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dragonrajafanfiction · 3 years

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The Andes Mountains

There was no flying above the Andes in the afternoon. His two so-called helpers had already loaded up the truck, but the young archeologist Daniel Emmert couldn’t help but try one more time at his precious extraction site. He’d been working here for the past month, following the lead of what he thought would be a career launching breakthrough: The discovery of a lost ancient mountain city.

Although the outlines on the satellites were questionable, he was so persistent that his conservatory gave him a single grant to go search. After all, he was one of their best students.

The grant was barely enough to pay for tickets and lodging. He had to pull from his own bank and beg his parents for enough money to get the equipment he needed. Even then, he ended up selling his car after getting ripped off by a man claiming to be a guide.

After paying far over price to get his small team up the mountain, as soon as the guide heard the words ‘lost city’, his face fell and he turned pale as a ghost even under his tanned wrinkled skin.

“I’m sorry, Senor,” He said regretfully and refused to guide him any further. He held up his hands, palm out, and backed away, shaking his head. “Just go back. Go back and don’t come back here with that.”

He refused all money. He didn’t explain.

These people and their superstitions were going to be the end of him. In the end, he’d spent two weeks with his map and his satellite scans before finally setting down a spot to dig. The thin air exhausted his crew. Out of the four, only two remained after the others got altitude sickness and had to leave. The other two barely worked, taking many smoke breaks and partaking in the alcohol they’d brought along.

Daniel was on his own down to the last day.

As he knelt over the bare patch of dirt again, he felt his frustration rising. There should have been something here. But he’d found nothing, not even a single scrap of pottery. He checked his map and kept tediously brushing. If he found nothing, it wasn’t because he didn’t look.

A dull muffled ringing came from his pack and he sighed to himself. It could either be the college, his professor, or his parents. He winced against his joints and hobbled to the sat-phone receiver.

“Yes.”

“Hello. Is this Mr. Emmert?” Said an unfamiliar woman’s voice.

“Speaking. Who is this? I’m a bit busy.”

“Oh I know. Your failed expedition ends today?”

The words cut deep. “If you’re here to mock me, I don’t have time.”

“I’m not. I’m here to fund your next expedition.”

“Is this a joke?” He laughed. “It’s not funny.”

“I certainly know your reputation at the conservatory, but… I can tell you that it’s undeserved. There’s something in those mountains. I’m here to tell you where it is and fund your work for the next three days. I just need your verbal consent.”

Daniel removed the phone from his ear and stared at it. If this was a scam, it was the most specific scam he’d ever encountered. He put the phone back to his ear. “Look, this is really tempting but I don’t know who you are. How do you know you’re not in organized crime?”

“It doesn’t matter if the cat is white or black so long as it catches mice. I can tell you where what you're looking for is and you go back as a hero rather than a failure. The Boss would rather pay you for your efforts considering your struggle for funding.”

“Are you spying on me? What’s in it for you?”

“There’s a specific artifact we need, the rest is yours. The payment is for the object and the labor.”

Daniel’s throat had gone dry. He checked his watch. He was out of time. It was either stay here with this mysterious funding, or head out and take the long flight home.

“Alright. I’ll accept.”

“Good. The funds have been forwarded to your account. I’m also sending you the coordinates. In an hour, you’ll receive more supplies by chopper. Send those other people away.” She gave an amused chuckle. “You were close. Oh and by the way, it’s in your best entrance to deny my involvement.”

The phone line cut. Still in doubt, Daniel made his way to where his laptop was still open.

“Senor! Let’s go!” The men shouted from the truck.

“One more minute!” Daniel opened his bank account page and stared in silence for several moments.

“Uh… you can go on without me.”

“What?” The driver leaned out of his window, not sure if he’d heard correctly.

“You can go on without me.” Daniel slowly closed the laptop. “I’m staying.”

There was a brief silence but then the truck engine roared and the truck turned around and made its way down the dusty trail.

As promised, within hours, a large black helicopter flew overhead and a large cargo of supplies was lowered by ropes. Attached was a note in pink plastic. “Here is a drawing of the artifact we need. Contact us when you find it and someone will retrieve it from you. Do not open it.”

The object was what looked like a small jewelry box. How was he supposed to find something so small? But with this large amount of supplies, he could be here for many days. He set up a tent, a nice camp stove, plenty of food and water purifiers. There was even a small radio to play music by.

