Smaug woke to the tiny scratchings of some creature thinking they could make their way into his mountain. He stretched and curled his tail, winding it possessively around the outermost edge of a slope of clinking gold, nearest the narrow passageway some small, grasping creature might make their way through, if they dared.

It was almost amusing, Smaug thought in his half-sleep, buried deep in his heaps of precious possessions, watching the lesser creatures struggle and lose themselves to acquisitive desires they could not master.