AN: This is sort of a filler chapter to launch what is going to be happening later.
The sky was crisp and clear at first in spite of the occasional bursts of little rock-like frozen wind-chunks which Lee Scoresby liked to call 'sky ice', and as the aeronaut was bundled up against the elements, he was quite comfortable. His dæmon, Hester, looked no less comfortable than he felt, the hare's rabbit-head, twisting and cocking itself in time with that of her human at turns when she stopped causally hopping around the main front of the air-ship.
There was a flash out of no where, a pale silvery flash, and for a moment Lee Scoresby thought a giant comet of sorts was coming right towards the ship, about to smash it to bits. Then, it was all as if he had only imagined it, because there was no collision, only a beautiful star-maiden sitting delicately on the ship's railing. It was Ramandu's daughter, freshly returned from the Bolvangar battle, judging by the cobalt scratches on one of her cheeks, but she looked quite well otherwise. Happy, too. Evidently, they'd won. The Gyptians had had success, even if Mrs. Coulter would surely not stand for it, much less the Ruling Powers. But that could all be dealt with later, couldn't it? For now they might as well enjoy whatever victories they secured for themselves. They had destroyed Bolvangar; that was no little thing, no small deed.
"I beg pardon, miss." Lee took off his hat and tipped it politely in her presence, even though it was too cold for that. "I took a mighty turn for the worse as far as panic goes when I saw you a-comin'. I reckoned you were a giant rock about to-"
Ramandu's daughter smiled and raised her hand slightly to quiet him. "How are the girls, Scoresby?"
"Lyra and Lucy?" he blinked as though this was the last question he expected her to ask-and perhaps it was.
"Yes,"
"I reckon they're well!" said Lee Scoresby. "Course they'd be-all tucked in back there and what not."
"That is good," said the star maiden. "but I must confess my fears: I'm a bit worried about them going straight to Lord Asriel like this."
Hester cocked her head again and her master scratched his under his hat (which he had of course put back on by this point). "I thought he was a good feller...Lyra's father, I was told."
"He is," the star assured him. "No questions there, they even look like father and daughter in some ways."
"Well, beggin' your pardon again, Miss, but I don't see the problem."
"We stars know of a prophecy regarding those girls-the female children of Lord Asriel having each one their own alethiometer...but, we don't know details, not even a little bit. The prophecy is vague enough that we can't say anything bad will necessarily happen upon their going to see Asriel, and it is their own choice, when it comes down to it, we would never wish to openly impede their free will, however-" she paused and her eyes seemed to darken a shade. "-we fear Lord Asriel's attitude sometimes...how we are to know what side he's on? Serafina Pekkala Le Fay says since he hates the Ruling Powers, he's one of ours, but of course, even she can't be sure...he might have his own will in mind-we don't know."
"Are you sayin' I shouldn't take the girls to Lord Asriel?" Lee Scoresby asked in a careful tone, not sure what emotion was right to convey at the moment.
The star shuddered and shook her head. "No, take them where they tell you to, that is your job in all of this-part of your place in this great war...but...be careful, all right?"
"I'm a careful man, lady," said Lee Scoresby, not boastingly, but in a prideful enough tone all the same. "I couldn't fly this thing if I wasn't."
"You're such funny things, humans," mused Ramandu's daughter quietly, speaking more to herself than to Lee Scoresby. "So very beautiful, some of you, yet...so delicate...you can't fly like a star, or even like a fairy upon a cloud-pine branch, yet you all want to see what's up here. Sometimes you even love it as much as we do-but you can't stay, you feel too cold, or you get sick...I've always thought it strange."
"You've taken a fancy to that Telmarine Gyptian leader, if you don't mind my pointing it out." Lee Scoresby smiled impishly; ignoring Hester clearing her throat to remind him of his manners.
The star sighed deeply, thinking about him, knowing she was falling in love with this Caspian just as she had with the first. "His ancestor was my lover once, you see,"
"Oh."
"Yes, I miss him a lot, it's a pain that's always there." She blinked back glittering tears that glowed as brightly as starlight itself. "Except when I see this Caspian, the tenth of that name-he's so like him."
"Why don't you tell him?" Lee Scoresby suggested.
