Lights in the Darkness

Penny Rose would have preferred to keep her eyes shut throughout the journey. But Lucif's words of warning rang loud in her ears, and she kept them carefully trained on the  marshy peat beneath her feet - only glancing up from time to time to make sure that Lucif was not mesmerized by the dancing flicker of the blue lights. Lucif's tail was madly twitching under her hand, even though she could tell it was trying very hard to keep it still. The coiled tension of that large, feline-like spine told the story of even Lucif's nerves, and Penny Rose knew that on this journey, they were walking a very fine line of danger indeed.
Her hand slipped into her pocket of its own accord, in the heart of the damp and cold fabric, the box still glowed warm, and Penny Rose wrapped her hand around it, holding tight to to the square edges, reassuringly radiating against her leg and under her fingers. Her basket, which had shrunk to yet a smaller size, was slipped in her other pocket, folded into a triangle that would fit it he palm of her hand. She hoped very much that it would re-find its original shape, and thought very hard about the fire that would burn in it when they reached the other side. She felt the tail go stiff under her hand, and her stomach leapt.
Lucif was staring, wrapt, at a particularly bright and gleaming blue light, one that was flightily buzzing in front of its nose. Lucif's mirrored eyes, for once, seemed to be betraying it. Penny Rose watched the dreamy reflection of the dancing light in Lucif's strange gaze, the light coming ever closer, becoming ever brighter. Penny Rose's hand tightened on Lucif's tail, her heart beating into her throat. "Lucif!" she said, the cry coming out closer to a whisper. "Lucif!" she said, her voice stronger now. "You must look away."
Lucif didn't even glance back at her. It simply took one step to into the deeper water of the marsh, its nose pointed up and straining toward the bright bright blue. Penny Rose took a gasp of air, and although the pull of the blue light seemed to be pressing on her senses, drawing her attention, drawing her thought, she jerked on Lucif's tail. There was no response. The graceful spine was taught like a wire, the gait usually so fluid was stiff. Penny Rose pulled her hand out of her pocket and gripped the tail with both, pulling on it, as now Lucif was slowly and inexorably stepping into the sucking water of the marshes. Penny Rose could hear the sound of the wetness around the large, taloned paws. She pulled as hard as she could on the silken fur of Lucif's tail, but nothing could interrupt its hypnotized stare, its puppet like steps.
Penny Rose searched about for something to interrupt that unblinking gaze. She cast about, but all around her the marsh was dark, just the eery, hovering lights drifting in the silence. They were all alone, all alone except for the fairy-like lanterns, the dangerous beings, fluttering in the ringing blackness.
"Lucif!" she screamed, realizing that the lights weren't just hovering, motionless, they were drawing nearer. A group of them, as if made curious by the energy of Lucif's captured stare. Nothing. Lucif was deaf and blinded by the most beautiful of light. Penny Rose felt tears of frustration and terror rising in her throat. In her pocket she could feel the box burning brighter, the basket, too, seemed to be growing slightly, becoming more substantial in her pocket. What to do? What to do? Her fingers were biting into the tail, now, but it was simply beginning to pull her, making her slide across the squelch of mud and grass beneath her feet, and she could feel the ice of water against her toes as she was being drawn away into the deeper marshes. She had to let go, or she, too, would be lost. But she could not continue without Lucif. No, she could not.
The box in her pocket was so hot as to be almost painful against her leg. She tightened her grip on Lucif's tail with one hand, and without thinking, drew the box out with the other. It was not only warm, it was bright. Very bright. She remembered her dream, the words arranging and rearranging themselves before her eyes, and the golden light of the box got stronger, as if the power of her memory was stoking its fire. She stared at it, frantic, and then, a tear escaping from beneath her lashes, she squeezed her eyes shut and thought with every ounce of her strength about the dream, about the light. In her hand, she felt the box click open, and from behind her lashes, she saw the light exploding in the night.