Ruck is a being of quiet weight, carrying the burden of preservation without asking for recognition. They do not seek power, nor conquest, nor even understanding. They only wish to protect. Not people, not causes—but spaces, untouched and unspoiled, small sanctuaries of harmony in a world that constantly erodes itself. Ruck does not want to be an outsider, does not dream of solitude, but neither do they wish to engage. The noise of the world, the endless demands for justification, for confrontation, for belonging—it all feels like contamination. They are not here to prove anything to anyone.
What they long for is a place. A perfect corner, inviolate and whole, shaped by their hands alone. Not to claim as their own, not to enclose or hoard, but to tend to, restore, and make real. They do not seek permanence—only the act of caretaking, of bringing something into balance, of breathing life into what would otherwise be lost. And then, when the place is whole, when it stands on its own, they are ready to move on, to release it into the world. But only when another space has been found, another fragment of beauty in need of shelter. Without the next project, without the next beginning, they cannot let go.
This is not attachment, nor selfishness. It is simply how they exist. There is a rhythm to it, a pattern that feels as natural as the growth of trees, as the slow shift of water carving stone. But beneath this cycle, beneath the quiet patience with which Ruck builds and nurtures, there is a flaw. A contradiction that tightens around them like roots creeping into stone.
For the sanctuary they long for is not something the world grants freely. To have such a place, to protect it, they would have to claim it. To claim it, they would have to fight for it. To stand before the world and declare: this is mine, this is sacred, and I will not let you take it. But Ruck is not made for battle, nor for exposure. The very act of stepping into the fray would taint what they wish to preserve. How can one build peace through struggle? How can one create something pure while being forced to engage with the impure?
And so, they remain caught in between. A keeper without land, a gardener without soil. Time passes, and the place they seek drifts further away, an untouchable vision on the horizon. Perhaps it is already lost, an impossibility. Perhaps, with every year that goes by, they are becoming someone who only dreams of preservation but never truly achieves it. They feel this fear creeping in, a quiet terror that maybe, in the end, all they will have are ideas—symbols without ground to anchor them.
But still, they do not stop. They collect. They archive. They gather symbols and meanings, not for themselves, but for a world they refuse to engage with. They believe in something greater than themselves, even if they will never let the world claim them as its own. Their fingers trace patterns into dirt, their hands shelter fragile things from destruction. They do not ask for recognition. They do not demand gratitude. They create, they preserve, and then they disappear—giving without being seen, shaping without being touched.
And in that paradox, they remain. A custodian of what the world does not know it is losing.
Ruck moves through the forest with the quiet reverence of someone stepping through a cathedral. The trees are pillars, the moss a sacred carpet, and the mushrooms—those delicate, secretive beings—are nothing less than messengers. They do not see them as mere food, nor as simple tools of intoxication, but as a bridge to something deeper, something hidden beneath the layers of ordinary perception.
They spend hours foraging, their fingers brushing the damp earth, tracing the contours of each cap and stem with a kind of quiet devotion. To Ruck, mushrooms are sacred—not in the way people attribute holiness to objects, but in the way they reveal what has always been true. When they consume them, their mind stretches beyond its boundaries, not expanding, but dissolving. The world ceases to be a separate thing, and they are no longer just a single being, isolated and alone. They become part of the whole, immersed in the great current of existence, a self no longer defined by rigid edges.
They wish others could experience this truth, this undeniable harmony. They wish the world would see what they see—that there is no real separation, no conflict that is not illusion, no self that is not an extension of the vast, intricate weave of life. And yet, they know it is not that simple. The mushrooms open doors, but not everyone should walk through them. Some minds are not built for dissolution. Some hearts are too rigid, too tied to what is familiar, too fearful of the unknown. To them, this truth would not be liberation, but terror.
And so, Ruck does not preach. They do not claim to hold answers, only the quiet certainty that everything people seek has already been shown to them, hidden in plain sight. This belief—this understanding—has shaped their entire way of seeing the world. It is why they dedicate themselves to the study of ancient thoughts, to the patterns that have shaped how people have sought meaning throughout time. Not because they seek guidance, but because they recognize the same echoes in all of them. Different names, different paths, but the same truth, fragmented and refracted through time and culture.
