AL draft

 Alicia Lum and the Mystic Lion

Chapter One: Alicia Lum.

It was afternoon in summer time. A lazy summer sunlight hung in the haze. The air of the apartment felt faded. The light oozing through the apartment window was like the yellowing of an old newspaper print or family photograph. It spread alighting onto black tile floor brushing gently the white plaster. But it danced on little Alicia, who playing with her toys, glowing with giggles and childhood cherubness.

Chapter One: Kung Fu in the woods.

Alicia walked in the morning summer sun, hand in hand with her father. They were walking to Olmsted Park, now a bit dilapidated and over run with wild plants, squirrels, and bunnies. They dodged some construction work, crossed the crosswalk carefully descended the  stone steps, now haphazard and Picasso like  in from. They melted into the lush green plants; a jungle in the middle of the city.

These woods were magical  and enchanted to Alicia. 

“Let’s start of practicing our stances,” said Alicia’s father in Cantonese, “It will warm us up and….”

“I know,” said Alicia in English, “stretch us out.” She giggled as she dropped from  the four legged horse stance  into a full split.”

“Well,” father said, “I can’t be as limber as you being as old as I am. You just have to be patient with me and let me warm up. Besides, your stillness power is really all that you have lacking. You’re so fast I can barely keep up with you now..”

Alicia smirked because this was not true at all. In fact, her father was quite fast when he wanted to be.

“And your techniques are quite good too,” continued Baba, “but your power is all you lack, because of your young age and small size. With practice, you can become quite strong too, and then you will be a force to be reckoned with.”

Baba picked various stances to hold while staring out into the woods, looking beyond what could be seen. One legged stances, stances leaning on the front foot, stances leaning on the back leg, he held them all briefly while he circulated the oxygen he briefed through his body, breathing with practiced efficiency. Alicia followed along, knowing that her Baba had done all these exercises for much longer in a much more strenuous manner, hours before while she still slept. This  “warm up” was in fact for her benefit, so that she would be introduced every day to a little bit of these power building exercises, called “hei gung.”  

After this they started running through the woods, working on various moves, punches, pow cups, kicks, tiger claws, crane’s wings, etc.

They threw rocks, hit trees, and fenced each together playfully with sticks. Then as they walked back Baba answered any questions about various Kung Fu moves and also went over the order of techniques in the basic form that Alicia was learning. She was almost done learning the whole thing and would soon move on to the second form. Well, she wanted to anyway. They came to a clearing and Alicia ran through the form a few times.

“Good,” said Baba. “Now just practice it every day when you have time, and try to really study the techniques through practice. It’s the only way to get good.”

As they stepped out of the woods a man across the street called out to them from his car.

“Hey hold on a second.” The man began turning his car through traffic. Baba thought this was strange but kept walking. Alicia grabbed his hand and followed.

“Hold on there.” said the man in the grey car. Little blue lights were flashing from it. It seemed like the man was calling out to Baba and Alicia. As the car finally managed to pull up on their side of the street a man with a light blue uniform jumped out. 

“Hold on a second do you have any I.D. on you?” Baba shook his head. 

“Do you speak English?”said the man.

“Litte.” Said Baba and looked to Alicia, “My daughter.” He said indicating that Alicia could speak.

“Are you his daughter?” said the officer.

“Yes.” Said Alicia.

“And what’s your name?”

“Alicia.”

“Last name?”

“Alicia Lum.”

“So I’m assuming your mother is Caucasian.”

Alicia didn’t know what that word meant.

“White….like me” he said pointing to the skin on his arm.”

“Oh.. yeah, I guess.”

“Okay just hold on here. Everyone and their mother has been looking for you two for an hour.”

Another car pulled up then and another man in uniform jumped out.

“Can we go home now I need to go to the bathroom?” said Alicia.

“Are you okay?” said the second shorter man. He was fat and his face was soft. Not nice soft… but weak soft, and his eyes were mean like they had something to prove. The way he and the first man spoke were different. The first man had been calm. The first man was tall and had a strong build This second man spoke harshly and looked like he was made of tofu.

“Come here you little perv,” said the second man to Baba, trying to throw him to the ground. Baba did not fight back but invisibly sunk into his stance so that the little Tofu officer was unable to move him.

“Resisting arrest!” yelled Mr. Tofu

Several other squad cars had now pulled up including a Paddy Wagon. Alicia could see that some of the men wore darker colored blue uniforms with the letters BPD on it.

The first man said some words to the Tofu man. The Tofu man yelled, “You have some attitude you know that! We’re out here doing our job. You should have some respect for us. We’re hear protecting you, even though your not even from here, not even an American and you think you can disrespect me! What are you looking at!”

Baba shifted his gaze from the Tofu man to straight ahead and continued to say nothing. Then he shifted his gaze to Alicia. Alicia began to cry.

“Why are you yelling at my father!” she became slightly hysterical.

“Don’t argue with them.” Said Baba, “They are police. Just keep quiet. Eventually they have to let us go.” 

“What are you saying you little shit!” said the Tofu man. “Hands out! Now!”

Baba smiled and put his hand out which were cuffed. 

“Chinese motherfucker.” Muttered Mr. Tofu. This first state trooper just looked on shaking his head. Mr. Tofu marched over to the Paddy Wagon which belonged to the city police. They looked at him 

“So are we taking him in?” Said one of the Boston Police. There was some whispering and confusion which Baba didn’t understand and Alicia couldn’t here. After a bit of walking back and forth to the squad cars The first State trooper walked back over to Alicia. 

“Okay you two are all set.”

Baba was uncuffed  and the first State trooper stopped the traffic  so that Baba and Alicia could cross the street and walk back home.

  After that Baba only practiced with Alicia inside the house. He occasionally went to the woods by himself. Alicia felt she was the one who suffered the most by being separated from her enchanted forest. Of course the incident had been a mistake and coincidence but still left father and daughter a little rattled and upset.

Her father thought if it wasn’t safe for him to teach her Kung Fu in the woods, maybe he could enroll her in a Kung Fu School for the Summer just for fun. Plus she could learn with other kids. 

Baba did do this and found that one of schools in Chinatown was actually the famous Master Woo Ching whom Baba had heard so much about from the river and lake type Kung Fu people in Guangzhou. 

Baba had heard of people that travelled all the way to Taishan just to learn a few things from him. He had also heard from Taishanese friends how most of the villages hired Sifu Woo Ching to teach them Kung Fu back in the days under Deng Shiao Peng.  

Baba couldn’t believe that Woo Ching’s School was right in Boston’s Chinatown. A school with that level of Kung Fu would be hard to find anywhere in the world, including China. Everything nowadays was watered down and commercialized and oral history had been failed to be passed down between master and students because of the Cultural Revolution.

Such a treasure was right under Baba’s nose and he didn’t even know it.

Chapter Two: Kung Fu camp

It turns out, not a lot of people knew about the school as they didn’t exactly advertise, and it was a bit more run down than the fancier gymnasium type schools around. But Alicia seemed to like it.

Chapter Three: Blocks and Stories

Wooden blocks and animals collided, tumbled and talked with one another. Alicia’s little hands and her vast imagination made it all happen. The block shapes and animals were roughly cut from wood by a jigsaw at the North Bennett street school.

She also had origami cranes, frogs, fish and other animals intermingled with these and a washing basin filled shallowly with water that could be a pond a lake or an ocean. Paper cutouts or indeed rough looking sculptures or dolls, if you could call them that were people of various sorts. Today she even had little gingerbread men on the floor. Her mother didn’t really want her playing with those since cookies were food. But her mother wasn’t watching at the moment and so she made a ginger bread story. Where she and her classmates from the summer Kung Fu camp she was in travelled to a ginger bread land.

The story of the Ginger Bread Islands

A hot day meant meditation at  Woo Ching White Crane.

The children were bored, crying out, “This is lame!”

“Let’s go have some fun! Let’s go play some games!”

All of the students were thinking the same.

“How would they get there?”

“Let’s Fly on this Crane!”

The shout came from Tony, the Hawk folding paper.

When he was finished he blew on it,

And it grew greater and greater.

Now as large as the room and as glorious as their minds

The paper crane plane opened up and they stepped inside.

They sat on the floor furnished and flown by meditation

And the crane lifted off flying on the power of imagination.

They flew through the city, right through the concrete

Damaging nothing, not even rising form their seats.

And they flew all different directions or

Perhaps all the same, 

Landing in a Ginger Ale ocean

sweetened with sugar cane.

They looked above deck in their paper crane ship, 

just as thud came from a giant something they hit.

“Where are we?” shouted August

seeing what they hit was a beach. 

and shouting to gingerbread people playing

cards with big leaves.

One answered,

“The Ginger Bread Islands in the Ginger Ale Seas

The home of Tea Bears and Ginger Monkeys.  

