Hope y'all enjoyed this one as much as I enjoyed writing it! Of course, every bit of fluff in a Lyra/Will fic is a double-edged sword for reasons that need not be mentioned.

Just after the Fall

It was the golden hour, but it was more than that. Something had shifted in the world of the mulefa. Every atom around them was spun from gold. The lightbeams filtering through the forest canopy were surely a new form of gold vapor. The sun-stained leaves, hundreds of feet above their head, looked as if they had been dipped in liquid gold fluorescence. The water in the creek folded between gold and clear and black and white as it flowed over the rocks that Will and Lyra were resting their feet on.

And Lyra's hair, ever so slightly tickling his chin and his cheek as she sat between his legs, her back settled against his chest—this was, indisputably, woven gold. Gold that was soft. Gold that smelled not metallic, but like the little red fruit she'd liften to his lips hours ago. Will wondered if she'd ever smell like anything else to him, if she'd ever taste like anything else. It seemed doubtful. She could be covered in gore or sweat or literal trash for all he cared and his senses would still be soaked with the essence of the fruit whenever he got close to her.

But, just to be sure, he leaned down, brushing her cheek with his lips. She already knew what this meant. She dislodged her head from underneath his chin and smiled at him, but he was already kissing her. Well, kissing her teeth, really. She giggled and pulled away for a second (one second too long), then met his lips for real, and Will concluded that, so far, his hypothesis was correct. Even before Lyra had forever cemented the fruit as his favorite food of all time, he'd liked the way they tasted. They were sweet, like strawberries, but a little subtler. Maybe closer to a perfectly-ripe plum.

He wouldn't mind tasting that on her mouth every day for the rest of his life. No, he wouldn't mind that at all.

Will regretfully broke the kiss. He had a question, one that had been nagging at him since the fruit. They hadn't done much talking since then. They'd kissed, they'd swam, they'd eaten more of the warm, flaky bread. They'd lain on the cool mud and held each other, whispering lovely things that probably meant nothing to anyone but the two of them. But real conversation had eluded them.

"When did you know?" he asked. "That you, um—"

"—That I loved you?" Lyra interjected. The word had somehow been difficult for him. It wasn't as if he'd said it probably three dozen times over the course of the afternoon or anything.

Will just chuckled, kissing the crown of her head. (because, seriously, what else was he supposed to do?) "Yeah," he said, deadpan. "That."

"Mary's story," Lyra said wistfully. "Or, maybe I'd been feeling it before then. But nobody ever told me what it was. Not until her."

"The marzipan," Will said simply.

"Marchpane," Lyra corrected. "But yes."

"If you're in my world and we're at a restaurant and you order marchpane, no one will know what you're talking about," Will chided.

"Your world needs better servants, then," Lyra huffed, her breath washing over his neck.

"They're called waiters, not servants" Will explained with mock-exasperation. "They're paid. You'll learn."

"If you'll teach me," Lyra replied. Will kissed her deeply in response, and she buried her fingers in the curly hair above his ears.

"I will. Every day, evermore," Will said, rather cheesily. He was pretty sure he'd seen the word 'evermore' on some Valentine's Day card at the pharmacy once, so he couldn't be sure if he was using it right. And even if he was, it was surely over-the-top. He'd known her all of, what, two months? He could almost hear the voices of the imbecile boys back at his school, teasing their friends for the infantile relationships they thought they had with whatever vapid girl they thought they loved.

But he didn't care. Will was sick of being the nondescript boy, passing through spaces wishing for nothing more than anonymity. He realized now that he had only ever wanted that because he had never known what it was like to be seen, really seen, every part of you exposed, weighed on some cosmic scales.

The nondescript Will of old had not yet been loved by Lyra Silvertongue. She was the scales, he now saw. The liar, the savage, the brat—this was the girl who held his entire being in her smooth little hands and concluded that he was worthy.

There was no being anonymous with her, so he would not mask his love for her either. Never.

