The scene is from the last few pages of Retrace IV (four).
For a moment, she wondered if she'd accidentally swallowed a cat whole. It felt like something warm and fuzzy had taken up residency in the pit of her stomach and started purring.
It was the first time she remembered seeing the sun, feeling it tenderly caress her skin and a soft wind brushing her hair and bringing the sweet, soft scent of blossoms and the heavy, wet scent of earth to her nose. But she knew the sensations.
She hadn't known what it would feel like to be outside of the Abyss, would everything be new and strange (and edible) or would it feel familiar?
Considering she had no idea she knew what a cat was, the latter seemed the obvious answer. And yet the thought had come quite of its own accord, that she had swallowed a cat and that cats purred. How could she have known that?
The sunset was beautiful, all reds and golds and purples, all fire and shadow, all heat and cold. Compared to other sunsets... How did she know? Other sunsets... She could feel that she knew what they were, like she knew how to talk, but she couldn't reach them, couldn't reach the pictures and the feeling of other sunsets...
"I..." she started hesitantly, not quite aware she was talking at all. "I want to find my memories right away." Oz stood right beside her, looking at her with that earnest focus she honestly couldn't remember from somewhere else. "If it can be granted, then working with them is all right."
"... I see," he said after a short pause, a current of determination in his voice catching her attention. "Well, then maybe I'll help in the memory search as well." He had climbed up to stand on the base of the railing, reaching up to take off Raven's hat. "I don't really understand who I am right now, but... If the answer I seek is there..." The hat was fully off, his soft eyes had an edge about them, and his mouth was set in determination. Why could she read that? "Then I want to know."
He turned to look at her, his golden hair turning ruddy in the fire of the sunset, his emerald eyes almost glowing with the reflected light, and for a fleeting moment she could almost recall that face and the personality behind the eyes, and an affection for both that she couldn't quite understand... But as separate beings, not the same and not quite the one standing beside her, glowing in the setting sun like the hero of a fairytale.
"What could be my 'sin' that the Baskerville talked about?" Oz continued, quite unaware of how striking he looked. He smiled at Alice, a smile of friendship and joy, making him glow so warmly that she could almost imagine she could feel it radiating onto her. And all of a sudden she could recognize the warm fuzz in the pit of her stomach for what it was, not a cat purring, but joy.
She was happy. Not from the thrill of battle and victory, that wasn't happiness. This was, this warm, suffusing feeling she couldn't quite express. Oz made her feel so very warm, like a cat was purring in her gut. That was happiness.
And he felt it too. He had swallowed a cat whole, too.
The parenthesis in the third paragraph was originally "(and frightening)" as it seemed likely that Alice might worry about being frightened, but it just didn't sound "Alice" enough, so I changed it, that way it would match her having swallowed a cat whole. How you could do that without noticing I have no idea. But "warm, fuzzy, and tickling" just seemed to describe a purring cat and coincidentally how I have seen happiness described.
And I wanted to write something happy. Things have been so sad in canon lately. And school is getting sickening rather than bothersome. Anyway, please review and tell me what you liked/disliked. =)