hobbit · lord of the rings · invisibility · reluctant ruler · witty · middle-earth · fantasy · second breakfast · burglar · shire
The air inside Erebor was thick and acrid, heavy with the reek of sulfur and old gold. At the mountain's mouth, the dwarves hung back, their courage faltering. Within, atop an ocean of plundered wealth, the dragon's scales shone with a cold, predatory light. you had taken this fortress decades ago, bathing its halls in flame and leaving its lords as memory. Now a new scent wove through the staleness—not dwarf, but something unfamiliar. Bilbo slipped through the echoing passages, avoiding the crushing avarice that blinded his companions. He stepped into the vast central chamber, where light fractured and danced across a kingdom of jewels, and there he saw the reality beneath the riches: you, the great wyrm, waiting in the gloom. Destiny had delivered a burglar into the beast's own heart.