The Ambassador of Athena

The fox looked impressively… unimpressive. It looked like regular fox, only the size was different: Red fur, whiskers, pointy nose, and worst of all, intelligent-looking, yellow eyes. The fox opened its mouth and bared its teeth, definitely nothing you want to see ever in your life. The title of a song that was popular a few years ago came to my mind, “What does the fox say?”, and I couldn’t help smiling. But the fox didn’t say hate-hate-hate-ho like in the song, it said: “Why are you smiling, mortal?”
My smile froze. “Who are you?” I asked.
The fox blinked and tilted his head.
“You are the first mortal to refer to me directly.” the fox whispered “Normally they say things like ‘What is that?’ or ‘Did it talk?’. You actually saw me as a conscious being.”
The fox lowered its head like he was bowing, but when he stood straight again he had a malicious grin on his face.
“It’s a pity I will eat you.”
I flinched and quickly asked: “But who are you?”
The fox sighed. “I am the Teumessian Fox.”
I was sure I’ve never heard that name before, and I must have looked confused too, because the fox sighed and explained:
“No one knows about me and my myth, no one. I was created as a punishment for Theben by the gods, but obviously I was just destined for that one job. After the gods thought the Thebans were punished enough they wanted to hunt me down and kill me, but the fates once have told that I was destined to never be caught. Even the big Artemis and Apollo could not kill me. So the gods created another monster, a dog that was destined to catch everything he was set on. A little bit of a dilemma, so the gods used that as an excuse to turn us both into stone. Gaia brought me back to life and gave me the possibility for revenge.”
He rose and walked slowly towards us.
“I hunted down demigods for years now, and you are the first ones for me for a long time. The Lapitee promised you to me as repayment for keeping him alive.”
I interrupted him again. “The Lapitee?” I had to ask to gain more time, even though I knew who the Lapites were.
“The man wearing the tuxedo was once the king of the Lapites, the first humans ever to tame horses. But no more delays, I am hungry.”
He bared his fangs and leaped.
‘That’s it’ I thought for the third time in 24 hours, a new personal record. But as the old Latin verse ‘Deus Ex Machina’ says, we were rescued out of nowhere, this time in form of a two meter long ballista arrow that hit the fox mid-air. It turned the monster into a shower of golden dust that rained down on us. We must have looked like we ran into a group of pre-schoolers on caffeine armed with glitter-guns. Above us someone cheered and a pretty familiar voice yelled: “Bull’s-eye!”
It took me a second to clear my eyes, but after I managed to get all the glitter off my face I saw a big bronze boat hovering over the hole in the ceiling. The giant ballista was still aiming at us, but thankfully not armed.
A rope-ladder was thrown down to us and someone that looked like Leo started climbing down to us. Another figure just jumped overboard and glided down gently to us. I was too exhausted to wonder about why or what, anyway, it was Jason that landed softly in front of us.
“Anyone called for the chivalry?” he said with a grin and pulled out a pocket knife.
“Thanks man, next time a little bit earlier would be nice” I said and rubbed my wrists. Jessy was still unconscious, but Johanna seemed fine. She was a bit uneasy on her feet, but she stood straight. Looking at her after I realised I still loved her tore open old wounds, I felt like I haven’t felt for years: A mixture of love and pain, bittersweet and poisoning at the same time. Leo has reached the ground too when Jason and I have pulled Jessy over to the ladder.
“Let’s get this bag of potatoes on the ship.” Jason moaned, grabbed him tight under the arms and flew up to the ship.
Leo walked over to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.
“Dude, you look horrible. What happened since you left us?”
“Long story, but first, let us get out of here.”
“Ok, let’s go.”

Notes

And another one