#rhuk

anyways here is what I made in FireAlpaca with my mouse: "Chosen / Cursed / Second Chance"

Enemies to Lovers

Rhuk (Dragonborn) (he/him) belongs to @glimmergoblin

Fr though, my partially possessed “God-King” that I’ve been calling Raptor / Rook? Yeah all the themes of those words fit him to a T. I’m also counting things from the Etymology* of these words.

Raptor: bird of prey, plunderer, ravisher, to seize

Rook: corvid/crow/raven, cheater, simpleton/cheated, chariot

Chariot: a weapon of war that served as a dominant or large factor in warfare for several hindered years. It was useful and strong, but eventually was surpassed, in other words its time came to a close.

My poor possessed man who rose to power only to be corrupted and meet an end, cheated in that his power thwarted his goals, a cheater in that he lives on, hundreds of years after his human lifespan ended. My beloved “I became what I daughter to destroy” trope fulfiller: Rühk**, later known as King Raptores.

*etymology is word history/evolution

Where we started:

The Testament - https://bookbuggs.com/novel/detail/24/The%20Testament

When I first started telling you stories about Rhuk and Muiri, their tale was pretty easy to track. All I had to do was travel across Skyrim in the shoes of a mercenary with a talent for survival and a consistent curse when it came to partnerships, and pretend he had a jilted alchemist on his trail. It was a long walk from Markarth to Windhelm with several stops along the way.

One scene I had from the start, though, was one I'd like to keep if I can. It always puzzled me that you could find spare coins or pieces of jewelry amidst the pelts or meat of slain animals, til I realized a rather obvious reason, and knew Rhuk would be the perfect character to make use of this information.

Rhuk and Muiri are in the marsh just north of Morthal. Neither of them are terribly used to the trecherous bog environment, but Muiri learned a little about the area when she came through this way last year, and she does her best to be helpful. Most of her help comes from explaining the usefulness of the local flora in various poisons.

"The deathbell isn't nearly so common anywhere else," she was saying, speaking slowly, her attention more on her footing. There were patches of mud here that transformed quickly and without warning into scum-slick mudholes. "And the nectar in its flowers draw butterflies, whose wings can be powdered and combined with dried nightshade to create a poison that causes bone weakness."

Rhuk, who had grabbed a sturdy branch from somewhere, was poking the ground rather than test the path with his own boots. He was also listening for anything that might try to creep up on them through the intermittent fog. He wasn't terribly concerned - anything big enough to cause them trouble would announce itself on the moist, loamy soil or in the dry reeds. If she needed to comfort herself with some nattering, better that than silence followed by startled shrieking.

"Stop!"

Rhuk just about jumped out of his skin. He rounded on his companion.

"What?!" he growled.

Muiri was pointing at a patch of ground-mushrooms over which is branch was hovering.

"Don't disturb the lichen," she cautioned. "The spores are a poison all their own. Breathe them in and you'll be sick for a week."

Rhuk moved the stick carefully out of the way of the growth, growling his frustration. He moved aside to give it a wide berth, and kept his eye out for more. "Is EVERYTHING in this bog out to kill you?"

"Not everything," Muiri replied to his rhetorical question. "Actually, if you dry the shafts and mix them with - AAHH!"

Muiri had tested a shining rock with her shoe, only to find that she had disturbed a rather large mudcrab. It rose from the muck, claws raised, ready to teach a lesson to whomever had disturbed it.

Rhuk stepped in and rapped the thing smartly on its cone-shaped head. The creature, completely nonplussed, scuttled right around and snapped Rhuk's stick in half.

"Hey!"

New target acquired, the mudcrab advanced on the large Orc.

Rhuk took a moment to sigh over his lost tool, then tossed it and drew the axe from his belt.

"That was a good stick," he told the crab.

It wasn't long before both the creature's claws lay still in the mud, and Rhuk was wrenching the axe blade from its crown. He brought the bloody head to his nose and sniffed. Before Muiri could ask what he was doing, he gave it an experimental lick.

"Oh, gods." She put a hand to her mouth.

Rhuk smacked his lips, tasting.

"Scavenger," he determined. "Could do with some cooking."

"Yes, typically that gets done BEFORE you eat it."

Rhuk didn't spare her more than a wry glance before going to his knees and ripping the things legs off, gathering them together in a bundle. Muiri turned away. When she was sure that all six of them had been removed, she was startled to hear an even more horrendous sound of carapace being rended from flesh. She turned to find Rhuk muscling off the armored crown of the crab and digging into the smelly flesh beneath.

"What in the hells are you doing?"

Rhuk's arm was plunged into the body up to his elbow. He seemed to be searching for something by feel.

"Scavengers," he said, straining as his arm sunk deeper. "They like nothing better than to pick off of the fresh dead."

There was a horrible squelching noise as he used his other hand to pry the crab's wound open further, to get a better look at its innards.

"Oh, for--!" Muiri turned away, but couldn't help glancing back out of horrified curiosity.

"Animals 'round here aren’t stupid enough to get caught in a bog. But then there's folk like us that don't know any better."

Muiri was starting to question her confidence in Rhuk's skills as a survival guide.

"And there ain't better eating than a nice... juicy... corpse."

He pulled his arm out, coated in gore, with his prize in hand. At first Muiri thought she saw a bloated organ clutched in his fist, and swallowed hard to keep herself from being sick. But as the viscera dripped away, she noticed texture beneath the fluids, and a clear wrapping of cord around one end. Rhuk dunked it in the bog water, and when he lifted it out, she heard a clear clink of metal.

Stunned, Muiri watched as Rhuk cut open the half-digested purse to reveal a handful of coins.

"How did you...?"