As the sun set,

and the moon arose,

lunar heat swept across the mountains,

and every crevasse

filled with the moon’s

fiery purple light.

He-Thing decided to rest

while they could,

and War Dog wagged her tail

in agreement.

She showed remarkable patience

as he removed her saddle.

The more civilized a beast becomes,

the less able it is to care for itself,

so —

He-Thing cleansed War Dog’s wounds

and applied

the Ultimate Sorceress’s famous salve,

which had once restored

the last remaining head

of the brutal airship pirate,

Kax the Mœlinian,

seven thousand years ago.

Having finished with War Dog's wounds,

He-Thing set upon

more mundane tasks —

clearing War Dog's ears

of dirt and wax,

picking lice from her underbelly,

checking her teeth,

and washing the blood

and other debris

from the fur on her face.

Finally,

War Dog let out a soft, frustrated

bark

to inform He-Thing

that it was time

for her favorite part

of this ritual —

when he brushed her.

He-Thing smiled

as he drew out her

Epuxian interdimensional brush,

crafted long ago

during the benevolent years

of the now disgraced

Epuxian Interdimensional Republic,

a dog brush

handed down from father to son,

Fearwolf breeder to Fearwolf breeder,

as they were,

over the course of trillions of years,

until the Epuxian Empire fell,

and the first Omniverse with it,

all such brushes

slipping into mystery,

some destroyed, some secreted away,

some vanished into the vagaries

and caverns of the ages

like a memory

of a gust of wind.

This brush,

still handed down

from father to son,

but never used to stroke

the thick, coarse fur

of a Fearwolf

(for none were thought left),

and this brush,

buried in the bottoms of grain sacks,

or at the bottoms of wells,

or other hidden places,

an infamous relic of a bygone age,

an age that had been

so bright at its peak,

and so dark in its decline,

that such brushes came to symbolize

everything good and evil about Epux —

for the benevolent

Interdimensional Republic

had used the Fearwolf

as a tool of justice;

but the malevolent

Interdimensional Empire

had used the Fearwolf

as a tool of tyranny.

War Dog murmured in staccato grunts

as He-Thing stroked her back

with the Epuxian brush.

Both He-Thing and War Dog knew

that they would not sleep this night,

not while Skullatroid

still beeped,

decayed,

and cackled.

After their brief respite,

as He-Thing began to saddle War Dog again,

a ripping screech

tore across the sky, and

War Dog jumped,

fear overtaking her.

The saddle fell to the ground.

He-Thing looked up —

above them,

in the daze of the moon's

blazing violet light,

the great, winged robot circled.

to be continued...