Rose readjusted her position, her left foot was tingling with the start of sleep. From her perch in the church bell tower she could see a maze of streets below her, no shadows stirred in the bright moonlight. Dawn was only two hours away. She yawned, all Hunters were out during a harvest moon. The large orange disk floated just above the rooftops. A different light caught in Rose's eye, causing her to blink a few times and look sharp in the direction of the source. It was Blair, her patrol partner, using a mirror to reflect the strong moonlight to Rose. Rose pulled out her own mirror and signaled back. Blair ran silently along the rooftops towards the tower and scaled it with impressive speed and agility.

"If there was going to be any action tonight, we would have already seen it." Blair grumbled when she reached Rose. Rose only nodded and looked down to the street once again, her eagle eyes missed no details. "Maaaan." Blair groaned she sat back, resting lazily against the wall of the bell tower "Why does the order even make us do this anymore? It's not like anyone's seen a lycanthrope in years! We could be in bed right now like every one else." Her laid back attitude to Hunting had gotten her in trouble with many of their teachers over the years. She loosened her red hood and smiled. "Hey, lighten up, the night's almost over."

"Do you know why no one's seen a lycanthrope in years?" Rose asked sternly.

Blair rolled her eyes and did her best impersonation of Madame Selene. "Because, Miss Hughes, we have been looking for years. Stay vigilant, and hope trouble never does come your way." She giggled. "Come on, Rose, you're the only person our age I know who's ever seen one before and that was an isolated incident in the middle of nowhere."

Rose re-positioned her feet again and stood up. "Yeah, and it killed my gran." She answered.

"Oh... right, sorry." Blair looked out toward the city, attempting to look serious.

"Don't sweat it," Rose said. "Inside these city walls, with Hunters all around, we're safe. People don't know how to fear an enemy they've never seen. One day maybe one will slip into the gate and then at night... we'll finally have a job to do."

"What are they like?"

Rose closed her eyes, drawing from a horrible childhood memory. "Big." She answered. "Big eyes, big teeth. They don't know what they are. They're just ordinary people until they're beasts, and they lose their minds. My gran, she used to pay him to cut wood for her. He was nice and sang with a big voice. He wouldn't hurt anyone when he was a person. When we kill them, we save them, too." She finished.


The change looked painful. First Klaus had gone quiet, and then he seemed quite panicked. He hunched over in grans' humble kitchen and began to scream and howl. Rose had watched the hair thicken on his arms and his sharp teeth jut out of his mouth, he had grown to almost twice his size. It all happened very quickly before her gran had ordered her into the pantry and then blocked it with a table. Rose didn't get to see what happened afterwards but when she was found in the morning her grans' body had already been removed from the cottage.

When Rose identified Klaus as the wolf, he asked for her forgiveness over and over and begged to be executed. Rose was only six at the time.

She stayed with the mayor's family for four days after. He had sent a letter to the Red Hood Order letting them know a lycanthrope had been executed in their village, and that a surviving child had no other family. A man and a woman came to retrieve her. The man was short, stoutly built, he had no beard and a tidy mustache his brown eyes seemed to twinkle when he smiled. The woman was tall, and while she was slender she was obviously strong. She had a sharp profile and her body followed suite, every angle of her was sharp. Her cold, gray eyes were hard, and they assessed every part of the small forest village, and found it wanting. They both wore deep red cloaks, lined with gold fabric and a gold clasp held them fastened above the left breast. Rose had never seen a fabric so rich and she remembered longing to touch it but being too afraid of the woman's cold eyes.

The man introduced himself. "How do you do?" He asked first. Rose didn't answer at first.

"Impertinent country brat, do they not teach manners out here?" The woman asked. Even her voice had a sharp edge.

"Now, now, Madame Selene, the girl has had a trying time, perhaps we'll skip the 'how do you do's' for now and get on with the introductions." He cleared his throat and tried to stand a bit taller while introducing himself. "My name is Donovan Harlowe, and I am the Headmaster of the Red Hood Order Academy for Young Girls, more colloquially known as the Hunter's Academy, and this is Madame Selene. Commander of the Red Hood Order Army. We are here to offer you an advantageous opportunity. Enrollment in the Academy."

Rose didn't know what to say. She didn't understand half of what the man had said. Headmaster? Colloquially? Advantageous? She'd never heard these kinds of words before. She had the idea that an academy was a school of some kind. "I already go to school here." She answered.

"My dear you have no family here." The mayor reminded her. "They are offering you a home at a big school in the city. It is the best way you can make your own way in the world."

Rose's head was spinning, it hadn't occurred to her that without her gran, she had no home in the village. Suddenly at the age of six, she was expected to make her own way in the world. She looked at Headmaster Harlowe and Madame Selene. "Do i get to wear a cloak like that?" She asked.

Headmaster Harlowe chortled and answered her. "My dear you will do all kinds of things you never imagined."

She made up her mind "Then I'll go." she said.


"Hello, are you listening to me?" Blair snapped Rose out of her reverie.

"Sorry, what?" She asked.

"What is with you sometimes? You just get lost in your own little world."

"I was just thinking."

"Well come on, slowpoke, I'm ready to grab some breakfast and turn in for a well-deserved morning of sleep." Blair jumped from the bell tower to a rooftop several meters below, and then to the ground from there. Rose followed and the girls ran back to the Academy in the city center just as the neighborhood they had been watching over was stirring from it's peaceful sleep.