Ulthane - Tumblr Posts

for Haven: some angel soldier whose been watching the hellguard fail and be pushed back for the past week, holding an escaped human child by the scruff of the neck standing at the mouth of the tree: if you makers give us aid I'll give you this little vermin. ulthane, having spent the last week drowning in guilt and rage and sorrow, seeing angels and demons alike kill humans, desperately searching for something to fight to alleviate stress: let's step outside and talk this over like gentlemen (:

Ooooh he would be downright murderous

I may not have time to do inktober, but I saw this and inspiration just struck

I hope you get better soon

Darksiders Inktober, Day 19 - OC

Confession, I don't really have a consistent OC, so I cheated and drew myself. I seem to be falling asleep a lot lately, at work, at home, on the farm. The doctors seem to think it's just long covid, but idk. THis wasn't meant to look as angsty as it turned out lmao, I'm just a sleepy binch!

Terrible news for the 8 unfortunate souls following me. I had some free time, got brainrot and decided to try drawing body hair.

I apologize.

A concept, if you will:

Ulthane accidentally steps on humans foot: :(

Reaction?

He is soso sad for like a week.

The human is not allowed to put weight on their [perfectly fine] foot for aaaaages.

I've drawn Ulthane in a kilt. He already has a Scottish accent this was the logical next step.

I feel like Ulthane would absolutely smother the entirety of his lover in kisses if given a chance. Neck, shoulders, belly, thighs, if it's a part of them it's getting KISSED.

Oh Hell yeah.

You'd better believe they dissolve into giggles sometimes too because they're a goofy couple.

Do remember when you've written about the desires of Draven & Samael regarding y/n? If it's not too much to ask, would you mind continuing the series by adding Ulthane? I've never seen longing for someone written in a way that was so appealing.

HELLO! Thank you for this ask, I hope you don't mind, I'm going to make this into a 2 part fic because I've got 2 ideas on how to end it, but I'm having trouble deciding which one to write. So...

That said, please enjoy the fic. It's sort of meant to be a part 4 to Family Tree.

Ulthane X Reader.

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Ulthane Blackhammer’s soul is damned.

No. More than damned.

If the maker is certain of anything, it’s that his sorry soul is on a collision course straight for Oblivion itself.

He’s already come to terms with the fact that he won’t be joining the Stonefather when his time eventually runs out and he’s kicked off the proverbial coil.

For too long, he’s carried the crushing weight of his sins across his shoulders like a water yoke, and some day – perhaps not today, nor for another hundred years – but some day, he’s going to lose his footing, and all the harm he’s done will spill out for everyone to see.

“Maker’s bones,” the old giant curses into his palm as he scrubs a gargantuan hand slowly down his face, fingers tugging at thick tufts of beard as though he means to rip the whole thing from his chin in a fit of desperation.

As if his involvement in the End War wasn’t atrocious enough… Now he’s… he’s…

With a bone-shuddering groan, the maker tips his chin towards the sky and allows his skull to clunk back against the tree bark that’s digging into his spine.

The Maker tree is vast. Vast enough that it utterly dwarfs Haven’s surrounding skyscrapers both in height and girth… Vast enough to offer ample hiding places within its higher branches for even the largest of its occupants.

A century ago, if one had accused Ulthane Blackhammer of being a coward, they’d have been met with his cheery grin, the flash of tusks, and his knuckles to the underside of their jaw. But a century ago, Ulthane was a very different maker, a maker who would never have hidden away in the uppermost branches of a great tree or tucked himself into a cankerous hole gouged out of the bark.

The maker he used to be wouldn’t be threading one colossal hand into his beard whilst the other fisted itself into his cowl to keep his appendages from venturing south towards a very prominent tent bulging at the front of his leather, blacksmith’s trousers.

That maker hadn’t met you.

Ulthane’s chest heaves in and out, drawing great swathes of air into a set of enormous lungs before expelling it all again in an attempt to ease his thundering heart out of his throat and back between his ribs.

It was an accident… A mistake.

But then, how often has he tried to spin himself a similar spiel?

Agreeing to forge that accursed blade was a mistake.

Trying to help his friend was a mistake.

And look at the consequences. Look at who’s suffered – is still suffering – for his mistake.

To Ulthane, accidents are no longer a negligible offence. They’re simply unforgivable.

What had just occurred down in the hollow of the tree was less an accident at all then, and more an egregious sin worthy of punishment.

Wheezing out another groan, the maker raises a fist up to his mouth where, without hesitation, he sinks his formidable teeth into the skin on his knuckles, feeling the bone shift and creak under the pressure of his bite. His other hand tears from his cowl and thumps down onto the wood at his side, his fingers curling into claws that dig harshly into the flesh of the tree.

He has to keep both hands occupied, deliberately so.

He can’t run the risk of letting them wander down to fumble with the gleaming belt buckle on his trousers.

He had to leave. Staying down there isn’t an option at the moment. He had to take himself and his… urges somewhere far away where he wouldn’t run the risk of disturbing you further than he already has…

Only a few minutes ago, down in the hollow of the tree, the humans had all been laying asleep whilst their ‘great’ guardian stood vigil in the arched opening that serves as a doorway into and out of the little sanctuary.

The mere fact that they trusted him to watch over them while they slept spoke more about their character than it did his own. It also served to twist a poisonous blade into his guts, eating away at him from the inside.

It was as he stood there brooding over his crimes that he happened to lower his gaze to the arms folded firmly across his broad chest.

He’d grimaced at the sight of them.

That day, he’d elected to work gloveless, forgoing cumbersome leather to use his bare hands so he could fix one of the humans’ shotguns that had been firing both barrels at the same time. He couldn’t help but dig a little deeper than necessary into the manmade weapon, admiring it inside and out, from the wood on its stock to the engravings decorating its action.

Once again, human ingenuity had him entranced.

There was, however, a minor consequence to his curiosity. And that was the slippery layer of gun oil that coated his finger tips.

Glowering ineffectually down at the tinted residue, he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, sighing as they slipped and slid over one another, tractionless.

He needed to find a cloth…

At the back of the central chamber, there lay another ‘room’ of sorts, hidden behind an old, blue tarp you yourself had nailed across its entrance to grant the humans who venture inside a little privacy. And while it's been known to be a little hideaway for the purposes of washing and bathing, its predominant use is for storage, housing an assortment of supplies from ammunition to cardboard boxes full of non-perishable food stuffs to barrels filled to the brim with collected rainwater.

Knowing there’d be some form of cloth or towel inside, Ulthane had stolen across the tree towards the alcove and allowed himself a moment of bemusement at the lightness of his step. Several days prior, one of the humans had made a casual joke about feeling his footfalls reverberating through the whole tree when they were trying to sleep. At the time, Ulthane had laughed it off. It was only when night fell that he started to question if the human’s comment was truly meant in jest.

And so, at the expense of his carefully curated, intimidating presence, the maker had trodden softly towards the storage space, slid his knuckles beneath the tarp and lifted it aside to step underneath it.

He didn’t even make it all the way through before his eyes landed upon a tiny shape lit by the flickering firelight of a wall sconce.

At once, Ulthane’s legs locked up tight, stopping him mid-stride as if he’d been spontaneously and abruptly cast in stone. Not even his chest moved, all the breath stilled in his lungs and was left there to stagnate while he drank in the sight before him.

Wide, startled eyes peered back up into the maker’s face, unblinking, caught by the same trap of shock he’d found himself tangled up in.

