Disclaimer: All P.Pullmans creations are his own, although i have created some myself.
This was originally my creative writing coursework for English GCSE, but i enjoyed writing it so I decided to finish it. Hope you enjoy it, its a first attempt so please revue. Good luck if you are in the middle of taking your GCSE's/Aslevels/Alevels, cos its hard and I'm doing them at the moment.
~*Entirely Akin*~
Rio rolled over, wondering why she had woken up when it was still dark outside. Then she felt it, that familiar tug at her heart. Tuiggan, her dæmon was being pulled away from her.
She sat up straight in bed, sweating, bright sunshine was streaming through the window beside her, Tuiggan automatically switching from a soft cream ermine, to a miniature fire-breathing dragon. After she had calmed down and her dæmon returned to polecat form, he whispered
"What was that?"
Rio felt confused: Tuiggan normally shared her dreams, but that particular dream had felt almost real,
"I don't know," she replied, pushing her light auburn hair behind her ears, "We'll go down to the kitchen, we can ask Lyra about it there."
Tuiggan, taking the form of a leopard, accompanied Rio downstairs, his wet nose at her fingertips and his warm fur brushing against her bare legs.
As they entered the kitchen, a woman in her mid thirties looked up. She was Lyra, the same Lyra who had seen and befriended many creatures, from the armoured bears of the North to mulefa and angels, and the red-gold pine martin curled up on her knees was Pantalaimon, her dæmon. The special bond between Lyra and her dæmon had been stretched when Lyra had gone into the land of the dead, with a boy from another world called Will, and both children had had to leave their daemons behind. From that moment forth, Lyra had been a witch.
Looking at Lyra sitting there, her piercing calm blue eyes seemed to scrutinise every part of Rio's body.
"You've come to ask me a question, haven't you?"
The soft words issued from Lyra's lips as Tuiggan changed into a silvery spaniel and licked the soft red-gold of Pantalaimon's fur.
"How did you know?" Rio breathed, hardly daring to speak.
"I haven't spent my whole life learning how to use my alethiometer for nothing,"
The room descended into quiet and the only thing to be heard was the sound of the two daemons grooming each other. Lyra looked unblinkingly at Rio, who feeling she was being prompted to say something, muttered:
"I had a dream and I was wondering, well, would you, um...?"
"Yes Rio, if it's what you want, I can ask the alethiometer."
Rio nodded and hugged Tuiggan tightly to her chest. Lyra drew a small object out of a black velvet sack that she always kept around her waist. It was what looked like a small golden compass, with three wheels and four pointers.
Lyra looked up at Rio; the young girl was watching her intently,
"Rio, is there something you haven't told me? About your dream?"
She thought about the wrench that herself and Tuiggan had experienced, but she shook her head and Lyra continued,
"Because the last time I felt this, warmth and natural knowledge that is flowing through to the tips of my fingers right now, was when I was a bit older than you, when I was with..." Lyra paused. "But since then it has taken me my whole life to gain a competent understanding of this alethiometer."
Apart from the slightly bemused look that appeared on Rio's face and Pantalaimon's concerned whisper in her ear, Lyra could see nothing to prevent her from using the alethiometer. As she sank into profound concentration to read it, Lyra turned the three wheels to point at the correct symbols. The sun - to ask about the truth, the owl because it represents the night and the dream, and then lastly the baby - representing the child. Rio watched as the slender shape of the fourth pointer oscillated between the different pictures on the compass, the anchor, the owl, the bird, then the walled garden.
As Lyra emerged from her meditative state, Rio tightened her grip on Tuiggan and said
"What did it say?"
Lyra detecting the slight tremor in her voice replied,
"It's really your choice if you want me to tell you, but it's something that you really ought to know," she paused and then carried on. "It said that you, and you alone, have the ability to prevent the despair of all dæmons."
At these words Tuiggan, in the guise of a mouse, crept into the collar of Rio's nightshirt and Pantalaimon shivered on Lyra's shoulder.
At that moment they heard a resounding crash and they looked out of the window. One solitary tile skittered off of the roof and fell on its side onto the path. Lyra stole quietly to the window and gasped: quickly she undid the catch and in flew the most elegant goose dæmon that Rio had ever seen.
"Kaisa."
As Kaisa settled down to preen his feathers on the rug opposite the stove, Lyra fired questions at him from all directions. When at last she had stopped this, Kaisa spoke in a low hiss,
"Serefina Pekkala has sent me to find you, for she is reaching the end of her years and has need to tell you of the child's family."
