Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Exterminator!” exclaimed the halfling—no, the hobbit, Thorin corrected himself. “Oh no, goodness, no. Wherever did you get such an idea?”

“Gandalf,” said Thorin. “He promised to find someone who could take care of our dragon problem. Naturally, we expected an exterminator. Where is the old wizard, anyway?”

“Well, he brought me from the Shire to Beorn’s house, and a very good companion he was indeed, what with all the goblins! He let off some fireworks in the Misty Mountains that were more exciting than any of his displays from when I was a lad. Then he had business elsewhere, so Beorn—”

“Who is that?” inquired Balin, who sat to one side taking notes. “I’ve never heard the name.”

“Oh, Beorn is a—a skin-changer, Gandalf calls him, though I find that term a bit unnerving. He’s a man, a great big one, except sometimes he’s a bear. Terribly vicious to wargs and goblins, but tender as can be with all animals, even bees. What he’d have to say about ‘exterminator’ I don’t like to think!” The hobbit shuddered. “Anyway, Beorn brought me safely to King Thranduil’s hall, and from there I traveled on my own to the mountain, where this little fellow came out to greet me, didn’t he?”

The hobbit—Bilbo Baggins, as he’d introduced himself—gazed fondly at a small red head poking out of his waistcoat pocket. Then he actually lifted the dragon and cradled it in his hands, petting its scaly ridges.

This was a deliberate insult; it had to be.

Erebor was overrun with the dangerous pests, an infestation more pernicious than any that even Thorin’s grandfather could remember. Gold, silver, jewels—all were disappearing at an alarming rate. The loss of prized possessions and treasured heirlooms was bad enough, but how could the dwarves deliver their trade to the men of Dale and the elves of Greenwood when any necklace or goblet or dagger might be whisked from the worktable in a moment of inattention?

Not to mention the scorch marks, which were spreading all over the mountain from the dragons’ quarrels with one other and with the dwarves who tried to chase them away. Every week brought more small fires, each with the potential to become a deadly blaze if people didn’t catch it in time. And the dragons were growing bolder as they became more numerous. The healers could barely keep up with salves for burns and bandages for bites and scratches.

King Thror had delegated the problem to his grandson, and after failing at one approach after another, Thorin had been reduced to begging for help from a wizard. When Gandalf admitted that his magic could do no good against the little beasts, but promised to send help from the West, Thorin had imagined many things—a fireproof giant who would stomp the dragons flat, a cunning Ranger who would lay traps and poison—but never a plump, beardless hobbit with crinkly eyes and a wagging tongue.

“Exterminator, well I never,” the Baggins was still babbling. “I mean, really! Look at me! Look at them!” He held the dragon recklessly near his face and cooed at it.

Thorin looked. The hobbit was dressed in cheerful greens and yellows, somewhat muddied and tattered from his journey, and all the hair that ought to be on his face seemed to have fallen down to his unshod feet in a mass of brown curls. His eyes were so sparkly, and his smile so disarming, that Thorin could only assume he was pulling some kind of con.

At the same time, Thorin was stunned by the courage, no, the stupidity with which the hobbit held the dragon. The thieving creature was two feet of danger from snout to tail-tip, its teeth and claws sharper than whetted steel and its breath an incendiary menace.

But Bilbo Baggins smiled at the dragon as if it were a kitten, and when it began to open its jaws, he pinched them firmly shut and said, “None of that, if you please.” Then he scratched under its chin, and its eyes clouded over with pleasure.

“I have been looking,” said Thorin grimly. “And I’m not seeing any reason to believe you can handle our problem, Master Baggins. Is this the wizard’s idea of a joke?”

“Of course it is,” snapped Dwalin, who had been looming behind Thorin and could contain himself no longer. “Either it’s a joke, or he’s a thief in league with the dragons, planning to slip away in the night after they line his pockets with our gold.”

“And who might you be?” inquired the hobbit, seeming unaffected by Dwalin’s ferocious scowl. “Perhaps you train Prince Thorin in tact? That would explain his utter lack of it.”

A coughing fit that sounds suspiciously like laughter erupted from Balin.

