AN: I'm sorry if this chapter's a wee bit on the short side, hopefully the next one will be longer. BTW: as a side note, this chapter's rather sad-themed, so be forewarned.
Because the weather was fine-or rather, free from sleet or snow (there were as many gray skies and dark, looming clouds as ever)-Lord Asriel, Lucy, and Peter managed to make it out of the Harfang district within five days just as predicted.
Jill was alive when they reached the meadow linking Harfang to the town of Winding Arrow, but her breath was shallow. She did not eat nor drink, and she wouldn't so much as blink at Peter or Lucy no matter how they tried to coax her. She did nothing but pluck nervously at the horse-shoe pillow she, even then, cradled in her arms. Her eyes wide and her face as pale as a sheet of paper, the little child, young though she was, must have known what was going to happen. She must have known; known that Isi was lost to her for ever, known that she was too weak to live another day, known that Lucy would never forgive Mrs. Coulter after she passed away, known that she was going to go to sleep very shortly and would not wake up again.
Just as the sleigh reached the point in the meadow where the snow on the ground was not thick enough for it to keep going, Jill took her last breath. Closing her eyes, she looked-for the first time since she'd lost Isi-almost happy. She seemed rather like an old woman who had been suffering and waiting for the hand of death. Death was still an enemy, but it was a welcome enemy to her-to this poor child pushed to the end of her endurance. Peter thought for a moment, watching Jill's lips tremble just slightly before they relaxed into a good-bye smile, that she was going to say something, but she didn't even so much as murmur her dæmon's name one last time. Lucy began to cry and pleaded with Reepicheep to shift into a raccoon again-unable to think of anything else that might help. Reepicheep, however, reminded her that Jill was no longer responsive to his attempts at impersonating her lost dæmon.
Jill made the prettiest corpse imaginable in spite of her far-too-pale cheeks. Her closed eyes were surrounded by long, very beautiful lashes and her smile was sweet; she looked more like a small child sleeping than anything else. From the cold sky above, a few light snowflakes fell and landed on her. Lucy and Peter hastily brushed away the ones that landed on her face, but those that landed in her hair, giving her the appearance of a little snow-angel, remained where they fell.
While they mourned over the death of the half-girl, Reepicheep shifting into a little sparrow and chirping forlornly, Lord Asriel stood with his back to them, smoking tobacco-waiting them out.
"I could kill her." Lucy hiccupped, resting her cheek against Reepicheep's soft brown feathers.
"Who?" asked Reepicheep.
"Mrs. Coulter;" Lucy said bitterly. "her and that monster of a dæmon she's got." Still sobbing, she added, "Why is she doing this?"
"Something about Dust." Reepicheep reminded her.
"I hate Dust, then." Lucy decided, forgetting for a moment about the Lion in the book-he hadn't seemed to hate Dust. "If it makes people do horrible things like this, I hate it."
"Dust didn't make them do it," said Reepicheep. "They did it because they wanted to get rid of Dust-or something like that, don't you remember?"
"I don't care." said Lucy. "I don't know and I don't care."
"We'll find some place to bury the dead child in Winding Arrow." Lord Asriel announced, interrupting her thoughts.
"The sleigh wont pull us there." Peter pointed out, his voice feeling dry and forced.
"It's not that far," said Lord Asriel. "we'll walk the rest of the way." His dæmon yawned and stretched out her large cat-paws.
So they left their belongings for the time being (all except for the silver pocket watch which Lucy wrapped in a piece of soft brown fur she'd found in her blankets the night before and tied into a sash strapped around her waist; and Lord Asriel also carried his rifle), planning to have them retrieved after they'd gotten Jill buried and had a real meal in town (mostly upon Lord Asriel's suggestion because both Peter and Lucy felt sick to their stomachs and couldn't think of eating at the moment).
The walk was no more than an hour and a half long, but it was still enough time for Peter and Lord Asriel to take turns carrying Jill's body. Whenever it was Lord Asriel's turn, he always carried her unflinchingly, but never with any trace of tenderness. Whereas, Peter, was often in danger of his arms and knees buckling out of pure broken emotion.
When they had reached the outskirts of Winding Arrow, Peter thought he heard a little cry coming from the bushes to his right. Lord Asriel was currently carrying the dead half-girl, so Peter squatted down and moved a few leaves and thistles aside. A little blackish head peeked out, crying harder. It was a cat; small, black-and-white, and limping. A thorn was caught in her-for it was a female cat-left front paw, so deep in that she couldn't get it out.
She seemed skittish, unwilling to go near Lord Asriel or Lucy, but she apparently took a liking to Peter, letting him approach and carefully remove the thorn. Her little pink tongue licked the side of his index finger, feeling rough, like sand-paper.
Lord Asriel's dæmon rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed, but Lord Asriel himself seemed to be getting an idea. "She seems to like you."
"And?" Peter crinkled his forehead, lifting up the cat who was now managing to purr and yowl at the same time, not understanding what he was getting at.
"We could pretend she was your dæmon." he said pointedly, shifting the dead child in his arms as if she were nothing more than a sack of potatoes. "Would bring us less attention."
"Any dæmon with half a brain could tell it's just an ordinary cat!" Reepicheep protested indignantly, somewhat insulted.
"If they paid close enough attention, yes," Lord Asriel admitted dryly. "You pay attention to strangers, but I doubt anyone here is likely to-seeing as we'll just be going in and out." His dæmon shook her fur in a very self-important fashion. "It's a great deal like someone having a false leg, people notice it only if they get close enough to examine it and take the time to reason it out. Peter can carry the cat so that the other peoples' dæmons wont be as likely to approach it for fear of touching him because he's not their human."
