#NOW ASK ME ABOUT THE SHEEP AND THE WOLF STORYLINE CAUSE I HAVE SOME IDEAS TOO

[konako]

omggg could you imagine if they did something with the 3 little pigs with the wolf idk what the plot twist could be im not that creative. or they could have done the something with wolf in sheep's clothing or the Shepard boy n the wolf with David bc he an actual Shepard child

*cracks knuckles*

The Three Little Pigs storyline – should have been revenge tale.

We’re in Storybrooke, now. The curse broke, things are starting to settle back to a new normal again… but, just in the background, there are a lot of people realizing who they are, who they were, and who their enemies were, in this new reality. Unfinished business are starting to become a problem.

Three brothers have been hunting the Wolf down since before the events of Red Handed, but they could never get close enough to her (or piece together that Red was the Wolf). But now, it’s after Child of The Moon, Red’s poorly kept secret is officially out to the whole town, and now these three men are out for revenge.

(We could make them police officers, to honor their past professions in FTL, but that’d complicate the pig analogy, sooooooooooooo)

Their grudge is clear: back when she had no control, Red’s wolf destroyed their village, their homes, broke apart their families and left them with nothing. They never recovered, and now they want to make her pay.

***

An episode with three acts. Each for every brother’s attempt at trapping and hurting Ruby. Each is more effective than the last, until the final one manages to seriously get to her.

The B story is her private reaction to it all, talking to Belle about it, trying to come to terms with all that her wolf has done before she could control it, and Belle reassuring her that she’s not at fault, and shouldn’t punish herself.

***

First one. They track her down during one of her morning runs. The camera follows her stupidly fast pace, until it reveals a man hiding behind a tree, just watching her, learning her routine. He has an rope in hands.

The next day, he sets a trap in the track, just hidden in the dirt. She comes close, earbuds in. She runs to it, he pulls at the rope, she trips and falls hard, rolling far and skipping painfully on the ground.

Before she can understand what happened and move to get to her feet, a giant rope nest thingy rises from the dirt, swapping her inside, pulling her up and hanging her from this tall tree, much like Charming once trapped Snow in FTL.

She’s all what the fuck. The guy approaches, she’s still like what the fuck. 

He shares his grievance. He explains he was from a family of feared and respected hunters, in charge of their village. He tells her how the Wolf attack destroyed their lives. How they lost the respect of their people. How they lost the respect of their peers, their loved ones, the respect they had for themselves.

Her hearts breaks a little bit more. She apologizes and explains she had no control over the wolf, but he is beyond reason, he’s all rage and wounded pride.

He takes a taser from his back pocket and steps closer to stun her, still going on about this ruined life and her fault for it, but she’s had enough. She’s fuck no. 

With hardly any force, she rips through the net and falls perfectly on her feet, in front of him. (It looks absolutely bad-ass and effortless and she kinda knows it) He is shitting his pants now. She was just protecting his ego, pretending to struggle with the rope. 

She sighs, “I’m really sorry”, and disappears running. His plan has failed.

B plot: Ruby talks to Belle, over tea and crackers, about all this sudden drama. Proper Red Beauty content is ahead.

***

Next act. Ruby is still feeling bad about it. All the things she's done as a wolf are starting to pull her down again. It’s a shitty day to serve costumers in the diner, but she has to occupy her mind somehow, or she’ll sink. 

This strange guy sitting in the far corner keeps studying her, creeping her out. He smells kind of weird, too. She doesn’t like it, but she tries to ignore him. 

Her shift is over, she’s cleaning up the diner, and goes to throw the trash out. Her hearing picks up some strange noises coming from inside. She rushes back in.

The same weird guy from before is waiting for her inside the empty diner, a barrel by his feet. The whole place smells weird. Like alcohol and gasoline. And it’s all him.

She frowns. He explains the same tragedy from the last guy, but this time in more detail: the lost sentimental possessions and the crushing poverty they faced afterwards, the crippling hunger, the violence born out of desperation, and the depression.

She apologizes again. This is killing her. “I’m sorry”

But yet again, it’s in vain. This brother doesn’t want her apology either. He takes the barrel in hands and pours the liquid on the floor. This is definitely gasoline. Ruby panics.

He explains that he lost everything to the wolf. His livelihood, his home, his belongings. And he’ll do the same to her.

Ruby tries to reason, but the guy won’t listen. He grabs the lighter. She runs to him in a flash and takes it out of his hands, stunning him with her speed. But he was ready for it.

