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It had been a long, exhausting flight, made worse by the brutal storms that often wracked the sharp, cruel peaks of the aptly-named Misty Mountains. And periodically there was a need to swoop down low to the ground over the valleys and plains, scanning with keen eyes for any sign of habitation. The long, long forest revealed nothing. Even on the windy plain he’d flown over for ages, there was little to see but herds of handsome horses (tempting, in his hunger, but he could not risk the consequences. These horses were surely of value to someone).
He managed to catch a deer by the rocky shores of a river, and devoured it quickly, lamenting that there was no time to cook it properly and no loyal chef to marinate it in exactly the way he had come to prefer.
In the end, it was not a human that he found to speak to, but a bird. A raven fluttered to the ground and began to peck at the parts of the guts that the dragon found unsavoury, apparently completely unfazed by the size - not to mention the huge teeth and claws - of his dinner companion.
“Thanks for the offal,” said the raven. “It's very tasty.”
The dragon blinked his huge blue eyes. He hadn't expected the annoying little creature to talk. “You know these lands well. You fly great distances looking for food.”
“I do,” the raven nodded as he jerked his head to get a strip of intestine down his beak. “I am Coräc son of Aroc, and my people have been the eyes in the air in these lands for many, many years.”
“Maybe you can help me find my captain, then,” the dragon said hopefully, though his optimism was not great.
“Maybe I could. A captain? You mean, of a ship?”
“No. Of me. Although, I imagine I am rather like a ship in a certain sense.”
The raven laughed, a weird throaty cawing sound. “That's something I never thought I'd hear a dragon say. Never heard of a dragon admitting to to taking orders from anyone.”
“I don't take orders,” the black dragon hissed, affronted. “Captain Laurence is my friend. We are a team. And I am very, very worried about him, so I'd appreciate it if you would tell me if you've seen him, without any unnecessary mocking.”
“What sort of a creature is he? Another dragon? I have to say, I only know of one of those around here, and it's hard to imagine anyone calling him a friend.”
“He's not a dragon,” said the dragon, wondering just how this bird could know so little of how these things worked. “He's a man. A very handsome and well-dressed one, if I say so myself, and I do, because I dressed him myself. Now, where would I be likely to find someone who might know where he is?”
“Well, all the handsome, well-dressed Men are pretty far from here, if you ask me,” said the raven. “You might have to go all the way to Gondor for that.”
“I'm looking for a specific one,” said the dragon, exasperated. The raven hopped away quickly at the expulsion of breath, and then seemed relieved at something that didn't happen. “And I have reason to believe he's come this way.”
“Well, there's nothing for it then,” said the raven. “I'll have my people keep an eye out for him – and keep an eye on you – but you know you can't possibly pass unnoticed. You'll most likely have to answer to him. The King Under the Mountain.”
“That doesn't frighten me at all, and I don't know why you'd think it would,” huffed the dragon. “My Laurence is a prince of a great empire, and we've had extensive dealings with royalty in our own lands. For the most part, it's possible to help them see reason by appealing to their own interests. I'm sure your King Under the Mountain is a rational man.”
“He's not my king,” said the raven with a little click of his beak. “I doubt I would call him rational, and he certainly isn't a Man.”
“What is he then?”
“About the same size as you, I'd say, though it's been a long time since he left his lair.” said the raven. “Can you breathe fire? When you approach the Lonely Mountain, you'll see a burnt city and miles of desolation. He did that.”
***
Temeraire's ruff tensed involuntarily as he sniffed the air. It was chilly. Ash still lingered, it seemed, though the city had burned long ago. From the mountain came a smell of fleshly smoke, subtle but agitating.
Unmistakably a dragon, and not a particularly well-washed one. Temeraire was reminded of the ferals and their furtive, skulking, primitive ways. Was that what this creature was like? He was called King, but no one seemed to like him very much, or even respect him. All his name produced was fear – and such fear it was! Clearly the King had very little care for his subjects, and nothing in the way of the manners and morals that kept decent dragons in Temeraire's world from causing the vast, wanton destruction that was well within their power.
The entrance to the mountain itself had clearly once been impressive – a vast fortified gateway, flanked by statues taller than any dragon, decorated with layers of geometric archways – but it was cracked and broken and cluttered with rubble. Upkeep and maintenance did not seem to be important to this King. Temeraire had learned from the ravens that the King hadn't built it either – it had once been the home of a small, tough race of people known for their industriousness and craftsmanship. Temeraire thought he wouldn't mind meeting with them. But they were gone now – the dragon king had driven them away and taken their wealth for his own.
