Lyra looked out over the amber colored expanse of Oxford. Her rough hands bent over the equally rough windowsill at the top of staircase twelve, no longer pushing up to make their next reach for the roof. Pantalaimon curled around her neck and whispered -

"Lyra, do you think it will be our last?"

And Lyra could only drop her shoulders and sigh. She and Pan had known their whole lives of the death that lived right beside them every moment, a very long time ago Lyra had called to him and seen him for the first time, more recently Lyra had seen him elsewhere. She closed her eyes and turned away from the view she remembered from another life. They had never intended to come up here, but after Lyra had seen her death only yesterday, she and Pan had decided to come back to Jordan.

Lyra Belacqua had returned to her world fifty-six years ago with a new name - Silvertongue from the bear-king Iorek Byrnison. At twenty-six Lyra Silvertongue changed again, Honnél in name, but Silvertongue in heart still. After graduating from Dame Hannah's school she found and married a respectable business man named Christoph Honnél. He was lovely to her throughout their years of marriage, and at his eventual passing, she mourned him in earnest and in love. Theirs was a relationship friends would gossip about often - his favorite activity being boat rides through the canals, and hers, stealing the wheel. And when Christoph proposed to her at the fair- bent knee from top of an elephant he had bribed from the owner - Lyra had only flinched a moment before running to accept. Pan, equally thrilled, had stuck to Christoph's cottontail rabbit dæmon, Syvil.

Lyra looked down at her hands - old now, arthritic and painful, but still in working condition, with capabilities at least to turn the knobs on the alethiometer. With one last look over her shoulder, Lyra began her climb down the stairs, with Pan leading her on, guiding where her eyesight succumbed to the dark stairwell.

"Thank you, gentlemen, colleagues, and guests," The Master of Jordan College began his speech, "your presence tonight is greatly enjoyed and appreciated. Tonight we gather in celebration of those great souls who have contributed to Jordan College, and sustained it's place in Oxford as one of the highest ranking among scholarly and theological achievements."

The master raised his glass.

"And great appreciation must be given to our own Professor Santelia, second in achievement only to his father. The professor has been commended this year by the church for his exposure on theories of Dark Matter, and has revealed it's origin not of sin as it was originally thought, but of a substance entirely from the goodness of God's earth!"

Heads nodded agreement and glasses clinked together, yet Lyra and Pantalaimon, the oldened pair they were, could not help offering each other a slight smirk. Their church had not entirely changed, and it had been years before Lyra even realized the church's original involvement in her journey to the world of the dead and back. After she discovered the extent of the entire ordeal didn't just accompany her and Will, she realized then that the Republic of Heaven did involve and still needed her. Lyra had been teaching students at Dame Hannah's about Dust since she arrived there. It had taken quite a while for the students around her to believe any of her tales, and eventually she had given up. Only on Dame Hannah's encouragement had she proposed a grant after her graduation for a local research team traveling to the north. It was on this expedition that she had gathered together all the belongings mailed by zeppelin to her from Lord Asriel's prison in the north. It was a thrill to be up north again - though for fear of the rest of the research team, Lyra hadn't suggested traveling to see either witches or bears. Once they had passed a great white mound on sledge, Lyra had nearly yelled to it, but by a swift nip from Pan, instead let out a painful noise, and complained to the man nearby of the filthy panserbjorne and her fear of them.

The man, taking her "fear" as genuine, gave the young girl a full smile and began explaining their weapons. When he began talk of hunting the bears for sport, Lyra shook so uncontrollably that the man's rabbit dæmon had to jump on Pan to make him settle down back onto the sledge. Only then did Lyra let out her disgust at this horrible man. He had supplied their party with weapons to hunt her greatest friend, and she let him know in more than a few filthy phrases. Christoph was forced to spend the entirety of the trip apologizing to her - hearing her full story eventually, the first person she had confided truly in. And the first night the aurora sprang into life over their heads, he hijacked one of his own sleds, and he and Lyra had made a run for Svalbard. As Christoph was the supplier and not the guide, he could only laugh with another apology as they realized their mistake of attempting to get to Svalbard by sled - after all, the ocean had not frozen over. And so Lyra had found the man she could love and be with for her life. As well, Lyra had found her passion. And with her proof of Dust from the exploration, she brought new studies into Dame Hannah's, and eventually left to bring teachings of Alethiometry and Dust to Jordan, was promptly declined, and ended up at St. Michael's teaching Alethiometry to students as her course, but varying with lessons in experimental theology - Will's science.

