I don't own references or characters you recognize from other fandoms. I own the dragons, the bad guys, and the special guest.
Please review, and I apologize for the rather large cliffhanger I left you with.
11 – The Burning Horizon
As it were, it only took a week for all hell to break lose. And it literally looked like hell outside.
Both Kurt and Blaine woke up, convinced that something was happening to their baby, and looked out the window. Since it was Kurt's house, Kurt got to sleep in his own bed, but due to a nine out of ten challenge of rock-paper-scissors, Rachel had won the spot next to him in bed, and Quinn and Blaine were subjected to extra comforters and pillows on the carpeted floor.
Quinn made sure to check for monsters under the bed for Blaine, who was convinced Kurt hid some pretty weird stuff under there ("Hopefully Merlin's not hanging out down there either." "He's not, Blainey…" "Bugger.").
Kurt went to the window as soon as he could and opened the blinds, making the room glow crimson. Outside, it looked like all hell had broken lose: the skies were covered in what looked like fire, but the town seemed normal enough. Nothing was on fire, it just looked like they were now in the city of Lima, Ohio, but it had moved to a deepest pits of fiery hell.
Rachel and Quinn had been roused from sleep, but were awake as soon as they noticed what was going on. And the four mobilized: rushing into day clothes and getting together backpacks of everything they might need for another journey into the Rift. Rachel even handed out raisin-cinnamon bagels as they hurried onward.
"Rachel, you try to sing to calm the dragons down, if that doesn't work, just come find us in the Rift," Kurt said as they bolted out the front door and down the sidewalk towards WMHS. "Blaine, Quinn and I will be either on our way to the castle, or already there."
He unlocked the door to the school, as it was a Saturday morning (morning? No one could really tell with the blazing inferno above them), and let everyone inside. Rachel immediately began to hum, but when the force behind her song wasn't working, she broke out into every female-sung show-tune she could find in her head. Blaine, Quinn and Kurt found themselves humming along as they traversed the hallways toward locker 113. When they got there, they noticed the dragons behind the opening of the Rift, pouring fire and smoke through it.
Instead of going through the waterfall effect into the Spirit World, Blaine felt like he was going through a block of cooled smoke. The fire didn't have any temperature, but it sure looked freaky. He wondered if everyone could see what was going on, or if it was still selective only to students and faculty of WMHS. When he looked around, he saw that the sky in the Spirit World was the same as the human world: with a sky doused in temperature-less flames. He looked behind him, trying to grab for Quinn's hand, but she hadn't gone through.
"Wait! Kurt!" he called, "Quinn hasn't come through yet!"
"Leave it! She's in good hands!" Kurt yelled back.
Blaine took one last look at the smoking entrance and ran to catch up with Kurt. As he did, he noticed that after only three steps, they seemed closer to the great, towering castle that had once been in the distance. A few more steps and Kurt was opening the great doors of the moat-less structure.
"Careful… in the Spirit World, we become on the same level as the spirits, so they don't usually drift through us. Meaning you could smack into a spirit just as you can smack into anyone in the hallway on a busy school day," Kurt said as they ran through the halls. "Throne room, throne room, throne room," he chanted nervously, finally taking some stairs.
Kurt had a little less stamina than Blaine, who was on the soccer team, and so he paused at random intervals to catch his breath. At each pause, Blaine would try to get some words in, anything to make the other boy relax, but Kurt was quick to recover and would only start running again, chanting "Throne room," as he ran.
Finally, they found the largest room in the giant stone castle. Before Kurt went in, though, he caught his breath and turned to Blaine. "Dragons are usually sweet creatures, but I would be careful, as this is the Dragon King, and he seems to be under the spell of something dark. If something happens to me, just run, okay?" Kurt asked. "You find Rachel and Quinn, you three find Jeremy, and you figure out what the hell is going on, all right?"
"Kurt," Blaine said almost feverishly, "I'm not leaving here without you."
"Jeremy doesn't need us anymore, remember? If something happens to me, he'll be fine," Kurt hissed.
But Blaine shook his head, "But I won't."
Kurt put his hands behind him as he felt the wall. Blaine had him literally against the wall. He felt the other's hands press into the wall as both flattened themselves against it. Blaine continued talking, "I know you want to be the hero, but… But I can't stand the fact that you feel you've got nothing to live for."
