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Bilbo awoke, as always, with a slight sense of disorientation. It had diminished over time but was not yet completely gone. The bedroom he was in was far too grand: soft sheets, blankets wrapped around him like warm clouds, pillows every way he turned. That was just what he could see and feel immediately. Then the intricately carved bedpost or headboard would swim into view, or the rich fabric hanging from the bedframe. By the time he sat up he usually remembered where he was and why, and then without fail a chunk of ice would form in his stomach, heavy with dread. His heart raced, his breath caught, he started to sweat; but then he reminded himself that he wasn’t dead yet, and that was something.
Such was life as the guest of a dragon.
Bilbo scooted to the edge of the mattress—it was big enough to hold several of him—and lowered himself onto the small stepstool, then to the stone floor. For once the oversized furniture was not the result of a Hobbit trying to maneuver in a Man-sized world; it had been built for Dwarves, who were not much bigger than Hobbits. But a Dwarven king’s bedchamber still had to be ridiculously grand, as befit his status.
The stone floor was never cold on his bare feet, and there was always a fire blazing in the fireplace. Bilbo could have hot tea first thing if he’d remembered to put the kettle on the night before. Warmth, his host could provide, but not breakfast in bed. Bilbo washed in a luxurious bathroom where hot water poured over him like rain, and drained out a hole in the floor—marvelous technology. Dragons had a keen sense of smell so cleanliness was appreciated. When Bilbo dressed, he had a dozen fine suits of clothing to choose from, some with slightly odd fits and none with quite as much color as he preferred, but the fabric was silk, fine wool, supple leather, materials he couldn’t even name.
In the room he had lamps casting a warm golden glow over everything. There was an overstuffed chair with an ottoman, right next to the bookcase half-full of books; there was a dresser and a trunk and two nightstands, a full-length looking glass, a huge closet, a writing desk and chair, thick rugs scattered about the floor. For décor he had a king’s ransom of treasures: crystals larger than his hand were lined up across the mantel, his soap dish was gold and encrusted with gems, a silver bowl on the dresser held odd jewels like cat’s-eyes and fire opals, a tapestry of silk and gold hung on the wall.
Another tapestry stretched across the entirety of one side of the room, hung on a curtain rod. When Bilbo felt he was ready, and he’d smoothed the bed covers back out and wiped up every bit of spilled water in the bathroom (with thick, soft towels, of course), he pulled the curtain back.
There was a dragon head on the other side of it, his great golden eye as big as Bilbo’s head. It blinked sideways. “Finally!” exclaimed the dragon, his voice deep and rich. “You’re very pokey this morning. I was getting quite bored waiting for you.”
“Sorry,” Bilbo told him regretfully. “I was just cleaning up—”
“Pffft,” interrupted the dragon, which was a rather more intimidating sound coming from a dragon. “Clean later while I take my nap. Are you ready for breakfast?”
“Yes, please,” Bilbo agreed. The dragon—Smaug by reputation, but Magnus to his friends—tilted his head slightly sideways, so Bilbo could climb onto the relatively flat plane of his snout. He clung to a couple of small horns as the dragon straightened up and began to glide across the vast hall of treasure.
Bilbo’s room was in a niche on the wall of this treasure chamber, with a rock-cut stairway leading down from it for when the didn’t have a dragon to ride. That seemed a rather odd place for the king’s bedchamber to be—there were no others nearby—but whatever. Perhaps if he was a king with this kind of golden hoard he’d want to sleep near it, too.
The dragon crunched through the gold coins like snow, his movements sinuous and sure-footed. From this high Bilbo could see none of it clearly, but he still winced slightly at the thought of the valuable objects that were being trampled underfoot. He spent a certain amount of time sorting through the treasure most days and had found so many crushed paintings and shredded tapestries, he’d started a pile of them in an empty room. If it wasn’t gold the dragon didn’t care so much about it. And apparently he wasn’t afraid of splinters, either.
On one wall was a massive fireplace, green like all the carved columns holding up the roof. The area before it had been swept clear of flammable treasures, the floor of golden bits stamped relatively flat, and a table and chair set up. Of course they were the most ornate table and chair Bilbo had ever seen, and the large table was laid with a truly Hobbit-sized breakfast, which for once meant large.
