They ran. But as Dean looked ahead at the endless prairie, his heart sank.

Where could they even go?

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

Another deafening screech sounded behind them as they pelted over the prairie. Dean cringed at the sound that came next; a gusting, wind-tunnel-like roar that seemed all too much like the sound of... a blast of fire. A millisecond later came a wave of searing heat on his neck and a whoomp sound of something bursting into flame... but nothing worse than that. Dean glanced behind, stumbling as he ran, to see that a long swath of grasses behind them had erupted in flame. But by sheer luck the flame had fallen just short of Sam and Dean. It seemed the dragon was still trying to pull its feet free of the earth, a little off balance, and had missed them slightly. Though there was now a line of flaming grasses a solid hundred feet long right behind them, sending a black curtain of smoke up into the sky.

The dragon shot another gigantic blast of flame toward them. This time Dean saw it happen, a searing blast of bright yellow flame shooting out of the thing's jaws for hundreds of feet.

Yet it missed by even farther this time. Another swath of grasses (and some of the fallen trees) erupted in flame, but this time the line of fire was a couple hundred feet away. The dragon had missed them completely this time, as if it'd been aiming blind.

"It lost us!" hissed Sam. He grabbed Dean's arm and pulled him farther over toward the dragon's tail, whispering, "The smoke!" Dean realized what Sam meant: The curtain of smoke from the first swath of burning grasses, and now the second one too, was screening them from the dragon's view.

It was likely to be the only stroke of luck they'd get. "Tree," gasped Dean as they ran. "Get to a tree—" For the only cover in sight for miles, of course, was the fallen trees that were now scattered all around, the trees that had originally been growing on the dragon's back. Their one shot was to get to a tree to hide behind before the smoke cleared.

Under cover of the smoke, Dean and Sam sprinted even faster, veering off their original course toward a few of the fallen trees. They passed the first two and dashed down behind the third, a gnarled old tree that was lying on its side. It wasn't very big (the trunk was only a few feet off the ground) but it was, at least, clothed in puffy red flowers that might make a semi-decent cover.

They crouched there behind the tree's thick trunk, panting in exhaustion. After a few moments passed with no more bursts of flame, Dean risked raising his head just enough to peer through the bright red flowers.

They'd gotten about half a mile away, but the massive dragon was so unbelievably gigantic that it still seemed that they were practically within arm's reach. The thing was the size of an ocean liner. As they watched, it finally pulled its last foot free of the ground and gave a gigantic body-shake like a huge dog, flapping its colossal wings a couple times as it did so. A blinding cloud of dirt and dust flew in all directions (the brothers had to duck their heads back down to avoid a few lethal-looking flying clumps of dirt). When the dust settled the dragon was slowly spreading the immense sails of its slate-grey wings, all tipped with black. Soon the wings began beating the air with tremendously powerful wingbeats that flattened all the grasses for miles around and made Sam and Dean's little tree shake. The entire animal, as unbelievably heavy as it must have been, somehow began to rise up into the air, forefeet and hindfeet tucking neatly underneath it.

"Some kind of magic?" Dean whispered to Sam. "That thing's way too heavy." It seemed like it shouldn't even have been able to stand up, let alone fly.

"Maybe physics is different here?" Sam murmured back.

No way to know; somehow the beast had gotten off the ground. It was even doing a fairly respectable hover, though each wingbeat was still causing such a hurricane of wind that Dean was pretty sure he could feel the actual ground shaking just from the wingbeats. Dean was trying his best not to feel awestruck, but he felt so infinitesimally tiny under the dragon's jaw-dropping wingspan that it was hard to even think of what to do next. It took him a while of blinking up at the wings before he realized that something about them wasn't looking like he'd expected: The dragon's wings were feathered. Rather than the bat-like wing membranes Dean had been expecting, the wings had feathers.

Though of course each colossal feather seemed at least the size of wind-turbine blade.

The celestial dragon hovered in the air a long moment, its great head moving around as it scanned the ground, the huge gusts of air fanning the grass-fires down below and still buffeting Sam and Dean. As the huge head pivoted around both brothers crouched a little lower; it was clearly looking for them. Dean could even make out a pair of tufted ears that were flicking forward and back, apparently listening for them as well.

But it could not seem to find Sam or Dean. Soon it roared in obvious frustration, this time with a trumpeting bugle-like sound.

Two answering sounds came from different directions: another bugle from the west where they'd caught a glimpse of the other celestial dragon, the black one, and also a lion-like roar from the northeast. "Oh, that's not good," whispered Sam. Two had been bad enough, but apparently there were three of the things.

Finally the celestial dragon spat another tremendous gout of flame out of its mouth, setting a patch of grass on fire apparently at random (again it seemed frustrated), and soon it began wheeling around to the side, starting a big, slow circle.

"Shit," whispered Sam. "It's looking for us." Indeed the thing was scanning the ground intently. The brothers wedged themselves a little farther under the tree as the celestial dragon cruised in as tight a circle as it could manage (this turned out to be about a mile in diameter). It did nearly a complete circle around them, but still it couldn't seem to see them. Finally it began to pass right overhead. Sam and Dean froze absolutely still under the red-flowered branches.

