𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐆𝐎𝐍𝐒: 𝑺𝑴𝑨𝑼𝑮 | FINISHED

~ch.26: it has come to this, hasn't it?

❤︎
A/n

The townspeople frantically paddle their loaded boats through the canals. Tauriel watches the sky ominously; with her elf-hearing, she can hear Smaug approaching and roaring. Suddenly, a vast shadow swoops overhead. Smaug has arrived. Tauriel enters Bard's house and prepares Bard's family to leave. "We have no time. We must leave!" she says. she then walks over to Tilda, helping her with her clothes. "As fast as you can," she muttered. "We're not leaving. Not without our father." bain says behind the she-elf, and she stands up, glancing at him over her shoulder. "If you stay here, your sisters will die. Is that what your father would want?"

Meanwhile, Bard is in prison, and all the men guarding him are gone. He clutches the cell bars and shouts. "Open the door! Do you hear me!"He stops as he sees Smaug flying high above the town, then frantically tries to break the lock. When it doesn't hurt, he rushes to the other side of his jail cell, on an arch of a building overhanging a canal. Tauriel and Bard's family get on a boat at the back of the house. "Quickly now! Hurry!" she says, and they set off down the canal, poling the boat through the floating chunks of ice. Smaug swoops low overhead, and the townspeople scream. Suddenly Tauriel's ears pick up the sound of the second beating of mighty wings. She frowns. Is there another? Her mind wanders. No, their cant be. But little does she know that it is indeed another fire-breathing beast on her way to the town. Her chest and neck glow blue as she watches Smaug circle the little village.

She will distract him all she can, trying to get him away. If she does not, the town will die. Smaug soars high above and away from the city, then turns and dives steeply toward the town, building up the fire in his chest. As he gets over the city, he unleashes his flames, and he breathes his fire in a line across the city. People scream and fall and die in the inferno. A roar sounds from the east of lake town, and Smaug stills in the air narrowing his golden eye, trying to see the culprit. But he sees nothing. He huffs and turns back.
Meanwhile, in his cell, Bard smashes at his cell's bars with a pail, but to no avail. Smaug breathes fire over another section of the town; a man on fire falls out of his house and into the water. A shape blended into the night sky flashes far over Smaug and the burning town. It's readying for an attack, talons crammed and teeth bared. The Master, his men, and Alfrid pole their boat loaded with treasure through the water, with Smaug setting things to fire around them.

"Come on! Come on! Faster! FASTER!" he yells, then looks around at the dying people. He, too, is oblivious to the shadow in the sky. the creature that may be this town's salvation. "If only we could take more of these poor people with us, but they are hard-" the master mumbles, but Alfrid interjects. "-worth it. I quite agree." A man tries to climb onto the boat, but Alfrid kicks him in the face and back into the water. Bard tears his blanket into strips. People are trampling each other to escape the dragon and the fire. Now the shadow is nearly reaching the spikes of Smaug's back, and the dragon feels its presence. He cranes his head and neck to see but sees only the darkness again. he growls, now starting to feel worried, and a bit of fear plants itself in his heart. remember you're doing this for Tatsuo Smaug; his mind reminded him calmly, and he snorts, shaking the fear of his thoughts and continuing his labor. "Look out!" a voice calls, and the Master's boat collides with Tauriel's, upsetting everyone. They manage to push their ships apart, but some of the Master's treasure falls into the water. "My gold, my GOLD!" he yells.

alfrid then speaks up, looking far ahead of them. "We're carrying too much weight. We need to dump something!" while the weasel looks at the pile of treasure, trying to decide what to throw overboard, the Master looks at him greedily. "You're quite right, Alfrid," he says and pushes Alfrid overboard, just as a cloth loop falls from above and catches around the Master's throat. It is the rope Bard made from his blanket; he has tied one end to his cell bars and let the other end, the loop, out of the window and over the canal, where it has conveniently caught the Master. Braga, at the front of the boat, hasn't seen this. "Faster! Faster!" all this, and they're still oblivious to the creature above them, waiting for her right moment to strike—Bleu fire pulsates in her throat and chest, but it's faint. As the boat pulls ahead, the rope loops pull the Master back, but then he gets stuck in front of the boat's rear post. As the rope tightens around him, he gags and chokes. Eventually, the pressure is so much that the entire side of Bard's prison break, and Bard escapes. The Master frantically pulls the rope away from his throat.