By Mistress of Magic
Disclaimer: I don't own the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy by Phillip Pullman but I'm a big fan. This is my fanfic. Enjoy!!
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Part One: Lyra's Death/ The Northern lands, 3 months later
For three months now, the wind had come in from the East, carrying with it a different note of sadness as it whistled through the branches of tall cloud-pines. For the witches of Queen Serafina Pekkala's clan, it not only lifted long, wild hair and caused the air to be filled with the sounds of rustling black silk, but somehow made them want to be more wary.
Something was wrong.
The witch Serafina Pekkala herself noticed it the most. She had always been able to commune with nature well as all witches could innately, and felt the extra icy chill the wind current brought along, laced with some subtle, dark, ominous sensation the clan queen couldn't quite place.
In a way, it frightened her. She felt the sadness that rode upon the breeze. The cold wind caressed her cheeks some days, and it brought burning tears to her eyes. Depression was something she never felt, ever. Serafina had done her share of crying in her time, but never without a reason to it. Her pale gray snow goose daemon, Kasia, felt it too, as she did.
Kasia caught the updraft, and rose, but it seemed he did this reluctantly. "Do you feel that?" he whispered quietly, although he knew the answer he would get.
"Yes," was all Serafina Pekkala said, looking directly ahead of her. Kasia craned his long neck to get a better view of his beloved witch; she was gripping the slim branch of cloud-pine she flew on so hard, her knuckles were turned white.
She flies so slowly! Kasia thought. On any other given day, Serafina flew close beside their other witch companions, swooping through the air to mimic Kasia, as she had done when she was a child.
To Kasia's surprise, Serafina Pekkala suddenly said, "Do you think she remembers us?"
Kasia knew exactly whom the witch meant. Lyra.
"Of course she does!" Kasia said, trying to sound a little more cheerful. All the witches needed it, not only his. "We remember her…"
The last time Serafina Pekkala had seen Lyra was close to eleven years ago.
It seems like the last time I saw her and spoke to her wasn't that long ago at all, Serafina thought. The witch was three hundred years old or more; still considered young, by witch standards. To a short-life, she would appear possibly no more than the age Lyra would be now. But I feel so old lately.
"I miss her," Serafina Pekkala blurted spontaneously, hoping none of the other witches had heard the outburst, no matter how quiet it may have been. She felt the hot tears well up in her eyes again for the second time that day, and fought to keep them back.
"I know," Kasia agreed. Serafina loved that little girl we saved from Svalbard and those terrible child-cutters like her own, he thought.
Serafina Pekkala heard Kasia's thoughts, but did not say anything against them. It was true, after all.
Still, she had a bad feeling about something.
"I…I think something is wrong, Kasia," Serafina said after some time, staring out at the witches that flew well in front of her. "Something, I think, that concerns us. No, I know something is wrong. I've felt it for some time now."
"So have I," the gray snow goose said. "Does it have to do with Lyra, do you think?"
"I don't know, Kasia," Serafina Pekkala said. "I just don't know." She took one hand off of her branch of cloud-pine to drag across her eyes, and it immediately turned from white to blushing red as blood rushed back into her cold fingertips.
"But…you wish you did," Kasia whispered.
"Yes. I do," Serafina replied. She sighed, and turned her head away from the gray snow goose to gaze at the horizon to her left. The sun was sinking behind the high mountains, changing the tall cloud-pines to dark silhouettes.
When it was night, the witches guided their cloud-pines to the ground to sleep where they usually did, and eat. Serafina Pekkala leaned her branch of cloud-pine against a large, rough-barked tree of its own kind. Kasia flew up into the same tree, and promptly tucked his head under his right wing. He was tired.
Serafina was also tired more or less, but hungry, and slid her longbow off of her shoulder where it had been strapped across her chest, and quickly nocked an arrow pulled out of the deerskin quiver at her back in its place. She and many of the other witches ventured off into the darkening forest to check traps set the day before, or somewhere off near a field to hunt, always with a witch or two nearby in case anything should happen.
She crept lightly through the thick, knee-high grass of the wide field, and spotted a sleek, dark brown hare almost at once. The witch pulled the bowstring until it felt as though the arrow would go far enough, aimed, and let go. The arrow whizzed through the air, and sped directly through the hare's throat, killing it at once. One rabbit would be quite enough, and this one was skinny; and Serafina Pekkala was not that hungry.
