AN: Ok so this will be part one of two. It's both sides of the curtain: just before the curse happens and just after. I apologize for not having any real Red Cricket feels here. It's building to a more important scene between them in part two, I promise. Hope you like it! Read and review!
A Cricket on the Hearth
Chirp the Second, Part 1
Red sits on the bench below her window, chin resting atop crossed arms on the sill. The sky is relatively clear—a crisp pale blue that fades bright orange as the sun sets—, but she can already smell some foul magic on the wind. The entire castle knows the curse is coming this night, though they know not when or how it is they can sense its coming at all.
For her part, Red feels like her insides are on fire. Her fingers tap, her blood boils, her heart beats hard in her chest. She stands, sits, stands, paces, toys with her Gran's yarn, paces, sits, stands, sits. She just can't seem to stay still.
"If you don't quit fidgeting, girl, I'm gonna have to tie you to that chair," Granny says, glancing over the top of her glasses' gold rims.
The younger woman gives a nervous smile and lifts her legs up to sit sideways on the bench, "Sorry Gran."
"Stop your worrying," her eyes remain fixed on her knitting as she continues. "Fretting over it won't do anyone any good. It'll all turn out alright if you just have a little faith."
"Everyone keeps saying that," Red murmurs lowly, her head leaning against the window sill. Her grandmother seems to study her for a moment, probably taking in the slump in her shoulders or the fact that her fingers still have not stopped tapping.
"Here," the older woman says at last. She looks pointedly from Red to the half-finished scarf in her outstretched hand. Wary of the look on Granny's face –eyes sharp and lines around her mouth prominent—, she hesitates before reaching for the offered knitting with more than a hint of confusion.
Granny untangles herself from the excess yarn as she explains, "That oughtta keep your mind busy. I'm going down to fetch some water from the kitchen."
"Oh, don't get up, Granny. I'll—."
"Nonsense," the older woman interrupts, easily waving her off. "I need to stretch my legs."
Knowing full well she's fighting a losing battle, her granddaughter persists, "The curse could be here at any moment."
"That's no reason to sulk around in my own sloth. It won't take me more than a minute."
Red objects a bit more, Gran gives a snippy rebuttal, and it all serves as a nice distraction for a while. Until Widow Lucas is gone and the young brunette is left alone with her thoughts as well as the realization that she has completely forgotten everything she had once learned about knitting.
Distantly, she hears the erratic clang of a bell but is too caught up in her worries to wonder at its meaning.
A land without magic. What kind of place must that be? It all seems so distant a concept. No fairies, no Dark One. No wizards with their quick fixes or realm transporters with their mystic gateways. Will her cloak work? Will she become the wolf at all? It's a part of her, as real as Red herself, so it must go somewhere. Was she woman or beast in the eyes of nature? And what of True Love? If it is the most powerful magic of all, does it even exist in this strange new home?
She gnaws at the skin around her nails as the minutes creep by. Granny's been gone for longer than Red thinks should be entirely necessary. The woman turns her head toward the open doorway, expecting her grandmother's entrance at any moment. The hall looks darker, she notes. Its walls are shrouded in a deep shadow that provokes a tight knot somewhere in her abdomen. In fact, the whole castle has gone strangely silent.
Something crackles outside her door, a brief fluttering that stops abruptly.
"Gran?" she inquires hopefully. The rustling gives no response. Red's heart beats a little faster, a rabbit thumping in her chest. She moves the tangle of yarn from her lap and stands from the bench. Is this the curse? Waiting around the corner like a stalking cat?
But no dark magic awaits her—not yet. It's just "Jiminy!"
"Red!" he responds in kind, suspended in front of her face by a blur of translucent wings. His voice is tainted with a fearful urgency. "We need to get—" A loud crash cuts him off, and both creatures snap their heads toward the door.
"What was that?" the woman asks, voice hurried and green eyes wide.
"The queen's men have infiltrated the castle. I'm the only one able to make it down the halls unnoticed. The curse," he finally stops to breathe here, "it's here." Every worry she'd mulled over (and over and over) in her mind rushes to the surface in a wave of panic and nausea. Another sharp thud echoes through the corridor.
"Shut the door," Jiminy orders urgently. Red obeys without question, her feet surprisingly unwavering as adrenaline washes over her.
She cries out in surprise as one of the queen's black knights makes contact with the door just as she fits it into the frame. The intruder rams it again, and Red's forearms give out under the force against them. She pivots, pressing her back against the wood for better leverage. He hits it again.
"Jiminy!" she yells at the poor bug hovering helplessly beside her. "The lock!"
Hits it again.
Jim catches her meaning immediately. The cricket hurries to the thick, sliding latch above her head, buzzing as loud as a cicada in her ear as he pushes with all his strength.
Hits it again.
Red tries to block out her surroundings, tries to focus on concentrating her strength. Despite herself, she asks, "Did you see Granny? Is she ok?"
Hits it again.
Jiminy speaks in an obviously exerted voice as he tells her, "She's safe. She and Gepetto are hidden somewhere they won't be found."
Hits it again.
The company Gran is left with doesn't entirely comfort Red, but she trusts when Jiminy says they are somewhere secure.
"Is Pinocchio with them?" she asks. Her legs fail her for a moment as the knight gives a particularly rough shove. Red yelps but quickly launches herself back against the door with enough vigor to knock the breath from her lungs. Above her, she hears the lock click into place. The knight's patience tears. His irritation bleeds out with an animalistic growl and a series of erratic blows against the wood. The woman he's cursing leaps—or perhaps simply falls—from her place as though the thick oak door has caught flame.
She stumbles to her feet, breath still heavy and back aching. But then, as she focuses on the window in search of an escape route, she sees it. A cloud of purple smoke seeps through the gaps around the edges of the sill and pushes against the glass like ice expanding in a small cup. It fissures loudly under the pressure.
The brunette looks to her companion and finds his black eyes staring blankly at the cracks from his perch on a still rattling door.
She remembers her own fears now, the frightening concept of what will become of the beast inside her. Some strange emotion claws in the middle of her chest as she takes in his small, segmented form. She swallows thickly, eyes growing warm as several unwarranted worst-case scenarios form in her mind.
"What will happen to you?" she asks. He looks at her, and for the first time, she interprets the expression without doubt or hesitation. Jiminy is afraid.
"I don't know," he tells her. His voice is lost, small.
The window bursts.