Location: Red's Goodie Basket
Mentions:@Drag
The chime of a brass bell signaled the exit of a young family of four a street corner store. They walked past the glass front windows and out of sight smiling with colorful paper bags clutched in their hands. Contained inside were plump cupcakes delicately decorated with flower like swirls of red and black frosting. The poorly sized paper to-go bags that stored them almost guaranteed their Faberge-like frosted tops would be smooshed by the time the family arrived home to eat them. Red however felt that merely enhanced the flavor.
"Come again!"
Little Red Riding Hood stood behind the glass topped counter of her very own store and waved as her latest customers left. An apron gently stained with a rainbow of dark frostings and batters hung from her neck as a crimson hood rested atop her head, standing out against her morning coffee black hair. Once her customers had disappeared from view she moved quickly and replaced the cupcakes in the display to restore it to full capacity.
As she worked the young girl hummed to herself. The corners of her mouth were turned upwards in a wide smile and every move she took carried with it a bouncing energy of merriment. Anyone who walked by would have simply assumed Red was happy that business was going well.
In reality she was smiling because a vicious murder had been committed.
"It pays to have sources. Usually quite literally!" Red giggled to herself as she straightened out and checked the kitty-cat wall clock she had behind the counter.
"I'll probably be receiving a visit from the Crier any minute now. I wonder if he'll assume I'm the suspect and rough me up before trying to take me in. Ooh, I could really play that up. Me, teary eyed, covered in bruises, behind bars in that shitty little jail we have somewhere. The community would be up in arms once they found out I was innocent. Spinning that hate into getting him under my thumb would be easy, but seeing him eat his gun would be fun too..."
As intriguing as the possibilities were Red knew that the Crier was likely too smart for that. It was unfortunate he was aware of her true nature. Had he remained ignorant Red could see the Crier as a pleasant, particularly useful little marionette to string along with false evidence and leads to put away all the Tales she didn't want in her way. Instead she had to put up with a nosy gumshoe who, thankfully, nearly everyone in the community disliked.
The Big Bad Wolf, the Boy Who Cried Wolf, anything connected to wolves brought back bad memories for the people. Anything he could say against her she could disprove if need be and better yet the people would be more the inclined to side with her even if she couldn't.
Little Red Riding Hood smiled.
"I hope he drops some details on the murder, I might be able to have fun with this..."
Location: Outside Nevermore Central Park #7
Mentions:@Utrax
"Um, speaking of wanting some food could I have a chicken taco? I don't want to interrupt anything though. I can come back later if this isn't a good time..." B.B Wolf said finally approaching the taco truck she had been eyeing from across the street for what was likely several minutes. She'd been eager for something to eat but the sight of a ranting Dani, or Chupa as she called her, and the stench of cheap malt beer made her less then certain if going over the best decision for the day.
Waking up B.B had been informed the day was going to be bad fairly early on. The water to her apartment stopped due to the water heaters bursting, someone had left a bag of heavily used chew toys outside her door, and she'd been informed a murder had been committed only after hanging around outside the shitty motel where it had transpired. After everything that had happened B.B simply wanted some meat in her belly. Because while the thought of an innocent Tale stripped and mutilated on a hotel floor turned her stomach, the smell of blood still made her hungry.
Chupa's truck always felt so hard to find despite parking in pretty predictable places. Yet for B.B there didn't seem to be any real alternatives. Red's pastry shop didn't exactly get up and move around but...even years later the Big Bad Wolf couldn't stand to be anywhere near the girl...
B.B turned her head and gave a small wave at the man squatting atop the nearby mailbox like some kind of buff, Fabio haired pigeon.
