#ruetash

in the loops where gortash saves rue he always dies. in the loops where rue saves gortash she always dies.

durgetash week '25: First Impressions

they meet as children. they're torn apart too soon. gortash searches for her in everyone he meets.

The bell chimes above the door and Enver is the only one on the shop floor right now. A human woman with a soft face walks in, followed rapidly by a small tiefling girl. She darts inside and spins around to face the woman. Enver takes a step back in an attempt to hide himself from interacting with customers, ducking behind some shelves.

“Mama, can they make me run faster?” the girl asks, jumping up and down as the two stand at the counter. “Like, really really fast?”

“That’s definitely something we can ask about,” the woman replies, a hand stroking the back of the girl's head, smoothing out her gentle white hair.

The girl slips from her mother’s grasp and rushes up to where some shoes are on display. Enver watches curiously at the way her tail swings back and forth in quick flicks, almost like a cat. 

“Can I get them in red?” she asks, poking at the laces of a pair he recently shined up. “Red will make me run fast.”

“We’re just here to fix your soles, Ruelle,” the woman replies with a soft smile. “Maybe when you’ve outgrown these ones we can get you a red pair.” 

Shoes can’t make someone run faster, it’s not how they work. Enver wants to tell the girl that, and also say that if she wants good new shoes they’re better off going somewhere else. The girl jumps around, a bundle of energy until her mother, the woman, laughs and tells her to stand still. 

thank you @elinorbard for tagging me to have a little play with this picrew!

i made rue and gortash back when i saw this on bksy a while back and now... it is time to share them >:)

something something walls down, vulnerable without their armour (gortash's gauntlet, rue's gloves), the barest they will ever be to each other

gortash -> cybernetics business owner. biiig name. steel watch is probs the company name. number 1 in the country for augmentation and stuff. its not public that he a) stole so many patents and products from those he once worked under and b) the testing period of these new products are not legal at all

rue -> toying with the idea that she was created by bhaal who specialises in these unique bodies that are molded to your (his) will. one of a kind almost android type beings?? rue is advertised to be "for your darkest urges" (haha get it). kind of used for bhaal to get intel on people who hire out his creations. holds a lot of blackmail that way. rue has killed people because of this. then one day she goes rogue? breaks out of the carefully created programming / mind control of bhaal & tries to dismantle everything she thought was real with gortash's help? i like the idea of the absolute being a virus that is infecting a looot of bioengineered / ai / hologram programs created by bhaal & also various other big tech corps that are gortashs rivals

after serving most of his twenty year sentence, enver flymm is given another chance at life. he’s older, wiser and less likely to involve himself in the criminal underworld he slipped into as a teen. part of his parole conditions is to attend weekly group therapy in order to rehabilitate him and help him learn new social skills and be a part of a community. he doesn’t expect to find someone he never knew he was missing there (or: the chosen of bane and the chosen of bhaal find each other, centuries after they were forced apart, with no gods to hold them back)

chapter 8 - revelations

The sweltering heat of summer dims down into a cool, brisk autumnal breeze, the leaves changing from vibrant greens to deep oranges and reds. Evenings grow darker with each day that passes and Enver forgets how much he missed the city in the throws of autumn. It’s nice to sit on his balcony and feel the cold air and just exist.

With the air cooling comes the familiar sense of dread that often waits for him as winter sits around the corner and Enver knows that this year it’s going to be difficult. It’s his first winter out since he was locked up and with therapy getting into his mind (he’s started calling out bad behaviour and correcting himself and in a way he’s glad it’s working - on the other hand it’s fucking furstrating to police his every action) he’s concerned he’s going to spew some bullshit about how trauma can linger even when years have passed and that’s something he has to deal with.

Being sentenced to twenty years behind bars is hardly traumatic when other people go through worse things, right? He’s just being a coward about it.