Neverwinter Forest scavenge

Feel free to tussle her up and roll for some damage. She's pretty badly off at the moment from trespassing at MSP I am assuming, but no roll was done there quite yet so I am being vague and just going for "bloody and messed up" right now.

Bloodloss was a bitch. It had been the first time she had been caught so without knowing. Her futuresight had failed her. She thought and thought and thought and thought but could not do that for very long. Hunger was paramount in her mind, but now she suffered more pains than that. She hobbled weakly along, and this time the scent of boundaries gave her brief pause, but it did not register because...

Food.

Perhaps it could be found here. Weakly she darted inward, limping, hurting, hungering. This time... this time she would succeed. Something was forming here but not yet, not yet, not yet... she quietly crept beyond, limping, addled, searching for sustenance. Anything to fill her belly.

Anyone. Young. Young would do. Young would do just fine; it would revive her. No, not her. Her sister.

Markus was hidden within the bounds that the witchy woman passed so easily. He rested underneath a pine tree - same 'ol, same 'ol. He saw her as she slunk in and at first glance thought her Mal's friend. The one he had greeted so excitedly. He wished her no ill but he also had no need to see her, either. It took a moment for him to trust his eyes when they told him that something was off about the shape. It took a moment longer for him to smell and see that something was very, very off about the shape.

He rose, hackles alight on his shoulders and loped to meet the woman. He stood firmly in her path, head lowered, amber eyes confused and questioning. He had met a few at the borders but this was different. This was deliberate. He was far less indifferent to her presence as he had been to the others. The voice that came from his lips was hard as he demanded "Where are you going?" 

Familiar blood she could smell then. Not the one who approached her, though. Oh... someone had approached. Her flat, lifeless eyes rose up to peer at his face to search for any sign of hostility. Unlike the first place there was none. Which meant she was safe. Or could be safe. Ordinary to some, a godsend to her was his face. He asked her something... something...

Going, She parroted in a tired, warbling voice. Here, she gestured to where they stood. She swayed in place, new blood dripping toward her eye. Old blood dried around what was once an ear; was it anymore? Shego did not know. He was right; this was deliberate. Shego squinted at him, his features blurred. She saw his eyes though. Confusion. Her eyes, lifeless though they were, seemed to share that.

She had come here for something. Something...

Another cursory sniff. Come with me? She asked, tail twitching. She needed to be going. That sounded right. Come with me, and you will see, her high voice encouraged, and come to find the answer you seek. She stepped forward, but had not meant to; bloodloss had caused her to become dizzy, and she frowned at the disobedience of her own faculties.

The woman was even worse for wear than he had realized. Her behavior was strange enough, but he could see as he watched her blood trickle from wounds he had not noticed in her dark fur that she was also off in the physical department, too. The smell hit him, then, almost as if his inattention had staved it off. It was gross - he hated the smell of wolf blood. It turned his guts and made him want to gag.

She swayed and he was slowly putting together a picture. She was in bad shape and he was not convinced that she was entirely there - neither mentally nor actually. She set so easily past the borders that Markus was not inclined to relax completely but he did begin to look at her differently as the reality of her situation set in. She reminded him of the dark male with the snakes around his throat - though he had just been weird, not injured or sick.

"No." He told her when she asked him to come along. To where? 'Here' she had said and they were already 'here'. Her forward step caused him to shift his own position to remain in front of her but he raised his head from it's defensive posture into a more neutral one, staring at her from eye level now. "You can't go in there - here. You can't be here." His tone was almost gentle although, perhaps, more bewildered than anything.

He declined her invitation, and Shego frowned. Well, she would still give him the answer he wanted. He had asked after all. One only ever need ask. ...But I am, she responded, confused. Just as confused as he imagined. She was already here and in there. There was no insolence about her response. Her wit had left her. But her instinct to survive had not.

She lowered her head some in a meek manner, despite his neutral disposition, and sniffed quietly. Food. Shego swayed again, tried to catch herself before she stumbled one-two-three-four-fall left. Sticks and brambles and shrubs snared her momentarily and Shego let out a yowl of pain as one embedded itself into her thin jowls. Messily Shego freed herself from them (not without a pathetic fight) and looked to him, but still the stick protruded from her face. Numb to it, she could not feel, and she frowned.

Had there been food in there? She turned back to the thorny brush and pawed at its base. She had mistaken Markus lack of violence for understanding and compliance unwittingly, though left her hindquarters (and the rest of her) exposed. Help! She requested with the wave of her tail as she moved to dig.

He frowned at her response - what would have been considered irritating sarcasm if it had been delivered in any other tone. She was right and Markus supposed the real task now was to get her out. His confusion continued at her submissive gesture - what was wrong with her? - and when she stumbled forward this time, he could not help taking equal steps back. He was unnerved the longer he watched her. It grew like cold water in his spinal column, turning slowly to ice as he stared. 

She fell and he made no move to help her, though he did stop retreating with about as much distance between them as had been before. He felt sick again as he saw the stick in her face, cringing away from the sight and feeling his stomach roll once more. It was just like Cam. She flopped like a fish or an animal that had been hunted and who had only broken a leg or a back instead of being dealt a killing blow. She pawed feebly at the bush she had fallen into and at her request for help, Markus shook his head almost violently.

"No." He said, quietly at first - too quietly. "No. Get out." Stronger that time, if not a bit high. The crawling, cold feeling was making him afraid and fear was bringing about desperation. Desperation to get this bleeding, sick, wrong thing out of his territory, now.

Her persistence was for naught. Nothing in this hole. Just something she herself had dug. Not a cache. He was not heard at first, hunger roaring in her own ears, nor was he heard the second time as she saw a mouse scamper out from near where she had tried to unbury nothing. But this was something! She lunged, she missed, and then came his second words as she fell. Oh—her body had landed on it.

Get out, she repeated, nodding. She got up as fast as her body could muster the energy to (slow, slow) and grabbed her meal and this time listened. Stumbling, exhausted, but with food. A small morsel, but a victory she had not had elsewhere. Shego looked back to him with a wave of her tail.

Packs always had food. She had found a good place. A good wolf. She liked this one. Shego thought to herself, she would like to come back here. Maybe she could find something else, or more of this.

He can totally take the mouse from her. She is not in the best condition to stop him, and if he would I do not want to PP he did nothing when seeing her do that! Feel free.

Nah, you read him right - not in his nature! This was a fun thread!

Markus did not understand the repercussions of his tolerance with the female. He did not understand that his lack of any true aggression was an invite of sorts - a promise that this would happen again, if the lady didn't bleed out. He only knew his own nature and that he had no idea what to do. He couldn't touch her - wouldn't - not while she was covered in blood and whatever else. The panicky feeling fluttered just behind his ribs and he shoved it down, but his eyes betrayed him with a blaze of anxiety.

There was a mouse and though she scrambled for it and missed, she came down on top of it. He was almost oblivious to the little prey she'd squished because, finally, she said words. They were words he hoped she understood. Yes, get out - get out! She rose clumsily, painfully slowly, and seemed to do as she was told. “Yes. Go – now.” Markus felt a flicker of relief, but he did not trust her weird behavior. He didn't believe she was actually going to do as he asked and he wouldn't until she was far beyond the border.

She took the mouse and he ignored it, perhaps foolishly. Instead he moved forward as she began to stumble away - partly to make sure she left, partly to herd her in the correct direction. He would follow her to the border and pace it, his hair on end, for hours after she'd left.