Finding Myself

Chapter 3

Tauriel woke us up soon after we rested after the attack of the Orcs, "We have no time, we must leave." she orders.

"We're not leaving. Not without our father!" I said when she started ushering Tilda and Bain outside the house towards the boats.

She turned and stared fixedly, almost coldly into my eyes, "If you stay here, your siblings will die, is that what your father would want?" I stood my ground unwaveringly. Her eyes softened a bit, "I know you're a brave fighter, brave human. But you are the only one who can protect your family now. And that is your job as the eldest in the house." She spoke in Sindarin. She took my hand in hers, spread them open and gently caressed the calluses I had on the pads on my palm. "We must always fight to protect our family. Your father is a fighter as well, he will fight to come back to his family." I looked away from her penetrating stare and nodded.

"Quickly now, get on the boats." We piled onto the boats in a hurry and chaos could be heard all around us. Everyone of the town's folk were trying to leave. Danger was lurking.

 As we sailed across the town, sudden a loud swooping sound sounded above us followed by the darkening of the sky. A gigantic beast passed us from above. Screams of "dragon" could be heard everywhere. The dragon was large, his figure was defined against the moon light, the claws outstretched, with its wings spread. It howled in the night, making its present known to all in the valley. Then I watched as it fell from the sky, coming towards us as its belly started glowing a bright orange. A great contrast to the night. Then, as it reached Lake Town, it blew out streams of flames, flying through the length of town. The fire was aimed in our path, I turned and pulled my family into my arms and turned my body against the oncoming flame, trying to shield them from the brunt of the attack. Luckily, we were lowlying and close to the water surface. The fire did not burn our wooden boats. But it did singe us who are onboard the boat. After the wave had passed, my mom frantically turned me around to check my back for burns. To her relief, only my clothes were burnt and my back was completely unscathed. The humans in the boat in front of us were howling from the pain of burns, screaming from the fear. The dwarfs were not in range of the attack, they also had thick skin and made their own fire resistant fabrics - a fact I knew from the tomes I had read. Tauriel looked as me, "How?... What?"

But there was no time to ponder on the oddity. The dragon kept coming back to us, belching flames all through town. People were diving into the ice-cold water and yelling for help. A lot of the older folk were sprawled on the ground and lay there motionless. Some of the more unfortunate who took the full brunt of the flames lay there in flames. The houses - made of wood - started to crumple from above. Ashes, flaming wood pieces were showering us from all directions. I looked up, still shielding my family, at the devastation around us, and the shear horror finally hit me. My grasp on my brother and mother's arm tightened and I felt my mom tighten her grip on my shoulder as well. The sound of flames were all that I could hear. 

Then suddenly, our boat collided with another, causing us to nearly topple over. The said boat was larger than our's and heavier than ours, golden and silver trinkets fell onto our heads as both boats bounced aparted. It was the mayor's boat and he is taking all our gold with him, That bastard! He is as vile as he looks.

Their boat went faster than ours as it took off. Soon after, the dragon circled back towards us and this time, he came closer than before, rumbling in his loud, deep voice as he passed, "I smell something weird here, it smells familiar, ancient, yet young. I smell something that should not belong." It's tail nearly hit our boat, it landed right next the the boat where we were sitting and hit the ice. This caused Tilda to scream in a high pitched tone.

The dragon turned around to see what produced such a terrified, shrill sound. I covered up my sister from the view of the dragon as the dwarfs stood and held whatever weapon they could find to stand in front of us. The dragon lingered atop us, snarling at the sight, "dwarfs!!" he growled in anguish. He angrily surveyed the rest of the occupant on the ship, "I will kill all of the dw...." His speech faltered when his gaze landed on me. "And what do we have here." It drawled. "Interesting..." the word rolled off his tongue as if the word was tasteful. He lunged forward and it's talons grabbed me. The dwarfs and the elve were all hacking at its arm. My mother and siblings tried to cling on to me but the dragon let out a roar and flew off.

What the hell is going on? Does it think I am more tasty?These were the thoughts that went through my head when I felt the scales of the dragon reach and envelop me. Then as he sored into the sky, I could only scream, at least I think I was screaming, I could not hear myself. I started to feel lightheaded as the rush was becoming too much, but soon the world stopped spinning and it all stopped.