Smaug's daughter

Entertaining Lake-Town

"Please tell me you're here for the audition?" The man I'd just ran into whispered, desperation shining in his eyes. He was a human man with sand-colored hair and green eyes.

"Audition? For what?" I blinked.

"The show tonight. Our singer has gone missing and so we're holding last minute auditions." He pointed to a handmade poster hanging on the outside of the pub he had just come out of in time for me to almost run him over. He must be truly desperate if he had taken to begging dirty strangers on the street to audition. Or maybe he thought I was cute? Heck, he'd have to think I was a Marilyn Monroe kind of beautiful for him to see past the fish slime covering my body, not to mention I was only wearing a shirt, vest and blanket.

"Uhh..." I hesitated.

"You have the looks, so please tell me you can sing somewhat. We will pay you and you can get a bath, clothes and a warm meal."

Well, it definitely beat having to swim through shit. "No stripping, right?" Not that stripping wasn't a perfectly respectable job, it was just that I could not move to a rhythm even if my life depended on it.

His face fell. "This isn't that kind of establishment, you-"

"Great! Then yes. I can sing, and I'll definitely take the job." I put a big confident smile on my face.

"Then come on!" The man guided me into his pub. It looked like any other pub I'd seen, smelling strongly of alcohol, food and people. There was no one else there for the audition, only a couple of people readying the tables or cleaning, I wondered what he would do if I hadn't run into him. There was a stage of sorts that he was pointing to, by the bar and so I stepped on it.

"Well? The job is yours if you can sing."

"Right." I cleared my voice. What would I sing? I wouldn't necessarily call myself a singer, but I could carry a note and I remembered most songs I'd heard. Of course few of those songs were befitting of a scenario such as this one, but it would definitely be entertaining, at least something they'd never seen before. "Do you have a guitar or something?" I asked. It felt awkward just standing here.

"A what?" The man quipped.

"A musical instrument? With strings preferably?" I knew my way around a piano, but I didn't think they would have one, and so I had to try my luck with a guitar of some sorts.

"Oh, sure." The man left the main room and came back with what I would describe as a mix between a banjo and a ukulele. He brought it to me and then sat down expectantly on a table close to the stage. His other staff stopped in their tasks as well, to watch me. I swallowed. Stage fright was imminent, but I'd literally just told Thorin to go fuck himself so I couldn't, wouldn't , go back for help. I was a big girl. I could hold a show to get a bath and new clothes, maybe even some food? I'd die for some potatoes right now.

Getting a feel of the strange banjo-lele - See what I did there? Banjo + Ukulele = banjolele - I decided on a song I hoped would fit in Lake-Town: Last Night (Beer Fear) by Lucy Spraggan, a fitting pub song. It should be easy enough to riff accordingly on the banjo-lele at least, should being the key word. I gave my spectators an artist-like smile and began my audition:

"Last night I told ya I loved ya

Woke up, blamed it on the Vodka

I genuinely thought I was dyin'

And I could see that smile you were hiding

The pub owner and his staff seemed captivated and so I continued on, pleased with how well I could sing in Middle Earth. I had to skip the second verse because it wouldn't make sense in Middle Earth, but they'd never know that.