A Ruddy Awakening

The Ruddy Man remembered everything. He was the King of Kings of the Dreugh, the Lord of the Water and the World, the Beater of the Drum and the greatest Dancer With 8 Legs that anyone had seen. His tough shell was blue and green, the color of the surrounding sea that he commanded, here and there covered in black spots and having a few spines of light yellow. The Ruddy Man loved his shell, and his people loved his shell, all for the beauty and for the strength of it, which could hold back any sky, deflect any blade, ignore any arrow no matter how brilliant.

In his realm which was all realms because he was the King of the Kings of the Dreugh, which had prevailed against all that had opposed them and above all that had not, there was nothing that the Ruddy Man did not know. Since his knowing was to love as a star is to light, his realm was the most detailed, decorated, beautiful, and comfortable existence: as long as one could breath underwater. His people taught the remnants of revenants to create revetments in such and such a style, which was long and beautiful as the day was, which was forever long because the Ruddy Man had the stars and the moons live together.

If there was food, it was made with pleasure and eaten with pleasure, with the food feeling pleasure as it was eaten. If there was drink, it made those that drink it philosophers, wiser than they remembered until they drank again. If there was music, then it echoed and mixed with other echoes to create new music of different styles in an other place. A dreugh could follow the waves from one party to another, always knowing that it was in peace that parties prospered.

More could be said about the world under the Ruddy Man's Rules: about the citadels that filtered love, life, and light to create tones and hues of harmonies that existed only in such a fragile states; about the way the dreugh composed their art out of sheer emotion; about the tumultuous teaching of the crickets; about the vast doms that stretched over the sites of once unhappiness; of the graves of the trees that thought; of the red pearl that glowed to the Ruddy Man's beat; of the silver tower upon which the dreugh hanged their old moldings; and more also; and more beside; and more yet again; but it would cover lengths of pages so long that no one could remember all of it except for the Ruddy Man.

The Ruddy Man, in his glowing, his arms outstretched to touch the arms of his servitors, was the center of the world. When he spoke, the waters carried his message as he wished. When he breathed in, which he did in a constant cyclical manner, the waters fetched for him the exact waters that he wished to breath in. On a mountain of living bone, carved carefully and adorned by crickets, the Ruddy Man sat, Lord and Lord of his domain, which was everything. Yet even more, because the Ruddy Man was bigger inside of himself than he was outside of himself.

It was when he was pondering this very same last fact, and pondering the reason for a silver tower and a red pearl, and pondering the miracle of unremembered memories, and pondering the one vast Void that was not realm, that he came upon a truth. This truth was great, and vast, and meaningful. Too, however, was the Ruddy Man, and he loved his people so much, and because his people held him as the bastion of their love and meaning, the Ruddy Man was greater than the truth that he had come upon.

He heard a word in dreugh, which in it's best translation means "I acknowledge you," or in this case, "We acknowledge you." The Ruddy Man turned in the new way that was shown to him, to face the word that he had heard, and then he gasped.

Not only out of surprise, mind, but also because he was no longer in water, which was also surprising and also scary because he had known nought but water since his conquering of all that opposed him and all that had not. It did not matter though, because the Ruddy Man never needed water to breath.

Then he gasped again, because he was in a place that he did not remember.

Then he gasped again, out of habit for the wanting of water.

The Ruddy Man greeted the Voice(s) that had greeted him previously.

The Voice(s) greet him again, and then ask how he was doing.

The Ruddy Man could not properly answer. He was too much in his feelings, and the Voice(s) see this.

The Voice(s) speak, tell the Ruddy Man that which he was, and why which he was, and that which he needed, and offer to help him.

The Ruddy Man requested that the Voice(s) repeat themselves, and they do. He sat on the floor, which was hard but he did not notice, and he thought. Then he thanked the Voice(s), told them that he did not need their help for the task(s) he needed because accepting their help would be missing the point, and turned again and left.

He would not truly remember that meeting, because there was no water there, only possibility. The Ruddy Man instructed the dreugh that they would remember him, and gave them a task to walk upon the land as he had once, for one year so that they might better understand. Then he let the hunger that he had postponed for so long take it's proper shape and eat. The Ruddy Man left as the scaled one engorged itself, leaving his shell behind. He left the Ruddy Man name behind as well. Outside of his shell, he was muscular as he had always been, but he was soft now too. This would be the first thing he would have to change, he thought, as he formed a scourge out of himself and turned it upon himself.