Lyra looked shocked: "She's an orphan, I know that, all her family is dead, Serefina told me herself."
"She told you that, I know, but she did not tell you one vital part, Serefina is the child's grandmother..." Kaisa stopped, awaiting the impact of his words.
"Does this mean, does this, is she..."
Lyra's question, unfinished, was enough for Kaisa to reply,
"Rio is a witch, as she is only eleven, she still has a few years to puberty, so her dæmon will stay by her until then. But she must learn spells and set out to find her cloudpine before the year has passed." He ceased preening and turned to Lyra. "To do this she will need a small part of Serefina's cloudpine. You still have it, do you not?"
Lyra took out from her velvet bag a small cutting of cloudpine, surrounded by a silvery haze. Lyra had been given it by a consul when she had travelled to the North in her youth.
Rio, who had been standing awe-struck in the corner of the room, sunk softly onto the arm of a chair and stared at Kaisa.
"I can't be a witch, it's impossible." She murmured to no one in particular.
Kaisa flapped his wings indignantly,
"We don't lie! How would you be expected to prevent the despair of all of us, if you have no powers to do it with."
Rio nearly fell off the chair,
"How did you know about that?"
"Of course he knows, witches and their dæmons can read a small part of the future and many prophesy from birth until death, which is a very long time." Lyra said hurriedly, for she had seen the sparks of anger in Kaisa's eyes at Rio's ignorance.
"I have to go north now, I want to be by Serefina's side to the end. You have all the information that I can give you."
Kaisa spread his wings and flew to the window. As he looked back Rio called out:
"Send our love, and I promise I'll try my very best."
As her cry echoed after him, Rio could have sworn that she heard a woman's voice reply:
"You are brave, my child, go safely."
***
As a lone goose dæmon flew steadily on towards the honeyed mountains of the North, the sharp eyes of a young man followed his flight through a monocular lens far below.
"Something is wrong, Odium are you listening to me? ODIUM!"
The tarantula dæmon that had been crawling absentmindedly across the rough stone wall, jumped so suddenly that she slipped sideways off it.
The man picking her up and muttering uneasily to himself and his dæmon, crossed the field to a damp wooden hut in the corner.
"Dad, is that you?"
A child's voice called from inside, to the well where the two had stopped.
"Shut up and stay inside, or I'll physically come in there and make you!"
Met by silence, he scanned the skies again, and, seeing no sign of the goose dæmon, entered the hut.
Sitting on the cold stone floor, next to the only window, was an eleven-year-old girl. She could have been a boy, for her pale auburn hair was cut short, and her scrawny body dressed in threadbare dungarees and a tattered shirt.
Her dæmon was in the form of a field mouse and was hiding himself in her front pocket. The man glared at her, daring her to ask if he had caught anything to eat, still she said nothing but shivered under his look.
"Fill it Jai" he ordered, handing her a medium sized bucket, "and don't even think about it," he added, seeing her pleading look as she took it from him. "If you're good I might consider letting you have a mouthful."
Struggling slightly, under the little weight of the bucket, she made her way to the well. Once there, she lent on the edge of the stone and attached the bucket to the end of the rope. As she lowered it down she glanced sideways at Cadence, her dæmon, who was at that moment flitting about softly on the wall. She put out her hand and the skinny shrew climbed feebly up onto her shoulder. At that moment a tiny splash echoed up from the well and quickly she pulled it up, glancing behind her, she dipped in her hand and scooped some water to her lips. The refreshing sensation that spread right down to her toes made her gasp for breath, then her heart ached with pain, it wasn't the water that had made her gasp, Odium had seized Cadence and behind her stood Jai's father, Drake. As he took her dæmon from his own, Jai felt an excruciating pain that she had never felt before, and sank down on to the dry grass, unable to move, as Drake pulled Cadence further away.
***
Lyra leapt onto the alacrit, after placing Rio and Tuiggan carefully into the wheeled pannier. She had to get them both to the nearest Hælan, that was her first priority. About five minutes earlier she had been sitting with Rio over a map, looking for the best place to find cloudpine. Then Rio had collapsed, Tuiggan changing to a black rat and falling from her shoulder onto her chest, both of their breathing was so weak that Lyra was afraid that Rio would die. Then with the help of her neighbour, Kad, she had managed to manoeuvre both Rio and Tuiggan over to Kad's vehicle.
