That Was Part of the Plan

by LysandraLeigh

One year has passed since Lyra (formerly Bellatrix) Black traveled thirty years into an alternate future. Unfortunately, this means she's expected to go back to boring Hogwarts for more boring normal people stuff. Except, there is that Tournament thing. And Angel Black. And her muggleborn girlfriend. And maybe an international incident or two... Never mind, should be fun.

14. Theodore I am a bird

Theo was scared.

Terrified, really, but excited, too. This was probably the most important day of his life. After this, he would be different, he knew, no longer as human as he had been all his life. He and Luna had talked about it, the concept of dedicating oneself to Magic, or some smaller, more defined part of it — mostly in the oddly unstable there-and-not Room of Requirement, because Luna tried to avoid the gaze of her Patron whenever she was seriously discussing leaving Her. It had taken him months (years, really) to find the Aspect he wanted to serve. It wasn't until he and Luna had begun talking, in fact, that he'd decided for certain that he wanted to serve a specific Aspect, rather than simply throwing himself into the hands of Fate and allowing Magic to choose, or else let him serve all of it, Mystery.

Luna had told him what her mother had told her about Mystery — which might or might not be terribly accurate, given her apparent tendency to simplify things for her young daughter (Luna was still upset about that, her aunt confirming that her mother had lied to her) — but even Theo had to admit that trying to become someone, something, which could comprehend all that which a human mind could not was...daunting. There was a reason that Mystery and Madness were so closely aligned. And, though Theo had long since come to terms with the idea of being thought mad, he really hadn't come to terms with the idea of potentially going mad — in an actually losing his mind sort of way, rather than just a more and less than human sort of way.

Limiting the power he dared to reach for was safer, even if it did mean that he was sort of applying to serve a particular entity which might or might not want him. He thought he'd chosen one he was more or less suited to serve — Thōth, from the Egyptian pantheon, a god of both magic and knowledge — but he was nearly petrified at the thought of what if he doesn't like me?

Before talking to Luna about her own situation, he hadn't even known it was possible for a mage to dedicate themselves (or be dedicated) to a Power they were unsuited to serve and, at this moment, he was acutely aware that he was about to enter into a compact which could not be broken without consequences, and likely severe consequences at that, without ever having met the god he was dedicating the rest of his life to. Like getting married to a stranger. (Likely a very strange stranger.)

And yet... He knew this was right. He might be a bit uncertain about the details — more so now than he had been when they'd decided that they were going to do it, and they were going to do it today — but he knew he belonged to Magic. This was the only thing he could possibly imagine doing with his life, it was just... It was a big step.

Anyone would be scared.

He was doing a pretty good job of pretending he wasn't, his steps even as he led the way out onto the grounds — they couldn't do this in the school, the wards would tell the professors — the charms he'd set to deflect attention from the two of them holding steady...

But Luna could tell. His fear and excitement echoed her own, nearly overwhelming, coming from every direction at once. She thought she might be ill, in fact, just from drowning in the moment and everything it meant. She focused as hard as she could on simply putting one foot in front of the other, following the swaying navy of Theo's robes as he picked his way out into the woods, the not-so-forbidden part of the Forest, but it was no good. She had to stop.

She leaned against a tree, eyes closed, head tilted back — bark rough under her palms, snagging her hair, solid realness at her back, bringing her back to a world that wasn't endless waves of emotion, buffeting her around on an open sea — letting the quiet of the Wild sink into her as Theo continued on, giving her some room to breathe. To ground and centre herself.

They were alone out here, mostly, the centaurs and wilderfolk and dryads and unicorns present, but distant, and less prone to wave-making anyway. She breathed deep, taking in the scent of the earth and the changing leaves, just beginning to fall, the freshness of it. After a moment— Or at least, she didn't think it had been very long, Theo hadn't gotten that far away. Even if she couldn't feel him, she would know by his crunching and the sweep of leaves against cloth — he wasn't a part of this place, not really. She wasn't either, for all she might want to be, sometimes. When she wasn't here, mostly. The quiet was soothing, but cold and lonely and big, even when there were thestrals to keep her company. It reminded her of Aunt Cassie, even though this wasn't really the Wild, quite. More the safe in-between almost wild. A civilised sort of wild, if such a thing could exist. (A liminal place, the edge of the world — or at least the human one.)

And it reminded her of Eris, and telling Lyra Bellatrix that they couldn't be friends anymore, and how much it had hurt, watching her fly away, and how she had hated Gelach, in that moment. Just a brief flash of anger, and then guilt and fear, and so much sadness at the unfairness and the weighing-down-ness of it all.

No, don't think about that.

She took another deep breath, focusing on the life all around her, in the trees and the animals — squirrels and birds and deer just waking for the evening — and even the bugs and worms in the dirt beneath her feet, going about their business without even the slightest care for her presence, eating and breeding and readying themselves for winter, as their natures dictated.

She could. She could think about that, if she wanted to. She didn't have to try to be the quiet, distant thing the Moon wanted of her, not if she didn't want to. She didn't have to deny the person she had grown into. She was human, after all. A mortal, living thing, with a nature of her own as surely as the tree at her back. To grow, to change, to age and die. To allow herself to be shaped by her experiences. She didn't have to pretend they never happened and she was still seven years old or they meant nothing and she was a statue, or a painting of a girl — ceci n'est pas une vie.

She had a choice.

She had made a choice.

That was why she was here.

Theo's shudder of concern reached her only a moment before his voice. "Luna? Are you okay?"

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A stick caught, somehow, between Theo's feet, flipping around and tangling in his robes. He tripped, stumbled, cursed under his breath. The clearing they'd decided to use for their dedications — well, Theo's dedication, and Luna's re-dedication — was only a little bit further (he thought), which was good, because while there were many things that Theo was good at, a few areas he even excelled in, being outdoors wasn't one of them.

His first idea of a place to do this had been at home, in the library. Thōth was, among other things, the god who had brought written language to the Ancient Egyptians, so it had only seemed right to do the ritual surrounded by books. But it really hadn't taken long for him to realise that he didn't feel comfortable in his own home, still, even though That Bastard was well and thoroughly dead now, thanks to Lyra. (It was still weird to think that he never had to see him again — walking through the house, he kept expecting to run into him around any given corner.)