“I’m Erebor’s chief of security,” said Dwalin, with a sideways glare at his brother. “And I’ll be keeping on eye on you as long as you’re in the mountain, Baggins, so don’t go thinking you can make off with any treasure.”

The hobbit reached back into his pocket and pulled out a golden cup, just small enough to fit in the pest’s toothy maw. “However are the dragons managing it, then?”

Chapter Text

“That could have gone better,” Bilbo murmured to himself. Well, to himself and to the little dragon.

The creature in his pocket made pleasant company. Its warmth was as welcome as a hot water bottle in the chilly mountain, and its presence made him feel less odd about speaking aloud.

“Then again,” he mused, “it could have gone a great deal worse. Neither of us was banished from Erebor, or turned into a dwarvish pincushion. I have been given the freedom of the mountain, reasonable resources at my disposal, and even the magnanimous, if rather condescending, promise of all funeral expenses defrayed should I continue on my present reckless course of engagement.”

Bilbo rubbed the smooth head hanging sleepily over the the rim of his pocket. He had returned the jeweled cup to the dwarves, foiling the dragon’s theft, and he expected it to fly off at any moment in search of more treasure. He would do his best to follow where it led, gathering information about the pests’ movements and habits.

Thus far, however, the dragon seemed content to drowse in his pocket. So Bilbo was wandering through the halls, turning corners and choosing flights of stairs more or less at random. He thought he should try to understand the infested space, as well as the creatures doing the infesting.

Erebor was grand beyond anything he could have imagined, cleverly and beautifully designed at every scale—from high ceilings with crystals and mirrors that tossed light around until Bilbo nearly forgot he was underground, to the intricate details of dwarven history carved into the paving stones under his toes.

The inhabitants, however, were not exactly welcoming. Even setting aside the stiff and surly Prince Thorin, most of the dwarves he encountered were too intent on their work, or engrossed in conversation, to spare a nod or a smile for the hobbit. Those who did notice him simply stared—often at his bare feet—and did not speak.

Bilbo found himself choosing quieter paths with fewer voices, and soon enough he stood alone at the bottom of a flight of stairs, with no dwarves in sight. Seeing as he wasn’t in anyone’s way, he stopped walking and pulled out the map that Balin had given him.

He was in the midst of tracing a path from his current location to the nearest kitchen when he heard muffled steps and a giggle. He peeked over the top of the map.

“Hello! Hello!” Two cheerful young dwarves popped up to greet him.

Bilbo was at a loss to guess their ages, but he was sure that neither could be full-grown. The taller one was about Bilbo’s height, with yellow hair hanging to his shoulders, a bristly mustache and a short beard. The other was a head shorter, his longer brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and dark fuzz on his upper lip. Their eyes shone with the same merry mischief Bilbo had seen in many of his young cousins.

“Hello there,” he said kindly, folding up his map. “Bilbo Baggins, at your service.”

“We know who you are,” chirped the smaller one. “We heard Uncle muttering about you, so we came to look.”

The older lad, however, remembered his manners and bowed. “Fili, son of Dis, granddaughter of Thror, King Under the Mountain. At your service.”

Then he smacked the other boy, who stuck out his tongue, but offered Bilbo a bow of his own. “Kili, brother of Fili, Most Annoying Brother Under the Mountain.”

Fili smacked him again. Kili kicked back. Bilbo was an only child, but he’d spent enough time with his cousins to see quite well where this was heading, so he hurried to interrupt. “If your mother is King Thror’s granddaughter, then your uncle must be Prince Thorin, is that right?”

Fili nodded. “We heard him telling Gloin about you.”

“He used a bad word,” added Kili, in a very loud whisper.

Bilbo felt his face heat. “Well, I’m sure he’s upset about the whole dragon business, and he’s probably under a lot of pressure from his grandfather.”

“He said—” and before Bilbo could protest that he really didn’t need to know, Kili added a guttural sound that the hobbit didn’t recognize as any curse he’d heard before. Or, frankly, as any kind of word at all.

But Fili slapped a hand over his brother’s mouth. “Don’t say that!”

Kili twisted out of his grip and darted towards Bilbo. “Do you have a dragon in your pocket?”