And our ginger bread people making ginger honey.

These and many others co-exist peacefully.”

“Thank you and onward then.” Shouted Kelly jumping ashore.

Whatever lay ahead would certainly not be a bore.

Kelly flew up the dunes, and some castles of sand

Into the shaded, jungled, mysterious land.

August and Kaming 

got dealt in some leaves

While Win and Mark joined 

some gingerbread girls in the breeze

The rest of the crew went into the jungle

And heard commotion so big ahead  it hummed and rumbled

They slowed steps for caution 

and got low to the ground

Was there monsters ahead?

Better not make a sound. 

A "PSSt!" and a "Hey!"

growled loudly from the right.

When the children turned they were given a fright.

A group of old Bears

Sat round a table 

Calling them to come over.

and "Walk, don't crawl, if you are able."

The Children Cautiously approached,

Kelly hand made a sign.

The Tea bears signed back.

"Our bears", Kelly called, "It's fine."

They sat at the table and were offered some tea.

"Po Lei or Sow Mei," said a bear.

"Wait," said another, "they can't drink caffeine."

"Chrysanthemum then." said Gary from behind.

They drank tea and ate dim sum

When out the question came on their minds.

"What's all the noise over there?"

said Tony the old Hawk.

"I guess you'll have to go find out. Tell us when you do." 

Said the old bears.

And so the now well fed children continued toward the rumbling. 

They moved forward and came to a break in the trees,

that opened up to a giant gingerbread party.

Gingerbread people dancing and jumping.

Gingerbread monkeys swinging and landing without thumping.

There were all kinds of music and all kinds of games

and all kinds of foods with strange sounding names.

They played for while when someone said,

"It getting to crowded!"

"Let's move up to the beach," another eagerly shouted.

So the rumbled along, past the Tea Bear table

Who waved and then joined walking on all fours

or upright if they were able.

They came to the sand castles and saw Win and Mark 

and barley made out August as it was getting dark.

They set up torches and grills and fires.

The used magic to grow the sand castles higher.

Soon they had a sand city and partied till dawn.

Finally when the sun rose, the kids started to yawn.

"Time to go home.."

 the children began crying.

But their crane ship had wandered high above flying.

Tony called it to come down.

But it ignored and swooped around.

The crane wanted to stay.

and flew on further away.

The thought, "Now how would they get home?

Well at least none of us are alone."

Then further up the beach

beyond staggering gingerbread feet,

They saw a small boy building boats.

"Noah's my name." he said, "And we're from the same place."

Over seas these boats float,

and fly through time and space.

"If you want to ride, you have to promise to race!"

He jumped in one of many and off he sped

And all children followed, Noah just led.

One boat for each and plenty to spare.

They flew back to Moh Goon 

and breathed good old Moh Goon Air.

The stories were Alicia’s, but she felt that these pieces of wood had free will, sometimes too her frustration. The stories that she saw play out, often felt like mess ups and she would want to start over. But even starting over couldn’t always stop the story from finding its way back to the same place several times and before she could make it how she really wanted it, she would have to eat dinner or do chores or go to the bathroom or go outside to play new games with her friends. Total control over her imaginary characters seemed to be impossible. Real friends or the world outside the apartment was even more beyond anyone’s control. These ideas disturbed and excited her at the same time, the same way thinking about where her hand would go if it could stretch out to an infinite length sometimes kept her up at night.

Alicia really only liked the toys that were made by people she loved or by herself. She didn’t much care for the other toys she had at all. So her parents didn’t buy new toys. But relatives and friends of the family continued to buy these things for her and so they cluttered the apartment until they were given away, to be played with by other children who hadn’t discovered the joys of playing with sticks, rocks, and acorns; or lacked the vision to make toys out of old boxes, old newspaper, cans, jars, and all manner of other things that would be thrown away. Alicia’s mother would often make art out of these things herself. Though her father thought they were both a little strange for playing with trash. They weren’t rich but they weren’t THAT poor. Garbage was okay but he didn’t want Alicia to think that’s all there was.

Her father made sure he spent plenty of money on paints and various musical instruments that were around the house.  A Gu Jin, a Erhu, a Guitar, bamboo flute. Alicia’s father could play all of these instruments, having just picked them up along his journey of life without any formal training. He would play to Alicia and tell her stories of this Chinese General or advisor from the Three Kingdoms period, or another General or king from the Tong Dynasty, some stories about the Monkey King, and sometimes even ones he made up or lived through. It was hard to distinguish.

In their house (or one room apartment) there were also many woodworking projects of her mothers. A desk, a chair, a small box that you could make different noted sounds on but couldn’t really make a song. Also there were clamps, planes, saws, and scrap pieces of wood, which were always a problem when the housing inspectors should up. 

“Fire Hazard,” they would say, ‘Get this place cleaned up, will be back to check on you again.” 

Alicia’s mother, a woman of tough upbringing and many childhood street fights, a world traveler, hitchhiking across the Sahara desert twice, travelling to all sorts of dangerous places in the Middle east and South east Asia during times of war, for fun,  was usually a nervous wreck and in constant fear of being thrown out onto the street from her section eight apartment.

Paintings of her mothers and fathers as well were tacked to the walls around the apartment. Alicia’s family was not rich, but they had enough money to spend on things they wanted, but they chose not to spend money on the things that most people in their neighborhood did, like a car, cable, video game systems, etc.

Among some of the pictures that were framed or made into books, instead of just being tacked onto the wall were Alicia’ baby pictures. She had been born with hair so blonde that it looked white and a face as pretty as a doll. Now her hair was a darker yellow, but her skin was still whiter than most Asians, but tinted differently than whites.

For the most part Alicia looked white, or maybe a little Hispanic, or middle eastern

The languages that had been spoken to Alicia by various family and friends included, Cantonese, Mandarin, Taishanese, Hakka, Fujianese, Spanish, Portuguese, and English. 

Because she lived in Boston, English was her dominant language. The language spoken by her mother and the language spoken at school. She understood a bit of the various Chinese languages and pretended to understand the rest. She wasn’t always sure what language they were speaking and sometimes thought she was bad at Cantonese somedays, and good other days, or that she had trouble understanding old people. What she didn’t realize was that the old people were speaking to her in Taishanese whether they thought they were speaking Cantonese or not. Alicia thought that there was an old people Chinese and a young people Chinese, and then there was Mandarin.

Chapter Two: Measuring Life on your fingers.

Alicia’s mother had just been on the phone speaking in English, like a tense person trying to remain calm. Though Alicia was still playing with her toys, she sensed that something was different in the room than it had been a few moments before.

“Alicia.” Called her mother looking at her. Her mother looked more like a teacher right then. Like somebody taking care of you, but at the same time a stranger. She felt almost like instead of being at home, she was suddenly in a strange place. “Go see Baba.”

“Okay.” Said Alicia still engrossed with her toys.

“I think you should go see him now.” Said her mother, the adult hand enclosing the child’s little arm and pulling Alicia to the bedroom. Alicia’s father was lying on the two person mattress that her parents slept on.

Well sometimes Alicia jumped onto that mattress from the much smaller one that lay beside it and her father had ended up sleeping on the little mattress after being crawled over many times.

Now the little girl jumped next to her father, who was lying on his side. At first she was happy to play with him, but then she saw he was different. His armed flailed out and grabbed her hand in an attempt at gentleness. 

“Aliciaahhh.” He said not really opening his eyes fully.

“Does this hurt?” He said in Chinese as he squeezed her ring finger. Alicia had started crying before the pain of him squeezing her finger had even started. She had started crying because something really was obviously wrong.

“Hurts.” She said in Chinese, “tung.”

“Tung mm tung.” He said clenching another finger. He was in a cold sweat. His hands were clammy and shaking. But it hurt when he feverishly squeezed her fingers in between his own. She tried to move her hand away.”

“Baba.. ho tung ahh.”

“Tell me… tell me if it hurts.” He said in Chinese.

“Tung” said Alicia crying.

 *****************************

After that Alicia was moved to the side by paramedics. She didn’t quite know what was going on, but her father was in the hospital now. What did that mean? It didn’t really mean much to her. She just moved on into the next moment of life and began played with her toys or went to day care or did whatever it was that was happening at the present. There had been many times when her father was not home because he was working late at the restaurant or gambling in Chinatown. Now he was at   the hospital instead. She thought that was just something that Baba had to do…. Be at the hospital, and that’s why he wasn’t home. She didn’t really get that her father had had a stroke.

Even after they visited him in the hospital and she saw her father sleeping with all those things coming out of him, tubes, wires, snakes… when she was home and Baba wasn’t there, she didn’t really think he was at the hospital. She thought he was just working late or gambling.

