I was too tired to argue. So I just let him stay tail knocking over another chair and decided, miserably, to let Future Me deal with re-negotiating his magical leash.
My room now looked like a noble library after a tornado made of scales and feelings had rolled through it. Pillows were skewered. Books were nudged to dangerous angles on their shelves. My enchanted ink pot had somehow ended up inside one of Smaug's nostrils (he claimed it was for "storage"), and my favorite quill now rested tragically beneath his wing.
But Smaug was curled around me like a living wall of warm iron. One of his wings extended half over my blankets, his eyes normally bright with mischief were now heavy-lidded, twitching with exhaustion.
I reached up and rested a hand gently on the curve of his snout. His scales were warm, slightly rough, and thrummed faintly beneath my fingers with the pulse of ancient magic. He let out a little sound not quite a purr, not quite a sigh, but something in between.