On reaching the Hælan, he took one look at Rio and rushed her through to the identification area, his dæmon, a smart terrier, creeping behind him. Tuiggan was fading rapidly before their very eyes.
***
Screams of cruel mirth filled the otherwise quiet hillside,
"We should stop Drake". The worried voice of his dæmon sounded afraid,
"We don't want her to die."
Tossing the fading form of Cadence onto Jai's limp body, he muttered
"Really Odium, it was only a bit of fun."
Leaving the two figures lying in the heat of the sun, he and Odium returned to the hut and started to arrange kindling for a fire.
Gradually, as her dæmon began to look solid, Jai was regaining consciousness. Far away, lying on a cushioned bed in a comfortably furnished room was Rio. Tuiggan stirred, he had returned to his typical sturdy form and had now assumed that of a wildcat, fur bristling at every shadow, he licked Rio's face feebly with his tongue. The Hælan who had been watching the two of them, through a glass panel in the wall, turned to Lyra,
"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?"
Lyra, eyebrows furrowed in thought, replied:
"It has never been this drastic before, she's only ever had slight pains and unusual marks..."
Her voice trailed off as she gazed bewildered, at Rio and Tuiggan.
"What unusual marks?"
The Hælan was pushing for answers, Lyra felt concerned for Rio and annoyed with him,
"Just marks, okay, just plain ordinary marks. As if she had fallen, or been cut - by a stick or something, they just formed dark bruises and they faded over in time."
The Hælan had a look of triumph on his face that baffled Lyra completely, these things did not appear to be very simple, or at least to her they did not. Quickly she called Pantalaimon, who, having disappeared to investigate the rest of the building appeared, by her side, seemingly out of nowhere.
"It is all so obvious"
"What is?" Lyra did not understand him.
"Why didn't I see this before!
"See what before?"
"I will have to add this to my discovery notes..."
Lyra was at the end of her tether:
"Look, either you tell me exactly what you are going on about now, or you tell me when you are lying dazed on the floor!"
Taking her subtle hint, he started to explain,
"Can't you see? Rio is definitely not an only child, somewhere, somehow, she has a twin."
This was originally my creative writing coursework for English GCSE, but i enjoyed writing it so I decided to finish it. Hope you enjoy it, its a first attempt so please revue. Good luck if you are in the middle of taking your GCSE's/Aslevels/Alevels, cos its hard and I'm doing them at the moment.
~*Entirely Akin*~
Rio rolled over, wondering why she had woken up when it was still dark outside. Then she felt it, that familiar tug at her heart. Tuiggan, her dæmon was being pulled away from her.
She sat up straight in bed, sweating, bright sunshine was streaming through the window beside her, Tuiggan automatically switching from a soft cream ermine, to a miniature fire-breathing dragon. After she had calmed down and her dæmon returned to polecat form, he whispered
"What was that?"
Rio felt confused: Tuiggan normally shared her dreams, but that particular dream had felt almost real,
"I don't know," she replied, pushing her light auburn hair behind her ears, "We'll go down to the kitchen, we can ask Lyra about it there."
Tuiggan, taking the form of a leopard, accompanied Rio downstairs, his wet nose at her fingertips and his warm fur brushing against her bare legs.
As they entered the kitchen, a woman in her mid thirties looked up. She was Lyra, the same Lyra who had seen and befriended many creatures, from the armoured bears of the North to mulefa and angels, and the red-gold pine martin curled up on her knees was Pantalaimon, her dæmon. The special bond between Lyra and her dæmon had been stretched when Lyra had gone into the land of the dead, with a boy from another world called Will, and both children had had to leave their daemons behind. From that moment forth, Lyra had been a witch.
Looking at Lyra sitting there, her piercing calm blue eyes seemed to scrutinise every part of Rio's body.
"You've come to ask me a question, haven't you?"
The soft words issued from Lyra's lips as Tuiggan changed into a silvery spaniel and licked the soft red-gold of Pantalaimon's fur.
"How did you know?" Rio breathed, hardly daring to speak.
"I haven't spent my whole life learning how to use my alethiometer for nothing,"
The room descended into quiet and the only thing to be heard was the sound of the two daemons grooming each other. Lyra looked unblinkingly at Rio, who feeling she was being prompted to say something, muttered:
"I had a dream and I was wondering, well, would you, um...?"
