Author's Note: Some changes have been made to the story due to new ideas I incorporated into it. Thanks for you patience and I hope you can enjoy the story.


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Red thought she knew what nightmares where, what they did, what they could do. She thought that maybe she could keep them from turning her into one of them, but she hadn't known that they could be like this; an actual force that crept though her like a poison, painful and full of anger and fear and it was there and real.

They were everywhere. She couldn't get away. They clawed at her, they wouldn't let her forget those fears and every time she had failed, hurt somebody. She wasn't strong she wasn't strong at all, how did she ever think she could stand up to the dictator of Fear himself when she had so much of it? It was filling her, suffocating her, turning her into a monster and she couldn't. Get. OUT!

Screaming, flailing, thrashing around didn't do anything. They just came in closer, ready to finish the last little struggles in her off, and Red was sure that this time it was going to happen. How could she hold on when there was nothing left to hold onto? There was just nothing left...

(Back at the battle, Jamie's hand hit the nightmare-sand, turning it gold)

Screams. Red thought they were coming from her, or some other trick the blackness was playing on her, but she realized they weren't. They were coming from the nightmares; unearthly, harsh, and grating as something kept striking them, bursting them into nothing.

Wait, Red stumbled to her feet to see what was actually happening.

They aren't turning into nothing, she realized. They were turning into...dreamsand?

Now that she wasn't having to struggle for her very sanity, she started noticing the thin but bright gold whips slashing at the creatures. But Sandy had been completely destroyed by Pitch...hadn't he? How could this be real? She felt just as confused as before. What was going on? How was all this happening?

(The Baby Tooth Fairies started touching the tooth boxes, helping the children remember. One of them touched one with a picture of a girl with long brown hair and bangs, brown eyes, and a certain trio of freckles under her right eye)

"Ngh!" Red clutched at her head as she stumbled backwards. Everything was starting to split, to shatter; turning into diamonds and turning over with something behind them. Pain started building up at the back of her mind, but it was weird. It hurt, but almost like it was trying to do something good when everything else was so terrible. It almost felt like is was calling her...home.

Red let them turn over, and pain show her what it was.

Next thing she knew, pictures were flashing before her eyes; things that she had no idea why they would matter, what they meant. Until she saw a spiky, brown haired boy on the ice across from a girl will long brown hair. That picture, that scene... Everything started to slam into place, as if the last heavy object had been pushed out of the way, the last wall broken down.

Memories, she realized, turning around, shaking her head, almost unable to believe that's what it was as they continued to flash by. They were all memories. This, that girl, was her. Before she was Red Riding Hood, before then when she was Roux. Named for the red hair she used to have as a toddler before it turned brown. The youngest of a family of three who moved from Europe to a Pennsylvania colony, younger sister to her brother who died to save her from the ice on a lake when she was eleven. Her brother Jack, who only a short while after his death tales of the mischievous but protecting and warning Spirit of Winter started. Jack, who looked and acted and was just like Jack Frost.

She groaned. How could she not have seen it? How could she have forgotten?

Her head was spinning with guilt and shame in herself as her life kept flashing before her eyes: After Jack's death moving to Minnesota to start over from the superstitions from the other villagers in Pennsylvania; settling in a village outside a forest that had a logging camp deep inside it; making friends with a wolf pup; her mother meeting and falling in love with a man from the lumber yard with a pair of twins; them all becoming family and one coming on the way; along with a red cloak made by her mother and name to match for her visits into woods for herbs for the "grandma" of the village and wood, along with going to the lumberyard to give lunches to her Dad. And after all this was when her biggest question was answered, what Pitch had taunted her about and what she desperately wanted to know: why she was here, and how she had come to be Red Riding Hood~

It was autumn, and the time of the harvest was coming to a close, while the Harvest Festival was coming up. Which for Roux meant that work at the lumberyard was almost over and Dad would be coming and staying home soon, along with gathering last minute herb seasonings for foods and medicine at "Granny's" (more or less the village's old crazy lady) orders, as well as a few other unlucky teens.

So Roux, playfully bemoaning about her task to her step-siblings and ma, swept on her red cloak and snatched a basket to gather the herbs she was assigned to find. Swinging the door closed, she also grabbed the crossbow by the door before she went out.

It was a present made and given to her by her step-father (or Papa as she called him) from the year or two before when she started bringing him lunch through the forest. As he had always said along with her mom's warnings of always being on the path, "Don't go through the woods without something as a weapon."

And so, properly equipped for her task and with protection, she set of into forest to get the things for Granny. She'd followed the path, true to her mothers wishes the entire time she was out there since morning. By the time evening started to come down and it was time to go, she had most of her basket filled with the needed herbs, mushrooms, and other such things from the forest.

She'd gone everywhere to get them all, including near and away from the village and lumberyard and into the wilder spots that made her glad to have the crossbow at her side. Those places also made her wish that Tar was there, but he was better suited for the yard than a small home with kids; Tar of course was the wolf she'd befriended.

