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The smell was the first thing that hit them when Thorin pushed open the hidden door to the mountain. The air smelt stale, musty with other scents to it – some familiar, some not. It was only as they inched further into the mountain that they realised what the familiar scent was.

Death.

The scent was the stale, slightly sweet scent of death. Once a dwarrow stronghold, Erebor was now a tomb to all of those dwarrows who had been trapped inside when Smaug attacked. Somehow, in all of their imaginings, they hadn't envisaged this. In truth, very few of Thorin's company had truly believed that they would even make it to Erebor, let alone retake the mountain. They had simply followed blindly, trusting in Thorin. And, with some help, he had got them there.

It only got worse the further they descended into the depths of Erebor. The upper levels may have held a slight scent of death but that was nothing compared to that as they reached the main areas of Erebor; the guild caverns and the great treasury as well as certain chambers surrounding them. These were the areas that Smaug had targeted when he had arrived, drawn by the gold that had been drawn up from the mines. Here, the scent of death was almost masked by the stench caused by a fire drake having occupied the place for years.

Still, despite the grief that they felt at all of the death surrounding them, the grief that those who had lived in Erebor before Smaug felt at finding bodies in the chambers that they had once called home, they weren't completely without hope.

One day, hopefully in the not too distant future, the scent of fire drake and death would be gone.

Erebor would once more be a home rather than a tomb.