• Red knew in her heart that this would be the last time. The forest stretched before her, it's darkened paths seeming to call to her from where they twisted and turned. The first to go was her grandmother, unsurprisingly enough. The elderly woman had simply... stopped emerging from the belly of the wolf. Red always suspected that she was from another, ancient story... Perhaps Grandma was a protagonist herself, when her hair wasn't so grey... The young woman shook her head, sending her own crimson locks into a wave as they flowed about her angular face.

    There was no time to dwell on the past anymore.

    Red shifted the basket onto her hip and took up the woodman's axe. He'd been the third to go, this time to move onto a new story. He was a huntsman now, off saving pure princesses from their wicked step mothers. He'd left her his axe, though, so she could continue the story herself. Sighing, Red started down the well trodden road, silently counting the steps. The woods stilled, as if every creature paused to watch the girl turned adult make her way toward her end. As her left foot pressed into the worn dirt the hundredth time, there was suddenly another presence, leaning his heavy body against her thigh. She felt and heard him speak, in that familiar rasp.

    "Care to pick some flowers, little Red....?"

    She couldn't help but smile, even if it was a small, sad one.

    "You know I don't like flowers, Wolf...."

    He chuckled, removing his weight from to her to walk patiently at Red's side.

    "A man can try....'

    "Wolf, you were never a man..."

    A silence.

    "I was, once. A good man. Handsome, too..."

    She snorted, transferring the ax to the basket so she could bury her hand into the thick fur of his back.

    "I doubt you were ever good, Wolf. You'd be bored within a day.."

    Neither notice when a new path leads them away from the one to Grandmother's. Soft grass whispered against their legs as they carried on.

    "You would be right. I was terribly depressed by the end of it..."

    "What did you do?"

    "I decided to be bad one day... Then, I met you..."

    "That turned out /so/ well for you."

    "I like to think so."

    The sudden brightness of their surroundings made her pause and look around. Wolf slipped away from her grasp, moving forward into the peaceful valley they had ended up in.

    "Wolf.....?", she whispered, fear making her voice soft.

    "Red... It's time to make our own story...."

    "I'm frightened, Wolf."

    "You'll have me, Red. Always."

    "I...."

    The basket made it's way to the ground, the ax taken from it's creaking depths.

    "Do you think they'll like us there...?"

    "Why wouldn't they? We're only following the path they sent us on after all..."

    She looked down at the work-dulled weapon in her hand. Then, with aching slowness, she let it slip from her fingers.

    "Wait for me."