Stealer
Disclaimer: I do not own anything relating to or belonging to His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.
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Chapter 2: Infiltration
Flashback
Lyra Belacqua stood silently in the cold snow, staring across the white landscape to her destination. Her dæmon, Pantalaimon, sat still at her feet, shaped as a white hare. The wind picked, blowing her bangs into her eyes, despite her hood. She brushed them impatiently aside, though it neither helped nor hindered her vision.
Pantalaimon broke the silence. "The Station."
"Yeah," Lyra replied. "Let's go."
She set off at a slow walk, pretending to be cold, frightened, and possibly injured. That was the task given to her by her superiors, after all. She had to get into that complex of buildings…
End Flashback
Lyra wandered down the surgically clean white corridors of the station, pretending to be innocently lost. Just in case. In actuality, she knew exactly where she was.
It was one of the reasons that the mission had been given to her, apart from the fact that she was still a child. Her sense of direction kept her from getting lost in the maze of halls and corridors of Bolvangar.
"Dear, are you lost?" asked a pretty nurse in a white smock. Her dæmon, a scarlet macaw, sat on her shoulder without showing any signs of curiosity or intelligence. Pan, mouse-shaped in her pocket, shivered.
"Yes, ma'am," Lyra sniffed.
"How ever did you wind up in this musty corridor?" the nurse asked, gesturing at the spotless walls.
"Got lost," Lyra mumbled, looking down and shuffling her feet.
"Oh, dear," the nurse said. "Come with me."
The nurse led Lyra through new corridors without paying any attention to her subject. But Lyra remembered every hall and turn.
"Here's the play room," the nurse said, after about five minutes of walking. She opened the door and gestured Lyra through it. "Now be a good girl, dear." She walked off, her dæmon unmoving on her shoulder.
"Hey, what happened to you?" hollered a girl in the crowd.
"Nothing," Lyra snapped.
"She got lost," another girl sniggered.
"Stupid!" came a shout from the back of the room..
"Can't even find her own way back from the toilet!" someone else taunted.
Lyra ignored them and walked over to the toy box in the corner. She chose three limp dolls and carried them away with her to play tea party.
She had to stay inconspicuous. This was her home now, after all.
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A/N: I know it's short, sorry. But it's setting the scene for the rest of the story. Let me know what you think!