The witch queen picked up the dead hare from the ground, and slung it over her shoulder to cook over a fire to bring back to where the witches were camping that night on the grassy hill, as many others were now doing. She made the fire when she got back, and had the rabbit skinned and already roasting, skewered on a green stick on a spit to cook over the flames near the other witches' fires, before going to sleep with the rest.
Serafina Pekkala slept and she dreamed.
It is before dawn. It is easy to see the sun has not yet risen, because the small, bare room is not yet light…Someone sleeps on a narrow bed so peacefully…It is a young woman with a beautiful red-gold pine marten daemon, asleep at her neck…The woman also has a child, who sleeps beside her in its cradle ……
Peace. Love. She loves the child so much! This child is her whole world ……
But there is someone else in the room, quite near to them…A man…No, an angel, but without wings…He seems to be very unlike most angels, though … …
The wingless angel watches, as all of his kind do, but for a different purpose…He waits.
Waits for what?
For the right time to strike. He has…A knife, the angel holds a dagger…in his hand…He watches the mother and child alike ……
The angel comes in the guise of the Angel of Death this night…the knife…Like a snake, he strikes! Can't wait any longer ……
He plunges the dagger into the young woman's breast, so mercilessly ……
For one brief moment, her eyes open, sky blue…one…last…time…They close. She is dead.
Dead.
The child! He now comes for the child…her mother is dead. The angel wants the child's life, too…Nothing can stop him…Nothing can hold him back ……
In her sleep, Serafina Pekkala cried out, "No! No, please no, don't kill…"
But something does stop him…A force, a spirit…It holds him fast by the wrist…makes him bleed ……
Thin rivulets of crimson blood course down his arm, connecting, like a web of red blood ……
The angel can't kill the child, but he wants to…so much ……
"No…!" Serafina wailed without knowing it. The dream was ending.
"Queen, Queen, wake up! Wake up!" the witches were awakened by their clan queen's cry. It had scared them. She needed help, something was wrong. One on the youngest witches in the clan, not yet a hundred years old, was shaken to tears, not knowing what was happening to Serafina Pekkala.
Three fat drops of the angel-assassin's blood fell upon the hard wooden floor beneath him, staining it with three drops of scarlet ……
And an unfamiliar voice…So much hatred and sharpness in that voice ……
"Kill them both!" it says. "Eve's daughter must die!"
She woke up screaming!
"Lyra!" Serafina Pekkala screamed. "No! No!"
"Queen, are you alright?" the elderly witch behind Serafina, who was holding her queen upright asked. "Please," she said, "tell us, what is happening?"
Serafina Pekkala gasped, or at least tried to, her chest tightening in pure terror. A much younger witch Serafina knew fairly well came to her with a little horn cup filled with cold water from the nearby stream. Serafina, much too nervous and agitated to possibly eat or drink anything without bringing it back up, waved the water away regretfully with a hand movement that said "No, but thank you."
"What is wrong?" the elderly witch asked again, more or less as afraid for all Serafina was. The snow goose Kasia lay crumpled like paper on the ground—he had shared his witch's nightmare.
When the witch was able to catch her breath, she said, "Lyra! Lyra Belacqua. Something's happened to her!"
"Lyra…" the crowd of women murmured thoughtfully.
"Eve!" Serafina Pekkala blurted out, thinking the witches were not sure what she meant in her condition, even though they truly did. "Eve, again! Eve, the mother of all!" she was hot, but there were thousands of minute drops of cold sweat beading her forehead and dampening the hair at her hairline and temples.
"Oh, Yambe-Akka…" Serafina Pekkala moaned, and fainted.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Mistress: Dammit, my head hurts! That part took a lot out of me…I'm only thirteen…Man, I need a drink! BRING ON THE ROOTBEER!!
Catina: *looks at Mistress warily* You better make a GOOD comment on this story or Mistress is going to do something very, very bad. ^_^;;
Mistress: I will burn your children to the ground! Crosses will continue to burn in the backyards of those who…
Catina: *grabs Mistress from behind and puts her in the closet with a straightjacket*
Mistress: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! *laughing crazily*
Catina: _ oyyyyy…Now you know what I have to put up with everyday.