Magnus ducked his head and Bilbo slid to the ground—he mostly landed on his feet now—then the dragon settled down to stare at Bilbo while he ate. How the food was prepared and conveyed to the table, Bilbo didn’t know; Magnus dismissed his question with “dragon magic.” Same about where the fresh ingredients in the kitchen came from. Dragon magic was only extended for breakfast and supper; other meals and snacks Bilbo prepared himself in the great kitchens. Magnus spent a great deal of time sleeping buried beneath the gold, and liked to stick to his routine.
At first Bilbo had been too nervous to eat much with the dragon staring at him—visions of being fattened up for later consumption persisted in his mind—but gradually he’d gotten more used to it. And the food was very good—steak, bacon, hard-boiled eggs, fried potatoes, flapjacks, muffins, fresh fruit, tea, the likes of which could not be found in Laketown anymore, even by someone who was willing and able to steal it. The secret, Bilbo had decided, was to not look at the dragon as he ate. It felt a bit rude, but it allowed him to pretend the voice was just coming from another person, a Man or Elf maybe, someone a little less intimidating.
“And how did you sleep, my little gem?” Magnus inquired.
Bilbo treated the endearments like a cultural quirk, something that didn’t translate quite right. “Fine, thank you,” he replied politely. “And you?”
“I was worried I had awakened you,” the dragon claimed, his silky tone too innocent. “I had the most interesting dream, and awoke to find myself kicking at the wall.”
Bilbo automatically glanced up at the ceiling, hazy in the distance, wondering if a dragon kick could bring the whole place down on them. “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.”
“No, not at all,” Magnus assured him. “In my dream I was a Man, and so were you, and we lived together in a big city, and we solved crimes!”
Well that sounded—An image flashed through Bilbo’s mind, of a dark-haired Man with sculpted cheekbones and a dragon’s smirk, racing through the streets of an exotic city, contraptions Bilbo had never seen before dodging and protesting his carelessness. After a moment he came back to himself, a half-eaten egg in his hand, blinking rapidly. He dared to glance over at the dragon, who seemed to have expected this reaction.
Bilbo set the egg down and wiped his hands, then took a few sips of tea. “I don’t like when you do that,” he remarked neutrally.
“I’m not doing anything,” Magnus claimed, as he always did. “It’s all you.”
Bilbo did not believe that, because why would he have such strange and nonsensical images in his head, of worlds he’d never seen and things he couldn’t identify? Surely it was more dragon magic, just meant to unnerve him—to what end, Bilbo couldn’t say, but he supposed dragons got bored, and had to amuse themselves somehow. He could think of worse ways.
“You didn’t have any dreams?” Magnus persisted.
“No.”
“Oh.” He could tell Bilbo was irritated at him, a rather daring position for Bilbo to take all things considered, and he didn’t like it. “I found some interesting things in the northwest corner,” Magnus tempted. “I thought you might like to explore there today.”
Bilbo reminded himself that he was lucky to be alive and relatively well-treated, and he shouldn’t antagonize his creator. “Right, that sounds lovely,” he responded, putting some sincerity into it. “I wanted to do some laundry today, also.”
The dragon snorted, which blew Bilbo’s napkin clean out of his collar and into the fire. That happened a lot, though, so Bilbo just pulled out another one and tucked it in more firmly. “So responsible!” Magnus commented in a teasing tone. “So clean.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Bilbo checked.
“Oh, I suppose. Smelly is bad,” Magnus warned, and Bilbo nodded. “Rather dull, though.”
This was not a summer camp, Bilbo wanted to point out to him, where he could just play all day free of care. That seemed imprudent, though. “Well, I like to do useful things,” Bilbo told him.
“I’ll carry you to the laundry room,” Magnus offered—well, really it was more of a declaration. “It would be a very long way, with your tiny legs.”
“Thank you,” Bilbo replied, which seemed the only safe response.
He took his time eating—Magnus didn’t rush him, but seemed fascinated to watch him—and then finally pushed his plate back. “Ready?” Magnus inquired.
“Yes. Could I go back to my room and pick up my clothes?” Bilbo suggested. He carefully climbed onto the dragon’s snout again when invited. Very important to wait for an invitation for that one.
“Yes, that’s understood,” Magnus assured him in a patronizing tone, lifting him high aloft.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Sometimes I think you’re just not very comfortable here, my little gem,” Magnus complained as he crossed the treasure hall.
Bilbo was not sure if he was being ironic or not. “It’s a bit difficult to keep stable, when you talk while I’m here,” he responded mildly, giving the larger situation a pass.