“Er, yes,” said Bilbo. It had begun to snore, and continued to do so as Bilbo carefully drew it out to show the children. “Have you ever touched a dragon?”

“I grabbed one by the tail when it took some meat from our oven,” said Fili, pushing forward to observe the creature. “The grown-ups say they don’t steal food, only treasure, but I saw it. It grabbed a big piece that was still too hot for me to touch. I got it by the tail, but it bit me and I let go. See?” He held out his hand to show a fresh white scar on his palm.

“Can I touch yours?” Kili asked, already reaching for it.

“I suppose so, just be gentle,” said Bilbo. The last thing he needed was to be blamed for a dragon attacking Thorin’s nephews. But as Kili stroked his little fingers over its folded wings, the dragon settled even more deeply into slumber. Its snores grew more resonant, and two thin lines of smoke rose from its nostrils.

“It’s so cute!” squealed Kili.

Fili looked charmed as well, reaching out to trace the length of its tail. He tugged lightly on the pointed tip. The dragon tugged back, wrapping its tail tightly around its body without ever opening its eyes.

“Did you bring it from home?” inquired Fili.

“Oh, no, no, we don’t have any dragons in the Shire!”

“No pests at all?”

“Plenty of pests. We have gophers and mice, snails and slugs and grasshoppers and beetles. But they steal from our gardens and pantries, not from our treasure.” He chuckled, returning the dragon to his pocket. “I suppose, for hobbits, that is our treasure.”

“Why did Gandalf bring you here to help with the dragons, then?” Fili’s tone was open and friendly, but in his words Bilbo heard an echo of his uncle’s skepticism.

“Oh, er, well, you’d have to ask Gandalf that, I suppose. To be honest, Master Fili, I didn’t think I’d be the right person for the job, but the wizard has a way of convincing folks.” And so did Bilbo’s mother, who’d all but kicked him out the door. “Now that I’m here, I’ll give it my best. This little dragon is still the only one that I’ve seen, so I’m looking for more.”

“I know where to find them,” said Fili. “Follow me!”

“We know where to find them,” corrected Kili, running to stay at his brother’s side. “Follow us!”

The young dwarves led Bilbo at a rapid pace through several beautifully tiled halls, down a flight of stairs, and past a delicious-smelling room where Bilbo longed to stop.

“How will finding more dragons help get rid of the dragons?” asked Kili, who had inserted his hand into Bilbo’s somewhere along the way.

“Well, if we watch them for a while, we might be able to figure out what they like and what they don’t like. Back home, slugs don’t like strong-smelling herbs, so we plant borders of lavender and mint to keep them out of our gardens.”

“Here, look, look down here!” Fili was almost bouncing with excitement as he led the way into a cellar.

Shelves on the walls were packed with tubs of dry goods, which were undisturbed, but the floor was covered with sacks that had been shoved around, torn and trampled—not for any desire to eat what was inside, it seemed, but rather to make an cozy nest for piling up stolen treasure. In the midst of the mess sat a glittering heap of coins, gems, and jewelry, with at least half a dozen dragons curled around it or burrowed inside it.

An acrid, smoky scent filled the air—almost pleasant, but far too strong, like pipeweed that had fermented and burned at the same time. “That’s dragon droppings,” said Kili helpfully, noticing Bilbo’s wrinkled nose. “The smell is stronger when it’s fresh.”

The dragons had taken notice of the intrustion, and several rose up hissing and spitting sparks. To Bilbo’s surprise, the dragon in his pocket lifted its head and hissed louder, and the dragons on the hoard subsided, curling back into their gold. They were smaller than the one in his pocket, Bilbo realized. Perhaps they were younger. He rubbed his dragon’s head thoughtfully.

“I want a dragon,” said Kili, gazing adoringly at the pile. “Fi, can I have a dragon?”

“Dragons aren’t pets,” scoffed Fili, but at the same time he scooped up the closest dragon from the hoard. “Oh, it’s so warm! Is yours warm, Mr. Baggins?”

“Very.” Bilbo smiled.

Kili grabbed one for himself. “This one is super warm,” he announced. “I bet she’s the warmest.”

