Rhulk has a visit from Savathûn. He thinks he has the upperhand but he is oh-so-wrong.
Rhulk’s eyes are dim as he ponders in his dwelling, a pyramid ship, sunken in the miasmic folds of Savathûn's Throne. It has been a while since she'd come to heckle him and the silence, the awful silence that The Witness left him in was gnawing at his meninges.
Up and down a long corridor, he paces, restless, as the silence was, and always will be maddening. Soon he meanders down to visit his Caretaker, dutifully working without error, tending to specimen and ridding the place of some small vermin who would attempt to hover around. The Upender had learnt his lesson after a direct attack from The Adversary - that ‘Traveler.’
He strolls further to his hand-crafted mosaics, pondering his art for a long while. His glyphs, yes, but also the thinly veiled portrayal of Lubrae. A shudder rolls up his frills as he senses a breath at the back of his nape. He grimaces at the intrusion of thought and turns to face that wide-winged culprit. He eyes down at her, a flare in his gaze. She speaks up.
“Brooding yet again, my dear Subjugator? Oh my, that snarl is so befitting of you.” She laughs her obnoxious little laugh and as if to pacify him, places a clawed hand on his torso as he faces her. He thinks of a snarky response but nothing comes aside from a low growl. Instead he huffs in annoyance, crossing his arms and tapping his own claws against them, hip slightly cocked, yet he does not back away from her ministrations.
“The silent treatment now, is it? I see how it is..” She sighs in exaggeration, letting her claws scrape across his shoulder blade and down his upper arm. He finally flinches, snapping at her. “ What do you want, Traitorress? ” Hissed out, he swats her hand away like it were some vulgar insect. She'd interrupted his silent introspections and he wasn't too keen on bickering for hours.
“Can't a Queen visit her prisoner from time to time?” She has a surreptitious trill to her voice - to him like claws down slate. He snarls, elbowing her away to distance himself. He dislikes her mockery. He'd flay the chitin from her body and watch her writhe if he could bring himself to bother.
The Witch Queen must have somehow picked up on the thought, closing on him again and clasping a hand in hers. The First Disciple stiffens, sharpness subsiding into concern of what she intended to extirpate from him. His eyes flicker - control barely masking exhaustion. He jerks away on reflex, muscles coiling as his posture locks in place. She is already getting too close for comfort.
“Enough.” He clears his throat and adjusts the bangles around his left wrist, his luster having grown warm inside of him at their proximity. She notes his decorum, subtle strings of beads hanging around his neck and shoulder, a thick, ornate ankle bracelet and his claws sharp and neat. She likes what she sees, she always has enjoyed gazing upon her Subjugator for many a reason - how intriguing and alluring he seemed. It wasn't as if they hadn't had a tryst or two before, so tension was palpable, but he seemed to slacken, eyes looking back to his mural longingly.
That is when she struck, claws darting forth to grab at his wrist, extreme vulnerability both of their species shared. He immediately hisses in surprise, shivering as she presses her own to his. Her worm delects on the slight subterfuge and her mandibles click into a grin. “Now, now darling. Pay your attention to me. You will have all the time left in this universe to mope in these halls.” Her sing-song voice grates like metal against stone.
Perhaps a few millennia ago, he'd have struck her, but now he contends to return the grip to her wrist, hearing her breath hitch - talons pricking against chitin, holding her in place just enough to remind her of the danger between them. Without a word, he presses the tips of his claws into the seam between coarse chitin and fickle flesh ordaining her forearm, both a returning taunt and a warning. Her eyes flicker before meeting his again. Strange sounds of stridulation begin to emanate from her. The sudden intensity of their intimacy had taken her by surprise this time, and her worm gnawed at her guts for it. It does not deter her though, letting her chest flush against his, her form molding to his, the sharp ridges of her chitin scraping like glass against flesh. He grumbles quietly, something like a subtle trill of his own, feeling her Soul Flame through their wrist-bond. She is soon to careen her head against his shoulder, gazing at him with her three fiery eyes. “..I have missed this, my dear Rhulk.” Another trill as a claw jabs the weak spot of flesh.
He grumbles, and responds disgruntledly, “What is it you want this time, Sathona ?” Her eyes flare brighter with pride at hearing him say her true name, though it was intended as a jab at her once fickle Krill-origin. She tilts her head, fangs grazing against his throat, tasting the heat of his pulse.
“Exactly that, your time. ” She lets out a satisfied hum.
