[u](Collaboration Post Featuring YoshiSkittlez's Red Riding Hood & Major Ursa's Black Night)[/u]

Hidden underneath a hollowed out log in a small, empty trench a dark-haired girl stretched out her limbs as the first of the afternoon sun crept over the log and tickled at her nose. Brushing at her nose with her hand as if it were a paw, Red eventually climbed out of the small trench and rolled out onto the small open area of grass and stared up at the sky, watching the fluffy white clouds roll lazily by. Sure the moment could have been described as 'peaceful' or even 'beautiful' but nothing, in Red's opinion, could compare to that of the late night sky she had spent the previous night running under...as a wolf.

There was just something about the darkness of the sky and fullness of the moon that got Red's adraneline pumping in the best of ways. She wondered often why she let herself turn back into a human most of the time anyway, especially now when her heart hurt the most.

Reaching into the ditch, Red pulled out her red cloak that had been bundled up and threw it on, pulling the hood up and over her head and began to aimlessly walk through the woods. It had been a few months now since Red had stayed in an actual home, and even longer than that since she had slept in her own home with her Granny. Ever since Snow White's passing, she just couldn't bring herself to being around people. She felt responsible, and with that, came the guilt.

Red had no idea how far she had wandered, distracted by her aimless thoughts, however the sound of a squealing bird caught her attention quickly and her keen eyes happened upon the scene of an arrow piercing the strange bird to a tree just moments before. With her dark eyes narrowing, she followed the projectile from where the arrow came and saw a man in the distance garbed in White, a 'cute' effort of matching his horse she supposed. She was seconds away from tearing off her cloak and letting her wolf form take over to nip at the beasts legs as some sort of pennance for killing such an innocent creature, but the shadows of the forest instead caught her attention.

At first she didn't even see the man standing in the center of where the shadows seemed to be coming from, even with her wolf eye-sight it took a bit of adjusting to find his outline. It didn't help that he was wearing all black either, but thats when her sense of scent kicked in...something smelt...off about him.

"H-hello?" She called out to him tentatively, taking a few steps closer towards the strange man, no longer interested in the man in white who had just taken off on his horse.

There had been an appropriate sort of...stillness to the area effected by his presence. The bird had previously caught him off-guard, followed up quickly by his 'friend' Day...Night could almost believe that bad 'things' came in threes, especially when he saw a red riding hood.

Thankfully, it wasn't Sun, but that meant dealing with what would happen next. There were certain expected behaviors associated with meeting normal civilians of this or another kingdom, most would just turn back around, or gasp and turn back around, or faint. With his gnarly black armour worn in it's entirety, it only puzzled him when she drew nearer still.

"..."

[i]"Tell me, miss...be you thief, or murderer?"[/i] Such a simple question, with a simple answer. Unasked. If Night wasn't so, just so hopeful that this innocent enough looking human wasn't a criminal, maybe he'd have asked her. One thing the shade disliked was inspiring dishonesty in his actions, in himself.

"..."

The question seemed further and further away with each passing second, so he decided to settle for another, "What are you still doing here...?!" The question was asked in a harsh whisper, but without a single living creature within the effected area, it came out as clear as day and as piercing as an arrow. Night regarded her from where he stood, expecting an...interesting response.

The brunette let out a laugh, a strange yet welcoming contrast to the quietness of the woods. She walked closer still to Night, though her steps were cautious; not because of fright, just wariness. She lowered her red hood, letting her dark hair fall free to her shoulderblades and ran her fingers through her locks a few times before she felt that her hair was sitting right.

"You mean you can't tell?" She asked, her tone teasing and light.

"Look, I normally don't run into people this deep in the woods, the least I could do was see if you were okay." She added on, her tone changing to that of seriousness. She stopped walking when she was about twenty feet away from the looming dark figure, and what was stranger still was that she wasn't able to see him any better then when she was a hundred feet away; despite her keen eyesight. The shadows that covered him were just too...dark, but his presence didn't feel as such.

The easiness of her tone, of her way of speaking, her line of questioning, her laughing..."Don't you know it's the nature of an injured beast to want to be left alone?!" Night didn't mean to snap at her like this, but jealousy inside of him boiled over. This woman, here...she could save her laughter, her questioning, her [i]teasing[/i] for somewhere more pleasant, brighter, surrounded with friends and family. Relaxing his tense shoulders, he spoke more quietly as a follow up to his momentary outburst, crossing his arms over his chest soundlessly...which was 'odd', since the gnarliness of his armour should have made for something with a more distracting array of sound, "Forgive me, for such an outburst...I am fine, I..."

As if on cue, his black horse trotted over from behind the bush to stand beside him. From all angles, this was just a regular horse in every respects, but their past journeys together remonstrated such notions. Reaching to gently run a hand over the horse's shiny mane, Night turned his helmed head to face the girl once more, and more confidently this time, "An array of criminal and fiend hide in the darkest reaches of this forest. Are you a fiend, or are you perhaps a fool...?"

Stepping away from his horse, he stepped soundlessly over to the already decaying corpse of the corrupted bird. Pointing down at it, "Tell me, are you a dumb animal such as this?" Asking to to her rather coldly, looking her in the eye, he shifted a boot onto the black stained creature and crushed it under foot into the dirt.

A muscle in Red's jaw clenched at his initial outburst however the arrival of the horse had her keep her tongue. Strange, she didn't hear or smell the horse approaching like she normally would have. This caused her brow to quirk in question as she watched the man pet the animal. She was about to answer his question with a rather snide remark but again was cut off short, this time by his actions. The crunching of tiny, hollow bones reached her sensitive ears quickly and she was unable to help but run a few paces towards him angrily.

"STOP!" Now she was ten feet away where she slowed down and eventually held her position, even more leery now upon her approach. "The bird is already dead, you need not harm it more...that's just cruel." She knew that she probably sounded like a stupid little girl to him, but if there was one thing she couldn't stand it was disrespect towards a creature, living or not. Without even so much as waiting for an apology from him (which she highly doubted she'd get anyway) she threw up her hands in defeat.

"Well it seems you're fine, so I'll be on my way." She jabbed, sounding more angry with him than anything now, annoyed with his actions. She should have figured him for one of the Evil Queen's guards long ago, he matched the persona though the outfit didn't quite match up. With an irritated shake of her head, indicating to him that she was disappointed in him, she turned on her heel to walk in the opposite direction, pulling her red hood back up and over her head.

Under that helmet, Night's eye didn't leave the red of the girl's hood till it was engulfed by the green of the forest as she left through the brush. The forest may have been a dangerous place, like he had previously mentioned, but...something told him that the young woman would be alright. Now, lifting a boot off of the bird, there was nothing more than bones left where it had fallen. Crouching down, the gauntlets on his hands dispersed into the air, like a fine black mist. With his fingers, carefully picking up each bone and bone fragments, he set them on the palm of his other hand. Soon, he had a handful of bones...

Going over to the tree it had been previously pinned to, with the gnarly metal of his armoured boot, he kicked a little hole into the dirt in front of it. This would be...enough...