One time mommy brought  Alicia out to a playground and then later she said, let’s go visit Baba. They were walking into the New England Medical Center. Alicia through a fit, kicking and screaming and pulling not wanting to go inside.

“What! You don’t want to even visit your own father! Why not!” Her mother didn’t understand. Of course Alicia understood even less. She was only three after all. After that, sometimes, Alicia’s mother would visit Baba by herself and leave Alicia with Baba’s sister.

Her name was Rosalina, though Alicia was supposed to call her Aunty if it was by the Chinese rules. Rosalina an Baba were Chinese but had gone from China to Venezuela, and then later immigrated to the States. So Rosalina had a Spanish name. But as far as Rosalina was concerned, she wasn’t Chinese, or Venezuelan, or American (though she got her citizenship because she saw the advantages of doing so.)

She didn’t care about rules in so much as what she was called, though she did care about what was in people’s hearts and the knowledge that they had.

(Aleesha is on Summer vacation. In a week she will start Summer Camp/School at Kwong Kow. Rosalina Her Aunt picks her up.  Before heading home they walk through the Boston Common, Rosalina practices Kung Fu with Aleesha. When Aleesha gets tired she sketches with some materials that Rosalina brought for her.

Chapter Two: Waterfall. The Water Curtain Cave.

Alicia sat crossed legged in the living room while Rosalina cooked in the kitchen. The wall separating the two rooms had window to see through, designed either for ventilation or to hand food through. It wasn’t designed very well for either purpose, but Rosalina could peep through to see Alicia sitting there staring at the wall. Or so it seemed.

What she was staring at actually was a painting of Rosalina’s. A waterfall coming out of a mountain teeming with trees. No. As Alicia looked closer, the mountain itself was in fact a tree. A tree that became many trees at the top, different types of trees, maple, pine, oak, and other kinds tropical and from cold climate most of which she didn’t know the names too. Branches broke up becoming different trees but they came together at the base. And out of the heart of the tree, cascading off of branches and leaves, a giant waterfall. Coming from the tree and surrounded by it and yet, seeming to envelope it and overcome not only that forest with one base, but the painting and as Alicia continues to look, the whole room. Those lively lines that would represent delicate and thin greenery that showed say in the breeze, supporting a water fall that now seemed to thunder as Niagara, and the forests and jungles of the universe supported all by the same roots.

The painting seemed to move from the act of staring and began to strain the eyes and so Alicia closed them. But the painting simply came forward more, so that she could see it more clearly with her eyes closed than with them open, and the paradoxes of it became all the more reasonable in her minds eye.

Her eyes opened and closed and open and closed and then fluttered closing to the room and opening to the painting behind the room so strongly that the river water blasted backward onto the bank where she fell on her bum right into the mud.

Chapter Three: 

Alicia stood up clumsily. The water was moving fast for a three year old but somehow she was strong enough not to get sucked under the water and away with the current. Where was she it looked like a lake or a pond. And then she saw the waterfall, that incredible waterfall coming out of a forest with one trunk, as big as a mountain, as big as a mountain range.

She wasn’t staring at ink on a page, but breathing in the mist and seeing it in reality. She had to be careful not to stumble again. She wanted to walk over to the water fall but the water was too deep and she couldn’t swim. She washed herself off and stepped onto the bank.  A giant white sepent slithered in front of her path and reared up onto the last two inches of its tail its back fanning out.  Was it a cobra? Alicia did not know much about snakes. The white snakes upper body changed in front of her eyes into a woman fully developed and firm as it had been as a snake, with eyes piercing with a steady gaze that did not seem right. The gaze of the snake woman was what Alicia noticed and feared more than seeing a snake suddenly rear up and turn into a woman. Alicia stepped back into the water. She felt unnerved and so small looking up at this woman, who was not only terrifying but beautiful in a way that Alicia, as a little girl could not yet be.

The Serpent Woman slithered into the lake surrounding Alicia at a distance with her long winding coils inching in laughing with a siren’s seductive voice. A voice which had base supporting every high warbling note it touched.

“Little girl… or is it little boy?” said the Siren, “You are so muddy and clumsy looking I can barely tell the difference.” 

Jealousy laced the white siren’s poison. Her eyes flashed and her tongue flicked in and out. Behind her on the bank thousands of snakes now reared up many of them transforming their upper bodies into human form, some men, some women, of all different colors, bright, striped and various designed. But it was a bit of a blur for Alicia whose heart was pounding.

“What brings you to this bank?” said the woman siren, “Are you here to visit me?” Her voice sounded calm and yet icily enraged in cool cruelty.

“Jila! Jila!” Cried a serpent voice from the bank, “She is just a girl, leave her alone why are you bothering her? Besides she may be here for a purpose.”

Jila the white serpent woman laughed. “You say she is just a girl and in the same breath you say she may be here for a purpose. Well which is it Anali? Is she just something or is she important?!” The serpent girl on the bank slithered back a step thinking of what to say. They could all see that Jila was jealous of the girl, enraged beyond her normal rage. Why? Who was this girl? Jila was not the chief among these serpents as they had no leadership structure like that, but she was important, and simply powerful. Nobody wanted to be on her bad side, but they did not care for killing those that suddenly appeared from another world in this lake. All that appeared here were important and not to be trifled with. This is what the serpent people knew.

Moreover, this person who had just appeared was a girl of only three years old. Quite innocent. What was Jila up too?

Suddenly from the lake rose a magnificent creature which Jila pinning her under water. The creature had a massive Lion looking head with a horn coming out of the top. It glittered as if gilded golden, with a rainbow of colors reflecting and darting around its scales and skin which clinged and clanged like bells and and chain mail armor. Its face looking noble and distinguished, its beard, white and and refined. 

It had a long body but not as long as the Luong that flew above delivering rain. And it single horn was similar but unlike the Keilun. It gripped Jila underwater and Jila immediately gripped Alicia wrapping around to crushed her ribs and squeeze the air and life out of her.

Somehow though, Alicia, as she was being strangles and squeezed, became as the water, or air and Jila’s coiling body passed through her as if were not there.

Jila then coiled her body around the creature who counter coiled and slashed out at her. The serpent people on the bank were unsure of what to do. Should they help Jila? But this creature  was no stranger to them either. In fact Jila had been lover to this creature of the lake and many of the serpents, man and woman were friends to him as well. 

The Yirnian was what he was and these woods on the bank were named after his kind. He was simply called the Old One and had been here as long as the Serpent people’s oldest could remember. But Jila was there kind, and he wasn’t. But they still stood there not wanting to get involved. Small Yirnians on the other side of the bank had gathered swooping in from the sky. They watched the serpents on the far bank. It was understood now. Leave this fight between Old One and Jila. If one Yirnian stepped in, then all the serpents would step in. If one serpent stepped in, then all the Yirnians would step in. The two groups creatures in fact had no animosity between them. They intermingled and played with one another, befriended and loved each other sometimes producing offspring. And yet in this instance they found themselves as two rival armies on opposite sides of a body of water tensely watching Old One and Jila wrap around each other in hatred instead of love.

Alicia now rose over the two of them floating in the air. She didn’t know how nor did she feel at all in control of this power she had suddenly realized. She swam like a clumsy dog through the air, somewhat terrified, as Jila could, at any moment reach up and grab her quite easily. None the less the Yirnians and the Serpents on either side saw this as some sort of sign. She obviously did have a purpose even if she was just a three year old girl, and no doubt this had something to do with why the Old One and Jila were battling each other. Jila and Old One tired and intertwined separated enough to get their heads a safe distance from each other. The fight had gone on for some time mainly because neither had truly wanted to kill the other. They both glanced quickly up at the girl floating there and then back at each other. 

Jila said quite quietly and out of breath, “What is she really to you any way, here in this place.”

“She is also something to you, not just me. I can understand why you attack her, but there is no reasoning in it.” 

Jila uncoiled from him and slithered back to the bank. 

She slithered away turning back calling, “I will see you on the bank Old One when the girl has returned to her world. Come find me in my tomb, for I will lay stiff and dead to this world until that one is gone. You have killed me, and you must come to give me life again, just as I once gave life to you.” For Jila knew something of the girl and the future through visions. In this way she saw more clearly than the average creature. But in addition to seeing the future in hazy reflections, this was also how she saw the past and the present. Thus her clairvoyance was the also the source of her hazy view of the present and the irrational way in which she acted. 

This part of her worldview, was more seductive to the old one than any other part of her beauty. He watched as the Yirnians and the Serpents retreated in the woods Leaving the Old One and Alicia alone. 

“We will go to the water curtain cave in the tree of life.” Said the old one nodding to the magnificent waterfall that had brought Alicia here in the first place.

Alicia felt herself alighting onto the creatures back, and then riding him as he ran through the air to the distant waterfall.

Chapter Four: Turning to Stone.

