"What?!"

"What?!"

Two separate entities uttered precisely the same word at precisely the same time.

Then all hell broke loose.

For the two daemons, it was like a cyclone, a hurricane and a tsunami crashed into one terrifying whirlwind of emotions. There were accusations on the daemons keeping things from their humans, shrieks that they had wasted the best years of their lives pining when all they needed to do, was sit and visualise, and to top it off, threatened to bury their daemons under seven feet of snow before dawn, if they hadn't been part of their human bodies.

Maybe it was just the shock, they tried to console themselves that their humans would calm down soon enough. Well, most likely at least.

Will and Lyra were experiencing a serious emotional roller coaster. They were officially going to have a nervous breakdown. But they couldn't. Their age had made them unable to completely lose it. They sat down and massaged their temples. This was too much to handle.

"That means, I could have seen Will? As in, REALLY met him? Pan, Pan, why didn't you tell me? WHY?!"

"You knew that if I told you, you'd never have done your work for the Republic of Heaven..."

"Pan! At least, I would have not spent 20 years pining away for a certain dark-haired boy, who's probably gotten a wife already."

"Lyra, you know damn well that you would have just gone to Will's world. It would be terrible. You would never have done anything for the Republic!"

"Pan..." Lyra had to admit, it was true. What she wouldn't have done just to see Will again...

changescenechangescenechangescene

"Kir! I thought we were friends! Pals! How could you not tell me about you and Pan?! Oh screw you!"

"Don't screw me, screw yourself! You know you wouldn't have worked for where you are, you wouldn't have helped to educate people on the Republic of Heaven, you know damn well you would."

"Kirjava! You...you...fine."

"Hah!"

"Well, to get down to business, do we meet or not?"

"Well, we promised Xaphania we would tell you once the need arose. But, it feels somewhat, wrong, and I don't know whether we should or not..."

"Kir, just tell me about the umm...'things' that did this."

"Well, I can't say I know much on what it is but I know what they do. It seems like they use the tearing method to pull and pull until daemons snap their cord with their humans. I think the may be one of those crazed, loony scientists which escaed in Bolvangar..."

They were very much in tune with the whole story behind Lyra, so they were quite convinced it was the work of one of the cruel, inhumane doctors who had mercilessly guillotined the daemons off from their owners, had held them, had touched them. The thought made them shudder. To touch another's daemon, to feel another's soul, that was scarier than Will had ever dreamed.

"What did you discuss with Pan?"

"Well, we talked about what these new species were, and what they did, and that they existed in both our worlds."

"Wait, wait, a new SPECIES?!"

"Oh yes, what did you think? They are invisible and undetectable, but deadly to the soul.

"What have we found in the old mythology books?"

"Something called mythically, the Ladro, which is derived from the Italian word, which means theif. They were old myths which supposedly arose from time to time to steal souls away from their owners."

"Matches description. We need a motive, so we can determine if they're the murderers."

"Wow, you sound like the CSI:Miami! Cool it, man!"

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"Pan!"

"Yeah, what? Cool it yet?"

"Yeah yeah, well, what have we found out?"

"The things we are after are really dangerous: they steal daemons, by pulling and pulling until..."

"Oh yuck...It hurts, we should know."

"Quite right."

"We need help to find out how we're going to do."

"Where are we gonna get that?"

"Umm...Aleithiometer!"

She set the question up and watched the needle go round and round. "An...angel? Will help us? Who would..."

"I would."

"What?!" the two turned around, faces twin expressions of shock.

Xaphania stood before them, resplendent in her finery. Her gleaming body made the beautiful pure snow look tainted and dirty. Her golden arched features made her look strong, resilient, she was so much like the Xaphania they knew.

"Oh my..." Lyra stuttered out.

"We have work to do...Stop opening and closing your mouth like a fish Pantalaimon."

Pan was shocked out of his daze and pouted while Xaphania started to brief Lyra on keeping correspondence with certain brown-haired individuals.

And their multi-coloured feline souls, of course.

A/N: haha dear readers! cliffie with a dash of humour

well till next time

Moiranne Rose