Bride of the Wolf

Chapter XI: Some Curses are Worse than Others

Chapter XI: Some Curses are Worse than Others

A/N: Okay, so from this point on I've got a kind of problem as an author - my pronouns are failing me! Larry is a guy. He thinks like a guy, he acts like a guy, and people who know him accept that he is a guy. So I want to use words like 'he', 'him', and 'his' when talking about him. Except he looks and sounds like a girl, so maybe 'she' and 'her' would make things clearer, except somehow it doesn't seem right. I could maybe call him Larissa, except he's really not ready for that step.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'll try to make it really clear whenever Larry changes, so you'll know what he has changed into. I'll mostly use 'he' whether he's a he or a she, but if he's a girl then every once in a while I'll call him 'Larry/Larissa' if I think you could use a reminder. Some people in the story may say 'she' once in a while if they don't know him, or if they forget for a moment.

I think this will be easy. Let me know if it's not.

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Gwen and Larry headed back to town, with Gwen driving and Larry/Larissa in the passenger seat. They had accomplished all they could at the carnival (if 'accomplish' was the correct word), and Zolfina had recommended they get Larry as far from the woods, and Marko, as possible.

"This is un – freaking – believable!" Larry complained, crossing his arms over his chest. This was really uncomfortable so he re-crossed them below his chest and said, "I'm going to change like this every day?"

"Not every day," Gwen reminded him.

"Ha! Right," scoffed Larry, pouting his lower lip (if he had any idea how adorable that looked he likely would not have done it). "Only twenty-seven days out of each month. At totally random times during the day I'll turn into a girl."

"It's not totally random!" said Gwen. "It's when the moon rises, or sets."

"Yeah, well I can't predict when the moon will rise or set. I suppose you can?" Larry grumbled.

"Larry, cut it out!" Gwen said, finally telling him off for his annoying mood and behavior. "We don't even know if that's true. Zolfina said herself, she's only guessing. Maybe she's wrong. Maybe you won't change during the day. Maybe you won't change under a partial moon. We just don't know!"

Larry sulked quietly for a while as Gwen navigated the streets of Bistritz. "Some fortune teller," he finally said. "She sort of missed the whole you're-going-to-change-into-a-girl-tomorrow thing."

Gwen couldn't help herself – she started laughing. Pretty soon Larry was laughing as well, his foul mood having reached a comical point that even he had to recognize.

"I'll just drop you off at your hotel, okay?" Gwen said after the laughter finally ended.

Larry suddenly looked startled and patted his pockets – or rather, where he normally would have had pockets.

"Oh shoot!" he exclaimed. "I left my room key in my other pants. I mean, my only pants! Oh crap, I don't even know what happened to those pants!"

"Didn't you bring your purse?" asked Gwen, forgetting their extraordinary circumstances for a moment. Larry gave her a look. "Oh, right. No purse. You may need to get one, though. Do you think Maria can let you into your hotel room?"

"I'm sure she would let 'Larry' into the room," he responded. "I'm not so sure she's going to let some random gypsy girl in, though. And I'm not sure I would want to stay at an inn where the owner would let someone into my room after hearing the explanation I have."