Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rustles echo through the forest, the night illuminated by a faint azure radiance. Little Red wanders off the beaten path, for she had already broken the path allotted for her years ago. How many years—she can’t say; all she remembers is the day when it all happened and the scars that remain.

Out of the darkness, two sharp pupils emerge, glowing cyan with a trail of malice. Her body tensed. It was him. Or... what looked like him. At this point, she couldn’t even say. And it didn’t even matter. All that mattered was that, when it emerged from the shadows, its silhouette was unmistakable. The Big Bad Wolf.

Yet as she instantly bared her bloodied scythe, the faint noise of a fire flickering sounded behind her. As the two took a quick glance, they found three interlopers walking alongside Little Red. At the very front: a tall, battle-scarred woman with tied red hair. She took a focused puff of her cigarette, a black sword hanging over her shoulder.

“The hell are you doing out here?!” Little Red shouted, her yellow eye glimmering under her hood. A skilled mercenary doesn’t waste time talking, however. She whipped out her pistol and fired at the wolf, sending out flashes of light. Its sharp talons deflect the hits with minimal damage.

"Helping," the woman swiftly responds, alerting the attention of her assistants to the charging beast. It seems she knew the code too. She dashes forward, her employees trailing behind her. As the wolf's sharp fangs glisten with malaise, she blocks the wolf's lunge with a shove of her heavy sword lodged between its teeth. The assistants rush behind the monster, beginning to land swift slash after slash on it.

The red-hooded assassin swept by the librarians, leaping into the air and slicing the wolf with her scythe, leaving a small trail of blood.

“I’m a professional. I appreciate the gesture, but no thanks; I can kill it myself,” Little Red remarked, her singular left eye glaring back at the group. Right as she taunted, the wolf’s claws snared into her back, knocking her face first into the damp grass.

“Suit yourself,” she sarcastically snorts. The wolf howls loudly, nearly knocking the librarians off their feet with the impact, but they begin to clash once more, whittling down its life.

Little Red internally panicked. This was her fight. Her struggle. Was she about to lose that honor to some nobodies clad in tacky red jackets? Her hands trembled in rage. As the fight continued, this fear and anger only snowballed. With every blow dealt to her, every slice at the wolf’s limbs done by the interlopers, and finally, with one more howl, she lost it. The gentle blue glow of the sky saturated into a blood-red light as Little Red recklessly slammed forward, carving and firing into the beast whilst screaming obscenities, shared gore splattering across the grass.

Her strength and health began to wane, her eye blurring and her scars deepening. And the wolf still had energy. Was this the end of her grim tale?

Suddenly, the wolf staggers back, the assistants crippling its legs with a clear shot, stunned and injured. Breathing heavily, the red light fading, and her blind rage subsiding, Little Red sees her chance.

Her bandaged arms rise, gripping her sanguine scythe, crashing down into the wolf’s skull. The nightmare was quelled.

A calm washed beneath her hood, down into what little skin of her face remained beneath the shadows. Years of suffering and vengeful aspirations were taken out in the most intensely cathartic swipe of her scythe. She finally felt free. And that she could just let the world fade around her and close her eyes.

…When she opened them once more, everything had changed. The blue light of the waning moon had morphed into a faint red-orange glow.

Chapter Text

The first thing she felt was the oppressive warmth—like the feeling of being inches away from a campfire. It was something she’d hardly felt before as someone accustomed to the cold, damp woods. The steel floor rattled with every step, and the interior walls were similarly metallic with a light red hue. Shelves lined the wall with crimson-colored covers casing the chronicles. The smell of cigarette smoke was pertinent.

…Cigarette smoke?

Little Red jolted her head, and there she was: the woman from the forest. She got a better look at her now, still taking a blow of her cigarette and dumping it on a worn out ashtray. She wore a red jacket with a shimmering red brooch, maroon leggings, and gray loafers. Muffled metal music resonated through the halls.

