A Little Colour (Chapter 1)
#1 of A Little Colour
Jayce is heading home after a day like every other, resigned to a bland and monotonous life, when an enchanting stranger appears, threatening to change his life forever...
It was mid-afternoon, on a Tuesday in May, and Jayce was shuffling home yet again, just another figure in the crowd. He raised his eyes from the sidewalk for a moment, running them over the others, the pack of blacks and greys and browns that he fell in with day after day. Suits and pencil skirts in unassuming shades greeted him everywhere he looked, soulless and bland. Flashes of coloured fur should have brought some vibrance to the scene, but even those felt flat, like the life had been sucked out of them, dulled by the pervasive uniformity. He chuckled darkly at the sight of his blurred reflection in a widow - silver fur, black t-shirt, grey jeans. Sure he wasn't a suit, but even he couldn't escape from the oppressive sameness of it all, it seemed. For an instant he thought he caught a flash of something different off to his left, and his ears perked up as swung his head around to look. Nothing. He shook his head and scoffed, keeping pace with the crowd. It must have been his imagination, no doubt rebelling against his darkening mood. He trudged on for a few seconds more before a sharp tug on his tail stopped him in his tracks.
"The fuck?" Jayce spat, body going stiff at the violation. Someone slammed into his back, unprepared for the sudden halt. Jayce spun round at the impact, bared teeth and fiery eyes silencing any rebuke the suit was preparing, instead sending him scurrying away with eyes glued to the sidewalk. Jayce scanned the stream of pedestrians as they passed, searching for any sign of the culprit, but finding none until a curious sound pulled his attention to his right. He spun in place, eyes catching a flash of red, but it ghosted away, refusing to let his gaze settle upon it. He huffed in frustration, a sound quickly answered by the one he had heard seconds earlier. This time his mind was able to settle on its nature, a yipping giggle, soft, feminine, and close behind him. Jayce was willing to bet that whoever was laughing at him was also the one who had grabbed him, and spun round once more, ready to give her a piece of his mind. He was already speaking before he caught sight of her. When he did, the words died in his throat.
"Hey yo...." he choked out, then stood staring, eyes wide and mouth agape at the figure before him. It was a vixen in a red dress, messy blue hair framing a face of white and raw sienna. Her sapphire eyes shone with mischief, matching the playful grin set on her snout. Though a part of him knew he shouldn't, Jayce couldn't stop his eyes from wandering further down her body, where the loose fabric of her dress clung to the generous swell of her breasts, falling past her tummy to end mid thigh, just below hips thrust seductively to one side. He followed her shapely legs down past the knees, her fur slowly darkening to brown on her shins, then black on her bare paws. Behind her, a voluminous tail twitched as if impatient, a glorious swell of orange which tapered to a snow white tip. Heart quickening in his chest, he let out a juddering breath, shaking his head slightly to clear it as he forced his eyes back to her face. He felt a tingle below his waist as he stirred within his sheath, all remnants of anger fleeing his body. She gazed back at him, impassive save for a puckish grin, and let him stew for a few slow seconds before lifting a slender paw and beckoning him to follow with a finger. She turned gracefully on her paw and began weaving her way through the crowd without so much as a word. Jayce froze for the barest second as he struggled to process what had happened, then raced after her, tracking her vibrant form through the colourless masses. "I might be a fool for following her," he thought to himself, "but I'd never live it down if I didn't. Besides, my life could certainly use a little colour."
She moved quickly despite tacking against the current of pedestrians, effortlessly flowing between them with a supple grace that quickened Jayce's blood. It almost seemed like the crowd was unaware of her passage, and while he well knew how obliviously single-minded they were it, felt impossible that they could ignore such a vision. His own passage was less fluid as he fought upstream, but he had embraced a single-mindedness of his own, holding only fleeting awareness of those he crashed through or shoved past as he indelicately shadowed her path. Eventually the crowd lessened, first by ones and twos, then thinning to little more than an occasional passerby. Jayce sucked in air by the lungful, suddenly aware of how breathless he had become fighting through the press of bodies. The fox maintained her pace, not deigning to acknowledge him, nor let him catch up without sprinting. A part of him wanted to do just that, to race ahead and confront her, but in truth the heady swish of her tail and the rolling sway of her hips left him more than content to lag behind. Transfixed by her movements, his mind began to wander, trolling the depths of his fantasies in search of her origin. Lost as he was, he nearly missed her dart abruptly down an ally to the left. He paused for just a moment, images of muggers, thieves and worse trying to form in his mind, only to be blown away like smoke on the wind and replaced by a splash of azure and a mysterious smile. Swallowing the lump rapidly growing in his throat, Jayce broke into a grin and went after her.
As he rounded the corner and took in the scene, his heart sank. She was nowhere to be seen. His muscles tightened as anxiety spread through his body like a wave, his ears standing pert as his senses sprung to high alert. Backing away slowly he prepared himself to turn and run when a small creak pulled his eyes left, where he caught the briefest flash of orange and white slide through a door as it shut. A small barking laugh escaped unbidden as he realized that he would never have heard it were he not so close to panic. "Last chance to back out," he though, head nodding unconsciously as if aware of his choice before he'd even made it. Taking a deep breath, he started towards the door, committed to seeing this through no matter what. Shaking his head, he looked to the sky as his paw reached to the handle, like he might see some final sign warning him to turn back. Seeing none, Jayce grasped the handle firmly, swung the door open, stepping into the gloom beyond and fully placing his fate in the paws of this enchanting stranger.