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

It didn't take long for Red, accompanied by Night and his horse, to make it to the river that divided the land from the forest and the village. With a tremendous bounding leap, Red cleared the seven-foot-wide river and landed deftly on the other side, turning to look back at Night for a moment who was still a pretty far ways back. A sudden new scent filled the wolf's nose, causing her to put the red cloak down delicately on the unburned green grass and sniff at the air. The villagers...a few miles down the stream...something had them in a panic and it was too intense and immediate for it to be just the fire that slowly burned its way towards their village. There was another scent...something Red hadn't come across before...something with bad breath...

Keeping pace behind the werewolf, there were a few moments where Night alternated between walking and brisk walking. There wasn't much of a strain, especially since they were now out of the burning woods, and the night he personified was slowly nearing. Coming to a river, and watching the wolf leap over it...he couldn't just bring himself to do similar, since he wanted to maintain his intimidating armour, even if it did restrict much of his movements. Walking around or looking for a small bridge could take some time, but he didn't want to have his new companion wait too long for him. And so, Night dropped into the water with a very audible splash.

A full minute passed, still water and no bubbles, before the top of his helmet became visible as he trudged out of the water and onto the mud of the shores. Ignoring how wet he had become, the water still pouring out of his gnarly armour in sections, Night resumed following the werewolf...but after a moment, she dropped her cloak onto some unburned grass to sniff the air carefully. 

If it were possible to identify when a wolf was shaking its head and sighing, that was exactly what Red was doing. She pawed at the red cloak on the grass until it was hidden amongst the roots of a nearby bush and turned to look at Night before her glowing eyes looked back to the village. Whatever this...'[i]Wraith[/i]' decided to do now was all on him, but Red couldn't just stand idly by when a village was in immediate danger. So, in having no other way to communicate this to the man in black, Red turned to trot down the path that led to the small village.

After what must have been a moment for thought, the werewolf haphazardly went to hide her cloak in a hole dug under some bushes...which felt rather urgent, especially since the forest was pretty much still on fire, and had the potential to spread. This was proven by the burnt grass. The bush wasn't safe, the cloak wasn't either. Turning to point this out, the werewolf was already bounding away to whatever emergency seemed to distract her away from hiding her important personal belonging. Reaching down to the bush, Night brushed the dirt off of the cloak carefully.

It seems like it was made of an interesting material, and was kept in careful condition. Brushing off more dirt from it, Night dispersed the material darkness of his gnarled armour long enough to tuck the folded red cloak away. Letting out another long sigh, something that seemed to happen more frequently with his new friend, the shade went and followed her down the path.

The chase continued, the best growing frustrated. Chasing prey was indeed an exciting task but the fun was over. The large creature picked up the pace, going even faster than before. It began to startle the horse, clawing and biting at its legs. The horse carried on and the beast roared in annoyance. Running next to the horse the horned creature rammed the horse into a nearby home. The wooden walls to the cottage gave way to the force. Regaining itself the beast stood on its hind legs, the slightest hunch in its back as the house was not tall enough for its eight foot height.

There were quick footsteps and pained breaths. Turning around the beast snarled as it caught a second of Mushu’s disappearing figure. Dropping to all fours it roared at the female that ran. A snort of irritation followed as it leapt forward and towards the young woman. Quickly catching up to the small female the beast pinned her to the ground. One clawed hand holding her down with ease. It snarled at the woman fangs bared, saliva dripping from its powerful jaws.

A second, vicious snarl resounded through the new night air. With a sudden [i]whoosh[/i] and a blur of black fur, a wolf had bounded to the scene seemingly out of nowhere, jumping over the helpless woman and lunging at the beast that was seconds away from ending the human's life. Being half the size of the beast, however, Red didn't so much as make the beast stumble backwards a few steps. With her mouth open upon the initial attack, however, Red's jaws clenched down on the beasts throat getting nothing but fur as its thick coat seemed to prove to be a lot denser than Red had been counting on.

Taken by surprise the creature stepped back as it felt a fair amount of weight on its back. Feeling the wolf’s fangs pull at fur the beast growled and stood up straight. Having difficulty grabbing the wolf the beast continued to reach. Finally it was able to grab hold of something. Pulling the wolf from its tail the beast managed to rip the animal off its back and toss it some distance. Looking at the canine the beast growled a warning as it stood its ground; fangs bared eyes never leaving the wolf’s.