“Th-The fuck is going on?” she shouts between coughs, her eye settling on the imposing figure seated in a black leather chair,

“Name’s Gebura. Welcome to the Library.”

Little Red stares blankly for half a second before getting her elaboration. Gebura brings up a piece of paper, reading over Angela’s introduction script.

“I am the Patron Librarian of the Floor of Language. Our task in the Library is to organize and sort books by and relating to their specific language, not only of existing literature but of our converted guests.” Gebura recites, her raspy voice unnaturally flattening.

Little Red remains silent. Gebura scoffs, crumpling up the script and chucking it carelessly behind her.

“We sort books and kill the people we’re told to.”

“Mercenary work, I see. Guess you… got the right gal for the job.” Little Red trails off, still confused and overwhelmed as heat flows underneath her bandaged arms.

“‘Mercenary’ implies we get paid,” Gebura remarks, leaning back and grinning, a cigarette held between her teeth.

“Then what the hell?? And I still don’t even know how I got here in the first place. Where’s that bastard anyway, is he really for sure dead?!” Little Red shouts, her voice raising as her arms slam down on the metal table.

“Watch it,” Gebura threatens, lifting herself up from her chair and leaning closer. Little Red gets a view of the few scars lining her face. She looks noticeably taller than she did during that encounter in the forest. “Don’t forget, this floor’s librarians are the only reason why that wolf didn’t turn you into mincemeat. So let me explain.”

Little Red’s eye twitches, ready to explode in prideful vengeance, but she holds back, her curiosity taking priority.

“You are… were an abnormality. An entity that had manifested from the desire or fear of others. And now, you’re reborn as a human, essentially. Converted abnormalities like you make for much stronger librarians.”

Little Red’s expression lightens into a small smirk.

“Heh… What did I say? I’m a professional,” she declares, being met with an eye-roll from Gebura.

“You gonna let that pride get to your head in a fight?” Gebura counters, which fades away her smile, her left eye blinking quickly.

“Hey, nothing’s changed, I don’t-“

Little Red pauses. Didn’t Gebura say something about… becoming human? Her hand, wrapped in a black glove, reaches up to her cheek to find that cloth does not separate her touch. Her expression contorts in horror, freezing for a few seconds before running off, her heart pounding in her chest.

Little Red hears Gebura call out a name as she sprints away, ordering her to get back here, but it didn’t sound like “Little Red,” the noise muffled by the distance. Heat pounds on her head harder, Panting shallowly, she desperately looks around, fearful for what she’ll find out and what Gebura has seen and judged from her. Her vision locks with a window revealing the brutal industrial aesthetic of the layer’s exterior, lit up by the persistent magma below. Her face presses up against the glass.

Reluctantly, she looks into her reflection, instinctively wincing in discomfort. Her clothes still remained mostly intact; her red hood draped over her head and shoulders, but it no longer hid her face from view. Her slashed-out right eye and the scars littering her cheeks and mouth were visible, but… they were nowhere near as bad as before this rebirth. But these scars, imperfections, signs of weakness disgusted her all the same. She frantically searches in her pockets.

“Scarlet!” She now clearly hears Gebura call out the name. Her searches quicken, her hands work as fast as they can. She eventually finds a backup mask, the teeth-like pattern less defined than before, and slips it on.

“W-Is that… supposed to be me?” Scarlet asks, her voice starting to shiver in paranoia.

Gebura scans her up and down, watching her tenseness, noting the black mask that now conceals her features.

“Angela said to give names to all the converted abnormalities. I think Scarlet’s a cute name.”

“Y-You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?” Scarlet accuses in distrust and trepidation, her hand gripping tight against the windowsill. Gebura raises an eyebrow, taking a drag of her cigarette and shaking her head.

“Oh, no, no. It’s ‘cause you’re red, and ‘cause of the scars. Just a little double entendre I came up with during the suppression.”

