Disclaimer: MWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!!! Finally, I own something!!!! Two things, actually... Ly'na and Miss Unnamed Narrator, not to mention the plot line! Philip Pullman, however, owns the Gobblers, and he can KEEP them.
A/N: Yes, I DO realize that most dæmons are the opposite sex of their humans, but the narrator is a girl and so is Ly'na. They are one of the rare exceptions... *smiles*
Silence...
My heart is pale. Life is pale. I look in the mirror, expecting to see a shadowy outline of myself... Instead, I am as material as ever. Not for long... Even now, I am dying. I shall slip into the forgiving blackness, finally reunited with my soul, my beloved dæmon... Ly'na...Oh, I miss you, love! Best friend. Soul...
They captured me easily. I was so trusting, so naïve. So innocent. Why is it that innocence is longed for, like it is some special gift? I'd give it up again, had I still it, to have my Ly'na again. Where is she? This small thing following me around is not she... There is no intelligence in these blank eyes, none of her silent wisdom, none of her laughter. Nay, this is something soulless... soulless, like myself. And I have a great gaping hole in my chest, imperceptible, but there all the same.
Had I still a soul, it would have been sucked out of me by this place... they called it a hospital, did they? A prison is what it is... White, sterilized, stinking of so many bodies all pressed together... Pressed together, as they press on me, always. It's a false smell, a closed-in fetor, yearning for wind and cold and snow to cover it, sweep it away. Bury it. A curse upon this place! Let it crumble, fall to ruins. It is unnatural: a place of neither life nor death. Half-life. Half-death.
There are stories told of men fated to wander in the snows forever, half-dead... They have been killed, but kept alive. Some say that their dæmons must continually pump their lungs, or both will perish. I do not know the truth of this, as stories did not often filter to my town unchanged. The Gobblers- they were said to be vicious Tartars, sweeping through the cities to kidnap children for their bloody rituals. I believed that for a time, gullible as I was. Now I see the truth, too late. Too late, my Ly'na...
That I were one of those men. I do not have the freedom to die, as they do. I may linger for despondent months like this, mind and body but no spirit. If only my heart had the sense, the sanity to stop beating, to free me from this misery! I would not wish this on anybody, not even my father, who cast me from his home and lead me to this fate... Not even my mother, may she rest in peace, who let him wrong me for fear of him.
Oh, God... I've prayed for death, for mercy, for revenge, and You've left me here. Alone. Not even You could bring back my beloved Ly'na. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Lord... Hah. What God with the power to stop this would let it go on? In serves no holy purpose, of this I am sure. It serves only Darkness, and if Darkness is holy, I will be a heretic. The God I love holds life and death sacred, not this odious, abnormal existence... I will not worship any other, regardless of what the Church commands me to believe. I am no longer a child, to be bidden by my elders like an animal. I am not what I once was, and I would not go back to that hateful state of being, had I the chance to. I am no longer a child. I am not a child.
Ly'na, my Ly'na... small beauty... Your form lies curled up against me, so sweet, so calm, but it is not you, not you, not you... We are broken, and we will not be put together again... No tears will bring you back to me, my beautiful Ly'na, yet still I cry. Do you remember, my darling, that day we stole through the courtyard together, escaping from my father? I cried, told you how much I wanted a family that loved me, wanted it more than anything. And you said you'd never leave me, even if you could... Oh, Ly'na. I believed you. You were right in everything else. Why couldn't you have been right in this?
To be or not to be, that is the question. Or so said a great man, once upon a time... Has so much changed in these few years? Because that is no longer the question. If only it was... if only...
Oh, Ly'na...