Chapter Four

 

 CHAPTER FOUR

    “You could at least stop moping around and help me hunt!” Kira said crossly, trotting up to Simon with a snake in her mouth.
    “I’m not hungry…” Simon said, turning away.
    Kira sighed, “Look, you can make the best of it or mope around all day--”.
Just then a flash of golden light emerged from a clearing, and as the light faded, Simon could see the form of a lynx, golden fur glowing brightly. Wherever the lynx stepped, a golden glow emanated, and plants and flowers sprung up in her wake.
    “Liru!” Kira gasped, bowing down as the lynx approached.
    Liru sighed gravely, “Daien wishes me to ask you, Simon -- a battle to the death with the demon creature, Cerberus. To lose -- the curse is broken by death. To win -- the curse is lifted by Daien. I should not let my pleading bias you, but I urge you to say no.”
    “Cerberus!” Kira gasped, still bowing.
    “I…” Simon gulped, intimidated by the god standing before him, “I….”
    What should he do? Whatever this Cerberus was, it sounded bad. But then, he thought, is staying alive worth it if you were destined to be killed by your uncle or live the rest of your life as a fox? But maybe it was. Life as a human, death as a human, life as a fox, death as a fox. What should he do?
    He thought back to when he was a human and he missed those days, even though he had been a fox for a very short time. Even though he still hesitated, he knew what his answer would be.
    “I,” He looked around nervously, then said, in a low voice, “I accept.”
    “What?!” Kira burst out, disbelief in her voice.
    The lynx goddess just looked down with a sigh. “Three days at noon, in the field to the east of here,” she said, before disappearing into thin air in a flash of light.
    “What?! ARE YOU INSANE?!” Kira shouted. “That beast would crush you in an instant! You’d be dead before it even touched you.”
    “Either way, this curse is lifted.”
    “But,  but, you don’t even know how to hunt! You’re barely more than a kit,” she spluttered.
    “I’ll learn how to hunt. I’ll learn how to fight. I’d die anyway, if my uncle shoots me or not - this way I have a chance of dying as a human -- at a reasonable age, seventy or eighty years old, not thirteen.”
    Kira groaned, “you are mad,  you are suicidal, you are foolish,  you are rash, you are stupid and you are idiotic! And damn it! Now my lunch has slithered away.” She sat down, growling grouchily.
    “Well, I liked it as a human better than as a stupid fox out here! Eating mice and frogs” He grumbled. “Now you could help or sit there whining all day!”
    “How would I help?” Kira asked, “I’m not stupid!”
    “Well just help me learn how to fight and hunt or something!” Simon said, swishing his blue-grey