An Apocalyptic Invasion

the siblings come back

The shrine was a lot bigger than I expected, honestly.

Just imagine this: you're flying in the sky with your siblings and dragon friends, and as you joke around and talk with each other, you see this large, stone circle that just took up the whole forest floor.

Now imagine the feeling you get when you see it for the first time. You'll know how I felt when I first laid my eyes on it.

The circle had to be a hundred feet across and high. There were smaller, concentric circles that gradually got tinier the further they went into the middle.

There were stone pedestals on each corner of the square the circle was carved into. I could see vines winding around them, and I could almost imagine how regal and mysterious it looked a hundred-thousand years ago.

Phyline whistled. "It's a lot bigger than I imagined."

"Tell me about it," I agreed.

"What do you think those pedestals are for?" Giysine wondered.

"Maybe for sacrifices?" Flihkfhur said. "In the olden times, humans used to sacrifice animals like sheep and cattle for the dragons and Catwings. When they ran out of that, they sacrificed human children."

"Why would they do that?" Tuilyne gasped.

"Maybe they realized how much we like eating humans or something," Ruline said. "That's just a theory, though."

"No, actually, it makes sense," Scryion agreed. "Since they knew that we saw humans as walking, annoying snacks, they took the most annoying out of all of them and killed them for the ancients to enjoy."

"I have a feeling that, even though it's old, it still holds a lot of value."

"Dlhithirk's right; if the shrine is anything like the one back home, this might still have potential to harm something," Flihkfhur said. "So we should land close to it, but not on the actual shrine."

"The pedestals don't seem significant," Trihtleph said. "We could land there."

I flicked my tail. "Alright."

There were eleven of us, and the pedestals were wider than they seemed. It could fit four of us comfortably.

Me, being the clumsy idiot I am, lost my footing as I was landing on one and almost slipped into the circle if Flihkfhur didn't catch me.

"Thank you." I looked at the circle with suspicion.

"I don't want you to get vaporized, if the legends are true."

As we sat, a lizard scampered its way into the circle. It flicked its head at us, as if wondering Why are there giant cats looking like something's about to grab them?

A small arrow flew out of the trees and sailed towards the lizard. The point of it dug into the lizard's head, killing it instantly.

A human wearing some clothes made out of leaves rushed forward to grab it. When it saw us, it nocked an arrow and fired it at me.

Honestly, I was expecting it to pierce my side when my fur smoothly deflected it and shot it back towards the human.

The arrow landed on a tree trunk just above the human, who gaped at me with shock.

"Why didn't it hurt me?" I asked.

"Your flesh can only be pierced by claws," Phyline said. "That arrow is usually meant for us; like you guys, we can't really die but we can get injured. I've seen dragons come back to our village bleeding from several arrow tips."