Great glittering silver eyes went by... then the vast dark shadow of the body, all in shades of grey and black... a glimpse of those awful silver talons... the huge wings blotting out nearly the entire sky. It seemed to take hours to cruise past. I thought I felt tiny before, thought Dean, hardly daring to breathe, but now I feel like a speck of dust. Finally the long tail went by (fringed on both sides with silver-grey feathers) and the celestial dragon moved on, scanning the prairie a few miles ahead.

Sam and Dean stayed as quiet as mice till it was at least a few miles away.

"That thing's a frickin' Imperial Star Destroyer!" whispered Dean at last.

Sam nodded and let out a quiet, shaky breath. "And we're the tiny rebel ship," he whispered back. They both wriggled around under the tree's branches to try to keep an eye on the dragon. "Tinier, actually. We're just the little rebels."

"You can be C-3PO," said Dean. "I get to be R2." He was trying to lighten the mood, of course, but it was probably a sign of how rattled they both were that Sam didn't complain about being assigned the role of C-3PO, and that Dean didn't pursue it with some Princess Leia jokes. All Sam said was, "Damn. It's turning. I was hoping it was leaving."

Sure enough the dragon was veering around in another great sweeping circle as it scanned the ground. It was finally far enough away that Dean at last managed to get a clear view of the whole shape of the thing: Two wings, four feet, was the basic body plan. Slate-grey wings, on a slate-grey body, all tipped with black wherever possible: black wingtips, black feet, a black muzzle, black edging on the tail, and even a delicate black stripe right down the middle of its back. The front feet, which were tucked up under its chest, seemed almost like eagle's feet, armed with gigantic curved silver talons. The back legs, trailing behind, looked more like a lion's paws, with no talons visible.

"Is it even a dragon?" Dean said. "We've met dragons before, and they didn't look like this. Also, it's got feathers."

"Yeah, and check it out its body, too," whispered Sam. "That's feathers or fur, right? Some kind of pelt." Sam was right; it wasn't just the wings that had feathers. The dragon didn't have reptile-like scales at all; its whole body was covered some kind of sleek-looking coating.

An awful possibility occurred to Dean as he watched the thing wheel around in the sky, its grey wings glinting like silver as they caught the light. "Could it possibly be some kind of angel?" he whispered to Sam.

The thing was feathered, after all.

And they were in Heaven.

Sam let out a little groan. "If that thing's an angel, then we're in trouble," he said. "Cause then it's some type we've never seen. Some gigantic type that's been buried for a million years."

"And that seems even more dickish that the usual type," added Dean.

Sam nodded, and he said, softly, "The guardians of the Crown of Heaven. Some special type, maybe? Cause I'm betting they've been stationed here forever to guard the Crown from whatever came through that gate. You know what..." Sam frowned, still peering at the celestial dragon in the distance. "I wonder if it might be where griffin legends came from, too."

Dean blinked at that, remembering how the old medieval bestiaries had drawn griffins: a feathered flying beast with two wings and four legs. It was the right basic layout, certainly. Eagle-like wings, eagle front feet with talons, lion back feet with the talons hidden... "Could be," said Dean, considering the idea.

Sam went on, "I'm kinda thinkin' this is the original 'dragon,' you know? That the other ones we met on Earth just took over the name. And... maybe dragons have been feathered all along and we never knew? Kind of like how dinosaurs turn out to have had feathers. What if 'griffin' was just another word for 'dragon,' all along?"

"Different words for a giant flying thing that can kill you," Dean summarized. "Okay. I can buy that. People see it zoom past and don't get much of a look before they get killed. They see wings, four feet, maybe they see the fire and maybe they don't, they slap a name on it. So... what else does the lore say about griffins?"

"King of all creatures," said Sam. "They guard precious things. They're a symbol of divine power and— oh, jeez. I just remembered. They're a guardian of the divine."

"Huh," said Dean. "Pretty good match. So is there any way to kill them?"

"Nope," said Sam.

"Fantastic," said Dean with a sigh. "Well, let's just call it a celestial dragon like Hannah said... and let's try to get the hell away from it." They watched the celestial dragon finishing a pass over to the farthest visible hill and turning around for another pass. Dean frowned, looking around to try to figure out where they could go. They'd been lucky enough to get a few minutes' respite here by the red-flowered tree, but what now?

There were a few other trees not far off. "Maybe if we go from tree to tree," Dean suggested, "keeping behind the smoke screen, and crawling down in the grasses, and once we get away—"

"Oh, shit," said Sam. He pointed behind them. Dean looked up to see the second dragon, the black one, zooming over the nearest hill. It had gotten much closer, much faster, than they'd realized. It didn't seem to have seen them yet but it was soon clear that this one had a different strategy; rather than trying to look for Sam and Dean, it seemed to be simply setting the prairie on fire everywhere it flew, coasting low and blasting out jets of flame at one patch of prairie after another. Soon it was close enough that they could hear the sound of each burst of flame, ominous hoarse hissing gusts of fire that sounded terrifyingly deadly.

