Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Erin fights against his own arms as they carve runes into the dirt surrounding his unconscious friends. The Dragon cackles in his mind with devilish glee as Erin tries desperately to piece together his plan.

The symbols coalesce into black spires of void energy that each inspect his friends with malicious intelligence for a spell. There’s a hint of relief and horror as some of his friends stir just enough to look upon the eldritch beasts that jump into their bodies.

Every one of their screams will echo in his mind for years. He can only imagine the agony they’re going through as he sees each of them be marked with a familiar symbol.

All of their eyes become a horrible mix of their natural colors and the dragons.

Kendal’s war form instincts struggle against the weight of the mark as he desperately but too efficiently for a human swings wildly for something to hit.

Alinua practically begins glowing nuclear as the life and void mix and battle and mix, the plants around her grow too far beyond natural sizes and wither away just as quickly from the caustic black.

Falst can only screech and growl and roar in agony as he fights with all the rage contained within his body against the power of the dragon, Erin can hear his bones breaking.

Dainix ignites into demonic inferno but what was once his burned-out eye twists with void energy that cannot eat the fire but fuels it to more dangerous heights of destruction. Everything around is scorched and eaten.

Tess thrashes against the pain shooting her body, carving an outline around her lightning scar and forcing the electricity to dance around her body wildly as it's coated in the dark void. Her fists dig into the dirt.

Erin at last feels pain shoots from his chest as the symbol grows even more dangerous, dark veins spread from it with a terrible crack sound as the mark grows spikier and begins reaching out with dark hands to grab ahold of his friends.

They all rise slowly and painfully, like tormented marionettes held aloft by the dragon itself. All of their eyes hold that familiar dragon black and yellow. They all speak in unison to a still fighting but mortified ruunaser.

“YOU WERE RIGHT. I DO NEED YOUR FRIENDS.” They all smile at him too wide and laugh… then like they all had they were puppets with cut strings, every single one falls unconscious.

The madness stops and all that is left is his broken friends and the destroyed radius of where they lay. He’s left exhausted from the energy he put into fighting the lost battle.

Chapter Text

Erin awoke who knows how many hours later, he shot up in terror and hoped so desperately that he had been dreaming what happened. Truly a nightmare would be preferable to the cruel reality the Dragon forced upon them.

Erin took a deep breath in and did his best to remain calm, he went through a number of useless calculations and logical fallacies as he did his best to explain away what happened last night as not real to himself. None of that happened, everything was fine.

A flawed train of thought from the start, even he knew it would be immediately disproven should he look at himself or any of the others. Erin, after thinking his way out of a potential panic attack, finally looks up to see Kendal looking back at him.

Kendal had been sitting by a small stoked campfire with a grim expression on his stoic face. The others were wrapped up in various levels of bandages and casts from the medical supply bag they had brought not long ago.
Kendal looked over at Erin and offered him the comfort of a smile.  Erin couldn’t stop himself from crying. A hug naturally followed. 

…
Alinua dreams of the battle between the Dragon and Life, a vicious titanic clash of primordial beings that shakes the sky with its size and brutality. 

The Void encircles and consumes, tearing off chunks of Life and rendering them to fuel for its rampage. Life responds to these blows by changing, adapting, growing new stranger limbs to replace the old ones and punching the dragon in its serpentine face. 

Neither can truly overpower the other, everytime Void gains the advantage Life survives and persists. 

The cycle continues forever. 

…

Dainix dreams of an inferno that scorched the earth, a wildfire that burned away the world and turned it into shadows. The shadows gathered at his feet and set his whole body aflame with hungry destruction. 

Dainix couldn’t breathe through the smoke, dainix couldn’t breathe he didn’t have lungs. Dainix wasn’t Dainix, he was a Draconic Demon whose breath burned away his home and his friends and his family and his wounds and his eye.

…

In Falsts dreams.

He was hungry, so so hungry. He ran through the vague shadows of a forest searching desperate for a meal, his growling stomach demanding he feed. 

There was a clearing in the forest and he pounced on the first living thing he saw, he tore it into chunks and consumed it ravenously. His stomach kept growling, he growled back and then the forest roared with laughter.

 EAT. it demanded. EAT YOUR FILL. it shouted. EAT. EAT. EAT.