If Laurence were here, he'd certainly tell Temeraire that he should under no circumstances let the other dragon know what he honestly thought of such behaviour. But Laurence was not here – and if this dragon had found him and harmed him, Temeraire would bring this mountain down upon his head, and not be the least bit sorry.
Huffing into the chilly wind, Temeraire marched down the long stone causeway towards the shattered gate. Here he could clearly see that the doorway had been broken by a very large creature who would never have fit through the original doors. He passed through easily, though not without a hint of dread as the weight of his feet shook places in the floor that felt unstable. Once inside the door, though, the long hallway was so high and wide and grand it accommodated him with room to spare.
Temeraire gasped when the vista opened out on the inner chamber. For in the dim light, everywhere his eyes saw things shining: piles of gold and jewels for acres in every direction, filling the immense room halfway up its thick carven pillars.
At first glance, he saw little of any particular remarkable beauty or craftsmanship, for his senses were overwhelmed by so much gold. As many golden coins as sand grains in the desert. Then, as the gold-haze dimmed, here and there, he did come to see countless pretty little worked things: cups and chains and necklaces and breastplates and swords, all bejeweled and intricate and exquisite. All tiny and human-sized, of course. Nothing that looked to have been made for a dragon. This King seemed more like a cuckoo-bird that lays its eggs in another’s nest.
But Temeraire’s huff and his sigh echoed in the chamber, and soon there was a chiming and a chittering and a metallic rustling as the sea of coins began to shift from underneath like the swell of waves pulsing ahead of a gale. Temeraire backed up a little, back onto solid stone as two massive waves of shimmering gold separated themselves out of the shining morass, and something rose out from underneath them, shaking off coins and unset jewels like a giant hound shaking off water.
With a long, sinuous movement, a massive, horned head with dark-reddish scales and piercing orange slitted eyes freed itself from the tinkling cold fountain of gold and peered at Temeraire with a deep, rasping growl.
“Your Majesty,” Temeraire said, only willing to bow his head a little. Full obeisance was never proper for a Celestial, and this king had yet to earn any but the most obligatory of respects.
“And who might you be?” snarled the other dragon. “You’re hardly of the usual size of thieves in my chambers. They like to send the little ones. Not even a mouthful, hardly worth the eating.”
“I am no thief,” Temeraire said, flattening his ruff as the tendrils of his face began to whip in irritation, to be so disrespected so early in the conversation. “I am Temeraire of Britain and Lung Tien Xiang of China. How do you prefer to be addressed, O King Under the Mountain?” he said, hoping that the surface courtesy would nonetheless convey his disdain.
“Oh,” said the red dragon, pretending to think about it. “You couldn’t find anyone who speaks of me, anywhere out there in the wide world? I suppose it has been too long since I laid waste to a city with fire and death. You may call me Smaug the Magnificent.”
“To tell the truth,” Temeraire said. “I had heard you spoken of as Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities. But that is a bit of a mouthful, even for our kind.”
“Well, I suppose that’s all right then,” Smaug said with a little smirk, his spiked and angular face more expressive than it had first seemed. “It’s good to know I am remembered. Now. You have a scent that is distinctive. Beneath the stink of Men all over you.”
As Smaug rose further out of the gold, Temeraire could see that he lacked proper forelegs, but his wings were as flexible and limber as any arms, and the hands of wicked claws that tipped their joints could grasp as well as any talons he had seen. His chest was studded with gold and gems that had stuck in his scales during his long sleep, but he wore no breastplate - and if that soft spot on his breast, that one missing scale, was any indication, he had at least once been in need of one. In fact he seemed to have no dragon-sized jewelry to wear at all. (This observation made Temeraire rather proud of his own breastplate and talon-sheaths - and also jealously protective of them. Is it not said, he who is quick to accuse others of thievery oft conceals his own guilt? Smaug had never made any effort at all to conceal his ill-gotten prizes.)
Sure enough, Smaug’s eyes seemed to track the lines of that glorious breastplate down Temeraire’s body, and glint appreciatively. Temeraire gazed back, studying the other dragon from head to what little could see of the tail. For all his rudeness, Smaug still cut a striking figure, Temeraire had to admit to himself. Smaug’s long, sharp jaws seemed to draw open in a covetous smile. “You have been in a foreign land, far to the East - but not that land in the East where everything worth burning has already burned and there is nothing to eat but Orc, no, not there. A land of great wealth. You bring the scents of strange spices and scented woods for burning.”