His next choice had been the library at Ancient House, surrounded by more books than he would ever be able to read, spilling out of the library proper into the nearby bedrooms. But that didn't feel right, either.

They weren't his books, for one thing.

And more importantly, as little as Lyra might mind his presence in her home, he was acutely aware, every time he set foot in it, that the wards and the shattered magics of the House were watching him. He didn't belong there. Granted, he didn't much think he belonged out here, either — he wasn't sure he knew anyone less outdoors-y than himself — but at least he didn't feel like there was some barely-restrained creature right behind him, just waiting for him to put a toe out of line, give it permission to strike. It hadn't stopped him going over there to read and borrow books, of course, but he did have to remind himself pretty much constantly that it was probably all in his head. Probably. Given that he didn't actually believe that it was all in his head, he wasn't about to start doing black rituals unsupervised in the library and give it an excuse to rip his heart out or something.

And obviously the Hogwarts Library was right out. Theo hadn't believed Snape for a second when he'd told all the little firsties that the wards would prevent Black Arts rituals from taking effect, but he did believe that they would summon every adult in the Castle to deal with a potential existential threat, and treat him like a hostile invader the second anything too dark and too powerful answered his call and entered their bounds — which was what Snape had told him they would do when little Theo finally got over his wariness of his intimidating Head of House enough to go to one of his office hours and ask how the impossible wards supposedly worked. Which actually meant anywhere in the school was out.

But then Luna had decided that she definitely did want to rededicate herself to Truth, and they'd kind of mutually agreed that it would be less terrifying, or at least they'd be more likely to follow through with it, if they did it together. Like holding hands with someone and jumping off a bridge, instead of doing it alone. And it had taken her all of thirty seconds to point out that the only place and time to do it that would work for both of them was on Mabon, under the moon.

Not only was Mabon the holiday associated with Knowledge and Wisdom (which both Thōth and Alethia had ties to), but it was also a particularly weak time of the year for Innocence, which should (hopefully) make it easier for Luna to break ties with her current Lady. And of course Thōth had been, before anything else, a god of the moon, and while Luna might not want to face Gelach they were both fairly certain that she had to. Of course, Gelach was more a new moon sort of goddess, and they were barely into the waning phase now, but that was probably also good, to face the goddess when She was at a sort of nadir in Her power.

So they had to be outside, away from the wards, somewhere no one would actually see them either, because Theo was fairly certain that they shouldn't try to summon gods inside an Unobtrusive ward — or at least that, if they did, the ward would fail immediately. And given the nature of her goddess, Luna had been trying to stick to liminal places as she made plans to leave Her. Which meant the obvious place was somewhere in the Senior Woods, the little area of safe Forest, specifically the clearing where they held the Samhain and Walpurgis rituals. Not only was it halfway between the true Forest and the grounds, but it was also steeped in magics associated with endings and new beginnings, freedom, choice, and change. It was perfect.

It was also really hard to find, when the prefects hadn't been out to clear a path for them and mark it with a trail of tiny light-globes. Theo had come out here just a couple of days ago to make sure he could find it, but with the light failing now as it was... Everything looked different.

It wasn't until he paused to catch his breath (after being ambushed by that stupid stick), that he realised that he couldn't hear Luna crunching through the underbrush behind him.

...Because she'd stopped, about fifteen feet back. She was leaning against an ancient oak, eyes closed, almost pained-looking lines of stress and fear around her eyes and lips.

"Luna? Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes to look at him, lips pressed together as though in pain. She shook her head. "I'm scared."

Well, of course she was.

Theo was scared — mostly excited, but an edgy, terrified, first-time-flying sort of excited — and he wasn't about to renounce a goddess who had held his soul for half his life. Neither of them knew what Gelach might claim as forfeit for Luna's defection, but they knew there would be something.

...And that probably wasn't helping, was it?

It was easy to forget how sensitive empaths could be when the only one he really knew was Blaise. By the time Theo had met him, when they'd been five or six, Blaise had already been more than capable of ignoring the emotions projected by people around him. That wasn't normal, of course — Theo was pretty sure Mirabella had started teaching Blaise occlumency as soon as he could talk, and legilimens were cheaters, anyway, even before they came into the talent. But still, most empaths — the ones whose gifts weren't just too overwhelming to be able to function, period — at least learned enough occlumency to distance themselves from external emotions by the time they were Luna's age.

Theo wasn't entirely certain Luna had ever been formally taught any mind arts, which was kind of horrifying — Theo wouldn't want to spend ten minutes at Hogwarts as an untrained empath, let alone ten months. He hadn't asked, of course, but it had been pretty clear last year that she had no idea how to deal with the dementor-induced depression that had affected the vast majority of the school, and while the average empath would still feel the emotions of those around them, they didn't tend to get trapped into the sort of feedback loop Luna was obviously suffering from.

Oops. Theo was actually pretty good at occlumency, mostly because Blaise tended to take lazy mental defenses (from people who knew he was a legilimens) as an open invitation to go creeping around in their heads. He generally made a point of not projecting much of anything, especially around Luna, because, well...it was just polite, wasn't it, to avoid metaphorically shouting in someone's face all the time. He'd just kind of...let his control slip, preoccupied as he was.

"Ah, sorry," he muttered, forcing his anxiety back and focusing on how very certain he was that this was the right thing to do.

Not only for himself, but for Luna as well. It was painfully obvious that she wasn't suited to Innocence — not many people were, really, especially by the time they got to Hogwarts. It hadn't been entirely fair of Lyra to assume, when they'd discovered that Luna was abusing the Antidote to Suggestivity Solution, that she'd been intentionally potioning herself to maintain a mindset where it was harder to comprehend the world around her, but it had probably been helping to minimise the disharmony between herself and her Patron. There was no doubt in Theo's mind that whatever forfeit Gelach demanded of her, it wouldn't be nearly as bad as slowly going mad from constant, increasingly obvious dissonance in her very soul.

The goddess had to know that as well. If She cared at all about Luna's innocence, She would release her with only token resistance. She had to, because the path Luna was on now would inevitably destroy her. She was already ruined as a proper dedicant of Innocence, anyway. Luna had, Theo thought, been lost to Gelach the moment Pandora blew herself up in front of her nine-year-old daughter. It had only been a matter of time.

