Chapter 2 – Sighting –

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Saphira flew for days. Just as she had flown with Eragon to the vault of souls, she now flew across the ocean, heading south at first before turning more to the west after a few hundred miles. She conserved her energy as much as she could, and thankfully the wind was behind her, allowing her to glide mostly along the air currents that tickled beneath the feathers of her wings. She flew high over the clouds, avoiding the worst of the weather should there be any, and despite the almost freezing temperatures and thin air that made her almost dizzy, the wind was more co-operative as it helped to speed her along. She didn't know what she was looking for, but all she knew was that she had to keep going. It was illogical to think that there were no other lands out there besides Alagaesia, besides, both the human and elven histories tell that they sailed to Alagaesia and settled there from a previous land... the name of which oddly was forgotten. So Saphira knew that there MUST be something out there... the only question now, was where was it and was she headed towards it? She and Eragon had once crossed a river, where he had picked a point at random in which to cross. It was only once they were in the air and half way across that Saphira noticed that they were at the river's bend, where the river was at its widest. Had she made a similar mistake?

It mattered little now, and thinking of even memories of Eragon made her whimper with grief, her heart aching, her mind constantly searching her soul for that connection that was no longer there. It had become a habit now, of searching for him within herself and not finding him, as if this was all some elaborate dream that she would soon wake from. And always she would be reminded of her loss, her heart twisting as a result, and so she pushed herself ahead, banishing the emotions and only allowing logic into her mind. It was now the only thing that kept her sane.

She flew for a whole day, night and then half way into the next day, and even with the wind on her side she was completely exhausted and was beginning to drag in the air. Her breathing became heavy, her wing muscles were screaming for release, but she could spot no land upon which to rest. And so, even though she was incredibly wary, she glided down towards the ocean, circling above the waves as she used her superior vision to see beneath the water to any threats that might lie below. When she could see nothing, she carefully landed on the water, spreading out her wings and letting her belly make her float, her legs dangling beneath her in the waves. She growled as she felt her muscles in her chest and wing-joints give a long shriek as she finally relaxed them. She wanted to sleep, but could not, fearing that some sea predator would attack her from below should she be distracted, and so constantly had her mind scanning for the presence of another in the waters around her.

She sat there for hours, iron will forcing her eyes to remain open and her mind alert as she allowed her body to rest but kept herself painfully awake. The sun was beginning to set when she finally moved, lifting her soaking, water-heavy, rather stiff wings as she used her tail to propel herself forward and she lifted herself up into the air.

On again she flew, but this time she could only go through the night before her body was once again begging for rest, and her mind was ready to fold on her and make her drop into unconsciousness from exhaustion. She desperately began to look for anywhere to land, and was half contemplating landing on the water again and against her better judgement, sleep. But then, by the dawn's first light, she saw a small speck on the water, and grasping at the hope, she shot towards it, to find a small island jutting out of the sea. It was very small indeed: perhaps twice as she was long and half that distance wide, there was no life on the island, only a few oddly shaped trees with long straight trunks, no branches and large triangular leaves. But it didn't matter, all that she cared about was that she had a solid, safe place to rest. She landed on the island, and immediately dropped where she stood, and fell straight to sleep, panting with her tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth as her body shook from exertion.

She slept for perhaps an entire day and half of the next night, but when she awoke, her body felt rested, starving hungry, but able to move again. As she suspected, there was no life on the tiny island save for the vegetation, and Saphira had to fly close to the ocean over the remainder of the night as she scanned the waters for any fish to eat. She eventually found a pod of Dolphins, but was only able to catch and eat one, as by the time she had eaten it whilst flying, the others had panicked and fled, diving deep under the ocean surface.

Saphira carried on her journey, noting how as she progressed she found a number of small islands like the one she had slept on. And so she slept and rested as often as she could in order to conserve her strength, for she never knew when these islands would disappear and she would be back in unbroken water again with nowhere to land. As she predicted, the islands eventually thinned out and stopped appearing all together, and the ocean stretched out around her once again for miles and miles in all directions. But it seemed as if those islands were the halfway point, as when she flew for three days more, her body close to dropping from the sky with exhaustion, she suddenly saw something upon the horizon.