"I will. Every day, evermore," he said, and all Lyra could do in response was tilt her head up and kiss him yet again, but just a graze of the lips this time. It wasn't that she was becoming sick of it—no, she didn't think she'd ever tire of having Will Parry's lips on hers. But their mouths were getting swollen. Chapped. And besides, they had all the time in the worlds to kiss, and lie down together, and wake up next to each other. Or do anything else. For the first time, maybe in her entire life, Lyra didn't know what lay in store for her. Her old life felt like it belonged to someone else, someone who Lyra had outgrown by decades instead of months. But whatever she did, wherever she went, she wanted Will Parry at her side.

"I love, you Will," Lyra whispered. She felt like she was drowning in it, like she would suffocate if she didn't let all she was feeling bubble to the surface. Luckily, she could let it out, and the most amazing thing of all was that she knew he would smile that tremulous, precious smile that had so rarely forced itself out in their travels together, that he would respond in kind because somehow he felt the exact same way for her.

"You're the bravest person in the universe, the truest, the best. Oh, you're beautiful, Will." She was almost gasping now, the sensation of drowning had left. She'd kicked her way up to the surface of the ocean and was gulping in sweet lungfuls of air. And the air, of course, smelled of marzipan.

"Do you know that?" she asked him, gravely serious, pressing a kiss to his jaw. The seedlings of stubble had sprouted there at some point, but she hadn't noticed until she'd been able to kiss him whenever she wanted.

"At this point it'd be hard to forget," Will teased.

"Never forget it," she beseeched him. "I'm choosing you, Will Parry, not just because you're here, not just because I gave you a damn berry." Lyra thought back to Mary's story. There'd been an asterisk hanging over the entire tale—Mary and Tim hadn't stayed together. He'd given her the marzipan, they'd kissed, and then...years later, she was with someone else.

Lyra knew it was probably foolish, thinking so far down the line with Will. She wondered what the alethiometer would say about their future. But she only wondered a little. There was nothing the alethiometer could tell her that she didn't know already with every cell of her body. The truth—the only truth that mattered—was that she loved him, and she didn't want to be without him. Ever. And she would be damned if she wasn't going to allow herself to just feel that.

What could be holier?

"You en't anyone else's," Lyra said, with sudden fierceness. "You're mine, you got it?"

Will lifted her hand to his mouth and whispered his response against her fingernails. "I've got it, Lyra."

She nuzzled even further into his embrace, if that was even possible. "What's the first thing you're gonna show me? When we get to your Oxford?"

"Well, you've already seen the cinema," he said thoughtfully. His voice had taken on the seriousness it had back on that day they'd spent planning their raid on Latrom's house, and she giggled at the reality that he was absolutely taking this just as seriously. "You've seen the Botanic Gardens."

"I'd go back to either of those places," she said, trying to be helpful. "I wasn't really focused on the moving photogram when we were there last."

"'Movie,'" he corrected. "Or 'film' if you want to be a snob."

"Do I look like I want to be a snob?"

"No," Will said quickly. Lyra laughed again. He never showed her his fear around Spectres, or witches, or ghosts. But the thought of her being mad at him? Terrifying. "What kind of movies do you think you would like?"

"I didn't much like the one we saw, with the little bear."

"Paddington. That's funny. I thought maybe it would remind you of Iorek."

"Oh, Will!" she slapped his shoulder and raised her eyebrows. "Don't worry, I won't tell him you compared him to that mangy little thing."

"Okay, okay, so not Paddington," Will conceded. "What movie, then?"

"I want one with an adventure."

"Could any adventure movies compare to what we've done?"

Lyra gazed up at her love yet again, staring into the whites of his eyes, tinted pale gold in the warm dusk.

"No," she said. "But it would be fun to see them try."

Thanks so much for reading! This will almost certainly be the last chapter of this particular endeavor. I considered doing a scene when they're on the boat with the Gyptians before they have to separate, but I can't bring myself to write something that would undoubtedly be so melancholy. So unless I come up with something that I just can't resist getting into a google doc, that's gonna do it for this fic.