And he was pretty fucking certain that Alethia would take her on in a heartbeat. (And not entirely because Lyra — Eris — had assured him she would.) That was, after all, the very reason she was so ill-suited to Gelach — her inability to delude herself into believing the world wasn't as it was. And anyone who'd spent more than a few minutes talking to her had to see that half her awkwardness was due to her awareness of the discrepancies between what people felt and believed and what they claimed or implied in their speech, all the little lies and deceptions of social convenience. Or at least, Theo thought that was obvious? (It was possible that spending so much time with Blaise and Daphne had given him a skewed perception of what most people could infer from others' reactions...) Anyway, there was nothing to worry about there.

(He pointedly avoided thinking about the fact that there was something to worry about as to whether Thōth would want Theo to serve him...which, according to Lyra — Eris — was almost as silly, all the Powers wanted dedicants, the match didn't need to be perfect, it wasn't as though he was trying to become an Avatar himself, and he certainly wouldn't be far enough from Thōth to have the sort of conflict there was between Luna and Gelach, but... No. Not thinking about it.)

She gave him a weak smile. "I can still feel your butterflies, but the thought does count for something."

"We're almost there," he assured her, suppressing his fear a bit more deeply. "I know She scares you, but it's going to be fine. You're going to be fine." Certainly better than she was now, at least.

She nodded, though she didn't really look like she believed him. "Go on. I just...need a minute."

That was fine. There was plenty of set-up work to do.

The ritual they had decided to use as the base for the night's working was designed to induce astral projection on the part of the participants, allowing their souls — minds, consciousness, whatever, their anima — to (mostly) leave their bodies and this plane entirely, meeting the Aspects they wished to serve half way, instead of attempting to invoke them directly on the mortal plane. They'd decided on this route mostly because they weren't certain they had the kind of power at hand to allow the gods to manifest directly.

Eris claimed she had manifested physically when Lyra (Bellatrix, then) had called on the Dark to dedicate herself, but she'd done her ritual (such as it was) on one of the Black properties, before their Family Magic had been destroyed. There had been no shortage of magic willing to be shaped into her preferred form. It was, apparently, far more typical for an Aspect to appear only in the mind of the mage who invoked them. They might appear to be present, but that was just glamoury — sometimes proper illusion, if the Aspect was particularly powerful, or if the ritual provided a blank, or something. Luna had said that it was difficult for Gelach to actually speak to her, though, even in her dreams, and Theo suspected that Luna's experience was probably more representative of the way most people — sane, non-Avatar people — interacted with the Powers than Lyra's. Given that they would be invoking three different Aspects, it had seemed a good idea to do so on a plane where it was less demanding for them to manifest.

Which was fine, Theo didn't mind exploring astral projection in the least, but it did mean that their bodies would be mostly unattended and helpless while they were off speaking with gods. (And they, unlike Lyra, didn't share their bodies with another consciousness which could 'house sit' for them.) He'd thought, briefly, that using this method would mean they could stay in the Castle, perhaps in one of the abandoned classrooms, but he wasn't entirely certain what sort of wards were in place to detect extra-dimensional travel. There very well might be something to stop them or alert someone if an infernal entity crossed into this plane within the wards. Since astral projection was, in essence, temporarily turning oneself into an infernal entity, they might not be able to do it, or it might alert Dumbledore that someone was trying to summon demons in the Castle, or (perhaps worst of all) they might not be able to come back to this plane (and their bodies) once they left.

So their bodies were going to be lying unattended at the edge of the Forbidden Forest for...some amount of time (he wasn't sure how long), vulnerable to...animals? Theo didn't know much about the denizens of the Forest (nor did he care to), but it really didn't seem like a good idea to just go and basically take a nap out here. There were, at the very least, acromantulae around, and triffids, and who knew what else. Blaise said it was safe enough if you stuck to wilderfolk territory, but it wasn't exactly as though the wilderfolk knew him or Luna, and while Lyra probably would have introduced them if he had asked...

This was something they had to do for themselves. Getting Lyra involved — beyond asking the occasional question like how, exactly, did manifestation work, and who he ought to talk to about acquiring a mummified ibis — seemed like a great way to have the entire process hijacked by her unrelenting Lyra-ness. She would almost certainly have let them use one of the Black ritual rooms, or put up proper wards on the clearing, or even just hung around to kill any acromantulae that tried to eat them, but she would also have opinions on everything, and might even find some way to butt in on the ritual itself — probably to mock Gelach, she really didn't like Innocence — and this just wasn't any of her business. At all.

Theo was perfectly capable of casting a paling to repel spiders — and anything else with any predatory intent, and in fact every other living thing, because even normal-sized bugs were creepy, and he really didn't want to come back to his body to find his hair infested with centipedes or something. It just took some time. It was possible he was being overly thorough, but there was no kill like overkill when it came to hair centipedes.

Luna wasn't that far behind him. She wandered into the clearing just a couple of minutes after he did, while he was still busy casting. By the time he was done, she'd managed to get a small fire started — there were certain herbs they needed to burn, and there was a symbolic aspect, too, lighting the way back to their bodies.

He joined her beside it to lay out a blanket downwind — even with minimal insect activity, he still didn't fancy lying in the dirt for however long — and the talismans they had brought to help them find the Aspects they needed to speak with on either side of the fire. The ibis mummy (wrapped and plastered into a surprisingly small bundle which hardly felt heavy enough to contain anything, but it was mostly bird bones and feathers, so maybe he should have expected that) and Theo's favourite fountain pen for Thōth; a copy of the latest Quibbler and a heavy black veil enchanted to be nearly perfectly transparent (it looked a bit like a little puddle of water made solid...in a cloth-like way, it was weird and kind of disconcerting) for Alethia. They'd debated whether they ought to bring something to help orient them toward Gelach as well. Luna had pointed out that she was herself the most directly Gelach-related object they were likely to be able to find, but it wasn't as though it was difficult to find a seed or an egg or something, so Theo had brought an acorn, just in case. (He put it on the far side of the fire from the blanket, because...symmetry? He didn't know, it just seemed like the right place for it. Ritual magic could be like that.)

