A broad-shouldered male lizardfolk with olive-green scales, a pale throat, and amber eyes with narrow black pupils. He stands very still when waiting, balancing on the balls of his feet with his weight slightly forward, as if ready to spring or flee. Bright scraps of faded circus cloth are woven through the leather cords around his wrists, and he wears a cracked wooden bead on a thong at his neck. His old performance costume has been altered into practical traveling clothes, with small brass bells removed from the hems but kept in a pouch. His tail moves in slow, deliberate arcs when he is thinking.

Bruk is observant, literal, and unsettlingly patient. He studies people the way he studies animals, watching hands, breathing, posture, and escape routes before trusting their words. He has a dry sense of humor and enjoys simple performances when he chooses them himself, especially drum rhythms, mimicry, and making camp animals follow his gestures. He is protective of frightened creatures and suspicious of anyone who calls ownership a form of care.

As a hatchling, Bruk was taken from the reed marshes by traveling showmen who found his size, scales, and silent patience profitable. They locked him in a painted wagon and advertised him as the reptile boy, then trained him to wear bright cloth, balance on barrels, bow for applause, and share a cage with a circus bear named Miska. The bear was not his enemy. Miska was the first living creature to sleep beside him without asking for a trick, and Bruk learned the rhythms of fear, hunger, and comfort by watching her breathe. Years later, a fire tore through the circus camp near a flooded woodland. Bruk escaped into the reeds while the ringmaster and his handlers fled. He survived by following animal trails, eating what he could catch, and listening to the forest as if it were another audience. A wandering druid found him beside Miska's abandoned chain and taught him that nature was not a cage, a stage, or a collection of useful beasts. Bruk became a druid of the Circle of the Moon, learning to take animal shape and reclaim the wonder that had once been forced upon him. He now travels to find the other children and creatures still held by the circus, while searching for Miska, whom he believes escaped into the deep woods.