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KHR Rarepair Week, June 17 - Fairy Tale AU
Once upon a time, there lived a fair maiden who was incredibly beautiful. She had long black hair, piercing crimson eyes, and legs that went for days. Many days, she dressed in raven black, for it was the color of her family, with one exception. It was a brilliant red cloak, brilliant like a setting sun and which matched her eyes. She wore it when she went about her business throughout town, or visiting relatives, or putting down people who got in her way.
She was fondly referred to as Red Riding Hood - or, to those who had crossed her and knew not to make the same mistake twice, Head of the Liquidation Committee Adelheid Suzuki.
If there was one thing that Red Riding Hood loved most in all the world, it was her dear family. They had all lost their parents at a young age, and were distantly related by blood, although one would never be able to tell of that distance from how close they all were. However, this closeness was in emotions only, for eventually some of them made the decision to move away from the little town they had lived in for other places.
One of them was a dear brother of hers, who had a face that was so frightful it scared local children, but not as much as groups of local children watching scared him. He had fallen for a young man close to his age, dreadfully clumsy but of good heart, and so moved away to live with his beloved.
"I'm not sure someone so unreliable can be entrusted with my beloved brother," Red Riding Hood mused to herself. "I have not heard many good things from him, besides from my other brother Enma, so I cannot be sure he will take care of our Kaoru well. Besides, Kaoru's cooking skills are not as sharp as they could be, so I should bring him some dinner that will last him for at least a week, along with a cookbook so that he can practice." So with that, Red Riding Hood made the decisions he would go visit her brother.
The most secure way to get to her brother's new home would take a week's worth of constant travel, but Red Riding Hood knew for a fact that there was a path through the forest that would get her there much quicker so long as she was not foolish about it. It seemed like the sensible thing to do.
However, as she began to make preparations for her trip, people throughout the town confided in her that it would not be the wisest thing to do.
The baker who handed her loaves of bread whispered, "I hear that people who wander into that forest never return, and their souls are lost forevermore!"
Red Riding Hood replied, "I think it is likely that they just don't know how to navigate a forest, or know where north is."
The cordwainer who gave her the latest pair of thigh high boots said, "I hear that when the full moon rises, horrific beasts emerge, and devour anyone who trespasses into their forest, and the full moon is soon!"
Red Riding Hood replied, "If any try to devour me, then I will break every tooth in their maw, and make them choke on it, so it is not a particular concern of mine."
The dandy about town said, "If you go into the forest, you will surely perish, so please take my father's cart for the long way around."
Red Riding Hood replied, "Stop distracting from the point, give back the money you stole from the cordwainer, and shut your mouth, or I will permanently shut it for you."
Once she had all of her things ready to go, Red Riding Hood bid the rest of her family farewell, and set off for the forest. She found it to be a pleasant day for walking, not too hot nor too cold, and there seemed to be no end of pleasant wild life about. Songbirds sang, deer pranced, and it seemed as though she had little to worry about at all. She had not particularly believed or cared about the stories the townspeople had told her about but, in the face of such simple delights, they seemed especially silly now.
Yet forests were still full of beasts, even if not monsters, and so she resolved to keep a careful eye on her surroundings. This proved to be a smart decision, as she soon realized that something was following her past all the vegetation.
Red Riding Hood did not stop walking, or think to turn around in order to run back to the town. Instead, she simply prepared a metal fan out from here belongings, just in case whatever beast that was trailing her made the mistake of starting something. She did not have to wait very long. After a time, something leapt out from the bushes. "Halt!" cried a wolf. "I will devour you if you take on step closer, for I am the Big Bad Wolf! Grr!"
It was a threat that would perhaps have had a bit more bite to it, if Red Riding Hood did not tower over the Big Bad Wolf, and if the Big Bad Wolf did not look like she did. As it was, she looked like a rather adorable with a small fang sticking out of her lips, an oversized jacket draped across her shoulders, and the only signs of her canine nature being a pair of perky ears emerging from her head and a long tail that swished out from underneath her short skirt. She was not very intimidating. She did look very excited to be here.
Red Riding Hood considered beating the girl up but decided against it. "What is down this path that you are so determined to protect it?" she asked instead.
Clearly no one had ever asked the Big Bad Wolf this question before, and she paused. "I mean, nothing I suppose," she stammered out. "But I'm a wolf! Eating hapless travelers is what I do!"