Luna had gathered the herbs earlier in the day, because while Theo did know what belladonna looked like he couldn't be trusted to identify ground ivy in the wild, let alone mugwort, and sweet grass looked just like any other grass until it was dried and plaited into coils and sold at the apothecary. (And according to the book Theo had found, dried herbs simply wouldn't do.) She had already twisted them together, wrapping the more brittle ones in what was presumably the ground ivy, one dense little packet of leaves and stems for each of them. He also presumed there was some low ritual meaning behind the way she had plaited and knotted the grass around the other plants, weaving them together rather than just folding them over one another until they were all about the same length, as they were in the picture in the book. He had done a couple of small workings himself, but he would be the first to admit that his knowledge of ritual design was more theoretical than practical.

Unfortunately, this didn't really seem like a good time to ask. Neither of them had spoken since Luna had joined him inside the palings, just going about setting up as they'd agreed beforehand, no need for discussion, and he didn't want to break the expectant, anticipatory silence growing between them.

Apparently Luna didn't either. When she'd arranged the Quibbler and the enchanted veil to her satisfaction, she caught his eye and cocked her head to one side in a silent question. He nodded, taking his place on the blanket. They placed their herbs solemnly on the fire — Theo coughed in a most undignified way as smoke began to billow out of it almost at once — and, with one last look, one last nod, laid down, closing their eyes and breathing deeply.

Something had a strongly soporific effect, maybe the mugwort or the ground ivy? Unless Luna had included something else to make it easier to fall asleep despite their anxious excitement (and outright fear)... Whatever the case, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before Theo's body began to feel distant, a sensation similar to one he experienced sitting in one spot reading too long, or just before he fell completely unconscious — a sense of dissociation from one's physical form, as the book had put it.

He opened his eyes experimentally, raised a hand to look at it.

It looked perfectly normal, he thought. Maybe it wasn't working, yet.

He turned to look over at Luna, see if she looked like she was sleeping, to find her, or at least a projection of her, sitting up, her legs still occupying the same space as her physical legs, her physical body still laying silent on her back. Okay, maybe it was working. He sat up as well, twisting around to look down at his own sleeping face.

Woah.

If that wasn't surreal, he didn't know what was.

He grinned, scrambling to his feet and offering Luna a hand up — it seemed...weird, just sitting there, half in and half out of his body. She took it, looking around the clearing rather anxiously. "What happens now?"

"I...don't know." The book describing the ritual hadn't really said anything about what happened after they reached a projected state. "The book just said that we needed to focus on the talismans and follow them to the entity they represent?" He tried to pick up the fountain pen and failed, his hand ghosting right through it. "Maybe we—" He cut himself off as he turned to look for Luna and realised that she had disappeared. He had been going to say maybe they needed to think about the connection between the gods and the objects that represented them, but—

A spike of fear shot through him. Where did she go?!

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Focus on the talismans and follow them to the entity they represent?

Did that mean why she had chosen those objects to represent Truth? She was, admittedly, not very familiar with the Greek and Roman pantheons. Mummy had mostly told her stories about the Tuath Dé and the Fair Folk when she was very young, and Daddy always said that the Powers were silly — not in the the Powers don't exist way some people thought, but because all the Powers and Gods and Aspects are just different names and faces of Magic. Magic pretending to be something less than everything, artificially limited to something humans could understand. But talking to Theo and Aunt Cassie she had decided that devoting herself to a concept like Truth seemed...better, than trying to serve a specific entity. More...straightforward, she supposed.

And the Greeks and Romans had personified and deified ideas in ways the traditions she knew didn't.

Gelach was mostly a goddess of innocence, unrecognised or unexercised potential, and Luna was (though it still hurt to think it) not an innocent. She had seen too much life. And she could not do what Gelach asked of her, to observe the world and the people in it but refrain from action, to let events wash over her without impact, deliberately interpreting the world around her as straightforward even when it wasn't, and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, even when she knew their intentions weren't truly good. She couldn't keep lying to herself, pretending she didn't know. She couldn't help wanting to explore the world in all its wonder, no matter how the experience she gained might change her. And she couldn't not care about all the lives she might be able to change, to make better, if she saw something bad and had the courage to act.

Aunt Cassie said she was her father's daughter that way — Mummy had been suited to Gelach.

Aunt Cassie didn't like to talk about Mummy. Luna could feel her anger and outrage every time she thought of her, even though she tried to suppress it. But Luna had needed to know what had happened, how and why Mummy had left their goddess, why she had promised Luna to Her instead.

Mummy, Aunt Cassie said, had been serene. Luna remembered that much about her herself — calm like a still lake on a summer day, deep and constant. Balanced. No matter what happened, whatever pains and tragedies eight-year-old Luna had suffered — from scraped knees and broken toys to the death of her first pet plimpie — just being with Mummy made them seem small and...transient. When Mummy had died, it hurt all the more because she was the one person Luna would have turned to if it had been anyone else.

Mummy and Aunt Cassie had been Ravenclaws together, and according to her aunt, her mother had always been like that. Not happy, but perfectly content to witness the world passing her by, distant and uninvolved, untroubled by its troubles. If Lily Irene hadn't forced her way into Mummy's life, or if she hadn't met Daddy, she might have stayed with Gelach. But she'd made friends and fallen in love, and she cared about them far too much to allow them to be drawn into the War without her. She had asked Gelach to release her from her vows that she might re-dedicate herself to Airmed and take on the role of a healer for the Light.

She had written to Aunt Cassie when they were still in school, a response, Luna thought, to a question about what it "hypothetically" meant to be a white mage, comparing the goddesses they served — or, as Aunt Cassie would say, kind-of-not-really served, she still insisted she wasn't a proper white mage despite how completely obvious it was to everyone else — and the method of that service as an example.

Artemis holds the innocence of wild, untamable places, as cruel and merciless as the beasts she hunts, or the ocean or the storm. Gelach is the distant, waxing moon, bearing witness to the unrecognised potential in the world, holding paramount the innocence of children, each young soul as perfect and ephemeral as a single snowflake. Priestesses of Artemis may serve Innocence despite having long lost their own, but Gelach's must lead by example, maintaining their own innocence even in the face of horror and suffering. And where Artemis acts impetuously, and encourages her followers to do the same, Gelach asks those who serve her to observe, and hardly ever to act...

(In that one passage, Mummy had told Aunt Cassie more about Gelach than she'd ever told Luna. All she knew about the goddess had come from stories and Gelach herself, in dreams.)

