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shallownessTitle: Five Threads, Some Crimson
Author: shallowness
Fandom: Red Riding Hood (fairy tale)
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairing: Red Riding Hood, Her Grandmother, The Wolf, The Woodcutter, Red Riding Hood’s Mother, Red Riding Hood/The Woodcutter.
Summary: Five threads of the story of Red Riding Hood.
Author's Note: This was inspired by a quiz on the radio, where a competitor has to list five things associated with a given topic. When the topic was ‘Red Riding Hood’, these five words came to my lips – cloak, grandmother, wolf, woodcutter, forest – so I set myself the challenge of writing about them. With thanks tosmallhobbit for beta reading this. All errors are mine. 1,030 words.
Five Threads, Some Crimson: shallowness
i.
She loves her new cloak. There was a time when she didn’t much care what she wore as long as she was warm in winter, dry in the rain and cool in the high heat of summer. For years, her mother would complain about that carelessness. But lately, with her body no longer shooting upward like a tree stretching for the sun, but rather changing in form, attaining curves and hair where there were none before, her attitude to what she wears has changed.
When she saw the red bolt of material that the merchant displayed, she begged and begged her mother to let her have it for a cloak. Her mother made her promise that she would sew it with her own hands before reaching for her purse. Of course, her mother had helped cut out the material, and was thus responsible for the way it fell, but care had been taken over the stitches. It would be the grandest outfit she’d ever worn.
She has pride in her work, then, as she wears her cloak. But she is also aware that it draws attention to herself. For one thing, the bright colour catches everyone’s eye, and the villagers have started calling her Red because of it.
But the colour is not what makes certain eyes linger on her a little longer, encouraged by the way the cloak is fastened and where the fastening lies. She is not displeased by these looks, and walks with a confident sway these days, volunteering to carry out errands for her mother. Her mother chooses to see this as a sign that her daughter is growing a sense of responsibility.
ii.
Becoming a grandmother did not make her feel old. It was the way of things. The eyes that man was making at her daughter before they wed. She saw what was coming, and did not feel much different when her grand-daughter was put into her arms.
But foraging for her food involved bending and even kneeling, and winter by winter, her body got stiffer. Discomfort turned into pain, and last winter, her body just would not do it.
So, the truth of the matter is that the old woman went to bed and sulked. She now depended on the village to keep her stores up, and her daughter was particularly conscientious about it, so she kept right on sulking.
She is worrying that afternoon in her cabin, but not that someone will fail to come and replenish her supplies. Instead, she worries about her only grand-daughter, who might well be the one coming with a basketful of food, none of it with the wild tang of the forest, but no doubt very nourishing.
Lately, people have taken to calling Mädchen ‘Red’ because of that fancy new cloak of hers, but her grandmother prefers the name she was given as a baby. Not that she is blind to the signs of budding womanhood in the child. She knows what that means, and knows that there are things that should be said, counsels given this time around. Perhaps it will bring a frown to a happy face, but better that than years of resentment. This time, perhaps there will be no woman complaining, ‘But I didn’t know I had choices.’ Consider it the gift of age to youth, Mädchen’s grandmother thinks.
There is a sound at the door. Energised by good intentions, she lumbers out of bed.
iii.
Let us turn to the wolf, oh, desperate and hungry, he. He has left his pack for two months now, and he will not last the third if he does not eat.
He saw only meat and did not know, until she had reached his belly, of what lineage the old woman came and what flowed through her veins. It gives him the power of speech.
For him, speech is another way of surviving, of perhaps more, for he is not sated. He has been hungry so long, so long without his pack.
iv.
He has been hard at work, and, truthfully, he is thinking of home, however humble and lonely it is. But there will be a chair and a table, where he can eat. He will have a snug roof over his head and light to see by. For the darkness is falling.
Screams break his reverie.
When the villagers try to thank the woodcutter, he mumbles that it’s what anyone would have done. Truthfully, it is not. Many would have run away from noises of terror and violence. Some would have returned with others to help. Few would have been carrying an axe or be able to wield it so mightily. So fatally. Knowing this, they surround him, plying their thanks on him.
His eyes give him away. He keeps looking at Red, taking in that she is no longer shivering, wrapped in a blanket. All the villagers see, even Red’s mother, now orphaned. They all think Red a fair reward for the woodcutter’s doings this night.
v.
The forest is less wild now than it was. The woodcutter needed to build an extension to house the newest babe, though I would not have you think that is the only reason.
Red’s babies sleep well, but she suffers nightmares some nights, of sharp teeth and so much blood. Her husband comforts her as best he can, with soft words, and when she is awake, the reassuring strength of the body that saved her. Her hands run over his muscles, recognise the bulk of him. She remembers how he shielded her, and her terror recedes, transforms. Her wolf killer finds fertile ground to plant his seed.
By day, he cuts down tree after tree as the village, too, grows. Unlike his father and grandfather before him, he does not think of replanting. That is the old way, when life was less busy. For these are the days of cultivation, of civilisation, when it would not do to say their village was once attacked by a wolf.
The forest becomes sparser, and when Red and her husband become grandparents, there are many safe paths for their grandchildren to take when they come to visit.
