Previously:
All three of the others moved towards Dean and the pile of stones. Gabriel inspected the stones more closely with Dean, while their brothers hung back a little. "Well shit," Gabriel murmured, "You might actually want to take a look at this Cas."
Castiel stared at him uncertainly for a moment, trying to ascertain whether they were joking or not. Finally, when neither of them cracked a smile, he moved forward to inspect the opening in the stones as well. If you looked in a certain way, the light was just right in the clearing that you could see the floor of the make shift cave. Castiel's eyes widened as he took in the details. There were shiny stones littered across the ground, and small spots that looked black, almost as if they had been charred. Sam appeared next to him, taking in the same things with a soft gasp.
All four of them jumped in surprise and turned around when they heard a screeching sound from the middle of the clearing. Dean stared in surprise at the tiny creature in the middle of the clearing that was glaring at them ominously. "Is that...?" Dean started, letting the question trail off.
Sam poked Castiel, who had frozen on the spot, in the side, "What sort of dragon is that, Cas?"
"Beag Dragan," Castiel gasped out, his voice laced with awe. Perhaps it wasn't one of the larger dragons, but the creature before them most certainly was a dragon. It was about the size of a large house cat with scales the color of rubies glinting in the sunlight.
Dean blinked, "It's a what now? I'm sorry, but that thing isn't very big."
"Not big Dean, Beag Dragan. It's Gaelic and translates to 'Little Dragon'. Not the most inventive names for dragons, really. But it most certainly is a dragon," Castiel murmured.
"Great," Gabriel grumbled, "So why does it look like it wants to eat us?"
Sam frowned slightly, "I imagine it's a bit upset that we were mucking about in its den." It would make sense for that to be the cause of the small dragon's upset. It stood on its hind legs, pointed little head raised as high as it could go and turned slightly to the left so that it was looking at them clearly with one eye. The eye that they could see, though small, was dark grey in color, with no white to it at all, and a snake like pupil.
"Wait," Dean said, keeping his voice low, "If all of these rock piles are dens...how many of these things are there?"
"I've got another question for you," Gabriel murmured. "If the rock piles belong to these little dragons, what made the rock piles? There's no evidence of humans being here, and it certainly doesn't look big enough to move some of the bigger rocks by itself. Even if there were more of them, how would they hold on to some of those rocks?"
Castiel furrowed his brow. Both Dean and Gabriel made good points. How many of the Beag Dragans were there? Could there be larger dragons living nearby? A larger dragon could certainly have made the dens for the small dragons. Perhaps they should leave the clearing, before either could show up and prove their existence. When Castiel voiced this thought, the others were in agreement.
"I know this is exactly what we were looking for, Cas, but it won't do us any good if they try to kill us," Sam said, backing away from the pile of rocks that was apparently a dragon's den very slowly, the others following suit. When the small dragon lowered itself down to all four legs, they let out a collective sigh.
"I agree, Sam," Castiel murmured, "it would be best for us to go before any of its friends decide to come back."
They continued to back away slowly. Gabriel, who was the furthest in the back, finally turned around so he could make sure there weren't more of the Beag Dragans behind them. "Doesn't look like there are any more of them back here," he told them quietly.
Castiel continued to watch the small dragon as it crept forward carefully the further back they retreated. Once it deemed them a sufficient distance away, the small red dragon moved hurriedly to the den they had investigated, disappearing inside for a moment before sticking its head back out to watch them retreat. When they could no longer see the clearing, or any of the piles of stones, the remaining three turned around to continue walking normally, still checking over their shoulders occasionally.
They were all quiet for some time, seemingly taking in the occurrence that had just taken place. Eventually they made it back to the lake, stopping to rest before finishing the trek back to the cabin. Finally Dean said, "Well, dragons apparently. Looks like you were right, Cas."
Castiel resisted the urge to be smug about it. Instead, he tried for calm certainty when he replied, "Yes, Dean, dragons. It amazes me how you are always surprised when I turn out to be right about these things. Although, I will admit I had absolutely no idea that they would be this close, or that we would find them that quickly."
Gabriel looked out over the lake, thinking for a moment. "So what's the plan? You want to learn about them, right? So how do we get close enough to do that?"
"I don't actually know," Castiel said, shrugging.
"I do," Sam told him, waving his arm slightly. The other three turned to stare at him in surprise. Sam rolled his eyes at them. "Look, everything we know about dragons indicates that they love shiny things, right? The little dragon's den, excuse me, the Beag Dragan's den, was absolutely littered with all sorts of semi-precious stones. There's a rock shop in town. If we bring it...or them...a gift, maybe it won't see us as a threat. Especially if we bring it something new, something it might not be able to find as easily on its own. Most of the stones it had looked warn smooth, so they were probably from the stream or the lake, right? So what about something like amethyst that was still in its natural form?"
The three of them stared at him for a moment as if he had grown a second head. Gabriel shook his head. "That's actually kind of brilliant. What do you think, Cas?" he asked, turning to his brother, "Will it work?"
