It can't often be said that Jongdae has ever scampered. Scampering is for cowards and wimps too lazy to fight, or for small children as they scuttle away from a frightening sight. In duals, Jongdae has always turned backwards to fight. To protect those whose safety he was concerned with, likewise. And in an enclosed battle with a drake, that was excitement personified.

But this, this was a little bit different.

Jongdae had never moved this fast before. The steps were old, worn from centuries of exposure. The stone was cracked in places. Elsewhere, there was no railing, only perilous ledges promising falls from a height too high to survive.

A dragon. Yixing was an actual, piss-stinkin' dragon.

"You knew!" He yelled at Suho. The two raced down together, their gazes alternating every other second from the battle in the sky to their shaky footing. Rocks accompanied their passage downward. In front of them grunted Jongin and Baekhyun, Sehun right behind them, with Baekhyun's palm latched firmly around his wrist because he kept twisting around to see if Chanyeol and Kyungsoo were still coming.

"Incoming!" Luhan shouted from above. He and Minseok were the last to descend, all others sandwiched between them including Chanyeol with his injured charge, Tao and Kris.

"Behind the tower!" Jongin echoed from the front. They had reached a level balcony below a half-collapsed tower. Over their heads swooped a dragon, and they had no idea which one it might be.

At running speed, Jongdae slammed Suho into the stone. The dwarf collapsed onto his knees as Jongdae hovered above him, pressing as close to the structure as was physically possible. Just then, a gust of warmth blew over their heads, fire shooting from the mouth of the dragon though the wall protected them. Its screech punctured their eardrums with a thundering, head-splintering sound. Jongdae swore he could feel it reverberating through his heart and throughout his entire body.

"So, not Yixing... I hope," he said.

"Still w-way t-too close," Chanyeol mumbled. Even that warrior's voice warbled in fear.

They heard barking from farther away.

"Follow Alistair!" Jongin shouted. "He's seeking out the quickest path!" They repeated this order down the line, then waited for the all-clear to move again. Like ants they jolted one by one and began to run. Jongdae spared one glance heavenwards at the two dragons careering high in the air.

"Why isn't the drake following us?" Tao called out.

"Won't leave the eggs, probably," said Minseok.

But it certainly wasn't going to let them return to the cavern and seek shelter inside.

High above their heads, the two dragons battled. One, blood red and onyx scales, the other... blue-green. Yixing shined like the Waking Sea upon Jongdae's last crossing. He never thought to see such colors in the air. It was pretty. Someone should turn this into a painting. No one, however, should ever have to see it happening in real life.

"You knew," he repeated loudly to Suho.

The dwarf shrugged. They were panting so hard, following in the mabari's wake as they wended their way down, left and to the right, down a stair, then a jump.

"Who else knew?!" Jongdae was obsessed. They had a pile-up at one particularly difficult drop. Jongin and Baekhyun lowered themselves over the ruined stone first, then waited for Sehun to lower his legs down. Suho went next, and while they waited, everyone else's eyes went to the sky.  

"They're going to kill each other," said Tao with gritted teeth. The two dragons raced, sometimes side by side, usually one in front of the other as they shot gusts of flames forward or behind.

"Flames won't hurt them. They're both immune," Minseok shouted down. By the time he and Luhan scuffled down the edge, Jongdae looked up to see the blue-green dragon trailing behind, its great teeth gnashing at the red's spiked tail. Yixing missed, and the red dragon dived suddenly towards the ground. Its eyes caught the light of the sun as it sank, giving up another blood-curdling roar. Jongdae saw it as if in slow motion. The dragon scanned the ruins, then spotted them.

"Run!" They all yelled again.

More and more, the distance between them grew. Jongdae and Baekhyun were practically flying, Sehun still caught in their midst. Jongdae raced to keep up, but he also wasn't going to let Suho fall behind. The dwarf stumbled once and screamed. Down the side the mountain the first dragon careened into the valley below. The draft of its flight was so powerful they nearly all fell to the side. Yixing flew after it, and their bodies crashed together into the side of the mountain. The tumultuous landing had the entire ruin shaking. More stone and rocks skidded from their settings. The tower they'd sheltered under several meters above finally crashed to the ground.