True, Jordan was still Lyra's home in her mind, especially until the death of the master she knew. At his funeral Lyra had handed over to Jordan the rest of what Lord Asriel had left to her, along with a decent sized check from herself and her husband. It was the new master who had decided that with this act, Lord Asriel was officially dead, and gave him a proper tombstone in the crypt. No one ever noticed the odd mound erected in the corner. Not long after Lyra got back from her journey she had come to a decision on Roger - one she knew he would like. It had taken days of sitting and waiting on the roof, but eventually she had coaxed one of the rooks to fly lower, and Pan lept upon it and pinned it down while Lyra ran over to gather it into her hands. She held onto the bird for a while, wondering whether Roger would agree more to roasting it or letting it go. Then decided in proper Lyra fashion to let it go, but tell everyone that she had roasted it and pulled out the bones for burial. And that was what was supposedly in the mound at the edge of the crypt - Roger's proper burial from his Lyra. Only Lyra and Pan knew what the mound really held besides a golden coin meticulously scratched upon to resemble the name "Roger" on one side, and "Salcilia" on the other.

Roger had been given a proper send off by his family - though chores and cooking still went on as usual, so Lyra was forced to continue this mourning alone. But Roger had not been the only one she had mourned for. When Lyra was sixteen, the horse fair was in town again. She had beamed when Billy Costa approached her, and ran for a greeting when Ma Costa appeared behind him. The friends embraced, much to the dismay of Ma Costa who believed Lyra needed to calm down and stop wrinkling her skirt so much. But they had invited her back to their longboat for some fresh fen eels caught the day before. Only after they ate did they tell Lyra the news. They had returned to the canals this season minus one aged and admired man. Farder Coram had died in his sleep the month before. And although she cried, Lyra asked only about Serafina.

The clan witch had left her sisters at the notice of Farder Coram's death. Serafina had flown all night, but it was Kaisa that arrived first. Without a human in tow, the great snow goose arrived as Coram's body was hoisted onto the tier where he would be burnt. Tony Costa described as best he could the broken call of the goose, the impossible tears coming from his eyes, his frantic search for the security of the autumn furred cat dæmon he had found in their youth, but Lyra found tears even in his weak description. Lyra now knew Ma Costa had interrupted Tony because of Lyra's own relationship. She continued the story in a gentler tone - describing the elegant grace Serafina arrived with. Serafina had walked up on the wooden tier and placed her hand gently over Coram's face, and with a quailing voice, commanded to be left alone. This was the part Lyra hated remembering the most. It was then she realized the extent of their sacrifice to each other, their love. Now she hoped only that merciful Yambe-Akka let would let Serafina reunite with her love in death.

Lyra didn't know any longer who else had died. She had heard rumor of a year the gyptians arrived with a new leader - undoubtedly true with the unrealistic age John Faa would be at present. Iorek had remained isolated with his bears at Svalbard when the flows returned to their normal rhythms, and Lyra saw the sense in it, and never wanted to know when Iorek was dead - even still keeping hope that he was alive and old, but never dead, because she would never see Iorek again. She wondered about the lives of those strange and momentary wheeled creatures she had met upon her exit from the world of the dead, and about Mary Malone. Most terrifying to Lyra, upon further reasoning of the Barnard-Stokes theory, was Will. She pulled her chair further into the table, grimacing as her knee hit off an oak beam. Pan and she had of recently been debating on time. Not their time, they knew they would die soon. But it was a fear they held closest of all - the time in Will's world. Lyra remembered all too well the way the ghosts in the land of the dead forgot their names, their dæmons, their worlds, their lives...what if time moved differently in her world than it did in Will's? What if one of them would forget who they were waiting for? Her eyes teared involuntarily as she passed this thought again. Always, Pan reassured her, they would remember...once a year, and so soon now.

"Just four more days" thought Lyra.

The next four days were a whirlwind to her. Lyra had traveled around Oxford. No longer to cause mischief, but to visit museums and old friends. Lyra walked her old route from Jordan to Juxon Street first - to visit the house of the now deceased Sebastian Makepeace. Although the two had started off quite oddly, she had seen him again the same year of Coram's death. That was when the two truly became friends - even though he had initially left her wanting answers, Lyra and he became friends in the workshop in analyzing elementary particles. She even decided to forgive him for his initial lies. After all, even at fourteen Lyra knew enough that the man was suspicious. It didn't take her long to realize he had supplied her with a false name taken from the Eagle Ironworks behind his house. Lyra's only disappointment now was that Sebastian had refused until his death to tell her more about Randolph Lucy, a previous occupant of his house who shared a history similar not only to his own, but to Farder Coram's as well. Lyra had eventually let the story fade away.