Evidently, not all of the humans were asleep.

Ulthane wasn’t sure if a second passed, or an eternity. All he knew was that within the innocuous stretch of time, he bore witness to something he never imagined a brute like him would be privy to. It seemed a miracle to be seeing it at all, as though he could blink, and the moment would fly away from him like words to a forgotten song, and never again would he catch another fleeting glimpse of that same biological artistry, even if he spent the rest of his days trying to find it.

So, he didn’t blink.

For standing before him without a scrap of clothing on, stood the one human who could have brought such an ancient giant to a complete, breathless standstill.

You.

Time seemed to drag its heels as Ulthane watched a wet cloth slip from your fingers to land on the wood below with a sodden ‘plop.’

You were bathing, he realised belatedly, ignoring an odd yet pleasant quiver in his stomach.

Your skin glistened with moisture left behind from the cloth, looking a damn sight cleaner than you had several hours prior after he found you covered elbow to fingertip in oil from your own gun.

While the humans despise using their drinking water for nonessential purposes, if cleaning must be done, they’d either wet a rag and scrub themselves down with a single squeeze of water from a nearby barrel, or they’d use one of their ‘baby wipes.’ The ones you’d been kind enough to deplete on Ulthane yesterday when you cleaned his bloody nose….

Eyes the colour of gun smoke softened with the rarest and gentlest affection as they drifted from the delicate space hidden between your thighs, over the damp skin on your chest, all the way up to the true work of art – your face; the face he’s sworn to one day immortalise in marble so that the Universe might never forget the human who gave a maker like him the time of day, and who opened his eyes to a species he’d previously only known through scriptures and hearsay.

But as he stared numbly down at you, half-oblivious to the soft tingling sensation trickling down from his belly, Ulthane finally, finally, registered the expression on your face.

And just like that, a terrible, gut-wrenching lurch of alarm suddenly crashed into his chest like waves on jagged rocks, and the world fell out from underneath his feet.

Ulthane blinked hard as time caught up to him once again, though he knew by then, it was already far too late.

“U-Ulthane?” he remembers you uttering, and it was only then he realised you’d thrown an arm over your breasts and slipped a hand down to try and protect yourself further from his wandering eyes.

Your brows were pinched, your mouth angled down until a look of abject horror spread across your dainty features.

Horror…

Of course you were horrified.

Of course you would look at him like he’s a monster come to life right in front of you.

He’d just blundered right in on you when you were at your most vulnerable, and then, instead of immediately retreating or averting his eyes to preserve your dignity, what had he done?

He’d simply stood there, gaping at you like some depraved and lecherous beast.

Worse still - worse than stumbling in on you in the first place - was the telltale sensation of skin stretching in the space below his belt buckle, accompanied by a sudden urgency that pooled in his gut as the fly piece of his leather blacksmith’s trousers began to bulge outwards, pressing into the sensitive head of his treacherous anatomy.

He still recalls the moment your eyes had flicked down, and then widened considerably.

It took him another moment to put two and two together to realise what was happening to him. It had, after all, been so long since he’d…

… For Stone’s sake, he’s a maker. Ulthane has been around for far longer than Humanity has even been on the planet. He’s too old and too gruff, and his head is screwed on far too tightly to ever be turned by a member of the fairer sex.

He’s not a youngling anymore. Long gone are the days of his youth when he’d send cocky grins across Tri Stone at maiden warriors or fumble his way through a brief and meaningless romance with one of the forge sisters.

He hasn’t been that maker for millennia.

Until he met you.

And you, he understands without a shadow of a doubt, are not meaningless.

What you are, however, is categorically and unequivocally off limits.

You're a human - a member of the very species his actions had doomed to extinction. You know nothing of the maker who had taken you in, and much to his confusion, you trust him. Hell, you even claim to like him, something that is as equally awful as it is humbling. You should never like him. If you knew what he did, your hatred would rival the kind that demons have for humanity.

You'd want him dead if you knew the truth.

But you don't know.

All you know now, is that Ulthane - a maker you've been relying on to keep you safe and protected - has essentially laid his feelings bare for you to see. Reactions like his are harder to hide when he's several times your size.

All of a sudden, a visceral abhorrence for himself rose like a fanged serpent to coil around his windpipe, squeezing it until he thought he might retch up his own guts onto the floor in front of you.

Ulthane Blackhammer has never retreated from anything in his long, gruelling life. Every adversary, he’s faced head-on. Every battle, he’s gone in swinging. Every hardship, he’s never once given a thought to falling back.

But then again, there are a lot of exceptions to a lot of rules.

And down there in the hollow, Ulthane made such an exception to his longest standing achievement.

He took a step backwards, his shoulder colliding with the side of the tree, and then he turned on his heel and ran.

Can we get some art of Ulthane doing the dont talk to me or my child again with some humans to an angel?

I'm sorry, I got carried away, but this is sort of the same thing, isn't it?

Okay, so, sad girl hours right now.

Y/N has been a lot quieter than usual, and when asked “what’s wrong?” they immediately break down crying because they were having a shit day where EVERYTHING was going wrong, but didn’t want to bother anyone with their stupid human problems (there’s far greater things to worry about in the heat of the apocalypse), so they kept it bottled up only for that one simple question to shatter the dam holding them together. The four horsemen + my comfort giant ™ Ulthane.

Also if you’re having a bad day like me: one bad day doesn’t equal a bad life. You’ve made it this far; surely you can make it to wherever you want to go next! You are loved and you are valid. Don’t give up just yet. ❤️

Hey, I'm really sorry, I know you requested the Horsemen too but I got way too carried away with Ulthane, and wrote an 8000 word response to this ask lmao, and by then I thought it might be getting too long.

Content warning: This gets quite existential. Allusions to suicidal thoughts, talks about death and the inevitability of death. Depression. The end of the world. The Apocalypse, nihilism. Crying, smoking, cigarettes, emotional outbursts. Ulthane is trying his best to raise this tree full of sad, unpredictable kids.

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This was always bound to happen…

Ulthane’s chest swells and sags in the wake of a mammoth sigh, like a wave kissing the shoreline before it retreats back into the tumultuous sea.

A tall, arched hollow carved out of the trunk of the Maker Tree allows him a limited glimpse of the city beyond this inner sanctum. Through the fragmented shadows of a thousand, whispering leaves, the night sky peeks back in at him, a vast, endless beast of shimmering obsidian, crushed velvet strewn above the Earth.

It’s dark out there, immeasurably so without the lights and sounds of a population that had once been two million strong.

He would have liked to have seen it….

From his usual post at the anvil nestled deep inside the cavity of the great tree, Ulthane’s gaze calmly trails after a tiny, tiptoeing shape that hugs the wooden walls, a dark silhouette creeping through the hollow and out onto the plateau overlooking Haven City.

Again, the brawny maker exhales a long, gentle breath as he lowers his hammer to the anvil and drapes a burly forearm across the cool, flat surface, ears tipped towards the ground in unhappy contemplation.

He recognises the silhouette.

It can only be one human.

You. Your stature, your gait. Not to mention that this is the third time in as many days that he’s spotted you leaving the safety of the sleeping nook to venture outside and into the wild, chilly night.

The first time, he’d merely turned you right back around at the entrance, giving you a gentle nudge with his fingertips and a disgruntled reprimand about not leaving the tree after dark… Or at all for that matter.