"Well, you shouldn't," Red Riding Hood said. "Besides, I am on my way to see my brother with food for him, and so I don't have time for this kind of thing. Here, have a sandwich." And she handed the Big Bad Wolf a sandwich from her supplies, having packed extra ones as a sensible traveling woman is to do.
The Big Bad Wolf accepted the sandwich, as a polite person does. "Oh, thank you very much!" the Big Bad Wolf exclaimed. "I should pay you back. Down the path is my home, and so would you like to stay the night there while you are passing through the forest?" This seemed almost certainly like a trap, but Red Riding Hood was not afraid of it. If the Big Bad Wolf had not accepted the sandwich and been civil, Red Riding Hood would have broke her neck that way, and continued on.
She was very much prepared to do the same here, in the event this was a trap, and confident that she could do it. Besides, maybe the Big Bad Wolf had things robbed from previous victims, and, as a poor young woman just trying to feed her family, Red Riding Hood had to consider stealing any goods to pawn off later.
As they walked, they also talked, and Red Riding Hood learned more about her peculiar new traveling companion. Her actual name was Haru Miura, but she rather liked how impressive her wolf title made her sound, and she was trying to make quite the name for herself. She was getting over a one-sided love of hers, and thought that throwing herself into some sort of work would go really well for her. "He's found someone new," she sighed. "But that's fine! I pride myself on bouncing back, both emotionally and literally!" Red Riding Hood decided not to ask what that meant, exactly.
As dawn fell, they finally found their way to the Big Bad Wolf's home. It was not a cave, as Red Riding Hood had expected, but a quaint little cottage home that even possessed its own vegetable garden.
The Big Bad Wolf invited her in, with Red Riding Hood watching carefully. The Big Bad Wolf went hunting for fresh fowl, with Red Riding Hood watching carefully. The Big Bad Wolf then prepared a lovely little dinner, with the hunted fowl and freshly plucked vegetables from her garden, and Red Riding Hood let herself relax, just a smidgen.
The dinner was lovely, and not poisoned at all. Red Riding Hood enjoyed it very much, and informed the Big Bad Wolf as such. "You would make a fine wife, if you ever cared to pursue that life, although I cannot say I know how wolves go about it," she told her.
Blushing, the Big Bad Wolf glanced away with her hands on her cheek. "That's very sweet of you, but most people would disagree. They don't think I should marry anyone at all, since I am not a fit wife. They say I'm far too smart for a wolf."
"If you're smart, that means you will never have to struggle with a problem," Red Riding Hood replied.
"They say I have far too much of a temper, for a girl," the Big Bad Wolf said.
"That only means you have a lot of passion, which is good for the soul," Red Riding Hood replied.
"They say that I am too odd, with odd hobbies, and an odd demeanor," the Big Bad Wolf said.
"You are better off with a spouse that embraces your unique existence, because it is a wonderful one, and anyway, who is this 'they' you keep talking about?" Red Riding Hood replied.
Such encouragement seemed to bolster the Big Bad Wolf quite a great deal, and she brought out various sweets to pamper her new guest with. Since this encounter was going better than expected, Red Riding Hood more than happily accepted the gifts, and spoke with her companion well into the evening. All seemed to be going quite well, better than Adelheid could have ever expected, and it helped that her canine companion made quite a few compliments to herself, as well.
Yet as night quite definitively fell, the Big Bad Wolf nervously checked outside of her window and looked up where the sky stretched past the treetops. "I think it is best if you turn in for the night," she told Red Riding Hood, "And I advise that you do not leave your room or so much as peek outside of the door."
This sounded quite suspicious to Red Riding Hood. "If there is any good way to spring a trap on someone, it is by keeping them in one place and blind to what you are doing as you get ready to stab them in the back," she thought to herself. Still, she agreed with the Big Bad Wolf, and put her things away in the room that the Big Bad Wolf gave her. Yet she did not go to sleep and, when it seemed as though the rest of the house had fallen quiet, snuck out. If the Big Bad Wolf planned to kill her, she reasoned, then she would simply kill her first in retaliation.
The Big Bad Wolf was not in the kitchen where she had cooked their dinner, and she was not in the den where the fireplace had roared during that dinner, and she was not in the room she'd said was hers - filled with blankets and a wardrobe and no actual bed.
