Pig the Red Riding Hood and Wolf The Hunter (12)(PigxWolf)
During the hunting trip, his fellow hunters were curious to know who Joshua was hiding.
The Forbidden fruit
The Mountain Forest
The campfire roared, fueled by several logs thick as a man’s forearm, blazing bright within a circular border of hand-laid stones.
They had been out hunting for three days now, making camp in a valley where the treeline met a stream of crystal-clear, icy water. The game they had caught had already been skinned and hung from the branches. In the deepening darkness, as the air began to bite, the hunters had finished their dinner. They were letting their food settle before turning in for the night, preparing to wake up for another chase at the crack of dawn.
Joshua sat on a stump that had once belonged to a massive tree, running a whetstone over his blade in a slow, rhythmic cadence. The others were scattered around the fire. Mav was sipping mead; Roger, a black panther, was cleaning his rifle; Ginger, a wildcat, was dozing with his head leaned back against a log; and Zippy, a jaguar, was picking leftovers out of his teeth.
"Right then," Zippy said, breaking the comfortable silence. "Joshua’s been leaving the stall early three days a week lately."
Joshua didn't look up from his blade. The faint, rasping hiss of metal scraping against stone whispered through the air.
"He’s putting on weight, too," Roger observed. "Something good happening to you?"
"I've been hunting more often lately," Joshua replied flatly.
"But you hunt with us," Zippy countered, a wide, toothy grin cutting across his muzzle. "Which means whatever you're doing when you slip away early, it ain't hunting. Which means—"
"I can hunt alone, boy." Joshua growled, his tone heavy with warning.
"It's 'cause he's happy. He's got a..." Mav chimed in. When he was drunk, Mav was always like this—completely lacking a filter to tell him what should be kept secret. But a sharp, sideward glare from Joshua cut him off instantly.
Every ear around the fire perked up.
The sudden silence caused Ginger to snap his eyes open.
Mav’s muzzle parted and shut, his throat bobbing as he looked at Joshua, who had already gone back to staring down at his blade.
"There it is. I knew it," Roger said, setting his rifle down. "Alright, now I’m curious. Joshua, you going to tell us nicely, or are we going to keep guessing until we're right?"
"Nothing to tell," Joshua said. His voice remained perfectly level, the brown wolf burying his anxiety beneath his usual air of stoic indifference.
"There’s definitely something to tell," Zippy chuckled, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Come on, is it that she-wolf in town? The pretty one with the blue eyes?"
"No," Mav blurted out before Joshua could even open his jaws. Realizing what he had just done, the grey wolf offered Joshua a deeply apologetic look. Joshua didn't look back; he simply reached over, snatched the jug of mead right out from under his cousin's paws, and set it far out of his reach.
"So that means you know who she is," Ginger said, now fully awake, his wildcat eyes gleaming in the firelight. "Mav, you know her."
"I don't know anything," Mav stammered, his ears flattening tight against his head.
"Your tail is twitching," Roger pointed out. "You always do that when you're spinning a yarn."
Mav's tail froze mid-twitch.
Joshua set his knife and whetstone down. He turned his head and stared directly at Mav. Under the weight of that amber gaze, the grey wolf seemed to shrink into himself.
"That she-wolf," Roger continued, either completely oblivious to or utterly ignoring the suffocating tension building around the fire. "Joshua always said she was far too high-maintenance anyway."
"What about that panther from a few years back?" Zippy offered. "The jet-black one. She was a looker."
"It's not her," Mav said, his voice strained. "He hasn't dated her in—"
"Mav," Joshua called his name.
Mav’s jaw snapped shut so hard his teeth clicked audibly.
The fire popped, shifting a log and sending a flurry of orange sparks dancing into the dark night.
"Why the secrecy, Joshua?" Zippy asked, scratching behind his ear. "Come on, is she forbidden fruit or something?"
Joshua didn't answer. Mav stayed silent too, but the grey wolf’s tail wouldn't stop thumping anxiously against the dirt.
"Oh," Zippy gasped, his eyes widening. "She is forbidden fruit!"
"Are you taking a ride on another man’s wife?!" Roger exclaimed.
Joshua let out a low, dangerous rumble from his chest. "I don't have a taste for poaching another man’s territory."
"Well, if she’s forbidden, it’s no wonder Joshua’s keeping it quiet," Roger reasoned, his eyes flicking back to Mav. "But you know exactly who she is, don't you, Mav?"
Before Mav could even think of a reply, Joshua reached out, grabbed his cousin by the collar, and hauled him to his feet.
"I think Mav needs to go clear his head and catch some fresh air," the brown wolf said. Standing at his full height, he gave his younger cousin a firm nudge, and Mav walked ahead without a fight.
The two wolves walked together down toward the bank of the creek, leaving the rest of the hunting party behind. As the other hunters watched them recede into the shadows, Joshua dragged the grey wolf right to the water's edge, shoved him down, and scooped up a handful of freezing water, splashing it directly into his face. Mav whined, shaking his head violently to spray the droplets away.
"Blimey!" Zippy muttered back at the camp. "Forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter than the rest, eh?"
"Who the hell could she be? One of the pigs?" Ginger grumbled.
…And it made sense. The Pig Clan was notorious for guarding their breeding females like hoarded gold….
"Not a chance," Roger scoffed, analyzing the situation as he tossed another log onto the fire.
"Pigs don't court or marry outside their own kind. Joshua's probably just bedding the daughter of some fierce old bastard with a short fuse." A shower of sparks erupted into the air, the flames dipping low for a brief second before roaring back to life, hungrily consuming the fresh fuel.