Pantalaimon’s form shifted, a waiting alleycat, as wild and untameable as Lyra herself, and just as ready to attack if such an need occurred. ❝ Pan en’t settled yet, ❞ Stubbornly declaring the obvious, ❝ And my Uncle’s daemon, she’s a snow leopard. But he’s not always here, he’s a famous explorer, you know. He’s been all over the world, to the North. ❞ Tales slipped to the tip of her tongue and she swallowed them; truth was so complicated, so fragile. Lies, fiction, they were as real to Lyra as her own world, and it was so simple to allow the two to blend, a dangerous yet compelling concoction.
❝ How North? ❞ Lyra queried, eyes narrowing at the daemon lurking at the heels of the elder girl. Well-dressed, and attractive, the girl held herself with a proud poise Lyra recognised from her time with Mrs. Coulter. Traits so unlike Lyra’s; it was something she admired. Lyra was wilderness’ host; a world of secrets and instincts lived beneath her skin. The world existed on the tip of her tongue, and she spun her own universe into being. Despite the truth-teller that weighed in the pocket of her skirts, deception was still her greatest asset, and enjoyment.
❝ Lyra, Lyra Belacqua. ❞ Her own name fell from her lips with a slight arrogance; her aristocracy was a secret source of pride she clung to despite the savage behaviour she displayed. She offered one small, pale hand to the glamorous stranger, a gesture of good faith and kindness. ❝ This is Pan, Pantalaimon. Why are you in London if your father en’t from here? I read about them, at the museum. ❞ The lie slipped readily from her tongue, a follow-up story of her trip already spinning into solidity. Lyra’s knowledge of daemons was a blend of her own observations, and the work she had observed in her time with Mrs. Coulter. It was a subject her guardian did not actively avoid, but tended to brush off with a brisk certainty, only encouraging Lyra’s insatiable curiosity, and Pan’s growing distrust of the beautiful raven-haired woman.
Ankou watched impassively the feline shift, though she could for a moment feel his own desire to sprout wings and feathers, to flap about this stranger in a show of superior skill. Instead a smile crossed her features, a touch too kindly, compensation for the sort of young woman’s ennui so treasured by poets. The way this child bragged, chest puffed as though an uncle’s exploits has been her own; how sky blue eyes took on a new light at any thought of exploration, of exoticism; all of it reminded Sansa of what stunning naivete she too indulged when first arrived in London. For to one so young, anything new must equate to something good.
“Scotland.” Deceptive, with an accent more akin to families inhabiting England’s upper classes. Her tutor had come from London, her mother raised on a wealthy estate in the countryside some distance out of town; from a young age Sansa strove to emulate what she saw as a more learned, refined way of speech, until only by name, rather than appearance or mannerisms, did she resemble a father gruff as he was gentle-hearted. “So not very North at all, I’m afraid.” Apology seeped into her tone, granting the impression that Sansa might wish she had journeyed even further, if only to amuse an inquisitive girl. Whilst living there she had hated Scotland, full to bursting with fog and rain and chill, nothing ever dry; even their fires emitted a dense white smoke from logs freshly hewn. Now, once a glittering mirage upon southern horizon, London only hemmed her in, criss-crossing streets a maze one must navigate to escape, studded along the way with a thousand gilded distractions. How she despised it.
Lyra’s handshake was firm in the way her sister’s had been, overcompensating in some way for the myriad reasons one of her age might not be taken quite so seriously. In that moment, she decided rather resolutely to like her. Though she often argued with Arya for all her roughened manners and haphazard grooming, Sansa could recognize a verve, a certain drive for more abandoned months ago by the Stark when it passed painfully unfulfilled. “Hello Lyra. Pan.” By her side, Ankou sank to his haunches, then lay down upon a snowy belly. Lying. She’s lying. And what did it matter, she wondered, shooting a glance down between his ears. Children told stories all the time, harmless fabrications oftentimes inspired by no more than a flash of boredom or need to impress. “I have yet to visit myself, but you must enjoy it quite a bit, no? To memorize so much?” Bags rustled, her arms shifting with their weight; Sansa had no intention of spilling forth all that had happened in past months on a bustling London avenue, yet Ankou would not quiet himself. Why lie about daemons? “What would you say to a hot chocolate, hm? There’s a lovely shop just around the corner, and I can tell you all you like about the journey from London to the North.”
