Naksatra

Claws dug into the ground, chest heaving as the young Mirror dragon pushed herself to the border of the Shadowed Lands that she had grown up in though found herself deeply unwelcome; a crime of the father to be paid by the daughter.

All too well did Naksatra remember the horrors of her childhood, the ground spattered in red and lifeless eyes that seemed to burn into her memory; so easily recalled to date with shuddering breaths and shaking claws.

She did not understand back then and could not say she knew much better now, not for what caused the dragon who sired her to bare teeth to so many that she would call innocent and nor did she know why those that remained, the victims and the family of lost loves, turned to bare their own fangs at her.

It was, simply, not fair.
What had she done to wrought such a life upon herself?

Pausing only for a second to catch her breath, Naksatra peered back into the Tangled woods with it's darkened trees looming over head and the stretching shadows that lay just beyond it with peering eyes, sneering laughs and mocking shouts.

The Mirror had never left her homelands before, never dared venture beyond the small treeline of a border but with the shouts and calls, the faint flickering of movements in the darkness--
What choice did she have?

And so her first steps from the shadows embrace took her unto the fouled land of plague; the ground no longer soft with grass but hardened with stretches of tendrils and membranes coating most to every inch. Naksatra's snout coiled in disgust, making every effort to avoid stepping in anything she could.

The further she pressed into the tainted lands, the less care she had for the mucus and virulent slime that coated this land; and the further ease breathed, for but a moment, into her form that she was no longer being followed.

Perhaps it was the guard dropping that allowed fate to strike a cruel blow or merely, the plague had set in the moment a new victim had crossed into it's path--

Her body burned, eyes bleary and watering as muscles protested with every weakened stride that she took. She was hungry, thirsty--
But what was there to eat that did not turn her throat to razors?

Days felt as if they were stretched into weeks, the blistering sun scorching over head. Long strides fell into fumbled stumbling, form no long supporting her weight. The collapse was inevitable and surely the Plaguebringer was close to rejoice in another hearty victim to the cause.

"There's a dead body over here! Free food!" The voice was estranged to Naksatra's ears, words almost contorted as the fever took hold of her. The words that usually would have struck fear unto her were stripped away as exhaustion grasped a hold, fate accepted. "Oh-- I think this one's alive. Double oh, ew! Blisters!"

"Toad--" A second voice, feminine and louder (larger?), seems to chide with a rumble. The irritable disappointment was picked up with ease, "Go back to the Clan, inform them we have an emergency case and please, try not to get too.. distracted on the way back. I will need yours and Frameworks assistance upon my return."

Skittering and then silence.
As Naksatra peered up with what little energy she had, a larger form of white seemed to be haloed with a pastel rainbow. Wings...? Had some higher deity seemed fit to claim her spirit as she passed on?

Hah, she wouldn't be so lucky--

Naksatra felt her form shift, pain splintering her as blackened claws coiled around her; lifting her. Tears stung her multiple eyes and a croaked whimper left her maw.

"Hush. All will be right, little one. You are under safe wings..." The last words caught before darkness offered sweet, merciful respite to the pain.