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babulekbabayaga · 7 months

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My girl, still thinking about her... I need to write her. Here's some lore about her.

The Dreaded Soul: Vuk Ókiv

LORE

Born in an unnamed, rural, village in Bohemia on April 30th 1921 to Mikhail Ókiv, a hunter, and his wife Morana Bashenska, who died in childbirth, Vuk’s life wasn’t one of many joys and peculiarities outside of the accompanying forests and fields of flowers that only come by in the springs and summers, exposed to the effects that the first Great War had on her nation and her father’s approach to life. Luxuries were often limited and if not, almost non-existent, despite that, the village girl had a hopeful outlook on life.

As a child, she was considered by many in the village as a quiet tomboy who was also assertive in her beliefs and didn't hesitate to call out the inadequacies of others, she was a confident individual, just too calm to have the ability to bark at others. She was a competitive girl in athletic sports and always around to lend a hand in physical chores. So outgoing she was, she joined a shooting club where she became an amateur sharpshooter and for her developing talent, was rewarded a sharpshooter badge and marksman certificate.

Raised in a village that still follows traditions and the old religion unlike the towns and cities, Vuk was brought up in a religious environment with the followers of Ziej'anad, the old god of hope and order, whom the people, and the nation used to back then, worship and plead to bring order back to a world that had seemed to be neglected ever since the absence. Vuk was particularly praised as the possible incarnation of the god since birth because the local priest mentioned how she was born the day all the planets were aligned perfectly, for them, it was a sign.

Throughout Vuk’s early upbringing, she was taught that she was the symbol of hope for this nation and she took the symbolism seriously—dedicating herself to every good charitable work that was available for volunteers, sabotaging her self-interests for the validation of others, especially the adults and elders. She tried to look up to the image of Ziej'anad, reading every scripture of his ways and bringing offerings to an altar of him she had in the corner of her cramped bedroom where she’d routinely pray. Her entire existence when she was a youth purely revolves around him and nothing else. She was not herself, she was him.

Vuk was simply the golden child of the village. The only sense of self she still had was her marksmanship.

When the Second Great War started, the village was one of the occupied areas by the Bremen militia and immediately they hid their weapons from the army in the forest and they warned the children to not dig them up. Vuk and the other children one day took a visit there to dig in a dirt-filled trench looking for the abandoned rifles in order to join the Eastern Union forces against the Bremen just like their parents in the first war.

Vuk wasn’t the one who suggested this but was influenced by the kids to join in for the cause or else they’ll call her a coward and a false. She was the first to find a rifle and her activity was noticed by a Bremen reconnaissance aircraft, flying overhead, whom she naively assumed they didn’t notice her and simply shrugged it off, because she was merely a child digging in the dirt. What suspicions are there in that?

The next day was continuing as normal, as normal as it tries to get with the constant piercing eyes of the Bremen soldiers watching every move of the civilians. Vuk went out hunting with her father to gather more meat and fur as winter was nearing. When they returned to the village, they found the place to be oddly deserted and full of flies. As they continued walking past the buildings, Mikhail took a glance behind his shoulder naturally and noticed a pile of executed bodies stacked behind the church, one corpse stacked on top of another, even newborn infants fell victim. Vuk stopped in her tracks when she heard his footsteps lessen and turned around to ask what was wrong until she saw it and it took her seconds to comprehend what caused this to happen. She began to let out a cry to the point she almost lost her voice, looking away from the scene in distress as she clung to her father’s arm instinctually for safety despite no Bremen in sight.

So much for the symbol of hope and order.

Mikhail knew that they both had to evacuate, thus they returned to their homes to pack up their belongings and go, never to come back. As Vuk was clearing her bedroom, her father asked for her to come in and when she did, she noticed that her father had found the very rifle that she dug up from the forest, one of the weapons that the adults told everyone, explicitly to the children, to not dig up.

She knew he knew what was the root cause of this mass execution.

She sees him clenching his fists in all sorts of repressed emotions; wrath, grief, betrayal, fear and possibly more.

‘’I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know this would happen, pa, please, I was only trying to help. I just wanted to help… don’t leave me, please.’’

‘’What did you think it would have happened?’’

His voice was nonchalant yet the movement of his twitching hands was not.

‘’I don’t know, I just… I didn’t know that this would come to happen, but… pa, please, please, I was only intending for the goodness, not… this. Please, don’t hurt me, please. I didn’t mean it. You’d understand, I’m your daughter, yes?’’

Vuk couldn’t help herself, looking anywhere but her father, she was already slowly tearing up like a child she was, now trying to comprehend whether the involuntary manslaughter made her a killer or just a misunderstood folklore tale.

Was she always a false? Was she truly a good individual, an incarnation of a long-forgotten deity whose name brings hope who supposedly abandoned humanity, or evil personified who disguised herself as a child, the pinnacle of innocence? She doesn’t know what she is anymore, what is true and not true. Is any of this reality at all or was it the misjudgments that were multiplied by all the guilt?

‘’Leave, just leave.’’

The girl shook her head no repeatedly, immediately clinging herself to her father, the only family she ever had, the rest were gone to the first war, not wanting to believe the words of abandonment. Begging for him to let her stay by his side but he was pushing her away from her desperate hands and despite not wanting this to happen, he landed a blow to her face to make her get away from him but it wasn’t enough, she was still attached to his arm like a lost pup.

‘’I said leave, Vuk, leave before I’ll do something I’ll regret!’’