“Yes,” said Temeraire. “A land of great wealth indeed, and knowledge, and full of clever craftsmen who are also very wise and courteous, which is more than I can say of you.”
“Oh, must we stand on ceremony?” Smaug said with a little growl, and lifted his head to show the embers burning inside him, waiting only for a rush of air to swell them into jets of flame. With a jingling rush of coins, he crept slowly towards Temeraire, who had to resist the urge to lean in when reason had it he should back away. Smaug was a fire-breather, and that was always dangerous, especially in enclosed quarters where Temeraire had to conclude it wasn’t safe to use his own most potent weapon. The Divine Wind could echo around this deep stone chamber and damage his own brain; the shock waves could pull the ceiling down upon them both.
Still, rather than truly worrying much, he found himself wondering how Smaug’s internal fire worked. He steamed a little from his nose and mouth, but seemed to have no hollow spines like Iskierka (whom Temeraire would never admit to missing, not here in this lonely place. No, she would mess up everything with her rudeness and her bad temper, she would provoke Smaug to anger and get them all burnt, and then Temeraire would never find Laurence).
As Smaug’s inner embers glowed brighter, the light in his eyes grew too, shining like flame as he peered closer to the finery Temeraire wore. (Perhaps Laurence might have cautioned him about displaying such wealth when wandering on his own in the wild. But who would dare to rob a dragon? Only another dragon, of course. Temeraire’s hackles rose.)
“Lovely jewels you have there,” Smaug said, drawing his head back on his long spiky neck as if to take in the whole picture of Temeraire’s decorated claws and chest. “I wonder who you killed in order to take them.”
“No one!” Temeraire snapped, and there was a hint of a deep roar beneath his words. The treasure chamber vibrated quietly, rattling the sea of coins. “They were given to me. Gifts of honour as befits my station.”
Smaug went on as if he hadn’t heard. “It must have been Men. Those are pretty pieces indeed, but they would be fairer if they had not that stench. But I wonder where Men came by so much of that--”
“Oh and you are one to talk, King Under the Mountain,” Temeraire interrupted in a rage, lashing his long tail back and forth. “You reek of sulfur. You have been sleeping underground too long. I see you have wings - when was the last time you used them?”
Smaug hissed, and little jets of flame leaked from his nostrils. “My wings are a hurricane,” he declared, shaking off more coins from his haunches and looking ready to spring. But he had little enough space to do so. “When I unleash my power, I demand blood.”
Temeraire wanted nothing more than to lure Smaug out into the open air, where a fight between them could at least be free and fair. He backed slowly down the long causeway, hoping it was taken as a taunt and not cowardice. As more and more of Smaug came clear of the treasure hoard, Temeraire could assess the threat better. They were very nearly of a size - well-matched on that front at least. Smaug’s lack of forearms was promising - he had only four limbs, not six - but he did not seem clumsy or limited with the front claws he had, as close as they were to the vulnerable webbing of his wings. Temeraire’s first glimpse of Smaug’s tail revealed that it was thick and strong and sharply barbed, and Smaug’s hind legs were more heavily muscled and with longer talons than his own.
Temeraire backed towards the scent of fresh air. Smaug followed, leaning forward, predatory, his neck and chest glowing from within.
As the chill breeze of the land around the Lonely Mountain began to wash over them both, Temeraire was struck by an observation. The scent of Smaug that he caught now wasn’t only that of an unwashed dragon sleeping too long beneath the earth. It had a richness, a heady quality. It was growing in strength. It was far from unpleasant.
Oh. He knew that one.
He sniffed the air again, very painfully aware of Smaug’s gleaming eyes fixed upon him, tracking his every movement.
And then he knew exactly what it was, and he was very nearly embarrassed - but also, he had to admit, a little excited. He couldn’t help but blurt it out, as a further taunt: “You smell like the breeding grounds.”
“The what?”
“The breeding grounds where dragons are induced to meet to create eggs. My country is a small one, and we are always in need of more dragons for our forces. Dragons of a size and strength like mine are highly prized, I must say, because there are few who are my equal. Have you nothing of the kind in your lands?” Temeraire asked.
