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Dagmær awoke with a start when a woman's scream shot through the destroyed city.

'It has taken my daughter!'

The woman screamed again but then it changed into an uncontrollable sobbing, echoing eerily between the broken walls of the ruins.

Next to Dagmær, her twin brother Haldor moved as well and he groaned when the ragged blanket fell off his shoulders, sanding over the burns on one side of his body. He wanted to sit up but Dagmær gently pushed him back, suppressing the pain in the palms of her hands. It was only a small price, considering she had lifted a burning bar of timber to save her brother from the flames.

'What happened?' Haldor asked, his eyes were clouded and his skin was hot from the fever that tormented him.

Dagmær carefully lifted some bandages, observing his burns before she answered. He needed proper care. 'Smaug struck again.'

It had been three nights since the fire dragon destroyed Dale and conquered Erebor, but every night the dragon came out of his lair to abduct one of the survivors. How Smaug was able to move around without anyone noticing, was a mystery to Dagmær but she had bigger things to worry about. The twins had lost their parents in the fire storm and she couldn't bear it if she lost her brother too.

'We have to flee the city,' Haldor said between many pauses and with a soft voice.

She bit her lip, he was right but they couldn't, not yet. 'You're too weak.'

Haldor closed his eyes and his heaved breathing became more at ease.

Dagmær looked at her sleeping brother for a few moments but then fixated her eyes at the sky. In the east the sun started to rise and the fledgling light casted long shadows in the streets. Her breath hung in little clouds in the air and the cold of the stones beneath her had embedded itself deep within her bones. Every night she feared she would never warm up again and the cold would be a part of her forever. That until the rays of sunshine would hit the city and the heat would linger between the buildings; causing flashbacks about when Smaug came and she'd long for the cold once again. It was contradictory but nevertheless true.

Haldor shifted and before she could stop him, he sat upright and softly hissed because of the pain.

He looked at her in determination, his grey eyes as hard as steel. 'I may be weak, but not that weak. At least, not yet. But if we stay here any longer, I will be.'

'It is foolish. We wouldn't last a mile,' she tried but Haldor shook his head.

'You underestimate my strength, and your own.' He suppressed a feverish shiver and for a few seconds, his expression clouded over but then he blinked two times, sharpening his vision.

'What if tonight the dragon takes you?' he asked and Dagmær fought back the tears she felt stinging behind her eyes when she saw his devastated posture.

'I will not let that happen.' He set his jaw and crawled on his feet.

Dagmær jumped to his side and placed his good arm over her shoulders, allowing him to lean on her. They crossed eyes and she smiled lightly.

'Together.'

'Together,' he repeated her words and they started walking, feeling no need in taking with them the ragged blankets. All they wanted was to leave as quickly as possible, and that's what they said when the other survivors asked what they were doing. Neither of the twins tried to convince them to come with them but as Dagmær heard movement behind her and casted a look over her shoulder, she saw most had joined them. The strong helped the wounded and no one was left behind.

Dagmær smiled and looked up to her brother to see if he had noticed too, but he stared in the distance, unblinking and his face contorted in pain. Every step hurt him yet he didn't complain, not once.

They walked between burned corpses, some arduously small and still clutching onto the bigger ones next to them. However, some had also completely fallen apart into nothing more than ashes. The fire storm had been ruthless and Dagmær averted her eyes, unable to look at it.

The city gate hung crooked in its hinges and the molten bars bent towards the ground. Dagmær carefully pushed it open and the creaking sound caused goosebumps to appear on her arms. She wanted to go west, to the elves but Haldor stopped her and pointed to the lake in the distance.

'The elves will not help us,' he started, 'I saw them turning their back on the dwarves, so why wouldn't they do the same to us? Those in Lake-town are of our own kin.'

Dagmær wanted to answer they wouldn't be safe from the dragon on open water but she swallowed the words back in. The Greenwood might be too far for her brother, so she just nodded.

They climbed down the hill on which the now destroyed city stood but when they crossed the valley, a silence fell. The birds stopped chirping, it was the silence before a storm and they had heard it before.

'Oh no,' Dagmær whispered as she turned to look to the north and she was just in time to see a gigantic winged figure disappear into the still dark clouds above the mountain. Her heart missed a beat but then started heavily pounding against her chest.

'Run!' she shouted and even though everyone knew you couldn't outrun a dragon, they decided to try anyway. The villagers ran as fast as they could, almost flying over the rocks and grasslands but a sudden gust of wind threw them off balance.

Dagmær fell to the side and she was forced to let go of her brother who collided with the ground a few inches away from her.

The fire dragon dove out of the clouds and landed gracefully, his tail waving almost hypnotic through the air as his eyes glided over the villagers.

'Who said you could leave the city?' Smaug asked with a deep voice. 'No one leaves without my permission.'

Dagmær slowly got on her feet and the dragon's fiery pupils landed upon her. She held up her hands, her burned palms pointed towards Smaug. 'Please, Smaug the Mighty, let us go. Do you not have what you came for? The treasure is yours.'

The dragon hummed, the sound rolling over the plains. 'Smaug the Mighty?' he repeated and Dagmær's mind worked faster than she could comprehend herself as she took a step closer towards the dragon, ignoring Haldor's plea to stop.

Smaug tilted his head and observed the maiden with one eye.

'Let us go and we will tell everyone to fear the Great and Mighty Smaug, the legendary dragon that destroyed Dale in one day and conquered Erebor with ease. Every folk in Middle Earth will dread you.'

Smaug flicked with his tail once more but didn't move anything else, he was listening.

Dagmær took another step and she could feel the dragon's breath on her face and felt the heat coming of his scales. For a moment, she feared she was going to pass out because of her fear but she held her ground as she stared at her own reflection in the dragon's eye.

'But,' she continued, 'if you don't let us go or kill us all, they will never hear the first-hand tales about you. They will never truly know what it means to stand eye to eye with Fire and Death.'

Smaug lifted and turned his head to look in the direction of Lake-town. He scraped with his talons through the sand and a deep rumble sounded from his throat.

Minutes of silence passed by in which no one dared to move or say anything.

'Very well,' the dragon answered at last. 'I will let you live.'

The villagers let out a breath of relieve.

'On one condition,' Smaug continued. 'I demand a payment. A sacrifice, as I had expected another one of you tonight.'

Dagmær closed her eyes for a few seconds and dropped her hands to her side. No one said anything, but she would.

'I will,' she whispered. 'I will go with you.'

'No!' Haldor shouted, trying to scramble on his feet but his burned and feverish body was too exhausted to carry his weight, and he fell back on the ground.

'I will not let you do this!'

Dagmær looked at him with teary eyes and smiled lightly. 'It is only a small price.' She had spoken for them and she would act for them.

Smaug chuckled and jumped into the air, spreading his wings and enclosing his talons around Dagmær.

'You are free to go. Tell my story or I will come back to do what I intended,' the dragon said as he flew back to the mountain, leaving the villagers devastated and in shock.

Haldor screamed and within him grew a hatred for the dragon. A hatred that would have its revenge when his line mixed with that of Lord Girion's and their descendant slays the dragon.

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word count: 1.497

tags: GerithorDunedain Silvan_Elleth

yes, I realise it is past the deadline, but one can try, right?