Redhawk Caldera Catharsis

OOC: Set following this thread. This technically will take place outside the borders, but close enough to be more or less home. @Peregrine @Fox @Finley @Elwood @Eljay @Hatshepsut @Sassafras @Nashoba

The sun was setting in the West by the time Shrike managed to drag the bedraggled corpse back to the Caldera with him. Covered in dirt, grass, blood and spittle, the murderer's body looked as though it had been dead for days when in fact it had only been a full day since he had come upon her. Shrike couldn't have imagined that it would take him so long to drag a wolf's corpse back to the pack, given that wolves were strong and able to drag other forms of prey a fair distance when necessary, but Shrike's journey had not gone as planned. 

It had stared with a general feeling of nausea, followed by a tickling in his throat. He'd stopped to drink a few times, and to rest to regain his strength, and at first he had convinced himself that he was simply tired and low on energy from the famine. But the tickle in his throat progressed to a cough, which, by the time he came near the borders, had deepened into sucking, rasping breaths which stung his throat and lungs. His vision was blurry and legs felt chilled, and he stopped dead in his tracks when he realized what he'd done. 

"My blood is poison."

Though he'd been careful, he must not have been careful enough, and he had come in contact at some point or another with Hedda's blood, thus transmitting the neurotoxin from her stiff corpse to infect himself, and he realized too late that he was bringing back not only one poisonous body to his homeland, but two. He refrained from breaching the borders of the pack, and would have dragged the body further away if only he had the strength. But the poison- albeit only a tiny amount- was wreaking havoc on his body. He lay down on the ground and tried to relax, but he could not simply allow the story to come to an end like this; he howled out for his packmates, a howl that was interrupted by coughs and barks before it was resumed again as a small drop of bloody spittle fell from his mouth onto the ground. 

He'd caught the murderer, finally, but he was fairly certain that she might have claimed another Caldera life in the process.