Smaug studied Temeraire with a piercing gaze that seemed to see through his very hide. Temeraire was taking the measure of Smaug just as clearly, and saw that for all he was a very wicked feral with no manners, he was also possibly not much less intelligent than Temeraire himself, and he seemed to possess no small measure of native cunning, not to mention awareness of the basic instincts of all dragonkind as well as Men.
Smaug stopped upon the causeway, with his body still in the shadows of the dead city of Erebor, and his head in the cold air of a grey wintry day. And then he started to laugh, and it was a fell cruel sound that he made, deep and gurgling and eerie. “Oh, oh, oh, handsome black dragon of the East, who came here asking my respect,” he said with a vile little sneer. “You let Men ride you. You let them command you. You fight when they say so, and back down when they say so. You preen shamelessly when they give you trinkets. And now you tell me that you will mate at their will? Is that how you earned that pretty breastplate?” Smaug’s laughter smelled like gunpowder and long-burnt meat. Then Smaug emitted a long string of words in many tongues Temeraire did not know, and only a few he did - but that was enough for Temeraire to understand that Smaug was calling him a whore.
Temeraire had never understood why that was thought to be such a horrible thing among Men. He knew that Men found the breeding act pleasurable even if there was no egg or baby produced (or couldn’t be; he knew that it was often done between men and men or women and women, who could not hope to conceive and yet surely seemed to be enjoying themselves just the same). He had never really understood why hiring a professional for that experience should be so shameful, or why someone who was very skilled in those arts should be any less respected than a well-trained cook or tailor or musician or anyone else who provided a pleasant experience for a reasonable fee.
So Smaug’s insinuations enraged him, and there was no mild-mannered man present to tell him to guard his words. As he sought the further freedom of the mountainous land and open air, clear of the rubble and the cliffs, Temeraire said, “At least I’ve known the pleasure. You, you dwell alone, underground, brooding over your gold and only occasionally emerging to eat a helpless beast. Have you ever even spoken to a female of our kind? Would you even know what to do if you met one and she showed willing?”
Smaug growled and seethed and drew his neck up to his full height, and as he roared clear of the mountain gateway he stretched out his vast leathery wings. His chest glowed with a volcanic glare, and he aimed a stream of angry flame just a little to Temeraire’s left. Then he licked his scaled lips with a long wicked tongue, and stalked forward, straight towards his rival. “I have no interest in females,” he said. “Does that shock you, genteel arse-kisser of Men?”
“N-no,” Temeraire said, although it did, just a bit, that Smaug should declare it so openly. While he had known that proclivity existed among his kind, it was a very veiled and ceremonial matter, and such flirtations and courtships were carried out with the utmost discretion and many obscuring layers of meaning upon every statement. He had indulged it before himself, in the darkness of the breeding grounds far in the Welsh mountains, where an observer would probably only have scolded them for the wasted effort.
“Good, said Smaug, fanning out his wings to make himself look larger - which was completely unnecessary, as Temeraire thought he was already quite big enough. Not so big as to make him even consider backing down, not now that they’d already been sparring so long, and his travel-stretched muscles were quivering for the joy of a good fight. “Liar. Ah, I can see you thinking about it. You wish to fight me even though there’s no mewling human on your back ordering you to challenge me. You enjoy it. Well. So do I, and it has been a long time. For many long years I have stoked my fires waiting for a worthy challenger. Let me admire your beauty as you die.”
“Rash words, O Wyrm Under the Mountain,” snarled Temeraire as his heart began to pound and his wings reached for the air. It had indeed been long since he’d fought a fire-breather, and Smaug’s neck was long and strong and supple. It would be hard to avoid his lethal jets of flame. But in the open air, if Temeraire could get enough distance to use his roar, he might be able to strike Smaug dead out of the sky. And then, he could take his choice of Smaug’s lovely things - the jewels in their exotic settings, the particularly fine mail and weaponry, those things Laurence could wear when Temeraire found him --
And Temeraire did not particularly like this line of thinking, for if indeed he did manage to kill Smaug and claim his treasure, that would make him rather uncomfortably like him. Killing Smaug would not help him find Laurence either - he had already wasted so much time.
But there was nothing for it. He would not back down, and with a grunting thrust that shook the cracked stone, he took to the air, his red rival after him like a shot, the adamantine shards embedded in his chest glittering in the pale winter sun. Smaug took the first shot, with a hissing jet of hot fire that blew Temeraire backwards for a moment...but then he actually gained some height from the heat of the super-charged air beneath him. This gave him the briefest of glimpses of Smaug’s back, spiked and supple. But Smaug cracked and spun in the air like a whip, as limber as a young sea serpent, twisting against the breeze like a ribbon.
