Xervix stared out over the lands below, his gaze passed beyond the village, beyond the plains, through the mountains and off on over the great sea without even the tiniest waver, the old man was looking not through distance, but through time, he stared into a time long past, a time that would, no, could, never come back…
For how long he stood there, staring off into the past and the future, who can tell? None were there to see him, and Xervix himself was oblivious to the passage of time around him, his mind firmly planted in the soil of ages gone and ages yet to come.
After a time, an endless moment, the shuffle of uncoordinated feet and the brush of a nail against leaves returned Xervix to the current present, his ancient eyes turning to face the thing that had broken his reverie, the thing that stood behind him.
For it was not human, it had never been human and it was even less so after nearly a thousand years of death, the flesh had long since decayed away, the skin flaked off and the organs returning to dust, leaving only white bone, bone that seemed to gleam with an unearthly life, a life that transcended the normal meaning of the word.
The dog, for that is what it had been, simply stared back at the haggard visage of it’s master, within the shadows of it’s eye sockets one could almost imagine a tiny spark seemed to float within the depths, a particularly intelligent observer might even notice that when staring into the dark holes in the dog’s skull that they appeared to be far, far deeper than the normal physical laws should suggest.
But nothing about this creature, or his master, could be called normal…
Kneeling down, the old man patted the bony ridges of the dog’s skull, a wry smile flickered across his wrinkled flesh, in stark contrast to his pet, which glowed with an unearthly life and was more than a little creepy, the man vibrated with pent up energy, at first glance he looked like he was in his late sixties, a second, longer glance...