Pantalaimon, although lacking Lyra’s fiery spirit, was not one to be upstaged. With a hiss, he shifted into the form of a glorious snow leopard. Equally as gorgeous as Stelmaria, her absent Uncle’s daemon, Pan crouched before the great wolf. Hushing him with a gentle hand, Lyra observed the other daemon cautiously. There lay the secret, a truth Lyra had discovered while pouring over historical books, as part of the research she had been set for her trip to the North. Grand her daemon might be, but he was also foreign.
❝ Wolves. You en’t get many wolf daemons in London, not in Oxford, not in any parts of this country. Wolves are daemons of the Northerners. ❞ Lyra’s eyes flickered excitedly to the pale, older girl’s face. She was pretty in a delicate way, but their was a strength there; she possessed a subtle purpose. The stranger was the kind of Lady the Scholars at Jordan had always hoped she would be; Lyra Belacqua, aristocrat and pretty young girl. But she had been too wild, untameable and stubborn for their political games. Dreams of adventure, of the North were the only things that could tear her away from the thrilling life of street games and fickle friendships. ❝ You en’t from the North? ❞ An eager sensation of elation flooded through her; here was someone as exciting as Mrs. Coulter - or almost as exciting. Here was someone who could embody all she longed for.
❝ Who are you? ❞ An unspoken understanding existed that this question was intended for both girl and daemon; they were one and the same. Two sides of the same coin. All things Pan was for Lyra, the wolf daemon was for the strange girl.
Contrary to murmured assurances the wolf’s hackles raised, a flash of ivory fangs above his muzzle as a growl rose yet quickly died in Ankou’s throat. Her daemon had grown restless, defensive in their months sequestered with lions. Better to suspect all around them as harboring ill will, rather than fall once again into a quagmire of false friends and disloyal counsel. A child posed no threat, however, a girl nearly of an age with a younger sister vanished. Within moments the pair might have found their own secret language, running roughshod through London alleys. Sansa hardly knew what to do with such a creature, learning little in her time with Arya, kindness her only recourse.
“Is that so?” she asked, bemused. “And are snow leopards more common-place?” Hers had been the first male daemon in many years to settle as a wolf, or so her father said. No one seemed surprised when elder brother’s failed to shift from its silvery lupine coat a final time, though all expressed great shock to find Ankou much preferred the loping form of a beast that brushed her waist. Sansa herself marveled at the change, the choice, if indeed there was any choice at all in it. A wolf. As much Stark as Tully, bristling daemon serving as sharp contrast to delicate bones and fair coloring. “Not — that far North.” No doubt the child took in such an exotic sight and believed its companion to hail from the land of panserbjørne, rather than the dreary countryside of northern England. Sansa’s manner of speech would give no clue, voice rising and falling with the lilting tones of one raised in the very city she now despised.
Ankou bowed above his forepaws, snuffling at the air between himself and the leopard daemon. “Sansa Stark, and this…” One arm swept out, setting the wolf’s tail to wagging. “ — is Ankou. My father— my father never lived in London.” Her chin titled, better to regard this bold stranger, mighty by spirit and tongue alike. “And where did you learn so much about daemons, Miss…?”
Slight, Lyra had mastered the art of sliding out unnoticed. Her studies bored her; words, numbers and fragile uncertainties scrawled across maps and papers. She longed for the thrill of adventure. THE NORTH.
