Pathogen
They say time heals all wounds. How much time, though? A day has passed since the death of the mother, and the hurt has yet to lessen. A moon phase? A revolution of the planet around its sun? Decades? Centuries? Her head still felt so empty, as though the loose ends of her very personality were trying to reach into the void and retrieve what was lost. Swimming, almost, as though attempting not to drown.
Ugly. Her reflection in the water didn't seem that way to her, but the words had struck a heavy blow. It seemed as though suddenly, their hard lives had transcended to something more - the preservation of a race? The weight of responsibility was crushing, grinding into her mind without remorse. And most of the shock came from the awareness that her family history was a Pandora's box, and she'd only just scraped the surface... her entire identity seemed threatened. The small lake glints, inviting her to twirl her talons in it absent-mindedly, hidden by the foliage of the garden, now devoid of Sidoreth's presence, though she can of course feel him in her mind.
Kemeneth glides one forepaw across the water before she pushes herself up to her feet then stares down at herself. Her shoulders slump a little and she closes her eyes, dragging both forepaws across her muzzle. She doesn't say anything or think anything, even as she leaves the garden.
Ybbeleth no longer lay where she had died. Her bruised and disfigured body had been moved to a place of more dignity. There were still blood stains left, though, and the cavern had a strange sense of hauntedness, of incompletion. Kemeneth wanted both to avoid that tunnel forever, and return to it to find closure. As it was, the fewest places in their home were bearable - they all reminded of the mother. The garden, a place of serenity, had felt as though infused by her ghost.
Kemeneth walks down a tunnel, her eyes open but she wasn't seeing exactly. She came to a stop then, rubbing at her face again before looking around and sighing heavily. She wasn't sure where she wanted to go... but she wanted to be some place safe where she could think and not be haunted by the thought of her mother's body. "I could have done more..." she muttered, a half sob slipping from her.
A strange, subtle chill tugs at the edges of her scales, barely finding the way to her conscious mind, past her sorrow. It's like a soft breeze, as though air is rolling from one part of the cave system to another, gently, nudged by some change in temperature. A soft sound can be heard, bearing semblance to rustling leaves, though it is more... individual than that.
Kemeneth shivers then, crouching as she looks around, her nostrils flaring. She remains silent though, listening intently. A quiver runs through her and she backs a step then another, hopefully stepping into shadows.
As Srian eyes cast themselves warily upon the twist in the tunnel more than a dragon's length away, as though expecting a ghostish reincarnation of a vengeful Ybbeleth to appear and wreak havoc, there is not much warning. Even as Kemeneth's brain registers the pale blue weed, its explosive growth has consumed the tunnel walls around her, washing across the interior of the entire system, ensnaring her limbs with swift ease, though not growing past wrists or ankles, content with enveloping her talons.
Like a moor, it refuses to release her. Blossoming across the garden, claiming plants as it claimed all inanimate objects, the tidal wave of fungal invasion seems like a crust of ice, strange beauty in its silvery white and blue buds, reaching out, but growing only sideways, spreading out further, still like splashed water, into all corners.
As the front of the spreading carpet veers out of her vision, she's left with forepaws and hindpaws tightly ensnared against the soft, almost moss-like substance. Despite it's appearance, it feels slightly warm... giving her the impression that the tunnel has transformed into something living, and was going to digest her. All of this - in a mere five seconds... her mind is still grasping for answers.
Kemeneth quivers and struggles before she comes a stop, panting shallowly, mentally sounding a call to her family in warning of the blue and silver moss. She stares then awed, shivering a little though as an antennae hangs over one eye. She looks around then and tries to tug free of the moss again, half snarling.
Even as she sends out her warning, similar invades her mind - they've all been caught by surprise. Sidoreth has a paw free, he's communicated, but no promises were appended to the thought... instead, urgency, infectuous. Snarling, a dragon, larger than her, coloured like the weed, explodes into view and leaps to tackle, labyrinth pattern of blue and silver mesmerisingly unusual...
Three frightfully powerful claws - a strength she's never observed even in the strongest of her own family, indeed, had never dreamed possible - lock around her muzzle as the wings beat the air around her, and press with a force she feels could suffice to crush her skull, pulling her head up and back, straining her entire shape unnaturally. She can feel claws against her forepaws, seeking around in the inch-deep carpet-like weed.
Kemeneth struggles weakly then whines weakly, shallowly, her back arching as she is forced backwards, her wings trailing. Her struggles die then, her going limp in the stronger dragon's grip as she stares up at him, tears sliding down her face.
Her forepaws, still ensnared in the substance, bound to each other awkwardly, are torn from the floor of the tunnel, leaving a patch of brown outlined sharply where the weed had her restrained. And so silent. There was neither mockery nor inquiry of her name - still grabbing her by the muzzle and by her bound forepaws, the shimmering azure pulls her rear legs free with a force that nearly dislodges her ankles, causing them to ache. Her full weight suspended by her head and forepaws, the azure drags her along the corridor towards the garden.
Kemeneth trembles and writhes, whimpering with pain before she sags, letting herself be dragged. Her eyes drift closed then and she shivers a little more, her shape aching and sore. She tugs slightly on her forepaws then before she becomes still, trembling hard.
Tail lashing elegantly, the invading dragon pushes her muzzle into the blue moss near the lake, before shifting awkwardly and placing a foot comparatively gingerly against her left shoulder, forcing her down, pressing her into the moss. And with cruel intent, he twirls his talons, forming a thin, silver-glinting staff of sorts between his forepaws, before clutching it with both paws and driving it through her right thigh and into the ground. As he straightens an instant later, the pain explodes up her senses.
Kemeneth howls with with fear as she is forced to lie down before she roars in pain as she is pinned to the ground by the staff through her leg. She shudders now, sobbing in pain and struggling harder. She does come to a stop soon after though, her eyes closing as she pants, blood sliding down her scales. She's barely coherent through the pain and as for even thinkng straight? That's more or less out of the question.
When she next finds the coherence to interpret her surroundings as more than a blur, she's alone. Blood is welling up slowly but surely against the metal of the stake. The silence is absolute, bar for the crackling of dry weed below her at subtlest shifts. The pain, overwhelming, ebbs and floods with each heartbeat.
Kemeneth whines weakly as her eyes open, her voice cracking before she slumps, her eyes drifting semiclosed. She reaches her forepaws back then towards the stake, wanting to tug it free but as she bends to do so she yelps in pain and crumples, her shape limp. Her thoughts turn towards her family then.
The minutes tick by without remorse, and each heartbeat continues to shoot pain up her senses. It made it hard to think. She was certain it was hard to make sense of the situation even without the pain throbbing in her leg, but as it was, she felt as though she were desperately scrambling for answers to questions such as the stranger's identity. She'd barely seen him - he'd been upon her before she'd had much of an impression. But the colour alone...
Sidoreth had said that not all dragons were green - but this was the first she'd seen that truly wore another colour. But that didn't answer any of her questions - least of all the one as to why they were being assaulted in the first place.
Kemeneth trembles again, licking at her lips, swallowing hard. "Why us..?" she mumured. She shudders then, eying her leg and trying not to move it before she lies still again, or as still as she can.