pruzaan ?

from these injury prompts. my muse is found by your muse, after being attacked by an animal. @ulfhrafnx

       it isn't often that he thinks this ---------- but sometimes, rivak does wish that those stereotypes about bosmer were true. what he wouldn't have given, in the past few minutes, to have perfect communion with the animals around him. it would have saved him the nasty bites on his forearm that he's had to stop and tend to. he half-sits against a sizeable tree stump, casually packing and wrapping the area, when he hears something approaching from the brush. it causes him to tense for a moment until he recognizes the steps.

     "ai, hi." there is amusement on his lips. "i know, i know. late." rivak lifts his now-bandaged arm to show her his excuse, and continues, "li-ttle pup. and, uh, mama... one. mama pup. step close... them panic, i think. gone now.”

       he pushes to stand. being that his walking stick is on his injured side, he does wince a little.

   Oh… 

   Oh… 

   His eyes are severe, and his movements echo similarly sharp. His voice cuts and drags, knives trying to ply into sensitive flesh. His body is rigid, and not just because of his injuries that are now healed-over. He’s the jagged side of a mountain, completely unrelenting, completely closed off to her, wishing only to offer her daggers instead of footholds, hand-rests. 

   He’s caught on. 

   Even without her face changing — even with her own body relaxed and carefree, her own words relatively inoffensive. Even though she’s helped him down, and healed him, he sees her as a threat. 

   And she… laughs. 

   It’s a full laugh, wide enough to see the crevice of her mouth where her tongue’s gone missing, sudden enough to scare a bird off its perch and deeper into the canopy of trees behind them. 

   As she rocks forward once again, sudden guffaw stifled in politeness, her fingers cry, “I like you!” One hand now-free goes and hits him against the arm, a playful motion, full of fondness. Joy seeped into her irises twinkle kindly at him, and she shifts back to ask him, “What’s your name?” 

       the two of them stare at one another, evaluating unyieldingly ----- until her figure sways unexpectedly back, and she begins barking at the branches overtop. the noise startles him, and his validated tension bursts into his hands. by instinct alone, his fingers race behind his shoulder and snatch two arrows from their quiver, ready to marry to his bow. as well, he springs to his feet, hoping to put a pace or two of distance between them... but he doesn’t. instead of following through with whatever it was his adrenaline had planned, rivak stops and listens.

       he had expected, still, the ghost of pain in his ankle when he stood, and didn’t find it. he had also expected this stranger to grow louder, and she hadn’t. the cry was over as soon as it had begun, soon enough for rivak to hear a bird fleeing to the safety of anywhere-but-here. his head turns to look at it, watching its path of flight until the trees overtake it, and then looking overhead at the branch from which it flew. he watches it bounce, trying to determine the bird’s weight. if its presence was an omen, knowing the bird’s identity would prove useful in deciphering it...

       ...but then his head swivels again, back to his company, and he’s reminded of the lack of pain in his ankle, a testament to her skill. skill... that one would not devote on him, if they were not of good intent. still wary, but less than he just was, his fingers release, and the arrows sink back down as if they, too, are embarrassed.

       “uh...” he blinks at her signing, needing an extra moment or two to take it in. when she moves forward and hits him, his shoulders rise, but his eyes are not wary now -------- they are wide and bewildered. the inappropriateness of looking so shocked in the face of her joy is not lost on him.

lorkhan embodying permanence ...... eternity ........ but being missing, as though ........ zzzzzzz as though his punishment ... zzzz mrrgggghh, was intended to be zzzzzzzrmrrrrffffrff to destroy him and thereby destroy the idea of existence outside the cycle, of permanence... but they could not do so completely, because of his new nature..........

*snorts and burrows into my pillow*

instead when he was torn apart the ever-present became the never-present .... zzzz the never-there... always-left... missing

but always trying to return to, and save, the world he loves zzzzzz

       ive said before that i really dig the idea of the last dragonborn being a shezzarine. and what that means for rivak. i’ve been thinking about how, when you enter sovngarde, the warriors there say that shor was “just here”; that his light would blind your mortal eyes. i never really liked that explanation as a metaphysical truth, and instead i figure it’s just how they explain it to themselves.

       my expression of this is going to be a little sloppy, but because i think that rivak is a shezzarine, basically my idea goes like this:

       mundus is a plane of oblivion, created by lorkhan/shor (i believe there’s a... messy and somewhat incomplete distinction between the two names and don’t get me started on shezzar but that’s another post entirely, so i’m just going to use shor for now). he had created many things before, each of them eventually being destroyed upon the dawn of a new kalpa. each thing that he crafted with his hands, he had great passion for, and to know that each of those things would end... it weighed heavily on his heart. in an existence where all things are continually eaten up, recycled, spat out, then eaten again, shor longed to create -- and consequently love -- something that could never be taken away, although it would change. this world, this child of his, would exist outside of chaos and order. shor, for his world, desired permanence and eternity, experienced linearly in time, and he would do anything to get it.

       in committing himself to this idea, shor embodied within himself the idea of linearity and permanence. a god that embodies these things cannot exist in multiple places at once in one plane, in the way that other gods do. when shor’s actions were judged and he was torn apart, those pieces struggled to coexist separately, and instead would default into one singular instance that embodies every piece. (not to be mistaken with those pieces reuniting. ...trust me it makes sense in my head). only one aspect of the missing god can exist in one place, at one time, because he is linear.

@ulfhrafnx  /  from these league of legends prompts.

       gilding, indeed. rivak’s expression is pure, naked annoyance. although his soul is that of a dragon, he is still very much mortal, and to waste any of his limited time on nirn feels criminal. this tomb has done just that, and in no small amount.

       he tosses the counterfeit artifact down with less care than he should probably use. whatever material it’s made of, someone was fond of it one point in time... the smith that crafted it cared very much about its deceptive details, at the very least. their success in trickery aggravates him nearly as much (or maybe more) than the hours he won’t get back. collecting his temper, he lets out a sigh. dwelling, in his experience, will only steal more seconds away from him.