The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

C29 - Dawn

She got a much livelier reaction in response to that. Together, the group of men, women, and children hurriedly gathered up their dropped belongings and started moving down the street together, giving the monstrous woman a wide, wide berth in the process. She shook her head in exasperation is they did, glancing up to the sky as she planned her next move.

"E... Excuse me, uh... l-lady?"

She blinked and looked back down. She found a young boy with his eyes wide and bulging at the sight of her hellion arm, and yet still shuffling up to her nonetheless. She laid her human hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow at him. "What is it?" she asked.

He gulped, glancing back at his group who had stopped to gawk in horror at him before meeting her gaze with effort. "Um... I..." He squeezed his eyes shut. "I-I wanted to thank you again!" he said quickly in a tumbling manner, sharply jerking his body forward and back up again in a jerky bow.

Velvet's eyebrow rose further. "'Again?'"

"Y-yeah!" the spiky-haired boy nodded quickly, seemingly gaining more and more courage the longer the monstrous woman hadn't seen fit to eat him alive. "You saved me and my father from wolves once, when we were traveling to the city." He swallowed, failing briefly in his battle to keep his eyes away from the enormous claw at her side before snapping his eyes resolutely back to her gaze. "Back then... I... I didn't realize you were... well..." The boy coughed awkwardly.

After a moment, Velvet huffed in amusement, managing to finally place the boy in her memories. "There's no need for thanks," she said, a small, wry smile inexplicably forming on her lips. "I was just using you and your father for information."

The boy snapped his gaze up towards her with a surprising degree of ferocity in response. "I don't care about that!" he shook his head sharply. "And I don't care what the big wigs say about you either. I get, yeah?"

He gave her an earnest smile, all hints of fear apparently melting away to his eagerness. "Sometimes, you just need to act scary enough, so that the scary things run away, right?" he quoted reasonably.

Velvet blinked.

Then, she chuckled, shaking her head slowly at the kid's words. "...That's right," she agreed softly. "Though sometimes, that might not actually be necessary."

"You're with that Shepherd guy, right?" the boy continued, starting to bounce up and down repeatedly, apparently completely forgetting about the large claw hanging off the woman's torso. "Is he coming here to save us or something? 'Cuz if so, that's awesome! My dad's been all sorts of worried about everything lately, like, about the war and the food and stuff – it'd be so nice if someone like the Shepherd could come over here and make everything okay."

"He won't be the answer to all your problems," Velvet replied dryly, shifting on her feet. "There'll always be hungry wolves out there, you know."

The boy seemed slightly deflated for a moment, before realizing something. "That's fine, we'll definitely be okay!" he exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. "'Cuz you taught us how to deal with them, didn't you, lady?"

"...Guess so," Velvet huffed, briefly glancing up at the rest of the group of civilians who were watching the exchange with increasingly befuddled expressions. The older man who had spoken to her earlier met her gaze with a tilted brow. She shrugged wordlessly in response.

"So then," the boy said, drawing her attention again. "If you're here, lady," he said, pointing to her, "then where is Shepherd Sorey?"

Just then, a brilliant flare of artificial red light flashed out into the night in the skies above the city, rising in a curved arc before falling slowly back down towards a section of the city. Velvet and the rest of the civilians watched the unnatural light drifting slowly back down, burning strangely amidst the starry skies.