"Yes Rio, if it's what you want, I can ask the alethiometer."
Rio nodded and hugged Tuiggan tightly to her chest. Lyra drew a small object out of a black velvet sack that she always kept around her waist. It was what looked like a small golden compass, with three wheels and four pointers.
Lyra looked up at Rio; the young girl was watching her intently,
"Rio, is there something you haven't told me? About your dream?"
She thought about the wrench that herself and Tuiggan had experienced, but she shook her head and Lyra continued,
"Because the last time I felt this, warmth and natural knowledge that is flowing through to the tips of my fingers right now, was when I was a bit older than you, when I was with..." Lyra paused. "But since then it has taken me my whole life to gain a competent understanding of this alethiometer."
Apart from the slightly bemused look that appeared on Rio's face and Pantalaimon's concerned whisper in her ear, Lyra could see nothing to prevent her from using the alethiometer. As she sank into profound concentration to read it, Lyra turned the three wheels to point at the correct symbols. The sun - to ask about the truth, the owl because it represents the night and the dream, and then lastly the baby - representing the child. Rio watched as the slender shape of the fourth pointer oscillated between the different pictures on the compass, the anchor, the owl, the bird, then the walled garden.
As Lyra emerged from her meditative state, Rio tightened her grip on Tuiggan and said
"What did it say?"
Lyra detecting the slight tremor in her voice replied,
"It's really your choice if you want me to tell you, but it's something that you really ought to know," she paused and then carried on. "It said that you, and you alone, have the ability to prevent the despair of all dæmons."
At these words Tuiggan, in the guise of a mouse, crept into the collar of Rio's nightshirt and Pantalaimon shivered on Lyra's shoulder.
At that moment they heard a resounding crash and they looked out of the window. One solitary tile skittered off of the roof and fell on its side onto the path. Lyra stole quietly to the window and gasped: quickly she undid the catch and in flew the most elegant goose dæmon that Rio had ever seen.
"Kaisa."
As Kaisa settled down to preen his feathers on the rug opposite the stove, Lyra fired questions at him from all directions. When at last she had stopped this, Kaisa spoke in a low hiss,
"Serefina Pekkala has sent me to find you, for she is reaching the end of her years and has need to tell you of the child's family."
Lyra looked shocked: "She's an orphan, I know that, all her family is dead, Serefina told me herself."
"She told you that, I know, but she did not tell you one vital part, Serefina is the child's grandmother..." Kaisa stopped, awaiting the impact of his words.
"Does this mean, does this, is she..."
Lyra's question, unfinished, was enough for Kaisa to reply,
"Rio is a witch, as she is only eleven, she still has a few years to puberty, so her dæmon will stay by her until then. But she must learn spells and set out to find her cloudpine before the year has passed." He ceased preening and turned to Lyra. "To do this she will need a small part of Serefina's cloudpine. You still have it, do you not?"
Lyra took out from her velvet bag a small cutting of cloudpine, surrounded by a silvery haze. Lyra had been given it by a consul when she had travelled to the North in her youth.
Rio, who had been standing awe-struck in the corner of the room, sunk softly onto the arm of a chair and stared at Kaisa.
"I can't be a witch, it's impossible." She murmured to no one in particular.
Kaisa flapped his wings indignantly,
"We don't lie! How would you be expected to prevent the despair of all of us, if you have no powers to do it with."
Rio nearly fell off the chair,
"How did you know about that?"
"Of course he knows, witches and their dæmons can read a small part of the future and many prophesy from birth until death, which is a very long time." Lyra said hurriedly, for she had seen the sparks of anger in Kaisa's eyes at Rio's ignorance.
"I have to go north now, I want to be by Serefina's side to the end. You have all the information that I can give you."
Kaisa spread his wings and flew to the window. As he looked back Rio called out:
"Send our love, and I promise I'll try my very best."
As her cry echoed after him, Rio could have sworn that she heard a woman's voice reply:
"You are brave, my child, go safely."
***
As a lone goose dæmon flew steadily on towards the honeyed mountains of the North, the sharp eyes of a young man followed his flight through a monocular lens far below.
"Something is wrong, Odium are you listening to me? ODIUM!"
The tarantula dæmon that had been crawling absentmindedly across the rough stone wall, jumped so suddenly that she slipped sideways off it.
