"Oh, no," the woman says with dark delight when he returns the question and asks: are you. She shakes her head for emphasis, her posture shifting as if to accomodate the laugh that fills her lungs, the sound of it lifting up high into the air, as if looking to defy the raucous brewing overhead. Despite the lightning and the distant thunder, despite the rain that begins to fall in shifting patters, Red declares breezily: "I'm not afraid of anything, stranger." (Not the weather, not the dark, not the unknown. Who's afraid of the Big Bad wolf? the children had asked once, and she had told them: not I, not I.) "Least of all a little rain." Catching his eye, she winks. "It'll take more to put a damper on my day."

The pun's middling at best, but she seems more than aware of that fact and so when Red laughs it's more at how maudlin her joke's turned out and less at the joke itself. She's still smiling when they cross into town, the village itself so small that only a few blocks sees them well within the borders and nearing the city center.

"No, I don't think that particular conversation came up," Red says, her eyebrows lifting in idle curiosity. A moment passes and it seems as though she's not going to tell without a bit of niggling, but in the end she doesn't bother holding out. With another one of her grins: "I'm on my way to see a man about a wolf."