When Lyra dies she finds herself in the world of the dead, will her meeting with Will be as amazing and magical as she had always imagined? HDM fic set some time after the Amber Spyglass, but its stretched over forty odd years so its hard to say when.
DISCLAIMBER: (How Boring, but has to go in!) I don't own the HDM characters, they are all borrowed from Philip Pullman and reproduced with the permission of the people who run Fanfiction and are nice!
I actually stole the idea from this and put it into one of my other stories after this was done, but I'm not saying which one, cause that would just be stupid. Anyway, please read and review…love, Stargazing Maiden
Lyra
The world of the dead was a happy and joyful place, not in the slightest like Lyra remembered it. It hadn't been long since she was there last, only ten years but it felt like a lifetime. 'Some lifetime.' She groaned and looked out across the plane. Unlike the last time she visited the land of the dead was full of ghosts enjoying themselves, the harpies keeping a look out for new arrivals and taking them to anyone they could have waiting. In fact, as she had entered the land of the dead a harpy by the name of Gracious Wings had spotted her and came flying in her direction.
"Miss Silvertongue. You've made it I see." The old harpy hissed and Lyra smiled at her.
"Yes. I'm here, Gracious Wings, but it doesn't take a genius to see that he's not here yet. Is there any word from him at all?"
"No, not a single word darling, just the breezes coming in from the world you opened to us. He will come though, we can be sure of that. All pass through the world of the dead at some point or another."
"I know. I was hoping he wasn't here yet, because that would have meant he had a short life. I was only twenty-three when I died, I would have hated him to die young too." The harpy smiled down on her from the top of a tree she had perched on.
"Tell me it all, Lyra Silvertongue, Tell me your true story like the true story you told all those years ago. You have already paid your way out more than once over, but your stories are our joy and we would love to hear how you spent the rest of your life after the amazing story you were able to tell us last time round." Lyra looked up at the old withered face, and began.
"My life was nothing special, in it's own little way." she began, and the harpy hissed at her.
"Don't lie to me Lyra, for I and my kind can always sense a lie. Tell me of your life, I would like to hear everything there is to know about the destiny of the new Eve."
So Lyra began her story for a second time, and this time she spoke completely truthfully. She told of her love for Will, and of the wind and the sun on her skin as she ran with him across the planes in the world of the Mulfea. She told of how she had felt when she lost Will, and how much she had cried. She told of the joy of finding Pantalaimon again, and the shock of finding that she was holding Will's daemon instead of her own. She told of the realisation about what makes a daemon keep it's final shape, and the love and joy she felt when Will touched Pan's fur and she realised this would be his final form what he would keep until they died. She told of how her heart had bled those first few days after leaving Will, and how the only thing that had kept her alive was the thought that at least she knew that Billy had survived the north. She told of how she had returned to her own world, told her story to the master of Jordan College and taken her place in Dame Hannah's new girls school. She told how shortly after that she had gone onto study as a scholar in Dame Hannah's college but had never felt comfortable there. She told the harpy that she had been travelling to visit all her old friends when she died, that she had seen the Gyptians and was on her way up north to visit the Bears and the Witches, and make her home among the Witch Clans of the northern realms. And finally she told Gracious Wings of how it was her heart breaking on the tenth Mid-Summers day since she had left Will that eventually killed her. She explained how her love for Will had never dwindled and how when she realised she would not be able to get back to Oxford for Mid-Summers day in the Botanical Garden she had wept herself into the death. At the end of her story she looked up and saw the old harpy crying, two solitary tears slipping down her cheeks to wet the ground in the world of the dead. It was a feat that had never once been seen in any world before that date.
Will
"Mister Parry. You made it down then." The sixty-three-year-old William Parry nodded his head, and then looked up in shock, realising that he was no longer old, but aged fifteen.
"What the?" Then, "Gracious Wings?" he asked, as he caught sight of one of the few faces, after Lyra, he had never forgotten, even in his old age.
"William Parry. After all these years, yes. You are the same person, but you have aged. Although the world of the dead changes us all back to a child I can tell that you still feel old in your heart. I can see things, you bleed for your lost love, do you not."
"Yes, I'm not able to deny it. My heart has bled these last forty years, for even though Lyra never returned to the garden after the first ten we still went back. I missed her so much Gracious Wings, I though she would at least have come on Mid Summers."
"Don't feel against her Will, for the we've listened to her moaning and watched her tears for not being able to go to you for many years now. Although she never grew old, and often lost the hope that you would ever make it down here, she would never go on. Your true story is all we ask, and then we will take you to her."
Will straightened his back, and looked up at Gracious Wings.
"Thank you." He whispered, and then began to tell his story, and a story of greater courage and wisdom had not been heard in the world of the dead since Lyra Silvertongue came down all those years before. He told of many things in his life, of all the years he had spent dreaming of Lyra and all the work that he had put into building the republic of heaven. He smiled as he described his first daughter Lyra, who was the exact replica of her namesake, and of how he had called his second daughter Mary for the friend he had kept until she died. At the mention of Mary Malone the harpies around them smiled.
"She mentioned you," one particular Harpy said. "She stayed here for many weeks recounting the stories of you to Lyra, but in the end the call of her daemon forced her to go on out of our world. She was sad to leave Lyra, but she said to promise you both that she would be waiting for you when you chose to go up."
Will fell silent at that, but the harpies understood, and Gracious Wings flew above him and spoke gently.
"Come, William Parry. Your story has satisfied our needs, and I'm sure you want to see our daughter as much as she wants to see you." with that she flew of into the distance and Will followed her, struggling to keep up.
Both
Authors note: this was originally a chapter two but I love one shots and it was really too short to make it into another chapter so here we are.
"Lyra?" Will asked nervously, filled with wonder as he looked down on the girl he had truly thought lost to him forever. Lyra Silvertongue looked up from where she had been sitting under her favourite tree telling a story to some new children who had just arrived.
"Will? Is that really you?" she almost screamed! The young man walking towards her smiled lovingly and Lyra jumped up and ran to him. He caught her in his arms and held her close to him for several almost endless minutes.
"Oh Lyra, I can't believe how much I've missed you." he whispered as she held him tight. "I love you so much, it killed me when we left each other."
"No it didn't." She kissed his lips gently and he relished the sweet taste of her lips once more after so long. "I've been waiting for you for the past forty years, I didn't kill you." he looked at her closely, noting the pain and almighty sadness in her face.
"I wanted to be with you Lyra, the whole time. I'm sorry I kept you waiting. I never wanted to."
"No." she told him gently, and the feel of her soft skin and the softness of her voice overwhelmed him. "No, don't you dare feel sorry for anything. The only thing that matters is that we're together now." He smiled at her again.
"Come on, let's go up. I'm sure Pan and Kirjava are waiting for us above there."
And with that the two children, who were no longer children, walked away out of the world of the dead and into the world of the living, to become part of everything that was, everything that will be, and everything that is.
Ta Da! Finished! My own little version of Will and Lyra being reunited (Love that word! reunited) when they die. Very short, but I want something else to put into my 'finished pieces' folder on my computer. Please read and review. Thanx mates. Love, Stargazing Maiden. Ya knows I loves ya baby! Quote 'Goldie Lookin Chain' 'Ya Know I Luvs Ya Baby' (No shit! (Where the quote's from))
