A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

The day was well shaded into evening when Red’s missing soldiers appeared in the courtyard of the hidden castle. They looked to be unharmed-but that might be only a temporary condition, considering the sizeable pack of fur-wolves that surrounded them.

Red opened the window to shout down to her people-she didn’t dare open the doors and let the wolves push in! Before she could figure out what to say, Waggles, Little Licker, Tubby, Nibbles, and Mr. Howler all tumbled to their feet and crowded to the window, tails wagging madly as they tried to climb over each other to see. The wolves in the courtyard all looked up at her in unison, their nostrils flaring.

Their parents! But there were more than 10 of them! There were, in fact, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14... 15 wolves down there. They’d brought friends!

Well, that wasn’t fair!

...Okay, stealing their babies wasn’t all that fair either. But it had brought her soldiers home safely!

So far.

One wolf detached from the pack, coming to sit directly below her. “As you see, your soldiers are unharmed,” it told the queen in a rough but feminine voice. “I trust the same can be said for our cubs?”

Tubby was trying to climb Red’s leg; without thinking, she picked the puppy up and showed it. The wolf’s expression remained stern, but her tail started wagging, although not with as much enthusiasm as her child’s.

She’d hate to give the puppies up. They were so cute and helpless! It wasn’t their fault they were born wolves. Properly raised, they could become productive, polite members of society, just like Benjamin. If she gave them back to their parents, would they have a chance to grow up at all? She looked and the puppies squirming at her feet, horrible images of them squalling and crying as they were slaughtered some full moon playing in her imagination. Even a fat little butterball like Tubby would be barely two mouthfuls for a wolf the size of the one addressing her.

Clutching Tubby protectively, she asked, “Have you been hearing the news from New Sanctuary?”

Fur rippled dismissively across the wolf’s shoulders. “There have been nothing but impossible rumors coming from there all day. As if any wolf would harm a cub!” The venom in her glare was visible even from two stories up. “THAT is a human trait. When last I heard, Wolf was safe, Virginia was safe, their cub is safe, and Wendell was on his way to sort everything out.”

Wendell! “He’d rule in favor of that Wolf even if he caught him in mid-murder! He has too much invested in the mythos surrounding the beast.”

The wolf stared at her and said nothing for a long time. Finally it asked, “Will you return our children or are you going to be as guilty of child abuse as you claim Wolf of Wolves is?”

“I haven’t eaten them!”

“Neither did he.”

Red would have liked to argue the point, but it wouldn’t be prudent, particularly considering the hungry looks the rest of the wolves were starting to give her soldiers. Brave men, they didn’t show how much that must have been unnerving them.

Snarling rang out in the woods around them, and the soldiers drew their swords. “Peace!” Red ordered. “Your children are unharmed. I’ll bring them down to you now.”

The female wolf was up on her feet, hackles rising. “Don’t. Those are not wolves I know.”

A big furry wolf strolled insolently out of the greenery. “She knows us,” he growled, tossing his muzzle towards Red’s window. “You’ve led us a merry chase, my queen. But now you are here, with only a few men to guard you, so I think it is time once more for my coalition to raise the issue of wolf’s rights.”

“You’re the ones who’ve been pestering me for months!”

“Why did you never meet with us?”

“You think I’d be so foolish? I sent a messenger to you! And the way you treated him was shameful!”

The female wolf interrupted, glaring at the newcomer with a slight snarl on her face. “Whatever your issue is, leave it be. My business here is more pressing.”

“My business will no longer be delayed. Not when the woman I want to negotiate with is so… treed.”

“I don’t have time for this nonsense!” Red leaned forward. “You want to have the same rights as Wendell’s wolves? Well, Wendell is about to sit in judgement of his ill-advised wolf policies! Soon your precious hero will be found guilty, Wendell will repeal his laws, and your kind will no longer be able to look to the Fourth Kingdom for escape. My laws have always been kinder than those of the surrounding kingdoms, why is that never enough for you?”

“We are not animals, we are citizens, yet you treat us worse than the horses in your stables! What if Wolf of Wolves is found innocent, what then? Do you end your Wolf Code and grant us all the freedom of Wendell’s wolves?”

As if THAT would ever happen! He was giving it all away! “Agreed!” Red blurted. “Now leave me alone. Your fate is his. Go away and wait until the trial is over.” And to make sure that the trial is indeed fair, I will attend. As a judge!

The wolf stared at her for a moment longer, nodded, nodded to the female wolf from the Fourth Kingdom, and disappeared back into the woods.

Red ducked away from the window for a moment, sighing with relief. One less problem to deal with at the moment. Why did everything always happen at once? She turned back to her few attendants. “We shall leave again for the Fourth Kingdom in the morning, this time in full royal pomp. Send a messenger back for my royal robes and standard. And bring Lucia. I want her to accompany me.”

