Golden Fire by StarSpray

One

Read One

"There are in any case many heroes but very few good dragons." ~ "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"

"Nothing is evil in the beginning." ~ The Fellowship of the Ring, "The Council of Elrond"

- -

"Arafinwë? My love? What's this?"

Finarfin looked up from a shockingly large pile of correspondence to find Ëarwen holding an egg in her hands. It was a very large egg—bigger than Finarfin's helmet—and quite heavy, with a bronze sheen to it. "Oh," he said, "that's a dragon egg. At least, I think it's a dragon's."

Ëarwen gave him a look. "And what is it doing in your luggage?" she asked.

"Because I thought it was interesting," Finarfin said. He'd been home all of four days, two of which he had spent sleeping, and had not yet gotten around to deciding what to do with some of the bits and bobs he had picked up in Beleriand. Ëarwen raised a slender silver eyebrow, and he swallowed a sigh. That was the look usually reserved for their children when they announced their intentions to do something questionable. "It's not dangerous," he said.

"How do you know?" she asked. "Have a lot of experience with dragon eggs, have you?"

"No, but the Valar would hardly have let me bring it back if it posed a danger to Valinor." Whatever criticisms could and likely should be made of the Valar, their dedication to protecting their own lands could not be doubted. Therefore, a dragon egg was harmless.

"But what if it hatches?"

"I've had the thing for several years, by now," said Finarfin. "If it was going to hatch, surely it would have done so already." He came around his desk and took the egg from Ëarwen. It was always a little surprising how heavy it was. He glanced around the study—it seemed both familiar and deeply unfamiliar after so many years so far away from such luxuries as upholstered chairs and full bookshelves—and found an empty place on a sunny windowsill, beside a pot of small red flowers. He set the egg there and then picked it up again when it started to roll off. "I'll have to make a stand for it," he said.

"Of course," said Ëarwen flatly. "That's the real trouble with dragon eggs, of course. They wobble."

No one else objected to the egg, though Finrod gave it an odd look when he first saw it (on its new stand, made of wood and silver). Anairë and Findis thought it fascinating, and even his mother admitted, when she finally returned to Tirion to visit, that it had a lovely sheen in the sunlight. It was not long before it was just another decoration in Finarfin's office, serving only as an occasional reminder of their victories in Beleriand.

Then summer came, and the sun grew very warm, bouncing off of all the white stone in Tirion and settling a haze of heat over the city. And one particularly bright afternoon, as Finarfin sat at his desk looking over correspondence from Tol Eressëa while Findis sat across the room with a book, the silence was broken by a small cracking noise. Finarfin looked up at Findis, who blinked at him. After a moment they both returned to what they had been doing—and then it happened again. This time it was clear that the sound was coming from the window. Finarfin turned, and froze. All over the surface of the dragon egg, very fine cracks had appeared.

"Oh," said Finarfin. Findis uttered a few choice words behind him, and he heard the door open and shut again rather forcefully, but he did not take his eyes off of the dragon egg. As he watched some of the cracks grew, and then a piece of the shell fell to the windowsill, and another to the floor. The dragon that emerged was sleek and golden-colored, its scales shining like the egg in the sunshine. It had a small pair of wings folded tightly against its scaled back, and claws that were already deadly sharp—not to mention its teeth. Finarfin sat very still as it uncoiled itself out of the egg, which fell to pieces all around it. The dragon opened first one eye—bright yellow—and then the other, and looked straight at Finarfin. For a moment there was no sound except for the soft rustling of paper as the breeze drifted through the window. Then the dragon spoke.

"Hello, Father."

.

The fastest rider in Tirion was sent to the Valar, though privately Finarfin thought that might be unnecessary, since surely Ëarwen's shriek upon seeing the dragon coiled up on the rug had been heard in Valmar and in Alqualondë and even on the shores of Númenor in the east. Eärendil had probably heard it, wherever he was sailing through the reaches of heaven.

"You said it wasn't going to hatch!" she cried, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"I didn't, actually," he said. "I said I didn't think it was dangerous—"

"And yet here we are!"