The black dragon seemed to be hitting a lot of trees. Fallen trees were bursting into flame before it, one after another. After another moment Dean noticed it seemed to actually be zig-zagging to target specific trees.

Dean realized what it was doing. "Shit. It's trying to flush us out."

And soon enough it succeeded. One of its zig-zags happened to take it right toward Sam and Dean's tree. Dean was still blinking at it, barely able to comprehend how fast the thing was coming at them, when it opened its toothy mouth, the hoarse flame-roar sounded, and a wall of fire was looming right at them.

Sam and Dean scrambled out from under the tree and began running again, the tree erupting in fire behind them.

Two dragons and a third on the way. No more trees to hide behind. It was hopeless, and they knew it. But they ran anyway, because they couldn't give up; they had to at least try. They ran. They ran as fast as they could, they ran till their lungs were bursting and their hearts pounding, through that endless meadow of silvery grass, and this time they knew they were doomed. Dean heard a whoosh, whoosh behind him, and felt a puff of wind on the back of his head. Sam and Dean both veered to the side; the black dragon soared right by on their right, the wing actually blotting out the glowing sky over their heads. The size of it made Dean almost want to give up and just sit down and wait for it to destroy them. What could they possibly do against a behemoth the size of a skyscraper?

The black dragon had seen them; it had craned its head around. It was looking right at them. The mouth opened. Dean saw that spark of light shining within.

Yet it missed; the gout of fire went directly ahead of them.

"STOP!" yelled Dean. They screeched to a halt, just barely managing to pull to a halt before plowing right into the flaming grasses. Sam had to actually windmill his arms to keep from falling into the flames; Dean grabbed the back of Sam's pack and yanked him back. The dragon's momentum carried it on past.

But now the grey dragon was directly in front of them, hovering like a perversely immense hummingbird, beating its huge shining wings rhythmically. The wings flashed silver where they caught the light; it was almost blinding. Sam and Dean spun around, trying to dash back the way they had come, but now the black dragon had wheeled around to position itself behind them. The grey one roared out another jet of fire, again aiming it so that it hit nearly at their feet.

Somehow the grey one missed again. The black one tried again, and missed too.

But after a few more "misses," each "miss" corralling them neatly, Sam said "They're toying with us," and Dean knew he was right. The dragons had never been "missing." They were doing this on purpose.

Maybe it had been a while since they'd had some prey to play with. Maybe they wanted to have some fun.

Dean and Sam were half-hanging on to each other now, trying to dart here and there, evading the burning grasses where they could. "We gotta get to the arch!" said Dean. It was their only chance at all — try to get back to the arch, try somehow to re-open the Fire Gate — and of course it wasn't much of a chance. They tried to run in that direction, but the two dragons had them perfectly cornered now, and kept sending bursts of flame right in front of them, or just to the side, herding them here and there. The brothers also kept having to run to keep ahead of the walls of flame that were now creeping through the grass on all sides. "Bastards!" Dean muttered. He stumbled, and caught himself, and stumbled again, and realized he was very near the edge of exhaustion. His legs were getting heavy; his lungs seemed to be searing. He couldn't seem to get enough air any more, heaving for breath. Sam, next to him, was gasping heavily too. They were near the end.

Soon he and Sam had to stumble to a halt. They were neatly caught between walls of fire, with three lines of burning grass penning them in, in a triangle of flame.

All they could do now was stand there, turning in place, watching the black and grey dragons wheeling in the air around them, those vast feathered wings spread, tails lashing the air. Dean pulled out his pistol, and Sam his shotgun, and they fired several rounds at the dragons. They hit them, too. But the weapons had no effect. Instead the dragons merely started to swoop over them now and then, reaching their silver-taloned front feet down almost lazily, trying to snatch them up. Dean and Sam both had to duck and roll to escape.

"Hate... these..." Sam gasped, scrambling back to his feet. "...FUCKERS. HATE THEM."

"Me too," said Dean.

They were back-to-back now, waiting for the end. The lion-roar that they'd heard before sounded through the air again, much louder now. Dean glanced to the side and saw something like a black dart coming right at them. The third celestial dragon was arriving.

"Another one," said Sam. He sounded as if he were so tired he didn't even care.

"Friend of theirs, I guess," said Dean. Three celestial dragons seemed not much worse than two, after all; there really seemed to be nothing else to do other than watch the third dragon approach.

So this is how we die, thought Dean. Roasted alive by celestial dragons.

It had a certain ring to it.

"We tried," said Sam.

It was all he said, but the defeated sound of his voice almost made Dean want to cry. They'd tried. They really had. They'd tried their very utmost; they'd done their best.

Maybe the other hunters, and the orishas, would solve the Darkness problem without them?

Well, at least it was an interesting way to die.

