An Immortal and a Dog

I’m a black dog with many names.

Abomination, mongrel, brute... That’s what the people on the mountain call me.

Those clean, pretty people always hit and scold me when they see me. They say I’m filthy and tell me to get lost.

It hurts my feelings a little.

I love being clean. I lick my fur every day, but some of it gets tangled into knots that I can’t lick apart.

I hate the people on the mountain, but he’s different.

Everyone calls him the Immortal Venerable.

The Immortal Venerable is dignified and aloof.

His beauty is as pure as jade, and his talent is astonishing.

Once you see him, you can never forget him.

The Immortal Venerable often meditates beneath a sturdy apricot tree.

My den is not far behind it.

Every day, when I’m not sleeping, I watch his back.

Later, I climbed the tree to watch his face.

He’s the prettiest and cleanest of them all. I bet even the celestial maidens look like him.

His robes are as white as clouds, as if they could never get dirty.

He’s a good person. He’s never hit or scolded me.

Even when I lie beside him and secretly breathe in the spiritual energy he draws in, he doesn’t chase me away.

My paw left a smudgy gray print on his snow-white robe.

For the first time, he looked at me.

I hurriedly tried to wipe away the dirt with my paw, but only made it worse.

I stared dismally at my filthy paw and whimpered an apology.

He didn’t blame me, but he didn’t respond either.

That’s right, he never responds to me.

Later, he went down the mountain.

I followed behind him for many, many years.

Little by little, he began to pay attention to me. He talked to me, smiled at me, and brushed my fur.

He even kissed me!

I touched his slightly rounded belly and asked if he’d give me puppies.

He shook his head.

Third-person narration

One-on-one romance, Immortal Venerable as the bottom, black dog as the top. The top can take human form.

Mostly the top’s POV in the first half, with more of the bottom’s POV in the second half.

A vast difference in status and different species, so the romance develops slowly.

Theme: Perseverance wears away stone, drop by drop