The wolf yelped in pain upon being thrown to the ground, but Red was back on her four legs in seconds, standing her own ground against the beast twice her size with her own lips curled back, baring her canines threateningly. It was only now that Red got a good look at the beast and knew for certain that some sort of dark magic had to have been involved. There were no [i]real[/i] creatures like this, at least not in this area; she knew these forests like she would know her own home and what she was looking at wasn't at all familiar to her. Red walked tentatively towards the beast, putting herself between the beast and the woman who had managed to pull herself back up off of the floor, though her hand cradled her arm heavily where blood had begun to pour.

Red snorted as the smell of blood filled her nose. No doubt the beast in front of her would have picked up on it too. Red snarled at the beast once more, doing what she could to keep its attention away from the bleeding human. She bravely lunged forwards towards the beast, using her massive paw to swipe at the beast’s ankles before retreating back a few paces in the opposite direction of the human and the village and towards the burning forest. She wasn't finished however, as the beast seemed not to care too much for the 'pest' at its ankles.

Red lunged forward again just as soon as she had regained her footing from nipping at the monsters ankles and sunk her teeth around the small base of the tail and clamped her strong jaws shut. If this beast’s tail was as sensitive as hers was, then she knew she had the beast’s attention.

A loud, ear piercing yowl escaped the beast’s throat. Swatting at the wolf the creature roared in annoyance, fur standing on end as it dropped down on all fours, another snarl escaping it. It stepped forward towards the wolf, right hand slashing the smaller creature across the face forcing a pained yelp to come from the wolf and making it drop its grip on the beast’s tail. Getting closer it roared at the wolf once more. This animal was a simple nuisance, getting rid of it wouldn’t be a difficult task. Now that the wolf had the beast’s attention, however, Red backed up, keeping her eyes on the beast as she led it away from the village doing her best to ignore the white-hot sting of pain across her face and hot trickles of blood falling to the ground.

Night took the path down to the village, actually quite pleased that the villagers had fled, leaving the area much abandoned. There were...patches of blood soaked into the dirt from some sort of long fight, but what concerned him the most was the lady down the road pacing around with an injured arm. For the moment, she seemed to be trying to fix herself up, grab her piece of equipment, before going...where? Though she stared further down a village path, she seemed reluctant, even cursing under her breath. Another thing Night took quite a notice of was her lack of fear towards him, at least, she didn't seem to feel his presence nor shrink away from him as he continued to approach.

"With that arm injury, I don't think continuing a pursuit of any kind would be choice."

"You couldn't possibly understand, I have a deal to keep." The woman said, suddenly seeming to make up her mind and ventured off towards where the wolf and beast had gone.

The shade didn't quite understand why people wanted to cause him so much grief. Shaking his head in disbelief, "Are you kidding me? What are you so insistent on--" It was at that moment, going over and taking a look, that Night noticed the werewolf again...this time, bloodied, brutalised severely, still in a fight with some kind of beast. It didn't look natural, from anything he'd seen in his travels, though unnatural...maybe some semblance to magically fused creatures. Magic. It wasn't a sure thing, but he didn't even like the idea in his mind.

Letting out a loud whistle, Night wasn't entirely surprised at how fast his horse came onto the scene. From how smart and well trained it was, he was almost certain it already knew of the situation, and had been waiting on standby for certain orders. Through his helmet, he met the eyes of his horse before striding over to the beast on beast battle, stopping for only a moment before pointing at the woman, "Don't let her interfere." The horse let out a loud neigh, its equivalent of an 'affirmative', before trotting to stand in front of the small petite lady.

The woman seemed to scowl at this, and tried to walk around it, but the horse blocked her. The woman tried to duck under the large horse, but is lowered itself so that there wouldn't be enough space for her to try it...and when she tried to catch it off guard and jump up over it, the horse lifted it head and knocked the side of the woman, while simultaneously catching the collar of her shirt and slamming her down in front of it. After a moment, both the horse and the woman got up...this seemed to be the last straw for the woman as she drew out a knife with her uninjured arm, but the horse thought little of it. Blocking the woman's approach, and side-stepping a jab, the horse head-butt the woman (rather gently) flat onto the ground. Using a hoof to knock the blade away, it stood over the woman and neighed triumphantly.

