Hello! Just a reminder that this is a short story, so plot needs to move along more quickly than if it was a longer work! Hope you're enjoying the story so far - please let me know, or feel free to ask any questions 😁
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It was halfway up the craggy, limestone cliff that Sil pulled Red into a narrow gulley, barely an opening in the rock face, really, but just wide enough for the two to squeeze along, single file, as intrepid mountaineers. And just 50m on, that crevice opened without warning into astonishing amphitheatre - nature's own palatial courtyard - a central, open-air atrium from which multiple cave routes forked, veins and arteries in and out of a forest's heart.
A sparkling waterfall at one serrated edge, cascading ivy blanketing walls, moss carpeting stone floors, clusters of bowed snowdrops shining as diamonds in the breaking dawn, amongst tapestry of myriad lushest green hues.
As the men entered, a sudden hush that befell the scene - sunrise's tweeting chorus halted mid-chirp, bustling squirrels paused in nut harvest, as all heads turned to follow those two and their most subtle, ethereal glow.
"What is this place?" - Red's voice rebounding from cathedral walls to echo - wondrous, child of Bang Haeng's scaffolds, grills and concrete at once humbled by Earth's rich grandeur.
Sil's hand entwining so naturally to lead him to a fallen tree trunk in the centre of the round, both sitting astride - one leg each side - to face one another.
"This place...is sacred", at last the second man answered - that low voice that freed shivers of caged butterflies up and down the first's spine.
"Like a shrine?"
"Shai"
"But, a shrine to who?"
"A shrine to you"
Red's eyes widening, searching the other's, waiting for the teasing wink...that never came.
"What are you talking about?", he dug bluntly.
Lowered head and steadying breaths from Sil, as if summoning power from inner reservoirs - hydroelectricity of the soul - before he was ready, meeting Red's gaze once again, emboldened, to begin:
"Have you heard the prophecy? I don't think so, since you don't know who you are..."
"Who I...am?"
"Wait, people-folk tell bed time stories, right? Did you ever encounter such a story about a wolf?"
"Well there is one, a kind of fairytale about these woods. Yaai Chanthira told it to my mother, and my mae in turn to me"
"Say it" - their hands still unconsciously interlocked, Sil's thumbs massaging soft encouragement against Red's palms, then.
"It's just a myth. A parent's arsenal to scare their brats when they won't fall asleep on time-"
"-Say it"
"Dai, dai, ok krub. Well...it's told that there's a big bad wolf - a vicious beast - that lives in the woods as king of the forest. He returns to the same spot each night to search for his fated queen. A soul with whom he shares an ancient bond, but has been separated from for generations. Yet she never comes, so sunset by sunset his bitterness grows, twists, until loneliness becomes rage and that in turn bloodthirst, and he sets out on nightly quests to steal children, the ones that won't sleep. His revenge on a torturous world..."
"It's like Chinese Whispers" - Sil muttered beneath a furrowed, thinking brow - "Some facts remain, but others lose their meaning until over time the real becomes hollow, muddled myth"
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Si Daeng
Fanfiction'If you go down to the woods today...' Red is being watched by wolf eyes, but does the beast even know who he's f*cking with? A MewGulf reworking of Little Red Riding Hood: In a shifting world where not everything is as it seems, borders between myt...
