Red Riding Hood

Chapter Two

There are no strangers in the world. Only friends that you haven't meet.

 

Luca walks beside Scarlet. Her red hood sways side to side as she walks. He wonders why he didn't notice her perched up in the tree sooner. Her ruby red hood makes her stick out like a sore thumb against the mixed array of greens that morph into one another. Scarlet glances warily over at Luca a couple of times, and when she does she finds Luca staring intently at her as if he is studying her. Luca allows his eyes to linger in Scarlet's alluring emerald green ones when she glances over at him. He's never seen such beauty before, the way her piecing emerald eyes seem to penetrate his rough exterior and into the tormented soul that hides beneath, the way lose pieces of her dark brown hair streaked with black sway in the early morning breeze.  He can feel the heat of her blush when she turns away to hide her expression of embarrassment when she catches him staring at her.  

"So, how long have you been living with your werewolf problem?" Luca temporarily pulls is mind away from studying the beauty of the red coated girl leading him to the village, and starts worrying about what problems he'll have to face when arrives in town.

"My whole life. The town has been living with it for three generations now." Red glimpses back at him for a second. As soon as her emerald green eyes flicker forward again, Luca lets fear and irritation cover his complexion. Three generations wasn't what he wanted to hear. The longer a single bloodline of wolves stay in the same are, the more territorial they become.

"That's a long time. Has anyone tried to get rid of it?" His curious composure instantly returns the second Scarlet glances back at him.

"About twenty odd years ago. A group of men got drunk at the tavern and decided to hunt it during wolfstime." Scarlet pauses. "They're all dead now." She says frankly, but Luca can hear a slight bit of sadness in her underlying tone.

"So no one ever tried again?" Luca asks.

"Nope. Now we just live in fear and hide ourselves away during wolfstime."  Scarlet just shrugs. Luca re-focuses his attention on studying her again, deciding that no amount of thinking and planning is going to prepare him for what awaits in the village. "So, where did you come from?" Scarlet asks curiously.

"Um...I came up from Northpearl. It's this little town by the sea, about two weeks walk from here." Luca points in the direction but Scarlet just keeps her head forward. She cocks her head to the side and stares cautiously into the forest to her left. Luca also looks in the same direction, wondering what stole her attention away from him. He pricks his ears up and re-directs his attention to the surrounding forest. His eyes blaze open when his sharp earring picks up on the snapping of twigs to their left. How could I be so careless? Luca punishes himself for letting himself get distracted by the red hooded beauty. He resists the urge to growl in the twig snapping direction. In two blurred movements Scarlet has her bow loaded with an arrow and is prepared to fire at any given second. Luca figures that she must have seen something that he didn't because she fires and the arrow hits a tree. Someone yelps as a blurred figure falls to the ground behind the tree that is next to the one that Scarlet hit.