The smaller animal was faster than the beast, but that didn’t deter the creature. It was determined to destroy this animal. The scent of the wolf’s blood had already entered its nose. Pushing forward as hard as the beast could, it launched itself forward. The two tumbled in a mess of fur, claws and fangs. Yelps and whimpers escaping each creature. Tumbling out of the mess the beast shook its horned head and roared. Running towards the wolf, the creature’s heavy blow was dodged by a hair. The tree it charged into not standing a chance as it snapped and fell over. The pained howling and whimpers from the wolf echoed through the night sending shivers down the spine of any villager that was unfortunate enough to be standing close enough to hear it. 

Turning to meet the wolf’s eyes the beast’s upper lip trembled in a vicious snarl. It paced and watched the wolf, their gazes were fierce, Red determined to keep the beast away from the village at all costs despite the blinding pain in her side. The beast stepped forward and the wolf stepped back. The horned creature snorted. Stepping forward quickly again the wolf once again moved away, as if it was playing with the beast. This time the larger creature reached out and managed to grab the wolf by its hind leg claws digging into flesh as it was pulled back against its will. Blood began to pour from the wolf's hind leg and Red could feel her skin and muscle being ripped like tissue paper. The wolf let out a blood-curdling yelp of pain, digging her front paws into the earth to try to regain her ground and break free.

Making his way straight into this small battlefield, hearing the sound of his werewolf companion yelping...part of him wanted to brutalise such a monster, but the other, greater part of him saw no reason for special treatment. With a sweeping gesture of his hand, the shadow that the beast cast upon the wolf grew solid around the chimera-like creature's neck like a collar...like a noose. Shrinking enough to choke out the creature's airways. Simple...and concise.

The creature stopped it's attentions on the werewolf, but much too late. Soon, after quite a few moments of pawing at its own neck and the solid shadow, the eight foot tall creature fell upon the ground, unconscious. Dispersing the shadow, Night was confused for a moment when the beast began to change...and then felt ill when it turned into a vulnerable enough looking sort of woman. The shade could have killed...some sort of curse victim!

Turning away to think for a moment, after calming down, Night went over to the werewolf on the ground. Kneeling down, the shade examined its wounds carefully, shaking his head at some of the greater ones. Even now, seeing such horrible wounds, he wanted to kill the beast from moments ago.

The wolf, who had curled up into a small ball the moment she had been released from the beast, looked up at Night with pleading, pained eyes, though they were masked by the mass amounts of caked on blood and dirt matted to her fur. Red didn't even have the strength to whine anymore and gently laid her head down on the blood-stained grass underneath her and let out a tired sigh before letting her heavy eyelids flutter closed.

Now that the threat was gone, Night's horse finally allowed Mushu to approach the area, first looking over Belle to ensure that everything was alright. There was only a slight scrape on her arm where she had stabbed her sword into the beast, but aside from that she looked absolutely normal. She just hoped that Rumpelstiltskin wasn't exactly serious when he said 'not a scratch.'

"We should get them to the village." Mushu finally said to Night, looking over the two as if deciding which one her small stature would be able to carry more easily back to the village.

"Hmph..." Night didn't quite like how this woman presumed to lead him, when she was both injured...and earlier willing to interfere in a fight while injured. Clearly, she wasn't the brightest person here. Or at least, she hadn't been thinking clearly. Ignoring the woman, the shade carefully reached his arms under the werewolf and hefted her up slowly. With his trusty horse approaching just in time, Night hefted the she-wolf up even higher, setting and pushing her onto the horse's back carefully.

Making sure she looked comfortable enough, the personification of night almost turned away...almost, but realised one more thing. Dispersing his chest plate for a moment, he pulled out her red cloak, and spent a good few minutes securing it on her unconscious self. The whole red cloak thing made him curious...really. Tucking a portion of the red cloth under the wolf's head, Night couldn't help whispering to it, "Red, is this your favourite colour...? I may just have to call you by it from now on..." Smiling at the wolf's ear twitching slightly, the shade took hold of the horse's reins, steering it to the direction of a particularly dilapidated looking barn.

-------------------------

It took a bit of effort, but Mushu managed to carry the unconscious Belle the hundred or so paces to the nearby barn where Night planned on taking his pet wolf. The more she thought about it, the more sense it seemed to keep Belle away from the village now that most of the villagers had been there to witness her transformation, and frankly she was done saving Belle's hide for one day. She got Belle nestled into a soft spot of hay and dressed the small arm wound with some torn rags from her own outfit before turning to leave the barn.

