10

Each night, between the cycling days while the sun was turning her face towards foreign lands, the stone surfaces would crumble away and they would shake the dust from their smooth fur as they were reborn anew. A moment of triumphant stillness would ensue, and then they would put their noses to the wood below their paws and bound to each other across the tabletop in the dark bedroom. They would greet each other as two eternal lovers would, and then proceed together into the night hunting for nightmares or heavy-burdened thoughts to chase down and devour. The sleeper could sometimes hear their howls in her dreams - always distant and barely audible over the silence of whatever troubled dream she was having, but always she would sleep easy after the Shi (Lions) chased down her nightmare and pulled it struggling down between them.