Painful Enlightenment
Smaug wakes up feeling terrible after the events of the previous night. His head is pounding as though it were being hammered by an army of dwarven metalsmiths; his dry tongue feels two sizes too large and tastes unpleasantly of overbroiled orc; and his belly is churning angrily from all its pyrotechnic exercise. He also has very little recollection of what actually happened, and is puzzled to find himself outside under the open sky, instead of snug within his cave. To cap it all, a bird has flown over at some point and pooped in his ear! He is Not Happy.
"LOKI!!!!
he roars, wincing at his own noise.
"Are you still here? We have unfinished business, and I want to get it over with so I can crawl back into my cave and die..."
Well, the dragon does not really wish to die, but it feels as though he might be going to anyway! Something nags at the fringes of memory, one of those irritating challenges the Palantir keeps throwing at him, one he was previously unable to answer. 'Is there ever a good reason to get blinding drunk?'
"NO! There is not. It is quite the most horrible experience of my life since being pierced by that arrow. I do think Diamond glints_on_snow might have warned me about the after-effects..."
Some memories of last night start to filter back and he groans, burying his head in his paws.
"Now no one will ever take me seriously again..."