As the old one ran toward the cave he his breathing became more and more labored.

“Are you okay?” shouted Alicia who was worried for the creature and herself since she was riding on top of him and he was moving at an extremely high speed.

The old one didn’t respond either because Alicia’s voice hadn’t carried or because he simply chose not to. The reached the Water Fall and the old beast flew up over top of it to the mountainous branches with peaks that were the tops of many trees from one root. Fruit of all types hung from every branch and birds of many colors peacefully watched the beast and her unafraid. The Old One let Alicia  walk from his back onto a branch which served as the wooden bank to the river that became the water fall. The source of this river, the spring, seemed to be from within this spectacular tree. The branch was indeed so thick that a town or city would have fit on it, but Alicia was still afraid because the wood near the water was slippery. She crouched to all fours and crawled across until she reached a drier more stable footing further from the water.

She had found out just recently that she could apparently fly and make objects could pass through her, or maybe indeed that she could pass through objects. But she did not have control over nor trust in these powers just yet.

She finally stood up to and looked back to see the old one stumbling more clumsily now, which frightened her. She looked ahead and saw a small little hut with a thatches roof in the distance.

“So somebody lives here.”She thought.

She turned to call out to the Old One to either rest there while she got help or to at least tell him that there was a residence not too far away.

She was shocked to see him stumble a couple more steps and then collapse in a thud before a word could leave her mouth.

Instead his mouth opened unnaturally wide and out sprawled a man covered in some sort of mud or blood or other fluid. Alicia slowly realized that other than the mud which covered him he almost seemed to be naked. She kept watching even though she thought if he looked at her he would turn away. 

He walked over to the horn of the almost dying Old One and tore a cloth which had been tied around it. It tore tike a life leave from a branch. 

The piece he tore off suddenly became clothes for him and at the same time seemed to bind with or wash away the mud. The Old One seemed to grow right into the giant branch they were standing on and soon looked as if he had always been a part of it. He looked quite comfortable and not at all dead and seemed to go to sleep.

The man pet the Old One a couple of times and then turned toward Alicia. The man looked quite distinguished, young , and scholarly with a well trimmed smart looking beard. The cloth had turned into a robe of sleek white feathers and he held a fan in his hand made of feathers of some majestic bird. An eagle maybe. Not that Alicia had ever seen one. 

“Let’s talk in my home.” The man said motioning his hand to that hut in the distance with a thatched roof. As he spoke, he bowed almost somewhat subserviently to Alicia.

Alicia knew that she shouldn’t go anywhere with strangers. 

“I don’t know you.” Alica said quite loudly. “And you’re a grown man. I am just a little girl. I don’t think I should go to your home.”

The man laughed, and nodded slightly and then bent in a way to cover his face with his eagle feathers. Suddenly he had transformed into a man sized bird.

But a ferocious looking bird, from the dinosaur times, In fact he looked more like a dinosaur than a bird.

“How about now?” said the scholar. “Is this more appropriate?”

“Not at all.” said Alicia. “You are too big and could easily eat me. Change into something more cute and little like a sparrow.”

The scholar cocked his head to one side. If he had human features still one might have seen a frown on that terrible looking face. 

“How will I protect myself against you as a sparrow?” he clucked. “Let alone if some wild cat or serpent like creature decides to attack us?”

“Then you can just change back into something more ferocious when the time comes,” said Alicia, “but why do you have to go around looking like that now?”

The man, or bird, or dinosaur, paused and then transformed into an elegant white crane, still quite large, but elegant and peaceful looking. More importantly, Alicia felt that she could probably break his neck if she wanted or needed to. Not that she was necessarily planning on that.

She couldn’t have been more wrong but what did she know. The crane looked at her.

“Okay.” Said Alicia and I will follow you.

The scholar took off and flew toward the hut.

“Hey wait!” said Alicia running after him. To her surprise she ran quite fast, and found that she could run without touching the ground but just step on the air itself. She spread her arms out like the crane and ran even faster and higher, She felt so light and breather in as if she were breathing in not just through her nose or mouth and not just with her lungs.

She felt like she was breathing with her entire body… no she was breathing with her entire essence. Faster and faster she ran through the air after the crane which moved forward with quite some speed seemingly without even flapping its wings.

Chapter Five: The Crane Sage’s hut.

In  a short period of time she arrived at the hut with the crane which had been quite some distance away. Instead of being out of breath or tired, she felt refreshed. Alicia felt as if she had taken her first real breath of life giving air.

The crane ducked in through the doorway and Alicia followed. She glanced around quickly. The first thing she noticed was that the walls, which had no windows on the outside, looked as if they did on the inside. Looking more closely they seemed like computer screens looking out into various places. Their edges were flickering flame and as she moved around them she noticed they were three dimensional. The reached out to touch the screen and found that she could put her hand through it… no into it. They were like windows after all. She could put her hand into the space that was shown.

“Careful.” said the crane, “You don’t want to get ahead of yourself.”

“What are these things? How do they work?” asked Alicia

“How did you get here?” asked the crane in a tone that sounded rhetorical. “You came here through some ink on paper. Everything you see and have experienced, isn’t it real?”

“Yes.” Said Alicia.

“But before you had been looking at ink on paper.” Said the crane. “Why are you even surprised that within this giant space which technically is on your living room wall…”

Alicia started staring at the other things around the room and wasn’t quite paying attention to what this hermit was saying. The crane noticed this and chuckled.

“Have some tea.”

“I’m not really supposed to drink tea, I’m too young and it could stop me from getting taller. Anyway that’s what my mom said.”

“This one will make you grow even taller.” said the crane looking down.  “I have no hands so you will just have to get it yourself. Besides you are the younger one and should serve me anyway.” He pointed to a small table which had a teapot and two cups already laid out. There were more cups in a little basket on the table as well. Alicia sat down on a cushion that looked like it was made of large man sized leaves sewn together and poured out two cups.

“Make sure you rinse the cups out first with the tea. We will drink the second cups you pour,” said the crane sitting across from her.

Alicia grudgingly did this thinking what a pain this crane or man was being.  Then she saw nowhere to pour the excess tea however. The crane shook its head indicating for her to just throw it on the floor which was dirt or some sawdust looking substance anyway. They were after all, just on top of a giant branch. Alicia wondered how deep this covering of the branch was. Could they farm on it?

She started to ask a question but then didn’t really know what to say. Then started again. “So.. what do you eat?”

“Why are you hungry?” 

Alicia thought about it. “I guess not really.” She said as the crane pulled two fruits from a corner in the small room. The trees have plenty of fruit and there are nuts and roots in this forest as well. Don’t worry that this forest is all one tree. 

But you cannot eat the birds here. They are sacred. The fruits are fine however and you will find that they do fill you up just fine. 

Alicia bit into the fruit. Its meat tasted not just sweet but extremely refreshing and energizing, she took a few bites and found that she had been hungry. But the meat of the fruit filled her stomach the way bread, meat, rice or other foods fill you up. Not at all like the fruits like apples, mangos or pears she was used to eating at home. She ground she could not even finish and offered the rest to the crane, you tore into it instead of eating the fruit he had taken out for himself. He too was unable to finish and left the fruit outside.

Alicia followed him. She saw in amazement as this fruit also  rejoined into the ground or branch quite quickly and unnaturally. Or maybe here, this was completely natural. They were after all on a tree that was both a mountain and a forest and a river spring that became a waterfall.

Chapter Six: Practice.

Alicia started to become bored and started drumming the table with her fingers. After a while she noticed that the crane was sitting motionless with eyes closed. Was he asleep?

Before she had reached this hut everything that happened had been very exciting. Though she wouldn’t necessarily want to be in Jila’s grasp again at least it was exciting. This was sooooo boring. 

“What are we doing  now?” She finally blurted out rather loud and impolitely.

The crane opened his eyes and looked at her. He got up without speaking to her and stared into on of the flame like screens. “Why do you think you are here?” said the tersely.

“I don’t know.” said Alicia.

“You don’t know?” said The crane getting very angry all of a sudden. Alicia felt very uncomfortable. She thought this person had been on her side. After all he had saved her. But now it looked like he was bad too. Maybe she should not have come here. But where else would she go? In fact, this waterfall tree, strange as it was, was the only familiar thing in this scary and hazy place. 

“I don’t know.” She said.  Now Alicia she wanted to leave. She could feel the cranes anger. In fact he became angry that he had begun changing back into that scarier form with teeth in his head and his wing grew claws.

“You don’t know why I brought you here?! Why I threw away my body for you? Why I became clawed and attacked my own lover? You don’t know anything I suppose. You just showed up here by accident!” He had grabbed a thin branch from  corner and started whipping it hacking at Alicia as Alicia dodged around the room. The moved, ducked, bobbed and weaved throwing her hands up to protect herself as the switch landed on her body and her forearms, and when she was not quick enough… her face. The sage drew blood from the three year old girl.