"No," she sighed. "Better not to-I couldn't go through that again and it would be far too strange for him. He wouldn't have me."
There was a stir and a yawn coming from the back of the ship, behind the curtain.
"Ah, I think someone's waking up back there," laughed the aeronaut merrily.
No sooner had his merriment shown itself than it ended; for a giant wind suddenly smacked viciously at the air-ship's side, nearly knocking him over. Ramandu's daughter remained on the railing; stars didn't often fall from objects, usually when they fell it was directly from some accident in the sky itself.
Lyra peeked her head out from behind the curtain just as another wind attacked the ship. It was from the other side this time. "What's happening?"
"A mighty high-up snow blower!" shouted Lee Scoresby, looking nervous now, in light of massive snow storm they were trying to fly through. "Better get a hold of something and cling to it like grim death."
Stunned and frightened into instant obedience, Lyra grabbed the railing and held on until her fingers ached; Pan became a fire-fly and buzzed maddeningly by her right ear. At least the little light was cheerful, a teeny beacon of hope in the hopelessly torn sky.
Edmund and Peter, followed by Lucy and Susan, came out next to ask the aeronaut why it suddenly felt as though the ship was attempting to shake itself into smithereens. Maugrim, out of instinct, tossed his head back and howled at the wind.
"I'll search for a break in the storm!" Ramandu's daughter told them, leaping down from the railing into the sky like a blazing diamond with a shimmering blue tail.
Lucy carried the silver alethiometer in one hand and Reepicheep in a small deer mouse form in the other. Perhaps she was thinking that she might try to use it to discover-truthfully-if there was any safer way to ride out the storm, or else she might have just wanted it close to her for comfort. Whatever the case, what happened next was disastrous, the pocket watch slipped slightly from Lucy's grasp and Reepicheep-trying to catch it for her-lunged, missed, and fell over-board, their bond pulling his human over the ship's side with him. Susan, who was standing the closest to Lucy at the moment, grabbed her arm, thinking to help her somehow even though it was too late for her dæmon, and was pulled over-board as well. Maugrim felt pain, a tugging, and a buzzing in his ears. To avoid painful separation, being ripped away from his human in this tragic accident, he flung his wolf-body over the railing and let himself hurtle towards the ground with her.
"Lucy! Susan!" Peter, Edmund, and Lyra started screaming at the tops of their voices the moment the two girls vanished, plummeting downwards, but there was nothing they could do about it.
If Lucy and Susan had fallen onto hard, rocky ground, this story would have had a very different ending, one that concluded with the bleak, cruel, terribly unfortunate deaths of two of the leading ladies; thankfully, that was not the case. They were far up north where everything was not only covered in snow, it was more or less snow. So much snow that while there was presumably some kind of ground and dirt under it, no one could have actually proved that. The icy sleet was endless; and as much as it still hurt to have freezing faces and swollen limbs, it wasn't as bad as bleeding to death on a summery rock-land would have been.
Lucy came-to first, and shaking snow off of her head and neck and back, sat up and held Reepicheep in his red panda form to her chest, clinging to him like they were stranded on a desert island all by themselves. Then, a few seconds later, Susan awoke and her hand instantly went to her belly. In spite of her initial worry, she was somehow pretty sure the baby in there was all right, that she would have known deep inside of her if it was dead, and she inhaled deeply.
Next, she hastily dug her poor wolf-dæmon out of the snow and threw her arms around his neck. "Maugrim, do you know where we are?"
The wolf shivered. "Not sure,"
"We can't stay here," said Susan, grabbing Lucy's arm and pulling her up, ready to take charge. "we'll freeze to death if we don't keep moving."
Reepicheep became a white and brown wolf and pressed his warm fur against Lucy's side as they trudged along with Susan and Maugrim through the endless tundra, searching for shelter.
After walking for what might have been hours (they had no way of keeping time at the moment), a cozy-looking cabin made of very high-quality wood, inlaid with gold and insulated glass, appeared on a low hill. It was a strange sight indeed, but of course they knew who it had to belong to without even giving it much thought. No one would live this far up north unless they were experimenting or hiding (likely both), and no one could afford-or force others to afford-such extravagance except a very in-your-face, powerful nobleman. It had to be Lord Asriel's so-called 'little study' that Mrs. Coulter had spoken of.