The black and grey dragons let out some ear-splitting screeches and trumpets, greeting the third one as it approached, its wings beating the air ever faster. The lion-roar sounded again, from the third one.

"Make it quick," muttered Dean. It was one last prayer, really. To the missing God, maybe? To the universe...or, really, to Castiel. To his memory, at least. "Please. Let it be quick."

It wasn't quick.

The black and grey dragons seemed excited by approach of their friend; as it got closer they both raised their heads to call to it with those ear-splitting screams, and it answered with another series of throaty lion-roars as it approached, louder and louder. The grey dragon wheeled then, and charged right at Sam and Dean.

Dean knew right away, from the intent look in its shining silver eyes, that this time it wasn't going to miss. This time it meant business.

It opened its mouth.

Sam hurled Dean to the ground and flung himself over Dean.

Dean yelled, "Sammy, NO!" But it was too late. A terrifying blast of fire scorched right over both of them, lapping so hot at Dean's boots that Dean knew Sam must be taking a very bad hit. Again Dean screamed "NO!" and in the next moment many things happened all at once: a tremendously loud roar, a bolt of black lightning, a massive WHUMP, and a jet of cold air like a hurricane bowled Sam and Dean apart. Great silver claws snatched at Dean but there was another WHUMP and the claws seemed to miss, just grabbing at the edge of Dean's pack and then losing hold. He was flung several meters in the air, though, and saw a blur of feathers and talons and flame as he soared right over a swath of burning grasses. This'll be bad, thought Dean, and he hit the ground very hard, rolling roughly, the world spinning wildly around him. All the air blew right out of his lungs, and then he couldn't breathe at all. For a few awful moments all he could do was writhe helplessly in the prairie ashes, before finally he managed to suck in a few short, crippled wheezes. At last his lungs began working again and he managed to gasp in a breath of hot, smoky air.

Dean opened his eyes, finally able to breathe. He was lying in hot scorched grasses, coughing, his hands over his ears, his head ringing with the roars and screeches around him. The pack had cushioned his fall; somehow, improbably, he was okay. "Sammy!" he croaked, trying to scramble to his feet. At last he managed to draw a deeper breath and he yelled "SAMMY!"

But Sam was nowhere to be seen. All around was a sea of flaming grasses; it seemed nearly the whole prairie was on fire now. And whirling around him overhead was a great tumbling mass of feathers and wings, black and grey and white all tangled together in a blur, jets of fire shooting out in all directions, screams and roars and trumpets making the very air shake. Dean could barely make out anything through the choking smoke, but caught glints of the silver talons, flashes of teeth, and saw black jaws and shining fangs snapping at a silver-grey tail.

The three dragons were fighting over them. Like cats fighting over a mouse, each one wanted to have its own little prey item to play with. But there were three dragons, and only two little humans, so one of the dragons would have to go without a toy.

Fighting over who gets to eat us, Dean thought, staggering around, trying to see anything through the smoke. "SAM!" he hollered, desperate to find his brother. "SAMMY!" At last the smoke cleared a little, and Dean saw him. Sam was sitting up about a hundred yards away, blinking a little. Just sitting there in the ashes looking at one of his hands. He was alive! Dean sprinted over.

Indeed Sam was still alive, but as soon as Dean got close enough for a good look, Dean's legs went so wobbly they almost buckled. He had to take a deep breath and look away for a moment before he took the last few steps to Sam and sank to his knees next to him.

"Sammy," whispered Dean.

The whole left side of Sam's face, and his whole left arm, and the left side of his torso, had all been burned black. He was awake — his eyes were open — but he seemed numb, staring almost vacantly at his horrifically burned hand.

It was simply too awful to look at. For an eerie moment Dean actually could not decide whether it might be better to cut Sam's throat on the spot, before the pain set in. Before the dragons roasted them both even more... before the dragons tore them to pieces.

The Crown destroys, Dean remembered. The Crown destroys. In more ways than one: If Sam died here, so close to the Crown, he was dead forever.

"Sam?" Dean said again, touching Sam's good shoulder lightly.

Sam didn't answer.

Dean got Sam's good arm across his shoulders and staggered up, pulling Sam up with him. Sam still hadn't said anything, and he was breathing in fast shallow breaths now that seemed very unnatural. But he seemed able to move a little, so Dean helped him limp away.

The dragons were still fighting; in fact the fight had shifted away from them a bit, about a mile to the north. They're distracted, thought Dean. He started to hobble south, guiding Sam back toward the Fire Gate — really for lack of anywhere else to go. Maybe we can get away, he thought. Maybe Sam can still live. He'll be scarred... but maybe he can still live. People have survived worse. Maybe we can get back to the Gate while the dragons are distracted, and... and... and maybe Elegua will open it for us. Maybe the orishas can deal with the Darkness? Maybe we'll just go home, maybe I can get Sam to a hospital, and he'll be fine...

Dean knew there was no chance.

He pulled out his pistol. It was no use against the dragons, obviously, but there were enough bullets left for what he had in mind. Meaning, at least two.