Lyra walked on. Now hauntingly familiar smells were arising from the canals, smoke from the longboats. She slipped off her shoes as she tried desperately to remember how she had described the mud to the lifeless ghosts - but only realized how much she failed when her toes felt the first dirty wetness sinking around them. Even if the brickburners' children were around, they were now off limits as the mud slinging Lyra of old had grown up. But the mud was still fresh and slippery - just as she had remembered it. And she slipped. Not the fun slide she remembered, but a terrifying fall for old bones. As her hand flew out to catch her, Lyra fell into blackness.

It's not to say Will hadn't thought of her for years, much the opposite in fact. But his mother was truly gone now both in mind and soul. It had taken him so long to accept it, even as a full grown man he continued caring for her. Elaine Parry's life had ended after a stroke left her in a coma for eight years. Eight painful years Will had sat by her side, nearly every day. His heart breaking, her heart broken, his father's heart...only a memory. Will had returned to Oxford with Mary Malone after breaking the knife. The two had a special relationship only travelers could share. Nothing about their friendship suggested anything more, nor suggested that she thought of him as a son. They had mutual respect for each other, Mary more so for young Will initially. She couldn't help looking at his heart breaking for so long, only thinking of herself. After finding a new job and holding it for as long as she could stand, Mary Malone again decided to move in a new direction. This time it was marriage. Mary rediscovered the love she had lost so long ago on the beaches, but this time the shy faithless Mary Malone was prepared for finding love, and she toured China endlessly with the man she had recounted to Lyra and Will.

Will for the most part went back to normality of life. True, Oxford was a much easier place for him to blend into than Winchester, and Will immediately took to it as his new task. Only later did he realize that he was unintentionally abandoning the Republic of Heaven. Will's first experience at a University was when he really began making the effort to heal. He had met plenty of girls that adored him - minus two fingers and all. And he never made comparisons, but still, the most complete he found himself was with Kirjava. So Will had never married, had never found love in his world. But he had found friends. Will Parry had become a detective in a way. He discovered investigation as a way to take up his father's mantle, while contributing to the society around him. Not a policeman on the force would argue with him, and most convincingly he had been a lawyer for some years. When he eventually retired, Kirjava and he made it their goal to travel. He had grow quite an appreciation for the warmer areas and began vacationing there, oddly returning to Oxford for the summer months.

Midsummer's Day.

"Pan..." Lyra trailed.

"Come on Lyra, we shouldn't think like that, we must."

And Lyra stiffed a cough to smile as her most well known reply dredged itself into slow words.

"If we should and we can then we must, only Pan, we can't. We should go but we can't."

And Pantalaimon pushed himself closer into Lyra's face, as close as he could get to her, her soft tears falling on his red fur making darker stains. She breathed out, looking again at her condition - she would never walk again, old hips fractured, old wrists broke, old muscles grew sorer, these things she was certain of. They would not make it to the Botanic Gardens today. Noon was so close, Lyra looked over the clock from her view in the master's bedroom - 10:30. And she turned her face not away from it, but pretended it was the alethiometer, and used her imagination to turn the hands round and made them point - wild man for Will, walled garden for their meeting place, and baby for forgiveness. She could not imagine an answer, years of discipline prevented her from granting herself this last comfort.

"Lyra, I think it's soon now." Pantalaimon was as old as Lyra, but still finding it hard to keep from becoming hysterical with the fear they felt. He knew what awaited them in the world of the dead - he had been there before, and was glad to not go there again, but pushing aside the nausea he found in Lyra's need to go there. But then Pan knew, because she had told him, that Will and Lyra had made the same plans he and Kirjava had - the worlds would not always separate them, and Pan still longed for the companion he had found on the docks, pulled into visible existence by the same sacrifice Lyra had made. Where Pantalaimon had been heartwrencingly betrayed on those docks, Kirjava had been betrayed not by Will but by some confused force into finding herself. And Pan wanted so badly to tell Kirjava that now - that she kept him from dying right there of a broken heart, that her ignorance of the world gave him reason to care without his Lyra. His only consolation on losing Lyra again, even if only for a short time, was knowing that he could see Kirjava immediately - whether Will had died yet or not.

"Pan?"

"Lyra...I think he's here..." Pan shivered as he pressed further into Lyra's face, cherishing her, feeling the beating of her heart, the warmth of her presence, her touch, memorizing the look in her eyes, he soaked in as much as he could, not wanting to ever leave her, not wanting to be alone.

Lyra graciously struggled to get the words out, but gave up and began sobbing.

"Pan! Oh, Pan! We did it right? There's nothing left for us here now, we know though...we know it's only for a while, and we must! And we'll be together again so soon, but at the end...on the dunes, when we get there, it won't be us alone, we'll never be alone Pan!"