At first, she thought it to be another island, but then, the outline of it stretched and warped and took form until she was suddenly seeing a huge mainland rise before her. Her spirits raised slightly at the sight of true land; she flew towards it, jerking and falling in the air before she would catch herself on weak wings. She crashed on top of a cliff, her legs unable to support her as she collapsed onto the hard earthen ground, brittle tufts of grass sprinkled with snow crunching beneath her weight, the bitter cold chill in the air making each breath she took like a sharp sting in her lungs. Her wings had hardly hit the ground after her, before she was unconscious.

She slept for days, on the spot where she supposed was the north-eastern tip of this new mainland. As she awoke, she found herself covered in snow, her feathers on her wings stiff and cracking as she folded her wings closer to her body. She was grateful that her wings were feathered, unlike Thorn's, who had leathery membranes, for she knew that her feathers had stopped her wings from freezing. She was not cold – the inner fire that burned in her stomach was enough to keep her warm from a little snow – but her body was dwindling. Getting a good look at herself, she could see her ribs clearly on her sides, her stomach dipping in, and her scales filthy from the salt of the sea, her body unkempt from not grooming for over a week. It disgusted her that she had let herself get into such a bad state. Shaking the snow from her body, she spent two hours cleaning and grooming herself, for no matter where she was, no matter what state, she always thought that she should look her best. She had gone into battle after hours of grooming so that all could look upon her and see not just the power and might of the dragons, but also their unequalled beauty, and she being the last female of her kind, should be held in special regard as the most beautiful of all.

With her grooming done, she was back in well-kept form, but she still had to do something about her great hunger and loss of weight. She was physically weak from the lack of food; the sea had offered her much to eat, from whale carcasses floating on the surface, to the odd fish, shark and dolphin, but from flying for so long and hard, she burned off whatever calories she ate in the speed of next to no time. She was disappointed by the fact that her wings physically ached and pained her even to stand up, she had always been saddened to be earth bound but she could understand her body's need to rest. She walked from the cliff where she had landed into a thick and ancient forest of pine trees, all covered in snow, the layer on the ground even coming up to her ankles as she carefully trod her way through. Despite the fact that it was spring, the deep snow told her that she was in a very northern part of this new land, where it was only ever winter.

Hunting for most of the afternoon, she stalked through the trees, unending in her search for food, until she found the trail of a group of moose. Following their trail south, Saphira soon found them at the bottom of a small incline in the forest, where she proceeded to use her fire in order to box the suddenly panicked animals into a tight space at the bottom of the hill. There was perhaps thirteen of them, as Saphira pounced into the dip, using tail, tooth and claw to kill every single one of them, until the snow was stained red with blood. Once they were all gone, she quickly set to eating them all, gorging until she felt her stomach swell and bulge. She slept amongst the bones of her kill as she allowed her body to process her meal.

Once she awoke again, she knew that she soon had to make a decision about what to do next. Where was she to go? What was to happen to her? She had found no evidence of dragons as of yet, and perhaps they were further into the mainland or perhaps they did not exist at all.

Either way, Saphira thought that seeing as she was facing southwest, she might as well head in that direction. A line of mountains lay before her on the southern horizon, and she could tell in the dip of the land that a valley lay to the west of her. For some reason, she decided to avoid the valley and head straight for the mountains. Perhaps what she sought was just beyond them.

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Smaug sank his teeth deep into the carcass of the great bear he had killed, the blood and juices flowing down from his jaws as he ripped the creature apart with one bite and wrench of his head. It was a freakishly large bear to be sure, otherwise Smaug's hunger would never even have been touched by it. As it was, the very large bear was a fitting ending to Smaug's starvation and the twelfth meal he had caught that day, having already consumed four sheep, two large bulls, three deer, a large fish from the Long-Lake and an Ox. As he finished his bloody meal, Smaug felt his stomach begin to settle, the last remains of his fasting hunger fading away. Having just slept for the past several years, it was no wonder that he had not wanted any meal sooner. Being a dragon of his size, he could sleep for years without the need to eat, his body going into a hibernation like state, where he would only awaken once his body had finally digested everything he had last eaten years before.

