Little Red and the Wolf (BEING REWRITTEN AS "LAYLA AND THE WOLF")

Chapter 5

Two days trickled by, and Layla found herself relaxing a bit. She tried to stay vigilant in her plan to escape, but she couldn't help easing up a bit. The wolf man went out of his way to make sure she was comfortable, and he never said anything about how she refused to talk to him whenever he tried to make a conversation. In fact, she saw him smile when she wouldn't talk.

But he wouldn't let her go without eating. Indeed, he would all but shove food down her throat when she wouldn't eat by herself. It was one of the only things he seemed to really care about, and everything else was always something that concerned her health.

And for some reason, that touched Layla in a way that she had never been.

So on the third night that she had been in the cave, she began to talk.

Dinner had just been served, and the smell of cooked meat made Layla's mouth water. The wolf man seemed to have a way with food, and she had stopped abstaining from food after the first day.

She took her fork (which the man had in a bag that he kept with all his other possessions) and cut away a piece of her meat. She picked it up with the fork and ate it, almost groaning in ecstasy at the taste.

"Is it good?" the wolf man asked her like he did the other two nights. A glance upwards revealed that he was not looking at her, clearly not expecting her to answer. Well, boy was he in for a surprise!

"It's very good," she answered casually, "how did you learn to cook so well?"

The wolf man's head snapped up, and the look on his face made her burst into laughter. She laughed in a way that she never had, in a a boisterous way that showed that she was filled to the brim with mirth. Such laughter was not tolerated by her mother, for it was not the most ladylike position to be in, and Layla's mother wasn't one to tolerate unladylike ladies.

But Layla's mother wasn't here, and it was the first time in all three days she was glad that it was so.

Her laughter died out when she saw the strange look on the wolf man's face. "Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked, her brows furrowing.

"Do that again," he said.

Her brows furrowed even more. "Do what?"

"What you just did. Do it again."

Layla just looked at him with a blank look on her face. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"That sound," he said, "it was really pretty when you made it. Could you do it again?"

Layla kept looking at him like he had grown another head. Was he talking about her laugh?

"But all I did was laugh," she told him.

Now he gave her a blank look. "What is a laugh?"

Layla's eyes widened and her mouth parted in shock. "Y-you don't know what a laugh is?" She sputtered, not quite believing what she just heard. How could someone not know what a laugh was?

"Could you tell me what it is?" He asked.

Layla rubbed her chin with her fingers in thought. How did you explain a laugh to another person?

"It's... a sound that one makes when one finds something funny," she finally decided to say.

But her explanation must have failed, for he just gave her another blank look. She closed her eyes and sighed. The wolf man-

Her eyes flew open. "What is your name?" She inquired.

He blinked. "I don't have one."

Layla stared. "Did you ever have one?"

A look of concentration appeared on his face, then it brightened a moment later. "I was once called 'Daniel'," he confided, "but it was a very long time ago."

Layla sighed in relief. Well that was a start-

Wait, what am I doing? There was no reason for her to try to get to know Daniel the furry kidnapper. What was her goal here? Why did the thought of leaving suddenly start to become unappealing?

Do I like it here?

And that was the question that scared her the most.

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It has been a while, and I'm so sorry, but I was really busy on schoolwork and I was writing out the beginning of an idea I had (which happens to be another reworking of another fairy tale!). But here it is, and I hope to update again ASAP.

-Messina