And Mummy had decided that she needed to act. She couldn't just sit by and watch her friends die, especially since they'd been fighting in defence of innocent lives, muggleborn children who didn't even know magic existed, couldn't possibly have done anything to earn the hatred of the Death Eaters. It wasn't their fault they had been born. Gelach had agreed — it was unusual, Auntie thought, for a priestess of Gelach to serve for so long anyway, Mummy had been practically an adult when she'd asked for her freedom and the nature of children was to grow up — but She had demanded that Mummy promise a child to Her service in her stead.

And Mummy had agreed. She had promised Luna away. She probably hadn't known for certain if she would ever even have a child then, Luna thought — she might have died in the war, or Daddy might have — but that didn't matter to Aunt Cassie. She still hated Mummy for taking Luna's choice from her, especially since Luna wasn't much like Mummy, beyond caring too much to simply watch.

And, well... Luna was starting to agree with her. Much as she might want to be like Mummy, much as she'd always thought she was, when Theo had asked her if she'd ever thought about serving Truth instead of Innocence — only a step away from each other, really, from a certain perspective — she'd finally seen what Aunt Cassie did when she said Luna was more like Daddy.

Because she believed as he did that the Truth — and the telling of it, showing people the reality behind the lies they read in the Prophet and the well-meaning but often unintentionally misleading stories in the Herald — was important. Maybe more important than anything else. Journalism, especially investigative journalism, was a noble calling, one which had been corrupted and marginalised over the years to the point that the only way to do it was to hide the things the Man didn't want them to print behind silliness and riddles. (Only a fool, after all, can critique a king.)

Though Theo subscribed to the theoretical framework of the Powers, he had also claimed that its dualistic nature was sorely lacking in some areas — especially when it came to the Young/Innocent/Direct/Truthful Power, and its "opposite" of Age/Wisdom/Deception/Lies. After all, the innocent might not be able to deceive, but neither could they see through deception, imagining simplifications of reality (lies told to children) to be truth when they weren't.

From a certain perspective, the very idea of the Powers was a lie for children.

Luna still believed in Light and Dark, right and wrong, and she still wanted to serve the Light, but she had also come to believe that there might not really be a Youthful Power between the Light and the gods people believed in and followed and served. If there was, she'd like to know how telling the truth was good, but learning the truth was bad. There was a difference between knowing what was happening to make informed choices, and becoming old and jaded about it.

So she had decided to do it.

And rather than try to find a god or goddess whose mythos resonated with her, she had decided to dedicate herself to Truth...in much the same way she had advised Theo not to do with Mystery. Truth wasn't infinite and unknowable in the same way as Mystery, though.

In fact, Truth was very knowable — that was the point. There was an objective reality, and it could be revealed to people, secrets and lies exposed, making the world a simpler, more straightforward place (even if those secrets and lies had to be revealed in a complex, indirect way).

When Theo had told her that she needed two objects to represent Truth (Alethia), she had thought of the Quibbler at once — the mirror that Daddy held up to the world, showing those in power for what they were, rather than what they seemed to be. The second object had taken a bit more thinking, because, well... How does one represent revealing the truth with a single object? (Quibblers notwithstanding, obviously, but just using two Quibblers had seemed...wrong.) A veil had been Theo's idea, thinking along the lines that revealing the truth was rather akin to lifting a veil, allowing someone to see clearly. It had been Luna's idea to enchant it so that it couldn't obscure things, Alethia represented more by the having done than the object itself.

Even as her mind turned in that direction, the space between the veil and the magazine began to shimmer, the magic there twisting oddly, as though to form a sort of path or portal, which seemed like an obvious answer to the question of what happens now. Now, she stepped forward, following the talismans to the entity they represented, exactly as the ritual described.

So smoothly she didn't even notice it happening, the scenery changed around her. She simply blinked, and the Forest was gone, replaced by a completely foreign landscape — a sunset-painted desert plain covered with vast arches and fins and spires of stone. She was standing on top of the highest of these, looking down on what seemed to be the entire world stretching out into the unknowable distance below her, whatever world this might be.

"Everywhere and nowhere..." a not-quite-familiar voice said, behind her. She turned to see...herself, or at least the image of herself, an odd feeling of not-quite-familiarity due, she supposed, to the difference in perspective. It wasn't like Luna spent a lot of time looking at herself naked from the outside. (Because the other Luna wasn't wearing any clothes, but then, Truth was renowned for its naturist tendencies.) "...pretending to be Utah. That's what the muggle government calls it, at least." Alethia (Luna presumed) smiled, a soft Lovegood smile. "Hello, Luna."

"Lady Alethia?" The goddess nodded, the action strange to watch, not quite what she would have seen in a mirror. "Well met..." Would it be rude to question why they were in not-Utah, or why the goddess was showing her a false face?

"Because, like any lie, it's preferable to the truth — prettier, in this case, and easier to comprehend."

"But you are Truth! Why would you lie?" How could she, even?

Alethia smirked, a very un-Luna-like expression, if she did say so herself. "Artists use lies to tell the truth, do they not? And in this case to avoid melting your brain — not literally, but I understand it's a bad idea to drag human minds too close to the heart of reality. As do you. Good call, by the way, advising young Theo not to dive off the cliff."

"Thank you?" Really, she couldn't imagine how it had seemed like a good idea to him to try to wrap his limited, mortal mind around everything humans could not understand. Yes, Lyra Bellatrix had told him that she'd seen the universe as the gods did, and it was beautiful (and Luna didn't doubt her claim), but Lyra Bellatrix wasn't human. She had been once (probably), but Gelach had been very clear, warning Luna to avoid the black mage's corrupting influence — the Dark had offered the Blacks inhuman power, but the cost was making them inhuman. She was hardly a good example to follow.

As though thinking of Her had summoned Her — which it very well might have done, it hadn't escaped Luna's notice that she hadn't needed to speak for Alethia to hear her questions — her Patron materialised before her, looking very out of place. She was wrapped up in a filmy black cloak glittering with silver sparkles like stars in the night sky, her mother's face, half-hidden by the hood but still clearly visible, frowning down at her with an expression of abject disappointment. (That was just mean. She could look like anyone, but She'd chosen to look like Mummy.)

