Original X-roads-2003

In the past…
 
    Naomi sat with Jamie in her cabin as the ship set sail in secret towards Tehrat. “So the legend says they brought Chasrue here and killed him. Decades before I ever ran into him in Basta on Threshold. Kilji has the power to reanimate the dead, so that part doesn’t bother me. The fact that he hasn’t aged in all that time does. Part of me doesn’t want to believe in any part of this as truth, but the vanity of myself…” She glanced in the mirror. “You say he looked my age when you saw him last.” Naomi looked at Jamie in the mirror. “Yet he had to be over five hundred cycles old, and Kilji you said was emperor of the planet and he would have to be older that Mark by well over twice that.”
    “Well he did look old, Emperor Kilji. He had white hair and was thin and frail.” Jamie explained.
    Naomi narrowed her eyes. “So, it doesn’t make you immortal as he claims. It only slows down the aging process.” She glanced back at her reflection, “For Hundreds if not thousands of cycles.”
 
In the future…
 
    Zahran Fordg welcomed us with open arms when we reached Feldport. I couldn’t believe the absolute difference of this continent from the one we left. Lush turquoise grass and trees littered the scenery everywhere you looked. I could heard animals in the trees, like birds singing and other noises I hadn’t heard since arriving on the planet.
    “You don’t notice how silent the dead land is til you’re here.” I said looking around at the flora.
    Zahran smiled, “The whole world was once like this. Full of life and trees.”
    “What happened?” I asked as we walked towards a small cluster of animals with saddles attached.
    They had six legs and strange fur. Their heads were flat and the eyes composed of nothing but black iris, were on either side like a bird. They made strange clicking noises to each other through small toothless slits. We mounted the strange animals, and they walked slowly away from the port.