Title: Better Than a Soap Opera

Chapter: Bedtime Myths and Legends

Summary: When Claire asks for a bedtime story, Quil has no choice but to obey. But what kind of story does a werewolf tell his young imprint?

AN: Thanks to PiscesChick for telling me what is supposed to be the actual Quileute story on imprinting and wolves! :D This chapter is dedicated to you for inspiring me! I did take liberties with the story, though, lol.

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Twilight. That's all Stephenie Meyer. I just like the empty holes I can fill up with my imagination. :3 But, really, who doesn't find joy in fan fiction?

The little girl snuggled into my side, casting her blanket off. I didn't blame her; my own body heat was enough to keep her warm as we huddled into bed together. I liked this, being able to put her to bed at night. I liked being able to be there for her through whatever. Even bedtime.

"Quil..." Claire said my name in her small voice. "Will you tell me a story?"

I thought it over. "I don't think I really know any stories, Claire."

"No fairy tales at all?" She glanced up at me with her round, child eyes, and I couldn't help but melt and try to think of something.

"I know one fairy tale," I told her, and I began to tell her a story, half built on fact, half built on imagination.

--

Once, there was a young man in the village of old that everyone was beginning to look up to. He was strong, handsome, and very honest. Younger boys wanted to be a warrior just like him, older men wanted him to join their hunting parties. Women, young and old, wanted the warrior man for their own. However, the young man was very picky.

He wanted the perfect princess for his bride.

None of the women fit his criteria.

He wanted a girl who was as beautiful and willful as he was handsome and strong. The bride he sought after had to be his partner in everything.

The women who went after him were neither beautiful enough, or were too docile, or they talked too much about too much. With a frown and growing disappointed, he waved every one of them away, deeming them unworthy to be with a man such as himself.

He was a prideful man.

There was one girl, only a few years younger than our arrogant hero, that did not try to seek his hand in marriage. She knew what it was he was looking for, and though she met most of his criteria, there was one thing that she was missing the most: beauty. She did not feel she was pretty enough to stand in front of the man she was in love with and offer herself up as his perfect partner. The girl hid herself under cloaks of wolf hides, not wishing to catch his attention.

It is just better this way, she told herself everyday as she spied the young man.

And she successfully avoided the man for a long time this way.

Now, a couple of years had passed by now, and the young man was now a man, and the girl was now just a woman. The man had still never seen the woman's face, but he had heard of her wit and wished to meet the one woman who had never presented herself to him. The woman was as unwed as the man, but she had grown into herself, even if she wasn't the beauty the man had boasted of wanting.

When the hero asked about the woman, he was told something incredible. So incredible, in fact, that it made him desire to see her all the more.

"She does not show her face to any man," he was told. "She hides behind the face of a wolf."

"What do you mean?" The man asked.

Another of the village's hunters stepped forward upon hearing this and said, "She fashioned herself a mask that resembles the face of a wolf, and she wears the hides that she cleans herself from the wolves who die naturally."

See, in this village, the wolf was a sacred animal, and anyone who was granted the gift of hides was indeed one blessed by the gods.

The man could no longer ignore the woman, and he knew that he had to meet her. But how? He doubted that she would willingly meet with him if she spent all this time avoiding him.

He could go as an animal in disguise, as she did, but the man knew that he could not trick her. He was a brave warrior who faced down man and beast alike. Confronting her made his heart beat faster and sweat gather in his palms, though, and it reminded him of battle more than anything else.. His feet moved without thought until she was in his sights, cloaked in the way that he said she would be. She saw him approach, and her body went still. She may have been dressed as a wolf, but he could recognize her body language. She was more like a deer who had spotted the predator.

He walked closer to her still, and she did not run. "I have come to meet you," he called out to her.

She answered in a calm voice. "Have you come to judge me as you did the others?"

The wolf-woman did not run, and he took this as a good sign as he came up to her, only a foot separating the two. "I am not here to judge you."

But she didn't believe him. She knew the man, and she knew how the man could be. "You have judged the other women, and though they were much more beautiful than I, you cast them aside."

He thought over her words. It was true... He had judged those who had wanted to be with him harshly. "Let me see your face so I can decide for myself."

The woman didn't reply for a few minutes, but then she nodded. Her hands lifted to her mask, fingers pressed against her handsome handiwork. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let her wolf face drop from her human one.

She opened her eyes and waited for him to walk away from her. She was not beautiful in the way he had spoken of wanting. His eyebrows rose high on his forehead, his eyes widening. She held her breath as he began to twitch. This was it, and she knew it. He would deem her unworthy. Even though she knew this was about to happen, she couldn't help but feel her bursting love for him throughout her whole body. He could deny her, but at least she had faced the man she loved with her own face.

It was then that the most amazing thing began to happen. The man stepped closer to her, cupping her face. She gasped as he spoke his most beautiful words. "I have been waiting my whole life for my wolf queen."

He changed then, his body shifting right before her eyes. He went from man to wolf in an instant as she clutched her makeshift face more tightly in her hands. When the transformation was over, a giant wolf stood before her, and she knew the man that she had fallen in love with was the Wolf God himself, posing as a human man for years in search of his love. She climbed onto his back, placing her mask back onto her face, and the god took her to his forest realm, where they lived...

--

"Happily ever after," I whispered, finishing up my story with a well known line from the fairy tale stories Claire was probably used to hearing. The benefit on the famous line might as well have been for my own ears, as well as the last half of the story. I knew my girl had fallen asleep to the sound of my voice ages ago.

Still... I wanted her to hear the story of the wolf-man and the woman who loved him despite what he looked like.

I slipped away from Claire, placing her gently in the bed and covering her up. Leaning down, I smoothed her hair from her face, giving her a small kiss on the top of her head.

I could only hope that one day...

One day, she would be like the woman from my story, accepting me for everything that I was...

And everything that I would continue to be.

AN: Only one chapter left in this story. I bet you all can guess who the last voice will be!