Aceso

[04/02/XX] - The Inner Rim of the Wyrmwound - Dusk
Her eyes were aching. Her fall into the Wyrmwound had been born of a single misstep, but it's punishment the rewards were obvious. Infection from an early stage- it gave her the longest time frame possible to tune her magic to the Plaguebringer's own.

Suspecting loss of her sight was but moments away, she hastily sought out a safe place to reside for her trials. A jaw-less bogsneak skull, resting but a few feet away, looked perfect. Two small for most predators to sift through, but undesirable enough that it wouldn't be picked up for alternative uses.

Here, she could figure out her own relationship to the Mother her peers loved so much.

[06/02/XX] - Meditative Nest - Midday
The sun beat down against the earth, attempting to set the deadlands ablaze with fire, by she did not move from her nest. She could not see the bright light's wraith, blind to the world as she was. All she could do was feel it's heat, even under the shade of the bogsneak skull- Burtram, as she had come to call him.

Burtram was kind to her. He sheltered her from the heat and the cacklings wildclaws that scurried around, searching for their next meal. He provided her with food, dangling spiders within her reach, brushing their legs along her fins so she could snap them up in her hunger. Burtram let her meditate, safe and fed, and he did not comment on the decisions she came to.

She cracked her claws apart, the rusted blood having resewn itself together into a glue-like substance. The Mother crooned just inside her hearing range, and she contemplated the words She spoke carefully. A creature worthy of admiration, perhaps, but she debated the point of worshipping anything.

The Wastelands demanded survival be the focus of its inhabitants, and survival was something she could respect.

(Little did she know, that was what She liked about her.)

[09/02/XX] - Meditative Nest - After Sunfall
She could feel it moving; the infection leaving her eyes to lace around the back of her skull. It burned, uncomfortable being an understated description, but it felt... satisfying. To feel it retreat like that. A mark of success, if her mother's lecturing was to be believed.

Though she still held doubts as to the Plaguebringer's right to worship, clearly the Mother had found something She liked in the fae enduring Her trials.

It was close to midnight, when she could finally open her eyes once more. Her vision was blurry, almost watery, with dark splotches covering random sections. Nests of mold still stuck to her eyelids, she suspected. But... it was a start.

Soon, she would be able to start the next stage. How to approach it...

Well, she had a while to think about that; a while until the infection running rampant in her body finally came to a rest.

[11/02/XX] - Atop Burtram- Midday
Now confident in her ability to protect herself, Aceso spent daylight hours perched atop Burtram. She watched as dragons wandered back and forth across the Wyrmwound's edge. Most were plague natives- but the ones they were hunting were also present; travelers who had dared to attempt the Wasteland's most dangerous environment.

Aceso blinked slowly, watching a pair of nocturnes dragging a decaying guardian corpse in the direction of their third partner's nest. It was a world of scavengers here, in the Wasteland; that was a lesson she would never forget. Her mother may have been too blindly devoted in their Mother, and too harsh in many cases. But there were some things she was just... right about.

As she continued to observe her surroundings, Aceso spied three ice siblings who had clearly attempted the Necromancer trials. Their skin had turned a vibrant red, and their eyes were soulless as they wandered the Wyrnwound's rot.

They would not be given a merciful death. A ghouls flesh was deadly upon consumption, even to a plague native. Instead, they would be left... left to wander the earth in a mindless, painful existence...

That... was a truth Aceso didn't want to accept.

[12/02/XX] - In the Wyrmwound - Midnight
A type of determination gripped Aceso; an atypical passion screaming through her veins as she attempted to redirect the infection in the Wyrmwound into the vultures nesting overhead and back out again.

Something had inspired her, over the past few hours, and Mother knows what it was.

Aceso was equal parts inspired and frustrated by the feeling. She didn't like not knowing how she was feeling, and why, and the lack of knowledge was infuriating. Snarling internally, she ripped the infection from her current target aggressively, before turning around to stalk back over to where Burtram lay. She needed more sleep to do this.

A pile of vulture corpses was the only sign she had been there.