It was a cycle that Smaug had gotten into since he had claimed the Lonely Mountain as his own: patrol his borders every now and then, eat until he was full, then sleep it off, then a few years later he would wake again. In the immediate years after claiming Erebor, he had been very open about his presence, making sure that everyone knew that the Mountain, the treasures within, and the surrounding lands were all his and he was not leaving any time soon. He had harassed those filthy piglets of Lake-Town, warned away all the elves of Mirkwood and driven any and all dwarves within a hundred league radius of the Mountain. He would not let anyone near his treasure, even though no one would DARE steal from him – the greatest and mightiest dragon of the age in all of Middle-Earth!

But as the years had passed without incident, Smaug had allowed himself to become more relaxed as he allowed himself to sleep peacefully within and amongst his many treasures. And the longer he slept and nothing happened, the more content he became that he had cowed all those in his dominion under his tyrannical reign so that they would never even dream of defying him, let alone angering him.

And yet, in the recent amount of time that Smaug had been awake, he had found himself... growing bored. The life of a dragon was only as interesting as those who surrounded him, in Smaug's opinion. When he had lived in the Withered Heath, surrounded by dragons as well as all sorts of nightmarish creatures, everything had been a battle for survival, a test of wits, every sense put on edge in order to make it through one day at a time. And it had been glorious. Smaug had been in his element when he had fought for his dominance, and he was not without his show of scars for it, though nothing that could mar his magnificent perfection. The Withered Heath had created the ferocious dragon that Smaug had become, but it had always lacked the one thing that Smaug coveted above all things: Gold. All dragons were partial to shiny things: things of value and worth, all things precious and beautiful he wanted and he took, without question. But the Withered Heath was the last refuge for what little was left of the dragons, and so no mortals were close by in order to plunder their trinkets from. For dragons loved treasure, but could not make even a brass pan themselves – a saving grace for the mortals, as Smaug knew that they were good for nothing else. So he had attacked and taken small keeps and attacked dwarf mines in his youth, plundering it all in order to create a horde most becoming of one such as himself. During this time, he had created a name for himself – or rather, several – amongst the mortals, such as Smaug the terrible, Smaug the Golden, and Smaug the Magnificent, all of which pleased him greatly. But as the years had gone by, Smaug had heard word of a great treasure created by the dwarves of Erebor, one that their greedy king flaunted and had grown mad and sick from the treasure. Upon hearing such wealth, Smaug had known that he must have it. He had attacked and destroyed Dale, conquered Erebor, evicted the dwarves and taken the gold for himself all in the space of a day. He had been sure to carve it into the memories of all those that he had allowed to survive that day.

Smaug hummed contentedly as he allowed his memories of his past glory to wash over him, (his only source of amusement recently) as he lifted his wing to lick the talons of his fingers clean. Unlike most dragons, Smaug didn't have four legs and two wings, instead, his forelegs and wings were one, giving him a larger wingspan as well as more reach with his claws, as he had three digit hands on each wing joint: a thumb and two fingers. Smaug had never given much thought to his differences, there was enough variation in the dragon gene-pool that no dragon was ever born to look exactly like another, they could have a different array of horns, scale colours, body shapes, heights, weights, lengths, tail ends, face decoration, even how the scales flowed down the length of the body.

