A/N: I've always wondered where Wolf came from and this is just my idea on how he came to be the incredible bacon-loving hero that we all love.
The prologue isn't great, but I wanted to set the scene for some later chapters.
Disclaimer: I do not own the 10th Kingdom. All of the kingdoms and characters belong to their respective owners. I only own my imagination.
From Cub to Casanova :
The story of Wolf
Prologue
People tend to fear what they don't understand and fear was all a wolf could expect in any of the Nine Kingdoms. Red Riding Hood Forest was a haven to all wolves.
They came from all over to seek shelter in its wooden embrace. It was a place where they could run free without hesitation or shame. A place where they belonged.
The human residents of the Forest and its encompassing villages had long ago forged a bond with the wolves. The incident of Red Riding Hood and the Wolf was a tale well told and objectified throughout even the Tenth Kingdom. But the people who lived there knew the true story and they grew to trust wolves to work and attend school with their kind, without any trepidation.
Wolves settled in the forest and built cottages to raise their families. Wolf pups attended class with human children and often went to work in one of the mills that outlined the Forest when they grew older. Mills seemed to be the perfect place for wolves to earn a living. The work was tough and required an amazing amount of strength and endurance that only a wolf could produce.
There were a few rare cases over the years of wolves attacking humans and the like, but those instances were discovered to be provoked or the work of a Moon-crazed wolf who had to be "taken care of." Every case was brought amongst a court of wolves and humans. The council made up of mayors from each of the neighboring towns and the Alpha wolf of each pack.
The men in the council did their best to be objective and detached from both the plaintiff and the defendent. However, the cases usually ended with prison sentences to be served in the 4th Kingdom. Snow White's Memorial Prison was a force to be reckoned with and no wolf wanted to go there. The wolves did their best to blend in with the surface and not do anything too 'wolfy' in public. Many wolves found this to be a prison sentence all on its own and they wanted nothing more than to be who they were born to be. Wild and fierce and free. Regardless of their beliefs on the subject, most of the wolves in the forest were left with no choice but to conform.
It was viewed publicly as a sense of camaraderie between humans and wolves - that had developed over the course of many decades and should be cherished and protected.
But every establishment has its flaws and errors. The biggest problem for the wolves was the FHAWA - Farmer and Huntsman Anti-Wolf Association. A group of closed minded defensive humans who thought wolves to be lower than any bottom dweller they had ever heard of. They were dense and insecure about their intelligence to the point of becoming violent. Generations after generations of shallow minded people who attacked anything they could not comprehend with violence.
The FHAWA lurked in the dark alleys of the villages and in the village pubs, preying on any narrow-minded fool who crossed their paths. They sought allies in the fight against wolves and bought their way into the minds of many slow men, who were willing to listen to anything so long as the beer was being ordered on someone else's tab.
Despite all of the problems that wolves faced, they were all content to live in the forest for as long as possible.
The forest was lovely any time of year. Its trees went on for miles - to touch the sky and grasp eachother, like children holding hands, forming a canopy at the top. The birds always sang and the golden leaves always fell softly to the ground in the Autumn. The moon loomed larger there than it did anywhere else in the 9 Kingdoms. Fireflies would dance at night to the sound of the cicadas. Faeries played games on the wolf cubs all school year long. And rabbits hopped carelessly everywhere. It was the perfect place to raise a family.