Daniel was soon happily working at his new dig site and made his first exciting discovery within hours: What seemed to be a paving stone, carved with strange symbols. He took ample pictures of it for his personal catalog. It was like nothing he had ever seen before in his life. He thought he had stumbled over a new Incan historical site, but now he wondered if he had found something altogether new.

The days passed but there was no sign of the box, but they weren’t calling him to pester him. This was his work at its best. Alone in the vast wilderness, with nothing here but the ancient relics. The uncovering operations revealed more stones and an entire floor full of depictions of snakes, mouths open, fangs out. He was familiar with depictions of flying serpent gods like Quetzocoatl, but these didn’t resemble anything he’d ever studied.

On the third night, a loud hum woke him up.

It started out distant, before sweeping directly under him launching him out of his sleeping bag in a panic, before fading into the distance.

He opened the tent and looked outside with his high beam flashlight. The darkness was all encompassing. Outside the light, it was nothing but deep inky blackness. His heart pounded in his chest. He didn’t imagine it. He even felt it.

He waved his flashlight into the dark, but there was nothing there. Whatever it was, it felt like it was underground. “An earthquake?” He said to himself.

The next day, the sun broke over the peaks and there, in the middle of the digsite, was the box. Untouched by dirt, it shined with a reddish light even without the full light of day.

Frozen in place, Daniel suddenly felt like he was in a real life Indiana Jones movie. Places like these weren’t supposed to be real. He stepped carefully over to the box. In the center of the lid, a bright red jewel shined, held between the mouths of two serpents. He slowly, carefully moved to pick it up.

As though pulled by a magnet, picking it up felt like working against an invisible force that held it fast to the ground. As soon as it was in his hands he couldn’t help but marvel at it. The box was locked, held shut by a simple pivot latch. He tucked it under his arm and made his way to the phone.

It rang once. “You found it?” Said the woman’s voice.

“Look I don’t… I don’t know what this is about, I… What is this place?”

“Stay where you are. We’ll be out to retrieve the box shortly.”

“Why won’t you…” The phone cut off.

He turned his head, another sound was approaching this time, the engine of the truck. “They came back for me?”

He immediately knew the men he was working with before were not the ones coming back for him. This truck was different and was bristling with men with automatic weapons. Terrified, Daniel held up his hands. “Don’t shoot!”

The tip of the rifles was the last thing he ever saw. It felt like he was suddenly pushed to the ground and his world ended.

----

Half a world away, Mingfei Lu received a message on his phone, but he wasn’t awake to retrieve it. Erii rolled over and grabbed the phone. When she saw who it was she turned to the sleeping Mingfei and pressed her finger to his cheek, deeper and deeper until he stirred.

“Mmph… Five more minutes.”

Her fingertip curved, digging her nail in.

Mingfei let out a soft hiss. “What’s the big idea!”

She shoved the phone in his face to silence him. “Huh? Enxi?”

He sat up and she observed him carefully as he took the phone and read the message. “Someone got there before us…?” His eyes widened slightly but then his expression dimmed into sadness.

Erii tilted her head, curious.

“I promised no one would get hurt.” He murmurred. “I underestimated things.” He curled on hand to his forehead and a bitter smile curved his lips. “I would like to keep this world the way it is. But everything I touch just seems to wither.”

He continued to stare at the phone and Erii felt her unease grow. He spoke again. “There’s only one other person who would know the location of that dig site.”

Erii gave a short series of gestures. “What was there?” she asked.

“Oh?” Mingfei lowered his hand, his bitterness brightening into innocent surprise. “You know that old story? The one about Nuwa?”

Erii shook her head.

“Long, long ago, the four Dragon Lord pillars were broken; the nine Dragon Kingdoms collapsed. The sky did not completely cover the land; The land did not hold up the sky all the way around. The world burned with inextinguishable fire and the sea flooded the land without receding.”

“Great beasts ate the innocent. Flying monsters snatched the elderly and the weak.”

“A man named Nüwa used alchemy to create five-colored stones in order to patch up the sky. He cut off the legs of a great turtle to set them up as the four pillars and stopped the floods. The wild beasts were all killed so the world was at peace again.”

Mingfei who was never a studious person in the past suddenly rattled off this ancient legend as easily as his Senior Brother Zihang.

“One of the stones was there. Nuwa wasn’t a human. He was a dragon.” Mingfei looked at this phone again. His eyes glittered, swirling with a sudden golden fire. His brows knitted together in barely suppressed anger. “It is likely, the whoever is after the stones is trying to wake up the King of Sky and Wind.”

