[color=Sandybrown] [h2]Zahir Rahel[/h2] [/color] 

Well ... he'd be damned. After all these years, after everything he'd seen, Zahir had long since stopped contemplating if things could surprise him and yet ... as that stag stood there watching, everything about it's ghostly movements screaming of something not of his world, he couldn't help but feel the slightest twinge of surprise. 

Deep down within the old man something stirred, an old beast long since tamed and forgotten, the part which training had mostly helped settle. It was faint and he would never admit this to someone else, but the sight excited him, ever so slightly, but the sensation was still there. Damn! How long had it been since he'd felt like this? The feeling of standing on the edge of something far bigger than oneself, facing something wholy inchomprehensable? 

Yet just as it was stirring, the voices beside him spoke up. They weren't directed at him in paticular and nor was it any certain phrase ... It was just their presence that broke down the barrier. Once again he was an old guard, sitting on watch with a small group of travellers. People he'd promised himself he'd do his best to protect. 

So for the moment he set down his desire, pushing the beast back into it's cage. Zahir needed to be ready for whatever this thing was ... whatever it was planning. If it was going to take the time to study them, then he was going to use that time too. 

So the old man just continued to sit there, watching the stag, listening for anything else in the forest moving closer. Was this really the limit of the beasts territory? Could it not go further or did it choose to stay within it's limits? There was a clear inteligence behind the thing and that was good. Intelligent creatures tended to have plans ... he just needed to figure out what it's was before it could eliminate them. 

After all ... how hard could that be?