A.N.D. - Wolf Woods

She looked at him, expressionless, for a moment, then stared out the window. “It may not matter. I almost lost my throne when I relaxed the Wolf Code. Now that I have abolished it, I will surely be deposed. If not for that, then because the Second Kingdom is bankrupt and they will need a scapegoat. The Riding Hood who foolishly trusted a wolf will do nicely.”

Oh. It was much worse than he thought. Wendell looked around for a place to sit, but there were no chairs in the small room. He finally, gingerly, sat on a corner of the bed itself. She never moved, still sitting rigidly upright with her hands clasped in her lap. A dozen shallow assurances danced through his head, each of them so inappropriate as to be insulting.

While he was trying to figure out what to say, she took a deep breath. Still looking out the window, she asked, “What time are you going to reconvene the trial to deal with the rest of the conspirators?”

“I took care of that yesterday, when you were... resting,” Wendell said diplomatically. “I saw no need for you or Cinderella to sit through petty internal affairs.”

“Oh.”

“Most of them were local humans who were trying to ruin my Wolf Accord.” Wendell couldn’t help smiling at the amusing irony. “They were all horrified to realize that they’d been plotting with a wolf.”

She didn’t smile back, and he felt his grin go sour. Stupid Wendy! Making jokes about what upset her so badly!

All she said was, “I can imagine.”

Trying to mask his ill-timed levity, Wendell told her, “I don’t want to fight with you. This trial proves that I have troubles at home; I don’t want a war on top of it. The trolls are problem enough. You’ve accused me several times of overriding your justice, so I wasn’t going to condemn your wolf without your input.”

“Condemn.” She looked down at her hands. “Yes. He will have to die.” Her voice was still remote, polite and nothing more as she turned again to look out the window.

He didn’t know what to do. Even Virginia at her most withdrawn hadn’t been this hard to reach. Red had always been so proud of her heritage, her throne-maybe the way to reach her was to get her thinking like a queen again and not as a wronged woman. Talk about something regal and perhaps he could get the proud but strong Riding Hood back. “Tell me your extradition laws and I will turn him properly over to you.” For the sake of peace, he’d even look the other way if she took the mad wolf back and let him loose. In her woods.

She continued to stare out the window. “Do whatever you need to according to your laws.” After a long pause, she turned to face him. “I’m abdicating. I’ll turn myself over to the Kingdom Council as soon as they arrive.”

“NO!” the secretary shouted. “Wrentree, don’t!”

Red just turned back to the window. Her secretary fell apart, running over to tug on her impassive queen’s arm. “No, Wrentree, no, we need you!”

“Wrentree?” Wendell asked.

The secretary gulped, letting go and standing back in an approximation of attention. “Um, I mean Liege Lady, my queen...”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” Red’s voice was still too calm. “It’s a nickname, Wendell.”

“If your secretary is close enough to give you a nickname, then perhaps she is trustworthy enough to obey?” Bad move, Wendy! She obeyed that wolf!

Red shook her head once from side to side, her gaze never leaving the sunlight outside. “She didn’t give it to me.” As coolly as if she was reciting a formal decree, she continued, “When I was very little, I couldn’t pronounce my name. Mother shortened it down to “Red Three” and I still couldn’t do it. It came out ‘Weh Twee.’ Mother was appalled. Daddy thought it was funny, and kept saying ‘You’re a wren in a tree?’ to tease. Whenever I worried that I couldn’t uphold the reputation of the Riding Hoods, whenever I felt I was disappearing into the legend, he told me to remember that the queen might be a Riding Hood, but the woman was his little Wrentree. Everything he gave me-letters, sketches, even an embroidered set of handkerchiefs, had a bird in a tree on it somewhere. A little joke between him and me.”

The inhuman calm was starting to break down. “I tried so hard to add the humor, the humanity he wanted to see in the government. I tried so hard, so v-v-very h-h-ha-hard... and I’ve just ruined everything!”

She burst into tears. Her secretary tried to comfort her and was shoved away. Wendell didn’t give her the option; he just forcibly held the tiny woman against his chest until she stopped fighting and let the pain out. She was very strong. After only a few moments, her sobs started to dim and he thought perhaps she might be willing to listen again.

“That’s another thing we have in common,” Wendell whispered into her ear. The statement startled Red out of her self-pity and she pushed out of his arms.

“Explain yourself!” she snapped, sounding for a moment like her old self.

Wendell shrugged, but his mind was racing. He didn’t really know what he was saying, he was scared to death that he was about to say something totally wrong, but his heart just knew he was doing the right thing. He made a mental note to ask Aunt Cindy if that was how she’d felt when her destiny came due, then focused back on Red. “For the longest time-all my life until just before the coronation-I didn’t really think about my responsibilities to my kingdom or my name. I was the descendent of Snow White, so that made everything all right. Even if I did something awful or cruel it was okay, considering what she did to her stepmother at her wedding.”

Red sniffed, reaching for a much crumpled, well-wrung handkerchief. Wendell handed one of his over.

“Then I got turned into a dog,” he continued. “I had believed I was so powerful that I couldn’t be touched, and now I was running around scratching fleas, with the fate of myself and my kingdom in the hands of people I wouldn’t even had deigned to talk to if I was in my proper form.” She looked surprised. Of course-all she knew of his heroes was the story the bards told. She didn’t really know the people. “For a while there, it seemed like everything was ruined forever. My coronation was off, then an imposter got crowned in my place, and my stepmother was... well, we all know what she was planning to do. I had turned almost totally doggy by that point. What was left of the man was deeply, deeply appalled and ashamed of what I had been. I had thought I was so wonderful, and here a wolf, a coward, and a frightened, bossy girl were better people than I was.”