“That’s just it! The scars, they, they…” Her voice trails off in paranoid fury, unable to put into words her discomfort at being perceived. Gebura taps her chin, her pale gaze settling.

“You don’t like people seeing your scars?”

Scarlet’s eyes avert in solemn agreement, tensing. She feels backed against a wall.

“Signs of failure, just plastered over my face for the world to see.”

Gebura pauses, seeming to resonate. She sighs gently, placing a calloused hand on Scarlet’s shoulder like an understanding older sister.

“Look, I get it. There was a time that I hated people thinking I was weak or hurt. That people would just exploit me for what I’m worth. And shit like that happens all the time in the City. But you know what this says?” Gebura points to a scar over her right eye, leaning closer. What a coincidence the two had been blemished in the same spot.

“It says I survived, and I didn’t back down.”

“...It’s… not supposed to be that I survived. I know that, and… I’ve still hated looking at them this whole time. I guess... It's proof of my will to live.” Scarlet retorts quietly, looking into Gebura’s eyes. Despite her counterargument, she truly felt touched by the thought of someone understanding.

“Then get out there and show 'em you’re not going down easy.” Gebura asserts, punching Scarlet’s shoulder.

Scarlet pauses for a moment, the warmth building up in her body expelling out like steam. A genuine smile grows on her face. But realizing Gebura cannot see it, she finally acts on something she hadn’t done in years. She pulls off her mask, her scars lining the lower half of her face all the same.

“I’ll show them all.”

Gebura smiles proudly, interlacing her fingers above her head and cracking her knuckles.

“Sweet. Alright, enough pep talk; let’s get to organizing dictionaries. Guest work’ll come when they call for us.”

Scarlet snorts, crossing her arms and following Gebura back to the main room, unmasked and ready. The wolf was dead. The harrowing reminder of her scars had faded. She didn’t miss the forest a bit.

“Psht, yeah. Easy for you to say, since the scars actually look cool on you,” she mutters under her breath. 

A chuckle sparks from Gebura’s chapped lips. Guess she underestimated how much the mask muffled her speech.

Chapter Text

A good while had passed since that day—maybe a couple weeks. Most of the littered books have been removed from the Floor’s… floors. A new batch of books had just come in, and like always, they began to sort. Dictionaries, language learning guides, linguistic-cultural texts, the works. Gebura, for as much as she bowed down to the unholy supremacy of the electric guitar, decided to try something else for today: a soft grand piano with a fast-cut electric drum sample at 165 BPM.

Scarlet began to mumble a tune as she organized, finding the tempo subconsciously familiar.

“Tell me how you're sleepin’ easy, how you’re only thinking of yourself~”

Gebura’s eyes shifted, one a murky yellow and the other a cloudy gray, perhaps a consequence of her scar, yet another thing the two warriors shared in common. And she was about to find another.

“Show me how you justify~ Telling all your lies like-”

“Yeah, I know that song.” Gebura bluntly interrupts, a strange look of faint embarrassment growing on her face. Scarlet gasps lightly, in surprise and enjoyment.

“Ah! You do too. I knew we had a similar taste in music,” she comments.

“Eh. Don't really like it so much anymore.” Gebura admits with a shrug, her morning espresso still working through her veins helping her multitask. Scarlet looks confused, but Gebura just responds with a nostalgic scoff.

“You really are like me from the past. That song really hit different back when I was… hmph, 22 or 23, after that incident with my neighbors,” she reflects, a melancholy smile raising the edges of her lips.

“Ah, yeah, yeah. You told me about those bastards,” Scarlet comments. Gebura had already told her about her life as the Red Mist, though she’s just a shell of her former self now. Though she'd refrained from telling her about the whole “three lives” ordeal, that was a little too confusing.

“Don’t get me wrong; edge is part of a good balanced breakfast, but… y’know. I have my standards. ”

Scarlet sneers. Clearly, Gebura didn’t understand the song was “literally her fr.”