Finally, she peered outside into the front gardens with its lettuce and tomatoes and other vegetables, and there she found the Big Bad Wolf, who was looking a great more deal like two of those words. No longer was she the petite girl who had come up to Red Riding Hood's bust, with a little ponytail and cute coat. Instead, she was completely bare, save for a thick coat of fur that matched the muzzle which took up her face and the enormous claws which protruded from her fingers.
Even though Red Riding Hood was as quiet as a mouse, the Big Bad Wolf still heard her, and broke out into a wail. "You've seen!" she cried. "You've seen just how terrible I look this way! Now I must kill you for sure!"
"You keep leaping to that when you don't need to, and also it wouldn't end well for you," Red Riding Hood said. "Why do you have to kill me? I think you look just fine." And that was the simple truth of the matter. For her, it was as easy as breathing to see the Big Bad Wolf as still very much herself even with all the changes, and she did not see anything to be scared of at all, even ignoring the fact that she was scared of very little. But she loved her brother with his terrifying face, and she loved her other brother who was so big that people were scared of his size and thought him a villain, and she loved her sister whose sense of fashion was offputting to most people and sometimes did things they did not understand.
So when she said such words, she meant them from her heart, and the Big Bad Wolf's own was touched.
"Only the person I last loved said that about me. I did not think I would ever meet another like that again," said the Big Bad Wolf.
This was clearly becoming some sort of emotional moment, which Red Riding Hood had not considered the possibility of. While she was, in theory, not opposed to offering emotional support to a wolf woman during the middle of the night, the reality was peculiar. "We should go to sleep," she said.
This did not, unfortunately, stop the Big Bad wolf from coming up to her, clawed hands clasped together. "You really mean it that I don't scare you?" she asked.
"You are still far shorter than me," Red Riding Hood informed her. "Let's go inside."
It was to Red Riding Hood's great fortune that the wolf agreed, drunk off her own happiness, and the matter seemed settled. That was something that clearly changed when Red Riding Hood prepared to set off the next morning to continue the second half of her journey. To her surprise, the Big Bad Wolf followed alongside her. "Do you have any spouse or lover of your own?" the Wolf asked.
It was very clear where this conversation was going. "I do not," said Red Riding Hood. "I have a family to take care of, which is of more importance to me. I would need a lover that could accept all of them, no matter how frightening or, more importantly, how annoying."
"I'm not scared of many things either!" the Wolf exclaimed.
"You said nothing on being annoyed," Red Riding Hood pointed out.
Her words drew a long moment of silence from the Wolf. "It would depend," she said eventually.
T'was a fair answer, and Red Riding Hood could appreciate honesty over trying to be sold something that seemed too good to be true. Thus she compromised and said, "I am visiting my brother. We shall see how he takes to you."
"And then we shall be wed!"
"Calm down, we are not in some fairy tale," Red Riding Hood said, unaware of her exact predicament.
Yet as the pair continued through the forest and thus continued talking, Red Riding Hood grew more fond of the Wolf. She was creative, and witty, and passionate, and also very cute whether in the shaggy and furred form she had taken during the night, or in the form she walked in now, with wide eyes and soft hands. Red Riding Hood's heart was a slow one to thaw, and so she did not consider the idea of marriage so quickly as her romance-obsessed companion, but she could think of her continued company.
No danger beset them as they went through the forest, and, soon enough, they emerged out the other side and into a calm little town called Namimori. Only a few steps into town did they soon see a group of children calling and teasing after a man incredibly tall with an incredibly frightening face.
The Wolf immediately darted over, hands raised exactly when she was attempting to threaten Red Riding Hood, and gave a fierce little howl by the standards of a normal person who would be frightened by such things. The children, rebuked and frightened, scattered away. Satisfied with a job well done, the Wolf turned to the tall man with the frightening face. "Kids just need to be teased and told off to realize when they're being bad!" she said in an amicable manner.
"Are you sure you will not get in trouble for that?" asked Red Riding Hood's brother.
Red Riding Hood herself stepped forward. "I will make sure no one gives you any trouble at all, my brother. Now take us to your home, for I am to meet your new husband, and I have brought food with me. This wolf will be a guest of ours."
Needless to say, this was all rather sudden to her brother, but he knew better than to argue with his dear sister and began to lead the way. As he did so, the Wolf smiled a bright and brilliant smile to Red Riding Hood, and her heart gave just the faintest of flutters. Red Riding Hood did not believe in fairy tales, or happily ever afters, because that glossed over a great many things...