It was not fair that Smaug should be both so big and so agile, for that took away another of Temeraire’s advantages. Temeraire beat his wings and climbed higher for a strafing run, trying to get enough distance to use the Divine Wind without harm to himself. But Smaug was too fast for him, and took a nasty swiping bite of Temeraire’s right hind leg, causing him to cry out in pain and dissipate the swell of air he’d been building. Enraged, he swirled around and down, and managed to lash out a talon fast enough to slightly rip the leather of Smaug’s left wing. There was a furious roar and a mis-aimed jet of flame that still pushed Temeraire to alter his course too suddenly to avoid a terrible full-force crash right into Smaug’s body, and it jerked Temeraire’s neck painfully. Smaug blew fire again, and Temeraire only just missed it.
“My armor is like tenfold shields,” Smaug growled. “My teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt -” and with that, he suddenly whipped about the full of force of his tail, which now seemed to make up half his body, and lashed Temeraire with it, causing no damage but a wobble in flight that nearly crashed him into the mountain and broke the momentum of his charge. Recovering, Temeraire realised that Smaug still wasn’t done talking. “My wings are like a hurricane.” Smaug was panting a little with exertion now. He was a bit out of practise, as will happen if one spends decades sleeping on one’s hoard with no one to spar with, and then giving up too much of his fading strength with idle boasting, and Temeraire was shocked to find himself feeling a little bit sorry for him. “...and my breath--” (gasp, wheeze, puffs of blinding smoke) - “death.”
Temeraire could see Smaug’s chest glowing so burning bright from within, and swung underneath him at full speed to avoid the blast, maybe even getting Smaug to burn himself if he didn’t react fast enough; on the upswing he’d have enough room for the Divine Wind and then he could end this battle quickly.
And there was no blast of fire. Instead there was a weight on his back and sharp teeth in his neck. Smaug had been feinting, and Temeraire had been too arrogant to see it, so sure his opponent was rusty and lazy and less skilled at strategy. Temeraire lashed his wings and his spine desperately to try to shake him off, as Smaug’s wings beat steadily now. Smaug held them both aloft as Temeraire started to give altitude gradually, bringing them both down slowly to the ground. He thrashed a bit in Smaug’s jaws, feeling claws lock into the scales of his back, and wondered why Smaug wasn’t trying harder to finish the match. Had he truly never meant to fight to the death?
Hot breath seared Temeraire’s flared ruff, and his tendrils squirmed uncomfortably against it. Smaug was being almost, dare he even think it? Gentle.
“Did you think I was only flattering you when I mentioned your beauty?” Smaug said. Dangerously, deceptively he risked loosening his teeth enough to run his long reptilian tongue down the scales of Temeraire’s throat. And then Temeraire saw Smaug’s true design, and most of all felt it. Smaug was making movements against Temeraire’s flanks that were highly suggestive. Treacherously, independent of his mind, Temeraire’s own tail began to sinuously ripple against Smaug’s, lashing around it before twitching away again.
“Did you think you can seduce me with flattery?”
“No,” Smaug said. “Not at all, black-snake. I’ve already seduced you. With fighting and flying. With my voice and my fire. I have intrigued you. Captivated you. Strange creature though you may be, from a far-off land, I know dragon-scent. I know your fear and your pride. I know your greed, though you clearly think yourself so far above it. I know your hunger and your exhaustion.
Smaug insinuated his long neck close by Temeraire’s face, sniffing slightly and letting his long tongue sample Temeraire’s scent. “And I know your lust. You did not truly try to kill me, nor I you. We know one another’s true desire. We are not so different, you and I.”
“Oh! How dare you! We certainly are!” Temeraire cried and shook himself with mighty heaves, trying to dislodge Smaug from his back. But the fire-drake’s tail only coiled more tightly around his own, and Smaug bit him again, on the back of the neck, in a manner that Temeraire knew instantly was meant to signal intent. Temeraire roared, but only in the normal way that any dragon might roar - enough to shake stone, but without the deadly sonic wave that could shatter it.
“It’s almost a pity,” Smaug said. “I would have so enjoyed killing you. Maybe I still shall. Afterward.
