Chapter 50.3

The redheaded woman, on hands and knees in the ankle-deep quagmire, clutched firmly within the waters of an entirely different sort.  One between the legs of a second, breathtaking beauty.  A beauty only slightly marred by the mud dripping down her face.

From her hair—black as night, yet red at the tips as though dipped in ink—to the lush and glorious tail, heedless of the bog it was half-submerged within, she was the closest one could imagine to a perfect specimen of feminine allure.  It was next to impossible to look at her and not be stunned into helpless arousal.

Especially with the look of indescribable ecstasy carved into her face.

“You devil,” she moaned, her features warring between amusement and outrage.  “That was not meant for you!”

“Fair be fair,” the first growled.  “Now give me my Donum!”

The dark-haired beauty laughed before darting forward to capture the other’s lips.

The redhead struggled mightily.  At first.  But soon, the passion of the moment became too much, and she could not help but surrender.  The kiss was a long and sensuous thing.  Loving.  Attentive.

Familiar.

It was only when they separated to breathe that she remembered to snarl in anger and lashed out with her claws.

But they met only smoke.

The beauty laughed again, her voice fading with the rest of her.

“We are all of us Donum, foolish child.”

A faint wind momentarily drifted through the branches overhead, stirring the long stagnant air.  By the time it died, the other was gone without a trace.

The redhead waited, uncertain as to whether she were in store for any other inexplicable nonsense, before finally spitting with distaste to one side.

“Some more than others,” she muttered in dismissal.

Slowly, she began to climb to her feet.  It was not an easy task.  Her limbs had sunk into the grime, and it pulled at her as though reluctant to let her go.

Once clear, she immediately began to shake her hands and pick at the mud from beneath her claws.  She had never really minded filth… not for herself.  But she could not allow herself to be seen that way.

Not anymore.  Not by him.

However, it was not long before she recognized it for the lost cause it was and began swearing with frustration.  This was a filthy place.  And where there was filth, there could be only filth.

She needed to leave.  She needed to be clean.

Then, she needed to find him.

“Where’d that wench drop me to, anyways?” she said to the empty air.  “I ain’t never see’d such a place a’fore.”

She could not see far.  There was a dense mist here, obscuring everything beyond a few dozen paces.  There was only the stagnant waters, a few blades of reedy grass, and trees on all sides.  Yet for all their density, with the way they had pulled their roots up, the trees seemed almost reluctant to grow here.  They appeared as though fancy ladies struggling to keep their skirts from being soiled.

Then there was the smell.

“Nothing but death and rot.”

It was an accurate—if not particularly helpful—observation.  Death and rot were hardly cardinal directions.  Neither would lead her out nor any closer to her goal.

But then, neither would simply standing there.

She lifted a foot from the muck.

And stepped into a snowbank.

She froze there a moment, her eyes wide with panic.  Her mind could scarcely grasp what had just happened.  One moment, a dank and fetid swamp.  The next…

She swallowed roughly, fighting not to shake with the sheer terror that had overwhelmed her.  Before this day—this very instant—she had not known anything like true fear.  However, before this day, she had never stood atop a spire like this.

A mountaintop so high, so awesome.

Directly below and to all sides, there laid only death.  Any other step she could have taken would have sent her over the edge.  The fall would have lasted tens of minutes before she even crashed into the slope of the mountain.  Her broken body would have tumbled miles even after that.

The feral wind took that opportunity to sweep what remained of her warmth away and she clutched, trembling, at her nakedness.

This could not be.  She did not feel cold.

“What kind of rat-arsed shite be this?!” she swore, railing against her own terror as though anger could somehow ward her from her own confusion.  Her own helplessness.

Fresh tears began to flow down her cheeks only to freeze in the biting wind.  Her hair whipped and snapped at her face and shoulders.  She had stepped from a vile place of decay to some brutal hell.

Why?  What was going on?  Was she being punished?

“Donum!” she screamed into the wind, but she could barely even hear her own voice over its howling.  “Donum!  Help me!  Don’t leave me here!”

The wind died for a moment.  Then shifted.  Instead of a horrific, soul-stealing gale, it had become a gentle, almost ephemeral caress.

“What is your favorite color?”

The woman whirled, seeking the voice.  But there was no one there.  Only her.  Forsaken and alone on the spire atop the world.

“Donum?” she called, hopeful.  “Is that you?”

“What is your favorite color?” the voice asked again.

The woman’s eyes twitched searchingly through the sky, but found nothing.  There was only the cold and clear blue.  Even the clouds were beneath her.

“What…?”

Here she was, freezing her tits off, and now some voice was asking nonsense?

“What possible difference do that make?” she hissed angrily.  “Come out!  Come out and face me, shitebag!  Why taunt me like this?”

“Do you not know?” the voice persisted.

“Course I do!” she yelled.

Then hesitated.  She suddenly realized she did not know.  She had never thought to ask.  How could she have a favorite color other than his?  The very idea was nonsensical.

The wind began to pick up again, as though impatient.

“Why should I tell ye?” she growled finally, defiant.  “Why do ye want to know?”

There came an abrupt shift in the air, and the snow at her feet began to lift and whirl in a half-hearted dance.  Then, there came a faint echo up and over the rocks.  Barely discernible, yet clear all the same.

“…onum… …elp me… …eave me here!”

She grimaced, ill-liking how desperate and helpless she had sounded.  She was First, not some weak-kneed damsel.  She was supposed to be better than that.

“So it’s to be a bargain then?”

The voice did not reply.  It only waited.

But what could she possibly say?  She did not know the answer to the question.  Unless…

Why not simply lie?  There was no reason not to.  It was a stupid question anyway.  She took a moment to consider her options before nodding.

“Brown,” she announced confidently.

The wind stopped.

“Brown?”  There was a note of surprise.

“Aye?  Ye got a problem with brown?” she returned.  And slowly, her gaze went distant.  “Be a soft color.  Like the pooled silt at the bottom of a pond… gone long still, its waters clear fer it.  Cast in shadow by the clouds o’erhead.  But not… not totally clear.  There be a green to it.  Like… like from life… just starting to take.”

A trembling hand came to her mouth as she realized what she was describing.  More of those damnable tears began to leak from her eyes, but they went unheeded.  These were not ones of panic or terror.  These were tears of joy.  Tears of love.

Overwhelming.  Absolute.

There could not be a thing more wondrous.  More perfect.

Her favorite… most beautiful color.

“His eyes.”

The words hung there as clouds in the still air.  Engraved as solidly as sound ever could be in the vast skies above the world.

Weakly, she sank to her knees, down into the feather-light caresses of the grass, and allowed herself to succumb to weeping.  The voice would not understand.  Could not.  She did not have the words to express her feelings.  How could she even begin to describe—

Grass?

Her head jerked up, but she could not see from all her tears.

She grimaced in sudden embarrassment.  Getting all emotional over something so silly.  Something so… so…

She was just glad her Donum was not there to see.

Roughly scrubbing at her face, she looked around.  She had returned to the comfort of the familiar little campfire and her copse of trees.  The first place of safety she had ever found.  Her home away.

However, there was one thing different.  She had never noticed it before… yet somehow, she knew it had always been there.  It was like a scent teasing out a long-forgotten, childhood memory.

But it was none of those things.  It was an obelisk.  Tall and ominous.  And black as the heavens of night… save for one splotch of color.

A single vine just beginning to break through the rock.