But the day, at least, was ending rather nicely, and sometimes that was all she could ask for.
She was fondly referred to as Red Riding Hood - or, to those who had crossed her and knew not to make the same mistake twice, Head of the Liquidation Committee Adelheid Suzuki.
If there was one thing that Red Riding Hood loved most in all the world, it was her dear family. They had all lost their parents at a young age, and were distantly related by blood, although one would never be able to tell of that distance from how close they all were. However, this closeness was in emotions only, for eventually some of them made the decision to move away from the little town they had lived in for other places.
One of them was a dear brother of hers, who had a face that was so frightful it scared local children, but not as much as groups of local children watching scared him. He had fallen for a young man close to his age, dreadfully clumsy but of good heart, and so moved away to live with his beloved.
"I'm not sure someone so unreliable can be entrusted with my beloved brother," Red Riding Hood mused to herself. "I have not heard many good things from him, besides from my other brother Enma, so I cannot be sure he will take care of our Kaoru well. Besides, Kaoru's cooking skills are not as sharp as they could be, so I should bring him some dinner that will last him for at least a week, along with a cookbook so that he can practice." So with that, Red Riding Hood made the decisions he would go visit her brother.
The most secure way to get to her brother's new home would take a week's worth of constant travel, but Red Riding Hood knew for a fact that there was a path through the forest that would get her there much quicker so long as she was not foolish about it. It seemed like the sensible thing to do.
However, as she began to make preparations for her trip, people throughout the town confided in her that it would not be the wisest thing to do.
The baker who handed her loaves of bread whispered, "I hear that people who wander into that forest never return, and their souls are lost forevermore!"
Red Riding Hood replied, "I think it is likely that they just don't know how to navigate a forest, or know where north is."
The cordwainer who gave her the latest pair of thigh high boots said, "I hear that when the full moon rises, horrific beasts emerge, and devour anyone who trespasses into their forest, and the full moon is soon!"
Red Riding Hood replied, "If any try to devour me, then I will break every tooth in their maw, and make them choke on it, so it is not a particular concern of mine."
The dandy about town said, "If you go into the forest, you will surely perish, so please take my father's cart for the long way around."
Red Riding Hood replied, "Stop distracting from the point, give back the money you stole from the cordwainer, and shut your mouth, or I will permanently shut it for you."
Once she had all of her things ready to go, Red Riding Hood bid the rest of her family farewell, and set off for the forest. She found it to be a pleasant day for walking, not too hot nor too cold, and there seemed to be no end of pleasant wild life about. Songbirds sang, deer pranced, and it seemed as though she had little to worry about at all. She had not particularly believed or cared about the stories the townspeople had told her about but, in the face of such simple delights, they seemed especially silly now.
Yet forests were still full of beasts, even if not monsters, and so she resolved to keep a careful eye on her surroundings. This proved to be a smart decision, as she soon realized that something was following her past all the vegetation.
Red Riding Hood did not stop walking, or think to turn around in order to run back to the town. Instead, she simply prepared a metal fan out from here belongings, just in case whatever beast that was trailing her made the mistake of starting something. She did not have to wait very long. After a time, something leapt out from the bushes. "Halt!" cried a wolf. "I will devour you if you take on step closer, for I am the Big Bad Wolf! Grr!"
It was a threat that would perhaps have had a bit more bite to it, if Red Riding Hood did not tower over the Big Bad Wolf, and if the Big Bad Wolf did not look like she did. As it was, she looked like a rather adorable with a small fang sticking out of her lips, an oversized jacket draped across her shoulders, and the only signs of her canine nature being a pair of perky ears emerging from her head and a long tail that swished out from underneath her short skirt. She was not very intimidating. She did look very excited to be here.
Red Riding Hood considered beating the girl up but decided against it. "What is down this path that you are so determined to protect it?" she asked instead.
Clearly no one had ever asked the Big Bad Wolf this question before, and she paused. "I mean, nothing I suppose," she stammered out. "But I'm a wolf! Eating hapless travelers is what I do!"
"Well, you shouldn't," Red Riding Hood said. "Besides, I am on my way to see my brother with food for him, and so I don't have time for this kind of thing. Here, have a sandwich." And she handed the Big Bad Wolf a sandwich from her supplies, having packed extra ones as a sensible traveling woman is to do.