Finarfin looked at the dragon, who was watching the exchange with interest, keen intelligence shining in its bright eyes. Strictly speaking it was a dangerous creature—very dangerous indeed—but there were plenty of dangerous creatures in Valinor. To be fair, however, most of them were not to be found on his favorite rug in the middle of the royal palace in Tirion.

Finrod, who had trailed in after his mother and was peering at the dragon hatchling with more interest than trepidation, interrupted her shouting to say, "Didn't you say it had imprinted on you like a duckling, Father?"

Finarfin glanced at Ëarwen, who glowered. "Yes," he said after a moment. "At least, I think so."

The dragon did not slither, since it had four perfectly functioning legs, but it moved so smoothly that it seemed like it slithered over to Finarfin to twine catlike about his legs. Also catlike, it made a sound that sounded rather a lot like purring.

"Then it likely won't hurt you," Finrod said. "And if you tell it—"

The dragon had not spoken since Ëarwen and Finrod had come into the room, though Finarfin did not think that was because it was at all shy. But now it said, in a puzzled sort of tone, "Why would I want to hurt anyone?"

Silence descended on the room as Finrod's eyebrows shot up, and Ëarwen covered her mouth with a hand. Finarfin floundered for only a few moments before he said firmly, "There is no reason at all."

"Then why are you worried about it?" The dragon blinked its bright eyes at Finarfin, and then yawned, showing off several dozen very good reasons to worry about it.

"Well," said Finrod after a moment. "That, I think, settles that."

Ëarwen immediately hissed, "It does not—"

"What are you going to name it?"

Finarfin blinked at Finrod, and then down at the dragon. "Um." It was very warm where it wound around his legs, and he suspected that whatever raw meat they fed it would end up cooked very quickly. "Laurenarë," he said. "How do you like that?"

The dragon seemed to consider the name, and then its eyes crinkled just slightly as it looked up at Finarfin. "Yes," it said, tongue flicking out over its thin lips, snake-like.

"Wonderful," said Ëarwen, hands now on her hips. She looked like she didn't know whether to laugh or start screaming again. "What are we going to tell—everyone?"

.

In the end Ëarwen need not have worried. The Valar were bemused, but not wrathful, and Yavanna was in fact delighted to find a baby dragon in Valinor, untouched by the evils of Angband. And once those who had encountered dragons in Middle-earth got over the shock, everyone else was delighted with Laurenarë too. Laurenarë was a clever and curious creature, and it soon became a regular occurrence to see the High King of the Noldor going about his day with a golden dragon at his heels, or, when he was still small enough, coiled around his shoulders.

- -

Several Thousand Years Later

As the ship drew ever closer to the white towers of Avallónë, and the sailors began to prepare to dock, Elrond heard a hesitant, nervous-sounding, "Er," from somewhere beside him. He looked down to see Bilbo and Frodo both staring with very wide eyes up toward the sky. "Master Elrond," said Bilbo, sounding a little reproachful, "why did no one ever mention the dragons?"

Elrond had thought they were only staring at the mountains. "Dragons?" he repeated. He followed their gaze up, and up, and— "Gandalf?"

"Oh," said Gandalf from his other side, "that's only Laurenarë."

"Only?" chorused Elrond and Frodo and Bilbo.

"Didn't I ever mention?" Gandalf said, although by his grin and the sparks in his eyes he knew full well that he had not ever mentioned. "King Finarfin brought a dragon egg back from the War of Wrath. He didn't realize that it would hatch with the first real summer's heat. It caused quite a stir when he hatched, let me tell you."

"Did it really," said Bilbo, "I can't imagine. And it hasn't—well, it hasn't stolen any maidens or hordes of gold, or what have you?"

"Why should he need to steal anything? He has quite a nice horde somewhere outside of Tirion, but it was all made specially for him, mostly by King Finarfin, who is his particular friend. And when he's hungry he goes hunting with Oromë. As I recall, it's quite a thing to witness, especially when Finarfin goes with him. Anyway, he likes to greet the new ships that come in."

"Finds the screaming funny, does he?" Bilbo said, eying the dragon again as he swooped and circled over the bay. At one point he let forth a great jet of flame into the sky. In the bright sunshine his scales gleamed like real gold.

"Yes," said Gandalf. Only the slightest twitch of his beard revealed his struggle not to laugh. "I imagine he finds it quite amusing."