Maybe soul-obliteration isn't the worst thing that can happen.

"Sammy?" Dean asked, the unspoken question clear.

"I don't want to die," said Sam, his voice just a rough rasp.

Dean put the pistol away.

They made their way slowly out of the burned area and began to limp slowly through the silver grasses, which were now shimmering in the wind, shining with light, almost as if they were already on fire. Into the fire, thought Dean. Now we know what it really means.

Into the fire.

The limping-away was only buying them a couple more pointless minutes, of course. There was more trumpeting, more lion roars, more commotion behind them, and then the silvery-grey dragon wheeled into view in front of them, apparently having taught its friends a lesson. Sam and Dean drew to a halt, Dean gasping for breath, Sam nearly passing out. Sam started to sink to his knees, the last of his strength failing him. Dean tried to hold him upright, but couldn't; Sam slid through his arms to the ground.

Dean stepped in front of him to try to shield him from the huge grey dragon.

The silvery-grey dragon opened its mouth and... a blistering jet of fire roared right over Dean's head, from behind him, toward the grey dragon, and then something huge and dark was rocketing overhead. A massive hand seemed to close around Dean and the ground fell away. A dragon had grabbed him, had actually grabbed hold of him, had snatched him up bodily, and it was taking him away to devour him somewhere else. Great feathery black toes were closed right around him, with enormous silver talons squeezing so securely he could barely breathe. This time he was not dropped, and instead he was lifted up, up and away.

After about thirty seconds of flying, Dean began to wish the dragon would just crush him, or eat him immediately, just to put him out of his misery, for the flight was beyond terrifying. I hate flying, Dean thought, closing his eyes. I hate flying, I hate flying, I hate flying... And of all the flying he'd ever had to do, this was by far the worst. The dragon was banking its wings this way and that, veering here and there with such sudden and violent changes of course that Dean's head started slamming onto the sides of the talons, so painfully that he saw stars. He was soon nauseous. Jets of flame were still shooting past at intervals from the other dragons, earsplitting shrieks threatened to shatter Dean's skull, and there wasn't a single thing he could do other than cling to one of the big feathered toes.

Eventually, during a very brief moment of level flight, Dean spotted Sam. Sam was in the other foot! Dean was in the beast's left front foot, and Sam was in the right front foot. Dean couldn't decide whether this was good or bad, but at least it was somewhat comforting to know where Sam was. Though... Sam was completely limp, his head and the terribly burned arm and one leg dangling down loosely in the air through the animal's feathered toes. "Sam," Dean croaked, but Sam made no reply.

Dean forced himself to try to look around. All he could see was white belly feathers above, and the black feet, and occasionally glimpses of wings that seemed mostly black. Not the grey dragon, Dean thought. Not the all-black one either. Apparently it was the third dragon, the new one, who had won the fight and grabbed the tasty prizes. And it was flying somewhere safe to tear them apart; somewhere out of range of the other dragons.

This white-bellied one seemed a much smaller dragon, for its taloned feet were only a few meters across. Unfortunately that didn't make it any less terrifying. The smaller dragon seemed all too agile, and its main flight strategy seemed to be to zigzag here and there with sickening changes of velocity, apparently trying to get its prey away from its bigger siblings by virtue of sheer agility. The brief moment of level flight ended soon enough, when it soon began soaring up, plunging down, jerking left and right, and launching into wild barrel rolls, apparently to avoid the two great behemoths, the black and the grey, who were still gliding into view on either side now and then. Dean was beyond terror now, and soon he was barely even able to keep on clinging to the toe he'd been hanging on to, for he was shaking so badly with sheer exhaustion that his hands were actually losing their grip entirely. He could barely even breathe through the rush of air in his face.

Eventually the white-bellied dragon did a terrifying freefall vertical plunge straight toward the ground, pulling out of it at the last second with such extreme g-forces that Dean saw black spots swimming in his vision. Trees went whipping by, and foothills too; they seemed out of the prairie and into some kind of forest. The bigger dragons couldn't quite follow this maneuver, and Dean saw the black one hit the ground awkwardly, pancaking down into the trees with its wings spread, where it let out an annoyed bellow and another jet of flame. The grey one was still accompanying them, though, and soon the white-bellied dragon did another crazed dive at the ground, this time spinning so wildly that Dean actually threw up. He managed to spit out most of the bile and closed his eyes, just trying to breathe. He could only wish it would all end soon. On the next dive Dean blacked out.

Dean awoke to find himself sprawled on the ground, choking on bile, his head still spinning. It took a while to even figure out which way was up; at last he managed to roll over to his hands and knees, still retching. The now-familiar sounds of a dragon fight were still echoing in the distance.

He finally managed to draw a shaky breath and raised his head, and was astonished to discover that Sam was lying on his stomach only about twenty feet away. Amazingly, Sam was stirring, his feet moving a little; he was still alive! And better still, they were in the forest now, near what looked like another jumbled stony ruin, this one much bigger than the one by the Fire Gate. Cover, Dean thought, a faint glimmer of hope coming to him for the first time in the entire last hour. He wiped his mouth as he glanced around at the dim forest. The trees were so tall overhead that they were blotting out most of the sky; the ruins even looked semi-intact, some type of pyramid-like structure with high sloping walls and a ramp running around the outer wall.