She was on her way back home through the twisting trails as such, proud and excited to get back, when she heard screams.

Stopped in her tracks, the girl listened hard and worked on loading the crossbow. She heard it again, to the right, into the woods and off the trail. They were small and high, telling her that what they were coming from were kids.

The basket fell to the ground, and Roux was plunging into the forest, jumping, running, and leaping to reach the shouts. The trees started to thin out, and she slowed.

Ahead was a clearing with a large oak close to the center. Two kids that looked like siblings were there, some small branches and pieces of wood along with an ax at their feet. Five wolves had surrounded them and were now closing in on the duo, snarling and yelping enough to rival saws from the yard.

The wolves were thinner than they should, and she could see that a few of them had patches of fur missing and foam gathered and stuck around their mouths. So they were sick and or starving, and managed to catch a few kids that had strayed from the trail.

Roux brought the crossbow to her shoulder. There was no way she was going to abandon some kids to wolves, and she might have a chance since the wolves would be hampered from hunger.

The wolves got impatient and advanced. She shot one bolt at the snapping, frothing wolf that was closest to the two kids.

Striking the wolf at the base of its neck, it dropped dead with hardly a whine. But Roux was already working on reloading her crossbow. She would only have a chance to load it one more time at best before she would have to-

She screamed as something slammed into her, sharp teeth at her shoulder and hot diseased breath wafting into her ear.

The crossbow clattered to the ground as she thrashed under the wolf, trying to get away from the beast. Her free arm went flailing to grasp the weapon again. The bolt was by some miracle still in there, ready to be released. Her hand finally manged to get it, and she swung it toward the creature before pulling the trigger.

It shot in between the ribs, and the wolf released her while she scrambled to get away. It went into its death throws, crushing her crossbow beneath it before she had the chance to pull it away.

Staggering to her feet, Roux raced to the kids inside the clearing, ignoring her dizzy, tilting vision and fire in and under her shoulder.

Two of the last wolves were at the edge of the forest across from her, nervous, but the other had driven the kids up the oak tree in the area. The little boy was safe in the higher branches, but the girl was struggling; the wolf's teeth were locked firmly on the girl's boot, trying to drag her down. The ax Roux had seen on the ground was still there, and she picked it up, the handle turning slick.

The wolf yelped as the blunt end of the ax head hit its side, and it ran. Then Roux was there, boosting the girl as best she could with her good arm and shoulder higher into the tree. The girl just managed to get up there before Roux was back on the ground, wolf at her leg.

She kicked at it with her free foot, and grasped for the ax handle just out of reach. Pain once more and screams, from her and the siblings in the tree.The wolf was back, claws at her already wounded shoulder and going at her back with hot breath coming down on her neck, teeth piercing skin. Howls told her the other two were coming in, but all she could think was that the kids in the tree would be safe, and hoping that her family would be okay. More than anything, she was hoping her sacrifice right now wouldn't make Jack's be in vain.

She heard a shout, a loud thwap!, and dead weight suddenly collapsing on top of her. Turning as best she could with the sudden weight, she tried to see who could have taken the shot. Papa.

Scarred face set, wood peels and dust still all over his clothes, he was there: His handcrafted and powerful crossbow on the ground, its one-bolt opportunity spent, while his own, large ax from the yard went to work on the last two wolves left. Soon, they were down and dead as well. Her dad then rushed over to her and the kids.

"It's alright," he said to the siblings. "you're safe now. I'm going to help you down in just a moment."

He bent down by Roux, and murmured something about needing to get the thing off her and keeping still. She didn't quite catch it.

Locking his hands around the stiff jaws that still gripped her neck, he pried them apart. She hissed as he did it, but nothing else made it out. She did the same as he dug the claws out of her shoulder before he shoved the beast off of her.

Then, tenderly and carefully as a father could, brought her up from the ground and against the tree, but it still hurt nonetheless. It was almost funny how during the fight she really only felt pain briefly right after the bite or claws, but now it seemed everything was a hundred times more sensitive and all of it hurting.

Papa wiped his hands on the dying grass before bring them to his face, frowning. Turning back to the wolf, he wiped them there on its coat before he turned to the kids in the tree; leaving the places red.

Roux looked at herself, and saw just how much of it he had gotten from her rather than the wolves; her clothes were soaked in blood, browning in some places where it had started to dry, while dark and shining red from the wounds on her leg and shoulder, and most likely was from her neck and back too. It was a stark contrast to her skin, now a lot paler than it was before.

Seeing the kids coming down from the oak with the help of her dad, she tugged her cloak over the worst looking places so they wouldn't have to see it. Her pa and the kids were at the base of the tree next to her, and Papa was holding the young girl on his knee, unlacing her shredded boot to asses the damage. The little boy, unharmed, was looking over the woodcutter's shoulder, eyes locked on his sister's foot.