“I don’t know!” Alicia yelled crying and confused, “I don’t know, I don’t know I don’t know!” 

The saged whipping blows cut into the skin sometimes, stinging, but not truly injuring. “You don’t know!” He hit her again.

Alicia didn’t know what was going on or how they had come to this point of chaotic violence. But she decided to change her answers.  “Okay. I know. I know!” Alicia yelled hoping the pain would stop.

“So you do know!” The sage bellowed changing into human form and striking again. Alicia was at a complete loss, caught and cornered. The stick came for her once again. It had changed shape and size suddenly and had become a wooden sword, with an edge. If it struck her now it would kill her. She breathed in. There was no space to dodge, and blocking had not worked before, though it might at least save her life from this blow if not the next. 

None the less, her mind, body and spirit did something different. The sword was coming at her, it was all in an instant. But her essence went with the sword. She was the sword and the sage and the air and the ground. She floted slightly above it and the sword passed her. It would seem it had passed through her. And as it did, her pain, and welts were suddenly not there.

A smirk and a smile came across the sage’s lips. And he held the sword in her  genltly now moving it passed her again and again but it did not touch her. Nor did he seem the least bit surprised.  “Hold it.” He said , not reverting to a crane, “for at least one hour. Tomorrow you will try to hold it for longer.” He now tied the sword above her so that dangled above her head. “Use this to practice. But be careful. If it pierces an eye, you can lose the eye, if it pierces your brain, you lose the brain. If it pierces the mind, you lose the mind.”

This scared Alicia and she reverted back for a second and the sword had been on her cheek and opened up her face gushing blood. She moved and floated up toward the wooden blade. It was remarkable sharp. She dodged again terrified and then as she was dodging around she calmed herself and passed through the sword again. The gash was more or less healed when she did this but for some reason a mark stayed on her cheek. She did not know or think of this though. The mark changed shape as she was able to pass through objects and was not exactly how a scar is on us, but it was not exactly a pretty mark either.

She practiced in this way, with the wooden sword, training and controlling her ability to be untouched and her ability to maneuver of the ground in intricate turns in a very small space.

She became like smoke, a wisp of wind, a beam of light.

Chapter Six: Training

Alicia practiced like this every evening for longer and longer periods of time. In the mornings she would go out flying with the crane up to where the large branches became actual trees and a forest. Here they would eat the fruit nuts and berries. There were even bushes and soil on the forest floor, but underneath all that Alicia supposed it was still the bough of the tree. In the soil there were roots and snails, worms, insects, rodents and other types of animals. These creatures Alicia was allowed to eat as well. She was not really able to make a flame to cook anything however and the crane, who seemed perfectly content eating everything raw, did not bother to teach her at first. So for a while she ate only fruits. These fruits were more than enough to sustain her as they were different from the fruits we are used to. Some very meaty, some starchy like potatoes, some bitter. Some looked like animals and even people which made Alicia quite uneasy. But eventually she bit into these ones two and found them very rejuvenating. She started growing taller and developing at a faster rate.

Due to her practicing of flying and passing through objects as well as the food she ate she developed differently than girls, boys, or animals develop outside of this tree. Her flesh, bones and organs were made of something different, something unearthly.

She found that if she practiced becoming a wisp of wind while she flew, that she barely needed to dodge objects. She also noticed though  that even when objects passed through her and she was unharmed, she still felt them. In fact if she ran straight on into a tree, though she wouldn’t be hurt she would still feel as if she were crashing into something and would pass around it rather than straight through it.

Her skin began to glow golden as she developed into beaming image of a young woman instead of a girl. In fact as she followed the crane doing this same routine every day the months turned into years and even had she been a normal girl she would have been a budding young beauty of thirteen.

In all those years the crane had trained her he had also begun to educate her once she was able to concentrate. In a way he taught her to read and write but it was different than how we do such things, for there were no pens, pencils, brushes, or keys to make letters or characters. Instead The crane manipulated the flames into traces left in the air that were not still but moving, flickering and wisps of smoke coming of f of them. Alicia learned both to do this and also to sense the meaning and thoughts that they were meant to convey. For it was a sense that was not exactly like sight that enable one to read in this way.

Through these flames in the hut he also showed her many faraway places, their histories and origins, and the arts and sciences that they practiced. 

When Alicia came to these points in her education she was exposed to many different systems of languages and mathematics, astronomy, jargons, rituals, art, codes, and practices. She was amazed to find that with practice though she didn’t learn to read  these words or characters in the same way that their native users did, she was able to interpret their meaning the way she interpreted the wisps of light of her own language, understanding not only the words themselves but the true intent of the writer, artist, or scientist.

Chapter Seven: Alone.

It had now been ten years and she began she began to notice changes in her body beyond her training, She knew she was somewhat taller now, but she had also grown in other ways. 

She longed for something more than her surroundings and for more time away from the crane. Though she didn’t need to bath in the river, because she could become untouchable by dust, she did, simply for the sensation of it. And more and more, she felt that she wanted to do so away from the crane. 

At the same time she also felt that she wanted the crane to see how she had changed, to notice her, not as a bird but as a man. These thoughts confused her in a way that made her begin to despise her teacher when he was around and long for him when he was gone for too long. 

And when she had first been pulled from Jila’s coils so ten years ago he had taught her daily and never spent any time away from her, more and more now he left her to study and train on her own. 

Until one day  Alicia awoke to the sword floating right in front or her face. There were wisps of light written in its essence which conveyed the meaning that her teacher had gone beyond the tree now and that she was alone here. He went to seek out Jila but she was not to worry. 

There was one more part of her training she needed to complete before she should go out beyond the waterfall tree. This sword, which she practiced, avoiding it as it passed through her, was the key to her next level of training. She must learn not only to avoid its blade but to control its blade. When she used the sword to cut through the tree deep into its heart she would find a cave with a flame many times more powerful and giving of knowledge than those in this hut, and a book as well. With these she would gain control of the Yirnians.

Alicia understood the thoughts meant to be conveyed only partially. For though she could read the intent, her mind had not realized oneness with the meaning or with the crane itself.

She grabbed the wooden sword and gave it a few swings. In her hand it was nothing more than a stick now. She was able to make it thicker and sharper than the switch it had been when it first struck her. But it was not nearly as sharp as she had seen it in the control of the crane.

“A book and a cave,” she thought aloud. She had trained for so long. This place for all of its mystery and beauty had become a prison for her. She wanted something else. The put the stick on her shoulder and chose a sword and a path instead. She went to fly down from the branch but found that when she did this she couldn’t carry the sword. She thought of abandoning it. It was just a stick after all, and the crane wasn’t around anymore. So what if it was of any importance to him. 

But that was just it. The crane wasn’t around anymore. She was glad for her freedom, but all this time she had followed him by choice. She didn’t want to just throw away all she had left of him. 

The stick thinned now to a switch  in her hands and she put it over her shoulders hanging her hands from it as she walked, swinging it with one hand occasionally  and singing. 

She had no idea where she was going or what she was doing. She couldn’t fly there but skipped instead. Somehow now, after ten years of flying at incredible speeds, skipping felt even freer. 

Chapter eight: Out into the world.

She didn’t know where she would go, but she had flown all throughout the forest of one tree and seen the sacred birds. The forest was vast but it semed to be more and more of the same without many surprises. She wanted the excitement and danger of what lay beyond this tree, beyond this waterfall. She slowly skipped and found that it was taking forever to get anywhere.

She had gotten so used to flying that she had forgotten how long using ones legs on the ground took. She began to grow impatient. 

“Maybe it wasn’t worth it to carry this sword after all.” She thought. She looked back to the hut. She had skipped quite a ways. Then she had an idea. She threw the sword forward and then flew after it. It landed on the ground and she reassumed human form in order to pick it up and throw it again.

She did this a few times and then she tried catching it instead of letting it fall. At first she hurt herself landing a couple of times because she reassumed human form in the air. She even broke her legs. But then she became as the wind again and found that when she changed back, she was pretty much healed. As long as she was able to change into wind, she was practically invincible. She just couldn’t get hit in the head is what she guessed.

Many more throws and catches she became skilled enough to only partially assume human form while in the air to catch the sword, throw it with the momentum of her flight, and then become like the wind again. It wasn’t long before it seemed as if she could basically carry the sword in wind form in this way of handling it by partially transforming into a human. She was also just getting better at controlling her power to manipulate the sword when she was wind so that she could at least change its direction or make it fly longer if not totally carry it. 

In this way she eventually came to the edge of the river which became the water fall. She saw a snake and a crane on the fair bank. They seemed to be fighting at first but as Alicia watched she realized that they were not trying to harm each other. She sat and watched a while. The snake then looked toward her and whispered something in the cranes ear. The snake wrapped itself around the crane gently and the crane took off in flight.

