The Red and the Grey
A. J. F. Link
Disclaiming Notification: This story a radical reinvention of the story Little Red Riding Hood. I hold no legal claim or ownership of the fairy tale story or any alterations or versions of the story, excluding the following story. Plagiarism of this story or any version or alteration of Little Red Riding Hood may be classified as a violation of the United States Copyright Act.
Reader's Notification: All hateful and/or rude comments and/or character pairing suggestions (especially harem, homosexual, and bisexual pairings) will be fully disregarded by the author. Chapters may be edited and/or updated to correct grammatical errors or mistakes if needed.
Prologue: A Rough Beginning
My name is Lupalin. I am an inverted-anthropomorphic human he-wolf. In other words, I am a regular human being with a wolf's tail (which is a deep hue of gray) that is biologically attached to my human tailbone, ears (which are on top of my head but are slightly hidden under my thick black hair), and vertically slit pupils with irises that are a rich dark blue in color.
Regardless of the fact that I am a human being, everyone in the village that I used to live in treated me as if I was some fiendish creature of the dark or a blood-lustful, hungry wolf that could tear them limb-by-limb without hesitation. Because of this, I was abused and maimed by the villagers on random occasions. I ran away when I was thirteen years old because the problem with the villagers got so bad that my parents got sick and tired of defending me that they started to abuse and maim me also.
I am now seventeen years old and live alone in a non-human populated wooded area. Well, that is not entirely true. An old woman lives in the middle of the woods in an old, one-story, bricked house by herself. It was never my intention to meet her or even interact with her.
One day, I was looking around for food to forage but was very unsuccessful at finding any, except for three apples that I found by random chance. Happening to be going by the old lady's house, I saw that there was corn, tomatoes, strawberries, and other harvestable food in her garden. I stopped a few meters away from the wooden fence that seemed to be the only protection for the garden. I did not want to end up confronting her, yet I was very hungry and had a concupiscence to steal some of the growing food from her garden. Right before a decision was made, the old woman showed up and saw me and I dashed behind one of the trees in the woods at a very inhuman speed.
Instead of scream, threatening, or cursing at me, she simply asked me: "Child, come out from behind that tree. I know what you look fully and you have nothing to be ashamed of."
"I'm sorry Miss, err, Misses…."
"Mrs. Emmerelin," she answered for me. "And if you hungry and really needed something to eat, why didn't you just ask me? I would have been more than happy to offer you some food."
"Well," I said hesitantly before continuing, "I was afraid that you were going to run away from me scream in terror or that you would try to murder me because of my wolf-like physical features. That was what people did to me in the village that I used to live in, including my parents."
"You poor child!" Mrs. Emmerelin exclaimed. "I will promise to never do such heartless things to you…. What is your name?"
"L-Lupalin" I stated very nervously, not expecting how she would react or what her next choice of words to be.
"Well then, Lupalin, would you want to live with me? If you do, I promise that I'll never hurt you like those uncaring villagers ever did."
I agreed and now I am currently living with her. She is basically considers herself to be my surrogated mother, yet keeps wanting me to address her as Liz. Anyways, Elizabeth taught me a lot of things that I never got a chance to learn before. It is surprising how much she recollects for someone her age. Anyways, that was the past, and this is now.
