wolf in sheep's clothing
for Flash Fiction Friday 4/25/26, from @flashfictionfridayofficial
Title: wolf in sheep's clothing (im doing this so last minute i may rename it later hdjasflhsadl
Universe: Caelum: Thornsweet
Synopsis: the pivotal first meeting--expectations dashed, and then raised once more
Word Count: 988
Authors Note: started this like 30 minutes the morning of the deadline dhfjkafhlasd there may be errors, tried to edit as i go but as i type there are six minutes to spare! set before blackberries and sugar, but during everybody talks. our two favorite idiots meet.
enjoy
[Continue below the cut, or click here for more of my writing!]
‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ 𓏲𝄢 ☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙
Frances stalked up to the window, grip tightening on her sword, legs aching. She hadn’t pulled stunts like these since early in her ca—first career. The later years of her knighthood, decorated as she came to be, were spent at guard posts and parades. Go figure that the more competent you proved yourself to be, the less of a chance you were given to prove it.
There was some credit to all of the rumors, seeing that the cottage was in much better shape than the last time Frances had seen it as a little girl. The shattered and grimy windows were replaced and spotless, a few fixed with stained glass in the shapes of weeds and dancing beasts. The snarls of wild berry bushes had been trimmed down as well. And, of course, there was movement in the cottage.
Her breath caught and her movement stilled as she watched, waited. The view was limited—this was one of the clear-paned windows, and the lack of light it got was apparently reason enough to allow for a bookshelf to be placed before it. But through tomes and scrolls and paperbacks, Frances could just make out the upper body of a woman, turned almost fully away.
She had half an eye to notice that the interior of the cottage had been cleaned up and furnished as well, but the woman sitting at a bench before a worktable snared her gaze like a rabbit in a trap. Long pale hair curled over her shoulders, reaching past the point Frances could make out from here, iridescent in the light of one of the stained glass windows. She could just make out the curve of a smooth pale cheek past some sort of hair ornament that covered up her ears, and the very edges of long white lashes before the shelves covered up the top of her head. The woman was in something loose and filmy—house clothes no one was meant to see. Frances blushed, shamed.
Okay. She’d gone about this the wrong way. Maybe she should go for a more direct approach instead. Knock on the front door—pray that the woman put a robe on or she’d never be able to maintain eye contact. Ask her if she’d heard anything herself about a White Lady, for surely pale colored hair alone couldn’t make her she. Warn her to be careful.
And, fine, maybe if the mood felt right, invite her for a few drinks. Frances had invited far lesser women to join her for a night for weaker reasons. And though she regretted having to pull out her light armor for nothing in the brutal summer heat, at least it flattered her.
So, Frances snuck back away to approach the cottage properly. She could see now that the porch had been furnished with rocking chairs and potted plants. The door had a knocker of a vaguely disturbing grinning face, but most knockers were disturbing. She knocked.
She waited with trepidation. No call came from inside the cottage, but Frances could hear the sound of her approaching, more percussive than bare feet. Maybe she wore heels with her filmy night dresses—and Frances was going to stop thinking about that before she got ahead of herself.
The door opened, and Frances quickly experienced emotional whiplash. Fading embarrassment at her wandering thoughts (man, she needed to get laid). Relief that the woman had in fact found a robe to put on, short as it was. And then dawning horror at her grave mistake.
Piercing through a set of short, curly bangs were a set of spiraling horns, pale gold and sturdy. That hair ornament Frances had thought she’d seen was one of a pair of long, furred ears, like a farm animal’s ear except that it faded into a dark violet at each tip. What Frances couldn’t see past the bookshelf further down was the beginning of a long, tapered tail, tufted at the end with more curling white hair. And there were no heels befitting her earlier imaginings, for there was no way to don heels over those cloven hooves, furred over with more violet fur that lightened all the way up her satyr’s legs.
And when she finally made her way back to the woman’s face, because it turned out eye contact would be hard to keep after all, she found the finishing details to seal the deal. A sheep like nose, pink nostriled and white furred, no mistake. Lambent yellow eyes, like a hawk’s, strangely slitted like a four-pointed star. And when the woman grinned, watching Frances analyze her, it revealed sharper teeth than she’d been expecting, other features be damned.
“Oh, delightful!” the woman cried, leaning against the doorway. One clawed hand, that Frances had mistaken for long nails and amber polish, came up to rest at her hip. “You came back. I was a little worried, honestly.”
Frances swallowed. “Came back?”
The woman threw her head back as she laughed, causing her hair to shift. Her tail flicked behind her, and Frances saw then that not only was the iridescence just there, windows or not, it seemed to come off in wisps at the ends as she moved, like a cloud evaporating. “Well you were here only moments earlier, no? I didn’t see you, of course, I didn’t want to give it away. But I was so hoping you’d come to say hello. I get so few visitors these days.”
Frances fucked up. She really fucked up. For there was no chance this was not the White Lady of the Woods, terror of Thornsweet. Depositor of bugs in cradles, planter of poisonous plants where children played, snatcher of windowsill pastries.
This was no damsel. This was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
She should demand the reason for her terrorizing. She should chase her out.
Instead, she croaked, “You keep stealing my goods from my windowsill.”