He had a silver knife tucked in his jacked, and he slashes at her, cutting her arm. Silver hurts like a bitch, but Ruby doesn’t have the time to complain. The guy tries to cut her again, but she pushes him a little bit too hard towards the exit, a growl barely contained in her chest.

He bursts through the door and falls on his back on the ground outside. Ruby steps out of the diner, holding her injured arm.

”Please. Stop. I’m sorry”. She sighs again, and closes the door.

B plot. Belle takes care of Ruby’s injury, in the closed library. Ruby explains she cleaned up the diner, so even she couldn’t smell the gasoline. She doesn’t want Granny to worry – or worse: pay for her mistakes. She couldn’t bare see her grandmother losing the diner over Red’s actions. This is tearing her apart.

Belle promises she’ll be at her side, no matter what. That they’ll talk to David and sort this out, so the men don’t bother her again. 

Little did they know, the last brother was listening in by the window. Oooooh. 

***

Final act. The last brother.

Ruby takes a few days off work to clear her head and calm down. She spends her time with Belle, in Belle’s home. They talk and have a good time, unaware that the last guy is watching their every move.

The next night, he has a plan.

Ruby is out grocery shopping. Picking the wine and the cheese, when her phone rings. It’s Belle. That’s odd. They weren’t supposed to meet for another two hours. She picks it up, but a man’s voice is on the other line.

The final brother. Ruby almost drops everything. The man tells her the full story. He tells her of the night the Wolf destroyed their village, and it’s all the same from the two brothers before: lost respect, lost possessions, but this time… he reveals they lost a forth brother, the oldest one, who tried to face the Wolf.

Her stomach turns.

Ruby knows where this is going, she can hear Belle’s muffled grunts in the background of the call. And she barely listens to his rambling, as the man continues explaining his plans for revenge – she’s running full speed to Belle’s home.

The door is locked, but that is not a problem for a wolf. Even with an injured arm, she pushes with enough force to break the lock and open the door. She steps in. Everything is dark. She can make out a few sounds in the silence. She walks up the stairs, where she can hear Belle’s breathing sound more erratic. 

She’s at the living room now, and she can smell more than Belle, and she knows the guy is in there. “RUIRYY” is the muffled sound Belle can make, through her gag.

The lights turn on and Ruby’s sensitive eyes take a moment to adjust. Belle is tied to a chair and the last brother stands next to her. Behind him, the other two, looking angrier than before. 

She pleads with them to let her go, but again – it doesn’t work. The second brother holds a knife to Belle’s throat, while the last one steps forward.

“You took everything from us”, he says, and walks to her.

Ruby prepares to engage, but before she can decide on a plan of attack to take all three, a weird hissing noise rises from the ground, and soon the room is filling up with purple smoke. Wolfsbane. She’s heard of this. She knows it’s not good news for her.

She tries her hardest not to breathe. She tries to fight, even then. But the final brother is prepared. He presses a device, and a loud LOUD high-pitched noise shakes the sound system around them, turning Ruby’s gifted hearing into a disadvantage. 

She tries to push through, but it’s getting harder. The second brother nudges the blade closer to Belle’s skin, and Belle’s gasp is Ruby’s undoing. She breathes in to call her name, and the smoke gets to her. She’s choking, coughing. She falls to her knees, holding her throat.

Everything goes black.

***

Hours pass. She wakes up.

Now Ruby is tied up too, but it’s finally a decent job from the kidnappers. Thick chains around her, locked to a pipe. She’s facing them, facing Belle. Belle was crying.

“I’m sorry,” she says, voice hoarse and out of breath, “I’m sorry, please, do what you want to me, but please don’t hurt her. She’s got nothing to do with it! Please”

“Our brother asked the same,” is the cold response to her. 

 She tries to break the chains, but she’s weak from the wolfsbane. It’s useless. 

Meanwhile, in true TV Show fashion, Belle is secretly working on the knots on her wrists, as the older brother goes on with his revenge monologue.

Ruby is devastated. She keeps apologizing. She keeps bargaining for Belle’s life. Nothing.

Eventually, her gaze falls on Belle, and they make eye contact. They know each other well enough now, that they can communicate without words. Ruby notices Belle is loosening the rope around her wrists, and Belle points her eyes at the window. Belle has a plan, it seems. Ruby follows the order, and looks at the window. The moon is waning. It’s not full, but it’s enough. 

