. She could feel tears welling behind her eyes as her lip trembled. The poor, innocent lives that had been trapped in the flames.

Her thoughts strayed to her sister, and her heart swelled and tears began to run down her cheeks. Her sister had experienced the same, terrifying flames.

“Oh, Mila.” She murmured. “It is better that you’ve moved on. This dragon-hole is ghastly. And terrifying.” Dinah looked around the chamber. “...And lonely.”

She was about to put her head in her hands when she stopped: Her hands were covered in ash! Not only that, but so was her dress. Oh, Smaug would surely know what she’d been up to now.

The chest! Dinah suddenly thought. The chest with the dresses! Luck was on her side. She clambered over the mounds of gold to the pile of clothes she had dumped out. There were many dresses, corsets, necklaces, boots an entire wardrobe she could change into! She sat her lamp within the chest, knowing that if Smaug saw it he would find out about her adventure.

She shimmied out of her black, ash-stained dress, and into one of the elven dresses. It was more like a white gown, laced in -of course- gold, that sagged too much in the front for Dinah, and wrapped around her feet. She threw it off, and pulled on another, which turned out to be much too small. Her bosoms spilled out, and she could not fully lace up the bodice. She quickly pulled that one off, reaching for the only other one left; a soft green dress, with lacing across the chest and up to the neck. It concealed her bosoms, allowed her to breath, but did not swaddle her to the point where she felt as if she was wrapped in a blanket.

“This will have to do.” She murmured, brushing her hands off on one of the fur pelts. They were still black, but maybe she could conceal it.

Smaug returned, a charred cow in his jaws, and several more in his belly. He rolled the boulder out of of the doorway, and pushed it open, and then once inside, sealed it shut. Half of him was hoping that she’d remained in the cavern, the other half hoping to catch her doing something to his displeasure.

He slithered into the gold room, eyes scanning for anything different or disrupted. He dropped the carcass onto a platform, growing anxious that he hadn’t spotted her yet.

“I am here, Lord Smaug.” Her gentle voice echoed across the chamber, and he turned, spotting her struggle up a pile of gold. He swung his head around, lowering it to her level.