"I live for myself," Kurt replied, feeling a bit like a cornered animal. "I don't need to live for anyone else."
The look on Blaine's face made Kurt's stomach churn. Blaine looked like a kicked puppy, and he shook his head again. "And so, because you live for yourself, you're willing to die?"
"If that's that I have to do," Kurt replied.
Blaine stared into the other's blue-grey-green eyes and found himself gravitating towards them. Kurt would have flinched away, but the heat between them had grown immensely and he couldn't tear himself away from Blaine's intense brown eyes. Kurt could feel Blaine's breath against his lips, but before totally closing the gap, Blaine said, "If this doesn't change your mind about who to live for, then I'm sorry in advance…"
And then the gap between them was closed, but only briefly. Once Blaine had pulled away without Kurt getting in edgewise, Kurt threw his arms around Blaine's neck and pulled him in for another kiss, and Blaine allowed the kiss to go on longer than the first one had before pulling away.
"As long as you live, Blaine… I won't die…" Kurt said, grinning impishly at him.
Blaine smiled for the first time that day. "Well then. If that's the case… allons-y!" he said, making a motion for Kurt to lead them into the throne room.
Kurt moved out from him position of being pinned against the wall and ducked into the room. Blaine followed, marveling at the sheer size of the room. He had never been to Europe, so he never actually seen a ballroom up close before. Of course, Dalton Academy had been pretty posh for a private school, and since they were pretty much east of the Mississippi, the school had a ballroom… but this room was like something out of Merlin or something.
At the end of the room, though, was an interesting piece of architecture, which looked something like a bed hanging in midair. When Blaine looked closely at it, four tiny dragons were buzzing furiously to keep the bed thing up, for on it was a motionless black dragon, snoozing in the Spirit World sky. "Beautiful, isssssn't it?" collective voices said as Kurt and Blaine watched the sky outside. The voice didn't seem to come from the giant dragon on the bed.
"King Agatone," Kurt said, bowing slightly.
Blaine followed suit, but the old dragon simply sat up, sitting much like a large black dog. "Master Hummel…" Agatone said, smiling. His speech was slow, but then again, if he was the very first dragon, then he must be very, very old. "I see you have brought your mate…"
"Oh… this is just—" Kurt stopped himself, "Not yet a mate, Your Majesty. But we're getting there," he added, winking over at Blaine, who blushed.
"Ah, young love," King Agatone said, a hint of a smile on his face.
Kurt looked around, "Where is King Zacharias?" he suddenly asked.
"We took him…" the collective hiss said from behind the throne.
Blaine watched in horror as a dark cloud of… something-or-other came out of nowhere and settled itself (themselves?) on the Dragon King's shoulders like a scarf. "He wasss absssolutely… deliccccioussssss…"
"What are you?" Kurt asked, moving in front of Blaine as he spoke.
"Ssssssome call ussss Legion… but we prefer the term… Pandora," the creature(s) hissed, delighted.
Blaine gulped, "Either way you're pretty much viruses…" he said. "Legion is pretty much the Christian version of the Greek story of Pandora's Box."
The Pandora seemed to turn to him. Rather, the little electric looking shock in the black inky darkness of their form sparked in Blaine's general direction. "Precccccisssssely, human toy…" It said, coming close to them both before hissing away from them suddenly.
Absentmindedly, Blaine's hand went up to the silver canary pendent that still hung around his neck. Kurt, he remembered, always wore his mother's engagement ring on his left middle finger, and her wedding band on his right index finger. The bands were made of silver, while the engagement ring's stone was moonstone ("Mom always thought moonstone was lucky, since at one point in time, spirits only came out at night to visit loved ones before the world became industrialized…").
"They took him… ingested him. Just like that," Agatone sniffed.
The Pandora turned to him quickly and hissed, "And we'll do the ssssame to you if you don't shut up."
"Why are you here? Why do you need the Rift to open?" Kurt asked feverishly.
"Chaossssss dear boy…" the Pandora replied. Blaine swore the thing was trying to smile, but it was failing miserably. "We feed of chaosssss. We feed off energy… but asssstral dragon energy is just… not… enough. We need chaossss… and what better chaossss than ssssspirits being sssseen and heard by all of the human population? Not to mention it looking like their very own made-up hell?"