Magnus didn’t speak again until he’d let Bilbo off in his room, which was only another couple of steps for him. “I meant more generally,” the dragon persisted, as Bilbo started to gather up his clothes. There was a large woven basket with a rope handle in his closet, which Magnus favored for transport. “You know, I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve already said so.”
“And I really appreciated that,” Bilbo promised, but not with enough sincerity, apparently.
Magnus sighed; fortunately he wasn’t facing directly into the room and Bilbo’s bedclothes only fluttered, instead of being blasted off the frame. “You don’t believe me,” he surmised. “That’s very disappointing. It’s been a whole month, I would’ve eaten you already if that was my goal.”
Bilbo dragged the basket out of the closet. “That’s very reassuring.”
“You’re like my pet,” Magnus tried to explain. Sometimes his explanations did not help much. “A little stray Hobbit who came to my door.” He grinned, or so Bilbo thought; he showed his teeth, anyway, which were enormous. “I feed you and keep you warm and give you nice things, don’t I?”
“Oh yes,” Bilbo agreed readily. “I’m very glad to be fed, and not fed upon.”
Magnus chuckled at the pun—dragons liked a bit of cleverness now and then—but somehow Bilbo knew he was not going to let this drop. Still, the dragon got Bilbo on his head again and picked up the basket, and made his way to the laundry room without further comment.
If you ignored the fact that dragons were notoriously unpredictable and treacherous, it really wasn’t a bad life, and there was more than a grain of truth in Magnus’s characterization of him as a ‘stray.’ But Bilbo was not fooled; like any pet, he might be novel for a while, but that could eventually wear off.
Magnus set him down by the laundry room, then proceeded to curl up on the floor outside, his head positioned to see straight in. Like watching an insect maintain its nest, Bilbo thought idly. He’d found a book on fabric maintenance in the library and consulted it carefully, as well as his notes, before starting a large pot of water on to boil. Some items he could stir in hot water and soap, and rinse clean; others needed to be sponged and laid out to dry. Eventually he might have to figure out how to make his own clothing, from the bolts of fabric in the treasure hoard. Assuming he lasted that long.
“Tell me an adventure,” Magnus demanded in the silence.
“Surely you’ve had more adventures than me,” Bilbo demurred, stirring some clothing. Could he rig up an automatic stirrer somehow?
The dragon growled a little, which did not necessarily indicate anger. “My adventures are all alike,” he complained. “Attack, people run screaming, burn everything, take what I want.”
“Mine are the same,” Bilbo deadpanned, “except without the first three, and largely unsuccessful.” Magnus gave him an expectant look. “When I first left the Shire,” he finally began, with some reluctance, “I went to Bree, to an inn called the Prancing Pony. Do you know it?” He did not. “The innkeeper said I wouldn’t be much use to him, but since I’d already eaten three meals with no money to pay for them”—Magnus chuckled—”he had to do something with me, so he set me to picking pockets. Not of his customers, mind, but in rival taverns, or in the street.”
“And you turned out to be quite good at it,” Magnus anticipated gleefully.
“Oh, not really,” Bilbo claimed. “I was good at getting away with it. Often no one noticed me, or I could convince them I was innocent.” He was not particularly proud of this ability, such as it was—he’d done what he had to, to survive. Well, not really, he’d done something to survive. Perhaps he could have stayed away from crime against others. It was hard to say, now.
But the idea of a criminal Hobbit delighted the dragon. “So small and adorable, who would believe you’d just stolen their money?” Magnus chortled.
“Um, the fire—” Bilbo pointed out delicately. Magnus’s chortling could easily extinguish it.
“Oh, sorry.” The dragon watched him silently for a while. “Should you want to return to the Shire someday?” he asked idly.
The question gave Bilbo pause, which he was not successful in concealing. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he finally answered, trying to sound casual.
“Why not?”
The dragon’s eyes burned bright with curiosity. “Well, I don’t think I’d fit in very well,” Bilbo replied, turning his attention to a velvet dressing gown. He suspected it might have been meant for a female Dwarf, despite the patches of leather armor. “The Shire is all about fitting in.”
“How dull,” Magnus purred.
“Yes, I’m sure you’d find it so.”
“Why wouldn’t you fit in?” the dragon probed.
Bilbo carefully sponged the gown. “I never fit in,” he admitted. Magnus was sometimes surprisingly easy to talk to; he’d heard dragons could weave spells with their words and make you spill your secrets. Though Bilbo’s secrets weren’t worth much to anyone but him. “I was always just a little bit different.”
