#fl.tddd

You blink. For just a moment, you think you see a world with no sea. Dunes that once held an ocean, rolling on for miles and miles, dotted with whalefall that goes unharvested.

You blink again. No, the ocean is still there. What a silly idea.

The figure is still there. It seems to be a vhalruscoi, garbed in the rusted second-skin of a knight. Its feathers are matted and crusty, submerged in the sea and dried by the sun. It stares out into the fathoms.

You ready your camera, finger hovering over the trigger. You blink. The inital hostility is overcome by curiosity, by questioning.

You move, slowly, the way an insect might. The rusted plates of your armored boots submerge in the lapping, frothing surf.

"Ak"'a` szokh?"

The figure is further out in the water than you thought. You're close to treading water, by the time the figure is about fifteen paces away.

`...the figure is visible from the waist up. Is it just very tall, or...?`

The weight of the armor makes keeping your head up difficult, especially if you wants to keep your camera out. You bare your teeth in irritation, toeing the line between "too deep to be practical" and "close enough to see" in the fitful waves. There is a pounding heartbeat in your ears.

[No answer, huh?]

You repeat your question, more forceful this time.

"What are you?"

You know better than to ask who.

`The figure turns, in an oddly mechanical fashion, as though sat atop something that's rotating, rather than doing it under their own power.`

Seawater burbles and overflows from its frog-mouthed helmet, the underside encrusted with barnacles. The tides begin to shift as it speaks, mounting in intensity and threatening to throw you off your balance. Its voice emanates, drowned and scornful, coming as much from the water itself as the waterlogged armor.

`I AM THE FATHOMS, SANGUINE-HUED KNIGHT. AND I DO NOT TAKE KINDLY TO MOCKERY.`

"What do you call mockery?"

You hold your ground, speaking softly through bared teeth. There's a humming from under your mask, but you bow your head slightly. The shed-skins of your cape tremble.

"My misunderstanding was honest. I did not recognize you in this shape."

`IT THAT WOULD ABDUCT MY HUE DOES NOT KNOW MY SHAPE?`

The wind scrapes against the surface of the water. Your shed-skins rattle against each other like windchimes, as though responding to the knight's call.

`MY BENEDICTION IS NOT GIVEN AWAY TO ANY THAT DESIRE IT. IT MUST BE TAKEN.`

It occurs to you that you may, in fact, be speaking to a god.

"I do not recall being given anything. If you say I must take your hue—"

You spread your arms wide, and bare your wicked teeth.

"—then, clearly, I already have. Abducted, in fact, as you say."

The humming grows loud, drowning out the vicious, panicked laugh in your throat. The bones beneath your skin begin to glow. A rippling wave pattern forms in a sprawling radius around your waist, waters curled by the song that pants hungry in your skull. You swallows another mouthful of gold.

"While we're both here, I could show you something you've never seen before."

`I HAVE SEEN ALL OF THE WORKS OF MORTALS. I CARE FOR NONE OF THEM.`

Something begins to emerge from the water.

`BUT,`

The Red God walks on many legs. Too many — at least eight, but it unnaturally glides through the water, lower half blurring together like interlaid rolls of film. It's a deep maroon color, and horselike. The armored figure Crow was speaking with was little more than a poppet, and now that the god has revealed itself fully, the form flops uselessly to the side.

Its horrible mouth - just a little bit more human than a ghalznokki's - opens, and as it speaks the ocean roars with it.

`I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY.`

It glowers at you with its one eye, concentric rings of red, black, and white. The other eye is pearl-white, rendered such by a deep gash running down the right side of the Red God's face.

There is a moment, despite your previous bravado, that you are taken aback.

A whisper,

"Ah."

And then...

Clawed gauntlets draw forth your shattered helm and you reveal your face, in kind. Your eye remains unfocused — it will soon be blind again. You shake out ink-stained braids and draw back the leather patch.

What Remains hums brightly in your skull. You extend a hand.

"Take my hand, bok" dlaï`emwï`. I will show you the Suns."

The Red God does not know what a sun is. It is not a concept known to the vhalruscoi, and such it is not known to their god.

And yet...

...the idea resonates with something deep inside it. The Suns - a brightness, a terrible heat, a destroyer from distant shores that warred with its father.

Perhaps, an ending.

`VERY WELL.`

Its maw opens, and from the blackness within, a bloodsoaked arm extends. Its hand clasps yours - five fingers interlocking with six.

Gravity seems to invert for a moment when the god makes contact with what remains, a sick vertigo that pours from your skull in atemporal waves.

`THE SUN IS BRIGHT. THE SUN IS RED. THE SUN IS BIGGER THAN ANYTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE.`

An all-engulfing light that swallows half the sky, and the mote of pulsing white that sculpts it.

`THEY ORBIT ONE ANOTHER. RED SUPERGIANT AND PULSAR. SISTER AND BROTHER. STAR-EATER AND LIGHT-BENDER`

By its perception, the Red God meets the golden eyes of the Alleyman, as it reclines with him on the cliffside, and breathes in and out through alien lungs, cantering hearts  and screaming unbirds and crashing cliffs and dark, swirling, glowing red waves.

`THE SUNSFALL IS THE PLACE WHERE THE SUNS TOUCH THE OCEAN. AS RAEDLEI SINKS INTO THE SEA, IT BECOMES RED.`

The Memory is the last beautiful thing you see before the world ends. Tomorrow, you board a ship. In one month, you will be ANNIHILATED.

`YOU KNOW THE SONG ALREADY. LOOK. LOOK NOW. THIS IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE. WATCH THE SUNSFALL AND REMEMBER IT FOREVER.`

"Do you see?"

The Red God's single eye has gone wide. What is this ocean - its waters so similar to its own but outside of its dominion? Where are its legs - as it lies on the earth, unable to be hoisted with a mere two limbs? How can a star become so massive - too huge, too bright to be destroyed, much less contained?

`YES.`

The Red God sees. It is terrified. This is the only thing that can frighten a beast of perpetual motion - a stillness without end.

The waves are at low tide. Algae clings to your ankles. A hand withdraws from your own. The Red God's eye is still fixed on you, its too-human mouth set in an expression of disquiet.

`THERE IS NO BLESSING I CAN GIVE YOU. THERE IS NO REMEDY FOR WHAT YOU ARE.`

( portrait of the red god by @heavenbreached ; writing by myself and @visioncrown )