Murkshade

Former Forager

"Who needs this place, anyway?" Murkshade hissed, licking greedily at the blood upon her maw. "At least they give a hoot about me, unlike y'all." Blood seeping from a newly-inflicted wound her own flesh and blood's teeth had caused, Dawn stared dumbfounded at her daughter with an air of utmost hurt and confusion. Yet she did not sway. "You are never to come back," snarled Wesker. The other elites flocked supportively around her parents and murmured their shared agreement.

Suddenly the air was tense. Raised voices filled with jeers and angered roars. "As if I'd want to." With those parting words, Murkshade wasted no time in thrashing her tail angrily and turning away to skulk towards the outskirts, ignoring the calls of her former clanmates. There was no coming back from this. She had been warned of that and even now, she knew they saw her as nothing more than a monster. Wiping her face against the damp grass to remove her mother's blood as she passed the threshold, she tried not to look back on her way towards the edge of the territory.

Upon reaching the dead zone between territories, Murkshade found Mezzaine and Kaine waiting. Greeting them as old friends, she lay down upon the barren earth in the smallest crater bordering Blazing Trails clan territory and their neighbours. Her eyes gleamed with ill-suppressed guilt and remained alight with the malice she had spat after the first taste of dragon blood. Still the praise came from the two whose company she was now forced to keep as she settled upon the cold earth to sleep, her mind racing.

What had she done? Her glazed eyes flitted momentarily upon Kaine, speaking now in low whispers with his mate; both had their backs to her. Murkshade's eyes rested longest upon Mezzaine. She was the leader here once. The two broke apart and settled down themselves. I think I can trust them. She allowed her eyelids to droop in the moments before sleep overtook her. All will be well. I'm sure they know what they are doing...

As morning broke, a stiffness overcame Murkshade that she had never known before. She could not speak. She could not move. Yet Mezzaine watched on, ever gleeful and proud of the long night's work she had struggled through. "You are just one among many." she spoke softly, her lip curling maliciously at the helplessness in Murkshade's eyes serving only to bolster her words. "We are far from done."

Dawn and Wesker lay together on the edge of the nursery, him licking her wound with a grim expression, each locked in a mixture of emotions and lost in their thoughts of wondering where they had gone wrong with their daughter. Neither could agree that it was their parenting. Clanmates came and went, offering their condolences, and healers had been dedicated in coming by often to check up on the pair. As the sun sank lower in the sky, both found that they could agree that Murkshade had spent too much time on the outskirts and as the first stars twinkled into life overhead, they spoke of the possibilities that she had succumbed to temptation by lies and deceit of the exiled she now joined. It was the only reasonable explanation.