JoP: The Ruin on The Border

Chapter 3

Night.

Starless as it could be. It was silent, not even the wind blew.

Horses were packed and saddled. Belongings tucked away safely. Their friends, covered in blankets, ready to leave. Morthin had mellowed down enough to be lucid again, somewhat. He even helped them make the big fire in the courtyard, which was Ayan's desperate attempt at a last-ditch effort to cleanse this place, or at least leave a big enough distraction for them to get back safe.
This did seem to bother Vuraria, who was keeping the horses in check. All of them, save for big, mellow Bayo, were breezing and braying and eager to go. Dirthir glanced at them longingly.
"My father rode horses like that... I want to too. Can we go?"

"Yeah. Soon." Vuraria said, patting him on the head. Her eye was on the fire, she looked more pissed than ever. "Very soon."
Ayan threw the last of the logs on before he felt a sharp thump on his shoulder. It was Vuraria.

"Can we leave right now, please, instead of wasting more time here?"

"Maybe the fire will help chase away the shadowy demons..." Morthin murmured before shaking his head. "We want to go."
Ayan sighed. "I didn't even get to see what did all this... We never get to beat it this way."
The sky rumbled, and the earth shook. The horses leaked foam from their mouths and Dirthir began crying.

"We don't need to beat goddamn anything, we-need-to-leave!" Vuraria said, tugging him by the arm. But Ayan stood firmly, looking at the flickering flames. He saw something in it...

"Ayan..." she said once more. "We need to leave. If you don't come along with me now I'll-"

"There's something in the fire." Ayan said. "I can't quite tell what it is."

"Well, you can think about that AFTER we leave!" Vuraria's grip on his arm tightened, becoming dark and more scaly in texture and form. "Last goddamn warning before I KICK you and everyone else out of here!" She looked back at Ayan, and the fire.
And now she saw it too.

Dragons. Ashen-black dragons as tufts of smoke in the crisp climbing flames, tight in their fiery orange embrace. They danced and spread their wings and roared, over the sound of the fire and the rumbling of the earth. It seemed like the tallest, most gargantuan dragon of old -or were there multiple?- was encased and imprisoned in this towering heap of burning wood.

She couldn't help but feel connected. Like she knew them.

Dirthir's scream in the distance brought her to her senses. At least, for a little. For when she looked into the flaming abyss again, there were the dragons. Calling to her. Her breath stoked as she looked at herself. Scales and horns and claws, with hair as black as ebony, obsidian, tar. Death. Like them.

"Ayan..." she gasped, unable to pull her eyes away a second time. "Am I just having a bad trip, or do you see what I am seeing?"

-"What?" Ayan looked not at the fire, but at the black of night and the starless sky. Clouds that were thin covered them and bent their way as if they needed to see what would happen next. Dirthir began crying again.
"The Death-Dragons! Dragons of the end-times! They came for my father, and they came for us! Now they will come again! We're too late! We're all too late!"

"They have been dead for years..." Braskan lamented with eyes wide open. "One for centuries. But now they will come again. They will come for us. We cannot stop them... We will weep, for we face our fate alone..."

"Oh nonononononononono, not again!" shouted Morthin, as he ran away from the fire to stand in front of the half-elf and the half-ghost, with his morning-star quivering in his hand. "Not again! Not now! I don't want those people to pay a visit to me again!"

"What is up with you all saying all this stuff? I don't see any dragons!" Ayan furrowed his brow and pulled his sword out. "And this is the exact reason I dislike ghosts. I can't see them and yet they do all that with your head. I've had enough!" He grit his teeth and now he was the one who pulled Vuraria away from reaching out to the fire. She seemed totally infatuated by it, enthralled, allured. A glint of dark, dark red shone over the black of her eyes. Her hand reached out to the flames.
"They want me to be there, Ayan. They know me. I want to know who they are. They want me to be one with them."