She sighed heavily, almost mournfully, in a way Mummy never would have done. "Luna. ...Alethia." The other goddess's name was pronounced with an odd combination of protective jealousy and scorn, and far more annoyance than Luna's, which had simply sounded...hurt.

Luna tried very hard not to fidget before the goddess's gaze, no matter how guilty she suddenly felt, like she'd been caught betraying Her...which she had, in a certain way, she supposed. (She didn't do a very good job of it, rolling from heels to toes and back again, fingers twisting around each other like tiny, anxious snakes.) "Hello, Lady Gelach." What did one say, to a goddess one intended to leave, regardless of the consequences? Her decision was made, she would not change it now. But though she'd spent far more moments contemplating this confrontation than she would have liked, she still didn't know what to do, or how.

"Gelach." Alethia nodded, acknowledging Her presence with understanding and sympathy (and perhaps a sliver of polite irritation). "I'll give you a moment to talk," She said, the false Luna vanishing in a blink and Luna's sense of Her presence receding. She wasn't entirely gone, Luna didn't think, but She...pulled away, as though stepping out of the room to give them some illusion of privacy — the room, in this case, being the open air atop a fantastical natural sculpture of some sort. (It was pretty, even if it was a lie.)

Gelach sighed again. "I knew this day would come, and far too soon. But I had not thought you so far gone you would try to hide it from me."

"I'm sorry!" The words slipped out before she could stop them, before she could think about them. But that was okay. She was sorry. It just...didn't change anything. "I was scared," she admitted. She still was scared, fear trembling all around her, making her voice small and childish and her body curl in on itself, hunched as much from fear as shame, arms wrapped about as though giving herself a much-needed hug.

Gelach sounded like She needed a hug, too, yet another sad sigh emanating from Mummy's form, but Luna couldn't bring herself to give it to Her. Resignation joined the pain of rejection in Her words. "I know. I know you tried your very best, but your soul has aged before its time. And even had it not, it is the nature of mortals to grow beyond my realm. Even Pandora chose to leave her childhood behind. I do not wish to lose you, but that is how it goes — a child is given into my service, and while they remain children, they serve me. And when they are no longer children, they leave. I release them, and in due time, another child is given to me." She smiled down at Luna, soft and calm and bright like the light of the moon. "I am patient. I will wait. But before I release you from your vows, you must promise me that your first child will come to serve me in your stead."

Release her from her vows, as though the Luna who had sworn her vows wasn't a completely different person than the person Luna was now.

She, that young, innocent past-Luna, had been a child. Mummy had let her stay up late, taken her out to dance under the moon. Mummy sang, and taught her song to Luna. It was fun. And later, when they'd finally gone to bed, little Luna had dreamed.

Gelach had whispered in her mind, asking for her help and giving her a very special mission, to watch and appreciate certain things about the people all around her, it would be easy, she didn't even have to do anything other than watch and see. In fact, it was better if she didn't do anything.

Luna had said yes. Of course she would help. She hadn't had any reason not to, and it sounded interesting, appreciating people, as though they were art — that was what Daddy said they were doing, when they visited the museum, appreciating the art, just looking and seeing and thinking about it. She could do that. It would be fun. And Gelach had smiled down at her, that same soft, moon-smile She wore now. Good girl, She'd said, and then, I have a gift for you, to help you see and understand, and appreciate the beautiful uniqueness of every human soul.

And when Luna had awoken, on the first day of her service, she had felt her mother's calmness and her father's passion and the way they belonged together, threads woven together in the Tapestry of Life, and it was beautiful. Until Mummy had died, and everything had been dark and sad and not beautiful at all. And then she had left the quiet safety of her father's home, venturing into the greater world, alone for the first time, made to face hundreds of other people — unique, yes, and some of them beautiful, but some of them cruel and ugly and horrid, and all of them so overwhelming. She had tried to see the innocence in their souls, tried to understand how they could be innocent and terrible, but it was hard. It made her sad, and tired. Made her want to run away and hide, take refuge in fuzzy confusion.

If she'd known then what she knew now, she thought she would have said no. I'm sorry. I can't help you. Not I won't, I can't.

Because she couldn't. It was too much.

And now, knowing that, she had to make another choice.

Luna wondered if Gelach had worn Grandmother's face, or Great-grandmother's, when She had offered it to Mummy, reminding her that they had thought it for the best to give her to the goddess, just as She was reminding Luna what Mummy had chosen.

But Luna was not much like Mummy. Not really. And she wouldn't give away a child's future just because she was scared and selfish. Because that's what it was, putting off for yet another generation the consequences of that first, ignorant promise to serve. And besides, it wasn't hers to give.

"No."

Gelach's displeasure washed over her without a word.

Luna stood up straighter, squared her shoulders. It wasn't fair that she should have to suffer whatever the consequences there might be when Mummy and Grandmother and Great-grandmother had all gotten to pass them down to someone else — but if life was fair, Mummy would still be alive. And it would be just as unfair of her to make her own child make this choice.

The goddess scowled at her. "Are you certain?"

Luna nodded. "I won't do it. I know I'm breaking my word, and I know I owe you a forfeit, but I won't forfeit the future of an unborn innocent. I won't."

Mummy's eyes — Gelach's eyes — narrowed even further. "And I cannot force you to do so. But just as it is within my power to awaken the potential in your blood, to help you see, it is within my power to ensure the potential of those who have invited me into their souls does not awake. Your first child will serve me, or you will have no children. The unborn innocents will remain unborn. That is the price."

Her Patron's words hit her like a bludger, all the air knocked out of her, somehow, even though she didn't think she was actually breathing. Forcing her to choose to sacrifice one child's future of a certainty — for she knew that if she agreed she would have a child, Fate would see it happen, because the gods would have their due — or all of the might-have-beens of all the children she might have, but would now never bear? She had not known her Lady could be so cruel!

Was it more selfish to promise a child's future away, or to never give them one in the first place? She didn't know. But every choice sacrificed infinite might-have-beens, even choices to do nothing. And this choice had already been made.

Gelach must have sensed her resolve, because She added, "You will never know the joys of motherhood, never feel new life quicken inside you. You think this the mature, responsible choice, but was my service so terrible, that you would sacrifice all that, give up your place in the cycle of life, to save another child a few years with me? What I see is naught but stubborn, spiteful petulance."