"What… happens when you get your fill of chaos?" Kurt asked, dreading the answer.
"Everything will be resorted to dusssst. Nothing will be sssspared…" the Pandora were now echoing each other, which was creepy in-and-of-itself. "The world will ccceasssse to exxxissst…"
"You can't do that… what will that accomplish?" Blaine asked.
"It'ssss jusssst for fun, dear boy," the Pandora replied, and something akin to a laugh followed the answer.
Blaine was taken aback. He was right, most things in the Rift and that came out of the Rift were either crazy, or sweet. Dragons? Sweet. Pandora? Freaking Insane.
Kurt turned around and grabbed Blaine's arm, "Run. We've got to find the others and warn them."
"But the Pandora are right here!" Blaine shouted.
"Run, Blaine. Dammit, do as you're told!" Kurt shouted.
Blaine ran from Kurt, who would have begun to run along side him…
… Had a cage not literally fallen from the ceiling. Kurt was immediately trapped beneath it, and Blaine, hearing the clatter of metal on marble, turned around. "Go!" Kurt shouted when he saw Blaine instinctively step toward him. "Find the girls. Just go!"
"I'm not just going to leave you in here, Kurt!" Blaine shouted.
"Dammit, Blaine," Kurt shouted, clutching at the bars of the cage. "Don't worry about me and save yourself. I… I don't know what I'd do without you…"
"I don't know what I'd do without you," Blaine shot back.
"I won't kill him," Agatone said, throwing the Pandora off his shoulders and, with liquid speed for an old-timer, flew off his bed-throne and curled himself around the cage. "The cage is made of silver, which the Pandora fear because of its purity," he said, looking at Blaine, "I would have caught you both to keep you safe… but I only have one. Go, Blaine Anderson. Save the Rift. I will keep your mate safe with me…"
Blaine bit his bottom lip, but went to the dragon and kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry about your mate, Your Majesty," he said quietly.
Agatone moved a little so Blaine could get to the cage. The King of Dragons hissed at the approaching Pandora. "You are weak, Agatone…" the Pandora hissed. "Taking care of lissssstlessssssss humanssss who would dare defy usssss. Let ussss remind you that you were the one who releasssed ussss."
"By accident and curiosity," Agatone hissed back, tightening his hold around the cage.
Blaine reached to Kurt through the bars and pushed a stray curl from his face. "I'll come back for you."
"Of course you will," Kurt replied, smiling as he clutched the silver bars. "Find the girls. Find Jeremy. Come back for me, eradicate the Pandora…"
"It sounds so easy…" Blaine replied, chuckling heartbreakingly.
Kurt smiled and put two fingers under his chin, "I love you."
Blaine's eyes widened and he wished the bars of the cage weren't pressed so close together so Blaine could kiss the other boy. Instead, he took the other boy's hand and laced their fingers together for a short moment. "I love you too."
Then Kurt looked to the Dragon King, "Now go," he hissed.
Blaine nodded, and escaped the dragon's grip by leaping over his great black tail. He ignored the hissing from the Pandora and ran out the great door, through the hallways, down some stairs, and out the door he and Kurt had entered, out into the outside world with its blazing sky…
"It's not working," Rachel said, finishing up 'Part Of Your World' from The Little Mermaid, "Nothing's worked. I've sang everything in my arsenal from Sondheim to Disney, and the bloody sky is still consumed in flame…"
Quinn wrapped her arms around Rachel, "It's all right… sometimes… sometimes there's something or someone stronger than us out there… Let's go in there and find the boys and try to stop this some other way…"
Rachel blinked back some tears of frustration and nodded, following her girlfriend into the locker. They left it open, and Rachel led the way toward the castle in the distance. It only took the girls about two steps before…
…Blaine ran out, knocking straight into Quinn. His collision caused them both to go down, Blaine's apologies shrill even as he noticed he was falling on top of his best friend. "Shit! I'm sorry, I'm really sorry!"
"Calm down, Blaine!" Quinn said, "I'm fine, I'm fine. What's wrong with you, though? You look like you've seen a ghost!" Blaine gave her a sarcastic stare and she laughed sheepishly, "All right, shut up, Anderson," she replied, rolling her eyes.