The secretary gasped. “Lord Anthony and Lady Virginia...”

“Are as human and flawed as the rest of us,” Wendell warned her, mentally noting that the woman wasn’t defending Wolf.

Red’s thoughts were once more hidden under a politely blank expression. “Please continue.”

“I decided I was a disgrace to the House of White. At the last moment, when I heard them drink the toast to the false Wendell, I knew that I deserved this fate, because of how terrible I’d been.”

The perfection of her face was marred by a slight scowl. “I don’t see how this is anything we have in common.”

He smiled, leaning forward to pat the hand that held the handkerchief. “Your majesty, the clock has struck, the toast is drunk, someone else is heading for your throne, and you think all is lost. Now it’s time to go out there and make them put a happy ending on your story.”

He couldn’t tell if the sound she made was a sob or a laugh. There wasn’t any mistaking the sarcasm in her voice afterwards, though. “You had heroes and a wealthy kingdom to lean on. I have nothing. No money. No friends.”

The secretary made a muted sound; Red flicked her a glance. “A few friends,” the queen corrected. “Not many.”

“I only needed three,” Wendell pointed out. Still making it up as he went along, he was almost as surprised as she was by the next thing he said. “I could be a friend. We could be allies.”

She threw his handkerchief back, frowning. “After the complaints we’ve both sent to the Kingdom Council? I’ll have to rescind mine, of course, since it was based on Benjamin’s false reports, but I can’t undo what I did to Wolf’s Gate.”

“You did undo it. You left. You gave the cubs back unharmed. Everything else is details.”

“You know about that?”

Wendell shrugged. “The network is very effective. Look, I won’t press charges. I’m sure the evidence you were given was quite persuasive. We’ll blame it all on the wolf.”

Her eyes brimmed up again, but she nodded. “Since it is his fault.” She started to tremble a bit and Wendell started patting his jacket for his spare handkerchief. I’ll have to tell Rupert he was right. I did need extras after all. The spare handkerchief was in the inside pocket where he stuck little things he didn’t want to lose. As he pulled it out to present it with a flourish, something tiny and shiny went flying.

Red caught it. “What is this?”

“Oh.” Wendell felt himself blushing a little bit. “One of the wolves gave it to me. It’s a charm of my grandmother’s cottage. It’s one of the things they make out of -” Oops, better not finish that sentence!

She was turning it over in her fingers. “Out of their collars?” She juggled it in one hand, watching it twinkle as the light caught it, snorting slightly. “Do you realize how much of my silver is in your economy now? You have so much and now you have that too.” She threw the charm at him, starting to turn back to the window.

“Wait.” Now it was Wendell’s turn to muse over the trinket. “I’ve seen a collar, it has your name on it.”

“Of course it does, it’s my property. They’re my property.” Under his raised eyebrow she shrank a bit, backpedaling. “I thought the wolves were my property.” Regaining her usual poise, she went on. “I have a little silver mine up north, near the border with the Sixth Kingdom. It isn’t enough to fund my entire kingdom, but it’s a steady producer and it fills the need for collars.”

“Hmmmm.” Wendell put the charm back into his pocket. “Many of the wolves wear charms like this, but the making of them only takes a little bit of the original piece. It seems only fair to return the rest of the silver to you, since it IS your property.” A thought struck him. “How specific were you in your complaints to the Kingdom Council?”

“Not very. I didn’t know details. That’s what Benj-- I had people looking into the specifics.”

Wendell grinned at her. “Then you don’t even have to tell them you were duped. We’ll both say that you felt that I was stealing your valuables, meaning the collars, and you attacked Wolf’s Gate in retaliation. In return for your prompt withdrawal from Wolf Gate, I am returning your silver to you with apologies. Problem solved.”

She cocked her head, not quite convinced, but no longer completely dismissing him. “What of the silversmiths who have been making their fortunes on this?”

Wendell shrugged. “Give ‘em a commission. You’re going to need their services now, aren’t you? They have job security for the time it will take them to find a new profession.”

Red had a faraway look, her fingers twitching as she ran calculations. “Individual collars aren’t that valuable, but when you add up every one that my mother or I issued, it’s quite a lot of money.” The tiniest smile curved her mouth.

Wendell was so relieved he almost burst out laughing. “It gets better! When you get the collars, take a little bit off, like this,” he held up his fingers an inch or so apart, “and strike the rest into coins. That will refill your treasury, and then you take the scraps, strike them into medals or charms or something, and sell them and that brings in even more money. It will be like being paid twice.”

She was definitely starting to perk up. “I like that idea. So will my counselors.” For a moment they smiled at each other, then she faltered, turning back to the window. “That is something for later. For now we have the problem of Benjamin.”

“Who? Oh. The wolf.”

“Yes. The wolf.” She sighed, then bit a lip. “I have always prided myself on doing the right thing.”

“Do you know what the right thing is?”

“Yes.” She was once again perfectly collected... until someone looked into her agonized eyes. “My pet must die.”

“No one could ask you to-I mean, I can do it for you.”

“No.” She slid off the bed and stood up, every inch the proper, perfect, aloof queen. “There is only one way that ensures perfect justice.”