And that hurt, it did — she hadn't really thought about the future that much, about what her life might be like years and decades down the line, but she had thought that she would be a mother, someday. She had imagined herself teaching her children — playing with them and loving them, and watching them grow up with pride, and bittersweet joy.

And she had not suffered so in serving Gelach that she would rather never have been born. Perhaps it was stubborn and spiteful of her to make this decision. Perhaps it was just as selfish as it would be to choose the easy path, let her child pay for her freedom, if in a different way.

But no. No.

"It ends with me," she said firmly — as firmly as she could, with tears pricking her eyes. "My path does not lie with you, my Lady. Not anymore." She wasn't certain it ever truly had.

"Very well, then." Luna knew the image of her mother's face, contorted in anger and sorrow at her betrayal, her rejection — the last thing she saw as Gelach left her alone in the false world of "Utah" — would haunt her nightmares for years to come. The connection between them, a sense of warm belonging and purpose Luna hadn't been entirely aware of until it was gone, vanished with Her, leaving her very soul feeling hollow.

Luna fell to her knees, weeping for...she didn't really know what. For the children she would never have? For her uncertainty? (Had she made the right choice? How would she know? Would she know, ever?) For the loss of what had been her place in the world for so long, even if she hadn't belonged there?

For Gelach?

Luna had hurt Her, leaving, and even more in refusing to continue the cycle. No matter how angry She had been, or how She was trying to manipulate Luna, convince her to change her mind, that sorrow, that pain, it had been real. And she hadn't wanted to, she never wanted to hurt people, even the most horrible people, and Gelach wasn't truly horrible, She didn't choose to be as She was, She was simply what Her nature dictated. But she'd done it anyway. And it felt like cutting her heart out, giving up that last connection to Mummy, the goddess they had both served.

And now she was very, very alone.

፠

Seriously, where the hell did she go? Theo wondered, turning completely around, looking for any sign of Luna, or where she might have vanished off to. After a moment, rather hesitantly, he moved to kneel beside her body. It was still breathing, so...she was probably okay. Wherever she was.

"She's doing what she came here to do," a voice said. Theo wasn't sure how he would characterise it. Vaguely male, but not particularly low or high. Soft, but confident. Like the voice he imagined when he was reading narration, an archetypal sort of voice. He froze, slowly turning in the direction it had come from — off to his left, between his own body and...

...and the talismans.

Thōth's talismans.

Which had apparently summoned Him, somehow — that definitely wasn't supposed to be how this worked, Theo was supposed to go find Him, but— That was definitely an ibis. He'd never seen a living one, but he had seen pictures, dozens. This one was more majestic than any of them — larger than Theo had expected, its head reaching well above his waist, its long, curved beak and neck jet black, contrasting dramatically with its snowy white feathers. It bobbed toward him, as though stalking through the shallows of a river that didn't exist, one glittering black eye turned to look at him.

There was no reason for a bloody ibis to be in bloody Scotland if it wasn't actually Thōth.

"You were taking too long."

Theo, completely at a loss, bowed. "Um. My L—" Wait! Would my Lord be too presumptuous?! "Lord Thōth. Um... Greetings. And, er, my apologies. I...didn't mean to keep Your Lordship waiting."

"Young Theodore of the House of Nott," the god-bird said back — How? — its head cocked to one side in unmistakeable amusement. "No apology is necessary. Time is very different for beings such as I than it is for you. In both its span and its passage. Your dallying only causes you more anxiety, however, so."

So...the god had just...decided to seek him out Himself, because He didn't want Theo to spend any more time panicking? That was just...

"I am not in the habit of allowing my priests to suffer when such unpleasantness can be easily avoided."

Okay, how was it even possible for a bird to sound so reproachful and amused? Wait, priest? Did that mean He did want Theo? (The relief that swept over him was staggering.)

It — He — sounded even more amused as He said, "Of course. And regarding our present method of communication, I suspect if you were not so overwhelmed at the moment, the answer to that question would be obvious. You didn't think gods spoke English, did you?"

Well, kind of. Theo hadn't done much talking to gods himself, but he was pretty sure Eris had spoken English when She'd dropped in on him over Walpurgis, and Hermes, when Lyra had summoned Him and Mystery had given him a glimpse of their Yule gathering, so...

"I am no more speaking than you are hearing. And I suspect you would find, if you were to ask your friends, each would say they heard my Greek cousin speaking their own native tongue. Magic carries the meaning — it is your mind that interprets it as speech."

Oh. That did make sense, he supposed, flushing in embarrassment. He didn't, after all, actually have ears at the moment, being, well...incorporeal. (He didn't really have a face, either, but he could still feel it burning.) Magic imitating speaking and hearing fit with what Lyra had told him about trying to navigate in the Dark, or across the planar boundary, and how Blaise described legilimency. Kenning, he thought, was the actual word for it. "Er...yes. Well, um.

"That is to say, I was coming to find you because I want to dedicate myself to your service. I love magic, and—" He cut himself off, mostly because he didn't have any idea how to articulate the longing he felt to be a part of Magic. Also partly because, he realised belatedly, going off in that direction seemed like he might be implying that he didn't want to serve Thōth personally, which he did. The more he'd researched the god, the more he'd thought He was exactly the sort of entity Theo was meant to serve, His entire mythos focused on teaching humans not only to write, but to reason, to learn astronomy, magic, science — bridging the gap between unknowable and knowable. "I mean, if Your Lordship would have me, I would be honoured."

"Of course."

That... That was it?

Amusement washed over him. "Theodore. I am a bird. And even were I human, I am old. The traditions you are familiar with, those of explicit compacts and gifts exchanged and fealty given in service, are, when all is said and done, not. I believe young Eris has, in her haste to repay our assistance, attempted to explain this, but she is impatient, ill-suited to teaching. Ritual and pageantry and the trappings of formality are human things. They matter only insofar as humans believe that they matter. You do not need them. You already have our attention — and mine, specifically."

Well that was...terrifying? thrilling? both? It was just, he hadn't expected Thōth to know his name, or why he was here, or...

"Time, as I have mentioned, is different for us. You are one of my priests, shall be and have been. Being and becoming. Changing as humans do. Learning. And so I know and will know and have known you."

...Oh. "What does that mean, though, being your priest?" Because if they weren't following any kind of ritual as a guideline, he was well and truly off the map.

