Tales of the Big Bad Wolf: The Red Riding Hood Arc (A Fairy Tale)

Chapter Five: About Elanore

CHAPTER FIVE: 

About Elanore  

The horse moved carefully down the road.   With two riders on its back, it could not make a fast pace, nor was its driver all that willing to risk spilling his fair companion to the ground.  

As for Elanore, she did not mind the slowness.  Having been informed by the young hunter that her grandmother had been looking well earlier in the morning, she urged Edmund to choose caution over haste when it came to navigating these last few miles home.   

If he smiled slightly to himself at such words, it was not mean-spirited.  Elanore Redley had known Edmund Ormond for most of her life, and for most of what he knew she had been the one who had been anything but a picture of ‘caution.’     As a small child visiting Winchester many years ago desperate for companionship, she had run after any other child within her sights. 

There had been few girls then, and Edmund was the only lad even remotely close to the age of the pig-tailed ‘terror’ as the girl had been dubbed by the boys about town.     Elanore was a terrible play companion, as she had rather no experience with woods or with the wilderness.  Unlike the others, Edmund endured Elanore’s company and did not complain when she had a hard time keeping up with Edmund’s tromps about the forest trails.    He was patient for the sake of her grandparents, who had showed repeated kindness to his own family.

The Ormonds were far from being social pariahs in the tiny town of Winchester. However, as the owners of the sole tradepost in town, they were oddities when compared to the rest of the town inhabitants. Most of the persons affiliated with Winchester were adventurers and hunters who would leave families and disappear for months at a time on quests of their own making or as hired guides.  

Given his family’s unfamiliarity with the skills needed to endure this rustic life, it had been Elanore’s grandfather who had taught Edmund to hunt and to read the trails.     In kind, it was Edmund who taught his tiny companion over several summers how to navigate about the woods that surrounded Winchester and then filled her head with stories about what it was like in other seasons.  For several years, these two played together every day during her visits.

As they grew out of childhood, their time for playing ceased.   Elanore began her studies in earnest, as did Edmund.  There were initially letters passed back and forth between them.  But in time, these letters grew less frequent.

Edmund’s  correspondence consisted of  methodical updates  --simply letting her know how his family was doing and about schoolwork.   When Edmund began hunting formally as part of the Hunter’s Guild based in Winchester, he wrote intermittently  about the testing and training he had been undergoing.    Still, she read his accounts with great interest – the life of an adventurer/hunter was not one she would ever be permitted to undertake or ever get closer to.  

But his last letter was full of uncertainty… the winter was cold, the nights were long. Families were deserting Winchester for the south.  

Elanore broke the silence.  “The townsfolk in Crossroads said that several families passed through last month heading South because of rumors about the impending eclipse—“

“Aye,” Edmund answered glumly.  “We’ve lost some of the tradesmen.  I do not believe they left for any reason, however, other than the town being unable to offer them much of a paying market for their goods.  One has no need of finery or entertainment here.”

She wondered if this might explain some of the disinterest she encountered when attempting to secure a private ride to Winchester.  “As such, it was hard to find any passage here once I found out that the snows would be delaying the coach.  I began walking instead based on the information I had been provided, but unfortunately found myself forced to stop along the way yesterday. “