"No we'll never be alone," he agreed, "because...because the world is full of all those good things, because we have a world full of them."

"Tell me Pan..."

"Well, we'll still be a part of it Lyra. It's our part that made the difference - we'll see it all now Lyra. All those things like kindness, and curiosity, and thoughfulness, all those difficult things we built now Lyra, we all built them, us and the scholars, and teachers, and people like Mary and Will..."

Pantalaimon trailed off, and not for the first time looked upon the face of their death.

"No..." he started, recognizing at once, but he looked back down into Lyra's face, and she smiled. Lyra sat up.

"You're my Death." Not a question this time.

"Yes. I am."

And Lyra hugged Pan to her breast with all her might, cherishing their closeness, enveloping herself within this last moment, squeezing tightly with one hand, reaching out with the other. And as her fingertips touched the hand of Death, she fell back. Pantalaimon, her most cherished friend, her very soul, her dæmon, let out a soft mew as his red-gold fur fell away into vapor, and he felt the very last of Lyra's heartbeats.

Midsummer's Day.

It wasn't until the old man hobbled across the bridge that he realized how truly the bench seemed empty. Children ran in the fields behind it, but all he could see was a sad lonely bench. Was it Will's fate to regret his life decisions now, and find only loneliness in his actions - on that bench? Or could he feel that Lyra was not there? But he was old, his life needed no regrets.

"And," he looked backward over the bridge, "I do not have any." He thought.

Will's device of choice now was a cane. And his wrinkled hang funneled weight onto it as he continued forward to the bench. Horribly enough a class trip had invaded the Botanic Gardens a few times during the years, but now that he was so old, no one paid any attention to his tears, or his talking - much to his liking. He had once found a couple sitting on the bench around 11:30. Immediately horrified, he had demanded they remove themselves from that particular bench. The couple rolled their eyes, walked away, and went about their giggling. They were in love, and Will had felt awful for interrupting a moment of that.

"Lyra..." he began as he sat down. "It's been so long...but I know you're there. A world apart, but so close." He stopped as desperate fingers gripped the cane tighter.

"Lyra?" He questioned the very air around him. Soreness lost it's limited hold on his agility as Will lept to stable feet. He looked around, taking in every splinter of the bench, the empty spot next to him. A subtle colored cat leaped upon the empty seat, searching Will's eyes Kirjava found their thoughts similar.

"I spread my wings and touch ten thousand worlds!" Will exclaimed. "...But you are in none of them...Lyra..."

So it was that Will left the bench, with not a few odd looks, but even an old man powered by love may act in any way he wishes, and onlookers may only envy.

Lyra already knew the journey, but her death stayed beside her - not the ever-comforting always-there presence she desired at this particular moment, but he would lead her along the path she had trod before. She watched behind her as she walked forward - the Jordan Quadrangle growing paler behind her, the rooks losing their flavor of life as they swooped above the rooftops. The light from the live world behind her was growing dim as well, Lyra wanted desperately to return to it, to beg her death, but he had held off for long enough.

Lyra talked somewhat with her death, even if she hated him for coming at all, she had long dealt with the concept, and long wondered about her wait down here. She passed a tollbooth after sometime, giving a polite nod to the young worker inside, wondering if this worker had real forms to hand out to those not yet dead. The familiarity of the holding town drew in around her as she fully entered, her death wandering off and telling her to stay. And she looked on - the small broken shacks of rusted steel and plastic parts shuddered at the footsteps of the deaths even.

"Pan...I wish..."

But wishing didn't help down here, her life was over.

He hadn't gone to the bench last year. And he would not this year either, although as he walked Will Parry knew he would be closer than ever to his Lyra. William was admitted to the hospital earlier in the year, he had developed serious heart complications - doctors asked numerous times whether it ran in his family. The hospital lights faded suddenly as he turned the corner, but he was no longer alone, three others now stood in his path. A young girl maybe 16 or so stood there, looking into the window in one of the operating rooms. Her face wore an expression of shock, of helplessness. She looked to Will.

"Truly...I'm dead." The totality of her statement brought her fallen face a new twitch of despair.

"...I'm dead and I'm going to Hell."

"Hush," said Will, "we'll go together."

So it was that the days passed Lyra. The gates had been her home for some time now,

though time meant nothing to her. She had stood by the harpy Gracious Wings, recounting to her the rest of her life. Lyra had passed over in the boat, the rower mildly remembering her, but surprised all the same to see her again.

"You aren't the first I've taken twice" He greeted Lyra at the docks. She waited.