The man picking her up and muttering uneasily to himself and his dæmon, crossed the field to a damp wooden hut in the corner.
"Dad, is that you?"
A child's voice called from inside, to the well where the two had stopped.
"Shut up and stay inside, or I'll physically come in there and make you!"
Met by silence, he scanned the skies again, and, seeing no sign of the goose dæmon, entered the hut.
Sitting on the cold stone floor, next to the only window, was an eleven-year-old girl. She could have been a boy, for her pale auburn hair was cut short, and her scrawny body dressed in threadbare dungarees and a tattered shirt.
Her dæmon was in the form of a field mouse and was hiding himself in her front pocket. The man glared at her, daring her to ask if he had caught anything to eat, still she said nothing but shivered under his look.
"Fill it Jai" he ordered, handing her a medium sized bucket, "and don't even think about it," he added, seeing her pleading look as she took it from him. "If you're good I might consider letting you have a mouthful."
Struggling slightly, under the little weight of the bucket, she made her way to the well. Once there, she lent on the edge of the stone and attached the bucket to the end of the rope. As she lowered it down she glanced sideways at Cadence, her dæmon, who was at that moment flitting about softly on the wall. She put out her hand and the skinny shrew climbed feebly up onto her shoulder. At that moment a tiny splash echoed up from the well and quickly she pulled it up, glancing behind her, she dipped in her hand and scooped some water to her lips. The refreshing sensation that spread right down to her toes made her gasp for breath, then her heart ached with pain, it wasn't the water that had made her gasp, Odium had seized Cadence and behind her stood Jai's father, Drake. As he took her dæmon from his own, Jai felt an excruciating pain that she had never felt before, and sank down on to the dry grass, unable to move, as Drake pulled Cadence further away.
***
Lyra leapt onto the alacrit, after placing Rio and Tuiggan carefully into the wheeled pannier. She had to get them both to the nearest Hælan, that was her first priority. About five minutes earlier she had been sitting with Rio over a map, looking for the best place to find cloudpine. Then Rio had collapsed, Tuiggan changing to a black rat and falling from her shoulder onto her chest, both of their breathing was so weak that Lyra was afraid that Rio would die. Then with the help of her neighbour, Kad, she had managed to manoeuvre both Rio and Tuiggan over to Kad's vehicle.
On reaching the Hælan, he took one look at Rio and rushed her through to the identification area, his dæmon, a smart terrier, creeping behind him. Tuiggan was fading rapidly before their very eyes.
***
Screams of cruel mirth filled the otherwise quiet hillside,
"We should stop Drake". The worried voice of his dæmon sounded afraid,
"We don't want her to die."
Tossing the fading form of Cadence onto Jai's limp body, he muttered
"Really Odium, it was only a bit of fun."
Leaving the two figures lying in the heat of the sun, he and Odium returned to the hut and started to arrange kindling for a fire.
Gradually, as her dæmon began to look solid, Jai was regaining consciousness. Far away, lying on a cushioned bed in a comfortably furnished room was Rio. Tuiggan stirred, he had returned to his typical sturdy form and had now assumed that of a wildcat, fur bristling at every shadow, he licked Rio's face feebly with his tongue. The Hælan who had been watching the two of them, through a glass panel in the wall, turned to Lyra,
"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?"
Lyra, eyebrows furrowed in thought, replied:
"It has never been this drastic before, she's only ever had slight pains and unusual marks..."
Her voice trailed off as she gazed bewildered, at Rio and Tuiggan.
"What unusual marks?"
The Hælan was pushing for answers, Lyra felt concerned for Rio and annoyed with him,
"Just marks, okay, just plain ordinary marks. As if she had fallen, or been cut - by a stick or something, they just formed dark bruises and they faded over in time."
The Hælan had a look of triumph on his face that baffled Lyra completely, these things did not appear to be very simple, or at least to her they did not. Quickly she called Pantalaimon, who, having disappeared to investigate the rest of the building appeared, by her side, seemingly out of nowhere.
"It is all so obvious"
"What is?" Lyra did not understand him.
"Why didn't I see this before!
"See what before?"
"I will have to add this to my discovery notes..."
Lyra was at the end of her tether:
"Look, either you tell me exactly what you are going on about now, or you tell me when you are lying dazed on the floor!"
Taking her subtle hint, he started to explain,
"Can't you see? Rio is definitely not an only child, somewhere, somehow, she has a twin."