The Big Bad Wolf accepted the sandwich, as a polite person does. "Oh, thank you very much!" the Big Bad Wolf exclaimed. "I should pay you back. Down the path is my home, and so would you like to stay the night there while you are passing through the forest?" This seemed almost certainly like a trap, but Red Riding Hood was not afraid of it. If the Big Bad Wolf had not accepted the sandwich and been civil, Red Riding Hood would have broke her neck that way, and continued on.
She was very much prepared to do the same here, in the event this was a trap, and confident that she could do it. Besides, maybe the Big Bad Wolf had things robbed from previous victims, and, as a poor young woman just trying to feed her family, Red Riding Hood had to consider stealing any goods to pawn off later.
As they walked, they also talked, and Red Riding Hood learned more about her peculiar new traveling companion. Her actual name was Haru Miura, but she rather liked how impressive her wolf title made her sound, and she was trying to make quite the name for herself. She was getting over a one-sided love of hers, and thought that throwing herself into some sort of work would go really well for her. "He's found someone new," she sighed. "But that's fine! I pride myself on bouncing back, both emotionally and literally!" Red Riding Hood decided not to ask what that meant, exactly.
As dawn fell, they finally found their way to the Big Bad Wolf's home. It was not a cave, as Red Riding Hood had expected, but a quaint little cottage home that even possessed its own vegetable garden.
The Big Bad Wolf invited her in, with Red Riding Hood watching carefully. The Big Bad Wolf went hunting for fresh fowl, with Red Riding Hood watching carefully. The Big Bad Wolf then prepared a lovely little dinner, with the hunted fowl and freshly plucked vegetables from her garden, and Red Riding Hood let herself relax, just a smidgen.
The dinner was lovely, and not poisoned at all. Red Riding Hood enjoyed it very much, and informed the Big Bad Wolf as such. "You would make a fine wife, if you ever cared to pursue that life, although I cannot say I know how wolves go about it," she told her.
Blushing, the Big Bad Wolf glanced away with her hands on her cheek. "That's very sweet of you, but most people would disagree. They don't think I should marry anyone at all, since I am not a fit wife. They say I'm far too smart for a wolf."
"If you're smart, that means you will never have to struggle with a problem," Red Riding Hood replied.
"They say I have far too much of a temper, for a girl," the Big Bad Wolf said.
"That only means you have a lot of passion, which is good for the soul," Red Riding Hood replied.
"They say that I am too odd, with odd hobbies, and an odd demeanor," the Big Bad Wolf said.
"You are better off with a spouse that embraces your unique existence, because it is a wonderful one, and anyway, who is this 'they' you keep talking about?" Red Riding Hood replied.
Such encouragement seemed to bolster the Big Bad Wolf quite a great deal, and she brought out various sweets to pamper her new guest with. Since this encounter was going better than expected, Red Riding Hood more than happily accepted the gifts, and spoke with her companion well into the evening. All seemed to be going quite well, better than Adelheid could have ever expected, and it helped that her canine companion made quite a few compliments to herself, as well.
Yet as night quite definitively fell, the Big Bad Wolf nervously checked outside of her window and looked up where the sky stretched past the treetops. "I think it is best if you turn in for the night," she told Red Riding Hood, "And I advise that you do not leave your room or so much as peek outside of the door."
This sounded quite suspicious to Red Riding Hood. "If there is any good way to spring a trap on someone, it is by keeping them in one place and blind to what you are doing as you get ready to stab them in the back," she thought to herself. Still, she agreed with the Big Bad Wolf, and put her things away in the room that the Big Bad Wolf gave her. Yet she did not go to sleep and, when it seemed as though the rest of the house had fallen quiet, snuck out. If the Big Bad Wolf planned to kill her, she reasoned, then she would simply kill her first in retaliation.
The Big Bad Wolf was not in the kitchen where she had cooked their dinner, and she was not in the den where the fireplace had roared during that dinner, and she was not in the room she'd said was hers - filled with blankets and a wardrobe and no actual bed.
Finally, she peered outside into the front gardens with its lettuce and tomatoes and other vegetables, and there she found the Big Bad Wolf, who was looking a great more deal like two of those words. No longer was she the petite girl who had come up to Red Riding Hood's bust, with a little ponytail and cute coat. Instead, she was completely bare, save for a thick coat of fur that matched the muzzle which took up her face and the enormous claws which protruded from her fingers.