Your face was tilted down then - he assumed in embarrassment – as you slumped your way back up to the nook, never letting him catch a glimpse of your expression, and never speaking a word to the huge, hovering maker.

That alone had stirred a modicum of unrest in the back of his mind.

Typically, he’d had very little trouble getting a conversation out of you. But that night, he brushed your unusual silence aside, chalking it up to fatigue, or perhaps that strange habit some humans have of walking around in their sleep.

They even have a sleepwalker in their midst… Damn near gave Ulthane a heart attack when he turned around one night to find the little blighter standing motionlessly just behind his boots, their mouth slightly ajar and their eyes lidded full of sleep, staring past him at nothing.

The phenomenon is yet another curious facet of human biology he wishes he could share with an old friend of his.

Alas…

Ulthane had elected to keep a closer eye on you during the nights, even warned Elanya and Yarin that they might have another walking sleeper on their hands.

He’d hoped, perhaps naively, that it might have just been a one-time occurrence.

His hopes were dashed when it happened again.

Ulthane had never had his own younglings. Never really gave it much thought beyond his brother’s teasing.

‘You sure you don’t plan on havin’ yer own?’ Thane guffawed unhelpfully as he watched his disgruntled brother fish a tiny, spluttering Karn out of the aqueduct that runs adjacent to Muria’s garden. ‘You’d make a good sire.’

‘Not until you have some first,’ Ulthane groused back as a way to escape answering, settling the boy on his knee with a fist clenched around his overall straps, like scruffing a pup. Ulthane had made a mental note then and there to teach Karn how to swim the very next morning. Preferably in the Fjord, and not in their sacred waterways.

Helping Eideard raise Alya and Valus was preoccupying enough, and then Karn was born a few centuries after the twins hit their adolescence. The boy lost his dam, and thus it fell to the other makers in Tri Stone to keep their littlest tyke out of danger as best they could.

In hindsight, Ulthane is grateful that he had any experience with younglings at all, because sometimes, taking care of a tree-full of humans feels a bit like wrangling toddlers who won’t do as they’re damn well told. Oh, they used to, back when they first met the giant and were utterly petrified of him. He didn’t like that much, but at least when they feared repercussions, they actually listened if he told them not to go outside, not to talk to the demon lurking on the plateau, not to climb the upper branches, not to drink the rubbing alcohol, not to sleep in their bedrolls with their boots on, and…

Ulthane wrinkles his nose and groans as he scrubs a rough hand down his face. Stone be damned, maybe he would have made a good sire after all.

The second night, you’d managed to slip past the vigilant maker without detection. He only realised something was amiss when, from the corner of an eye, he’d caught a tiny, orange glow blooming to life in the pitch-black dark beyond the hollow.

Immediately alert, he’d lifted his head from his work at the anvil to look properly, and found his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. There was a soft glow, small and round hovering in the darkness outside, several feet above the ground.

He squinted at it, watched it flare brightly for a moment before it receded to a softer burn once more.

….

“I’m just having a smoke,” you’d uttered tonelessly as he tromped through the hollow to find you leaning on the wooden ridge that separates you from a nasty, two-hundred-foot plummet to the city square below.

You didn’t turn around as you spoke. You didn’t need to. You could have heard the giant coming from a mile away.

Stealth isn’t something makers usually bother with…

Ulthane almost thought he should be angry. You’re a smart human. You should have known better than to leave the safety of the tree. But all he found when he loomed close enough to actually peer down and sideways at your face was something that took his great, thumping heart in a fist and wrung it dry.

Sad… is too gentle a word for it.

What he saw in your face at that moment, peering out over the city, shrouded by night’s enigmatic hue, was far more alarming to the burly maker than he’d ever admit to you aloud.

Oh, there was sadness there, certainly. But it was also so much worse than that.

With humans, it’s all in the eyes, he’s found. Humans have such astoundingly expressive eyes.

Dark pupils that expand and contract. Sclera that turns red from fatigue or anguish. Lashes that glisten like jewels when tears escape the confines of their eyelids.

Ulthane might be reduced to a soft-hearted fool whenever one of his – the - humans cries, yet he can’t stop himself from finding the act ethereally beautiful, in a way.

Tears are rare in other species, even among the younglings. In his own village, the river that brings them water is referred to colloquially as the Tears of the Mountain, a name steeped in reverence, life-bringing water.

There were tears on your lashes that night, he recalls.

They sparkled in the gentle glow cast by a thin, white stick that dangled loosely between your parted lips.

As the maker stared down at you, trying to decide whether he should be relieved you hadn’t ventured any further than that, or livid that you were out there at all, you raised your hand to your mouth and held the stick steady between two fingers, drawing in a slow, uneven breath. Ulthane watched on, captivated by the end of the stick burning even hotter in the deep, blue twilight.

Plucking it from your mouth entirely, you’d exhaled, and he was even more amazed to see you breathing out smoke, like dragon-fire. Ulthane could do little else but gawk down at the elegant cloud of white as it billowed through your lips and drifted up towards the sky. It’d been a long time since he’d seen a dragon… Looking at you then, he couldn’t shake the image of a poor, lonely beast gazing forlornly over a home it would never get back.

Ulthane had seen such looks before, on the faces of his fellow makers when their home fell prey to Corruption. The foul plague drove them further into the outer reaches of their own realm, trapping and isolating them, stealing their bodies and using their own people as puppets against the survivors.

One by one, the makers fell, those who were brave or foolish enough to try and fight back.

He’d watched the younglings lose their hope, their wonder at an infinite Universe. With each maker felled by the vile darkness spreading its tendrils across their land, the resolve of those that were left started to waver.

There was a pattern, Ulthane noticed, in those who were closest to death. They stopped being scared. They stopped being outraged and desperate to save their homes and themselves. Resignation became an entirely new plague, killing off the once bustling village of Tri Stone until only he and a few others remained. Apathy grew like a tumorous thing, deadening the eyes of all but the stoutest hearts and minds.

That’s what you looked like, he’d realised with the lurching, ominous chill of dread creeping up his stomach walls.

Resigned.

Hardly alive, just existing. Existing until the inevitable, as if you were already hand in hand with Death just waiting for the nod.

This was always bound to happen…

“Thought I told you to stop sneakin’ out here,” he’d eventually rumbled, his tone gruff and guarded, but his intentions couldn’t be softer.

You didn’t react to the maker’s words, merely continued to gaze out at the skyscrapers reaching up towards the stars. “Didn’t want to smoke inside,” you said quietly, “The others shouldn’t have to breathe this shit.”

All that did was set alarm bells blaring in Ulthane’s skull.

Pale, blue eyes turned to glare sharply at the innocuous stick poking through your teeth.

“And, er… Should you be breathin’ it?” His loaded question held a merit of danger to it, like the hammer of a gun, cocked and ready to fall at a moment’s notice if he doesn’t hear what he wants to.

Which made it all the more surprising that you didn’t immediately try to ease the maker’s nerves as you usually would. Instead, you raised your shoulders in a lazy shrug and hummed, “Either the demons kill me, or this cig will. Doesn’t really matter at this point, does it? Who gives a shit?”

Another odd, human colloquialism, but he got the gist.

Ulthane still isn’t particularly proud of what he did then.

Maybe it was the blasé reference to your own mortality or the blunt ultimatum, or even the suggestion that your life isn’t cared about. Something struck a nerve, and Ulthane wasted no time in reaching down and using the very tips of his thumb and forefinger to pinch the burning end of the ‘cig’ and pluck it out from between your teeth, unaffected by the tiny fire singing his calloused skin.

