Cinder Red Wolf

Once upon a time, there was a young girl (sixteen years old to be precise) named Cinder Red. She lived alone in the forest with her stepmother and two stepsisters (who were neither amazingly beautiful or extremely ugly, they were actually pretty average) because her blood relatives had either died a painful death (like her mother) or had run away from home because they couldn’t handle living in a house of all females (like her father).

When her mother had passed on, she had given Cinder sacred bright red cloak that all women must wear at least once a month for a whole week. The cloaks in this culture were passed on to every generation of women and they were mostly so the men could find them in a large crowd. With Cinder Mom’s dying breath, she placed the cloak on Cinder’s shoulders and dubbed her Cinder Red. Cinder Red loved the way her cloak flowed and swished around her for it meant that she was now a real woman in the truest sense of the word. From that point forth she never took it off, not even to bathe for people in this time period hated baths. They believed baths were from the devil and that to take one meant you’re one step away from dying so there were lots of stinky people running around considering the facts that they lived in the woods and they worked up a sweat in the sheer amount of clothes they were expected to wear.

Cinder Red’s Grandmother lived in a humble cottage not unlike their own 5 miles due west in the darkest part of the forest. Her step family refused to visit the old woman because they have this weird thing against the elderly and in order to get there they must take the wolf highway (Step Family was deathly afraid of wolves). In all her years of visiting her grandmother, Cinder Red had never seen a single wolf for they were mostly extinct by now thanks to that huntsman who lived 7 miles north of Grandma’s cottage. He liked to prove his manhood by shooting as many things as possible (that’s actually how Cinder Mom died. The crazy lunatic shot her by accident and then asked Grandma to marry him so he wouldn’t be alone in his old age. Because he had shot her daughter, Grandma said no but that didn’t stop the creep from sneaking around).

Cinder Red visited her Grandma every weekend. She took both Saturday and Sunday off from working like a slave to her step family in order to take care of Grandma who was blind as a bat and going senile. Even though Grandma often confused Cinder Red for the huntsman and tried to beat her off with a big stick given his history and the fact that he stopped by to check in on her every day, Cinder Red loved her Grandma. Without the old woman in her life, Cinder Red would have been truly miserable and probably gone insane a long time ago because one can only take so much of what an evil step family can dish out. It took Cinder Red 45 minutes to run from her cottage to Grandma’s. Cinder Red always ran because she liked the way her cloak flowed around her and she just loved to run in the forest on all fours. Yes, she ran like an animal but it did not matter for there was no one around to see and judge her for it.

One day Cinder Red walked instead of ran which was something she had never done before. There was just something special and beautiful about this particular day that made her want to slow down and enjoy it. This was when she met Wolf. Wolf had watched her run every weekend and he admired her for it. He always tried to talk to her, but she was so fast he could never keep up. Wolf was actually an enchanted prince and in order to break the spell he needed to get a young woman to come to a ball deeper into the forest for three nights in a row. He could often get a first date, but usually no one liked him enough to come back for a second and a third and so he remained a wolf. Because she ran like a wolf and she just looked so darn cute in that cloak, Wolf hoped she would be the one to break the spell.

So they talked. Cinder Red said yes to being his date for the ball because she was desperate for any real companionship. Step Family, her slave drivers, hardly counted as friends and a senile Grandmother who thought she was a crazy huntsman also wasn’t good company. Plus, Wolf threatened to eat her Grandma if she did not go. She asked what she had to wear to this thing and he said what she had on now was just fine. Cinder Red didn’t really like that answer so she stole her Grandma’s red evening gown (Grandma liked to dress up when she watched Wheel of Fortune because she liked to pretend she was Vanna White) and was the most jaw dropping gorgeous woman Wolf had ever seen. So Cinder Red went to the ball with Wolf and they had a wonderful time for he was someone she could actually pour her heart out to. He understood things like running in the forest, trying to avoid the crazy huntsman, and having a deep love for someone who did not know your true name.

Cinder Red loved the ball so much that she went back again the second night and the third. She certainly got Wolf’s hopes up. In order to break the spell, she had to stay until five in the morning. She left at midnight without saying goodbye to Wolf because the Huntsman tipped her off about her Step Family’s plot to murder Grandma. They were jealous that Cinder Red loved the old bat and not them so they decided to do away with her.

Cinder Red’s plan to be a great hero and rescue her beloved Grandmother backfired horribly because the Step Family set the cottage on fire and Cinder Red and Grandma were both trapped inside. Wolf saved them by running headlong into the fire burning off all his fur. It just so happened that Cinder Red’s step mother was the witch who made him into a wolf. When he attacked her for hurting Cinder Red, she agreed to lift the spell. He was transformed into a handsome young man. Cinder Red was amazed and agreed to marry him.

And so, the step sisters went on to live healthy normal lives with a lot of therapy. The step mother spent the rest of her life rotting away in Prince Wolf’s jail. Grandma married the huntsman because what the heck why not. They weren’t getting any younger and they truly did love each other despite any past wrongs. And Cinder Red married Prince Wolf. When she asked him what he was prince of he said all the wolves in the forest so they spent their life together as environmentalists with a special mission to save all the endangered wolves in the forest.

And because a woman must always take her husband’s name she became known as Cinder Red Wolf. She loved to roam freely around in the wilderness with her wolf husband forevermore. The End.