Alicia watched the water a while longer. She held the sword and dove in, changing into wind and following the sword as it was pulled by the current. She followed it was wind underwater down the water fall and beyond the little lake. She followed the sword as it travelled down the river floating.

“This is how I will know where to go.” She decided. She would just follow this wooden sword, this stick, this branch that had beat her for so long whether it was held by her teacher the first time, or controlled by her in training. She had worked with it for so long. She didn’t always have to hold onto it and actually walk with it if that prevented her from flying. Instead she would late the river current carry it and she could easily follow after it in wind form.

She had no other reason to travel or purpose. This little game she had just invented was as good as any.

Chapter Eight: Beyond the water fall.

Alicia followed her sword until it washed up and got caught in the reeds by the shallow waters of the river bank. She was about to pick it up and she saw a group of boys playing by the river. She had been alone all this time and the last time she had normal human contact was so many years ago as a three year old.

She had been well educated about various cultures in the land she was in, but learning about something and being in the midst of it are somewhat different especially when she only learned about what the Sage Crane had deemed it appropriate or important to learn.

She could not quite see them and pay attention to the sword at the same time so she emerged and picked up the sword and moved further along the bank.

“Auntie,” came a little boys voice, “Why are you bathing over here? The older boys are down that way. They are playing quite rough.” 

Alicia turned and looked at the little boy who was by himself and naked for some reason. 

He spoke again, “The women and children bath down that way. You should go over there. I have seen those older boys play rough with pretty girls like you, even when they are in a group. But you are by yourself.

Alicia smirked. “No,” she said, “You are with me so you can protect me from those rough boys right?” 

“They are stronger than me.” Said the boy, “and you are very pretty.”

Alicia had noticed that the young boys eyes would wander over her body though they tried to stay at her face. As they had been talking his face had become somewhat flush and he had tried to cover himself and as she looked towards his boy parts she saw that even though he was quite young there was a change that he was trying to hide from her clumsily.

She knew about these things between mammals because she had studied it in animals and she simply observed his behavior with the curiosity of a scientist in the field. She then realized more clearly that she herself was naked, and not only naked, but attractive in a sexual way, and that this boys response was because of this.

She had come to this world clothed, but somewhere along the way she had lost these clothes. Probably the first time she had flown. But it had never occurred to her. She lived with a crane clothed in feathers after all. Scattered memories from the first there years of life came back vaguely. Or was she creating them now? Memories, of getting dressed, privacy, boys and girls restrooms.  How many memories can a three year old really have? But they came back now, modified with the  teachings and lessons she had encountered in the far reaching visions of the flames in the cranes hut. Most of what she learned had not had much to do with such everyday things.

The voices of the older boys, or young men came closer and got louder. Alicia panicked, for some reason she couldn’t explained and became like the wind right before the young boys eyes.

“Bun-bun!” said one of the male voices loudly, “Ah-Bun! Little brother, is that you? Who are you talking to?”

Bun-bun, the little boy who had been talking to Alicia, saw the wooden sword Alicia had been holding fall to the ground and reached to pick it up. The boys came up and ran over to Bun who they saw holding nothing more than a switch, for the sword was only a switch in his hands.

“Fighting battles with air again?” one of the other boys laughed loudly and pushed little Bun into the mud. “Oops.”  He said and picked him back up. “Let’s wash you off.”

Bun had landed somewhat awkwardly on the switch and it had hurt him, drawing some blood but nothing serious. 

“Hey what the hell is wrong with you?” Said the older brother now, “He’s bleeding.” He had been yelling at the other boy. Now he grabbed the switch and threw it  further onto the bank into some bushes. “What are you doing out here by yourself anyway! You can’t just play your games alone with nobody watching you. It’s dangerous! Don’t be so stupid, or snake could bite you, or a tiger could eat you!”

Alicia tried to observe just as wind but she could not see as clearly, She knew it was dangerous but her spirit heart was pounding at the presence of these young men and she emerged in human form hidden in the trees above. Part of it was because she found. She  could not concentrate that well in holding her wind form. Part of it was just plain curiosity. She could not stop herself. She looked down peeking over the branches at the boys below. They were naked too and some were handsome and muscular with broad shoulders and wide backs. She was excited and curious in a way she was not familiar and began breathing heavily and trying to hold her breath so as not to be detected at the same time. Her body felt heavy against the rough bark digging into her skin now.

 One of the boys now looked up at her, squinting and holding his hand over his eyes to see focused with all her might and became as wind again.

Now the other boys looked up in panic, “What is it?” one said looking up one after another. They then glanced at each other.  “Some say that the serpent people might move into these woods.”

“The Nagas?” said another, “That is a myth. And in the myth they are at the source of this river many many miles form here, where none of us in the village have ever been.  And the Nagas exist not in this world exactly and are a holy people, not just snakes or serpent people.” He rambled on but  everyone including the speaker was getting nervous. They had felt a change in the air.

Alicia stayed in the form of wind.  She was afraid. Though these boys or young men didn’t have powers of flight or the ability to change into wind she was afraid of them anyway, too afraid to even be seen by them. 

She hung in the air like a mist around them and around where the sword was. The group left very quickly, the little boy, Bun, complaining the whole time about leaving the sword and his brother having thrown it into the woods. The voices faded away and Alicia slowly reappeared.

She trembled. She was nervous, and almost terrified, but she wasn’t exactly sure of what. She didn’t fear for her safety. Her blood pumped in a way it hadn’t before and she was out of her senses so much that she had barely sensed the young men who was approaching looking for the wooden sword.

Chapter Nine: Encounter 

The Young man that had originally pushed Bun, over had returned. He was clothed now. The others had ran to their clothes, dressed and started on their way back to the village, not a little bit spooked. But this young man kept hearing Bun complaining about his sword. This young man, whose name was Igna,  felt guilty for having knocked over Bun earlier when he had meant merely to playfully shove him. He told Bun not to worry that he would go find the sword. Everyone else thought this was stupid since the sword was nothing more than a switch and they didn’t understand why they couldn’t just give bun a new branch or something that was lying around. But Bun insisted there was a difference and that the sword belonged to a friend of his, a young woman. 

The group of boys thought that this was either crazy, or all the more reason not to go and look for such a sword. Igna figured he might as well go and try just to show Bun he was sorry for having pushed him. 

As Igna walked he was drawn to the spot where the sword was lying. After all how could he have found it so easily. His eyes thought he caught something on the ground and there lay a branch, that was in the shape of a sword, not a switch as it had been when he saw it in Bun’s hands. Was he seeing correctly?

Why could he see it right through the bushes? Or was he just sensing it? He moved closer and got on his hands and knees to reach through the branches. 

This was stupid. What if there was a snake or something. He felt like an idiot but continued doing this anyway. Dirt, pollen and spores from the ferns all over his body as he streteched his fingers to touch the sword and move it towards him into his grip. 

He managed to do this and stood up quickly bumping into something. It was a person. 

That was a strange instant for Igna was bounced back and yet the body he bumped into did not seem heavy or large, but light, soft and smooth. He looked up and saw Alicia who know knelt over  him and held the hand that held the sword . She stared into his eyes and he stared back. They looked at each other like half suspicious wild animals, judging whether the other was predator, prey, or inconsequential.

The feeling was strange as to each other both were, predator and prey and neutral but certainly not inconsequential. His hand let take the sword from his without much of a fight as her other hand moved into his.

He looked at her. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She seemed older than he was somehow and yet younger. She wore no clothing. But even if she had his blood would have pumped and he would have been aroused. 

But seeing her without clothing she seemed to be clothed by the woods themselves and she was not naked, or vulnerable exactly. Looking at her was like looking at the mist or into the sunlight. This feeling was terrifying. Her beauty was terrifying.

He felt that he had absolutely no control over what would happen next, whether he would live or die. Was she a person? Was she a goddess? Was she a demon?

Alicia moved him to the river. She was scared too, but not as scared now that she had the attention of one man as opposed to a group of young men. She looked at him more closely now. She felt safe to do so.

He seemed frozen and was staring at her. She felt in control, and not because of her ability to fly away if something happened. 

Igna was covered in dirt and pollen spores. She dug the sword blade first into the bank and the two moved into the water. Igna removed his clothes. Alicia’s blood started pumping again. She had never felt so physical before. She had never felt so in her body. After all most of the time, she was not in her body in this way. Only to eat or to pick up the sword.  She looked on his body and his young muscular frame. Now she washed him and her hands moved over his body from head to two.

But when he reached to touch her she disappeared into wind again, afraid. He looked around wondering if he had gone insane or had been enchanted. She reappeared on the bank by his clothes.

“My name is Igna.” He said. “You aren’t a demon are you?”