Cover. We found cover. The dragon had to drop us, and we found cover. Though actually there wasn't much underbrush, but there were some doors visible in the ruins about fifty feet off the ground. Maybe they could get up that ramp? Maybe they had a chance after all? If they could get inside the ruins and find some place to hide...

Dean crawled over to Sam. "Sammy?" he said, his voice hoarse. "Sam?"

"Yeah," croaked Sam. Dean helped him sit up.

Dean had been rather hoping the burns weren't as bad as he'd first feared, but actually they seemed worse. They were horrific. Sam had third-degree burns over at least a quarter of his body if not more. The backpack had shielded him from some of it, but his arm, the side of his torso, half his neck and half his face were... black.

"How bad," whispered Sam. "How bad am I?"

"Uh," said Dean, trying to give him a smile. "You'll be... fine."

Sam closed his eyes. Dean thought, I'm not gonna ask him if it hurts.

Dean said, "We just gotta... "

Just gotta sit here and die.

"Why don't you drink some water," said Dean, scrabbling at Sam's pack. He managed to inch it off Sam's back, trying not to wince too obviously when he realized that one of the nylon straps had melted onto Sam's shoulder. Sam seemed in shock; he barely even seemed to notice when the nylon pulled free.

Most of Sam's gear had been lost or ruined by the fire. The shotgun was long gone. The water bottles had melted and burst. Dean dug a water bottle out of his own pack and held it to Sam's mouth, trying to keep his own hands from shaking. There were some pain pills, too, in Dean's little med kit; he gave Sam a fistful of those, knowing full well that they wouldn't do a damn bit of good. He thought of making a token effort at dressing Sam's wounds, too, but all he seemed able to do was stare at Sam's horribly burned arm and shoulder for a while, thinking, Vaseline? Antibiotics? Damp gauze? He didn't have any of those anyway.

We just gotta get going, Dean thought at last. He quickly rearranged his pack, stuffing in what little of Sam's gear he'd been able to salvage. At least the demon-blade was still intact; Dean jammed it into his belt.

And then came a sound Dean had been dreading. Whup, whup, whup.

A dragon, flying nearby.

Worse still, there a crashing noise as if the thing had come down through leaves. Dean could even see a tree shaking, not far away, and a glimpse of black feathers. A dragon had landed; a dragon was here.

It was looking for them.

"We gotta hide," whispered Dean to Sam. He threw the pack on and tried to pull Sam up. Sam seemed very woozy now, almost sliding into unconsciousness. "Sam!" Dean hissed in his ear. "Stand up! Walk!"

Somehow he caught Sam on his feet. He could hear crashing nearby now, and even caught a glimpse of motion, only a few hundred feet away. The dragon was walking around, snuffling noisily. Probably trying to sniff them out. Dean looked around, still trying to brace Sam as best he could. If the dragon was actually walking through the forest, they couldn't hide in the trees.

The ruins. They'd have to go into the ruins. They had to get into one of those doors. The doors seemed small, human-sized; the dragon wouldn't be able to follow them.

Dean began dragging Sam over to the ramp that led gradually up around the sides of the pyramid. Sam was trying his best to walk, but it was a struggle. They stumbled up the ramp, painfully slowly. Sam was losing strength already, his feet dragging. Dean coaxed him along with whispers: "C'mon, Sammy. C'mon, just a little farther. You can do it. Don't give up on me now, Sammy, don't you dare, c'mon now..."

Sam was shaking all over. Dean knew they'd be lucky if Sam could walk even another fifty yards.

And then they came to a gap in the ramp.

They'd made it only partway up, to a sort of little flat landing that was nearly at tree-top height. It turned out the ramp had crumbled here; big stones had fallen down from a collapsed section of wall up above and had crushed the next section of ramp completely, knocking a big hole right through it. There was at least a twenty-foot gap, far too much to jump across.

They'd have to climb right up the sloping wall. For a few deluded moments Dean even managed to convince himself it was climbable. There were a few outcroppings in the ancient wall that would make some handholds and footholds, maybe. There were even some handy boulders sitting nearby, left over from the rockfall, to use as steps to get going. I just gotta get Sam started, Dean thought, pushing Sam at the wall. I'll push him up the wall and I'll go up next and we'll get in a door and then...

Then what?

"C'mon!" Dean hissed. "You gotta climb! You gotta!" Dean tried to almost shove Sam up the wall, even trying to place his hands for him, but Sam whispered "Can't." Sam slid down, his unburned side against the wall, knees folding, staring dully in front of him.

Dean knelt to try to get him up again, cradling the unburned side of Sam's face in one hand. But Sam's eyes had sagged closed. His breathing was getting shallower.

"Sammy, please, no—" Dean said.

