None of the fictional animals I’m aware of (e.g. Dragons, Minotaur, Hydras, Werewolves, Fu-Lions, etc.) would make good “lifelong companions” as they would not be conducive to a life that was long. Perhaps the kind of foxes one sees in Chinese and Japanese folklore, though those relationships also usually end poorly (not to mention being weirdly sexual.)
When you've gone under
a thousand bridges,
and never come across
a Troll...
You have to wonder
whether the Troll is you.
Chinese temple pond:
dragonhead tortoise sculpture.
live turtles swim
and sun in those waters.
do they see the likeness?
I see Dragons on the walls
Of temples and market stalls.
From Shanghai to London way,
I've seen them by night and day.
I've seen them skewered by St. George
And belching flame like a forge.
I saw one once in Baku,
But never saw one in a Zoo.
A mythical one to be sure. Cobbled together and a product of pure imagination. Griffin, Minotaur, Dragon, Vietnamese Unicorn (not to be confused with the kind hung as posters on the walls of pre-teen American girls,) or something of that nature.
There once was a rider of dragons
Who drank alcohol by the flagon,
But dragons are mythic,
So, there was an uptick
In rides when he fell off the wagon.
arrayed in pairs, mythical guardians stand aside a stone staircase the tourists seem undissuaded by the figures - be they freakish, grotesque, or mean the most dismaying of them may be the ones with a warm, polite grin... and a lion's body