“Is it a she-dragon?” asked Bilbo politely.

“Yes,” said Kili. “See the double ridges on her tail? Dragons with eggs always have those, so I think it means they’re female.”

“That’s a very clever observation, Master Kili.” Bilbo nodded, and peered closely at the dragon in Fili’s hands. “Then yours must be female as well.”

“Yeah, I guess. She needs a name. What’s yours named?”

Bilbo scratched the single ridge on his dragon’s tail. “I’ve been thinking of him as Smaug.”

“We could name ours to rhyme with yours,” suggested Kili. “Like . . . Frog. And Dog.”

“Those don’t really rhyme with Smaug,” objected Fili. “And it’s confusing to name them after other animals.”

“Why don’t we name them after people, then?” Kili giggled. “Like Balin and Dwalin!”

Fili snorted a laugh. “Mine would be Dwalin, then, it’s bigger. But if they’re girls—”

“Fili! Kili!” A woman’s voice boomed down the stairs, and the two young dwarves jumped.

“That’s our mum,” explained Kili to Bilbo.

“Er, am I going to be in trouble for this?” asked Bilbo, gesturing at the dragons in the boys’ arms. He was quite sure that Thorin would not be happy with the situation, and could only guess that his sister would be of a similar mind.

But Fili shook his head reassuringly and shouted, “Yes, Mum, we’re here! We found the halfling, come down and meet him!”

Footsteps were already approaching, and Fili had barely finished speaking when a dwarf who could have been Thorin’s twin entered the room. Bilbo noticed that the pattern of braids in her beard and hair was different, the decorations on her ears were silver instead of gold, and rather than royal garb with furs and tassels, she was dressed in smith’s clothing, blackened with soot and spotted with holes where embers had landed.

She took in the scene with a wry smile. “You found more than a halfling, I see.”

Kili held out his dragon excitedly. “Look, Mum, Bilbo—I mean, Mr. Baggins—he showed us how to hold them and pet them! This one is mine, but I haven’t picked a name for her yet.”

“Even if you think of her as yours, you must let her come and go as she pleases,” said Bilbo quickly. “Fili is right, dragons really aren’t pets. Smaug is keeping my company only because he was tired, and decided I was a comfortable place to sleep. I expect when he’s properly awake he’ll be off.”

The dwarf woman looked amused. “I see yours has a name already.”

“Oh, um, yes.” Suddenly aware of his appalling lack of propriety, Bilbo straightened up, smoothed his waistcoat (as best he could with a dragon in one pocket), and bowed. “Madam, I beg your pardon, I have not even introduced myself. Bilbo Baggins of the Shire, at your service.”

“Dis of et cetera et cetera, at yours,” said the dwarf, waving a hand to indicate the Mountain, her royal lineage, and all. “You do realize that these menaces have been making Erebor a living hell, don’t you?”

“Do you mean the dragons or your sons, my lady?”

Chapter Text

“Get away from me!” snapped Thorin, aiming a kick at the dragon that kept circling his legs with a golden ring clutched in its teeth. He knew that if he tried to snatch the ring, the dragon would dart away, either on its horribly fast little feet or on its leathery wings.

Unless it decided to breathe fire instead, possibly hurting Thorin and very likely melting the ring. Dragons seemed to view treasure with a destructive attitude of, “If I can’t have it, nobody can.”

However, given that Thorin had not tried to take the little thief’s treasure, he wished it would run off instead of following him. “I don’t care what you stole, I just want you gone,” he grumbled. “If you need to show off, go find the hobbit.”

The dragon finally flew away in a huff, and Thorin had a few blissfully dragon-free minutes until he arrived at the central forges, where he found . . . a lot more dragons. He also found his sister.

“I thought we’d managed to keep them out of here!” he complained, as soon as she stopped hammering long enough to hear him.

“We just brought them in!” She wiped her sweating face with her apron and grinned at him. “It’s fantastic, Thorin, you have to try working with dragon fire. There’s still a lot of trial and error, but the control it gives you over fire shape and temperature . . . and it’s saving so much fuel already.”

Thorin eyed the cluster of dragons in Dis’s hearth skeptically. “And they breathe fire where you want it out of, what, kindness? Luck?”