And then came the most egregious act.

He tossed it, flicked the tiny thing from his fingers and sent it sailing over the wooden ledge where it fell, down, down and further down until its glowing ember disappeared in the darkness dozens of feet below, extinguished by the rush of wind hitting its stub.

Ulthane fully expected some sort of retaliation. He even hoped for it. Anger, indignation, frustration. Hell, he half wanted you to round on him, all fire and brimstone and spewing venom, demanding that he go down there and retrieve your stolen treasure.

Anything. Anything at all that would have returned a little life to your lustreless eyes.

What he got instead was a deathly-quiet voice that cracked at the end of its sentence. “That was the only one I had left…”

Ulthane thought it might have hurt less if Yarin slugged him in the gut.

Looking back on it now, as he stands at his anvil watching you traipse aimlessly into the dark for the third time, Ulthane finds he can hardly blame you for resenting him.

You and the other humans… You don’t have much left anymore. And what little you do have is cherished with fierce devotion. Even the most mundane things. He can still recall the ghoulish howl one of the women emitted after her bracelet’s string snapped, spilling colourful beads across the floor of the tree, her desperation as she clawed after them, wailing. You were among the first to drop down and search with her. “We’ll get them all back, Sam,” you soothed as she clutched the broken elastic to her breast with one hand, knuckles bone-white, “We’ll find them, it’s alright. You’ll be alright.”

It was never just a bracelet.

And that tiny, little stick you called a ‘cig’ probably meant more to you than the old maker could ever comprehend.

A low, resonant hum starts up deep in the base of Ulthane’s throat as he tracks your silhouette across the hollow until you vanish out onto the gloomy plateau. Perhaps he should leave you be tonight…

With a grunt, the maker focuses back on the little talisman sitting on his anvil – a gift for the Horsman, whose efforts to recover more survivors from the crumbling city haven’t gone unnoticed.

Readjusting his grip on the hammer, he taps it half-heartedly on the metal casing, ears pinned back as he tries to quell the nagging thoughts scurrying about in his skull.

Suppose you fell off the plateau… Suppose you were spotted by a dusk-wing flying by overhead…

Ulthane manages to restrain himself for all of five minutes before he frustratedly tosses his hammer down onto the anvil’s surface with a resounding ‘clang,’ and shoves himself away from the workstation, stomping off towards the tree’s hollow, his brother’s laughter ringing in his ears.

In his haste not to hurry, he fails miserably, and at last comes bursting out onto the wooden plateau, eyes zeroing in on the small shape ahead of him.

It’s more of a relief than he’ll ever admit to find you leaning on the ridge, just as you had the previous two instances, arms draped across the top, shoulders hunched, your head ducked into the collar of a light, grey jacket.

Holding a breath in his lungs until he’s confident he can let it go quietly, Ulthane draws closer.

As he does, a sudden white cloud billows from your mouth, and the maker almost thinks you’ve managed to scrounge up another of those ‘cigs.’ But when he comes to a slow, heavy halt beside you and glances down, he can’t spot anything of its likeness hanging between your lips.

Belatedly, he finally realises what’s wrong.

It’s cold out here. At least it must be for a human with parchment-thin skin.

You barely acknowledge his presence as he reaches for the blue, well-worn cowl wrapped around his neck. Ulthane makes sure to grumble aloud as he pulls it over his head. “Hmph…catch yer damn death…” he mutters grumpily, pretending that the mere act of draping it over your shoulders and using the pads of his fingers to wrap swathes of warm fabric around you is a terrible inconvenience. He also tries hard not to fixate on the way his cowl spills down your back to pool at your feet.

Maker’s bones… You’re so tiny.

Sluggishly, you roll your head sideways to peer at the makeshift blanket, giving Ulthane a proper glimpse of your flat, unreadable expression lit by the luminous moon hanging overhead in a star-spattered sky.

Something ancient and primitive inside him is immensely pleased when you don’t reject the offer of warmth. It settles him, leaves his restless soul satisfied, though only by a small margin. You’re still out of the safe confines of the tree, in the dark, after all.

Everything else about the maker’s nature still urges him to get you out of the open.

But Ulthane has been around long enough to recognise a pattern when he sees it.

This is the third time he’s found you out here, alone.

Twice was a coincidence. But three times?

Deliberate.

He needs to get to the bottom of this now.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” he mutters, withdrawing his hands but lowering his hefty bulk onto one knee to be closer to your height. It’s only after he says it out loud that he realises, he’s right. You have been quiet lately. Moreso than usual.

For several, long moments, you remain inert, blankly staring down at the fabric cocoon you’ve found yourself in. “Have I?” you ask in a whisper, brows twitching as if they want to furrow but can’t muster up the energy to.

Humming pensively, the maker raises his head, keeping you in the corner of his watchful eye. “Been missin’ you at the anvil…” he admits, shrugging a massive shoulder to try and retain a modicum of indifference. If you only knew how much he looks forward to your company, he’d never be able to look you in the eye.

“In fact,” he adds, adjusting his weight, “Only time I seem to catch you nowadays s’when I find you out here. Where you aren’t s’posed to be.”

There might have once been a time when merely adding a stern inflection to his voice would send you cowering away from him. Some of the humans who are newer to the tree still do it. But you, over time, had stopped, realising that Ulthane was as likely to hurt you as he was to fly to the moon.

But it wasn’t often that he had to add those inflections. And if ever he did, it was usually because you or one of the others was doing something you really shouldn’t have been doing. Even then, you may not have cowered, but you’d certainly have the decency to look admonished, apologetic even. You’d offer the maker a quick, sheepish smile that worked wonders to appease him and earned him hours of teasing from Elanya and Yarin.

Now, however, he gets nothing. Not a flinch, nor a quibble. No sheepish yet disarming smile that puts a youthful quiver back into his heart. What he gets instead is a weary sigh, followed by a decidedly bitter, “Maybe I just want to be left alone, huh?”

A disconcerting pang hits him right in the pit of his stomach… Something is definitely wrong.

Perhaps it’s narcissistic of him to presume, but that one, barbed request from you is enough to set off a needling voice at the back of his mind, one that callously plants the seed that all of this - your behaviour, your apathy, your twilight excursions – somehow, it’s all his fault. Casting his brain about, he tries to think of something in particular he’d done that would cause you to seek distance from him, all the while pretending it doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it does. Aside from tossing your last ‘cig,’ he doesn’t land on anything that sticks out. But you’d fallen quiet and withdrawn long before that incident occurred.

Then again, he is still trying to wrap his head around all the complexities of the human social structure… As he considers it, he realises with a sinking feeling that it’s highly likely he’s committed some sort of faux-pas and never even noticed…

Shit.

Scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he untucks his braid from the confines of his tunic and exhales roughly, nostrils flared in agitation.

“Look…” he sighs, roving his gaze out to look at the silhouettes of a dozen, towering skyscrapers, “M’not… V’e always been more for brawn than brain, mm?” Pausing, he raps at his skull with a solid knuckle. “So… If I… said somethin’ I shouldn’t have… and it… changed the way you see me-…”

Again, his voice trails off, and he returns his eyes to you, finding you tilting your face up towards him with the tiniest crease sitting between your eyebrows.

Are you angry at him? Confused?

It’s so hard to tell sometimes. A human’s face can tell a thousand little stories with one twitch of the muscles, fluid in a way makers and other species could never hope to be.

