“What’s that?” asked Oatey.

“Nothing. . .” Lugh lied, “a gift that I’ve kept and I’m not sure why.”  Because it is my lodestone, my guiding star and I’d not know what to do if I didn’t have them.  Lugh restrung and resettled them around his neck where they rode over his heart.  “Well, what’s for breakfast?”

“Porridge, ’tis my custom.” She explained, smiled shyly, “But I have fruit too, and this scramble of eggs and herbs and meat.  Probably that’s more to your liking . . .”

“Don’t be too sure.” said Lugh, but in the end he did eat most of the eggs and only a little of the porridge.  They talked lightly of nothing at all, teasing about her room, she telling him that he had a guestroom not far, fruits favored and not, but they both fell silent when family came up.

When the silence grew painful he broke it, “This was a wonderful breakfast, thank you Oatey.” He smiled at her and she blushed prettily.

Oatey fidgeted, Lugh thought she had something she wanted to say so he hesitated.  She looked up, but finding his eyes on her she immediately looked down and then away.  “It isn’t our custom for a man and woman to be alone without . . .”

“Breakfast? Egg scramble? let me guess, books?”

Oatey blushed, “. . . I mean unattended, without chaperon . . .”

“Oh, well I can’t imagine that does anything good for your folk having children . . .”

That made her laugh, “No, I mean unmarried men and women of course.” The bed they shared last night was their table to eat breakfast and it told him about her seriousness that she slipped off and walked toward the door. ”It is thought dishonorable.”

“Ah, is it?” Lugh grabbed a piece of fruit he didn’t want and took a bite, “mmmm, well which of us is dishonored and which dishonorable?”

“I don’t care what they think,” Oatey said defiantely, she looked him in the eye, “They care nothing for me anyhow.  I only mention it so that you know what they may say of you, what they already think of me.”

Lugh couldn’t suppress the laugh that burst out, but he hurried to apologize when he saw Oatey look so hurt, “No no no, It isn’t you sweet.  It is just that my reputation is far worse than yours could possibly be, and I’ve earned mine.”

He thought she might disolve into tears, but when she looked up she surprised him again with her fierceness, “You don’t know what they think of me.  Some think that I might even be the giant wife I pretend to be to lure the giants to be killed.  All think me strange, and I am.  I would never want to be like them.”

Lugh wasn’t sure what to say, “I don’t think you’re a giant wife . . .”

Oatey laughed humorlessly, “. . . But you think me strange.” She turned away from his gaze, “It’s alright, I am strange, that and more.”

WOW Fan Fiction

Though I don’t have an account of my own anymore, I do have a good friend who lets me have a few toons on his account.  I have seen two of my creations advance to level 80, the limit at this writing. 

Uhhh, when I say “have seen” I mean that though I created them and played them into their 60s or so I really can’t claim much of what came after that nor the shiny gear they now wear.  Feeling somewhat estranged from Buuluchk and Curuada in their current iteration I have decided to recreate them.  That at least is done, now the weary work of advancement.

BUT as I go I plan to watch where they travel and what they do.  These adventures in a world of someone elses creation might be fodder for the writers craft.  This then is a bit of why Buuluchk, the Dwarf Paladin, is the way that he is. 

A note about the name: In Buuluchk’s clan, the prefix Buis a descriptor applied to eldest sons.  Buuluchk’s mother was Ulu.It is not common for a son to be named for his mother, but there was no choice in his case.  He does not know who his father was and Ulu took that knowledge to her grave. She assured him, in his youth, that he was noble and honorable. Likely to compensate Ulu appended the suffix chk which means honorable, or honored.  This suffix is not normally used in naming a child, rather it is more commonly added to a title or honorary.  Ulu’s reasons are her own, it is assumed that she meant well. 

The Honorable Son of Ulu

It was not considered a horrible character flaw in a dwarf, tending to a fierce temper, but Buuluchk was at the end of his patience.  He was at training in arms.  Often it was a great opportunity for him to release the tension of a day spent learning the niceties of spirit, and devotion to deity, the more difficult part by far of what is demanded of a dwarf paladin in the service of light, in Buuluchk’s opinion.

In truth, his difficulty in sitting through lecture after lecture, his inability to sit and meditate on the excellency of the light, his fidgeting and fiddling when he aught to be listening and learning had very nearly seen him tossed out of the order all together.  This training for the business of war was solace.  Rather normally it was, but today he was paired with the glib tongued Laudbrue.

“Honored son of the woman. . .”  Laudbrue hurled his insults with his attacks. ”Honored son . . .    . . . of Ulu.”  And he laughed his petty laugh and acted as if he were teaching Buuluchk, as if he were his master, as if, for Buuluchk, this exercise wasn’t shield training so that he must withold blows because the master-at-arms had ordered it.

Laudbrue was older than Buuluchk by a year and a bit more, but more importantly he had been Buuluchk’s nemesis since childhood.  Hatred was an apt description of Buuluchk’s feelings toward Laudbrue and Laudbrue, for his part, had always been contemptuous of Buuluchk.  Who can say why it was, but it was indeed.

“What dangles by your side honored son?  Is it an arm, is that a weapon?” Laudbrue bashed Buuluchk’s shield with his mace and smirked, “Look all you! The honored son of a turtle.” This time Laudbrue carelessly leaped into the air in an attempt to strike Buuluchk an even harder blow.