"Get up! Come on!" Jongdae grabbed Suho's wrist and pulled the panicked dwarf to his feet. Chanyeol passed them up, faster still even with the injured Kyungsoo thrown over his shoulder. As Jongdae and the dwarf started to run again, he glanced behind. Kris was struggling badly, and now even Tao now was limping. Blood ran from his knee where fallen rubble had struck him. The two continued to move though with Luhan and Minseok's assistance.

"This is madness," Suho whispered, loud enough that only Jongdae heard. "We're not going-"

"Don't say that. Just keep going."

They passed another ledge, a corner rampart with a set of stairs which doubled underneath the fort. A squat, hollow tunnel, a temporary shelter if any, but even that might collapse at any second. Chanyeol panted in the shadows at the base of the steps. He set Kyungsoo on the bottom stair, and Sehun immediately rushed to his side. The dragons had taken flight again, each hovering in the air, almost stationary as they sized up the other, looking for weaknesses. Yixing was definitely smaller, but his dragon body was slimmer, more agile. The red dragon snapped its teeth at Yixing's neck at the same time Yixing fluttered away and out of reach.

"Are we just going to hang out here?!" Jongdae asked.

Jongin held his hand in the air, the signal to wait. "Look. He's luring it away..."

Lunge by lunge, Yixing's great dragon wings propelled him backwards, four monstrous clawed legs protecting his belly. The light caught through his wings, shades of teal that were almost iridescent. By contrast, the red dragon gleamed like blood flowing from its body. It struck forward, Yixing launched back. The power of their wings shot out gusts of wind that stank like stale earth and decay.

"Please tell me that's not the same dragon..." said Jongdae suddenly.

"What?!" cried Baekhyun.

"The dragon that attacked us at the manor! It had the same colors. It was the same dragon!"

"The red or the green?" asked Jongin.

"The green one! It was Yixing, wasn't it! Minseok, tell us it wasn't Yixing!"

Kris nearly collapsed against Jongdae's back. "It... he... was the same one?"

"Minseok?!" Jongdae demanded again.

They all stared at the mage who looked back staunchly but without comment. Somehow, that answered their question even more certainly than if he'd spoken. Luhan looked upset. "That was him?! But that dragon nearly killed us! Us, you and me! We nearly died when it blazed that tree which fell and nearly crushed us!"

Suho was the one to contradict him. "No, it didn't. It was an accident, and you weren't exactly paying a lot of attention. Did you not notice that the only people who went up in flames that day were our attackers!?"

"But-" Luhan stuttered, unsatisfied.

Neither was Baekhyun. "Well good for you, you weren't blown to ashes, but we were in the house when it caught on fire and-"

"Those were the cult members who set it on fire, not the dragon!" Minseok cut in. "Now, look out!"

The ruin was still crumbling all around their heads. So far the inner stairwell was holding up, but small rocks fell loose from the ceiling, and the whole place grew unsteadier by the second.

Outside of the protective overhang lay a long strip of stone masonry. At the end of that, a very long, slightly arched bridge connected two particularly misshapen ridges that jutted out of the mountain, dissecting the ruined fort down the middle. The whole path was out in the open. To attempt to cross it now with the dragons this close was suicide, but to stay here wasn't ideal either. Only Alistair waited at the other end, and even he whimpered in the shadow of a wall, a mere pinprick from this far away.

And still the dragons taunted their mighty power before the other. The red dragon's back was to them now. Yixing presumably could see their hiding spot as he presented his body for attack and then ed away. The red dragon screeched, aggravated by his game. One of its wings beat down with a mighty gust, clipping the rail of the bridge with a thunderous crack.