Ulthane’s chest gives a rumble, like something massive and subterranean passing far beneath the Earth’s crust. He truly hopes you aren’t angry at him.

“Just…” A pair of immense shoulders sag dejectedly as the maker squeezes his eyes shut, bracing himself before he pries them open again, peering down at you from underneath his crumpled brow. “Just tell me what I said,” he finally croaks, “And I’ll never say it again.” He never intended for it to sound so much like a wounded plea, wants to weld his mouth shut when his voice breaks unexpectedly.

Son of a bitch. These humans must be starting to rub off on him.

Deafening silence chases the end of his sentence, and for a time, he’s stuck observing your face fall gradually from a nearly imperceptible frown to a solemn, sympathetic wince.

“Ulthane… It… Hhh.” A rush of air bursts out of your parted lips, harder than a sigh. You’ve been doing that a lot lately, he realises. Dragging your eyes over towards the distant city, you gaze out at it for a second before returning them to the underside of Ulthane’s chin, your lips tilted down at the ground. “Listen. I’m not trying to be a dick, a-and I mean this in the best possible way… but it isn’t about you, I promise… You haven’t done anything wrong.” It’s the firmest voice you’ve used yet.

Glancing down, you blink miserably at the toes of your shoes poking out from under his oversized cowl. “I’m sorry,” you add, this time in a far gentler, wobbly lilt, “I’m sorry I told you I wanted to be left alone. It isn’t your fault.”

Oh… that’s… actually a lot more relieving than he’d care to admit out loud.

The speck of lightness that lifts his chest doesn’t last for long, however.

There still begs another question, one he’s hardly qualified to be asking… If your issue isn’t with something he’s said or done… then…

The notion suddenly occurs to him that you might be getting grief from someone else. One of your fellow humans, perhaps?

Before he can wrestle it down, a hot burst of protective indignation flares up in his chest. He’d have noticed, surely. Wouldn’t he? He’d know if one of his charges was being upset by someone while under his roof… Right?

Griping unhappily, Ulthane reminds himself that he’s nothing if not a persistent old bastard. And when he’d made his quiet, private oath to protect what remains of a species he inadvertently helped to eradicate, he didn’t just pledge his protection to their physical wellbeing.

The tremendous breath he exhales through his nostrils is strong enough to disturb the hairs on top of your head, a fleeting reminder of how even the smallest gesture from a man his size can affect you in some way…

“Right then,” he rumbles with a deliberate edge to his tone that sets your shoulders tensing under the soft weight of his cowl, “But there is somethin’ botherin’ you, aye?”

He sees you stiffen, watches the flicker of something raw and frantic pass over your dainty face. Then, he sees that mask of apathy fall back into place, hiding yourself away from him once more.

“Nothing’s bothering me, really,” you deflect, shrugging one shoulder as nonchalance might throw him off the scent.

Ulthane’s bushy eyebrows dip at the centre of his forehead. ‘Not having that...’

The sound of creaking leather and clanking metal fills the air as Ulthane adjusts himself onto two knees at your side, resting back on his hindquarters.

You actively jump at the sensation of a colossal palm cupping around your back, almost leaping away entirely before you realise what it is and force yourself to go still again, allowing the maker behind you to push warmth and sincerity into your windchilled bones.

As he covers your fragile spine with his hand, Ulthane’s instincts lay their rearing heads back down, appeased to have a physical wall of muscle and flesh standing between you and the outside world.

“Reckon I’d know if somethin’ was wrong with my favourite human,” he says, only half-joking, regarding you closely to gauge your reaction.

“Favourite?” you scoff wetly, “Now you’re just trying to butter me up.”

Giving a chuckle, he replies, “Maybe…” A heavy pause, then… “S’it workin’?”

Instead of a response, you suck down a lungful of cold air, letting it all go again in a slow, shaky breath. “You should go inside, Big Guy,” you whisper, turning to lean your weight against the wooden ridge again, “I’ll be fine in a minute. Just need a little more fresh air.”

Would it be hypocritical of him to call you a liar?

Shifting his weight, he hums - a tectonic, mellow sound coming from deep in the cavern of his chest. “Nah,” he decides quietly, “Reckon I’d rather stay out here with you till you tell me what’s wrong…”

He doesn’t say anything else. Doesn’t feel he needs to.

“Oh…” Your breath hitches. Already, you’ve started to tremble beneath his palm, and he’s fairly confident you can’t accredit it to the cold.

Persistent as he is, the Old One is also a patient maker. And while he doesn’t especially like the idea of letting you stay out here all night, if it gets him to the bottom of this silent state of mind you’re in, then it’s a bullet he’s happy to bite. Besides, he’s quick to remind himself that he’s here with you.

The other humans are safe inside, carefully watched over by the ever-attentive Yarin and a devoted Elanya. The pair have taken to guarding the upper nook where their charges slumber at night.

Which leaves Ulthane free to guard this wayward soul. He’s glad to. Outwardly, he wouldn’t usually even allude to keeping favourites. After all, it’s a badly kept secret that he has a soft spot for all the humans he’s brought here, even the elusive and ungovernable Jones who leaves the tree so frequently, Ulthane is convinced the man is trying to send him to an early grave.

But you… The soft spot he has for you is especially tender.

There in the darkness, he waits, silent and still, an unmoving sentry at your back.

Minutes pass, and only the hushed whispering of ten million leaves breaks the spell of quiet settled around you.

And then, an entirely different sound disturbs the peace. One that’s much closer to home.

That first wet, convulsing sob tugs the maker’s ears down a fraction, but he lets out a sigh, giving your back the gentlest of pats, encouraging another bleat of misery to jump out of you before you can stuff it back down your throat.

There you go…

Once the first few cries are shaken are loose, there’s no damming the flow.

Hands fly up to crush against your mouth as you lurch forwards into another sob, burying your face inside the relative privacy of your palms.

Before Ulthane can adjust his hand to catch you, your legs promptly buckle and give way under you, sending you crashing to your knees in front of the ridge and collapsing against it, turning sideways away from him, shoulder pressed to the wood.

All the while, his hand remains adhered to you.

Your back jumps up and down beneath his palm, broken sounds squeak out through the miniscule gaps between your fingers, and a confusing jumble of guilt and relief mingles together in the maker’s chest.

Crying isn’t something exclusive to humans, but they’re by far the most prone to it.

Ulthane tries not to dwell on the fact that he’s pushed you to this, like some, tenacious bully. His old soul yearns to extinguish any source of distress you might face. You’ve had enough anguish to last you a lifetime, after all. But the guilt he feels is buried well beneath a much more potent relief.

This had to happen.

‘This is good,’ he tells himself staunchly, trying in vain to steel his ancient heart against your soul-crushing cries, ‘This is better than the emotionless vacuum you were floating in before.’

Your body jerks viciously with each, strangled sob, teeth pressed against the skin of your palms to muffle each sound you emit.

You’re trying your best to be quiet. Subdued and secretive in your unravelling.

He knows he’s the one who wanted this to happen, but that doesn’t make it any less jarring to see you cry.

A century ago, if anyone were to ask Ulthane if he’d describe himself as a comforting maker, he’d have laughed himself hoarse. A bruiser like him? Comforting? He supposes it’s still laughable today.

Sometimes, he catches himself wishing he knew where Azrael had disappeared off to after the seals were broken. The angel would know what to say to you, no doubt. Daft bird is even more of a sap than Ulthane where humans are concerned, and ferociously intelligent to boot, even among Heaven’s scribes and scholars.

