Ruby and Bruce (OC) (Patreon)

((Here's a simple drawing of an original person I created to go into the world of Ruby, the teenage kraken.
Let me know what you think.))

Hello everyone, this is Ruby Gillman speaking to you from my room.

I'd like to tell you a little bit about my new friend, who's also my new swimming buddy.

But before I tell you about him, I'll have to give you a little history lesson, or should I say "prehistory".

Forget everything you knew about megalodons, those superb 15-metre, whale-eating sharks that supposedly disappeared from the Earth 1 or 2 million years ago.

The truth is, they never disappeared, and they're not exactly as humans imagined them.

Even if certain points remain true, they are powerful and sometimes dangerous beings of the seas.

Although my grandmother explained to me that our peoples have never been enemies, megalodons have never balked at the idea of eating krakens.

Their size and voracious appetite scare humans.

But the latter generally avoided them, as human flesh was not to their taste, and the fact that they also understood that boats were not edible.

I'd never heard of them until the day a wave of panic swept through Oceanside.

A sailor's rumor, amateur videos and cell phone photos, showed a huge shark closing in on the coast ; devouring shoals of fish, fishermen's catches and revealing a fin as big as a sail.

But as long as it wasn't hurting anyone, my mother thought it was best to leave it alone and stay away from it.

She had fought some of them in the past and knew all about their strength and voracious appetite.

However, I couldn't bring myself to do nothing, knowing that Clarence J. Whifferton was in danger.

So I jumped into the water to make sure nothing happened to my whale. And I got there just in time, before that shark could do her any harm.

That's how I met the megalodon that was to become my friend, even if our first contact was a bit of a tussle.

Once we'd calmed down, we chatted calmly, all the while healing our wounds.

He explained that he didn't have a name, as megalodons are solitary creatures and don't name each other.

So I decided to give him a name of my own, and called him Bruce.

I went back to see him once or twice, but in the meantime the situation had changed in Oceanside.

Fishermen, sailors, beach managers and influencers expressed their displeasure that a super predator was roaming these waters.

They offered a bounty to hunt the giant shark. Not wanting him to be harmed, I brought Bruce ashore, to be safe with me.

I told everyone that he was a kraken friend who wanted to spend some time with the humans, and most of them had no problem believing the lie.

Even though it was impossible to fool my mother, she agreed to let him stay.

She also didn't want people to hurt a mere adolescent megalodon, who hadn't done anything.

Since then, I've been trying to integrate Bruce as best I can into the daily life of humans.

It's not easy every day, and I have a feeling it's going to be a long education.

But I'll tell you about that another time...