“I would like to see you try,” Temeraire said, resentful now of the ways his body was responding. It had been many years since the breeding grounds, and it would likely be long before he would again see Mei, or even the barely tolerable Iskierka (with her steaming fire - oh, Smaug was right, damn him, that talent was terribly attractive.)
Smaug just hissed out a little lick of flame, barely enough to singe Temeraire’s ruff. The weight of him was getting oppressive, and the heat of his belly even more so, and Temeraire squirmed and struggled until, with a deep and throaty laugh, Smaug rested his claws in Temeraire’s hide long enough to launch himself into a heavy run and took to the air with Temeraire hot on his heels, biting at his tail.
Around and around the Lonely Mountain they chased each other, the pound of their wings like a constant crash of thunder, the undertones of Temeraire’s roar shaking the ground like lava from within, and all the little creatures for miles hid themselves away in fear. But neither dragon was hunting smaller game. This was a flight of pursuit and a flight of catching - a mating flight. Huge multijointed wings spread and crashed with roars of wind - talons caught and come apart again, swiping at nothing in false attacks.
At last they caught each other over the shoulder of the mountain, long bodies winding together and claws clutching as they shook boulders loose from the hillsides with their combined force of air displacement. Temeraire whipped his long neck around to bite Smaug first, try to get his teeth at least a little into that scaled natural armor. His claws raked Smaug’s chest, narrowly missing that soft spot on the left where one scale had gone missing, and Smaug hissed furiously, doubling back on himself and seizing Temeraire’s back in his fierce wing-talons, wrapping around him and beating his wings madly at the same time. Temeraire’s wings couldn’t extend to their full length pinned just so in Smaug’s grasp, and therefore both dragons began to sink together towards the earth, flapping a bit with their overlapped wings to gentle their descent.
As Temeraire’s feet touched the rocky ground, he undulated himself shamelessly, lifting his tail in unmistakable invitation. Smaug was already ready - so ready, perhaps his kind was one of the ones whose slick double-headed rod was always rampant and waiting within the cave of his cloaca. Temeraire shivered and rippled a little and decided he was going to make Smaug work for it. Sharp claws dug into him, and Smaug growled and lifted his head, huffing flame harmlessly away as his belly glowed hot and searing against Temeraire’s back. But Temeraire was well-insulated and didn’t mind too terribly much, especially when Smaug’s long, warm tongue slithered around his sensitive ruff, full of menace but determined not to hurt him - at least not too badly. Smaug gave a pleased little growl as Temeraire writhed beneath him. “I like the way you move,” he purred like some sort of monstrous cat. “Makes me think you’re ready to take it good and hard, yes?”
Temeraire vibrated and hummed back to him, and arched his haunches up, bending a rear leg a little out of the way to let Smaug mount him completely. He wasn’t quite sure how they’d come to this agreement of how to arrange it, since Temeraire was certainly also quite capable of taking Smaug the other way around and wouldn’t have minded that one little bit. But he also had decided that since he had never done it this way before, the novelty held some appeal. After all, it wasn’t as if they’d have to worry about an egg to care for. He growled with some slight sonic resonance and raked the ground with his jeweled talons as he felt Smaug’s slick hemepenes prodding at him, searching for the secret slit, enticing it to let him in. Temeraire cried out and thrust backwards, and Smaug gasped and almost swallowed his own flame as Temeraire took in both heads of his cock at once.
Spitted and stretched, Temeraire thrashed his sluttishly raised tail shamelessly in the air, lashing his partner with it and moaning as Smaug’s tail coiled around his own and held him still as the fire-drake began to ride him with hard, tight thrusts. Smaug’s cock was slick and hot - oh no, Temeraire though, how hot will his seed be? Well, fire-breathers in his own world didn’t generally kill their mates, he’d have to trust to luck that would hold in this one.
Inside Temeraire’s cloaca, his own cock stirred to life against the press and thrust of Smaug, struggling to emerge, and Temeraire lowered himself to rub it against the smooth-polished stone beneath him, hissing and roaring softly as Smaug’s teeth in his neck anchored him, and they rolled and pushed together, grunting and grinding.
They moved together in a twined-up dance, shaking the earth with the force of it, every sound out of their massive chests a choked, bitten-off roar of ecstasy. Dragon mating can be quick and businesslike or it can be long and drawn-out and driven with an awesome power of heat and size - Temeraire struggled to beat his wings as hard as he wanted, his every muscle flexing and trembling. Above him and around him, Smaug flapped and flailed, cooling the air with his massive batlike wings as his inner fire throbbed. Temeraire would have wanted to make this last longer, but after all, Smaug hadn’t had this pleasure for a good long time, and seemed quite easily overwhelmed by sheer violent delight.