To others, these beliefs may seem strange, even contradictory—how can one seek solitude while longing to share? How can one claim no ownership while trying to preserve? How can one refuse to fight and yet want to protect? But Ruck does not concern themselves with such contradictions. They see them as natural, as part of the same vast truth that cannot be spoken, only experienced. They are not lost. They are not uncertain. They are simply waiting for the world to catch up.
Ruck carries within them a world so vast, so alive, that it feels impossible for it not to be true. Their thoughts do not feel like personal musings but universal echoes, truths that exist beyond them, common to all, waiting only to be recognized. The dissolution of the self into the whole, the peace that hums beneath the surface of existence, the interconnectedness of all things—they do not see these as beliefs but as realities, as fundamental as gravity, as inevitable as the passing of time.
And yet, this world they know so intimately, this inner certainty, meets the hard, unyielding wall of reality. A reality that is not fluid, not harmonious, not built on shared understanding but on conflict, division, and the necessity of choice. The world moves by rules that Ruck cannot ignore, no matter how much they wish to. There is cruelty here, selfishness, decisions that must be made at the expense of others. There is structure—an order that is not born of natural flow, but of imposition, of laws, of systems designed not for harmony, but for survival, for power.
The truth they carry is weightless in this world. It does not shape anything, does not shift the balance, does not make people any kinder, does not carve out the sanctuary they long for. Even the peace they feel, so undeniable when their mind expands beyond itself, is a peace that does not touch the world. It is a peace that exists in glimpses, in fleeting moments, but never in permanence. And so, Ruck finds themselves stranded—not fully part of the world, but unable to escape it either.
They do not even have the solace of true solitude. Even the idea of simply retreating, of stepping away entirely and living as an unseen caretaker of some untouched place, remains just that—an idea. The world is too full, too controlled, too mapped and owned and divided. There is no quiet, no hidden grove where they can simply exist, tending to life without interference. If they want to claim a space, they must fight for it, declare it, defend it. And that is something they cannot do. To fight is to contradict everything they believe, to betray the very essence of what they seek.
And so, they remain caught in the middle—a wanderer without a destination, a keeper without a refuge, a guardian of things that no one else seems to recognize as worth guarding. Their truths are vast, but they have no ground to take root in. Their peace is real, but only within themselves. And outside, the world remains what it has always been—cold, indifferent, structured not for dreamers, but for those willing to shape it with their own hands.
Ruck has hands, but they do not wish to shape. Ruck has a voice, but they do not wish to argue. And so, they exist in tension, neither fully here nor fully gone, waiting for a world that may never come, carrying a truth that no one else is asking for.
And if one were to see Ruck—truly see them, in the stillness between one breath and the next—they would find a figure both unmistakable and strangely hard to hold in memory. Their skin is pale in a way that doesn’t reflect light, but absorbs it softly, like mist against stone. Their body is full, gentle, without tension or sharpness—like something shaped by time, not intention. Nothing about them claims space, yet nothing about them disappears.
There is no gender in their face, no familiar architecture to categorize. Just a kind of presence, like the idea of a face remembered from a dream. Their hair falls in long, colorless strands—fine as smoke, weightless as dust caught in light. Their eyes are clear and washed out, the color of water left in glass overnight—watchful, but not seeking.
They dress in layers that hang like bark from old trees—soft, frayed, made of things that seem gathered more than chosen. The colors cling to the palette of forgotten places: moss, bone, ash, sky before snow. Sometimes, small things are woven into their clothes—seeds, threads, broken rings of lichen—tokens they do not explain.
They move as if walking through something sacred, careful not to disturb it. Always barefoot, or nearly so, they leave no mark. There is no scent to them except earth after rain, or the faint breath of mushrooms hiding under leaves. And even if you stood beside them, even if you spoke their name, you might still feel that they were never quite there. Not entirely. Not anymore.