Title: Twins

Description: What happens when you have a split personality in Lyra's world? Set during The Golden Compass.

Genre: Fantasy/Mystery

Disclaimer: I don't own His Dark Materials or any of Philip Pullman's original characters.

This takes place while Lyra is at Bolvangar and trying to rescue the children, but it may contain some mixed knowledge that was included in the later books, so I'm sorry for the confusion. Also, please don't think that I am making fun of those with split personalities, I was just curious as to what would happen if someone had more than one personality in them if they lived in Lyra's world. I apologize for any mistakes, and if you spot any, please inform me immediately.

We were gathering in the main hall for dinner when I noticed an older gyptian girl with protuberant eyes walking next to me and looking at me with a curious expression on her face.

"Hello, I'm Lyra," I chirped, my voice startling her.

"T-Tamsen," she replied. "You're new."

Trying to avoid getting too jostled amongst the deep crowd pressing in on me, I nodded. She gave me a nervous look and leaned close, murmuring, "When are we getting out of here? Thomas hates it here." She stroked the top of her small mouse dæmon's head and I assumed his name was Thomas.

"Soon," I answered. "We're getting out real soon." A smile flitted onto her face before we were separated by the crowd.

Later, as Roger and I sat schemed with the other children, another of emotionless officials walked through the doors and shouted, "Tamsen Lovel, please come forward."

Roger's face snapped up and stared into a nearby corner. The girl from earlier jumped to her feet, eyes wider than usual. When she walked past, Roger elbowed me and I saw something I hadn't noticed before. Two dæmons who had obtained their final forms were following Tamsen; one was the small pale mouse from before, and the other was a wiry lioness. The mouse was curled up in the space between the lioness's protruding shoulder blades, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. The lioness's yellow eyes searched the room, daring anyone to look at her and her partners the wrong way.

"That girl, that Tamsen, she's a weird one. She's got those two dæmons, and their both in their final form, and they haven't sent her away yet," Roger informed me quietly.

Leaning in, I whispered, "Think we should follow them."

My friend nodded and we glided stealthily out of their seats and slinked along the wall. Watching the girl's mercifully slow gait, we stalked towards the exit without being seen. Beads of sweat trickled down our necks, both of us praying that we wouldn't be caught by either the other children or the officials. We reached the door just as it was closing. Slipping through the narrow gap, we emerged on the other side just as the door closed with a heavy clunk.

The sounds of clip-clopping shoes were heard coming from a hallway on the right. Silently, we pursued the foursome until we saw them disappear behind a thick oak door. Crouching and pressing our ears desperately to the wood, neither of us could hear a thing.

We scouted over to what would be behind the door when it opens and I began, "Two dæmons?"

"Yeah, it's really weird. Never seen anything like it," Roger answered.

I shivered. Just the thought of having two dæmons sent my head spinning. Everyone had a soul, a dæmon, a reflection of themselves, but two? How could someone have two souls? A baby didn't gain their dæmon until they were physically born, so even when pregnant no one would have two dæmons. And how could the two be so different from each other? One was a nervous, slight, twitchy little thing that couldn't hurt a fly, and the other was a powerful, determined, and protective creature that looked like it could maul anyone in the hall without a second glance. If I hadn't seen poor Tony without his dæmon, then I would have been sick at seeing this oddity.

Other than the obvious strangeness of her twin dæmons, there was also the fact that they were both in their final form and they hadn't been separated. As far as I could tell, as soon as you were near the age of adolescence, in Bolvangar they removed you from your dæmon, never to be a whole person again. Yet here was a girl of age with two dæmons to separate from. Shouldn't having two dæmons mean that there would be double the usual amount of Dust clinging to that person, therefore double the amount of original sin? Shouldn't the church be interested in saving this girl from the obvious pain she was going to feel as she grew up?

I clutched Pan close to my chest while my mind was jumping from terrible thoughts to worse ones. He burrowed his ermine head into my hands and remained there, a solid reminder of our simple and normal relationship.

Soon enough, the door swung open, stopping just before hitting us. "She said she didn't want to do anymore tests! Now leave Tamsen alone!" a masculine voice shouted and we watched Tamsen stomp out of the room and slam the door closed. She started to trudge back to the dining room, the lioness prowling behind.

"Wait!" I shouted and sprang to my feet, stumbling after her with Roger in tow. "Are you ok, Tamsen?"

She cocked her head and gave a small laugh. "Tamsen? I'm not Tamsen. I'm her twin brother, Thomas. Everyone always seems to get us confused," the masculine voice answered.

This was getting confusing. The person standing before me was definitely a girl and was definitely Tamsen, yet was claiming to be her twin brother Thomas. Roger stepped on my foot slightly and gestured towards the dæmons. The lioness's eyes were bright and strong, reflecting her human partner's, but the mouse's eyes were uneasy and streaming with tears, and that's when I understood: there were two souls in her.

Tamsen thought there were two people in her. No, they were separate people, her and her "twin brother Thomas." There were two minds living in one person. I think I had heard the scholars at Jordan talking about this, where people had split personalities and acted like different people at different times, only they weren't acting because they actually thought that they were two separate people. There weren't too many people like this and most of the time the dæmon had a split personality, rather than being literally split, but I suppose the two personalities were so entirely separate that they didn't even have the same kind of soul.

"Lyra, are you ok?" "Thomas" asked, looking at me curiously.

Shaking my head and I grabbed Roger's arm. "Oh yes, I'm just fine. Well, we've got to go. See you later, uh, Thomas," I said brightly and departed.

I dragged Roger back into the dining room eager to put the whole experience behind me. It might have been an interesting subject to some, but it nearly frightened me to death. Holding Pan close to my neck, he licked my face with a ferret's tongue and I never appreciated being who I was more than I did at that moment.

Hope you liked it!