Why the White City’s brightest mage had decided that Ulthane was a maker to befriend, is a mystery that would have any sage scratching their heads and offering a helpless shrug.

‘Still,’ he muses, frowning gently down at the human quivering beneath his fingers, ‘You haven’t pulled away entirely yet.’

So perhaps, despite all of his clumsy, heavy-handedness, he might not be doing as terribly as he thinks he is…

Absently, Ulthane smooths his calloused thumb up and down your back, hyper-aware of the notches in your delicate spine. He’s glad he opted not to don his thick, leather gloves this evening. He feels gentler without them…

The cowl, however, has begun to slip off your shoulders, dislodged a little further with every breath you choke on.

Just as Ulthane withdraws his hand from your back and pinches the fabric to readjust it, his ears register a broken whisper drifting through the air.

“It’s all gone, Ulthane,” you squeeze out at last, hands cupped pitiably over your mouth so you can drag in a shuddering breath, “Everything’s gone. God – fuck!”

All at once, the cowl slips from his fingers and falls around you once more as the maker goes very still, his gigantic hand hovering stiffly above you. Slowly, a pair of pointed ears pin themselves against the sides of his skull, and a cold splash of realisation douses his chest in ice.

If he weren’t worried about startling you, he’d smack a palm over his forehead as comprehension ploughs into him like a runaway stone rolling down a hillside.

Of course…

How could he be so blind? Oh, he’s such a fool!

The most obvious reason is literally sitting in plain sight all around him, yet somehow, he didn’t see the woods for the bloody great tree slapped bang in the centre. He assumed your troubles were smaller, simpler. It feels like an insult to you, deducing that your despair was due to something so trivial as an untoward comment.

Hanging his head, Ulthane’s face twists up in shame.

Trembling like the leaves overhead, you clutch desperately to your own shoulders, fingertips bunching into the blue fabric draped over them. “What the Hell are we even doing?” you blurt out, ripping your hands away from your face and wringing them in front of you, “The world just fucking ended! It’s over, a-and we’re just sitting up here like… like fucking rats in a sinking ship!”

By now, you’re almost shouting, losing control of your own voice without any residual strength left to keep the emotions you’ve buried so deep from rising to the surface and bursting like pustules on your tongue.

It must hurt you to bare yourself like this, it is hurting you. The sudden change in your demeanour freezes Ulthane solid for a few, uncertain seconds, though he doesn’t stay motionless for long.

When you rush to swallow another breath, he stretches out an arm and envelopes you in his hand once more as if the weight of it might keep you from springing to your feet and fleeing at the slightest provocation.

You buckle under the appendage, leaning forwards to gulp in another lungful of air that collapses into a heart-wrenching sob. “I-I just-!” But you stuff your lips together to trap the rest of the words.

Ulthane latches onto your reluctance with a discontented hum. “Come on now,” he utters, wrapping large but cautious fingertips around your shoulder and trying to coax you into turning to face him, “Won’t do you no good keepin’ it all in now, eh?”

Your only response is to give your head a rapid shake, digging your fingernails into the cowl as you resist the giant’s gentle tugging. “I can’t,” you croak, voice hoarse.

“Yes,” the maker argues, “You can.”

It’s so matter of fact, you almost believe him.

For several, unpleasant moments, your breath continues to catch in your chest as your shoulders hitch up and down, and still you refuse to turn around and face the giant looming behind you.

Then all at once, like a flipped switch, the tension in your body disappears and you deflate like a ruptured lung, sagging in on yourself so abruptly, Ulthane jerks forwards, assuming you’ve passed out on him.

Before he can scoop you into his hand however, you shift, using your shoulder to shove away from the ridge and arduously manoeuvring yourself around until you’re leaning back against the solid wood. Reluctantly, Ulthane allows his hand to slide off your spine and it flops dejectedly into his lap.

You still won’t meet his gaze.

At least he can see your face though.

He always thought he had a heart of steel before he came to Earth, even liked to think that millennia of experience and trials would have left him immoveable and stoic like the maker heroes in Eideard’s stories.

It’s remarkably humbling to gaze down into the face of a human and realise he doesn’t know himself nearly as well as he likes to think he does. Because one glimpse of the wetness shining off your cheeks and the rivulets cutting glistening tracks down to your chin has Ulthane Blackhammer fighting back the urge to press a hand over his lurching heart.

He draws back a little with a soft intake of breath, gathering his thoughts before he presses his lips together into a resolute frown and leans towards you once more, his monstrous fingers shuddering with the effort of moving slowly and carefully enough to brush the pad of his thumb across your cheek.

That’s when you finally look at him.

Dazzling eyes shine with tears as they venture up to meet his own.

Your mouth opens, and in reverent anticipation, Ulthane pulls his hand away from your face, ears tipped forwards to listen.

“I just want it to be over,” you utter, so softly that he has to strain to hear you, “I can’t stand it… I can’t stand just waiting around to die…”

Ulthane’s jaw clenches firmly shut.

“Who says you’re dyin’?” he retorts, perhaps a bit more sharply than he intended, “Yer not goin’ to die.”

This time, your shoulders jump with humourless laugh instead of a sob.

“Look around you, Ulthane,” you hiccough, gesturing a floppy hand at the city to your back, “Every day could be the day those demons decide to climb up here and finish what they started. We all know it’s bound to happen. I wish they’d just… get it over with!”

The maker opens his mouth to argue, to gruffly retort that he’d never let the bastards get within a metre of you without having to go through him first, but you’re already carrying on.

“We’re all just living on borrowed time! And I can’t-!”

One again, your voice falters and fades, dying in your throat.

Swallowing audibly, you let your head fall forwards until your chin almost rests on your chest.

Ulthane works his clenched jaws apart, watching from beneath heavily furrowed brows as you lift your hands up in front of your face and stare down at your palms as if there’s an answer in them somewhere, if only you could see it.

“I just can’t keep doing this…” you finally murmur, letting your arms fall into your lap.

Apprehensive, Ulthane prompts, “Doing what?”

You don’t reply right away, and his heart is steadily making its way up into his throat by the time you pose a question, disregarding his own. “You ever think… it might be better to just… like… get it over with?” you ask, eyes pinched in tormented thought, “Instead of waiting for something even worse to happen?”

Suddenly, Ulthane hates the idea of you being so close to that two-hundred-foot drop.

The hand he’s braced on the ground to keep himself steady curls into a fist until his knuckles dig achingly into the wood underneath him. “No,” he all but growls in response, curling his lips back at an unseen threat, “It wouldn’t be better.”

“God…” Your head tips back, the base of your skull clunking against the ridge behind you as you squint tearfully up at the maker. If he looks closely, he almost imagines he can see the full moon reflected in your eyes. “There’s no future for us… We have nothing left. Everything humanity has ever worked for… millions of years of history… it’s gone, Ulthane. It’s just gone.” Another couple of tears slip past your lashes and dribble down your cheeks. Your bottom lip quivers. “There’s no coming back from this… is there? So why are we still bothering?”

Suddenly, the maker hauls himself to his boots – and he’ll be damned if he acknowledges the spike of real, unfamiliar fear that jabs him through the ribs. “Stop it,” he warns… Begs…

For a moment longer, you just look at him with that tired, beaten frown, then you lower your eyes and the moonlight disappears from them, leaving them dark and shadowed by your eyelashes.