Rhulk stiffens slightly, then lets out a sigh. He would not decline her presence. With his free hand, he slowly traces her sharp-boned scapular and lets his claws grace her spine. Her touch is slow, deliberate - a whisper of claws tracing the ridges of his torso, resting at his hip. She lets out a pleasured sigh at his touches, his claws reaching at itches that she could not rid herself of alone - and the very erogenous zones at the bases of her wings. They know that they could absolutely tear eachother apart at any moment, yet they do not, both on the same whetstone of slow torturous teasing.
Her claws trail up his jaw, pausing at the sharp cusp of his maw, where breath and violence meet. His grip falters - only slightly, but she feels it, and oh, how that pleases her. She senses the embers of conflict burning in him, buried beneath that rigid control, of course she does . She prods at his burning coals.
“Oh, what is this, my dearest Rhulk? ..Hesitation? ” Her mandibles flex, as her chitin clicks softly, she baring her serrated teeth in amusement. In response, he breathes out slowly and controlled, though the subtle flare of his frills betrays him. “You mistake stillness for hesitation.” He growls, but even to his own ears, it lacks conviction. Teeth glinting in the dim amber light of the Pyramid’s glyph-lit chamber, her fingers curl against his chest, a slow, deliberate pressure. “ Really? Or does your loyalty truly not waiver in the slightest?”
“You overstep.” he warns, his voice a deep, resonant thing that sends vibrations through her chitin, only she chuckles. “ Do I? ” she echoes again, her voice a saccharine mimicry. Then she leans in, pressing her mandibles close to the space where his throat meets his collarbone, and whispers, “Tell me, when was the last time the Witness spoke to you?”
Rhulk freezes, reeling in her words. The silence stretches between them, thick as the miasma outside his Pyramid. She hears the tightening of his maw, the slow grind of his jagged fangs.“You know nothing..” he says at last, but it lacks its usual venom.
Savathûn tilts her head, amusement dancing in her fiery eyes. “ Do I? ” The phrase is a dagger of obsidian, chipping and flaking while slashing at his wits harshly, now, twisting. “Or have you just begun to notice? The absence . The distance ..” She presses a claw just beneath his ribs, feeling the coiled tension in his body. " Has It even noticed that you’re still here, Rhulk? "
And then, he snaps.
His claws leave her spine, locking around her throat in one brutal motion. In a blink, she’s against the cold wall, the impact echoing through the chamber. Yet she only tilts her head, watching - calculating, victorious in her stillness. Savathûn lets out a choked laugh, not at all perturbed. If anything, her grin widens. “ There’s my Subjugator,” she croons, her voice rasping against his grip. “Did I strike a nerve?”
Rhulk’s eyes blaze with fury, his breaths heaving. “You speak as if you know anything of my loyalty! You, the traitor! ” She neither pushes him away nor pulls him closer, her voice dipping, losing its mocking lilt. “I know enough.”
A slow silence settles between them. His heaving breaths slowly calm though shudders of rage still roll across his body. He does not let himself lose further composure. “Whatever you say, Queen of Lies. Now.. leave. I’m certain you have other machinations to deal with.”
She grouses a bit when released from his grip, having been so bored as to visit him in the first place. She rolls her shoulders, letting the tension settle between them like the weight of a passing storm just for an instant. Her expression is calculating, if not unreadable. “I see now..” she murmurs. She does not touch him anymore. She does not need to for this. “The silence gnaws at you, doesn’t it?” she whispers. “Not because you crave Its guidance, but because you are terrified of what the lack of It means. ”
Rhulk does not respond. He cannot.
She turns, beginning to walk away, her wings folding behind her. But just before she vanishes into the darkened corridors of his pyramid, she casts him one last glance over her shoulder.
"I’ll impart this on you, dearest.. It never cared for you, Rhulk. "
Then the Hive Goddess is gone.
The Lubraean stands in the silence she leaves behind, staring at the place where she had been.
The silence returns, swallowing him whole. For the first time in an age, it does not feel like solitude. It feels like abandonment.
Savathun/Rhulk (or Nezarec/Savathun/Rhulk despite me not having met the former yet) is going the typical way of my ships where it starts out as antagonistic and then later I try to contort myself into "What comfort could come from these people?" How would they possibly show affection?" "How can they help each other in a system that specifically punishes unity?" My Witness, the Disciples have unionized. Except the Darkness scheme is set up so that if they do, they become weaker! This is a story about love
