A/N: Sorry this took such a long time. I am currently involved in JC Superstar (First Priest, small solo, I am proud) Does anyone remember what Pan ended up as? I would look, but being the lending Library I am, my book is currently being read by one friend, and being passed onto another. So if anyone could tell me….t'would be great! OOOh. Also, what is Dame Hannah's dæmon?
Lyra sat beside a scholar at the dinner table. He was old and dignified, and didn't even glance up at the young woman as she sat down. Quickly, she spooned mashed potatoes and gravy onto her plate, and put on some green beans, and finally, lamb chops. Pan, who had sat down in her lap, licked his lips in appreciation. As Lyra cut up the tough meat, she was still thinking about Will, even though she tried not to almost as often as she drew air into her lungs. She supposed he was thinking of her too, but it didn't help much. She would much rather have held him, smelt his smell, kissed him, then be stuck without him, knowing all the while what it was like to be with him.
"Lyra?" Lyra lifted her head to see Daina, her dorm mate and closest friend, standing beside her.
"Yes?" Lyra asked, her voice barely a whisper, it's usual confidence gone.
"Dame Hannah wants to see you, she asked me to find you. She says not to worry about dinner." Daina ran a hand through her curly auburn hair, and straightened her glasses. Lyra stood up, and offered her spot to her friend
"You might as well eat it, Daina. I'll see you tonight." Lyra said, as Pan leap into her arms. Daina's dæmon, a raven named Pirlawit, squaked a goodbye as they left the dining hall.
Lyra knocked on the ornate wooden door that led to Dame Hannah's office. She had been here several time, to receive letters from the Master of Jordan College, to talk of her studies, and to get permission to meet in the garden every midsummer since Will had gone back to his world.
"Come in." The faint voice of the woman scholar drifted through the heavy wood, and Lyra pulled the handle with some difficulty. Being an old building, the College was full of un-working doors, creaky floorboards, and termites. She walked inside, and up to a little desk. The room was lighted by a single lamp, which sat on the Professor's desk. Dame Hannah was not pretty, but she had a certain air about her that Lyra liked.
"Lyra, please, sit down." Dame Hannah gestured towards the chair before her desk, and Lyra sat, smoothing her skirt underneath her.
"You really have grown up since you came to stay with us, Lyra." Dame Hannah said, looking at Lyra fleetingly, before she returned to some papers on her desk. Lyra managed to say
"Yes ma'am." She had no idea where the conversation was going, and so she busied herself with looking around the room. Heavy drapes parted to reveal large windows, open to the night air and the stars. The floor was carpet in a thick red carpet that matched the curtains and the window seat covers. The walls were covered in paintings of people and their dæmons, and of landscapes. In one, a sad eye girl looked sullenly out, her calico cat dæmon, matching her feelings exactly, had turned away from the painter. This particular portrait frightened Lyra especially, although she didn't know why.
"…and I am concerned about you, Lyra. Are you listening to me?" Lyra shook her head apologetically.
"Are you getting much sleep, Lyra?" Dame Hannah asked suddenly, so suddenly that it caught Lyra off guard and she blushed.
"Not really." She confessed, hugging Pan tightly.
"Why not?" the older woman's tone was soft and friendly, not at all as reprimanding as Lyra had feared.
"I keep dreaming about Will." The words were out before Lyra could stop them, and she was angry to find that her eyes were brimming with tears. She had never ever talked about Will with anyone else but Pan, and even then, they rarely discussed him.
"Ah, I see. Lyra, perhaps spending some time away from your studies would help." Dame Hannah began tactfully, but was cut off by Lyra's choked out
"NO!" Didn't Dame Hannah understand? Without the aleithometer, Lyra would never know of Will again! It was the one thing she still had that kept even the tiniest channel open between them, and she would not let it go. She would study it, make herself touch it, even if she died trying. She would give up every ounce of life in her body to be with Will again.
"Lyra, you must get away. Your so think, you have dark bags beneath your eyes. How long will you be able to go on if you are ill? What good can you do yourself?" Dame Hannah's voice had an edge of hysterics to it that Lyra had never heard before. "Lyra, I know you were in love with him, but you need to forget it, move on. You will make yourself sick if you keep this up."
"I am still in love with Will. I will love Will until I die, and beyond. And anyone who says any different has never known love, Dame Hannah. Because when you love someone, you en't never gonna forget 'em, never!" Lyra exclaimed passionatly, feeling tears of anger pour down her cheeks, and forgetting the grammar she had been so painfully instructed.
"Lyra, for Heaven's Sake, calm down." Dame Hannah handed the sobbing girl a handkerchief, and regarded her carefully, as if trying to come to a decision. At last, she said "Oh Lyra, you really must leave us. Not forever" she added, seeing the panic on Lyra's face "But for a time. You may take the aleithometer, and the books if you wish. But I will not have you wasting away here when there is still so much that you can do. With or without Will." She looked at Lyra to see her answer, and was satisfied by the nod she received.
"I will make the proper arrangements, and I suggest that you start packing, Lyra. Good luck." Dame Hannah said, squeezing Lyra's hand comfortingly as the girl stood up, and left the room.
"Poor dear" the voice of Dame Hannah's dæmon, Renellie, glided into the air "She really doesn't know what to do with herself.
"But she may prove beneficial, Renellie dear. She has talent with that instrument. Just watch and see, Lyra will be a useful asset to us yet." Dame Hannah replied, as she watched the door through which the younger woman had exited, a small smile playing on her lips.
A/N
I never really liked Dame Hannah. But maybe she isn't bad, eh? I can't get over the fact that Lyra and Will were *sob* separated. And that there will be no sequel. Don't expect them together soon, though. I am diehard fan, but I have to have a plot going before I can pop out the reason they see each other. And it's…..but you'll have to wait and see, wontcha?
Thanks for the reviews!!!!!