Disclaimer: I don't own the Once Upon a Time universe.

Characters: Red
Rating: K+
Summary: Part of Red is the wolf.
Prompt: #028 "Top Five (Characters)" for The Aviary
Word Count: 251


The Wolf

She'd always hated the cloak. Wearing it had felt like waking up the morning after a snowstorm. When it was eerily quiet, but only because the sound had been muffled by a thick blanket. And it was impossible to see with the sun hanging low in the sky and the light bouncing off glittering ice.

It made sense now, she supposed.

The cloak was that blanket of snow. All along it had meant to dampen her senses, suffocate her in nothingness.

No, not her. The wolf.

They said it often enough, didn't they? Her grandmother and Snow, especially Snow. It seemed like Snow whispered it with every breath. An icy chill would run down her spine with every word. The breath is pulled from her lungs by the rush of frozen air.

"You are not the wolf."

But when she was the wolf… Oh, when she was the wolf.

There was a rush of power that flooded through her veins, after the ice had melted. It threatened to overwhelm, crush her underneath its weight. All at once it was dark and wild and vicious and strong and terrible and beautiful.

And it was free.

Under the cloak, there had been no freedom. That part of her that had wanted to run far away, to see and smell and touch and taste, all of that had been gone. The cloak had taken the wolf from her.

A part of her had always been the wolf.

How could she ever give that up?