Arron threw himself against the door. He had half-expected it to be locked, but it swung open under his weight and he almost stumbled inside.
"Kat!" He called, darting up the stairs two at a time. If Dario had reason to kidnap Luka, she must be very important indeed and he needed to speak to Kat - or someone about it immediately.
The lounge was empty, on the magivision a Furrae sitcom talked to itself. There was an imprint on the couch where Kat had rested, and the fabric was still warm. "Kat!" He called again, then realised that maybe she had gone to bed. She still would not have recovered from the blood-draining though and he worried that she could not have made it to her bedroom by herself. He bolted up the stairs and pushed open her bedroom door.
Her hammock swung in the gust of wind from the door, but was as devoid of life as the lounge. The great mirror stood, a dark and looming shape in the corner, doors covering its reflective face. He shuddered at the sight of it. As though it were somehow responsible for everything they were going through.
Where was she then?
At a more sedate pace he returned to the lounge, and it was thus he noticed the hallway door, the one to the broom closet, stood slightly ajar. Puzzled he walked over to it, she would hardly be hiding in there, would she? And swung it open. There were some coats, and a cloak and of course the broom, but certainly no Ringtailed Lemur.
With a despairing sigh he pushed the door shut, but it would not close. Crouching down, he investigated the obstruction. It was a spiral bound notebook, cover tucked back. In Kat's scrawlish handwriting was written:
He frowned at it, pushing the door closed.
It fell shut with a "click" that rung out like a death knell.
Kataryna heard the sound, pausing in preparation for the next jump. She glanced back over her shoulder so see the thin sliver of blackness, the last connection between her and the mortal realms, had gone.
The door had been closed.
She shuddered, turning her attention back to the obstacles. The floating platforms stretched out before her, forming a loose path down into the vibrant forests of the Rainbowlands. Beneath her feet stretched the Rainbow itself, beautiful but insubstantial.
"Follow, follow and I shall lead," the Grimalkyn encouraged her, dancing about on the floating "stepping stone" before her. He was never still, not for a moment, but here in the Rainbowlands he had a voice. It was musical, almost childlike voice that sounded almost like a flute had been taught to speak words. "Into the land of your destiny."
"But the door…" She said sadly and shook her head. There was no way to go but forwards. She judged the distance between the step she stood upon and the next, trying to envisage it as just a tree branch and call upon her ancestral memory. Such leaps were nothing to the lemurs of old. Still, her wings threw off her body weight and she was thus nervous.
Nowhere to go but onwards.
She jumped.
The risky leaps and the sheer drop below invigorated something inside her and a great sense of satisfaction descended. She was born to this, this leaping from platform to platform, her wings opening and closing ever so slightly, their instinct to unfold kept in check. She was a Lemur and trees and heights were her home.
It was almost with sadness that she touched down to solid ground once more and stopped to behold the beauty of the Rainbowlands.
This area, this boundary between life and death, was beautiful in its barrenness. Around her stretched skeletal trees, their branches topped with golden, red and orange leaves of every shade known to Furrae kin and some that were not. Piles upon piles of golden-red leaves carpeted the forest floor, slightly squishing beneath her feet. The Grimalkyn, never still, darted before her, his tail stirring a flurry of leaves in his wake.
"No not dally, do not stray." He sung and whirled and was almost gone. "Pay no heed to the wandering shades."
She hastened after him wondering of what he spoke and then she saw them, pale faces peering at her from behind the trunks of trees or between the branches. There were many, their eyes seemingly too big for their emaciated bodies. Some were Furrae, their condition leading them to look aside from their species, but others were not - flat faces and furless bodies, they reached out to her as she hurried past, whispering pleading words in a voice she could not understand.
"What are they?" She asked, "why are they here?"
"They've lost their way, tribute they did not pay - so trapped they are and doomed to stay!" The Grimalkyn appeared before her suddenly, flashing needle-sharp teeth at one of the Lost that strayed too close. "To the River we must go, to sail away from all their woes."
Such was his agility that he seemed to flow through the trees, sinuous and swift, pausing only to dance about impatiently as he waited for Kataryna to catch up.
"Where are we going?" She asked, not for the first time.
"To save the soul that's trapped within," he replied. Something brushed against her wingtip and she shrieked, whirling, to see a pathetic shade of a Fox draw back in fear, shielding his face with one hand as though she were to hit him.
"Angel," he whispered in a voice both pathetic and weak. "To touch you is a blessing."
The Grimalkyn was behind her, teeth flashing, tail whirling a maelstrom of leaves. The Fox cowered pathetically before his violet and pink wrath. Choking back her own distaste at the creature's pitiful condition, Kataryna hurried onwards, golden leaves cascading down to catch in her hair.
A moment later the Grimalkyn was before her again, leading the way.