Once Upon A Time ... Little Red Riding Hood was a beautiful little girl living with a King and Queen in an enchanted forest. She had everything a little princess could want. Except a real mommy.
One day a strange woman came out of the Forest of Lackadaisical Efforts and offered Little Red Riding Hood a weed. She claimed that it would do wonders for her attitude if she just set the weed on fire and sat in a closet with it for just a little while. The strange woman was right. Her attitude about life, the universe, and everything was completely different. She even felt like this strange woman might love her like a real mommy.
So the next day, Little Red Riding Hood (hereafter, to be call Hood-winked) set off following the breadcrumbs that the strange women left behind when she went back into the dark Forest of Lackadaisical Efforts. She eventually came to the strange woman's house which was strangely shaped like a large oven. And there she stayed until one day, quite unexpectedly, she spawned.
"Don't worry," the strange woman her real mommy told her. "There is enough room here in the oven our shack for everyone."
Hood-winked had already dropped out of the royal academy because her real mommy had told her it was a waste of time.
"Why do all that work for a life you'll never have when you can sit around here and do nothing but sit in the weed closet all day? Isn't that much more fun than science or history or all those other things that you actually love to learn about?"
Hood-winked agreed that even though she truly loved history and science and learning about the wonders of the universe (like through her old telescope the King had bought her), the weed closet did hold a bit of a charming dullness to it. She laughed a lot more. And she was definitely a lot more hungry for brownies too. But she didn't care about things around her. They just didn't matter too much anymore.
The years passed by and Hood-winked found a new hobby. She figured out that if she took off her clothes, all the wolves in the forest would whistle and throw gold coins at her and that made the strange woman her real mommy very happy. The wolves also brought her lots of other things from the dark forest besides the weed that her real mommy had given her. Those didn't make her feel slow or dull but really fast and furious like she could ride any random wolf she chose all night long without getting tired. So Hood-winked continued to dance around the forest and ride as many wolves as would throw more coins at her. Since her real mommy spent her time relieving the dwarves anyone from their coin by trick or by treat, then Hood-winked figured that everyone was like that so she was okay to be like that too.
One day, a strange shadow of a man crossed her path. It was almost a prince but not quite. Instead of gold, however, he brought fire.
Hood-winked was intrigued.
... to be continued ...
