Little Red ✔

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE: THE MERCENARY 

Well, there's nothing quite like orchestrating a fairy tale that impacts the destiny of this kingdom.
-Allison S. Bass

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a village near the forest. Whenever she went out, the girl wore a red cloak, so everyone in the village called her Little Red Riding Hood.

Everything you think you know about this fairy tale is a lie.

The stories aren't true.

There was a girl in a red cloak but she hid daggers along her thighs and a sword on her back. Little Red Riding Hood didn't get devoured by the beast or saved her grandmother, the wolf didn't eat the poor old lady or trick the child.

But there's nothing magical about blood dripping down a fur covered chin, lethal canines shown in a grin.

What they forgot to mention during bedtime tales, is that Little Red is a beast of her own. That her cloak is an omen of death or protection, and you don't get to choose which one falls upon you. Even the hunters are afraid of Little Red.

Nobody knows her real name.

Her grandmother forbids it, witches know names hold power.

When her grandmother died she left her red hood as a gift, told Little Red to never take it off unless she's alone or with someone she trusts with her heart. Which now that she's dead, is no one. 

Blythe Scheherazade Zadeh is the girl in the little red hood.

And she's on a mission, now that her life is meaningless without any family, to stop and dethrone the Wicked Queen -her sister.

Because their parents died when they were 14 Little Red was raised by their grandmother and the Wicked Queen was raised by their grandfather -the king's right hand man. Without warning, forethought and for seemingly no reason at all, the wicked girl killed all the other royals and crowned herself queen.

She was second to the throne, the king having no heirs and trusting the Zadeh's to rule when he's gone. 

Mere two years away from becoming queen anyway, Beryl Wilhelmina Zadeh stained the courtyard red with royal blood and started her rule of terror.

Stealing wealth for herself, the Wicked Queen left most of her citizens in poverty. She killed anyone that spoke against her or took their heart and controlled them, starting a disturbing collection.

Little Red was sick of it.

A revolution is about to be made, one with a very distinct mission: Kill the Queen.

First, Blythe decides, I'll need a team.

Pulling her sword strap over her bag, she slides it on her back -already having golden daggers strapped to her thighs under her skirt. Little Red is a mercenary, she needs weapons.

Just like her sister, she has created a name for herself when it comes to destruction. Where as the Wicked Queen is evil in her ways and random in choosing despair, Blythe only hurts the wicked and cruel. Often, even, she finds herself protecting the weak even if it means staining her hands with blood.

Blythe is a half-witch half-human woman who is indeed little, frame pixie-like and rather boxy. Often, she gets mistaken for a child on the edge of their teenage years rather than a twenty year old woman. Her red eyes seem to have an eerie glow at night, marking her with the ability to see in the dark. Her curly, midnight black hair is cut short -easy to maintain at ear length. 

The perfect mercenary, simply because she is the last person you'd expect to be one.

She looks innocent, naive, fragile.

After all, Little Red is the one deceived by the wolf, right?

Wrong.

Little Red is the one who slaughters the wolves of the world the second they start snarling at the innocent lambs, the one who can kill anything- -whether it be Witch, Werewolf, Elf, Fairy, Vampire, Dwarf or Human- -once she tells herself she should.

What makes her deadly isn't her magic or swords -it's her unique ability to figure out everyone's weakest during a fight. Whether it be mental or physical, she will find it.

And then destroy you.

Little Red does leave some pretty big messes in her wake, usually dripping blood.

Only another reason to call her Red.

As a mercenary, it would be easy for Little Red to loose track of the people she's harmed and for the most part she has. But she remembers the names of every person she's taken the life of, and won't kill someone unless she knows it.

Unless, of course, it's absolutely necessary.

Even after death, you can learn someone's name but Blythe prefers to hear it from the person's lips themselves.

The Wicked Queen takes the heart of anyone she knows who says her name, hating it. She knows there's power in names but thinks there's more power in her wickedness.

She's wrong.

There's more power in goodness, in love and, in the case of Little Red, in names of those dead.

Little Red has a necklace that she speaks the names into, turning those who spent their lives in cruel ways into energy that she can use for what she deems to be for the good. She hasn't had to use any of it, now there is an insane amount of energy.

Enough energy to kill a small army or the Wicked Queen, but Little Red has a feeling that she won't be using it for her sister, rather to help her team. The team, the ghosts.

The Ghosts.

It would be a lie for Little Red to say she didn't like the sound of that.

Finally deciding what order to recruit her team in, she packs and says goodbyes to the memories she's made in the small village.

Gathering her bag of supplies and basket of food for her first mission, Little Red heads off into the woods out from her grandmother's house.

Everyone knows there's wolves in those woods.

Slyly, to herself, Blythe smiles.

All the more reason to go.