Falst fell over near a lake starving and in his reflection he saw his mothers jaws. 

…

Tess dreams of home.
Where her family and cousins gather around her in one overwhelming pile of affection. The room is bright and crackling with manic energy that jumps from all the friendly faces she recognizes and some she doesn’t.

But in the corner of the party is a shadow facing the wall. Details are vague and barely recognizable, but the hair is undeniably Erins. He’s brooding cause of course he is, always having to do this alone. 

She makes her way over to him and tries her usual method of cheering him up, with some light sisterly teasing. The shadow turns and its eyes aren’t his, the piercing yellow reptilian slits looks through her.
She throws a punch banishing the shadow away. She strides confidently back into the party, which has been frozen like a snapshot while she inspected the not-erin.
Tess doesn’t notice how deep the shadows have gotten. 

…

Erin eventually regains his composure and escapes Kendals iron grip of a hug. A couple deep breaths and a simple meal prepared by the swordsman help bring him back to reality and thinking properly.

“So. I don’t entirely know what happened but I have some guesses.” Kendal says softly, gently holding his hand to keep them both calm.

Erin sighs deeply “The dragon took my advice. Which is a petty victory I suppose. It decided that we were all useful and if the new marks on all of us are any indication." The bitterness in his voice is like poison. “I’m still the linchpin to its freedom so keeping me from the caves is still a priority… ugh but now we have to worry about the danger of all of us being possessed…”

“Ok. so the dragon now has a new advantage. What do we have?” Kendal hasn’t faltered for a second, the sword cuts through Erin's self-hatred and gets through to him. 

Erin considers that and answers “We all still have the ability to resist it to varying degrees. So there’s that, I suppose.” Then he looks over at the rest of the group sleeping, all tossing and turning, likely being just as haunted as he is. 

Hope isn’t lost, things have gotten harder, not impossible. 

Chapter Text

Everyone in the group now had a dragon tattoo.

Kendal’s was located where the Collector had stabbed him when he was born.
Alinua had hers mixed and overlapping her already existing chimeric plague mark.
Falst had it on the back of his right hand, his claws on that hand have also grown slightly larger.
Tess was less of a mark and more of a black-purpley outline around her lightning scars.
Dainix’s was in his missing eye somehow, it floats there in a fixed position.

Meanwhile Erins' already existing one had grown in size and spikiness, certain tendril-esque extensions even looking like cracks in his torso.

The Dragons True Name, in various forms, written on their very bodies to claim them as Its.

…

The group wandered through the wilderness, moving according to Erins map the furthest route around the only known cave in the area.
When everyone had woken up, they all had spoken of having had dreams to various degrees. 

The forest they had found themselves in became sparse and a dirt path appeared leading its way to the next town. A quick stop there to resupply would be best… though the shared anxiousness of everyone being a void bomb does make them hesitant.

Falst is the most alert of suspicious eyes as they approach, making an effort to hide his mark under bandages around his hand. He slinks behind the much more approachable members of the party doing his best to use his short size to draw as little attention to himself as he can. 

Dainix can feel the undercurrent of dread permeating the group, doing his best to remain positive and in control of his emotions he’s the one who pays for the meal that night. 

Tess alongside Dainix is the only one trying to keep the mood positive and tries her usual tricks to get people talking, she goes over to Alinua and tries to start up a conversation about how nice and quaint the tavern is, Alinua for her part offers Tess an awkward smile while she plays her own hair to keep the worry under the surface. 

Erin is once again in his own head trying to formulate solutions and counter plans to any possible possession combination the Dragon can try to surprise them with… he’s sure he can feel it chuckling in the back of his mind as he does so. 

Kendal has remained quiet as always, keeping tabs on where everyone is at any given moment and making sure he himself doesn’t feel the dragon at the edge of his consciousness. He knows out of everyone here, he’s near the most dangerous one the Dragon could possess, he’s a weapon built to fight and his companions have only ever seen him hold back. 

After the coin is spent and supplies are regained, the group sets off back out of the town before the moons rise. Proper beds are a luxury none of them can afford to risk especially in population centers, so camping is mandatory now. 

By the time the moons reach their peak, an incident still has yet to occur.