////

It seems they got a call this time. A group of guests had arrived—a syndicate called “The Smiling Faces.” They approached the steel bridge leading into the Library, the smell of smoke now doubly pertinent from the gigantic pipes they wielded. Clad in their metal hahoetal masks, they uttered constant rural slang that the two only half-understood.

"Hoh hon. Let’s take care o’ the thingummy our Blue fella asked like the clappers n’ go,” a Smiling Face at the front of the pack chatted. The two begin to clash, and a cloud of noxious smoke begins to emanate from their weapons. 

As the fight goes on, metal clanking against metal as more intense electric guitars resound through the loudspeakers, Scarlet feels her world begin to blur. Her senses start to dull, her hands more wobbly than usual. And strangely, she doesn’t seem as bothered by this failure in her performance than as before. Her will to survive still kicks in, defending her from the threats of blunt-force trauma, but it’s getting harder to think. Just what the hell is going on?

Words start to blur, their slang becoming indecipherable. Hearing a gruesome noise to her right, Scarlet gapes at the sight of her assistant librarian getting stabbed through the heart. As they’re paralyzed, the metal-masked savage begins to cut them up like a seasoned chef slicing onions into paper-thin fractions.

Gebura’s eyes gleam red, the death of her comrade imbuing her with vitriol. Her sword impales forward, lodging itself into the chef’s mauve cloak.

“D-… damn it!” Scarlet slurs, her sword messily swinging into another staggered guest. “That was… my kill! You bastard!”

Smoke obscures hearing or seeing a response as she continues to swipe. The rest of the reception is a blur.

Next thing she knows, she’s back in the Floor of Language. Alive, thankfully, her world sharpened back to normal.

“Ahk… maybe I should’ve kept the mask on.” Scarlet coughs, wiping off the blood from her scythe. 

Gebura sighs faintly, brushing a hand through her long red hair. “Yeah. And I doubt there’s gonna be any more guests that get us high as a defense.”

“What… happened?”

“You shouted at me for stealing your kill.”

A twang of guilt formed over her. She remembers now. But honestly, they were her kills regardless. Stepping stones needed for her to progress.

“Well, we still won.” Gebura admits, shrugging. Yet from the corner of her eye, she sees one of the books on her shelves flickering steadily in a white light. She saunters over, recognizing the familiar flash.

“Ah. About time for a new conversion.”

Scarlet remains against the wall, her arms crossed, so she does not get to see Gebura’s cocky expression morph into horror at the title.

“The Book of the Big and Will Be Bad Wolf.”

Time’s up. Gebura couldn’t keep lying to Scarlet now. The myth of victory would all come crashing down.

“…Heads up,” she orders, her two assistants gathering around. She opens the book. Pages flutter about, engulfing the three in a brilliant light. As the brightness fades, Scarlet feels a familiar wind, a familiar azure moonlight, and an unfamiliar yet all too trauma-recollecting monster. A wolf. It may not look like him, yet…

She’d be fooled into thinking it was harmless if she wasn’t back off the beaten path.

Chapter Text

Rustles echo through the forest. The crescent moon that once gleamed above Scarlet had phased into fullness. Blood trails douse the damp grass, and an old log cabin can be seen a few meters away. Scarlet stares blankly, her eye dilating in disbelief.

“That’s… not him; that’s just a wolf,” she denies. She’d know that cunning bastard the moment she saw him, and despite the lupine appearance, no bells were rung. Gebura whispers to the third assistant, a heterochromic man—Niall—clad in crimson blemishes that the abnormality is not as weak as it seems.

Standing on its hindlegs, the wolf stares down Gebura with large black pupils, his white paws curled and raised. He didn’t look intimidating in the slightest. The wolf snarls in a deep, dry, and slightly pathetic-sounding voice.

“Grr… Don’t come any closer… or you’ll get eaten too…”

Gebura, flippant to the warning, reaches out and strikes the wolf right in its hefty belly. She goes in for a second hit, the wolf raising its talons to counter, and she succeeds. 

