Morbilli

~~~

Morbilli is harsh, guarded, and blunt, and these predominant traits shape her views. A staunch believer of survival-of-the-fittest, she focuses on understanding whatever skills would most benefit not simply survival in the area, but skills that would best help the Clan thrive. Her expertise predominantly lies with the physical arts, as a hunter, fisher, and fighter. However, she equally sees the benefit of medicine and has some understanding on foraging, though she would admit that these areas are points of weakness for her. Nonetheless, she occasionally works with Lethmir to educate the growing hatchlings over how to hunt, and has quickly taken the role as a combat teacher with all dragons, citing that the serenity of the Windswept Plateau would weaken the Clan without her assistance. Morbilli lacks patience with those who are too naive or use weakness as an excuse for their problems, and will quickly snap at such dragons. True weakness in her eyes is to accept a problem and never seek to change it to become your greatest advantage.

Relations between Morbilli and Amdir are often strained, as she can't stand how the scholarly, yet frail dragon refuses to learn how to fight, and how he doubts his strength in the field due to his chronic illness, and dislikes it whenever another dragon tries to defend Amdir's decision. She believes his health would improve if he pushed himself to do more exercise, and less reading and researching.

Morbilli's exposure to the Wyrmwound that led to her becoming a Mirror also passed off a chronic condition that causes blisters to form along her scales on her face, neck, torso, and arms, and when healed, these areas become discolored and calloused. It is unknown whether it is contagious or not, and what effects it would have on other dragons, and whether or not there is a cure for her ailment, despite Binder's best attempts to analyze her condition.

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Mother would give orders to the hunters and gatherers not too far from the nest, and she would watch and listen as warnings over which things were needed, which were too dangerous were thrown about. Mother and father were survivalists at heart, with different ways to approach the subject. Father knew how to make disease yield to the body, to make the body come out stronger for the whole clan. Mother pushed back the tendrils of the land and knew how to survive and compete against the dangers of the land. It was exciting, exhilarating, and she'd dream of such wonders of defeating beasts and disease, of being the hardiest and strongest dragon in the clan. She'd walk the expanse of the Abiding Boneyard and make it to the Wyrmwound, alone, and she'd live to tell the tale. That is what she saw for herself. . .

Childish foolishness led her to sneak away from the nest and trail the gatherers one day, armed only with whatever knowledge she'd overheard from her mother, and the determination to see her dream come true. After all, imagine if a young dragon like her succeeded where so many older dragons failed? They'd wandered far, farther and farther into the scarred lands she knew as home. Beyond the twisted, throbbing tendrils that threatened to grab at the legs of the weak and oblivious. Familiar mosquitoes nipped along her neck as they grew closer to a large, boiling crater. The Wyrmwound.

She bounded towards the crater, tore across the landscape. Rot and decay filled her nostrils, and a perverse sense of wonder filled her. And then she wondered, what would it be like to peer inside the cauldron of their true Mother, their spreader of disease? She settled along the edge of the cauldron, a secluded little spot, away from established clans. A jagged tooth-like boulder that sliced her paws up considerably just to climb onto, but also provided a wonderfully curved perch that would help her gaze inside was where she chose to sit. And then she peered over the edge with her long neck and big eyes. . .

She heard some sort of wordless shout that seemed to come from right behind her, and she jerked just a little bit too far forward, and suddenly she was upside down, with her tail half-wrapped around the sharp stone, her back legs pressed against the sides in an attempt to hold her up, while her front half dangled freely. Splashes from the popping bubbles from the sludge and puss inside the cauldron scalded her feathered and scaled body, and a particular egg-rotten gas filled her nostrils and threatened to suffocate her as she struggled to pull back towards the rock. Her wings fluttered at her sides, and momentum worked in her favor. Cool, sharp stone soon pressed against her stomach. She hadn't fallen in. . . Shaken, she half-climbed, half-stumbled down the rock. Night had fallen, she could not see the group she'd come here with. . .

She hunkered down by that rock. . . By morning, she felt as though her innards were boiling, and her feathers as though they were being bitten by thousands of Fire Ants. Still, she stumbled around and searched for something to eat. . . There were few edible plants, and fewer maggots. . . She ate what she could find, but soon felt so exhausted, that she rested again. It was a restless slumber, with the way her skin crawled. . .

She awoke and nearly screamed at the fallen feathers around her. Her feathers. Her scales crawled and burned and itched, they itched so bad. She ran her claws against them until they were raw and sore. She wasn't very hungry, but found some puddle to drink from. Over the next several days, she weakened as her condition worsened. Her feathers came off in clumps, her scales oozed with infection, and no amount of water could sooth her dry throat. . . But, she noticed other changes through the haze that'd taken over her mind. She was changing. Her wings were now one set of webbed membranes, her limbs were shorter and closer to the ground, her antennae had fallen off. . .

In one particular fit of sleep, she thought she could hear a growling whisper. Survive. And she did.

She was not the hatchling that'd stumbled into the Wyrmwound, by the time she left. She ran along the ground. Her scales hadn't healed where she'd been splashed, but the callouses and blisters no longer hurt her. She'd done what she'd come to do, she survived. . .

She needed somewhere else to go now. . .

~~~

She'd ran across the pulsing, rotten landscape with no true destination in mind. Home was long since forgotten. The Wyrmwound was far behind her now, as was the growth of the region her nest had been made in. She'd made it to the Abiding Boneyard before her paw pads were covered with fresh cuts that'd slowed her pace, and the lack of water and the unbearable heat made her change her strategy. She'd move at dusk and press on till dawn, then sleep during the day. For many days, this worked, but food was scarce, and there was no end to the barren landscape in sight. . .

A piercing cry split across the Boneyard, and she went running after the source. A small Spiral darted in and out of the reach of an Undying Featherback, yet it was clear that she was struggling. Morbilli dove into the fray with hisses and slashes. Together, with this foolish, yet nimble Spiral, they drove the beast off. . . The grateful, masked dragon shared food with her, and told of her land beyond the borders, with warm breezes, and cold storms. . . It sounded so. . . Peaceful. . . Such a place couldn't truly exist.

"I'd like to see this place for myself. Show it to me?" And before night fell, she and the masked dragon returned to the Plateau. . .