Temeraire closed his eyes and growled in triumph as he felt Smaug go rigid and shiver hard, pumping furiously and releasing a stream of seed deep inside him. It was hot, but thankfully it was not fire. Temeraire shook violently as Smaug’s release further slickened the stone he humped, and he roared as he felt his own emission spurt across the rock and spatter his own belly.
“Oh. OH,” Temeraire gasped as his body still rolled with the aftershocks of climax. Smaug sighed, a wave of foggy smoke wafting over Temeraire’s head. “Oh NO,” Temeraire said, much less pleased as he felt Smaug’s teeth plucking at the great chain that held Temeraire’s breastplate fastened; he whirled his head back and snapped at him, snarling.
“You’ll let me mount you and fuck you, but I can’t touch your precious jewels,” Smaug grumbled as he awkwardly hauled himself off Temeraire’s back. “No matter where you come from, dragons are all the same.”
“We certainly are not,” Temeraire said with a snort. If he hadn’t been feeling pleasantly lethargic with release, and starting to think it would be splendid if Smaug might fetch him another of those deer at some point, he might have launched into an educational rant about the state of dragon societies in his world, and the progress and improvements in many countries that he himself had had a talon in suggesting, if he dared say so himself -
But he was jerked out of pedantic lassitude by a sudden motion of Smaug’s, a predatory snap of his neck as he sniffed the air and cocked his sharp horn-covered head, the better to hear a disturbance. With a furious roar, he moved towards the door of his lair with a terrifying speed as Temeraire’s heart fell into his gut, for now he too caught the scent that had alerted Smaug - and it was a dearly familiar one. There was a tiny figure climbing over broken stone to emerge from the gate to the mountain - at first waving, and then reconsidering and trying to find cover as he read the irate, hateful look on the face of the dragon that wasn’t his.
“Oh no,” Temeraire muttered to himself. “Laurence!” he cried “Laurence, I’m coming my dear, oh don’t you dare hurt him, don’t even think of it,” he was chanting pointlessly to Smaug as he too launched himself forward.
“Thief!” Smaug roared, furious, stalking Laurence in great circles like the enraged predator he was. Temeraire could see Laurence showing a bold face, but he was of course terrified. If Temeraire could smell his fear, then most likely Smaug could also.
“I haven’t stolen anything,” Laurence said. “I came in through that little door on the other side, seeking shelter. I found a vast hoard of great treasure, and I took nothing. Not a single coin of it!”
“Liar!” cried Smaug, glaring at Temeraire. “I see how it is with you. Creeping little burglar comes in to rob me while his accomplice distracts me . . . “
“Laurence,” Temeraire ventured a little nervously. “Did you happen to see any of that?”
Laurence’s bright red flush even through his fear gave Temeraire all the answer he needed. “Well, you were raising quite a ruckus,” Laurence muttered. “It would have been hard to miss.”
“Charming, you. A thief, a liar, and a spy. Any other delightful crimes you wish to reveal before I kill you?” said Smaug.
“He is NOT,” Temeraire said, bristling and trying desperately to maneuver himself between Laurence and Smaug. For he knew that with one breath, Smaug could obliterate Laurence, and Temeraire’s heart by extension. He was not going to allow Smaug to harm him, that simply wasn’t to be borne, he would not . . . “He’s the most honourable man I’ve ever known.”
“That might still be saying very little,” Smaug said with a horrible sort of chortle.
“I won’t let you hurt him,” Temeraire said, drawing himself up for a very real fight to the death this time. “He’s brave and he’s honest and he’s kind and he’s MINE!” (And this last word was delivered on a windy roar that ruffled Smaug’s wings and knocked over a small stand of scrubby pine trees behind him.)
“I do not suffer trespassers,” Smaug said, lowering his head and gathering heat for a blast of fire.
“He was no trespasser,” Temeraire said, puffing out his ruff. “He was searching for me, as I was for him. I could accuse you of lying too. I could accuse you of stealing him and hiding him from me. How am I to know he didn’t only just now escape from the prison of your dark, stinking pit?”
Smaug reared up. “Insult my domain again and I will kill him in front of you.”
