It was hours later that they emerged from the mines, unfortunately they had found no survivors but they had come across numerous dragonlings, littered among the giant spiders. Anders had gotten his drakestone and was eager to head back to get to work on it.
"Thank you, I wouldn't have asked just anyone to venture int here for me." Anders told Nero, "there is one more thing, but we must discuss it privately."
"Okay..." Nero raised an eyebrow in question.
"That's odd." Sebastian said.
Anders shrugged and lead the way down the path. They didn't get very far before they heard voices and Fenris motioned for them to hide behind a rock.
"Why are we hiding?" Anders whispered.
"It could be slavers." Fenris told him with a roll of his eyes.
"But...I can hear Hawke." Anders said.
Sure enough Hawke and Isabela strolled towards their position and, feeling like an idiot, Fenris came out of hiding to greet them, the others following.
"So, I see Hubert wasn't completely losing his mind." Hawke said, surveying the damage.
"Hubert?" Nero asked
"The other guy who owns the mines, he believed something bad had gone down here, it would appear he was correct."
"That doesn't explain why you are here, though." Isabela mentioned.
Hawke gasped, "don't worry Captain, if you want me all to yourself I can just send them on their way."
She eyed him appreciatively, "please do."
Before a blush could manage to completely take hold of him, Hawke was saved by Fenris, "the mage wanted drakestone for some project of his."
Hawke raised an eyebrow, "project?"
Anders groaned, "I was hoping to keep these to a small group of people but sure, everyone can know. I'm trying to separate from Justice and needed drakestone for a potion. Alright?"
Hawke put his hands up, indicating he meant no harm, "alright, alright. I was just asking. Maker."
"So if you were in the mines...did you happen to catch sight of what caused this mess?" Isabela asked.
Nero shook his head, "we didn't find any survivors either."
Isabela threw her hands up in disgust, "ugh, I was hoping you had done all the work for us."
"I think it's a dragon." Fenris said.
Hawke groaned, "why would you say that, Fenris? If I can't be one I don't want anything to do with them."
"Well...excluding the fact that we've killed one here before, we ran into dragonlings inside the mines." Fenris explained, "but if we find a dragon we'll keep very still and let you do all the talking, maybe it'll tell you how to become one."
Hawke scowled, "I hate you."
"It was a joke."
"But when you tell jokes they just feel like insults."
"The best jokes are insults, are they not?" Fenris smirked.
Isabela laughed, "he has a point."
"Maker's breath. Lets just find the damned dragon or whatever. You lot are coming, right?" Hawke asked.
"I wouldn't dream of making you face a dragon alone, Hawke." Sebastian told him.
"What am I, chopped onions?" Isabela asked.
"Well, with the way you drink and the smell that comes off of you when you do, it does make me want to cry." Anders smirked.
"That happens when you haven't had a drink in years. You can't stand it when someone else is having one." Isabela told him.
"That's not true, you don't make me want to cry when you drink." Sebastian reassured her.
"That's because you wont come near me when I drink." Isabela chuckled.
Sebastian frowned, "your very...inappropriate...when your drunk. I just prefer it to be from afar."
"Hey, wasn't that area blocked by a bunch of rocks before? Lets go!" Hawke interrupted cheerfully as he lead the way down a fresh path.
"If we run into a dragon, don't be offended if I run, screaming." Nero said.
"You would leave me to face a dragon with this lot of idiots?" Hawke teased.
"Yes."
"Harsh."
"This may come as a shock to you, but dragons are scary." Nero told him.
"Not when they are really old women."
"She wasn't just an old woman, Hawke. She was a witch." Fenris put in.
"Well yeah, how else would a woman turn into a dragon. Pfft." Hawke laughed.
"I don't think most dragons are old women." Nero grumbled.
"How many dragons have you met?" Hawke asked
"Not many."
"There you go."
"Ugh."
They reached the end of a path and found themselves in a large open space, surrounded by rocks and cliffs.
"Isn't that where we fought that dragon before?" Anders asked, pointing at a flat outcropping in the cliffs.