“Bilbo figured out how to train them with food.”

“That is the opposite of getting rid of the dragons,” groaned Thorin. “You realize that, right? It’s the exact wrong thing for him to be doing. If the King finds out . . . No. This isn’t working. I’ll send the hobbit home.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” Dis smacked his chest with a dirty hand. “He’s clever and funny and I like him. You’d like him, too, if you hadn’t made up your mind to hate him before he even got here.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did. You hate asking for help, so you decided to hate whatever help arrived.”

“That’s not true,” Thorin protested. “King Thror entrusted me with eradicating the dragons—”

“Grandfather wants you to take care of the dragon problem, and if the dragons become not a problem, then it’s taken care of.”

“You,” said Thorin, poking an angry finger into his little sister’s face, “are a worse interrupter than your sons. And I will tell them that.”

“You only switch to complaining about my manners when you know I’m right,” Dis informed him smugly. She held up a silver cup whose handle looked suspiciously like a dragon. “I’m making a set of these for Durin dinners. Speaking of which, I’ve invited Bilbo tonight, so make an attempt to be civil.”

“Invited him to our family dinner? Dis, he’s a hobbit.”

“A hobbit who’s been eating all his meals by himself in a corner of the kitchen. Did you know that?”

“I did not,” admitted Thorin, trying to sound like he also did not care.

“You’ve got a sweaty handprint on your tunic; make sure to change before we eat.”

Thorin bowed, and did not spit in Dis’s hair, because he was older and therefore more mature. For the same reason, he visited the Hall of Records to look for actual evidence that the dragons were becoming less of a problem.

As it turned out, the last few days had seen a reduction in fire reports. Perhaps engaging the dragons in the forges made them less likely to set fires elsewhere. Or maybe it was a coincidence, but at least he could use it to appease his grandfather if the old man started demanding results.

Fortunately, when Thorin arrived at dinner (in clean clothes, thank you, Dis), he found King Thror presiding over the table in a placid temper. He didn’t even seem upset by the addition of a hobbit, and Mr. Baggins for his part seemed properly appreciative of the honor. He piled his plate with an astonishing quantity of food, then proceeded to consume it with manners fit for royalty.

The same could not be said of Thorin’s nephews. As the hobbit cut tidy bites for himself, Fili was blunting his knife by trying to saw through the bones of his meat. Dis had her eye on him, and Thorin suspected that the boy was going to become well-acquainted with a whetstone this evening. Kili, meanwhile, sat and chewed loudly with his hands in his lap. Much too loudly. Thorin lowered his head toward the table, listening. The chewing sounds were not coming from Kili’s mouth.

“Kili!” he yelled, exasperated. “Don’t feed dragons at the table!”

Dis scowled and pointed a fork at Thorin. “Don’t tell my son what to do.”

That was rich, given how often she’d chided Thorin for being a pushover and demanded that he hold his nephews to the family rules, which, to be fair, had never explicitly included “don’t feed dragons at the table,” but that was only because it should never need to be said.

However, before Thorin could respond, King Thror had already barked at Dis, “Don’t yell at your brother!”

Thrain pinched the bridge of his nose. “They’re grown dwarves, Father, let them bicker.”

There was a smothered giggle. Thorin assumed it came from one of the boys, but he wasn’t about to acknowledge it. He turned to their guest, who was studiously focused on his plate. “How are you enjoying dinner, Mr. Baggins? Do you regret accepting my sister’s invitation yet?”

“Actually, I’m enjoying it very much.” The hobbit looked up with his apple-cheeked smile, took a sip of wine, and dabbed his lips with a napkin. “It reminds me of family dinners in the Smials when I was growing up. My grandfather was the Thain—”

“Your grandfather had the same name as our grandfather?” asked Kili, wide-eyed with astonishment.

“He said Thain, not Thrain, dummy,” said Fili.

“No insults,” warned Dis.

Mr. Baggins beamed, as if petty squabbling were his favorite dinner entertainment, and went on. “To be clear, Thain was his title, not his name. The Shire-Thain is our traditional leader—”

“Like a king? Mr. Bilbo, are you a prince like us?”