“Heh… you sure you’re as strong as you say?” Gebura taunts, knowing damn well that the answer is yes.

“I-I’m trying my best…” the wolf mutters defensively. Scarlet is left on edge with her pistol’s barrel pointed at the beast’s chest.

////

A rush of bloodlust washes over the wolf in a wave, like it always did when fresh meat was dangled so close to its maw. Its paws swipe forward, taking Niall into its grasp and raising him into its jaw. Blood starts to leak from its paws and lips as the assistant slides down into its massive stomach. Muffled screams of anguish and curses of rage ring through the wolf’s mouth.

Scarlet and Gebura both sprint side-by-side, starting to hack at the Wolf’s stomach while it tries to swallow, its paws desperately slashing at the librarians. The claws left behind nasty marks of gore whenever they swiped through Gebura’s blunt slams of her oversized sword or Scarlet’s hesitantly hateful slashes.

Eventually, the pressure builds, and the wolf can’t take it. His cheeks swell, keeling over as Niall is ejected. The dark red-haired librarian is left lying supine on the floor, covered in blood, saliva, and acid burns that worsen his blemishes.

While staggered, the three find an opening, beating down the wolf in unison. Bruise after scar is left on its body, and suddenly, it jumps back, growling in a low, violent tone. It lowers onto its front paws, its claws extending. The scars expand deeper over its skin in unsightly red blemishes. The tail starts to extend, swaying behind it, raised confrontationally. The dark, harmless-looking pupils shrink, beginning to radiate a piercing blue as an azure mist begins to trail from its eager, violent jaw.

Scarlet freezes in horror. Like she said, she’d know him if she saw him.

And there he was.

“What big eyes you have!”

“The better to see you with.”

“What big ears you have!”

“The better to hear you with.”

“What sharp teeth you have!”

“The better to eat you with.”

How could she be so foolish? She was just 14, the sweetest girl in the village, on her way to becoming a woman. Picking flowers and gathering bread and fruit for her beloved, sickly grandmother. But that wasn’t her. She was just so worried for her health.

Little Red cried out for help as the Big Bad Wolf encroached on her, towering above her pathetic, weak figure. The claws came down and gashed into her face and chest; the young girl let out pained cries of agony. Blood trails down her face, tearing her cloak. There would be no woodsman to help. With a scream for her desire for survival, she began to scrape the wolf with her dagger. And when that wasn’t enough, she tore at its wicked fur with her own bare nails, leaving behind scrapes that would never fade, just like how she had been scarred.

After a minute of gruesome laceration, the wolf stumbled back, his eyes a piercing blue glow in the interior of the bloodstained wood cabin. He growled, leaning on his hindquarters.

“Rggghh… you’re a tough meal to swallow. A little chunk of meat like you isn’t worth all the effort. Besides… your grandmother was already a fair snack.”

Tears and blood rolled down Little Red’s face, unable to form a response—only wails of hatred and suffering. She limped towards the mirror and saw her face. A mess of scarred, bloody tissue, her right eye gouged out, muddled with gore. It was the most vile sight she’d ever seen, save for the beast that did this to her. She would never, ever forget.

“YOU BASTARD!”

Scarlet howled, nearly breaking her voice, as she took a mad dash towards that vile monster, bearer of her scars and patron of her own.

“I’LL TEAR YOU LIMB FROM LIMB!”

The sky blared with a crimson glow. Gebura and the injured Niall barely had time to react; Scarlet was fighting with absolutely everything she had. Her skilled hands worked swiftly and savagely, scraping at the monster with her scythe.

“I’LL HANG YOUR FUCKING HEAD OVER MY BED!”

As his claws came down yet again, he didn’t even get a chance to taunt or express his desire to taste her flesh. But deep inside, he now recognized Red Hood from all those years ago. Scarlet finds her scythe sliding clean off his tough flesh and instead opts for bullets. Right into his scars, she fires, the metal shells piercing and dredging the existing wounds.