Yixing waited no longer. His wings shot suddenly downwards as he rocketed into the air. It startled the red dragon who followed it a moment later but was slow to notice the change of direction. While Jongin shouted for everyone to run, Yixing turned his massive body and dove towards the valley below.

It was now or never.

Sehun's wrist seriously ached. Of all the things he could be complaining about it—shoulder ache, tired feet, the rock that had bruised his waist, and the over-beating rhythm of his heart, the fact they were being chased by a dragon, two dragons—it was his wrist which annoyed Sehun the most.

"Let go..." he whined, though his voice went unheard. Baekhyun had an incredible grasp. The elf, for being a whole foot shorter than Sehun, was powerfully strong in his upper body, and had rigid control of where Sehun could go or not. Right now, it was across the ledge as they raced for the bridge. Sehun could barely breath. His lungs felt like they might explode, and his heart was still a half dozen bodies behind them with Kyungsoo's barely moving form. Surely they didn't have to go so fast. They could have stayed, they could have rested. They could at least make sure the man wasn't about to die, or else, dead already from the way Chanyeol carried him.

The stone danced beneath their feet. Baekhyun stumbled, which meant Sehun stumbled as well, but Jongin was right there to pull them along. "The bridge! Hurry!"

Sehun didn't bother looking for the dragons. Yixing would save them, or he would not. Their priority was that bridge, because that's what Jongin, and thus Baekhyun, said.

"I can't!" he cried.

"You can!" shouted Baekhyun. The bridge rumbled again, but this time they stayed on their feet. Sehun looked right, at the gap between the two halves of the fort, where a waterfall they'd yet to notice fell angrily down into the mists below. "Almost there, keep up!"

Chanyeol cried out behind them and stumbled to the ground. Behind him, and Sehun didn't look but he heard it, Jongdae and Suho stopped and pulled the man up to his feet.

The barrier to their left suddenly fell away, small pebbles and rubble eroding into the wind and apart of the pavement too. Sehun screamed. He closed his eyes, but his body was yanked forward, Baekhyun's fingers still fastened tight around his wrist. He would have bruises, Sehun knew. Worse than the grayish marks Kyungsoo made when his skin touched another's flesh. And Sehun knew now which he preferred.

"This thing's going to collapse!" someone yelled from behind, Jongdae most likely.

The rest of the barrier crumbled away, evenly timed to their running pace, although neither Jongin nor Baekhyun would stop.

Chanyeol grunted again. This time Sehun swung his body around, whipped in opposition by Baekhyun's force, but he had to stop. He had to check. Chanyeol was on his knees. He'd dropped Kyungsoo to the ground, blood soiling both of their clothes and the warrior's armor.

"Kyungsoo!" Sehun screamed. The man's pallor had gone deathly white, and his eyes were closed. He was dead, he was probably dead, and Sehun never had a chance to say goodbye.

"I can't carry him!" Chanyeol panted. His other shoulder was bruised, and blood seeped down from a cut on his head.

"Noo!" Sehun shouted. He tried to wrest his arm loose from Baekhyun, but the elf would not let go. "Kyungsoo!"

Jongdae paused by the two fallen men and cursed loudly, his eyes scanning the distance for the dragons, then making eye contact with Sehun for one brief moment.

"Pleaseeeee...." Sehun cried, silently, before he was jolted back forward.

"Maker's bollocks! Move you big lump, I'll take him!" the assassin shouted loudly.

Sehun felt a brief wave of relief. Before the bridge gave a lurch and began to fall. He hit his knees again, looked down, and saw the valley beneath. The waterfall was long, a drop so far down into the mists that for a moment, it almost looked like a nice way to go. You'd never even see the bottom. You'd never see it coming...