Castiel nodded slowly, "I think that might work. How late do you suppose that shop is open? It's still fairly early. We've only been gone a couple of hours at most."
Sam shrugged his shoulders slightly, "Most of the shops seemed to be open until five or six in the evening. If we hurry, we can probably make it before they close."
"Well," Dean grumbled, "we ought to get going then, hadn't we? We're wasting time just standing here." Sam and Castiel grinned at each other as Dean and Gabriel took the lead, looking rather excited about the whole thing now that they had seen a dragon for themselves. Sam wondered how early the two of them would be up the next day. The chances of any of them getting a whole lot of sleep seemed suddenly very slim. They might have to start drugging Gabriel and Dean if they wanted to get any rest. Well, at least the two of them were on board with the whole dragon thing now.
The trip back to the cabin was made quickly, and though it was quiet, the excitement in the air was almost tangible. "Just so we're clear," Sam said as they got back to the cabin, making their way inside to get ready to go into town. "I really think we should keep this quiet, right?"
Castiel looked appalled, "Why would we tell anyone? They're our dragons." Castiel sniffed derisively, looking as though the suggestion that any of them would tell someone outside of the four of them was absolutely insane.
Dean snickered, "No one is telling anyone not currently standing in this room, agreed?" Everyone nodded, and Dean continued, "Great, now let's all get presentable enough that we can go to this rock shop so we have something to take back to the dragon, or dragons, bright and early tomorrow!" Gabriel had already headed to his room to change, and now Dean did the same.
Sam and Castiel shared a look. Sam grinned, shaking his head, "They're going to be absolutely impossible now, aren't they?"
Castiel nodded, "Yes, but I think we will find them much more agreeable from here on out. That could definitely be useful. On the downside, I think this might mean we'll be eating more frozen food than we would care for."
"Ah well, I suppose some compromises will have to be made," Sam said as he and Castiel parted ways to change clothes quickly. Five minutes later they were headed out of the door and into the car, trying to make sure they got to the store with plenty of time. They spent much of the car ride speculating how many of the Beag Dragan might actually be living in the clearing.
"If there were at least ten of those dens in just that clearing, how many more might there be just on our property? Or on the whole mountain?" Gabriel said, moving his hands around expressively in his excitement.
"There could be quite a number of them over that much space. We have no way of knowing. Considering everything I have ever heard or read about dragons, it was almost too easy to find one," Castiel pointed out as they pulled up to the shop Sam had mentioned to them. The name of the shop was painted above the doorway, saying simply 'Jasper Ville Rock Shop'.
"They aren't very inventive around here with names, are they?" Gabriel grumbled, slightly put off by the lack of effort in naming things. Almost every small store in town had the word 'jasper' in the title somewhere.
"As long as they have what we're looking for, I don't really care much," Castiel grumbled lowly as they walked into the small store. There were low tables and shelves all over the shop, which was actually much larger than it had originally seemed to be, with two different rooms full of all different sorts of stones in different shapes and sizes. "Yes, I think this should do nicely."
The four of them made their way into the shop, Castiel and Dean breaking off to inspect the second room while Sam and Gabriel stayed in the first. All was going well until Sam heard the one voice he had hoped to manage to avoid for the rest of the trip.
"Hi Sam! Hi Gabriel! What brings you two here? I didn't think I would see you again quite so soon!" Becky exclaimed as she came to a stop just on the other side of the table of stones Sam had been inspecting. The girl looked as insane and slightly mousy as ever, her voice seeming even more annoying than it had seemed the day before.
Gabriel counted back from ten mentally before he answered her, Sam having already moved slightly behind Gabriel, once again attempting to use him as a shield. "Hello Becky, we just thought we would come check out the store. I guess you work here?"
The girl smiled brightly at them, "Yes, I work here! Do you need help finding anything? We have a little bit of everything..." the girl trailed off, eyes zeroing in on Sam, who let out a small frightened noise.
Gabriel smiled back sarcastically at her, "No, I think we're good, but thanks. Our brothers are in the other room, though, you might see if they need help."
Becky nodded enthusiastically, "Sure thing! Just holler if you need anything, Sam!" She flounced into the other room, almost knocking over a set of shelves on her way.
Sam sighed in relief, dropping his head forward onto Gabriel's shoulder, "Good thinking, maybe she'll get attached to Dean and leave me alone."
Gabriel snorted, "Good luck. Normally I might be insulted that she doesn't really acknowledge my presence, even when I'm the one talking, but in her case, I'm actually kind of glad. Completely insane, that one."
"Don't suppose we could feed her to the dragons?" Sam mumbled into his shoulder.
Gabriel chuckled quietly, picking up one of the small stones from the table in front of him. "I guess we could. Dean might have killed her before we ever got that far…and you never know, the poor things could get horrible indigestion from her. Then Castiel would be annoyed, and if Castiel is annoyed Dean will be annoyed, and we won't be any better off."