“LET ME HEAR THAT HORRIFIC YELP OF YOURS AGAIN!”

The Big Bad Wolf howled as loud as he could, blood leaking out of the librarian’s earlobes. Blood splatters across Scarlet’s skin, both his and her own. But she’s worked too hard, and she’s dreamed too violently to cry in pain. Not like before. She wasn’t weak.

YOU! SON! OF! A! BITCH!

Gruesome noises emit from the scene. The wolf is lying down, his wounds expanded by the constant bullet fire as Scarlet yells in time with the muzzle’s bangs.

It was over. The Big Bad Wolf had been slain. After years and years of hate and vengeance, it was finally over.

Her vision blurs, and Scarlet passes out from blood loss, light swirling around the victorious librarians. Transported back to the Floor of Language, taking the hint, Niall carefully ambles away. Scarlet pants in exertion and victory. Gebura takes a puff of her cigarette, her nerves excited and on edge. Gebura wasn’t a woman who felt fear often. But this situation—what she knew and what Scarlet didn’t—was terrifying.

“…It’s over. He’s finally dead. That bastard is finally, finally gone.”

“…Y-Yeah. Of course.” Gebura mutters in a stressed voice, her hand shakily patting the butt of the cigarette on her ashtray.

“Well, it’s a shame that I couldn’t take his head with me.” Scarlet brags, her head held high, wiping her hands. Her world is safe and free for a few minutes, but for some reason, she feels oddly empty throughout the time. But she doesn’t complain.

That is, until a knock at the door. Gebura takes a deep breath, opening it up. A new assistant librarian had arrived.

His hair was unkempt, in a long and dark mane. He wore a gray, tattered coat lined with fur. His skin was littered with scars. His eyes glowed a piercing blue—how big they were. His lupine ears poked above his hair—how big they were. 

His teeth, barely poking through his exhausted expression… 

How sharp they were.

Chapter Text

“Converted abnormalities like you make for much stronger librarians.”

Scarlet recalls what Gebura said at that moment. She was once an “abnormality.” Something paranormal. Maybe ever since that fateful night at her grandmother’s house, she has never been human. And despite her new form, she didn’t feel human again. But the implications of what that meant for who was in front of her froze Scarlet to her core. 

She couldn’t be fooled again; those blue eyes couldn’t fool anyone, despite how cunning he had to be. That was the Big Bad Wolf, just as Scarlet was the Red-Hooded Mercenary.

And working with her.

For however long she was stuck here.

Constantly.

Unable to be killed.

…

Was this hell?

Had Scarlet been banished to the inferno for her unrelenting rage and vengeance lasting countless restless nights, right alongside her tormentor?

Scarlet stood still, shell shocked, her eye stuck staring at the new assistant. Similarly, the wolf seemed as if he were frozen like a deer in headlights.

After a few seconds of abject terror, Gebura grasps the librarian’s shoulders, dragging him into the main office room for a private conversation.

Scarlet’s knees buckled, dropping to the floor in hopeless, pent-up fury. He was alive. He was alive. He was alive. Could that bastard ever die? All she asked for was his head. She got so close, but he just had to come back. The pleasure of ending his life twice by her own hands was not enough to outweigh the despair she felt as her trembling elbows dropped to the floor along with her knees. Her mind spins around and around, her blood boiling in her veins, feeling as if she was madder, in both senses of the word, than ever before since that day.

She staggered upward after some time. Seconds—minutes—time wasn’t really a factor she was thinking about amongst the sludge of adverse emotions, stumbling to her bedside. Her personal quarters were a similar color to the rest of the place: a muted crimson. Spare books lined some of the desks, along with various keepsakes from the various receptions she’d taken part in, her trusty grindstone, and a metal hook just above her bed. Infuriatingly: still empty. Scarlet sat at the edge of her bed, downcast, her hands resting on her knees. She reaches for the mask in her pocket and wraps it back over her scars. All of a sudden, she wasn’t comfortable with them anymore, just like before.