Once he was done cleaning his magnificent red and gold scales and black talons of blood and gore, Smaug got to his feet, stretching out his neck and back until he heard his bones crack. He released a sigh through his nostrils, drowsiness already overcoming his lazy mind as he lethargically as he turned back to face the general direction of his mountain. He rolled his shoulders as he prepared to bound forward in preparation for flight. Smaug did envy the four-legged dragons for this one instance, where they could leap up from a standstill with four legs, he had to bound forward in order to get his wing up and ready before leaping up. But, it hardly mattered now, as he grumbled to himself and began to leap forward –

The wind changed, and Smaug's nostrils flared as he caught a scent. He skipped to a stop, legs and arms locking into place as he shot his head up into the air to sample the wind. What he scented, made him freeze still in place, a deep rage coming over him as scented the presence of an intruder in his territory.

Looking out to the west, Smaug watched the forest, as if the trees themselves would bend under his will to reveal what he sought. The wind sang a haunting song as it raced through the Grey Mountains, where Smaug was just at the bottom of them closest to his Mountain. He had to come this far away from his Mountain in order to find suitable abundance of food, seeing as the lands closely surrounding Erebor he had turned to ash as a physical marker of his presence. But this was still a part of his territory; his borders didn't end for another few hundred miles to the north, in the centre of the Grey Mountain range and well away from the Withered Heath. Smaug knew that somewhere close by, there was an unwelcome presence in his lands, one that he swore would regret that mistake.

He leapt into the air and flew quickly out towards the west, following the scent trail, not content with thinking that the owner of the scent was far enough away for his liking. He had to see for himself, he had to drive out this particular intruder. Despite being a hundred miles away from Erebor, it was still too close for comfort, and he would not stop until either the intruder was dead or would never even think about going into his territory again. For he knew the scent of the creature, and it both angered him and intrigued him.

It was the scent of a dragon.

Smaug had thought himself to be the last, or one of the last. He knew that perhaps a few lesser Drakes, maybe even some cold drakes still existed somewhere, maybe they were all huddling together and praying for survival in the Withered Heath. However, Smaug had cut his ties to that place a long time ago, and as a consequence to all dragon-kind as well. They were a dying breed and Smaug had grown sick of the weaklings that he had been surrounded by, the Great Fire Drakes dying out to be replaced by ordinary Wyrms. Smaug had not seen another dragon in hundreds of years, and he had thought them all gone during his time in Erebor; it had not bothered him so much at the time for he had his treasure and he was undisturbed. To have a dragon suddenly appear in his domain now was most peculiar.

Scenting the air, Smaug followed the trail, trying to hone in on the exact spot where his prey must be waiting, being very foolish, very ignorant, or very stupid to come this close to the heart of Smaug's territory, where none had come before on pain of death. As if the land itself was with him, the wind picked up at just that moment, and brought to Smaug the scent once again, telling him that he was heading in the right direction, and also giving him a stronger sample of the scent.

But what he smelled made him almost flip in the air in shock. Surely he must be mistaken!

The scent was female.

Smaug shook his head and took another whiff of the scent, but still the spice of female pheromones bloomed in the air, making Smaug dizzy for a second as he tried to process this. He had not seen another female in over four hundred years, because of their rarity he had thought that the last had died some few years ago, for he had not heard the mating calls of one in so long... And yet, here was one, in his territory.

Curious and perplexed as well as agitated, he drove his wings down in order to speed him along his chase.

Smaug eventually came to a ravine, where he landed just south of where he thought his prey might be, a light frost making the earth crunch underneath him, though the soft pads in his feet did their best to muffle the sound. The spring air was heavy with spores and pollen, but Smaug could still scent the female, her aroma becoming stronger and more intoxicating the closer he got, giving him a few details about her. She was young, but physically mature, not impregnated, not ill, and not yet in heat. Smaug followed the scent as he slunk through the forest, trying to keep upwind of his prey as he came closer to the ravine. The land became uneven with rocks as he came up through a mountain pass, and spying ahead with his keen vision, Smaug saw that there was a rocky incline that overlooked the ravine. Choosing his steps carefully, Smaug silently and stealthily made his way towards the top of the rocky hill so that he might get a better look at his adversary and have the element of surprise when he attacked. Female or no, he would observe her, and if he did think it worth his time then he would attack and drive her away or even kill her like he would if she were male. Despite her gender, female dragons were just as covetous of gold as males, perhaps even more so with their feminine vanity.