“Yeah,” you sniff, “That’s why I’ve been quiet lately…”

Ulthane’s blood rushes through his ears and he’s struck with the urge to start pacing up and down along the tree’s outer path. Later, he’ll recognise it as adrenaline.

“Stone’s breath…” he huffs mindlessly, scrubbing a hand down over his beard. He’s bristling against an enemy he can’t put his fist through, and it wars with the maker’s reflex.

This is… this is so much bigger than he is… and that’s saying something.

He thought he’d be prepared for this if it happened. But all he’s been doing is burying his head in the sand, hoping that optimism and a steady, day to day routine of survival would keep the humans from losing their last dregs of hope.

The surrender in your voice, your eyes, your words… It’s like you’re there already.

What if he says the wrong thing? What if he can’t pull your toes back off the ledge?

What would Azrael say? What would Eideard say?

Something poignant, no doubt. About how hope is never lost so long as you’re still alive to fight for it.

But Ulthane is a defender, not a sage. His priority is your safety.

In a moment of clarity, he clings to that one fact, pushing for reassurance above all else.

Rattled, though not quite ready to face why, the Old one levels a finger at you, pointing it determinedly down at your face. “Now, you listen to me,” he starts, “I won’t hear no talk about how you’re not comin’ back from this. Moment you start thinkin’ like that, it’s really over. And I’ll certainly not be lettin’ you think those demon’s’ll be the end of you. Alright? You’re livin’ to the end of a long, safe life, so help me Stonefather.”

At the end of his reprimand, you try to smile up at him, a pitying thing that tells him everything he needs to know.

You don’t believe him.

“You have a future,” he continues, steadfast, “I’ll give you a future. I’ll make one for you, carve it out with my bare hands if I have to.”

He’d drag you kicking and screaming to the life you deserve if it comes down to it.

Eyes drooping heavily, you start to look down again.

“M’not lettin’ you lose hope,” Ulthane growls in response, and this time, he can’t stop himself from reaching down and curling a fist around you, gathering you up into his palm until you sit small and vulnerable at its centre.

You look a little surprised by the motion, blinking wetly into the old smith’s scowl as he raises you to his face and levels you with a look so full of conviction, you recoil from it, as if pushed by his sheer force of will. “You’re makin’ it through this,” he tells you unwaveringly, warm breath brushing against your collarbones. “You have to see how it turns out.”

“Even if it hurts?” you ask in a wobbly voice.

He stops just short of saying that he wouldn’t let anything hurt you. But that isn’t what you need to hear. He’ll prove it to you through action.

“Even then,” he relents instead.

Resignation settles across your face then, but it isn’t the same as it was before. It’s a kind of acceptance of the inevitable, but the inevitable isn’t death.

It’s Ulthane Blackhammer.

“But…” Still, you protest. “But I’m so fucking tired, Ulthane.”

Without hesitation, he shrugs a shoulder and says, “I’ll carry you.”

“That’s not what I-“

“- I know what you meant,” the maker cuts you off, fixing you with a sharp eye, “F’you’re tired. I’ll carry you. I’m a fair bit strong, case you hadn’t noticed. But don’t go forgettin’; you’re a fighter.”

You try to shake your head with a weak laugh, but he catches your chin with a crooked forefinger and tilts your face back towards him. “You are,” he insists, meeting your owlish gaze, “Been fightin’ to keep goin’ since day one. I… can see that now.”

He really can. He’s just sorry he never told you he noticed before.

“You think you can’t come back from this? You’re wrong. You won’t know unless you try. N’those other humans in there-“ He jerks his head backwards towards the tree. “-They’re gonna need all the help they can get to rebuild. You think Jones’d remember to feed himself without you remindin’ him?

There! At last, the minutest wobble of your lips as they twitch upwards at their corners.

Chest swelling with a modest injection of triumph, Ulthane cocks his own grin at you whilst you wipe your eyes on the sleeve of your jacket.

“Now, you just let ol’ Ulthane worry about those demons,” he announces, “You worry about gettin’ some proper shuteye. Can’t teach Elanya to play cards if you’re noddin’ off every five minutes, ey?”

A laugh this time. It’s a soft, warped thing with too much moisture, but it’s still a laugh. He counts that as a win.

There’s still the same, bone-deep languor clinging to your face, yet even that is a vast improvement to the indifference you’ve been displaying of late. Quirking your head to one side, you regard the maker ponderously for a minute, brows knitting across your forehead.

Then, “You really care about us, don’t you?”

Caught off guard, Ulthane’s ears tip down, and he instinctively glances over his shoulder at the hollow to check that nobody is lurking there before returning his attention to you, lifting one shoulder in a bashful shrug.

“Well… I, erm…” Clearing his throat, he lowers his voice and shoots you a gruff look. “Don’t you go spreadin’ that around…”

As if it wasn’t as plain as the nose on his face.

Eager to change the subject, though not so eager to be rid of that fond, sombre look he's receiving, the maker twists his head around and bobs it towards the tree's entrance. "Ready to head back in?" he broaches, "You can sleep down by the anvil on my cowl, if you want." One of the beds would be better for you, but... selfishly perhaps, he wants you close tonight.

You seem to agree, offering the maker a shy nod in return.

"Yeah," you acquiesce, leaning back into the pads of his fingers that curve up behind you, providing support when your jaws part with a wide yawn.

Trying not to smile fondly at the sight, Ulthane begins tromping steadily back inside the tree, his nerves settling down as he carries you nearer to the light and warmth.

"Ulthane?"

"Mm?" he rumbles in response.

"Thanks... for caring, I mean.I owe you one."

His footsteps falter just for a second. Abaddon's face springs unbidden into his mind's eye. A golden sword and a promise that all would be well...

Swallowing hard, Ulthane wafts the memories away like a bad smell and offers his dour response.

"You don't owe me a thing."

DARKSIDERS INKTOBER 2022: The Completed series

Thanks to everyone for participating during this year's Darksiders themed Inktober! It was a lot of fun to see all of your artwork and takes on the different topics. You're all amazing, and thank you as well for the lovely tags, the reblogs and the likes :D

Thanks to @imagine-darksiders for allowing me to post this year's prompt

Happy Halloween everyone! 🎃💀

A while back I posited the idea of Darksiders crossovers into other games, and it just struck me that I did not mention a game that I could totally see the Darksiders characters as character skins in.

SMITE.

Death: At first thought it's obvious who Death could be a skin for Thanatos. I will posit another idea however... Set. Both Death and Set got the acrobatic combat with a staff or scythe, and some of Set's abilities are similar to what Death can do.

Strife: I'm thinking Apollo, just instead of finger guns it's actual guns. Or maybe Loki, considering Strife is the more mischievous of the Four Horsemen and has more Trickster like abilities in Darksiders Genesis.

War: I guess maybe Ares or Tyr, whichever works a bit better. I'm leaning more towards Tyr since what I remember of game play it looks like stuff War can do.

Fury: the only one that comes to mind is Bastet, since I'm pretty sure both use whips as weapons. Or maybe as a skin for Sol, considering Fury's Flame Hollow. Or maybe even Hel.

Azrael: maybe Charon, I don't know, I'd have to look through the list of Gods for SMITE. Or maybe as a skin for Chronos?

Samael: Chernobog comes to mind first, along with maybe Surtr or Thor.

Uriel: that's kinda easy... Bellona. Or maybe Nike or Nemesis

Abbadon: Odin might work?

