Blattodea

Blattodea
He/Him | Cleaner within the Cult of Mor
Mate: N/A

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Though comfortable with his life in the Foxfire Brambles alongside his many siblings, Blatto never quite found himself interested in thieving. He was good enough at it, able to provide enough to hold his place within the Shadows of Doubt, but always found it rather... tiresome. Uninteresting. The process was simple, tedious; and it wasn't as if he got to keep the shiny objects he'd find, either, as they went straight to the heads of the Shadows.

He fit in just fine. He just didn't quite care to.
Maybe one day he'd go out on his own to venture the lands instead. Discussion with one of his siblings, Chilopoda, only encouraged him. Perhaps the two of them could roam off together. Maybe more of them could do so. Start their own vagabond group of thieves.

An excursion into a fungus-infested part of the shadow territory, however, stripped any decision he had right out of his claws. He felt it within him as he neared his home, prize in hand... Something stirring within him. Something foreign. Something parasitic.
Something that was slowly extending to his muscles, leaving them to twitch and jerk unnaturally.

The moment he stepped foot within his home, his parents had shot up almost instinctively. Whatever it was, they could sense it. And a look of horror crossed his mother's face before she demanded him to stop where he stood, and quickly tore herself back to shoo away his siblings.
Blattodea had been infected with a cordycep. Something detectable to some outside of the host, but often unnoticeable to the one infected. The usual course of action was to take the infected host and drag them as far as possible from the home, so the spores - once released - could not infect the rest of them.

Blattodea was horrified when his parents told him this. After they'd managed to get his siblings out of earshot, they sat him down in a quiet spot within the lair to break the devastating news, and... It just crushed him.
They were similarly pained, with Myriapoda struggling to keep her calm during the entire conversation, but also held an unmistakable air of resignation that told him he wasn't getting out of this.
He couldn't stay here. He couldn't be the reason his family died. It would hurt the whole lot of them to be forced to kick him out, but it was better than them all being dead.

Without too much objection, then, Blatto agreed to leave. He said goodbye to his parents, requesting they tell his siblings of his departure (though preferably not the nature of it), before wriggling out of the brambled lair and into the unknown.

He wasn't content to just fall down and die, though. He wasn't going to give up. Blatto took off into the Wastelands, figuring that surely - surely - there'd be something in that diseased land that could kill off the parasite. Maybe he could drink straight from the pustules, leaving the plague to balance out the parasite. Maybe he could bathe in them, letting the disease seep into his chitin and kill it off that way.
He didn't know. But he had to do something.

Not long into his excursion, however, and just before he could experiment with either of those plans... a Seeker of the Cult of Mor found him. They told him they could heal him.
They promised many more opportunities within their family, but all that stood out to Blatto was the promise of healing. Or, at the very least, a mitigation of his parasite. He hardly hesitated. He agreed to whatever they asked of him.

It's not like he had much to lose at this point, anyway.

So, off he went towards the Cult's grand chapel deep within the Plaguelands, pledging loyalty to the leader - Njada - and severing his ties to his former home.
Here, he became a Cleaner for the Cult; offering his stealth in keeping quiet, hardly noticed, and efficient in the removal of bodies. His small stature was also a great help in that. He found himself especially gifted in "taking care of" parts of the body that other dragons were not... Those being talons and manes in particular.
A bit grotesque at first, but... He found, interestingly, that the parasite encouraged such behavior. This isn't the normal action of cordyceps, as they usually try depriving their host of nutrients, but... It somehow made the process bearable.
Sometimes even enjoyable.
Weird.

He periodically has to stop by the Healers of the clan to keep control of the fungus, though, as it starts taking more and more control over his muscular system and urging him to start climbing. From what he understands, removing the parasite isn't quite an option yet, but the effects of it can be dulled.

Mmmostly. The parasite still seeped out from between the plates of his exoskeleton, much to his dismay (and pain), but did not release spores. Nor did it manage to kill him.
The healing he's given seems to shrivel the ends of the parasite so he keeps most control of his body, but doesn't eradicate it entirely. Or it just numbs it. Somehow alters its ability to seize chemical control.

He's not really sure how any of that works. But he doesn't question it.

He's alive, and he owes that to the Cult. He swears to do whatever he can to stay that way.