Then Baekhyun gave a bone-breaking tug and practically forced him to make the jump. They landed with a wobbling steps. For the first time in ages, Sehun's arms were free. But then the bridge jolted again, and Sehun forgot how pretty the mists might be. He landed face first against the stone and scrambled frantically, his life completely in danger. A body dropped beside him, Chanyeol's post jump, and the two of them grunted as they struggled. Then Jongin reached down and pulled Chanyeol to safety, and Baekhyun did the same for Sehun.

"Come on! Hurry!" came the shouts from behind.

Yet the bridge continued to creak, and angle upwards. Sehun stood up and immediately lost his balance again. He landed on his and scooted backwards, thus he saw everything that happened from then after.

The gap between them was barely the length of a man laying down, and crumbling slowly. There was time. There was surely time for all of them to make it across. If Jongdae had jumped, he would have easily made the landing. But he wrestled there on the edge with Kyungsoo's weight leaning against his small frame and he panicked. So did Suho beside him.

"Jump! You can do it!" It was the first time Sehun had ever yelled such encouragements himself.

Behind the trio lumbered Kris and Tao, and Luhan and Minseok.

The ledge under Sehun's feet wobbled but held. It might not be that way for long.

"Hurry!" he yelled again. "Jongin, help them!"

"I need a running start!" Jongdae cried out. "But I can't! Not with-"

"Just do it!"

Tao immediately backed away from the ledge, preparing to make the crossing at a leap. Minseok also pulled Luhan and began shouting about doing the same. But the bridge continued to wobble, and more stones fell away from the edge. The gap was increasing, little by little, wider and wider.

"Jongin, do something!" Sehun grabbed the warrior's arm and began to cry. There was a plank just behind them. Alistair crouched beside it barking wildly, and it was just about the right size to place over the crevice. Those who couldn't jump could hobble across that way. Sehun lept towards it. "Look!" he yelled.

Jongin did look. And he took a step towards it. So did Chanyeol. But then each of them stopped. The two warriors looked at each other, meanwhile slowly... Baekhyun's palm wrapped around Sehun's wrist again.

"It's too late!" Jongin shouted, and deliberately turned his back on the gap. The bridge shuddered again. More rocks, larger chunks of stone now, crumbled and disappeared into the mists. If anyone landed on that patch of bridge, it might be the last thing they ever did. It might be the last thing any of them ever saw, including Sehun. The section on which they stood hung precariously itself. Somewhere in this, there was logic, but Sehun refused to see it. He kept focusing on the plank, which might still be long enough to help.

"Wait! We can't!" Sehun shrieked, tears straining his eyes, Baekhyun tugging him along. The path leveled out onto solid ground, dirt mixed with rocks as it skirted below the other side of he ruin, leading northward into the valley below. "We can't! We can't!!" He raged and pulled as hard as he could, but neither Jongin, Baekhyun nor Chanyeol would listen to his pleas. Only Alistair, his hand as he trotted beside them gave him any sympathy at all. The last he saw of the others, they remained like statues on the other side of the divide. Stranded, and helpless in a crumbling ruin. The dragons screeched from a long way off, but Sehun just cried, and stumbled, and dragged. And cried.

It was silence on the other side. Shock, most fittingly, followed by a stunned despair. Tao cautiously approached the ledge, a small pebble in his hand which he tossed as daintily as he could towards the opposite side. Even that small projectile caused a landslide of masonwork. The remaining bridge wobbled more and more.

"We have to go back," said Minseok, his voice small and strangled.

"Go back where?" asked Luhan.

There was an urgency to their situation, yet none of them bothered to voice it. Instead, they backed away one by one away from the falling ledge. Jongdae dragged Kyungsoo until he couldn't any longer, then Tao stepped in to help him with his burden. The man's eyes wavered open for half a second, then they closed again and he moaned.

"We have to find a way across!" Jongdae suddenly shouted. He was angry. Luhan had never seen him quite this angry. Yes, they had just been abandoned, but in Jongin's possible defense... it wasn't exactly safe, for any of them, to have tried to cross.

"There's no way!" Minseok shouted. The other's outburst had finally torn up his emotions. "This bridge is falling. We can't remain here, and we can't get across."

