The Dark

Lucif and Penny Rose made their way carefully in the dark, the basket lighting their way with a low, steady light. They had passed through the murky undergrowth that surrounded their clearing, and now were picking a path through boulders that lay at the bottom of a small waterfall. Penny Rose slipped on the slick moss, and the basket seemed to bob upwards to help her. Lucif glanced back limpidly, and then without a word continued on, setting a pace that was, perhaps, only a slightly slower.
It was another mile of walking, but through less unwelcoming terrain, beside the edge of the river, to reach the marshes. And Penny Rose wondered quietly where the Unfriendly Creatures slept, her heart beating faster, feeling by turns warm and cold. If Lucif called them unfriendly, the word meant more than it possibly could on any other tongue.
Suddenly, the marled silver coat stilled ahead of her, and she nearly ran into it, nearing her shoulder as it was, she steadied herself with a touch of its fur, and waited. The silver eyes turned to her, and a slight shaking of its head told her to be quiet and still. Lucif moved slightly to shield her from the darkness to their left - the blackness of the forest, and also the unknown to their front that only it could see. Penny Rose, trapped in the low light of the basket, felt like a bird in a cage. The basket faded out in response, as if it could feel her fear. In her pocket, the box began to glow ever so slightly, and she took heart in its little warmth.
There was a sudden darkness ahead of them. A blacker black in the night, a large thing, a thing with reflective eyes. And Lucif, so calm one moment, suddenly left her side with no noise - only the whisper of air of its immediate departure. Penny Rose's eyes were still adjusting, and the darkness was so profound they would never see the detail, but she realized when she heard the thud of fur against something solid and alive, the strangled roar of something in the dark, the crunch of teeth against bone - a sickening sound - that Lucif was killing something. And it was doing it with quick, lethal force and absolute efficiency.
The sound of something falling to the ground was quickly followed by Lucif's warm fur beneath her hand, reassuring. "Don't light the lantern-basket," said the kind voice. "We shall move without it's help. Put your hand on my shoulder."
Penny Rose took the long, strange fur in her hand, and moved blind past the fallen beast. "Was that an Unfriendly Creature?" asked Penny Rose, her voice shaking ever so slightly.
"No - not of the kind I was speaking. That was a denizen of the caves, and it was strange that it should wander so far from its home. Passing strange."
"Does it hunt by night?"
"It hunts always," came the quiet reply. "We shall not use the lantern again tonight."