"I think-" Hawke began, he was interrupted by a dragon, much larger than the first one they had fought, flying over them from the way they had come to land in the center of the clearing and roared fire around itself before flapping its wings once and staring at them menacingly.
Hawke gaped for several seconds before he said simply, "fuck."
Nero turned to Hawke, amazement on his face, "you want us to kill that?" he asked incredulously.
"That's a High Dragon Hawke, I don't think they get much bigger than that." Sebastian said.
"Well, this should be a hell of a tale for Varric to tell." Hawke told them.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me." Nero said
"Nope." Hawke grinned.
"Freedom was good while it lasted, I suppose." Fenris grumbled.
"Come on now guys, we can't go after it thinking that we're going to die. We're just setting ourselves up for failure." Hawke tried to reassure them.
"No, that fucking dragon is setting us up for failure." Nero said.
"At least we'll die gloriously." Anders muttered.
"Well if we're going to try and kill it lets go, frig." Isabela said before she pulled her daggers from their scabbards and approached the beast.
The others trailed after her but Nero grabbed Fenris by the arm and pulled him back for a moment. Fenris was about to ask what he was doing but was interrupted by Nero's hands on his face and lips on his own. When Nero pulled away he was frowning.
"Lets try not to die, alright?" he said grimly.
Fenris nodded and they quickly joined the others. Hawke was in the front and hollered to get the dragons attention while Isabela skirted around the beast and stabbed it in the back of the leg, trying to sever the tendons, and failing.
The beast hollered and kicked Isabela away, she gracefully rolled till she was standing, but was disoriented for a few moments. Hawke smacked the dragons face with his shield and they heard a growl escape it before it trapped Hawke under its claw. Luckily it wasn't crushing him, nor did the claws cut him anywhere.
Anders sent a healing spell at Isabela, which served to clear her head, and shot a frost spell at the dragon, unfortunately the dragon didn't seem fazed by it at all. At the same time Sebastian was shooting arrows at the dragons face, trying to blind it. But between the dragon moving its head back and forth and its tough skin he wasn't even damaging it.
Fenris took the opportunity to attack the dragon himself, running at it and dodging its face, making decent cuts along its chest and across its neck, but thus far had not nicked any arteries or veins. Nero looked around the area and thought quickly about what he could do, there were some trees but after feeling beneath the ground he couldn't' find many roots. Growing irate he did the next best thing and ran at the leg holding Hawke down, wrapping his arms around it and slicing an x into the back of it.
It must have caused quite a bit of pain as Nero was soon sent flipping throughout the air and while the foot was up Hawke scrambled out of the way and joined Fenris so that they could better fight the dragon. Nero landed in a crouch behind the group and, instead of running back at the dragon, he ran behind it to where Isabela was making to attack it again and pulled her away.
"I need you to fight it up front, I have an idea." He told her.
"What the fuck are you going to do?" Isabela asked, breathless.
"Just watch."
She frowned but joined Hawke and Fenris anyway and Nero made his way back to where Sebastian and Anders were still trying to damage the beast. He knelt and focused his energy on the sandy earth.
A few moments later the sand underneath the dragons back feet flew out behind it, creating a crater that the dragon began to fall into. It turned its head to look at the wall of dirt still shooting up behind it and with a roar she returned her attentions to the people in front of her. Hawke, Fenris and Isabela were backing away from the growing crater and, upon seeing this, the dragon grabbed one of them, hoping to take one of them down with her. She growled triumphantly as she caught the white-haired elf in its jaw and nearly dropped him in her excitement, but she caught him again and was pleased when she heard the elf screaming from her mouth. Then the dragon returned her attention to the problem of the still deepening hole that she was falling into.
Nero watched, horrified as the dragon grabbed Fenris in it's powerful jaws. He was frozen for a moment, the hole that he had made continuing to grow, before he made to stop it. He couldn't let the dragon take Fenris down there with it. He was just about to halt his control of the river when Sebastian finally hit his target.
The dragon dropped Fenris as it screamed, trying to paw at its own face. Luckily Fenris didn't fall far to the ground, so he didn't suffer any broken bones, but his armor was pierced in several spots and he was bleeding heavily. Hawke and Isabela ran forward to drag him back, and brought him strait to Anders. Anders motioned for them to take him behind one of the rocks, hoping to afford himself some sort of safety from the still very much alive dragon.