Three light knocks thump on her wooden doorframe.

“Come in, Gebura,” Scarlet murmurs hopelessly.

“N-no, it’s just me.” resounds an anxious, deep, and dry male voice. Her heart pauses as she sees the door ajar. Who Was Once The Wolf stands at the other end, his ears perked, the blue in his eyes faded, and with faint blood marks around his mouth. Adrenaline pierces through Scarlet’s body. Out of instinct, she grips her scythe tight, sprinting up the entrance, slamming the door open, and holding the scythe right at his neck, a desperately hateful stare in her eye.

“GET OUT!” Scarlet yells, causing the Wolf to startle, his expression contorted in fear. His bloodied claws rise out of instinct.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“Then go! ” she orders. A pause occurs, her scythe nearly grazing the man’s lacerated neck, before an answer is barked out.

“Gebura needs us to talk,” he states, his breathing calming and his tongue quickly reaching to wipe up the blood on his lip. Scarlet pauses. She almost feels betrayed. The Gebura she knew could never subject her to this, could she? But noticing the blood that was over his mouth, she trembled with a more harrowing thought.

“…What, like you didn’t kill her?!” Scarlet yells, the grip over her scythe at his nape shaking with doubt.

“N-no… I didn’t,” he admits, still sounding guilty, but more so due to the misunderstanding he caused. Even the thought of harming Gebura causes a shrill sensation down his spine.

She’s inclined not to believe him. She doesn’t trust others easily anyway. But she remembers that while not in the receptions, no one can die here. To her surprise, that bastard actually told the truth. She folds. Scarlet sighs in hopeless defeat, sheathing her scythe and returning to her spot, sitting on the bedside.

“What,” she tiredly responds, wanting to get this over with, her half-lidded yellow eye slighting into her lap. He halts, unsure of where to start.

“…I’m sorry about everything. I really am.” That just seemed like a good place to start.

“Liar,” Scarlet accuses. The man’s head tilts like a dog in question. The mercenary scoffs in indignation, her finger directing towards the fur lining his coat. “You’re a deceptive piece of shit. I’m not 14 anymore; I know not to trust wolves like you.”

“I know,” he admits, his eyes averting down to the floor like hers, his hands tied together in front of him. Scarlet looks up for a moment. He looks… oddly pathetic. Unassuming, like that form of the upright wolf that fooled her into thinking that she wasn’t looking upon her star-crossed loather. Suddenly, a distressed determination overtakes his gaze.

“A wolf is supposed to be bad. A ferocious monster. That’s what’s expected of me. But I’m human now. I’m different. Miss Gebura taught me that. I don’t… want to cause people to hurt.”

Scarlet’s gaze lifts in shock and confusion, her trembling hand gripping her bedsheets in pent-up rage that no matter what, won’t come out the way she wants.

“Then why. Why did you do this to me? Do you even understand what pains you put me through? How you ruined everything I had?! ”

The wolf flinches at her rising despair, taking a step back.

“It’s… it was in my nature. I was just a big bad wolf. A monster. And I was starving. You can understand, right?”

Scarlet pouts, gritting her teeth under her mask.

“You… weren’t meant to live. I was supposed to eat you whole.”

“And I survived. I stood up to you.”

A silence permeates the tense air. Though the Wolf is racked with guilt himself, his hands buried in the pockets of his gray coat, his muted blue eyes averted, that guilt starts to reflect. Scarlet looks back on her life after she survived. How lonely it was. How full of hatred and vengeance it was—how she chopped off heads instead of picking flowers in her parents’ garden. Her gloved hands lock in a death grip on the mattress below her.

“I shouldn’t have. If I knew what would happen to me after everything, I would have entered gleefully into your damn jaws and died. So that none of this would have happened.”