“You would dare?” Temeraire cried, yet again horrified by this creature’s easy cruelty. “After I let you -?” Temeraire was suddenly embarrassed now, and it even cut through his state of terror over Laurence’s safety.
Smaug only laughed. “If you hadn’t already pleasured me so, I would have already killed him. I have given you time. And a chance to bargain.”
“Bargain?” Temeraire said, hating himself for the flash of hope that flared up in him.
“Yes, a bargain,” Smaug said, bending his great clawed wings up over his shoulders. “I have no use for a single Man - he’d hardly be nourishing. Yet you value him highly for some reason I don’t care to understand. He is treasure to you. Not to me. You do have something I covet, and you know what it is. Be thankful for that, for if you had nothing, I’d kill you both.”
Temeraire did know what it was, and he slumped a little. Of course, for Laurence’s life, he would give it up. He glanced over at Laurence, whose face was sorrowful in sympathy - but also showing a faint, rising hope. Of course Laurence would want to live.
“And if I give it - you will let him go? And not harm him, or me either?”
“If you go quickly, yes.”
Temeraire sighed and nodded across to Laurence, who couldn’t help giving him a nod.
“I will need his help to remove it,” Temeraire said. “It requires small hands to undo the chain.”
“Fine,” Smaug said. “And when he has taken it from you, he will climb on my back and fasten it around me. Only then will I let you go.”
“You could kill him then,” Temeraire said, eyes narrowing. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You don’t,” Smaug said.
Temeraire had had many tense and terrifying moments in his life with Laurence - but there had also been so much of the joy he felt when Laurence was allowed to climb upon him, briefly, to unclasp the chains of the breastplate. It felt so good to feel Laurence upon his back again, safe for the present, and yet in mere moments he would have to risk himself again. Laurence took the opportunity to pet him, to nuzzle his scales and whisper reassurances, and Temeraire took the opportunity to sniff him, to assure himself that Laurence was tired and hungry and dirty from long travel, but otherwise unharmed.
Then all was overcome by fear and dread when Laurence took the beautiful breastplate, and with his aviator’s grace scaled the burning ridges of Smaug’s hide to refasten those familiar, beloved chains about Smaug’s neck and belly.
In a long, terrible moment, Smaug held still while Laurence disembarked carefully, bowing warily, making his way back towards Temeraire - who reached out to snatch him with a foreclaw and hold him close against his belly, teeth bared to Smaug. Relieved above all that he had his most important treasure, even as he grieved to see his cherished breastplate adorning another.
“Do not be so grieved, my dear,” Laurence assured him. “We will get you another, a more splendid one. If we have each other alive, what is a little sapphire and platinum to that?”
“Platinum?” Smaug said. “An ugly word for a glorious metal. That is not what it is called in this world. It is rare and precious, found in only one mine, long fallen. Many Men and Elves and Dwarves have died for this “grey-glitter.” Light as water and stronger than steel. Mithril. Much coveted for armour, I am told, though most of the warriors of old who wore it are dead. I am sure the mithril is not to blame for that.” Laughter shook him, and the dim light danced upon the silver-steel and rich blue gemstones. “This is worth more than the lives of a thousand mortals, and most of the cities of Men and Elves in this world.”
“Well then,” Laurence said with false cheer. “So you’ll be well-protected then, if someone else tries to fight you.”
Temeraire noticed that it fit Smaug surprisingly well. As he backed down the long stone causeway with Laurence on his back and holding on tight, he saw that the exposed patch on Smaug’s chest was very solidly covered.
Resentfully, he thought, Can’t imagine what need he’ll ever have of that, if all he does is sleep on his gold in the dark. That breastplate deserves better. It deserves to be seen and it deserves to be needed.
Still, as much as it angered him and pained him to give up such a treasure to someone so undeserving, he still could barely contain his joy at the press of his Captain’s slight weight upon him, safe and alive. He would never give Smaug another shot at hurting Laurence, but kept backing away awkwardly until he found the right spot to take flight.
“I enjoyed the visit, black-snake,” Smaug said mockingly, preening in his new acquisition. “Will you not show me your alluring tail one last time?”
With one little flip, Temeraire did - a lewd gesture, ordinarily offensive, but under the circumstances, probably not. Smaug blew a jet of flame skyward in tribute as Temeraire began the long running start to takeoff.
Once he had ascended, with Laurence on his back holding tight, he never once gave in to the temptation to look back.