While the girl's eyes had been glazed in pain and fear as Roux's father brought her down and now as he worked on her leg, the boy's eyes were wide and clear, and full of that fear. Not the frantic and panicked fear someone who's protecting another has like his sister had been, but that deep-running fear, that terror, that comes from being helpless and seeing all the horror of what happened. The same kind of fear Roux had seen on her own face reflected back to her from that frozen, icy lake as she watched her brother sink in its depths, struggles slowing and ice growing on his skin as it turned blue.

Snapping back to the present, Roux saw the little boy's face again instead of Jack's or her own. The little boy finally looked away from his sister, eyes shut tight and tears leaking out and down his face. His sister's foot was now bear and Papa talking to her and still keeping her steady with one hand while the other tried to find the boy's. But the boy had stepped back, trying in what Roux knew was to keep from being in anyone else's way, to keep from having anyone else get hurt because of him.

Acting almost without realizing, she reached out with her good arm and pulled him into a hug. The little boy was stiff for a moment, before he finally broke: sobs finally tearing out of him as he searched for comfort, which Roux gave to him wholeheartedly.

Someone spoke, and they both broke away. The girl was leaning against the tree to help support her, and her brother came flying at her for a hug, and they both went down in those grateful kind of tears and laughs. For Roux, Papa just came to her slowly, face looking proud and devastated at the same time as he settled down next to her.

"The girl will be alright. The wolf twisted her ankle up and there are some gashes and bite marks, but nothing that can't heal." His eyes strayed back to Roux, and this time she could see tears as well. She opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to it.

"If I had just been here sooner," His voice was quiet, but harsh and ruthless, completely turned on himself. "If I had been faster in coming home then I could've helped, I could have saved y-" Here his voice gave out, and he looked at Roux, at her too-pale skin and her wounds, and finally to her face.

"I'm sorry." He picked her up again and into a hug, holding her as close to him as he could.

Roux hugged him back. "It'll be okay." She could feel Papa stiffen, but she went on. "You, Mom, the twins and the baby, all of you can be okay."

She pushed herself away and smiled at him. "Besides, it's not like I'll really be gone. I'll be watching over you always, so you doing have to be sad." Now she was tearing up too. "And to top it all off I'll get to see Jack again!'' She laughed a little, still crying and Papa did the same for a bit.

"I'll have to take the siblings back first. The girl's foot is bad enough that she won't be able to walk, and the boy has been through enough that he'll probably have to be carried too. And of course-"

"-you don't go through the woods without something as a weapon," Roux finished for him. He didn't look happy about it, but he nodded.

"I'll come back for you," he said, and he clutched her in a hug once more.

"See you at the festival?" she asked, tears coming again. All he did was nod, not trusting himself enough to speak. She held unto him as best she could with her numbing arms. Something fell down, and she looked up.

Snow. Falling, and beautiful. She watched it, and something caught her eye. Brown and white, a teenage boy crouched in a tree. He looked sad, along with looking disappointed and frustrated at himself. His eyes were shining, and the wind ruffled that spiky hair she would recognize anywhere, white or brown.

"Jack Frost," she whispered, remembering the tales and stories of him, along with her brother. She smirked. How did she not see that sooner? Of course Jack would be a mischievous spirit of winter, always there for the good times and the bad. There in a way that could make a difference around the world, just as he'd always wanted to be. The snow fell harder, and she looked up at it with a smile and laughter as it made her eyes flutter, then close, the world slowly fading away.

Everything was dark and, not cold exactly, but hard. She couldn't move or think, but then something small and insistent seemed to start nudging her. She wasn't even sure what it wanted, but it just wouldn't leave her alone. All she knew is that something in her chest was getting tight as though trying to get something, and there was a pounding, throbbing pain all over that just kept building. It got louder and harder and she wanted it to stop. Finally, she managed to make part of her move, and she was suddenly breathing.

Her eyes flew open as she coughed, trying to catch her breath. Above her, a red harvest moon was in the sky, showering her in red-tinged light through the leaves of the tree above her. Bright slivers of the light streaked over the gashes and scars on the girl, seamlessly stitching and healing them back up. A rich red from a time before bled into her hair, while her eyes shifted to the warm tone of a home fire. The girl unconsciously grasped at the worn cloak around her shoulders, and the touch sent a ripple through it, empowering it with a bit of herself without knowing it.

She thought she saw something in the trees farther away, maybe a growl too, and she shivered. This new world scared her, and she wasn't even sure who she was supposed to be. Maybe because it was the first thing she saw, or maybe because the light seemed welcoming; but for whatever reason, she looked to the moon. And Red was her answer.

Red, Roux, gasped, suddenly ripped out of the past. She was back at the darkness, the gold sand thin and drifting, and all the memories slowly turning back and closing in on themselves again. Everything was slowly disappearing, shifting to the hard, cold darkness again. Roux was too, seeming to slow and freeze, unable to get out on her own, as the darkness was still in her and there was nothing to get it out.