As he approached the edge of the rocks, his long fingers curled around the edge as he looked over the lip and spied down onto the stream below. There, his breath froze in his throat, and all thoughts he had been thinking came crashing to a halt inside his mind as he beheld the creature before him.

He had been correct, for a dragoness stood by the ravine, dipping her muzzle into the cool waters for a drink. She was a vision of beauty and elegance! Her scales were of the most gorgeous sapphire blue, making it look as if she were made from brilliant sapphire gems, the deeper blue on her back melted into an almost silver-gold on her belly, and she shimmered as the moisture in the air made her scales glisten. She had two sleek and pointed horns on the back of her head which curled upwards towards the sky, her head triangular, her face smooth and unmarked by scars or any imperfections, her eyes a more vibrant and deeper blue then any Smaug had ever seen before. Her wings were feathered, Smaug was interested to see, instead of the leathery membranes that was more common amongst dragons; though the feathers gave her a rather regal and elegant appeal as well as a more solid stature. She was perhaps half of Smaug's size, though from the curve of her neck, the thickness of her jaw and the way her chest was built and condensed, Smaug knew that she was no mere wyrm, but a Great Fire-Drake like himself! As Smaug's greedy eyes ravaged over her body, he couldn't help a dark glee enter his black heart as he beheld her; she was the image of feminine perfection: muscular, graceful proportions, beautiful, young, nicely curved talons, gleaming scales, well groomed, healthy...

It suddenly occurred to Smaug that this situation might be a little too good to be true.

He scanned her with a more scrutinising gaze, and saw that she was clearly fatigued, and recently had been starved though she was quickly adding weight, as he could tell by the way her body looked lean though her ribs were only slightly showing. Her eyes were heavy, and she often closed them as she dipped her mouth into the water of the mountain stream for a drink, and she had not noticed him yet – which Smaug's ego would be quick to say was his superb stealth skills – he knew that she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings. She was probably too exhausted to even listen out for his breathing. As he looked her over, he did not see many scars upon her body, in fact hardly any. He tried to crane his head in order to spot the shoulder that was not facing him, trying to see if she had a recent territorial bite marks from a mate. But to his surprise, from what he could see he saw that she had not even a scratch as to show that she had EVER been mated.

A sick grin twisted his face as he contemplated what this meant. He had a fully mature adult female in his territory, one that was clearly unmated, alone, exhausted, in need of shelter and food, and a magnificent sight to behold. It was his darkest pleasures come true!

She was here for him – he could see no other reason for her being here. She must have come to try and persuade him to be her mate, either out of desperation for hatchlings and to continue their species, or because she wanted the security and privilege that came with being his mate. Either way, Smaug couldn't suppress his grin as he knew that he wouldn't deny her.

He straightened himself to his full height, blocking out the sun that was directly behind him and allowing his shadow to be dramatically cast over the ravine, to where it fell straight across the blue female's back. She stiffened instantly and snapped around to face him, bearing her teeth as she growled in surprise, though he saw the moment when she realised who and what he was, the shock registering in her eyes as she beheld him. Pride flattered by her unabashed staring, Smaug smirked triumphantly as he practically flowed down from his perch atop the rocks to stand a hundred feet away from the surprised female.

Revealing himself to her, he grinned, showing his teeth as he awaited her fawning admiration.

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Author's Note: So, a HUGE thank you to everyone who reviewed the first chapter, your comments really made me smile and I'm so happy that you guys are as excited for this story as I am! :)

Sorry that this chapter was a little shorter then the last, but it's mainly setting up for the next one ;) So, please review and tell me what you thought of: Saphira's journey? Her in Middle-Earth? Smaug's thoughts? Smaug finding Saphira? His reaction to her? How do you think their little "conversation" will go? All comments and reviews are welcome and hopefully I'll have the next chapter up ASAP!