“I am Alicia.” She answered. “I’m from the waterfall tree. I followed the sword and fate here.”

“So it was you Bun saw.” Said Igna trying to sound manly and unafraid but his voice cracked and he had to clear his throat. They looked at each other for a while in an awkward silence. In the cold water Igna calmed down a bit.

He waded out on the bank. Alicia felt like becoming mist again but didn’t. Instead she lay back and watched him. She looked quite seductive (by accident) but Igna was to afraid to try to touch her or anything after he had seen that she was no ordinary human. Moved over to his clothes and began washing them as if she weren’t there. He was afraid at any moment that she might turn into a giant serpent and devour him, or any number of other things he had heard happen in stories with demons who disguised themselves as beautiful women. 

This didn’t happen. Instead, he washed his clothes and found a rock in the sun to dry them on. Then he sat down next to Alicia. There was no point in trying to run away after all. He had seen her disappear and reappear and could tell she was much faster than him.

Igna figured if she wanted him dead than he would already be dead. He tried to comfort himself to give himself courage. He tried not to piss his pants anymore. He had already but he his clothes had been soaked. Maybe she hadn’t noticed.

What did it matter if she noticed anyway? He sat down next to her. Demon or not, she was quite beautiful and seemed full of light. She didn’t seem beautiful in a bewitching or treacherous way. She seemed quite innocent. But maybe that was the trick. Igna didn’t know what to think so he decided to stop thinking.

“So who are you anyway?” 

“ I told you already, I’m Alicia.”

“ I know but…” Igna had to pause to convey what he meant better. “Well, so your home is the waterfall tree right? How is that? Do you have brothers and sisters?”

Alicia’s mind began racing. Her mind was full of a very powerful education, and her body had overcome brutal training to become what it now was and yet, she was empty. She had no experience of life at all, except for her life before she had come into the painting. Her first three years of life.

“This place is the same land as the waterfall tree. It is in a painting. It is only an image I came into. It is not where I am really from. “ said Alicia. “And so if that is but an image that I saw, you are only an image I didn’t see, so you aren’t real.” Alicia muttered staring at the mud.

Igna laughed. “I’m pretty sure I am real and alive, not just a painting. And I’ve never seen the waterfall tree as a painting or as a real thing. I’ve only heard stories about it. Tell me what it looks like? Is it how are stories are?”

Alicia looked at him and described it to him. They went back and forth talking for some time. Alicia was talking to him but at the same time trying to really figure out who she was. 

Igna, emboldened by the conversation, was talking to her but really trying to test himself and his courage, as well as his manhood. In conversation their minds grew closer as did their bodies. Soon he was even able to put his hand on hers. Alicia and Igna experienced a great excitement by this touch, each for their own reasons.  

Soon an hour or so had passed and Igna knew he should get back. 

“Can I follow you?” said Alicia, “To the village?”

Igna was once told never to show strange beings in the forest the exact location of the village. And never allow them in.  It could bring disaster if demons decided to overrun his home. In fact because of this there was always rituals performed to scare demons away. But Igna felt so comfortable in this girls presence and that is now how he thought of her. I girl, or a woman, whichever, but certainly not a demon.

“He looked her beautiful body up and down.” I think you will need clothes.”

She grasped the sword and handed it to him. “Bring this inside the village.” said Alicia. “I will follow you just like a wind follows you and nobody will see me. Then later tonight or tomorrow you can bring clothes for me.” Alicia smiled. There was just something about her that made Igna trust her even though there was no reason that he should. Everyone after all should be suspicious of someone who could so easily disappear and change into wind.

But Igna could no longer resist and just decided to trust her completely. If he was a fool, then he was a fool, so be it. Besides if she was repelled by the protective charms put up in the homes of the villagers, or the rituals or local gods worshipped there, then Igna would know that indeed she was a demon. 

Chapter Ten:

Igna walked back into the village and Alicia followed. He could sense her now, not only in the wind, but in his mind. He felt that though he wasn’t talking out loud, that every thought he was having he was sharing with her. Not only this, he sensed her mind to. It did not speak back to him, but he could sense her mind questioning his thoughts looking for more information, and finding her answers on its own as if their minds were apart and yet one in the same.

 The day was moving into high noon, the hottest part of the day. Most of the villagers were farmers, not that they needed to farm in order to survive.  They had irrigated some streams that branched off of the river and freshwater shrimp grew in the grasses so abundantly that a child playing with a stick in the reeds could twirl it around and come up with several tiny shrimp sticking to it.

Fish were abundant in these streams as well. If it rained heavily mild flooding would result in fish flopping around on the ground all over the village just waiting to be picked up. Birds snakes and other game surrounded the forests in the area surrounding the village and everything was easily caught when the villagers took their rabbit-dogs hunting with them. The dogs would actually catch or make the snakes faint with their fearsome barks, or bring back mice and rats for the owner. The hunter was really much more of a collector putting dead or unconscious animals in a sac. Slingshots and bow and arrows served to kill birds. 

The village population was not high and food was abundant. They were only afraid of tigers, wolves and worst of all the monsters in the woods of supernatural power. These monsters appeared very rarely and were more or less thought to be legends to scare little children. 

Some said that there were giant serpents, like Jila and Anali whom Alicia had seen when she first arrived. And now these thoughts and images did pass through Igna’s mind as well and Igna understood a glimpse more of Alicia. He trusted her more and more now as he trusted himself. And as he walked seemingly by himself, their essences and souls were exchanging and blending with one another. Not revealing all, but revealing what they wished, playing holding hands, making love. And yet the whole time Igna was simply walking down the village path in the breeze of Alicia.

They believed that some of these creatures were good and others bad. The yirnians as well were among the village people’s legendary creatures as well as Kei Luns single horned creatures like the yirnians but smaller, and with horses hooves and loungs, long snake like creatures with eagle claws, antelope antlers and fish scales. These creatures were depicted all around the village in wooden and stone sculptures, and pictures on the walls.

These creatures, though somewhat feared at times, were almost worshipped by the villagers and these statues were thought to guard the village from the unknown monsters lurking out there. Whether the unknown monsters were related to these creatures like Anali, or like the Old one the villagers did not know. In fact, many people thought all the creatures were simply myths. But what they did know was that recently strange things that hunters had recently had some run ins with strange creatures in the woods. Some hunters had died  and those that had escaped said they had been far away from whatever happened. They only heard strange booming sounds, and scraping and fire and had simply run not bothering to find out what was happening.

No bodies were ever discovered, but people had gone missing. The rule of thumb had no become to run at once if something seemed odd. This is why even though Alicia’s presence was not, fiery booming, the young men had left. Igna had been quite afraid of Alicia at first as well. But he was convinced now that she had nothing to do with the recent disseverances of people. And now he also thought that the serpents or Yirnians had nothing to do with it either.

He thought about this a little bit, but not a whole lot. He thought much more about When he would be able to see Alicia again, not as a breeze following him, but as flesh and blood. He became more and more confident in her presence as he felt her mind around him and held onto the sword that she followed. The sword which he was supposed to be giving to little Bun.

Chapter Eleven: Alicia and Igna.

It was afternoon now and the sun was very hot. The Villagers usually took this time to sleep.  Igna crept into his room and locked the door, putting the sword on his bed. 

It was not long before Alicia appeared, and there she was on his bed naked. His heart was pumping hard and he could not help but be excited. His pants were noticeably stretched. 

Alicia saw this change over him and felt like he was almost a different person. “Calm down.” She whispered, “You said you were going to get me clothes.”

“Oh right.” Said She Igna, not taking his eyes of her. Aicia now felt excited too. On an impulse she grabbed him and wrapped herself around him. She felt his young male body and it made her feel her own flesh and blood. She was here, she was alive, not just as the breeze is, but as an animal, with bones and organs. They stared into each other’s eyes not moving for a long time. 

 

Suddenly there was screaming outside and great explosions. This shocked Igna and Alicia out of their trance and Igna felt himself  spilling into her. Alicia, afraid too began turning into mist when she felt him spilling. She stopped him and entered into him and the breeze drawing her whole self into his soul and body.  Had she done it on purpose? She felt like she had meant to do it, but she had never done anything like this before. She took control of his body and his essence becoming one with his mind. Igna suddenly felt more powerful.  He grapped the wooden switch which now became a very large sword in his hands. He jumped out of the window and found that he could fly on the breeze, and yet hold the sword as a physical man. He felt in control and Alicia felt in control and both felt more powerful  than they had ever before felt.

They flew as one body, sword in hand to the explosions and found a large terrifying monster of a  man outside their village with crude metal like imitations of Yirnians and the serpent nagas around it attacking the village statues and structures. Igna and Alicia cut through the metal puppets as if they were moving through open air in a magical dance with no enemies in their way  at all. 