“…Don’t say that.”

“Why not? Isn’t that your nature? To wish others nothing but harm and death?”

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Scarlet. And… I don’t want to get hurt by you anymore.” He adds, his claw trailing over the scar lining his right eye, his teeth gritting to hide his greater emotions of vengeance. Yet this attempt fails. Scarlet notices the look in his blue eyes of contempt. But instead of pulling her away, it’s the final straw to break down her defenses.

She stares blankly with her eye. Even if his torment was a fraction of hers, she subjected it to him. Although she hated to accept the fact, she knew it was in her nature to attack, as it was in her nature to defend. This truth is shared silently between the two arbiters of bottled-up vengeance, two rivals across years and years now meeting in their fourth confrontation. Yet, both feel this might be the last.

“Wolf… I… you don’t…” she stammers. Scarlet can’t imagine it. The embodiment of evil, cunningness, deception… Why would that show care for her? Why would it care if she was hurt? Was he truly big and bad, or was it only a might be?

“U-Ulric.”

“…What?”

“Call me Ulric,” he blurts out, his fists clenched, his stomach churning with stress. A wolf wasn’t supposed to have a name. But there it was. 

“…Gebura… named you too?” Scarlet mutters, her eye starting to blur in weakness. Internally, she recognizes this feeling. Adrenaline rushes through her veins in panic. No. No. Not now. Not in front of that bastard. 

Ulric nods, his ears fluttering as he sits down next to Scarlet. She looks down at her gloves, her breath shallowing with the revelations. She takes her last stand of defense, trying desperately to cling to the truths she held for so many years.

“Wolves… don’t deserve… names…” Scarlet mumbles, her eye wettening.

“…I’ve heard it all before.” Ulric admits solemnly. He recollects about his own village. One of the most ferocious-looking cubs of his pack in the forest, he was destined to be big and bad. He had to be cunning like the rest to survive, he was told. A wolf can’t have friends. A wolf can’t cross the line. Ulric repeats these mantras to himself in contempt of the pressure he felt.

Her breathing heaves, overwhelmed. Why? Why did he care? Why could he care? Why did it all make sense? Why did she feel like they were one in the same? 

“Go… Ulric…” she mumbles weakly, a tear dropping onto her dark glove. They were tears of confusion and desperation for sense. But not despair. She wasn’t sad. And that was the worst part. A second later, the truth escapes her concealed lips. 

“I just want to stop thinking about you. I just want to forget.”

Ulric whimpers in pity and guilt. The satisfaction of tasting flesh earlier didn’t make up for it. He felt disgusting again. But… he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t harmed. Perhaps he actually succeeded. Perhaps he actually helped. He wasn’t a big bad wolf anymore. Ulric pats Scarlet’s shoulder with a soft claw; the mercenary feels too lost to protest.

“Miss Gebura says you should get some rest.”

“I should.” Scarlet confesses, her back giving out and lying against the mattress. Without another word, the door closes yet again, leaving her alone, only sensing the sound of her shallow breathing, the feeling of her head against the tough foam, and the small tears running down her cheek.

The worst part was that he was right. He was completely right. But there was one thing that she recalled that she hadn’t thought of before this moment. Perhaps the two were one in the same, sure, but they were the crux of each other’s motivation. All her life, she aspired to slaughter him, and without that push, she wouldn’t be where she is. She’d be innocent, she’d be happier, but she’d be completely different. And judging from his scars, perhaps a similar event happened to him. Yet she also remembers the difference between that random wolf and the beast from her childhood from the reception. Perhaps Ulric was both at heart, in a sense. But in that talk, he was the random wolf. One who didn’t recognize her, one who seemed reluctant to kill despite his insistence he was a big bad wolf. And if he stayed that way, the beast would be truly dead. And even if she hadn’t gotten his head as a trophy to hang up over her bedside…

Maybe the thought is enough to rest easy.