New Earth

"Remember who you are" the voice echoed through his mind as the pillars of the temple crashed around him.

A wealth of knowledge came flashing back to him but in incomplete chunks. He had a profound memory of an old life where it was within his grasp to be able to transcend both space and time.

A pillar the size of a sky scraper was now slowly making its descent towards him. He watched it fall in slow motion and said a few quick words in a language that he himself did not understand. A shield of light surrounded him and as the pillar collapsed on top of him, the light burned through it and melted the cold metal it was made of. The light shield grew larger and larger until it encompassed nearly the entire room.

It was easy for him to forget himself, and that was precisely the mechanism upon which his new powers manifested. In his self forgetfulness he was able to exit the material plane and relocate. The bubble of light dissapeared leaving a steaming crater and a glowing hole the size of a football field in the massive pillar.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo. These colors flashed before consciousness, the spectrum of color then solidified in to form and shape. A vibratory sound which encompassed all experience materialized into a vast ocean and a hard surface under his feet began vibrating in to existence. The vibrations were powerful and almost unbearable at first but then they became so powerfully subtle that they formed hard matter. The surface took on properties. It was cool and hard, metallic.

He looked down and saw that he was standing on top of an archane spacecraft, its features were like that from an ancient civilization whose knowledge was lost to time.

The surface was intricately etched with patterns which had some metaphysical and technological significance. And as the world around him materialized in an expanding field of awareness a small creature also fizzled into view.

It was standing atop the craft and looked at him quizzically. It was a bird. Stork-like, yet had a deep intelligence in its eyes.

"It took you long enough." The bird scoffed.

"I thought you would be in there forever."

He was shocked that the animal was talking and was just trying to catch his breath after all that had happened but the bird payed no mind and ignoring his obvious distress cut him off to continue.

"What has it been, 9 centuries? You know my feet really started to hurt waiting around for you so long… where do you get off prolonging the cycle of rebirth for so much time. I swear in all of my experience as a spirit guide, I've never… why do I even stoop to such levels for you mortals? It's bad enough to take on a physical form but so then be made to sit around waiting for go—"

"Wait wait wait, who the heck are you?" he interrupted the bird in front of him whose intelligible words had begun to devolve in to the emphatic squawks of a common crow.

"You don't remember me?" The bird was clearly offended now. "Do I need to explain EVERYTHING to you." The bird sighed, which was interesting in its own right to see a bird sighing.

"Ok, look about 10,000 years ago, I dropped you off here. You entered that temple underneath the ocean so you could lose your old form, be reborn and save the universe from an encroaching evil, yada yada. You know the story, anyway, now you're back *thank goodness* and we can get on our way once and for all. And you're a fine specimen of mortal consciousness, you've managed to even test the patience of an immortal like myself. I'm impressed but equally pissed off. So let's get the show on the road shall we?"

He sat there dumbfounded, and while all of this was going on some realization came upon him. He didn't even know his own name. He timidly interrupted the bird mid-squawk.

"Um if you don't mind, could you just uh, let me know my name? I was just born and all."

"Oh, right" the bird remarked. "I forgot the order of business here, where are my manners?" he said as if he possessed any to begin with.

"So now that you're reborn, the custom is to pick your name, but being that you probably don't remember a lot of words. I can help you out."

"Ok" he said cautiously.

"How about Eternally Late Ignoramus, I feel like that one fits pretty well."

"Well I'm not sure what it means but I guess it has a certain ring to it."

The bird looked at him for a few moments and then burst in to a squawking laugh. Mirthful tears formed in his bird eyes.

"You really are a newborn after all. Let's go with something fitting, how about… Altan. Here meaning, red dawn. It's generous of me to bestow such a title, but you left me waiting long enough, I've got big expectations for you. So don't blow it or it's back to ignoramus."

Altan pondered… "yes, I think I like it."

"Excellent, so shall we be on our way then?" This was a rhetorical question because as he spoke these words, he used his bird like penchant for herding large mammals and began flapping his wings and pecking at Altan's heels.

"Go? … where?—ouch!" Altan stuttered in between dodging forceful pecks.

"Well first you gotta get in your ship!"

The cockpit was a few feet from them and he jumped in.

"Ok can you stop the pecking I need to get settled!"

The bird laughed again, "sorry sorry, you really gotta empathize with my situation here. I've spent the past 9 or so centuries fishing sardines *yuck* out of the ocean and being bored out of my mind."

"It's fine I guess" said Altan as he shifted in to the cockpit of his ship.

"I vaguely remember this." He muttered to himself.

The controls sat in front of him, the stained glass-esque viewport as well as the seat which had holes which ran up and down the spine of its user all had a familiar feeling to them. But it wasn't a good one, Altan felt that once in this very place there had been a great evil. He was unable to bring himself to fully settle in to his seat.

The bird had comfortably roosted itself in the back of the cabin, the ultimate backseat driver. "Hey what's the hold up?".

"Something doesn't feel right" Altan said distantly. Coming back to the present "and besides, I have no idea how to work this thing anyway."

"Don't think, just do." The bird's words were uncharacteristically profound.

Altan stopped thinking and a deep muscle memory came back to him. He began flipping switches and habitually checking gauges. All of them he had no idea of their meaning. But it didn't matter, their purpose registered somewhere in his subconscious and he was able to use them to manipulate the craft further. With a final flick of the wrist the ship jolted forward violently and then lifted itself up in to the air, balancing and restablizing itself.

"Hey! Now we're cooking with gas!" The bird shouted and devolved in to celebratory squawks.

"Shhhh!" Altan chided "you're going to make me lose concentration."

The bird again, probably fearing for its life became silent. "I'm sorry, please proceed."

Altan gripped a gyroscopic device, feeling both amazed and curious and yet deeply familiar with its workings. Manipulated its pitch and as he did so the ship shot up in to the sky with an alarming speed.

The atmosphere of the planet became thinner and thinner until they were sitting in space and observing the world below them. Which was bright blue and glistening in the solar rays.

"Pretty place, happy to finally get a move on though" remarked the bird.

"Where are we going though?" Asked Altan innocently.

"That's the thing, I don't know, you're the chosen one after all. After you."

Altan had a hunch. He pressed a few buttons and the ship zoomed off in to the void of space.