"No, your friends returned here in quite a short time. Tialys and Salmakia they said. They had a message for you, but I forget most of it now. My memory fails me, yet my hands stay strong and it must seem like a lifetime to you."

"It has been sir."

"Only a lifetime to you, your lifetime. To your friends, their lifetimes, your lifetime, only intersecting for a time, only crossing directly for a short while to be separated later. Lifetimes end every day and I see them all. Your friends have come before you Lyra Silvertongue, I have heard your stories - the harpies tell. They wished to wait for you, but I let them know about the other side. So many have spoken of you, many said they heard whispers of your name on the wind, will you join them now?"

Lyra shook her head sadly, her frail image melting into a blur with the brown splotches of the landscape behind her.

"Then you wait for the last of your group. You are alone now, no one to wait for you on the docks here, come now Lyra."

Her light footsteps hadn't sent a shiver of a ripple out across the infinite blackness of the pond, but all the same she could feel some part of her retreating into the distance.

She had listened patiently all the time. Lyra lived another lifetime in the world of the dead. She experienced happiness from the children's games, anger from a man robbed of his life, remorse from a woman who killed herself. But she felt most heavily for those who had never found love. And she waited. Waited to tell her story to them, to Will, waited to be reunited with Pantalaimon, the many others who had come down here. She tried to think of all of them - would she try to seek out Lord Boreal? Dr. Cooper? Tullio? She wondered...but knew those she had to find - Mary, Tialys, Salmakia, Farder Coram, Lord Faa, Ma Costa, the Master of Jordan, Mr. Makepeace. Inevitably she became curious about which of them had already stepped out into the world again, would she be able to find them there? When she herself had stepped out, would she erupt into a tiny champagne bubble of happiness like Roger? Could she find Roger? She smiled, Roger would be in the bung of every longboat in Oxford, on the feather tips of every rook, in every scent of the hot apple pies he would steal from the cook. What of Lee Scoresby? Stanislaus Grumman? And that brought her thoughts back to the great mossy splintering door she stood by. Would Will want to see her as much as she needed to see him? Wouldn't he just want to find his parents and be together with them? Lyra doubted her parents were even down here, she was eternally sure they have found a way to never die. While Lyra gave her love so freely to those around her, Marissa Coulter and Lord Asriel had still never been her parents, she was never to know their sacrifice for their daughter, their falling, her falling. She did still love Iorek more than them. But Will had never loved so passionately as her. He gave his feelings to the few closest around him, even to the idea of his father, the rough man he didn't know until his death.

"Lyra!" It was Gracious Wings. "Lyra! Lyra!"

Lyra looked up to see the harpy swooping low over the pond, screaming loudly, driving all the others away. And she flew over the gates, her moldy feathers and bloodied claws driving splinters away from the rotten wooden frame of the door.

The boat had landed at the dock, Lyra was expecting a new rush of ghosts, all confused and terrified. She steeled herself to put on the face of hope she had worn continuously for her eternity here. But her face fell into a natural softness she had never known existed. The swift bleakness of the world of the dead gave way, and Will stepped out from the boat.

He looked up swiftly, meeting the shimmering eyes he had dreamt would be waiting for him. But he was old no longer, she was old no longer. Lyra was just as he had left her, tears running down her cheeks, her bright lips mumbling out promises, her eyes on his as if they were about to be torn from each other by the most violent of closed windows. Her yellow-gold hair wrapped around her face, and as she smiled, her hand moved from her tartan skirt and she tucked a strand back. Blood was still on his ripped shirt, he felt the age-old ache of a healing wound from a distance, but his heart was bursting and could not be ignored.

"Lyra..."

"Will..."

And the world of the dead turned it's eyes as they rushed upon each other. Ghosts did not notice that their flesh didn't touch, every sense they believed they had was heightened as they felt that kiss, the next to come, the one after that. His hand brushed her face, her body pressed against his, hands touched, lips kissed, they were enveloped as one person.

Pulled around each other they were able to pull their lips apart to touch foreheads, smiling eternally now, looking into the other's eyes. And they stumbled, words rendered incapable by emotion.

Lyra felt for his hand, eyes full of intention, full of love, full of flowers and sky and trees, full of their own world of love. Their fingers became intertwined in a complex pattern, and they stepped out into the brightness and sunshine, waiting only a moment to turn to the other as they let go in a burst of undying happiness, and drifted apart together.

His Dark Materials, the books within the trilogy, Lyra's Oxford, His Dark Materials theatre production and all related characters and ideas are property of Philip Pullman and/or related parties including but not limited to the National Theatre of London as well as publishing outlets. The preceding story was inspired by these works - all characters and ideas owned by the formerly mentioned parties.