Author: shallowness
Fandom: Red Riding Hood (fairy tale)
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairing: Red Riding Hood, Her Grandmother, The Wolf, The Woodcutter, Red Riding Hood’s Mother, Red Riding Hood/The Woodcutter.
Summary: Five threads of the story of Red Riding Hood.
Author's Note: This was inspired by a quiz on the radio, where a competitor has to list five things associated with a given topic. When the topic was ‘Red Riding Hood’, these five words came to my lips – cloak, grandmother, wolf, woodcutter, forest – so I set myself the challenge of writing about them. With thanks to
smallhobbit for beta reading this. All errors are mine. 1,030 words.i.
She loves her new cloak. There was a time when she didn’t much care what she wore as long as she was warm in winter, dry in the rain and cool in the high heat of summer. For years, her mother would complain about that carelessness. But lately, with her body no longer shooting upward like a tree stretching for the sun, but rather changing in form, attaining curves and hair where there were none before, her attitude to what she wears has changed.
When she saw the red bolt of material that the merchant displayed, she begged and begged her mother to let her have it for a cloak. Her mother made her promise that she would sew it with her own hands before reaching for her purse. Of course, her mother had helped cut out the material, and was thus responsible for the way it fell, but care had been taken over the stitches. It would be the grandest outfit she’d ever worn.
She has pride in her work, then, as she wears her cloak. But she is also aware that it draws attention to herself. For one thing, the bright colour catches everyone’s eye, and the villagers have started calling her Red because of it.
But the colour is not what makes certain eyes linger on her a little longer, encouraged by the way the cloak is fastened and where the fastening lies. She is not displeased by these looks, and walks with a confident sway these days, volunteering to carry out errands for her mother. Her mother chooses to see this as a sign that her daughter is growing a sense of responsibility.
ii.
Becoming a grandmother did not make her feel old. It was the way of things. The eyes that man was making at her daughter before they wed. She saw what was coming, and did not feel much different when her grand-daughter was put into her arms.
But foraging for her food involved bending and even kneeling, and winter by winter, her body got stiffer. Discomfort turned into pain, and last winter, her body just would not do it.
So, the truth of the matter is that the old woman went to bed and sulked. She now depended on the village to keep her stores up, and her daughter was particularly conscientious about it, so she kept right on sulking.
She is worrying that afternoon in her cabin, but not that someone will fail to come and replenish her supplies. Instead, she worries about her only grand-daughter, who might well be the one coming with a basketful of food, none of it with the wild tang of the forest, but no doubt very nourishing.
Lately, people have taken to calling Mädchen ‘Red’ because of that fancy new cloak of hers, but her grandmother prefers the name she was given as a baby. Not that she is blind to the signs of budding womanhood in the child. She knows what that means, and knows that there are things that should be said, counsels given this time around. Perhaps it will bring a frown to a happy face, but better that than years of resentment. This time, perhaps there will be no woman complaining, ‘But I didn’t know I had choices.’ Consider it the gift of age to youth, Mädchen’s grandmother thinks.
There is a sound at the door. Energised by good intentions, she lumbers out of bed.
iii.
Let us turn to the wolf, oh, desperate and hungry, he. He has left his pack for two months now, and he will not last the third if he does not eat.
He saw only meat and did not know, until she had reached his belly, of what lineage the old woman came and what flowed through her veins. It gives him the power of speech.
For him, speech is another way of surviving, of perhaps more, for he is not sated. He has been hungry so long, so long without his pack.
iv.
He has been hard at work, and, truthfully, he is thinking of home, however humble and lonely it is. But there will be a chair and a table, where he can eat. He will have a snug roof over his head and light to see by. For the darkness is falling.
Screams break his reverie.
When the villagers try to thank the woodcutter, he mumbles that it’s what anyone would have done. Truthfully, it is not. Many would have run away from noises of terror and violence. Some would have returned with others to help. Few would have been carrying an axe or be able to wield it so mightily. So fatally. Knowing this, they surround him, plying their thanks on him.
His eyes give him away. He keeps looking at Red, taking in that she is no longer shivering, wrapped in a blanket. All the villagers see, even Red’s mother, now orphaned. They all think Red a fair reward for the woodcutter’s doings this night.
v.
The forest is less wild now than it was. The woodcutter needed to build an extension to house the newest babe, though I would not have you think that is the only reason.
Red’s babies sleep well, but she suffers nightmares some nights, of sharp teeth and so much blood. Her husband comforts her as best he can, with soft words, and when she is awake, the reassuring strength of the body that saved her. Her hands run over his muscles, recognise the bulk of him. She remembers how he shielded her, and her terror recedes, transforms. Her wolf killer finds fertile ground to plant his seed.
By day, he cuts down tree after tree as the village, too, grows. Unlike his father and grandfather before him, he does not think of replanting. That is the old way, when life was less busy. For these are the days of cultivation, of civilisation, when it would not do to say their village was once attacked by a wolf.
The forest becomes sparser, and when Red and her husband become grandparents, there are many safe paths for their grandchildren to take when they come to visit.