"But what happened?" Rachel asked, "And where's Kurt?"
Blaine explained to the girls about everything that had happened since he had left them outside the Rift. He explained about the Pandora, about the cage and about the King's promise to protect Kurt. He left out the kissing part, however. The girls couldn't waste his time screaming and congratulating him about it. As much as Blaine trusted the Dragon King (What? He wasn't burning a hole into the Rift to open it!), he wanted to find Jeremy and fast. There was no telling what the Pandora could do to the Spirit world, the human world… and most of all to Kurt and Rachel and Quinn and his sister and—
"All right… where is that blasted son of yours?" Quinn asked, looking up in the sky. She covered her eyes against the blaze above them and sighed.
"No… Quinn and I will go in to the castle to find out some clues… as long as we stay out of sight to the Pandora, and away from the throne room, we'd have better chances…" Rachel said, going to push the door open.
Suddenly, darkness seeped out of the cracked door, but it was too late for Rachel to instinctively slam it again. The world seemed to black out for Blaine, who yelled out into the darkness, but nothing came out of it. They were trapped in the inky dark. And hope was shattered.
"Oh, shit!" Quinn called out. She suddenly felt a warm hand enclose around hers. At the contact, she could suddenly see the other person, and she smiled. "Rachel…"
Rachel smiled at her, "Wow… this is like nothing that's ever happened. I can't see anything else… and only when I reached out and touched you could I actually see you…"
Quinn looked around her, her lower lip quivering. "Are we… are we going to die here, Rachel?" she suddenly asked.
Rachel glanced at her, her face full of worry for the other girl, "No, Quinn, Quinn, Quinn Fabray," she said, putting her free arm around the other girl and pulling her close. Quinn began shaking and crying, and soon her knees gave out and she pulled them both to the ground.
Rachel, now sitting on the cold ground, wrapped her arms protectively around her girlfriend and held her for a moment, murmuring to her that everything was going to be all right. She realized that, to some people, darkness and despair often came together. She herself was feeling pretty low as she sat there, spouting almost hypocritical things to Quinn. They were hypocritical in that Rachel hardly believed a word of it.
So the darkness around them wasn't just Darkness. It was Despair and Fear and… Chaos. Hadn't the Pandora wanted this? Was the Darkness going to spread out the opened Rift and into the world?
Rachel sighed. It was starting: the Pandora's world order of Chaos and Destruction. It was beginning, and Rachel was trapped in it. Kurt was missing, and Blaine was out there, probably feeling the same dread and sadness she and Quinn were feeling.
"Forget it," Rachel said. "We're doomed."
Blaine felt like he had hit his head. The pain spread through his whole body, and yet somehow, he felt numb. He glanced around him, but he could only see himself. Everything else was black. Not even inky midnight blue. Just pitch black. Isolation. Loneliness. Despair. He felt all of these things, and yet, he knew there was something he needed to do. A glimmer of something. He looked around him, twitching as he did, waiting for something.
Then he felt it. There was someone out there. "Hello!" he called out. "Hello?"
"No need to shout, Mama," a faint, faraway voice said.
Blaine saw flames in the distance and ran toward them, "Jeremy!" he called.
He ran for a long time, he thought, until he came to the end of the darkness, quite literally. He stopped, expecting a cliff, but then he noticed where he was. He was in the castle, on the parapets of a tower, looking down into the Darkness he had just come out of. Jeremy was up there with him, his head crooked. Blaine threw his arms around him.
"Let me guess… you're about twenty in human years now," he asked when he had stepped away and had given his son the once-over.
"Just about," Jeremy replied, giving him a rather nice dragon-grin.
"You're forgetting all about me," said another voice. It was higher pitched and rather lovely sounding.
Blaine turned and saw a woman who was taller than him, with soft brown hair braided at odd intervals and green-grey-blue eyes. Blaine had seen her before, and was shocked when she gave him a smile that sent shivers down his spine. "I'm Holly Hummel."
"I know," Blaine replied, wide-eyed.
In Your Future: (Finale - Pandora's Box) Resolution, Acceptance, Love, Friendship, and, whoa, did the Dragon King say Kurt and Blaine were mates? Did he mean the British slang for friends or the biological term for coupled animals?