The flat rooftops of Mrs. Coulter’s beautiful apartment were not to be clambered over, unlike the grand slanted tops of Jordan College. How she missed the freedom, the screams of the village children and the uninhibited days spent in the filthy banks where the Gyptians docked their narrowboats. Fierce, wild and free. Pan had not had cause to change form to a hissing alleycat, or a fiery mongrel, for weeks. He simply sat placidly at her side, eyes ever-fixed on the movements of the curious golden monkey. Malice glinted in his golden eyes, and neither Pan, nor Lyra, could feel entirely comfortable in his presence despite the soothing warmth of Mrs. Coulter. How Lyra wished she could be more like her tutor. She could only count her kind of persona
with the fingers of one hand. How ardently Lyra’d grown to appreciate her kindness and vivacity, with every
aspect of the world as she had grown to love and abhor it.
Spending her stolen afternoon in the endless streets of London, Lyra only ached for the familiar set out of Jordan. ROGER. A pang in her chest at the memory of her lost friend made her glance down towards Pan, seeking his comforting words, but only noticed his focus was fixed elsewhere. There stood another girl. Older than Lyra, she appeared to be around eighteen. Her daemon nestled fierce, and proud at into her legs. A WOLF.
A brief twinge in her chest told her Pan had switched to a childhood-favourite form, a wild-cat, as she approached the stranger. BE CAUTIOUS, he urged her. The weight of the alethiometer in her pocket pressed against her scrawny legs, shielded by a pretentious dress they had purchased not two days before.
Never one for subtly or tact, Lyra observed at the stranger with avid curiosity. ❝ You en’t from round here, are you? I can tell. ❞
Shifting daemons, once familiar and comforting to the girl, had become an oddity after so many weeks cloistered away in the Lannister townhouse. Joff’s had long since settled, whilst the two younger children spent much of their year boarded away at school. Their company would have served as a welcome balm to her beloved’s unwanted attentions; only by false errands and dawdling steps could Sansa steal any measure of tranquility, the bustling streets of London far more welcoming than the carpeted halls through which lions prowled. Ankou stood at least two hands taller than any of her hosts’ leonine companions, an unsettling sight beside one as slim, as practicably unassuming as the Stark orphan.
From a fist several shopping bags hung, a riot of tissue and ribbon announcing which dressmakers and cobblers she had spent the morning visiting. Cersei maintained accounts at any merchant worth patronizing; so long as her little ward never dared acquire costly jewels or underthings too tantalizing, the woman kept any objections to her sporadic spending habits unvoiced. Mayhaps she relished the girl’s absence as much as Sansa, an irksome pest temporarily banished from holy sanctuary. Escape certainly suited Ankou. Though daemons bore no scars, often scrapping as their children sparred, her very heart ached with every brutal touch Joffrey inflicted. There were times Sansa dreamt of other worlds, ones in which her wolf might instead reside within her, a soft voice of reason heard yet not seen. She would be safe in such a place, she felt sure of it.
All around her, however, London continued to stand, filled to bursting, it seemed, with boys and girls much like the child staring at her now. Many of them backed away cautiously, recognizing her daemon as one that would not shift to a more welcoming presence upon their approach. It pained her, that trepidation from innocents, reminding Sansa all too stridently that never again could she count herself amongst their number.
“He’s quite kind,” she called out, catching sight of the other daemon’s curiosity, yet speaking to the girl. “Simply large.” At her side Ankou chuffed, leaning heavily against her thigh until Sansa brushed him forward towards the pair. Not more strangers! Before his settling the daemon would assume all manner of friendly guises, coaxing peers and adults alike into conversation. We scare them now. You scare them. Such carefree days had breathed their last alongside her father, God rest his soul. “How can you tell?” No twitch of expression betrayed any displeasure at such brashness. Just like Arya, Ankou grumbled, all venom banished from the reminder. “Do I look as uncultured as all that then, hm?” Words came as no remonstrance, a teasing smile barely formed across rose-painted lips.
should an exclusive partner go inactive for 1+ month, then i will become tentatively open to interactions with duplicates. when/if they return then exclusivity may resume.