“Stop interrupting,” hissed Thorin.

“No, no, I’m nothing of the sort. The office passed to one of my cousins, and, in any case, it’s almost purely ceremonial. The Thains haven’t had to defend the Shire against enemies since long before my time, when old Bullroarer took on the goblins.”

Thorin glanced at his elders. Thrain was openly delighted by the hobbit’s storytelling, and even Thror’s eyes held a grudging curiosity. So it was all right for Thorin to be intrigued. “A single hobbit fought off a goblin invasion?”

“Well, he’d mustered some assistance. But Bullroarer was—and remains, to the best of my knowledge—the only hobbit who ever lived that was large enough to ride a horse. He outpaced his companions, engaged the goblins, and knocked their king’s head clean off with a wooden club. It flew a hundred yards and landed in a rabbit hole.”

“A hobbit large enough to ride a horse!” exclaimed Dis.

“And you’re his descendant?” asked Thrain, raising an eyebrow.

The tiny creature dipped his head, acknowledging the contrast. “Yes. Direct, but distant.”

“Sounds like a tall tale to me,” said Thorin, unable to hold back a smile. “If you’ll forgive the expression.”

Mr. Baggins laughed. “It may have been somewhat embellished over the years. Certainly I heard many different versions, told and re-told at family dinners. Which is what got me started, isn’t it?” He took another drink and gazed fondly at all the dwarves. “Yes, this reminds me of the Old Took’s table. Sometimes my cousins would use big wooden spoons to re-enact the famous scene, with cabbages, rolls, or apples taking the place of the goblin’s head.”

“No,” said Thorin and Dis at the same time, in response to the speculative looks in Fili’s and Kili’s eyes. Thrain simply moved the rolls further away from them.

“That’s what my father used to say when I tried to join in,” chuckled the hobbit. “Even though he loved to play golf, which is the more organized game adults invented to commemorate the occasion. My mother, though—she’d be the one to carve a goblin face onto the apple. She used to have adventures, if you like, climbing trees and visiting elves with Gandalf. I suppose that’s what brought him to our door with the dragon problem.”

At that very moment, as if it had been lying in wait to be mentioned, a dragon sank its teeth into Thorin’s ankle. The thick leather of his boot prevented a serious injury, but it still hurt. “OW! Kili!” he yelled. “That’s why you shouldn’t feed dragons—one of them just bit me!”

“Not Smili, she’s been on my lap the whole time,” protested Kili, lifting a small dragon in his hands. Its tail flicked drowsily, its belly round with stolen morsels.

“Smili?” said Thrain, both eyebrows now raised. “Since when do we name dragons?”

“It wasn’t Faug either,” said Fili hastily, pushing his hair aside to show a little dragon curled up in his collar. “She hasn’t moved a claw, I swear.”

Thorin growled, completely out of patience, “Then. Who. Bit. Me.”

Mr. Baggins cleared his throat and tapped his fingers together. “Er, Smaug, if you please? Smaug!”

An unfortunately familiar ruby-red dragon swirled up the table leg and perched regally in the midst of the dishes, a flash of gold in its mouth.

“Why do you still have that ring?” scolded the hobbit. “I told you to bring it to Prince Thorin.”

So that’s why this dragon had spent an hour trying to trip him. Thorin glared, making sure the glare was broad enough to encompass both dragon and hobbit.

Mr. Baggins looked at him apologetically. “You see, he brought me this ring earlier today, fussing over it and strutting about, so I thought you should see it. Drop it, Smaug. Drop it!”

The dragon reared up to its full height, spread its wings dramatically—knocking over a wine bottle—and released the ring, which spun on its edge for a mesmerizing moment, then landed flat on the table.

Thorin and every member of his family, even Fili and Kili, shoved back their chairs and sprang to their feet. King Thror gripped the jeweled ring that he always wore, his face a study in amazement.

Dwarves knew the craft of enchantment. It was in their blood and their bones. They recognized when magic had been meshed with metal, and this simple golden ring shone with power beyond anything Thorin had seen or heard of.

The hobbit looked brightly around the table. “It’s quite valuable then, is it?”