Even though Red Riding Hood was as quiet as a mouse, the Big Bad Wolf still heard her, and broke out into a wail. "You've seen!" she cried. "You've seen just how terrible I look this way! Now I must kill you for sure!"
"You keep leaping to that when you don't need to, and also it wouldn't end well for you," Red Riding Hood said. "Why do you have to kill me? I think you look just fine." And that was the simple truth of the matter. For her, it was as easy as breathing to see the Big Bad Wolf as still very much herself even with all the changes, and she did not see anything to be scared of at all, even ignoring the fact that she was scared of very little. But she loved her brother with his terrifying face, and she loved her other brother who was so big that people were scared of his size and thought him a villain, and she loved her sister whose sense of fashion was offputting to most people and sometimes did things they did not understand.
So when she said such words, she meant them from her heart, and the Big Bad Wolf's own was touched.
"Only the person I last loved said that about me. I did not think I would ever meet another like that again," said the Big Bad Wolf.
This was clearly becoming some sort of emotional moment, which Red Riding Hood had not considered the possibility of. While she was, in theory, not opposed to offering emotional support to a wolf woman during the middle of the night, the reality was peculiar. "We should go to sleep," she said.
This did not, unfortunately, stop the Big Bad wolf from coming up to her, clawed hands clasped together. "You really mean it that I don't scare you?" she asked.
"You are still far shorter than me," Red Riding Hood informed her. "Let's go inside."
It was to Red Riding Hood's great fortune that the wolf agreed, drunk off her own happiness, and the matter seemed settled. That was something that clearly changed when Red Riding Hood prepared to set off the next morning to continue the second half of her journey. To her surprise, the Big Bad Wolf followed alongside her. "Do you have any spouse or lover of your own?" the Wolf asked.
It was very clear where this conversation was going. "I do not," said Red Riding Hood. "I have a family to take care of, which is of more importance to me. I would need a lover that could accept all of them, no matter how frightening or, more importantly, how annoying."
"I'm not scared of many things either!" the Wolf exclaimed.
"You said nothing on being annoyed," Red Riding Hood pointed out.
Her words drew a long moment of silence from the Wolf. "It would depend," she said eventually.
T'was a fair answer, and Red Riding Hood could appreciate honesty over trying to be sold something that seemed too good to be true. Thus she compromised and said, "I am visiting my brother. We shall see how he takes to you."
"And then we shall be wed!"
"Calm down, we are not in some fairy tale," Red Riding Hood said, unaware of her exact predicament.
Yet as the pair continued through the forest and thus continued talking, Red Riding Hood grew more fond of the Wolf. She was creative, and witty, and passionate, and also very cute whether in the shaggy and furred form she had taken during the night, or in the form she walked in now, with wide eyes and soft hands. Red Riding Hood's heart was a slow one to thaw, and so she did not consider the idea of marriage so quickly as her romance-obsessed companion, but she could think of her continued company.
No danger beset them as they went through the forest, and, soon enough, they emerged out the other side and into a calm little town called Namimori. Only a few steps into town did they soon see a group of children calling and teasing after a man incredibly tall with an incredibly frightening face.
The Wolf immediately darted over, hands raised exactly when she was attempting to threaten Red Riding Hood, and gave a fierce little howl by the standards of a normal person who would be frightened by such things. The children, rebuked and frightened, scattered away. Satisfied with a job well done, the Wolf turned to the tall man with the frightening face. "Kids just need to be teased and told off to realize when they're being bad!" she said in an amicable manner.
"Are you sure you will not get in trouble for that?" asked Red Riding Hood's brother.
Red Riding Hood herself stepped forward. "I will make sure no one gives you any trouble at all, my brother. Now take us to your home, for I am to meet your new husband, and I have brought food with me. This wolf will be a guest of ours."
Needless to say, this was all rather sudden to her brother, but he knew better than to argue with his dear sister and began to lead the way. As he did so, the Wolf smiled a bright and brilliant smile to Red Riding Hood, and her heart gave just the faintest of flutters. Red Riding Hood did not believe in fairy tales, or happily ever afters, because that glossed over a great many things...
But the day, at least, was ending rather nicely, and sometimes that was all she could ask for.