“Quiet there you two.  Stop your playing and stick to work!”  Said the master-at-arms.  Ah the wrongness of Buuluchk being charged though silent while this pustulence dances and preens and flaps his vile mouth.

Thump, bang, clatter, shift and faint, but withhold, all the while the smirking Laudbrue cat-calls and mocks loudly enough to have fellow paladins snickering.  “Are you too weak Buuluchk?  I would have thought that your weapon arm was fit enough, you haven’t used it.”  There was a chorus of snickering laughs all around them, Buuluchk’s face burned as red as his beard.  Laudbrue dropped his guard as the master was busy giving instruction far off, “gods be good Buuluchk, you are pathetic.  Can’t you fight?” he snickered, “Well, son of the woman?”

“I could crush you. . .”, hissed Buuluchk.

“OH, crush me will you? Witness, see how he says so behind his shield.” Laudbrue dropped his hands completely to the side. “Admit, you don’t dare strike a real dwarf.”

“Come on Bullocks,” Laudbrue waved his shield at Buuluchk, “Have a go if you are a man at all.”

“I’d strike you, bastar. . .” He began a curse he couldn’t finish and a ripple of titters went out among his fellows.  Laudbrue struck a wallop that rang off his shield.  I could have destroyed him as if he were still standing without guard, thought Buuluchk, but the Master-at-arms says I must not.

“Me bastard?” Laudbrue laughed evilly.  “I?  The son of Bruall?” Laudbrue swung his mace wildly overhand.

The blow rattled Buuluchk’s teeth and made his arm ache, ” . . . you act one,” He said, “better to act or to be?”

Laudbrue’s eyes narrowed, “Who is your father then honored son of Ulu?” Laudbrue put all his strength into another bone-crushing over-hand smash, “Do you know, son of the woman? Do you?”

Laudbrue seemed unhinged, berserk, he rushed at Buuluchk, raining blows carelessly, battering away at his shield while Buuluchk gave ground. He laughed and taunted even more than he struck. 

“Fight turtle!” He swung and swung. “See?  He won’t fight, he can’t fight, he is a woman’s son and no man at all.”  Paladins around them were sparing an eye for the brawl, or an ear, some had stopped their training altogether to watch. Laudbrue’s attacks became ever more unbalanced, reckless, and erratic, but Buuluchk was tiring, both of the attack and the insults.  “Honored son? HAH! son of a whore.” 

Laudbrue reared back, preparing a devastating blow.  Buuluchk saw that Laudbrue used his shield as nothing but a counter-weight.  “I’ll show you your worth,” Laudbrue spit and charged, he leaped to add that momentum to his blow, his shield forgotten. 

But Buuluchk was not there.  He crouched, his leg muscles bunching for what he knew must come next.  He thrust, legs, shoulder and arm coming inside Laudbrue’s blow and drove his shield into his tormentor’s face.  Teeth and jaw shattered with a satisfying crunch.

*  *  *

The water roused him as much for the sting as it ran down his tortured back as for the coldness in his face.  “Come now boy, you have to be awake for them all.”  The trainer said almost kindly, “Just two more Buuluchk.”

The pain was exquisite.  His back was raw agony, but it seemed crueler to be woken from the pleasant memory of what had brought this beating than the pain that would pass.  Buuluchk chuckled a little and then in as clear a voice as he could muster said, “Well then, I can’t remember past twenty-seven.  I think you’ll have to give me three.”

For that, if nothing else, Buuluchk was remembered in the halls of Iron Forge.

The man watched as his young friends fled.  Lugh found a drink un-spilled in his hand and decided that a sign.  He drank, draining the rest of it in one long pull.  Even that time was not enough for the man, he stood, back toward Lugh, watching as the young men fled.  Lugh began to grow concerned, was this the girl’s father?

“Are you the one we call the Youth?”

“Well, how would I know. . .”

“Do not toy with me.  Are you one of the unatural children of the goddess Dana?  Lugh of the long journeys some call you.”  The man turned, his eyes bore into Lugh’s, “But when you came to us before, some 300 years gone, we called you the Youth.  At least that is what we called you after you left us.”

“I am called Finn . . .”

“You call yourself that, Oatey calls you Lugh, Lugh Lamfada, the far reacher, the one of the long journeys.  You have white hair, so you are Finn, well and good.  Anyone can see that.  Do you deny you are the creature Lugh Lamfada then?  Is that how you came to the Norfolk when we sheltered you from your brother?”

“. . . the creature. . .”

The Norfolk barked a humorless laugh.  “Really, you would bridle at being called creature, when you are hundreds of years old, when you look no older now then when you left us and brought on us the wrath of Baelor and all this of the giants.  Really, creature is not to your liking?  How about demon then, how about monster?”

“How about man?”

“How can that be, Finn?  Man?  I don’t know what you are, but man does not describe you.”

“Did I say I was this Lugh creature?”

“No, you deny it.  You call yourself Finn and doing so you call Oatey Moss a liar.”  The Norfolk grinned, but there was nothing of laughter in it.

Lugh ground his teeth.  Who was this pompous prosecutor?  Lugh regretted the beer and the evening.  He might even have regretted Oatey and the giant hunt, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to that.  “You have me at a disadvantage, you accuse me, but I don’t even know your name or by what rite you question.  You seem ready to hang me for this thing of Baelor of which I know nothing.  And I thought the Norfolk a civil folk, but is this how you treat a guest?  This is what passes for hospitality in the North?