“A messenger cannot get past them,” one of the attendants said, gesturing to the remaining wildlife the courtyard below.

“Yes, he will. They will be occupied.” She plucked Nibbler off her boot for the eighteenth time that evening, waving the wriggling puppy at her servant. “They’ll have these to deal with.”

If she cuddled each of the pups before she put them back into the basket and sent them out with the wolf girl, nobody was foolish enough to comment upon it.

Wendell had been so unnerved at the idea of Wolf being executed in a fake trial that he had skipped visiting the garrisons along the troll border and started heading straight for New Sanctuary. However, a royal procession-particularly one carrying a large, breakable object capable of bringing seven years of bad luck crashing down-does not move very quickly. He’d been travelling for a day and a half and still had another day to go when the news came via the network.

“Queen Red Riding Hood is doing what??!”

Royal Windhowler winced, his tail dipping low, but Wendell noticed that he managed to get control of himself just before it curled between his legs. “A royal procession bearing her standard is headed to New Sanctuary. Her messenger arrived at your palace announcing her intention to become the third judge at Wolf’s trial.”

“The Council of Kingdoms will hear about her! First she attacks without provocation, then she meddles in the ruling of my kingdom! What does she care what I do?”

“She cares very much when it comes to my kind,” Windhowler growled, startling Wendell’s horse. It took him a few minutes to settle it down, and when the wolf spoke again, he was obviously making an effort to keep his voice neutral. “She thinks she’s the only expert in all the kingdoms on wolves, but all she knows is what others have manipulated her into understanding.”

“You sound like you’ve met her.”

“From a distance, your majesty. My parents were scullery workers in her palace.”

“Really? What do they think of all the changes now?”

“They would have liked them,” Windhowler said. “If Queen Riding Hood the Second hadn’t had them executed.”

Wendell stared at him. “What for?”

“Hunting during the full moon.”

“But all wolves-”

“Not in the Second Kingdom. Not if you didn’t want to be blamed for every murder, rape, sheep rustling, chicken poaching and jaywalking from the evening before-but you’re about to find out all about that,” Windhowler said grimly.

Cinderella leaned back in her pumpkin coach with her eyes closed and wondered if she’d gone completely out of her mind. She was two hundred and forty years old-that was a good hundred and fifty years too old to go gallivanting around the kingdoms. Her back hurt from the jolting, her butt hurt from the seat, and her heart hurt from the thought that even more people would see her as she was now, people who still thought she shone with the beauty that she’d had back when she’d been a heroine. She wanted them to remember her that way forever-young, beautiful, heroic.

If it was anyone but Wendell who’d asked, she wouldn’t have come.

But it was Wendell who'd asked, and he'd done it in the name of the Wolf who had saved her life and her kingdom. And Wendell wasn’t the only one asking, either. For the first time in two hundred and twenty four years, her Fairy Godmother had returned to her. Cinderella hadn’t seen her since the old lady had helped her win her prince, yet last night she’d seen a vision of her.

The old lady had been uncharacteristically terse, chopping off her effusive greetings with a sharp swish of her wand. “I take back everything nasty I ever said about you needing such elaborate dresses. I also take back everything I ever said about your taste in footwear.”

“How many times to I have to repeat that I thought my stepsister said the current fashion was for ‘dancing glass’ not ‘dancing fast’?”

The fairy waved that objection away irritably. “Nevermind. I’ve found a family that makes you look like the picnic you were. All the fairy godmothers have done what they can for the Lewises; I’ve borrowed magic from everyone I can. Now it’s time for people on your side of reality to take over.”

“Me? What can I do? My time is almost over.” And didn’t she hate to think it!

“History is about to change, dear. You’ve been there when it changed before. You know what has to be done. Go where your grandson sends you. Do your best.” For a moment the old lady’s eyes were uncharacteristically shrewd as she glanced at the ugly servants, sleeping obliviously on the floor. “Your only fault is holding a grudge. Don’t let that drive you astray.”

And then, in a shower of sparkles, she was gone.

So Cinderella had half been expecting the urgent summons that a messenger had galloped all night to deliver. Since, like everyone else, she’d been waiting for that hero Wolf to do something, well, wolfy, she had always been half expecting to hear that he got into trouble.

The only thing she hadn’t been ready for was the honor guard that Wendell had waiting for her as she crossed the border. He’d probably sent them without thinking of the ramifications, but they gave her the creeps. Cinderella raised the blind on her window just an inch to peer out.

The wolves marching on that side waved their tails at her, their paws hitting the ground with more precision (and a great deal more silence) than the hooves of her matched team.