He wanted to say ‘it’s for your own good’ at the end, but there’s nothing good that comes out of this situation; what her fate lies behind the door is uncertain but he could sense the dread that would come to hunt a lone girl during a war, he seen it happen before, he was there, he witnessed the depravities of humanities unravelling before his comprehension when the first Great War happened, the spilling of guts everywhere, children being forced in a tied haystack then burned to death with it as they were pushed around by the soldiers like a toy, an elderly woman being stabbed to death the same amount of times that aligns with her age. Anything could happen. That is simply humanity when given the chance.

He advised her to hide in the forests and flee to the west.

Mikhail couldn’t bear to listen to the wailings of his only child as he forcibly pushed her out of the house, pushing her roughly out of the doorstep and seeing her stumble on the dirt ground with her belongings beside her, especially that rifle, he quickly locked the door before she could run for it and laid against it—finally breaking out of the repression and his face fell to his hands as he wept and listened to the banging on the door and pleas.

It was heading into darkness by now and the trees of the forests only helped to intensify the opacity. All isolated with a dried bloody nose from the hit and the very rifle she was holding onto that was the mainspring of this downfall. What had she left of now? An identity crippled to fallen petals, the realisation she wasn’t as exceptional as she was raised to believe that she was. She was bad luck, a walking misfortune who caused more torment than hopeful progress. Exceptional in the way that she brought this to happen. Or was it just destiny? She was merely fifteen, how could she comprehend of such things?

It took two days to finally reach a nearby town and as she took a rest from all the walking, she realised there was a recruitment camp nearby and immediately she went there to be recruited into the Eastern Union army. She came prepared, with virtually every high-level civilian sharpshooter in Bohemia, accrued over years of shooting as a personal hobby and necessary skill for hunting. She easily lied about her age, being a very tall child for her age.

After a rushed training, she was sent to the front quickly. She was fine with shooting living creatures, she was introduced to the concept of death since she gained awareness as a child, hunting animals humanely and skinning them, she thought it would be the same with people. Yet it wasn’t, it was completely different and the screams of pain that followed from not only her shots but others around her. The first battle changed her. This was her first reality in war. It hardened her and took away bits of childhood she had in her.

She became extremely skilled at her job. Tying cloth strips to flutter in the wind distracting enemies, rugged up store mannequins as decoys, shooting in the rain to muffle her gunfire. Her sniping became crueller, not daring to bring a singular hint of hesitation or mercy, she dissociated herself from emotions and kept her focus.

Vuk would aim for the legs so her targets would cry for help to draw out rescuers who became new targets. No matter what, when the soldiers fired upon her, when the Bremens overran, when mortars were raining, she killed and kept killing. Sympathy was not in her dictionary when it came to the Bremens. They seek and take, she’ll hide and seek.

Over the years, she had developed a renowned reputation amongst the front, nicknamed ‘’Lady Dread’’, with her infamy bringing along deadlier opponents and she was becoming heavily targeted at. Battles and sniping were the only aspects of her life that she had grown, for lack of a better word, comfortable with, and where she could truly present her value of where she’s exceptional at, which is marksmanship, for others, they consider her only talent to be at taking people’s breaths away. Nothing else but just a mere killer in a soldier's uniform to cover her acts.

However, ultimately, Vuk had lost the battle, flesh covered with shrapnel and the army was hopelessly outnumbered by the Bremen, the woman who used to be a village girl was forced to evacuate. In the end, she had taken the lives of 325 people, 325 names on her hands, 325 families weeping.

After several months far away from the front and her comrades, her body ridden with fresh shrapnel scars, she was finally given a letter from the officials and was ordered to not return to combat after the news of the Kaiser conquering Prehevil and signing the peace treaty with the Eastern union.

She was devastated. Distressed. Exasperated. Confused. Scared.

All the sacrifices, the killings, the efforts, the deaths of young men and women. It all ultimately led to surrender. This was a betrayal for Vuk, and she will never forgive the Eastern Union for this.

She gave up, was not even acknowledged for her efforts in the war and was left as a stygian veteran with nothing to come back to, to believe in and to become, she was as hollow as a clam without its pearl. A living figment of the past.

Much like her old man.

With nothing to aspire to, never received a proper education herself, she got on the train and decided to return to the very village she came from and perhaps set up a shooting club, or something else… who knows? Only fate will choose what will happen.

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So that's Vuk, granted There's more to her that I would adore to add and there's a recurring character that's important to her but I left it out of the multiple paragraphs for the sake of keeping the main parts of her lore simplified and short.

So, with Vuk's inspiration for her lore and character, she's inspired by Lyudmila Pavilchenko the renowned Soviet sniper with credited 309 kills during WW2, Jinx from Arcane, Florya Gaishun from Come and See (self-explanatory) and probably others I had forgotten about or subconsciously added.

Need to finish her 'moonscorched' form at some point...

#fear and hunger #funger #funger oc #fear and hunger oc #fear and hunger art #funger art #funger original character #oc: vuk #she's heavily modelled after Jane Morris <333 #Im so sorry for how long her lore is #tw: pocketcat in the corner😨#i need to draw her interacting with Pav #yuh this is a repost from another website if anybody recognises this #next time i draw her i need to add scars on her face from the severe injury she had... got no clue why i didnt include them back then #fun fact she's 6'2 ft #i love women who tower others #she's very malice mizer sadness coded #oc

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