Then Dean heard a huff of air behind him.

It sounded extremely close.

Very, very slowly, Dean stood, and turned, and there it was. A celestial dragon. An immense head rising right out of the trees, right next to the ramp, a mere twenty feet away. It was the smaller one, the white-bellied one that had taken them on that terrifying flight, come back at last to claim the prizes that it had dropped. "Smaller" turned out to be only a relative term; the thing seemed enormous close up like this. It was standing with its feet still on the ground some thirty feet below, but it was nearly at eye level to Dean. Its head alone was almost the size of the Impala, each vast glittering sapphire eye a couple feet across. An array of serrated teeth could be glimpsed at the edges of its mouth, with two particularly impressive-looking fangs at the corners.

It was looking right at him.

It had found them.

Dean took one step back on stiff legs, trying to position himself in front of Sam. What can we do, what can we do? There had to be something to do — there was always something — something always happened at the last minute —

Cas would come to save them —

But Cas was long gone.

Dean did the only thing he could think of; he pulled the demon-blade out of his belt, aimed, and threw. It killed demons, after all... maybe it would work? Maybe this thing was a demon?

But no. The dragon flinched at the motion of Dean's arm, and jerked its head. The blade only sank into the flesh of the animal's cheek, not into the eye as he'd hoped. And it didn't kill it. It didn't kill it at all.

The dragon's vast eyes widened and it turned to the side and snorted out a great spurt of flame. Dean had the oddest impression that it was laughing.

It turned its head away for a moment, rubbing it on the edge of one wing, and when it turned back, the demon-blade was gone, only a trickle of blood marking the location where it had struck.

Dean had only succeeded in amusing it.

A set of massive silver claws appeared right at the cliff edge, just a few steps away. The dragon had put one huge forefoot on the edge of the cliff face, to Dean's right. The other forefoot appeared, on Dean's left. Each black feathered toe was nearly the size of Dean's torso, the long shining claws the size of scimitars.

It lifted its left foot toward Dean, spreading the gigantic claws. It started to open its jaws.

It's over, thought Dean. This is it. This is where we finally die. It's finally over.

He felt Sam tugging faintly on Dean's leg. Without even having to look, Dean knew that Sam wanted Dean to flee, and wanted Dean to try to save himself. But even if Dean could bear to leave Sam (at least just to continue the completely hopeless quest to fight the Darkness if for no other reason), where would Dean even go? The thought of climbing the wall had been insane. The dragon would just pluck him up like a bug.

"We're going down together, Sammy," Dean said.

Dean looked into the beast's glittering sapphire eyes and tried his best not to shake too obviously. Sorry, Cas, he thought, putting one hand over the feather in his pocket. I tried.

The dragon let out a sort of low purring growl.

Then it reached out the great feathered foot. Dean tried to back up, but the claws just closed around him, like a cage, and...

... pulled him away from Sam, slowly shoving him to the side. It held him there, off to the side, while the thing reached its toothy jaws to Sam.

"No," Dean said, suddenly frantic. He'd been ready to die with Sam, but he was not ready to see Sam die first. "No—" he begged, struggling desperately against the huge claws, watching that huge head glide over to Sam. "No, NO, take me, take ME—" The dragon was going to kill Sam first. It was going to kill Sam, and eat him, and Dean was going to have to watch.

"NO!" Dean yelled, almost hyperventilating with panic. The feathered toes only tightened slightly around him, almost cradling him. Dean wanted to close his eyes, but he couldn't; he had to watch this last horrible thing, he had to be there for Sam, he had to see it happen... He had to. So he kept his eyes open, and he watched, helpless, sick, as the terrible jaws opened, those fangs glinting in the light, while Sam tried, weakly, to scuffle a little farther back against the wall. But Sam had no strength left, and nowhere to go, and then the dragon was right on him, sniffing his burned face.

The dragon opened its mouth, and—

It licked Sam.

It stuck a wide pink tongue out of its mouth, just like an enormous cat's tongue, and delicately licked the side of Sam's face. The burned side. Very slowly, as if gently tasting him. Lick, lick, lick; over Sam's face several times, and over the top of this head, and his ear, and his neck.

The dragon pulled its huge head back for a moment and inspected Sam carefully with one vast sapphire eye, tilting its head sideways to get one eye up close to him.

Dean was still struggling so hard against the talons that it took him a minute to realize that the dragon, for some reason, had not gotten around to actually eating Sam yet. In fact... it was doing another bout of licking now. Dean paused, both hands still on a talon, watching in confusion.

"Dean... it's... it's..." said Sam. His voice seemed a little stronger.

The dragon licked Sam's neck. It did his shoulder, tilting its head to get its tongue over the bend of his shoulder. It began on his arm.

"It's healing me," Sam whispered. With every lick his skin had improved, the terrible black fading into patchy black, then to red blisters on the next lick, then the blisters fading away on the lick after that. Soon his skin was only a bright pink, like a sunburn, and the dragon licked him one more time and even the sunburn was gone. Even Sam's singed hair had straightened and gone back to its normal color.