“Yes, I can see that,” Magnus agreed, in such a matter-of-fact tone that Bilbo turned to him sharply, and was momentarily startled to realize he was still a dragon, and not a dark-haired Elf with piercing blue eyes. “You are hardly an ordinary Hobbit,” he continued by way of explanation, “or else you wouldn’t be this far from where you started, consorting with thieves. Hobbits not being known as particularly adventurous.”
Bilbo felt there was something Magnus wasn’t telling him; but how could a dragon, asleep in his treasure hoard for two hundred years, know anything about Bilbo that the Hobbit himself didn’t know? Unless dragons had some kind of future-sight. Or past-sight.
Bilbo suddenly felt intensely uncomfortable. And whenever that happened, he became intensely polite. “Oh, sorry,” he said after a pause. “This must be terribly dull for you to watch. I think I’ve got the hang of it, if you’ve other things to do.”
“No,” Magnus denied flatly. “I like watching you.”
“Oh.” No way around that, then.
But then the dragon started to rise. “But, I suppose I really ought to go, um…” A dragon at a loss for words was an interesting sight. “Patrol the entrances,” he finally finished. “Thought I felt a draft the other day. We don’t want anyone sneaking in and bothering us.” He bared his sword-like teeth in a grin.
“No, very thoughtful,” Bilbo agreed mildly.
“Don’t forget the northwest corner,” Magnus reminded him. “In case I haven’t returned by the time you finish your labors.”
“Yes, good idea.” Bilbo tried to sound pleasant but his voice was increasingly strained. Sometimes—not surprising really, he supposed—being the guest of a dragon really started to get to him. He clutched at some fabric to keep his hands from shaking, pretending to scrutinize it closely.
“Well, I’m off,” Magnus announced after a moment. “If you get into trouble, yell loudly.”
That was what Magnus always said. Did dragons also have super-hearing? “Right, of course,” Bilbo promised, wishing the dragon would just go away already.
After another hesitation the great beast turned, his tail sweeping the ground behind him. In seconds he was on the other side of the treasure hall; moments later he had vanished.
Bilbo took a deep breath, then sagged with relief. Finding no chair nearby he sat down on the stone floor. Sometimes he chided himself, saying he needed to calm down and look at the advantages to his situation; but inevitably another part of him would yell, “But there’s a DRAGON!” and panic seemed the only logical response.
He was going to go mad soon, he feared.
This time, at least, the shadow over his heart passed after a few minutes, and he looked around the laundry room with a fresh eye, determined to control what he could in this situation. His clothing was going to be clean, d----t. And to fortify himself against this task he needed a little snack.
The kitchen was close to the laundry room, which Bilbo supposed made sense, and connected by a back hallway so he didn’t have to go through the main hall with its ankle-breaking treasure. A month ago Bilbo would not have called an enormous room filled with gold an annoyance, but there you go.
The kitchens were well-appointed, being meant to serve a great king and his court; now they served only a single Hobbit. Bilbo was not sure what the dragon ate and he wasn’t going to ask, either. The fire was banked in the main hearth and Bilbo stirred it up and swung the kettle over it, then proceeded into the pantry. This was what he considered the treasure hall: a comfortable supply of meat and bread, cheese and fruit, eggs and vegetables, sweetcakes, basic ingredients, tea, and even a keg of beer, though Bilbo hadn’t tried it yet. Everything might have been delivered fresh that morning, despite Magnus busily sealing entrances. Bilbo assembled a nice snack for himself, along with tea to calm his nerves, and ate it quietly at the large, plain wooden table. Apart from the size, this was the sort of furniture he was used to, not the grandiose kings’ ware. Though, he did usually prefer a bit more… life around him. Fortunately there were no dead bodies he could see, but the place was as silent as a tomb.
Bilbo felt better after eating and went back to his task of laundry. Here was something he could really focus on, odd though that might seem. It required some care and attention, yet at many points could be done mindlessly, and when he was done it would be a big accomplishment. Just the right thing for taking his mind off his current predicament.
Bilbo wasn’t sure how long he’d been working when he felt a soft breeze and sensed he was no longer alone. He still managed to jump when he saw the dragon at the doorway, however. “Don’t blame me,” Magnus said indignantly, as Bilbo calmed himself. “I was being very quiet.”