Bayond aine pale thin veil

Lies a land thast graye and grime

Like a willy bog of soggy marsh

Thast long since lost its time

This is his barren kingdom

An aine foothills are his throne

His lands aire vaste and empty

And he rules them all alone

Aye, he who slain the daemon king

And worn his taeth for sport

He hast given chase to wyverines

When alst all would abort

He hast made the faeble minded flae

And dined fine fodes with death

And the guardian will langer on

Teel he drawes his final braeth

And forever, from the dawn of time

To the ending of all man

Will he pace aine land of inbetwaen

Where the water maets the sand

Knowing he will always be

One step from the beyond

Man, oh man, will always die

But The Guardian lives on

The Legend of The Green Guardian

Intro:

In the gray mists of The Inbetween, the hounds gathered around their master for their morning ritual. They watched him intently, every so often running ahead only to stop and look back to make sure he was following. Yes, he had walked this flat stretch of land over a hundred thousand times to uphold his duties, but he did not walk as straight or as tall as he used to, and the lantern he carried did not shine as bright as it had in times passed. The hounds watched him as though they worried that he might fade into the fog and disappear.

"Come along, Rami, Thorin, mustn't lag behind the pack." His voice was rough, scarred by the ages, but it commanded their attention in the same way an army general commands his troops. His own army was a drooling, hairy lot, but they served their purpose well. Namely, they kept things out.

The two stragglers wagged their tails at the sound of his voice, but instead of running to join the rest they wandered away even further. It was curious behavior. Their master paused to wait for them, but it was as though they had stumbled upon something interesting. And in a land where all was always the same, interesting was concerning.

One of the hounds let out a low howl and several pointy ears perked in it's direction. Their master was left standing by himself in the short, dewy grass while the pack abandoned his side to answer the call. He drew in a breath, listening to the growing urgent whines of his company, begging for attention. It was a long time since something had last interrupted his daily rounds and he found himself reluctant to see to it.

Something heavy in the air today, he mused. Something ominous.

He took a step toward the dogs and felt the grass shiver beneath his bare feet. Cold and wet and fearful. The ground carried memories of something dark roaming over it's surface, something that slithered and twisted and infected. He felt a little ill just standing there in the same place that this vile creature had crawled over in it's flight across The Inbetween.

The dogs continued to whine, so he went to them with a dreaded knowledge of what he would find. Sure enough, the limp form was visible even under all the wet noses that nudged it mournfully.

"Out of the way, go on, move!" He had to push some of them way to reach the dead hound. He knelt next to it and touched it's muzzle, which was as cold as, well, a corpse. It was not just dead, but long dead. A very bad sign.

"Maxim," he murmured as he respectfully closed the hound's eyes, "I've failed you." He had failed more than just a dog if his suspicions were correct. The murder was proof enough that something had managed to slither it's way through the mist. Proof that his senses were beginning to fail him if he had been so blind to the threat. Proof that there was something in the making on the other side. And he very much wished that it was not something he would be expected to deal with.

"Fate have mercy," he said as he stood and winced at the pain in his back as he did so, "not this again."

As if on cue, the pack of hounds all sat at once. They turned their heads upward to face the gray abyss that bordered the land of eternity, and howled their lonesome song into the still morning air.

(A/N: There be your intro to this great story of adventure, revenge, heartache and a lot of things that, in hindsight, were probably not such a great idea. Let me know what you think of it.)