Ruby breathes in, worried. Are you sure about this? is the mute question she shoots Belle with her eyes. Trust me. Is Belle’s reply. Wait for my signal. She tells Ruby, with a tilt of her head towards the knife held close to her neck.

Ruby nods.

The last brother is still on about their tragedy, but Ruby hasn’t been paying attention. She’s got her eyes on Belle.

A frantic moment of waiting, and Belle manages to free her hands, but she doesn’t move just yet. Ruby waits. Belle looks at her in the eyes, and nods. This is it.

Ruby breathes in. She looks back at the man. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“Stop saying that” He replies. Then, it all happens at once.

Belle uses her free hands to take her gag off and hold on the second brother’s arm. She bites down on his hand, canines and all, hard. He drops the knife and screams in pain. 

The other brothers turn to the commotion, and Ruby takes the opportunity.

She transforms. The chains explode (yep, they wouldn’t have held in Child of The Moon, after all, good to know) There’s a low, thundering growl, and a huge wolf stands where once Ruby was sitting. 

There’s a palpable shift in the room, as the three brothers freeze in fear. 

Belle is still tied at the waist, and the brother closest to her realizes it, and tries to recover from his hurt hand and grab the knife back. Belle kicks it away, under the furniture. 

Ruby’s wolf runs to Belle, and rips the rope with its teeth. Belle exhales, and stands up. She taps the wolf’s head, like a dog. We’re meant to understand, then, that Belle is familiar and comfortable with Ruby’s wolf.

Most importantly, Ruby is totally in control.

And so the scene is set. Belle stands next to a giant wolf, as it stares around the room at the three brothers, who are now shaking, shrinking in fear.

“She’s in control” Belle finally says, and the younger brother jumps at the slightest noise. “Now, she finally is”

They look at the wolf, and it seems surprisingly human, now. Nothing like the beast that tore their lives apart. It’s not even growling, not even showing its teeth, not even its posture is aggressive. It truly looks like a big muscular dog.

The wolf understands their train of thought. It walks closer to them, slowly, carefully, trying not to make a sudden move. 

And, like it did with David, it sits down and bows its head. The wolf is whimpering, and it’s a sad, vulnerable sound, coming from a large beast:

I’m sorry.

Silence. The brothers are resistant, still. Belle stares them down, walking next to the wolf. She’s more threatening than Ruby, at the moment.

“You’ve suffered enough. But so has she. You have no idea.” 

Silence.

“Please.”

The oldest brother steps back, and it’s the cue for the other two.

“We can’t forgive her,” he says. Yet, there is a hint of a truce in his voice.

The wolf lets out a breath that sounds like a sob. Belle strokes her head again.

“Neither can she,” Belle sighs, “But this won’t help you. Any of you,” a moment, and Belle looks down at Ruby, who’s still bowing her big head. “I beg of you, leave her alone. Our old lives have taken enough from us. We have a new chance, now. Let’s make it better. Please.”

Tense, tense silence. It holds for too long.

Blue and red lights come in through the window, and the sirens sound a single alarm. The police, or David, was alerted, and is coming to help.

The brothers look at each other. Shit. 

And they run out. The older brother holds for a moment longer at the door, looking back at Ruby. We can’t decipher his expression completely, but it’s not the same as before. Maybe, he finally listened.

But we don’t know. They disappear.

Belle is left alone with Ruby. She looks down at the wolf, now sitting defeated on the floor. She pats her head. “You did good,” she reassures “You did good”

Zoom out, and the scene ends on a low note.

***

The next day. They’re at the diner. Granny and David are being filled in. They have already expressed their worries and disgust over the men’s actions, and David promises that he’ll look into it.

Ruby shrugs. She says something that supports her stance of “Regina thought she was punishing us by erasing who we were. But I think she underestimated how much crap we wanted to forget” -- which is a CANON LINE, actually said. But is a prelude to that -- it’s the first time Ruby shyly voices that opinion.

It worries David, Granny and Belle. 

But Belle, always the optimist, gives her a side hug. Ruby looks down at her, and it means a lot more than a simple look. She sees the Belle that saved her, just the night before. The Belle that stood up for her, protected her and comforted her.

Her green eyes light up. “Thank you”, she whispers to Belle. And Belle recognizes the weight and the sentiment there. 

She nods, “Always”

Belle looks away and continues her conversation, but Ruby’s eyes linger on her face. The expression that once was of sadness and hurt, turns slightly happier, more grateful. Maybe this life is not so bad...

And the episode ends with a hopeful Red Beauty vibe.

Fin.