"I'm going to go check on the villagers, make sure everything is alright and hopefully gain some information and some new clothes for her. She should be fine there, but just...keep an eye on her until I get back. I have some gold on me; I'd be willing to bring back something to eat for all of us as a token of my gratitude..." She offered the man in black.

Reaching a hand over to pat the unconscious wolf through the cloak draped over it, he pulled the cloak over it's exposed face and ears, and grimaced at the woman's offer of food. Night himself could eat, but it...he didn't feel like partaking in food while sitting in a barn with a handful of injured (and even cursed) women, especially since he had nary a scratch on him. And...somehow, even though one could only really blame circumstances, he felt heavy with guilt. Letting his werewolf companion get harmed in such a way, when preventing such a thing could have been as easy as arriving a minute or so earlier, almost killing a cursed woman...

"Food is not my main concern. I have depleted my water supply; I'd prefer a replacement for it more than anything." Only time would heal the rest of the wolf's injury. He'd cleaned up the cuts with the only full water skin he had on him, and done quite a bit of bandaging as well. There were many a things people shouldn't feel obligated about, this was one such situation as the factors barely had anything to do with him...but since he already insisted on shoving a big boot in, Night shouldn't half ass it...Mushu only nodded subtly before slipping out of the barn into the cool night air.

Not soon after Mushu had left did a soft moan come from underneath the cloak. The body underneath the red fabric began to twist and turn a bit until suddenly a human hand came out from under the cloak to pull away at the fabric, letting Red's human face be exposed to the fresh air. The scratch the beast had dealt to her while in wolf form still remained however, three bright red slices that started at the top of her left eyebrow, down over her eye and stopped at the bridge of her nose. Red winced slightly, feeling all of her other injuries take over in her human body but eventually her eyes fluttered open, hardly able to focus on the looming dark figure above her.

"The moon..." Red croaked, licking her dry lips only to taste a mixture of old blood and dirt that had dried up long ago. "...is it still wolfstime?"

Watching Mushu leave and reaching over to pat the werewolf's head through the cloak, Night withdrew his hand quickly at the motion of the hand reaching out. For moments, the shade remained silent, watching...as the now human woman worked to pull the cover of the cloak off of herself. "Wolfstime? At present, it is..."

Red moved to sit herself up but immediately sucked in a deep breath that was in the makings of becoming a painful scream. Her hand shot to her right side, feeling at her ribs where the shooting pain was coming from and groaned out-loud in annoyance, knowing just exactly what had happened.

"You-you gotta get me in the hood." She snapped at Night a bit bitterly. "I'll-" She grimaced in pain again. "I'll turn back if I'm not wearing it..."

"Slowly!" Whispering harshly, though more in a worried manner than in entirely upset one, the whole of his gnarly armour dispersed to reveal normal clothing underneath...but only briefly, before reforming into a long cloak. No longer 'pointy' by his dangerous looking armour, Night helped the young woman sit up properly, before reaching over and pulling the red cloak over. It got dirty again, but that had little relevance in the situation. Draping one end on one shoulder, and pulled the other end to drape over the opposite one..."Magic, is it?" Night twisted the cloak lightly so the werewolf knew what he was referring to.

Each and every movement, however gentle he was, seemed like a thousand hot needles jabbing into her repeatedly. She remained silent though, biting her tongue until she was finally at rest again and safe in her cloak. Nodding faintly, she answered him briefly with a pained laugh. "Something like that...yeah..."

Red took a moment to look up at the man that seemed to tower over her, noticing briefly that the helm was gone and that there was a face underneath the shadowed hood. She couldn't make out any specific details, but enough was there to confirm that he did, indeed, have a face.

"Huh, so you really aren't a Wraith come for my soul then are you?" She halfly-teased.

Peering down at her face briefly, pain was easily enough read right off the bat...at this, the shade could only sigh. At present, it was night, it was his element. But, nothing made you feel more tired than the proof of mortality in the pain of other's injuries. Leaning back against a solid enough bale of hay, Night gave her a funny look (not that she'd be able to see), before scoffing audibly at this point, "Many a thing can take a life, but a soul?"

Red just shook her head but immediately regretted doing so afterwards, gritting her teeth in slight pain before resting herself back to lie on the pile of hay.