"Why would Castiel be annoyed, exactly?" Castiel said as he poked his head through the door way that led to the other room. He glanced over his shoulder before turning back to them and moving into the room. "Dean is momentarily containing the girl..."
"Containing?" Sam asked, lifting his head from Gabriel's shoulder to look at his friend a small smile twitching on his lips. "Why is Dean 'containing' her?"
Castiel made a frustrated sound, "She isn't very useful, is she? And she keeps asking stupid questions. We should find what we need and leave, before she tries to invite us all out to dinner, again!"
Sam and Gabriel exchanged a horrified look before beginning their search for dragon appropriate treasures in earnest. "Alright," Gabriel mumbled, "What do dragons like?"
Sam glanced at Gabriel in disbelief, "Shiny things. I thought we'd covered this? Things like amethyst that's still in its natural rough form…Maybe moonstone? That's pretty, and it changes color in light, so they might like that… It doesn't all have to be in the rough form, but we should at least get a few of them like that."
"So any type of quartz would be good, too, right?" Gabriel asked, picking up several quartz points.
Sam grinned at him and Castiel nodded. Five minutes later they had a pile at the counter of several rose quartz, clear quartz, and smoky quartz points. There were also several rough chunks of amethyst. They'd gathered some labradorite, moonstone, sunstone, malachite, and agate as well. It turned out to be perfect timing, because a rather flustered and irritated Dean stomped back into the room with a happily smiling Becky trotting behind him. Dean gave Castiel a withering look as Becky flounced behind the counter.
"Are you sure you guys don't need anything else?" Becky asked them cheerfully, grinning at them.
The rest of them tried not to cringe, but Castiel merely shooed the rest of them out to the car, muttering about how he would handle it.
Dean and Sam hurriedly made their way to the door, Gabriel not far behind. Dean leaned heavily on the car and stared at Sam for a moment. Sam raised his eyebrow and tilted his head to the side slightly, "What?"
"I have a new appreciation for how calmly you handled her yesterday. I thought I was going to have to strangle her to get away. And Cas actually left me in there with her alone!" Dean said, moving his hands about as if he might be trying to explain it further with the appendages.
Sam snorted, "Yes, because hiding behind Gabriel is handling her."
Dean shook his head, "I don't know how one girl can be so annoying. I'm extremely glad I'm not the one she's interested in."
Gabriel's eyebrows vanished into his hair line, "Do you mean to tell us she spent that entire five minutes grilling you about Sam?"
"Pretty much. That doesn't make her any less terrifying though. She spent almost two minutes of it trying to convince me that we should all go to her place for dinner," Dean said with a shudder.
Castiel came out of the store then, carrying two bags full of the stones, "She's quite persistent, isn't she?"
Dean pointed his finger menacingly at Castiel as they got into the car, "You left me in there alone with her!"
"Don't be so dramatic, Dean. Out of the four of us you are best equipped to deal with an insane woman. You handled the situation wonderfully," Castiel informed him as he sat next to him in the front passenger seat that had unofficially become his designated spot.
"I don't even want to know how you decided I was the best equipped for that. I just don't," Dean groaned, shaking his head.
Castiel shrugged, humming as he sorted through the stones in the bag. "So tomorrow we'll take these to the clearing, and hope for the best I suppose. We can leave a few of them in the middle of the clearing if none of the dragons are there. With that many dens, there has to be more than one."
"You would certainly think so. Hopefully the stones will make up for us looking in the den. Maybe they won't be feeling vengeful," Sam mumbled from the back seat.
The rest of the ride back to the cabin was fairly quiet, consisting of only a short argument about what they should do about dinner. Dean and Gabriel won out with putting a couple of the frozen pizzas in the oven.
"It's not like it will kill the two of you to eat junk food occasionally. We even have a supreme one that has pretty much all the food groups," Dean said pointedly.
"I am relatively certain that the grease content in those pizzas will outweigh any healthy parts there might be to them. Besides, we have already agreed, so it is pointless to continue pointing this out. You and Gabriel are in charge of not burning the pizzas," Castiel informed him as he made his way into the study that had officially been dubbed 'Dragon Head Quarters'.
Sam trailed after him, ruffling Gabriel's hair as he walked past, "Just set the timer. You think you two can handle that?"
Gabriel huffed, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to get it to lay flat again. "Yes, we can handle it. Ass."
"For fuck's sake, please quit commenting on his ass! Honestly!" Dean said rolling his eyes.
"I wasn't!" Gabriel exclaimed, going into the kitchen with Dean and turning on the oven. "Just because you have a fascination with people's asses, doesn't mean I do."
They spent the next twenty or so minutes harassing each other and obsessively checking the timer. They both knew that neither one of them would ever hear the end of it if they managed to burn something two days in a row. They had a quiet dinner, and then Gabriel and Dean spent the rest of the night generally annoying their younger brothers. Sam and Castiel spent the evening trying to research the dragons they were going to try and track down again the next day, and didn't particularly appreciate all of the attention.