"Then you go back. I'm going forward."

"How!?" Minseok raged, confused.

Suho tugged at Jongdae's arm, begging the man to be sensible.

"How?! I don't know. I'll figure find a way. I'll get across. You can all go on your merry way and-"

Suho turned pale and dropped the assassin's arm. Jongdae finally realized the jist of what he'd said and shut up. "I mean..."

"We're not talking here," said Minseok. He turned and lead the retreat back to the steps under the hollowed tunnel which still miraculously stood. It was as safe as any place they could be right now. The two dragons were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they had flown off. Maybe one of them had died. Maybe they were even now flying back to cause more mayhem.

"We'll find another way down. That can't have been the only way," said Luhan hopefully. He glanced towards the ledge, then behind them. They'd been moving so quickly, any number of possible options might have been missed. And now that they weren't being beaten down by dragon fire, there was time to consider. A cool, even dust had settled over the ruin. Everything the dragons had kicked up with their beating wings now fell back to the earth. The newly strewn rubble rolled and slid until it couldn't anymore. If they hadn't just witnessed the last half hour's events, Luhan might have said this place was untouched for centuries.

"I can't believe it. I can't believe it," Jongdae muttered to himself. "Of all the things... I had one task. One... cursed... task."

Suho stared down at him pityingly and then walked right by him. He knelt instead by Kyungsoo's side and fit a hand to the man's dirtied brow. So did Minseok, although he continued to stare at Jongdae.

"I can't believe it either," said Kris with a pained rumble. But he, unlike Jongdae, chuckled. "I was hired by them, and then they left me in the middle of a falling ruin. Nice fellows. Why ever did you agree to travel with them again?"

Jongdae huffed. "It's not the same! You're a mercenary! Anything could happen and it wouldn't matter. But me..." His voice trailed off.

Luhan sat beside Minseok and looked over the mage's shoulder. He couldn't fathom Jongdae's fury, and he didn't want to. It seemed ridiculous under these circumstances. "How is he?" he asked of Kyungsoo.

Minseok sighed. "Alive. But barely. He needs rest. Then I might be able to properly heal him."

The man's small eyes rolled open again. Luhan watched them dilate and try to focus. His moved his head around, to which Suho quickly shushed him and bade him remain still.

"Wha...t happened?" he asked, struggling to make even the tiniest fraction of a sound.

No one bothered to answer him. Instead, Kyungsoo clenched his eyes tight shut and groaned. The next words out of his mouth were, "Sehun..." as if he already knew.

At the sound of the boy's name, Jongdae gave a sudden scoff. Then he laughed. Then he continued to laugh until everyone, Suho included, decided he must be mad.

"Jongdae?" Minseok raised his eyebrows and looked squarely at the man.

Jongdae laughed again. Finally though, he sighed and looked wistfully across the ruined, fallen bridge. "Sehun. He was my one task."

Kris's jaw slowly dropped, and all the other heads turned slowly to face the assassin.

"W-what, do you mean?" It was Suho who actually asked. "Were you here all this time because of Sehun? You were here to kill him-?"

"No!" Jongdae cried. He buried his head between his hands, elbows perched on his knees. "Kill him? Wow that's an idea. If that had been my job, then I would have been done by now and long gone off into the sunset. No... I was hired to protect him. From anyone, and anything. I've been following him since Denerim. I caught up with you guys on the road because it seemed easier that way. I was supposed to go all the way to West Hills and remain there. If it looked like a brother wanted him dead, I'd slit that brother's throat in the night. If another relative, then that one too. But then we never got there... We ended up here. And now I've lost him... His mother... is going to have me murdered next, now, I just know it. Because I failed to protect her little boy..."

3,780 words

MORE REVELATIONS! And uhm, some pseudo-sacrificial backstabbing. Fun times, fun times. I can't believe this was all one long scene. Wow, action scenes are hard to write. Phew!