He slowly put the phone down. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay down. But who am I really kidding?” He suddenly chuckled, unable to stop himself from laughing. “They’re all idiots!”

Erii watched concerned, as tears squeezed out of his eyes and his laughter became tinged with sorrow. “Soon I will be the only one left again. Why is it always this way?”

Her arms encircled his shoulders and she rested her head against him. She felt him sigh.

"Erii. You'll stay with me. Won't you?"

She looked up at him and smiled giving an okay sign.

Mingfei felt the deep sadness and loneliness in his heart loosen for just a moment. Though he would soon be the last of his kind, with Erii, things wouldn't be so bad.

---

It was mid afternoon when the message came to the Executive Department. An SSS assignment from none other than the Chancellor himself. Mr. Baldwin opened it up to examine its contents. An artifact, stolen from a draconic archeological dig. The Executive Department was to recover it.

#Dragon Raja #Fanfiction #Class of 2032

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benbarnesescape · 7 years

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Madness in the Form of Love

Monday

Alejandro Griffin x Reader

Warnings: Fluffy, sweet Alejandro

A/N: Now for someone I personally don’t think receives enough love in our Ben character community - Alejandro Griffin from The Big Wedding. He’s so sweet and full of love and I just loved this.

Read Sunday with Logan here

Day 2

You wake up to the soft, bright rays of the sun splaying across your face. You stretch, expecting to feel that deliciously sore feeling one has after a great round of sex but instead your limber and you groan. You open an eye, expecting to see a smiling Logan beaming down on you but instead you’re greeted with empty sheets, rustled from the uneasy sleeping from the night before.

You sit up confused, taking in the small brick room, the simple bright furniture that looks straight out of an IKEA catalog and groan again, this time fear filling you.

This was not the bed you had fallen asleep in.

You hear shuffling outside your door and you hold onto the small semblance of hope that maybe Logan hadn’t abandoned you. That this was just a bad dream and he would pop in any second now, a cup of coffee in hand, that snarky smile beaming down on you. An explanation in why you were in a strangers room.

He doesn’t.

Instead, a girl with tawny brown hair and glasses bursts through your room, throwing a thin sweatshirt at your face.

“Y/N, you’re still in bed!? I don’t want to miss out on the lecture this afternoon? Professor Griffin is going to be speaking about the evolution of linguistics and you know how much that can help out on our paper. Come on!”

You look at her confused, blinking your eyes and she snaps at you, throwing a pair of Toms at the foot of your bed.

“Chop, chop! Think of it this way - you can daydream about our professor while also learning vital information that will help you pass this grad class. Sound good?”

The sarcasm isn’t missed on you as you roll your eyes, grabbing your shoes. Throwing on your sweatshirt over your thing T shirt and shorts you begin searching the room for your bag. You were starting to remember. Just a little bit.

You were a grad student at Yale and had taken an extra course this summer in the Evolution of Language. Large part because you need it for your anthropology degree, another because the normal professor who taught it had been replaced by him, Professor Griffin. Even if the subject lacked at least you had eye candy to get you through the intense 7 week course.

By the time you are leaving the apartment you had forgotten about Logan and how you knew him completely.

Upon arriving at the coffee shop, you see the error in your ways in indulging in an afternoon nap. The small lecture space that had been reserved for his lecture was packed to the brim. It was no surprise really. By the time the young grad students had learned about the infamously handsome Professor Griffin - Alejandro to his esteemed peers - he always had lectures that were filled to the capacity. Not only that, he made learning fun, which had solidified his fan base of university student followers.

You both squirm your way through the tight crowd, finding a spot toward the front of the space thanks to friends friends who had gotten there hours early to study had saved you a spot. You both order a chai tea, catching up and talking to them about upcoming essays and parties for the weekend, adding to the loud mingling of voices in the room before you hear his voice.

He was talking with another student, his brown hair gleaming off of the soft afternoon lights, his hands casually shoved in his khaki pants and you could practically hear the women sigh as he strolled to the front of the room. He was wearing a light, white button down shirt that he had rolled up to his elbows and as he placed his leather suitcase on the table his muscles flexed underneath them.

His brown eyes glanced around the room, his smile lighting up at the amount of students as he rubbed his hands together, enthusiasm melting out of his voice,

“All of you willing to sacrifice a beautiful Thursday afternoon to hear about the transformation of language? What are they putting in the water here?”