The dragon kept going, licking all the way down Sam's arm. At one point it used one huge sword-like fang like a lever to pull Sam carefully away from the cliff face and turn him around. Sam had been burned on the back of his head and neck too, and the dragon licked him several times there. It licked his back, the back of his head, his ribcage, while Sam sat very still, staring up at the dragon, darting very confused glances at Dean now and then. At one point the dragon rolled one huge eye toward Dean and opened its talons, releasing Dean from his cage. Dean was too confused to even know what to do, and he just stood there with his mouth open, watching a gigantic celestial dragon lick his brother's face.

At last Sam pointed, a little hesitantly, to a spot on his neck that the dragon had missed. It leaned close and licked the spot immediately, and then looked at Sam again, as if waiting for guidance.

Sam pointed to his hand. "Between the f-fingers?" Sam said, his voice shaking a little. His fingers had been badly burned, and apparently the dragon had not managed to lick between all the fingers. The dragon eyed his hand for a moment, made a smooth move forward and closed its mouth completely around Sam's hand, engulfing it up to the elbow. Sam flinched a little at the sudden motion, but the dragon just held Sam's arm in its mouth for a long moment and released him unharmed a moment later. Sam spread his fingers, staring at his hand. It was fully healed.

Sam and Dean stared at each other for a moment.

"It healed me," said Sam. He patted his face with both hands, and ran a hand down his arm. "Dean, I'm, I'm, I'm fine, the pain's gone, I'm fine!" He got to his feet, a little unsteady, looking down at himself in disbelief.

"Maybe it just doesn't like its food burned?" said Dean, so numb with relief and confusion that he couldn't seem to take it in. Sam was okay? Sam was okay? All Dean could do was stare at Sam for a long moment. At last Dean glanced back at the dragon, which had put both feet back against the cliff, bracing itself there, looking back and forth between them both. Dean said, not thinking the dragon could understand, "What the hell are you up to... are you just gonna kill us somewhere else?"

The dragon shook its head.

Dean felt his mouth drop open.

Sam took an uncertain step forward and said, to the dragon, "You... understand us?"

The dragon nodded. It was absolutely unmistakable: a single, slow, deliberate nod.

There was something very eerily familiar about that nod.

Now it was just staring at him with those huge eyes. Those huge... sapphire... eyes... Blue eyes. Dean felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

"Who... are you?" Dean said, his voice hoarse. It can't be. It can't be.

The dragon looked at Dean steadily, and Dean felt himself mesmerized, almost falling into that unblinking gaze from those huge blue eyes. The dragon reared up then, sitting up on its haunches so that its front legs were dangling in front of its torso, almost like it was trying to stand vertically, like a human. It was almost twice the height of the trees around it. Then the dragon lifted its wings.

Vast, huge, magnificent black wings unfolded. Black as night, gleaming like dark silk. Every feather was tipped with shining gold, as if the very end had been dipped in gold paint. The wings spread up, arcing up over the dragon's head.

Dean was almost unable to think. His eyes tracked up and down the huge beast, taking in its steady gaze, its huge wings, and the colors, oh, the colors: Black wings with yellow tips... like those on the dream mountain. Black feathers on the dragon's sleek, dark head. Its hind legs were a glossy black as well. But it had a sort of mantle of golden-brown on the front half of its body, across the shoulders and down the forelegs, of a subtly patterned tan. Its belly was white; and it had a little ruff of blue around its neck.

Its eyes were blue.

It stood there, sitting up on its hind legs with those huge black wings flared up, looking at Dean.

Staring at him.

Dean couldn't breathe. He tried to say it; to say... the name... and found his throat had closed.

Beside him, Sam said "Dean..." He sounded awed.

"I know," said Dean.

"Dean... the colors. The colors, look at its feathers... Dean... Dean, look at its eyes..."

"I know," said Dean.

The dragon tilted its head, scanning the sky with one eye. (What is it like to be a winged creature, thought Dean, always having to scan for aerial attack?) Then it cocked one feathered black ear at him, and squinted its eyes.

It folded its wings back down, sank back down to all fours, and walked closer, right up to the edge of the cliff. Rearing up once more, it set its huge clawed forefeet on the edge of the cliff again, and bowed its immense head down, its smoke-tinged black snout just a few feet away, and it stared.

"Dean, if you don't say it, I will," whispered Sam.

Dean said, "Cas?"

He had to croak it out, feeling the ground dropping from under him.

Impossibly, unbelievably, the great dragon nodded. One slow nod.

It dipped its head even closer and opened its jaws again, and out came that huge pink tongue. It licked Dean, right over the face, almost suffocating him. It turned to Sam and licked Sam, too, and came back to Dean and licked him all over, licking each side of his face, and the top of his head. Dean's legs had buckled; he'd sunk to his knees. He'd started to cry. But the enormous black-winged dragon just licked the tears from his cheeks, as gently as an immense mother cat licking a kitten.

A/N -

:)

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