The villagers had wanted to flee but when they saw Igna (for they could not see Alicia) cutting through their enemies like this they became emboldened and grabbed anything they could to fight. It turned out that the metal Yirnians and Nagas were not only not alive but were not at all once cut in two. The monster like human seeing Igna flying at him fled into the woods. Igna and Alicia pursued. He fled so quickly practically flying himself. Had Alicia flown as breeze alone she might have been able to catch him but she was slowed in Igna’s body. 

Igna and Alicia decided to let thte Monster go this time and returned to the village. Igna was praised as a hero and became the new leader of the village. He was given a fancier house and the Villagers said he should get a woman or several for himself. But not from  the Village, maybe from the next village over said one man. Then another said that a woman from around here was not up to par with such a hero that could slay monsters and fly.  He should go to the bog City and see if there was a proper woman there.

At this Alicia cam out of his body flying over him naked for all to see. The people of the village were terrified and put their face to the ground. Igna spoke, “This Alicia, she will be my woman. We should have some clothes brought for her. Igna then retired to his new house, which the Village Chief suddenly been thrown out of with nowhere to live for the time being, and went straight to the bedroom, where he and Alicia stayed for a month enjoying each other. In the early morning they would collect food and return into the bedroom to make love and practice merging spirits within one another. 

Chapter Thirteen: The second Attack.

After a month of this there came a greater army of Metallic Yirnians and Nagas and other creatures that were strange looking and unknown. There were metallic humans as well. They started first by bombarding the village with stones of enormous size. *****

She tried to separate from Igna to at least see where the monster was going. She tried to do this and suddenly crashed to the ground. Instead of separating out of Igna’s body and Igna became a a glowing sphere of light. The Monster hurried on its way escaping.

The sphere burned for three days in the woods. It was a light that was seen not with normal eyes but with the minds eye. It was a light that only the Yirnians and the Nagas could see. They gathered around it waiting. Anali of the Nagas stepped forward toward the sphere and she could see Alicia in its light. No the lighted sphere took on the shape of a woman 30 feet tall with a round belly. She Squatted and Anali rushed forward to support her The Woman screamed  and pulsated and after many hours pushed out a child, a boy.  Now the woman collapsed and disintegrated leaving behind Alicia. And the light which was now a fleshy substances spread out across the forest floor.

  Anali went and held Alicia who was exhausted and looked for the first time hungry and dehydrated. The Yirnians and  Nagas  all looked at the young new born and passed him around admiring him. They also brought the fleshy substances that was glowing still too Alicia. She ate and was instantly rejuvenated. 

Alicia now stepped forward saying, “This monster tried to destroy a village and pretended he was being helped by you with crude impersonations of what you look like.”

A Naga that Alicia recognized stepped forward, it was Anali. “Grab him!”

The Nagas and the Yirnians fell upon the monsters body but they were unable to  touch him. Alicia ran forward with the sword and chopped right through him. He burst into flames laughing and was gone leaving behind his skin.

Everyone stepped back from this stunned. Anali and Alicia embraced tearfully. “We have been forced from the sacred tree’s laggon” she said. “A western Dragon has taken over there. Completely unlike our Long’s or any of our other creatures. It is a winged dinosaur looking thing with a terrifying and evil looking face. We have only seen it a few times.”

“This monster was sent by the dragon for sure.”

“How did they drive you out?” asked Alicia surprised.

“Let’s not talk here” said Anali, let’s retreat back to our camp. Igna felt a bit like a third wheel but they had travelled so deep into the woods that he didn’t know his way back.  Suddenly ebveryone started moving and he was frightened that he would be left behind. He couldn’t fly now, he thought as he was running. But suddenly he found this to be untrue and could indeed keep up in a running sort of flight, though not as fast as when he had been bound together with Alicia. Alicia lookoed back and signaled with her yes to follow but stayed ahead with Anali. Anali gave a glance back at Igna. And looked at Alicia and then looked away with some jealousy. Anali didn’t know exactly why she felt this.

Before long they were at back at their makeshift home. Here there were many many Yirnains and Nagas, young and old frolicking around. Igna and Alicia were treated to food. The Nagas, though they could eat things raw as animals, also cooked and prepared food the way humans do. And so Igna ate and drank amshe was skinny and song them without feeling uncomfortable. 

A few of the female Nagas came closer to him to look at him. Though Alicia wore no clothing, and this had excited skinny and still had a body of a young woman not yet fully developed. This was attractive, and beautiful and sought after by many village men of course. But Igna became afraid by the nakedness of the female Nagas that slithered towards him and then stepped out almost as full humans. One Naga’s  stepped out from her serpent tail which now looked like a blueish green smoke near her body and further away still slithered like a snake. Igna could see her as a human from head to toe with hips surrounded by the smoky aura.

The Naga women laughed at his nervous fear.

Chapter Five: Aleesha travels as the lion and travels through the jungle forest which is full of fruit all of which the lion can eat, even if it is poisonous. The Lion is also to simply absorb energy from the sun and has patches of algae containers in its skin which also sustain it. Breathes out its waste as Oxygen, or sometimes acts as an animal. Strange creature. Or the Lion does not require food in the first place.

Chapter Six: Encounter with the snake.

Aleesha fights a snake monster and is almost killed. The lion pushes her out of control and battles the snake itself and gains the upper hand. A monk passing by helps the Lion and the lion then kills the snake and eats it. The monk calms the lion down and takes control of it without entering it.

The Lion pushes Aleesha out.

Chapter Seven:A new Body

The monk speaks with Aleesha and asks for her help in defending a village. He refers to her as older brother. Aleesha looks down to see that she is covered in a gunky like substance and naked otherwise. She also realizes that she is in a man’s body.  They ride the Lion to a stream. Where Aleesha washes and finds she looks a middle aged man with wild features. The monk speaks of a dream he had to save several villages and cities in the area that will be in danger.

On their way they come in contact with a firebird. She, the firebird Speaks with Aleesha and the monk briefly and warns of them of the village itself and to be careful in interfering with other peoples battles. The Firebird gives Aleesha a cloth to cover her male body. The Firebird tells her to tie the cloth around the lions horn before entering it the next time. This way when exiting Aleesha will have clothes.

The cloth not only covers Aleesha but changes from simple cloth into extensive clothing.

Chapter Eight. Aleesha rides on top of the lion with the monk to a village. At first they are afraid of the lion but see that it doesn’t hurt them they let them in. The village chief welcomes them but feels threatened. Tells them the story of the nian. Also plots to gain control of the lion for himself and to kill the monk and Aleesha.

Chapter Nian: Battle with the Nian.

The nian comes. the villagers  Go for shelter. They shoot arrows at it which does little The monk Goes out with the Aleesha in the Lion to fight the Nian. The Lion at first simply leaves the Nian alone, and so Aleesha enters it and battles the Nian Chasing it into the forest. They capture it and subdue it. The monster is subdued and becomes peaceful. The Firebird appears.

Chapter Ten: Study in the woods.

Aleesha exits the Lion again.  The monk is afrais at first and bows his head all the way down. Aleesha takes the red cloth. This time it clothes and washes her. She notices she is a beautiful young woman this time. The Firebird too reveals herself as a woman in orange flames and light that does not burn. They yell at the monk to get over himself. 

Chapter Ten: The monk returns to the village

The monk goes back to the village to report to the chief. He The chief enquires about the lion and the nian and the wild man. He demands to learn how to control the lion and has the monk jailed. The Chief sends out some hunters to look for them.

Chapter eleven: Battle with Hunters when the Hunters approach the Nian and the Firebird vanish The Fire Arrows at the Lion but it suddenly turns to stone. They see Aleesha and one of the men tries to rape her. Another man steps in and tells him to back off. He then offers to take her back to the village, as the forest is a dangerous place. She declines at first. She then enquires about the monk and finds that he is in jail. She decides to go back with them after all, Claiming to have information on how to protect the village form future attacks by the Nian.

Chapter Twelve: Aleesha creates the lion dance monk and gets a promotion in a job she didn’t realize she had.

Chapter Thirteen: The Big City

Actually instead of all that the stories will represent the water wars and pollution and corrpuption of our world. When the nian is defeated outright, it will then meditate in the cave of the Western Dragon (which sits on a pile of gold) and ask advice. The Western Dragon explains the concept of ye yau jai gong, How it can use the power of the humans against them to ultimately cause them to destroy themselves. The nian did wonders allowed if the whole world will be destroyed as well including themselves. The Dragon states that they are just concepts and cannot be destroyes. But if there is no one to think or believe in them will they cease to exist. If you want to argue like that then did they not exist in the past before humans? And yet they did indeed exist, but not as concepts. Perhaps there was no difference between existing and not existing.

Anyway, they were not material or physical beings and so could not be destroyed.