I was embarrassed to admit that after mingling with these dragons, who all seemed to have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the evolutionary tree, I had nearly forgotten why we had come here in the first place.
"There's an ancient ruin nearby," I said loudly to the black dragon, who was Charles's wife. For some reason, every time I thought of that phrase, it felt strangely exciting. "In fact, we came here for that ruin."
All the dragons fell silent in unison. Charles nudged his wife's neck and said softly, "He means the Forgotten Garden. They want to open that forbidden place."
The atmosphere seemed to shift subtly and swiftly. If, a second ago, the creatures before me had been a group of cheerful hermits whose evolution had gone off the rails, then this second, they truly seemed like a group of guardian dragons. The black dragon Tracy looked over with her enormous eyes, her tone suddenly grave. "You want to go to the Forgotten Garden? Do you know what kind of place that is?"
"We do. By our reckoning, it should be a complex of buildings left behind by our people long ago," Sandora said naturally as she looked at Tracy. "Lin asked Charles about the ruins earlier."
"You're saying you belong to the same race as the ancient gods who left this world back then?" The Red Dragon, who appeared to be the oldest and most composed of them all, asked in a deep voice like rolling thunder. "This is no time for jokes. Are you serious?"
"I find this a little strange." My sister frowned at them. "What exactly is your relationship with the 'ancient gods' you keep talking about? What did you think we were at first?"
"Our relationship with the ancient gods is unimportant.