Red Riding Hood: The Ruby and The Shadow

Proloque

Candles burned on the cobblestone ground with a frigid stillness. The air had a sharp chill to it, it was almost as if you were breathing in razor blades. Women in red cloaks stood gathered in a circle in the middle of the room, each holding a silver dagger with a foreign, almost dead language carved into the blades that pointed stiffly to the ground.

One woman entered the room, and her presence was hard not to notice. The 12 other women immediately stood up straighter, their respect for her was prominent as they swallowed down their anxiousness and focused fully on the ceremony.

The salient woman was struggling to walk, each step sending a painful serge of unbearable torture throughout her body. The woman closest to her suddenly fell out of formation to walk to her side and help her, but the struggling woman held out her hand, ordering the other woman to stop. Her pride was swollen and she continued to walk on, sending a glare towards the woman who offered to help. The other woman just bowed her head and retook he place into the circle.

The dominate woman had finally made it into the middle of the circle and took a quick breath to steady out the pain. She moved aside her dark red cape and drew out a matching silver blade with a ruby in the center of the handle, and pointed it downward like the others.

"I, Ethel Cerasus, call together the women of scarlet to proclaim the official genesis of R.E.D. I hereby pledge to carry out the purpose of this division, or die trying. I hereby pledge with my own blood," the woman didn't pause as she slit a vertical line down her hand with her silver dagger, crimson liquid immediately started to run rapidly down her arm, "to recognize you all as emissaries of R.E.D, as you too solemnly swear to my oath with me."

The other women slit down their hands as well with their own silver daggers, and they each pointed their hands outward towards the eminent woman in the middle. Their blood formed a disconnected circle around the woman, and she chanted words of a dead language as thick drops of blood could be heard dripping all around her.

Suddenly the blood on the ground simmered as if being burned, and shot out in different directions, forming a pattern and form of a 3 dimensional ruby. It started to glow with a bright red color, and some of the women gasped as it floated up into the air, the women becoming parts of the ruby as their blood held it upward.

The ruby suddenly began to rotate around the women, and each woman felt an indescribable feeling of connection and even a hint of dread as they all connected by blood and oath. Suddenly, as soon as it had came, it disappeared as it zapped in an instant into the ruby that was in the main woman's dagger.

It was quiet for a minute, as the women silently contemplated to themselves of what just happened and what they had just all seen and done, but it was too late to go back now. They couldn't even if they wanted to.

"Sisters... It is done." Ethel lowered down her hood, thick blonde hair bouncing out and framing her almost hollow looking opal eye and her other white clouded blind eye, with a nasty scar running beneath them right across her face, as if it had been slashed to the point of near destruction. The other women did the same, and wrapped their bleeding hands in white rags as they looked to the woman that was still in the middle.

"Will it scar?" One petite woman asked as she looked down at the the rag that was growing damp with blood quickly. Ethel turned her face so that her good eye could look at the woman who just spoke. "Yes. A permanent mark of our division. Wear it proudly Rose."

The other women felt a heavy sense of pride as they gripped their scarred hands and tried to disregard the stinging pain. "Yes Mistress." They all said in unison, and turned around to blow out the candles. Once it was completely dark, the women started to exit the cabin as Ethel limped out weakly.

"It is a long walk from here Mistress. A mile to be exact. Can you make it?" One of the women asked with concern, and Ethel just lifted her chin with scorn as she suddenly noticed her own weakened state. "No, I don't think I can." She said as she tried to sound as strong as possible.

"Shall we send for a carrage?" The same woman asked, and Ethel laughed to herself. "All the way out here in the forest at night? No. Besides, one of us has to stay behind from the village to keep a lookout in the dark. Now, go before your husbands grow suspicious. And remember, you mustn't tell a soul about this. This stays between us."

The other women just bowed to her, and with one last final look, they all turned around and started walking back to the village. Ethel just watched with chin high. And as soon as they were gone, she limped back inside as she bit her lip in pain. Now that she had reinforcement, there will be hell to be payed.

And with that thought in mind, her anger simmered down slightly as she shut the door to the shabby cabin. And here she would stay for years to come.