"It's probably best you don't know then..." She was silent for a few moments in the quiet barn, the only other sounds Red's keen ears could pick up on were that of the soft breathing of the girl in the hay on the other side of the barn.

"She's going to be alright then?" Red asked, then realizing just how random that might have come off, added, "The girl?"

Hearing the question that annoyed him a little bit, especially since it was quite obvious who had sustained the greater injury...leaning further back, resting an arm on the bale of hay now, Night was in no hurry to answer. But..."The girl is alright...for now. She might not be in a few moments after I tear her soul from her body." Saying this in a matter of fact fashion, he stayed in his relaxed position, waiting whatever response she may have for such a thing said.

Red quirked an eyebrow, though unable to look at him in her lying down position and instead gave the rafters above her head a dirty look.

"Oh so now you're mocking me." She jested and felt her eyes roll a bit, still looking at the rafters but speaking to the man sitting next to her.

Getting up, dusting off pieces of hay here and there, Night went over to where Belle lay in another section of the hay. Though he knelt down beside the unconscious girl, under his cloak, he still faced towards the werewolf, "I have no soul. So...who has a better excuse than I to take another's?"

Hearing the man getting up from his spot, Red immediately sat up, holding her side as pain shot through her in the quick movement; however adrenaline now fuelled her body as she watched the man head over to the unconscious girl.

"Get away from her! She didn’t know what she was doing!" Red demanded in an almost wolf-like snarl. She pulled herself to her feet quickly and attempted to storm over to him, however her leg immediately gave-way under the pressure and Red collapsed down hard onto the dirt floor.

"...why would you defend such a creature that almost tore you clean in two with its bare hands?"

Red attempted to pick herself up off the dirt floor, though did a very poor job at it and ended up settling for just raising her head to look up at him while she laid on her stomach.

"Because I know what she's going through. I know what it's like to lose complete control over something I didn't understand. Did you even look into her eyes? Did you even see how lost and confused she was? I've been there, and no one should ever have to go through that alone the way I did...I don't care what she did or didn't do to fall victim to this curse, going through something like that...alone...that's not even something I would wish on The Dark One himself..."

Listening to the girl laying on the ground for a little while, the shade had turned to face her at this point. After she was done speaking, Night visibly tilted his head thoughtfully at such an answer before turning to face the unconscious girl again, "...are you jobless? It seems like you've had quite a bit of time to think up such an answer for such an obscure question..."

A muscle in Red's jaw tightened as she pulled herself from the dirt and lay back in the soft hay, though now keeping a close watch on the shadow man.

"I don't have to answer that." She said in a huff and folded her arms across her chest, already forgetting about the potentially broken rib in her side and let out an immediate surprised yelp when her arms rested in their folded position.

Letting out a small breath, that soon turned into a long sigh...Night glanced over the unconscious girl before giving the werewolf his summary, "The girl has sustained no injury other than the ones you seemed to have made, but other than that, [i]she may only have some additional light bruising around her neck...[/i]"

Turning to fully face 'wolfie', he righted himself and scooped her into his arms which she tried to protest weakly against, only for him to let her down onto a bigger pile of hay moments after. Dropping down to his space again, making himself comfortable, leaning back against the bales of hay...he gave her another long, unreadable stare, "You [i]knew[/i] I wasn't going to harm her...why did you even bother getting up?"

Red adjusted herself in the new, softer pile of hay a bit, holding her side to keep her rip from trying to break through the skin if it had indeed broken.

"Because it wouldn't have been the first time my instincts were wrong..." She said, if a bit darkly, her eyes looking off as if remembering something...terrible...

The door to the barn suddenly opened and Mushu scuffled inside holding a small lantern that seemed to light up the unusually dark barn. Her bright brown eyes blinked as she looked at Night and the girl in the red hood lying down next to him, putting two and two together that the wolf was actually a human...or was it the other way around? Frankly, she didn't want to ask.

"I have your water..." Mushu said to Night, untying a flask from her hip and tossed it over to him before moving back over to Belle and set down the lantern next to her sleeping head. "Look...I have to go..." Mushu said, still looking at Belle but obviously still talking to Night. "Just for a little bit. There's a man I need to see, the villagers told me that if I left tonight, I could be at his castle by morning. He can fix all of this...it wasn't part of our deal..."