There’s an easy laughter as he begins his lecture, walking around and enthusiastically moving his arms around, his thick Spanish accent cutting through each syllable. He’s a strong lecturer, knowing how to draw students in with the perfect balance of insightful information mingled with corny jokes and he has the few coffee residents who hadn’t shown up for the lecture just as intrigued, leaning in their seats to learn more about romance languages and the evolution of the Nordic language.

Its halfway through his lecture that his eyes find yours, the chocolate brown irises looking into your own and his smile changes, something softer before he breaks the eye contact and continues to move around. You know you had been holding your breath and you look away shyly, trying to ignore the way his stare has made your skin heat up in embarrassment.

All of this is lost on your table mates, luckily, who are too intrigued or distracted by him to notice. It's not long that the 45 minute lecture is over and he’s bombarded with students asking him questions. Girls that had dolled themselves up with just the hope he gives them a once over. Boys, knowing the power he has, wanting to figure out how he delivers his charm with ease.

You know you have to get out of the uncomfortable situation. You grab your bag, waving off your roommate who is having an enthused conversation with your friend about how she knew that Russian language was connected with Latin origins as you slink off upstairs, to a quiet area on the rooftop patio. Its deserted up here, dark rain clouds shielding the bright summer sun that had been piercing earlier and you take a seat in an abandoned seat, grateful for the isolation.

You had to get a hold of yourself. Professor Alejandro Griffin was a strong lecturer, a great person to educator, but that was all. You couldn’t daydream about a professor for so many reasons. One, he’d get fired and that would be a shame. Two, you could potentially get kicked out of school, probation at the latest and that would compromise your scholarship. Three, he was married.

Someone else had won his heart and they deserved the respect of knowing young, grad students weren’t throwing themselves on him.

Instead of falling back on this, you return your attention to an essay you need to finish for him, getting lost in the words. Forgetting about time and where you are until you hear someone clear their throat.

“Can i join you?”

You look up to find Professor Alejandro Griffin himself standing before you, his leather bag hanging off his shoulder. He could sit anywhere, there was the pick of many seats on the abandoned rooftop, but here he was looking down at you, a soft smile on his face.

You wave your hand as he sits in his seat smoothly, sitting back and watching you.

“I was surprised that you didn’t come up to talk to me about the lecture. I was sure you were going to challenge me on how the Latin languages got spread, based off the book you suggested I read last week.”

You shrug, biting your lip and closing your book.

“You made a good argument I suppose, Professor Griffin.”

He laughs, full and hearty as he throws his head back. He hated when, outside of class, you referred to him as his formal title.

“You’re not just saying that to make me feel better that I was lecturing over something really corny. And how many times do I have to remind you that you can call me Alejandro - we’re all adults here.”

You shake your head, crossing your arms as you lean back in your seat.

“I think there’s something to be said about your theory of the english foundation but i don’t think we have enough time to discuss that.”

He laughs again, leaning forward on his elbows before smirking,

“I have plenty of time to have a good conversation about language. But only if you do?”

Its not even a question in your eyes.

You both lose track of time, the only measure being the large, dark grey clouds hovering over you, pregnant with tears just waiting to burst. You both had inched closer in your chairs, unaware of your close proximity as you both argue about which linguist provided better theories regarding humans evolution into words, when a gust of wind picks up and pushes your book to the ground.

It's a simple action and you both bend down to grab it, your faces inches apart and something else changes. You’re aware of the way he smells, coffee and spice, the way his lips are puckered as he looks at you. His hand grazes over yours as you both reach for the thick bounded paper and something shoots between you, causing your breath to hitch. He bites his lips, his eyes flicking down to your lips before he gives a quick swallow, his hand jutting out to caress your face. His fingers are gentle as he caresses your cheek, his chocolate brown eyes blown with something else as his fingers dance over your lips and you sigh as your faces inch closer to each other. He licks his lips and for a second, just a second, you think he’s going to kiss you.

But then he’s pulling away from you, picking up the book and placing it back on the table.

“I should let you study….sorry, didn’t mean to take up your time.”

He mumbles this as he stands abruptly, grabbing his large bag and sighs, closing his eyes. When he opens his eyes he shoots you a sad smile before whispering,

“You really are a special person Y/N. If this was another time... a different circumstance...” he’s looking at you in that way that has your legs turning into jelly as the words drift in the air before he turns on his heel, leaving you with smell of his cologne.

You try to ignore the disappoint circling in your gut as the rain begins to fall, pushing back the possibility of something that will never be.

#ben barnes #bens birthday countdown #alejandro griffin #the big wedding

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