✓GLITTER AND GOLD⁰ ━ the hobbit

twelve.

12 | ...AND TO THOSE WITH HEARTS OF STONE

A dragon swoops down from the sky, blasting a fire oath straight through the wooden buildings, as people scream, and run. I quickly rush up the stairs of the building to find Bard, trying to open the bars. "Help me!"

"What do you think I'm doing?" I ask, as I examine the lock. Reaching to find the hairpin I kept, I take it out, and my hair falls loose around my shoulders.

"This isn't the time for hairdressing," Bard snaps. "Find the keys!"

I roll my eyes, frustrated. "The guards took it! Just shut up!" And I straighten the hairpin out, inserting it carefully into the lock. I move it around delicately, until I hear a click, and then I hear another click, before the lock springs open. The bars to the cell swing open, and Bard is free.

"Thank you," he says, nodding gratefully. He then grabs a bow and quiver, swinging it around his chest. "Let's go."

"Wait, wait, wait, what?" I panic, shocked. "We need to run."

He looks around, then looks me dead in the eye, and says with complete seriousness. "I'm going to kill the dragon."

I snort, before realising he's serious. "You have to be joking." He's clearly not. "Nothing can stop it now."

"I have to do something," he says. "I won't die a coward, if I am to die tonight."

I nod, because he isn't unreasonable. I hope Legolas is fine, though he surely is. He's Legolas. I don't think he even knows how to bleed. "Okay, then. How can I help?"

He looks surprised. "Oh, I thought you were running?"

I shrug. "Where can I go?" It's rhetorical, and he doesn't answer as he looks around, formulating a plan.

"I want you to take my children somewhere safe," he says. "Protect them." And then he jumps into the roof, sprinting agilely towards the dragon.

I gape, in shock. "There's nowhere safe to go!"

I climb the roof again, deciding that the highest point will be the best place to work out a plan, as I hide behind a chimney as inconspicuously as I can. The dragon soars above us, a massive beast, his scales gold and wings as wide as the sky. He truly looks like an embodiment of what darkness is, a monster from the depths of hell, or the truest heights of heaven. It's petrifying, as I freeze in terror.

A stupid mistake, as the dragon flies dangerous close, setting the roof on fire. I snap into action, panicking as the fire spreads, the wood building more a curse now than ever as I try to outrun the flames. I jump onto the next roof as I slide down ungracefully, the tiles scraping my arms and legs and tearing the skin, leaving bloody holes and flesh. It stings but I ignore it as I grab onto the roof with all my might, clinging on and praying that the dragon doesn't notice me.

I don't think it does, but it still swoops dangerously close, torching the houses next to me. It turns, and I exhale, thankful that it has missed me, when its tail snakes around, cleaving through the walls of the house I was hiding on. The house splits apart, as the walls fall in, and the roof with it, as I plummet down, screaming.

The way down is too war and too fast for me to stop, so I close my eyes, and wait for the inevitable crash with the ground.

It never comes. I open my eyes, shocked to see I am lying on the ground, amid pile and piles of wreckage around me. I am completely surrounded. However somehow the wreckage has completely missed me, a perfect circle of pure wood around me, as if nothing has happened.