Ulthane: who else but Vulcan? Dude fits as a skin for Vulcan pretty well if I say so myself. Also could probably work as an Ymir skin, I think.

So... continuing off of this, I'm thinking of Fury's MOBA moveset again, as well some of the other characters I've talked about before, and I think I would change up some things.

FURY: Her Ultimate would stay the same, it being her transforming into Havoc Form. I would have it use her "Wrath" for the transformation, since I think her Ultimate working a bit like Shyvana's makes sense. It maybe could also do what it does in Darksiders 3 and heal her once active, sort of like Dr. Mundo's Ultimate. I also got the idea of taking some inspiration from Bellona in SMITE for two of her abilities, where it could be that her weapon, Scorn, changes form and does extra physical or magic damage depending. I'm thinking a an ax for a close-range ability and a spear for a long-range ability, with her third ability being a dash. I know all the Horsemen essentially have a dash in their games, but Fury's feels the most built around the it since it's also the dodge.

DEATH: His Ultimate would stay the same, along with basically making him unkillable, but not immune to Crowd Control. Essentially a variation on Tryndamere's Ultimate. I would keep Teleport Slash and using Dust to scout similar to Ashe's Hawkshot, and maybe the Ghouls he summons. I'm still somewhat on the fence about those.

WAR: His moveset would stay the same from a previous post: Blade Geyser, Stoneskin, Rampage for basic abilities, and Chaos Form for Ultimate. For sake of hypothetical game balance, maybe War's Chaos Form is immune to CC but he could still take damage? Either that or Chaos Form is Unstoppable and Invincible but has the shortest time for the transformation.

STRIFE: His moveset would stay the same from a previous post as well: Shadow Clones, Caltrops, World Ender for basic abilities and Anarchy Form for Ultimate. Maybe like War, Anarchy Form is immune to CC but not unkillable. It makes the more sense to me for Strife to be immune to CC but not unkillable when in Anarchy Form.

SAMAEL: So, I could keep most of his moveset I came up with in another post mostly the same: pillar of flame, lightning skillshot, plasma orbs, and aura. Or we could change it up a small bit and have it that one of his abilities is basically a form a lifesteal. Where by damaging an enemy he can regain some of his own. Explain it as him stealing blood from wounded enemies as a way to heal himself. For a Passive, I think something like Darius' Hemorrhage, where his abilities stack a bleeding effect

URIEL: Her basic abilities could be a dash attack, a temporary but stationary shield, and a form of projectile. Overall, a basic kit but it feels fitting for Uriel. Her Ultimate could basically be her summoning pulling out the Armageddon Blade for basically a Super Form, maybe taking inspiration from Riven. I think her Passive could be like Athena's Reach in SMITE.

The ARCHON: His passive could be about his Corruption. It could be like Kayle's Passive but instead of becoming more divine, he becomes more monstrous. I think you could take inspiration from his boss fight for his basic abilities while his Ultimate could be a huge beam from the Rod Arafel.

The DESTROYER: I think overall, just taking some inspiration from Deathwing in Heroes of the Storm would not he a bad idea, along with maybe Shyvana. His Passive would let him be Unstoppable, with his basic abilities being a charge/dash, a powerful swipe with some knockback potential, flame breath, and his Ultimate being essentially like Pantheon's where he can fly in from say half-a-map away and land in for the battle.

ULTHANE: Figured I'd repeat this: basic abilities are a hammer throw, a charge/dash, a Thunderclap, and his Ultimate... I'm still unsure. His Passive could basically be like a mix of Ornn and Braum, where he can forge things while away from base but also every couple attcks he could temporarily stun an enemy.

WICKED K: I think he could take some inspiration from Fiora and/or Jax, in terms of basic abilities. He could have a stance where he parries enemy abilities, a special empowered strike, and I guess for the fun of it, an ability where he can throw his hat for damage. His Ultimate could basically be a powered up state where there is a chance he can do True Damage.

That's all I got for now. Hope you all enjoyed reading this! I also wouldn't mind hearing anybody else's ideas if they got any.

So... once again thinking about the Darksiders characters if they were implemented into a MOBA. Sorry if this is a tired idea to anybody. It's just, with playing Wild Rift, it gets me thinking, and Darksiders is one of my favorite video game series, so sometimes thoughts just form together.

I was thinking about passives and got an idea while trying out Tryndamere. Maybe for the Horsemen, just like how Tryndamere generates "Fury," the Horsemen generate "Wrath." I don't think it's a bad idea, considering in the Darksiders games "Wrath" can be generated when in combat just like "Fury" is for Tryndamere.

Tryndamere isn't the only one with "Fury" in LoL either. Renekton and Shyvana also do use "Fury," just in different ways to Tryndamere. So, maybe "Wrath" is generated differently for each Horseman. Using the Rider of the Black Horse as an example, Fury could say generate "Wrath" in a similar way to Shyvana, where her abilities are based on how long they cool down and her "Wrath" is what is used for her Ultimate. Meanwhile, War and Death could take inspiration from Renekton and Tryndamere. War could generate "Wrath" and for his next basic ability will get an empowered effect once enough is stored, while Death when generating "Wrath," depending on the amount, could get a higher chance for a critical strike. Now, that just leaves Strife. He's a bit harder to figure out. His "Wrath" would be generated in combat just like the other Horsemen, but what extra effect could it have, if needed? I'm stumped. Oh, or maybe Strife is the one with "Wrath" related to his Ultimate while Fury share "Wrath" use similar to War or Death.

Now, what of other Darksiders characters? Would they use "Wrath?" I think that could depend. As part of a hypothetical passive in a MOBA, maybe it could work, while others I could see as having a Mana bar like Ekko, or an Energy bar like Akali. Depends on their personality, I guess. Or some could just be baseline Manaless, all their abilities being a bit more based on cool downs.

Someone like Absalom would probably also have "Wrath," while someone like Azrael would probably have Mana. Don't know what characters could use Energy though, not many feel like they have abilities built around doinf things quickly like Kennen, Akali, Shen, or Zed. Funny idea I just had while typing this is maybe The Hunter from Darksiders 2 having Ferocity, just like Rengar... I'm joking! That could probably fit Samael? Ulthane's abilities I could see being purely based on cool downs.

Speaking of Ulthane, what could his passive and abilities be? I think his passive could be a Living Forge type of deal similar to Ornn from League, where he can forge his own items on the battlefield instead of always having to return to base, and at least one of his abilities has to be throwing his hammer, while another could be a type of charge/dash, while maybe another could be something like throwing a powerful enough haymaker it sends out a shockwave, and I have no idea at the moment what his Ultimate could be. Now, some may be asking, "Why a powerful haymaker that can create shockwaves?" Simple enough answer. Considering War needed the Tremor Gauntlet to open heavy doors and lift Ulthane's hammer in Darksiders 1, a Gauntlet that can allow War to create shockwaves on the ground with a certain move, who's to say Ulthane can't be strong enough to do something similar? Or maybe it could be a Thunderclap, similar to what the Incredible Hulk can do?

Anyways, this is feeling like it's getting a bit long, and I am up bit late as I am writing this, so I will return to this later and try coming up with more ideas at some point. Hope you all enjoyed this and hey, if you got ideas you wish to add, that's cool.

Can we get some art of Ulthane doing the dont talk to me or my child again with some humans to an angel?

I'm sorry, I got carried away, but this is sort of the same thing, isn't it?