"We made it," Lucy breathed, throwing her arms around Reepicheep's soft neck and clinging to her dæmon for comfort before taking a step forward. She wished Lyra and the others were there; she wasn't sure she would feel comfortable talking one-on-one to Lord Asriel now that she knew he was her father, and she didn't have his golden compass-the alethiometer he'd given the Master. She didn't have what Lyra was so sure he needed. Well, at least she had Susan with her, so she wasn't completely alone.
"It looks peaceful enough," said Maugrim pensively, sniffing at the air. "I suppose that means we've beaten the Ruling Powers and gotten here first."
"We've beaten Lee Scoresby's air-ship, too, Maugrim." Susan said shakily, trembling from anxiety and from the bitter cold. "What if something happened to them? In the storm, I mean."
"I think they're more likely to be worried for us," Reepicheep, shifting into a large moon-coloured hare and hopping up into his human's arms, chimed in.
"He's right." Lucy said softly. "Ramandu's daughter was looking for a break in the storm and she probably found one."
"Lucy, I know Lord Asriel's your father, but supposing he doesn't let me stay..." Susan blurted out.
"Even he's not cruel enough to leave a pregnant woman out in the snow overnight!" Lucy insisted, forgetting that Susan had only ever seen Lord Asriel as a gruff, nerve-racking presence who was sneaking around with her mother and barely even acknowledged her.
"Very well, then," Susan nudged Lucy forward. "You and Reepicheep go on in front so he knows we're with you."
Lucy was baffled; she wasn't used to seeing Susan like this: so unsure and fearful as opposed to her unusual know-everything, logical, orderly personality.
"Come on," she said after a quiet moment of nothing but blinking and whirling snowflakes. "He wont be upset with us-after all, we can warn him about the Ruling Powers."
"That's true," murmured Susan, her lips nearly blue and her teeth chattering slightly as they approached the large, thick mahogany, gold-handled front door.
Back up in Lee Scoresby's airship, Peter was beside himself with grief. Both his sister and his wife lost over-board, hurlting down at goodness-knows what rate, gone in less than four seconds. He hadn't been able to save them. Feeling desperately alone, he envied Edmund and Lee Scoresby with their dæmons, and wished he could talk to his soul as they did. Maybe then he wouldn't feel trapped and broken, cut off from everything as he rested with his head against the ship's side, his eyes tightly shut. He even wished-passively-for Doe; she had been left with the Gyptians, and even though she was probably missing him terribly, she wasn't a real dæmon-he might just as easily have had a doll and pretended that was his dæmon.
Lyra, Pan curled up as an ermine around her neck, checked her alethiometer; asking it if Susan and Lucy were still alive. "They aint dead!"
Ella squawked with relief and Edmund exhaled. Peter opened his eyes and glanced hopelessly down at the never-ending sky below them. How could they have possibly survived that? Yet, he hadn't know the alethiometer to be wrong. Unless, of course, if Lyra wasn't reading it right...and only thought...no, he couldn't bear that...they were alive, they had to be.
In the end, they decided to take the air-ship down and send Iorek out to look for them.
"Peter," Edmund said suddenly, hopping down from the ship onto the ice patch next to the white bear. "stay with Lyra and make sure Scoresby gets her to Lord Asriel in time-I'm going with Iorek."
Much as Peter tried to argue that he was the one who ought to be going with the armoured bear to look for his wife and sister, Edmund got his way in the end and left on Iorek's back with Ella on his shoulder, fluttering her wings to wave goodbye to Pantalaimon.
"We'll make it," Lyra tried to cheer the dæmonless boy up. "And when we find Lord Asriel, he'll be so glad to see us all there to help him! We're bringing him what he needs-aint we?"
Peter wasn't sure why; but those last words: 'We're bringing him what he needs' sent unexpected shivers up his spine as if he could see the future and felt Lord Asriel tearing something he 'needed' away from them. What if it wasn't the alethiometer he needed? What if it were something else? Something that would be far more painful to give up. But, if so, what could it possibly be?
AN: Please leave a review. (I like reviews.)