Peter had to admit Lord Asriel, for all his failings, was pretty clever. Having a cat would be a good decoy, and if Mrs. Coulter-god forbid-had spies out looking for him, for a boy with no dæmon, it would be harder for them to pick him out.
The town itself was quite unimpressive. Better than the snowy wilderness, certainly, but interesting to look at, not so much. The wooden signs announcing this or that tavern or station platform, were undecorated and lack-luster; plain, inexpensive wood and simple, ebony-coloured block letters for the words. The people were plain-looking, too, their dæmons mostly dull-coloured birds or grayish hound-dogs with long faces. Reepicheep, currently a reddish fox trotting at Lucy's side, stood out like the only bright red crayon in a box of gray and yellow-green ones. Peter's cat, though far prettier than any of the real dæmons in the town in spite of her slightly mangled fur, didn't stick out as much.
The common graveyard was bleaker than most because the majority of the tombstones were made of wood and had rotted away. Those that weren't looked shabby and uncared for. Jill's body was placed in a casket made of tightly woven, tan-coloured straw, lined with white cotton. Her arms were folded neatly at her chest and blue flowers that were probably a sort of weed the town was trying to get rid of anyway were placed under her right hand. Someone from the local funeral home had removed her dirty, weather-worn smock and replaced it with an old-and apparently used-but cleanly pressed garment of a vivid green, a short chain-knitted cloak of blood-red slipped over her shoulders for dramatic effect. There was no ceremony, only a tired old man with untrimmed white whiskers on his chin and a fat gray-parrot dæmon putting the matching straw-lid over the casket while Lucy wept, clinging to the side of Peter's waist as he clutched his 'dæmon' with one arm and comforted her with the other, trying to swallow the lump forming in his throat.
A meal was served to them at a local inn less than an hour later, but Lucy never remembered anything about the meal, whether it was good or bad, afterwards. Everything tasted the same at the time, and she hadn't been able to get down more than a few bites of whatever was on her plate anyway. Peter played with his food and tossed a piece of fish to the cat when no one was looking. She purred and rubbed against his arm, assuming that he must have been in a good mood if he was feeding her-they'd get along just fine, she decided.
After they'd eaten, Lord Asriel hastily ordered the innkeeper's head manservant, a dull-witted fellow named Asighamond with a very skinny Great Dane for a dæmon, to go and collect their things from the linking meadow, thrusting a few silver shillings into his pale, soot-stained hands. A carriage was arranged to take the three of them (four if you counted the cat since she wasn't actually Peter Pevensie's dæmon) and their things down to Norroway. Peter was amazed at how quickly the sallow-looking, lost people of this out post town were willing to jump and skip and dance-basically do anything-at a Lordship's bidding. It was kind of sad, even if it was part of their own salvation, a piece of their own escape.
"What about the reindeer?" Lucy wanted to know as they were getting ready to leave, Reepicheep shifting into his gold-band and red feather mouse form. "What are you going to do with him?"
"I figured we'd leave it here for the town folk." Lord Asriel said in an uninterested, nonchalant tone of voice. "They can slaughter him and make stew."
Lucy was appalled; the reindeer had suffered enough as far as she was concerned; being startled by the spy-flies and having to pull them all this way. She didn't want the poor thing to get killed-she burst into tears, unable to bear this on top of everything else.
"Children!" Lord Asriel huffed impatiently, his dæmon letting out a low growl aimed in Reepicheep's general direction. "If you are going to get worked up, do so in the carriage so that we might be on our way."
"You can't let them kill the reindeer." Lucy insisted, unable to stop blubbing. "It's our reindeer-he stayed when the other one left us!"
"What do stupid reindeer know of loyalty?" huffed Lord Asriel, rolling his eyes as Peter put a comforting arm around Lucy's shoulders, fighting the urge to kick the lord right in the shins for making her cry. "Dumb brutes that aren't of any use to us."
Lucy wept harder, unsure exactly why this affected her as greatly as it did, only knowing that she couldn't bear it.
Peter hated seeing his sister like this. "Please, Lord Asriel, couldn't you tell the town people not to kill it? Just for her sake?"
"For the sake of peace and a journey without an insolent, bratty child making trouble for me, I shall-if I must." Lord Asriel gave in, walking away to bark some more orders at the help, his gorgeous dæmon following at his left side.
"It'll be alright, Lu." Peter whispered to his little sister, rubbing the side of her arm. "It will, somehow I'll see to it."
"Peter, do you think Isi's dead, too?" Lucy whispered, looking off into the distance. "Dæmons are supposed to die with their humans...but if they aren't connected, I wonder if they do."
"Maybe her dæmon died before she did, Lu." Peter suggested sadly. "Maybe that's why she stopped talking."
"Why do you think she smiled?" Lucy wondered aloud. "Do you think she was actually happy to die?"
"I don't know," Peter answered, blinking back a few stray tears. "I like to think she just wanted to rest-to settle without worrying about her dæmon, and now she is."
Meanwhile, Lord Asriel's snow leopard, raised a fair, white brow at her human and quietly asked, "Are you really going to tell them not to kill the reindeer?"
"It'll keep the child quiet, Stelmaria," he replied, a slightly distant, almost humane look flashing briefly in his eyes. "besides, though she doesn't know it-nor likely ever will-I would do more than this little thing for her."
AN: Please review.