Nero watched as Fenris was taken to Anders, and despite his increasing need to go make sure that the elf would make it, he knew that he had to get rid of the dragon first and instead of cutting off his control of the sand he pushed more of his will into it and made the hole grow even faster.
The dragon realized what was happening and, trying to ignore its blinded eye for now, it flapped its wings and pulled itself out of the hole and flew around the crater a few times before landing on the outcropping in the middle of the rocks.
Nero cursed and let go his control of the sand and dirt and turned to run to the mage and Fenris. The dragon had grabbed Fenris at an angle and there were two lines that met at a point in his inner thigh just above the knee where the dragons teeth had sunk into him. One line reached from the inner thigh diagonally across his stomach and collarbone, narrowly avoiding his neck, the other one made a bloody line from the inner thigh and across his stomach, ending just above his hip.
Nero let loose a string of curses when he saw all of the blood, and he realized that the elf was unconscious.
"Can you fix it?" Nero asked the mage, desperately.
Anders was still inspecting the damage, but said "yes, although he's going to be angry about it. I think a few of his organs were nicked, but I can fix them."
Nero nodded and looked up to where the dragon was kneeling sadly, still pawing at its face.
"Dammit, as if a High Dragon isn't enough, we now have its fucking kids to kill." Hawke yelled angrily.
Nero looked at the man and realized that the opening was quickly being filled with dragonlings. Anders noticed this as well and cursed. Nero thought quickly, trying to come up with something that could protect Anders and let him heal Fenris without being disturbed.
"Anders, can you make a fireball?" Nero asked.
Anders cocked an eyebrow questioningly, "yes, but what-"
"Just do it, alright? I'll cover you and Fenris, then you can heal him."
"I can't keep up a fireball and heal at the-"
"Just do it!" Nero snapped.
Anders frowned but raised his hand and created a fireball.
"Keep it alight, even when I take from it." Nero told him.
"What..." Anders began but trailed off as the fire trailed from his hand and created a circle around Nero, Fenris, him and the rock they were hiding behind. It wasn't long before a wall of fire was completely encircling them.
"you can stop the spell now." Nero told him as he sat down and focused his attentions on maintaining the fire wall.
"That's amazing." Anders said in awe.
Nero's brow was furrowed when he said, "just heal him."
Anders nodded and began working.
Sebastian had watched as the fire wall was being formed and was quite amazed by the spectacle. His attention was quickly taken elsewhere, however, and he set about shooting down the dragonlings. Luckily they fell when he shot them in the eye with an arrow, their heads being smaller than the high dragon's, allowing his arrows to pierce their brains.
Hawke and Isabela stood back to back and sliced at the dragonlings tirelessly, none of them were able to get close enough to deal any damage, and Hawke was grateful that the little lizards couldn't breath fire.
When only a few dragonlings remained the high dragon raised her head and noticed that her children were being slaughtered. She shot balls of fire at her aggressors and roared angrily. Then she flew down from the outcropping and landed in front of Hawke and Isabela, sending the remaining dragonlings back into hiding. She whipped her tail from side to side in a rage and roared in their faces.
Hawke gagged, "your breath stinks." he told the beast.
Sebastian was far enough away that he wasn't affected by the roar and he aimed his arrow at the dragon's remaining eye. He grinned manically when the arrow hit it's mark and watched the dragon throw its head back in blind agony. Hawke took advantage of this and tossed his shield to the ground and, holding his sword in two hands, he ran forward and sunk his blade into the side of the dragons throat, so that the point was sticking out of the other end. With a holler he forced the blade down and through the tissue till his blade sunk into the sand and his feet and leggings were covered in the blood gushing from the dragons neck.
He backed away quickly as the dragon fell to the ground and then he watched and waited for the dragon to stop breathing.
Isabela strode over to him, holding his shield, and handed it to him before surveying the dragon beside him.
"Well...I guess this will be a hell of a story for Varric to tell, won't it?" She said.
He chuckled, "I told you it would be."