An Enticing Unwitting Violet Doom

Written for “Smogust’s Story Hoard”, prompt 6.

The meteorite painted the night sky a dazzling violet, shining like a gift from the heavens. But what it carried was death incarnate.
At first its foul cargo was deprived of a foothold, for the heat of its passage scorched and hardened the turf it plowed up. A sterile prison. If only it had remained undisturbed. But then, how long would it have taken? For this ravenous thing from the stars to starve, harmlessly.
We’ll never know.
Dragons are not nocturnal creatures. But the noise and light had woken this one. Being, as all dragons are, enticed by shiny things and possessing the blissful confidence of an apex predator, it set off to investigate. Wanting to find this treasure, and decide whether to claim it, before the morning light made that difficult - and others possibly got to it.
The violet glow. The scent of scorched earth. The tang of something which Did Not Belong. These drew the dragon, unerringly and unfortunately, to the slumbering destroyer.
While the sheen of the meteorite was clearly glassy rather than a proper gem, it was pleasing to the dragon’s eyes. And small enough to carry, albeit with difficulty. Best to wait until morning for that.
Perhaps, if the dragon had simply settled down to snooze, that would have been long enough. Or perhaps it wouldn’t. Or perhaps something else would have come along and made the same mistake.
Perhaps we were doomed from the moment the meteorite was drawn from its orbit.
But the dragon stepped close, its thick armoured hide unbothered by the heat lingering in the furrowed soil, to sniff at the strange, tangy rock.
Then it licked.
At the first touch of the hot, wet tongue, the glassy coating melted into a sharp, sour, oily sludge which clung to flesh. The dragon smacked its lips, trying to swallow the substance, and found that only spread the nasty taste throughout its mouth. So it dangled its tongue and spat, sending a few glossy purple drops into the darkness. Dooming whatever they touched.
The prickling sensation was spreading down its throat and across its lips. The dragon shook its head, coughed, gagged, clawed at its mouth, but nothing stopped the relentless spread of clinging pickling burning.
Into its gullet. Out across its face. Along the claws and arm which had touched infected flesh.
When the skin of its mouth started sloughing off, that was almost a relief, for the pain started to give way to a deep aching numbness. Pain surged again as it vomited up its innards, but settled. More than anything, it felt… tired.
Slowly, inexorably, the prickling crept up its nostrils and in through its eyes, following nerves. Eating signals. Mindlessly seeking.
As its brain was painted a glossy purple, the dragon felt the urge to move. To walk, to fly, to crawl, it didn’t matter, it just had to move.
Had to spread.
Too clumsy to fly, it dragged itself into the forest. Carrying death with it.

I took the prompt as “The Rot infects and transforms all it touches into a horrifying visage of decay. Write about a dragon infected by the Rot.”