Lions of the Yirnian Wood

On Dusk's bank by the River of Time sits an old man by his small cottage smoking his pipe. He watches the wisps of smoke play out illusory plays of future happenings and evnts past, the realities of our world, all dissolving into what is around them in an instant. He leans on his purring companion beside him, a single horned lion of many colors and long body like a dragon or snake. Majestic even in sleep, it is an old one, this lion, as old or older than the man. He closes his eyes and leans back into rest breathing in peace. He waits for her coming. Not yet. Not yet. But soon.

Kelly and August came into the Kung Fu school, June hunched over and Goosestepping trying to hide her new haircut, which was quite stylish. But Kelly never liked to be too stylish or too pretty, too attractive, too strong, too anything. August shuffled his feet in and went over to say Hi to Grandfather the head of the school, before taking. Once it seemed he would be very promising at Kung Fu. He was smart and was progressing quickly. But he stopped coming into practice. Or his parents stopped dropping him off as much. And at one point him and his sister Kelly simply refused to continue traing. He took out the playing cards and shirked his talent, abilities to play Big Two with his cousins Uncle and sister. Mediocraty is what these young children strove for. "Alright finish your game take a break and then we're at least going to run through all the forms," said their Sifu, who was not related to them by blood, but was familiar enough to them that they considered him family, and so, decided they didn't have to listen to him.
Sifu Adam, or they actually just called him Adam, was half White American, the other half was Chinese American like them. He was balding and brusque, though he was young, and not quite willing to let them go and completely stop practicing. But also not as willing to waste his efforts as he had before his hair had started falling out. They ran through hand forms weapons forms stick forms sword forms, following along, not paying full attention, not fully understanding the combat applications of these moves, or how to develop chi, but still understanding some, and having a bit of fun. Adam figured something was than nothing. At least they were moving. An older cousin who was Fifteen years of age and named Eleven, had weaker legs than a normal person, late alone an athlete or a martial artist. This was the cost of being in front of the computer all the time and not being forced to play a sport. They finished, Adam became tired and began meditating while the others started playing cards again.
Meanwhile Uncle Jing took Kelly and August down the street to order take out food so they could eat something at the school before going home.
The Kung Fu school stood a large statue of an old man. This old man was supposed to be Confucious, or at least that is what the people who made it intended to be, though it was not dressed really in the way that Confucious would have been dressed and really just looked like an old man of say the Ming Dynasty Era in common robes, rather than someone of Confucious's time. Kelly thought that the face seemed to look different all the time. Many attributed this to the fact that the daylight at midday was different than dusk light. But something in the back of even Adam's and Jing's mind told then that the face of the statue was not the same as when this building had been a Chinese school and when Adam, as a child had played tag around this piece of metal. The face had been changing since the school moved into this building.
The Kung Fu school had been down the street in Tai Tung village.
The Statue wactched Uncle Jing, Kelly, and August as they returned with the food. When it was time to go home the Statue watched everyone leave. Everyone except Adam, who stayed behind that night to meditate. The statue closed its eyes as night came and the old man's wandering thought rested in this metal body which his intentions took a liking to. This body became him and it seemed as good a vessel as any for an old man that slept outside his cottage by the bank of dusk on the river of time.