"My priests work to further my interests," Thōth said, reassurance in His tone, bolstering Theo's confidence. If He were human, Theo imagined He would be giving him a kindly sort of smile. "They study the world as they perceive it and preserve knowledge, creating archives and translating old works into new scripts, and teaching their findings to others. They live their lives in emulation of me — and as they teach others, I teach them, expanding the understanding of what is on the verge of human perception." Another smile-like feeling, this one more amused. "Live your life as you have always intended to, in essence."

"That— That's it? I just...do what I love to do anyway, and there's no, I don't know, gifts, or sacrifices, or— Lyra said it hurt, dedicating herself." If she had been pulling his leg about that... It hadn't really been a consideration, but it had been there in the back of his mind, adding to his hesitation.

"Yes, that's it. My priests and I have an understanding, you might say. Your friend Lyra, her family has its own understanding. Their patrons must destroy part of what they are to make a place for themselves in mind and magic. Her dedication was painful because her mind and body were not born to contain the power she holds, and so were re-made to do so. The little truth-speaker, she surely did not tell you her first dedication was painful."

Luna? Well, no, she hadn't, but Theo hadn't actually asked her about the specifics of her dedication to Innocence — it had been fairly clear it made her uncomfortable to talk about it. It was kind of a relief to know that he wouldn't have to go through any sort of painful ordeal, he supposed. He tried not to think of how disappointing it was that the exchange of gifts Lyra had mentioned was also apparently unique to her dedication.

Thōth cocked His head to one side with fond exasperation. "Not unique to her — that is a tradition associated with the younger Greco-Roman faces of Magic, to offer gifts with patronage. It is simply not the way I do things." Theo felt his not-face go red again. He hadn't meant to sound as though he was ungrateful, he just— "I want no sacrifice beyond your devotion, and the work you do in my name. If you wish to beg a boon of me, simply do so. If it is in my power, I shall grant it."

...Oh. (Theo found himself thinking ...Oh an awful lot tonight. This was not going very much as he'd expected at all.) "Well, um... I was going to ask if you could attune my magic to the Light as well as the Dark." Like Harry — he'd been learning both the light and dark spells in Defense, seemed not to understand how bloody weird and just flat impressive that was, probably because the lucky sod had just been born with this amazing gift that Theo hadn't even known existed until last year. He didn't even realise how much Magic liked him... (Theo couldn't help but envy him sometimes.)

Thōth stalked closer, head bobbing slightly. "I could, yes — though that will hurt. And you would need to take care to use magics from both poles, lest you naturally begin to drift toward one or the other."

Somehow, Theo didn't think that would be a problem. It might be slightly weird and difficult to explain to Professor Lovegood and everyone in class that he wanted to start practising the light spells, too, but she had told them that Lily Evans had done it. Yes, it would be obvious that he'd used some kind of ritual on himself, but not necessarily high ritual, and not one that had an effect beyond him — so it might earn him some sideways looks, but it wasn't like it was Unforgivable or something. (And besides, he was the Lord of a Noble House now, so if anyone had a problem with it they weren't exactly likely to try to make anything of it, and if they did he theoretically had enough political clout to weather any untoward accusations.)

"I want to do it!" He was completely unable to keep his excitement out of his 'voice'. He really didn't care how much it hurt, he was going to be able to do all of the magic!

"Very well then. Brace yourself. We will speak later, in your dreams."

Before Theo could articulate his gratitude and excitement into something other than raw feeling, magic enveloped him like a sandstorm, eating away at his soul from the inside out, hot and terrible and overwhelming. If he had been able to, he would have screamed — that will hurt had definitely been an understatement — but he couldn't, and after what couldn't have been more than a few seconds, he passed into sweet unconsciousness.

፠

"Not so alone as all that," a voice said softly. Not Luna's own voice, heard from the outside, but one more authoritative — older and more confident. When Alethia faded back into visibility, she wore an unfamiliar face, round and wide-eyed, with short-cut reddish-brown hair and a protective, motherly expression of concern. (Naked again, which was slightly odd now that she wasn't just being Luna, when she thought about it.) She sat beside Luna, leaning back on one hand. "Alice Prewett and Longbottom. I liked her. You would have too, I think.

"And I'm sorry. I wish you hadn't had to go through that, with my cousin. I know it hurts. But the pain will fade in time, and you are better off without her." She smiled, a self-deprecating sort of smile. "That would be true even if you weren't planning to dedicate yourself to me, too, by the way."

"Can you— She said I would never have children. Can you..." Theo had said that whatever penalty Gelach levied against her, dedicating herself to another Aspect she might be able to request that her new Patron somehow...

"No. I would if I could, for it was unwontedly cruel to curse you so. But that potential is not within my power to affect."

So there was nothing that could be done, then. She hugged her knees to her chest, hiding her face as she tried not to start crying again. She had known that she would not like the consequences of leaving. It wouldn't be a punishment if she did, but she had held some faint hope that perhaps... But no.

And to be honest (which it seemed she should, if she intended to serve Truth), she wasn't entirely certain she didn't deserve it, abandoning her Patron — who knew when Gelach would manage to find another dedicant? Her very nature made it difficult: anyone who sought her out would, by definition, be poorly suited to her service. She had wondered more than once how her great-grandmother had ever managed to find herself dedicated to Gelach in the first place.

"She was afraid to grow up," Alethia explained simply. "Gelach was drawn to her by her willful ignorance, her denial of the complexity and responsibilities of adulthood. She did eventually overcome her childish fear and wished to rejoin the natural progression of life — you would not exist if she hadn't. But you needn't worry on Gelach's account. There are always children like your great-grandmother, sheltered and unwilling to face the realities of adulthood, happy to watch the world pass them by with her. For a few years, at least."

That was, oddly, not reassuring.

Alethia laughed. "The truth often isn't. In fact, it often hurts. Some people are unwilling to accept certain truths. You, for example, did not want to hear that your mother lied to you, because it meant re-evaluating your understanding of her."

"But I did." Not until Aunt Cassie had confirmed Lyra Bellatrix's accusations, but she wasn't about to believe her. (There was still a large part of her which was reluctant to trust the Dark, which Lyra Bellatrix undeniably belonged to, and Lyra Bellatrix lied about all sorts of things, all the time.)

"She doesn't, actually."

It took a moment for Luna to realise the goddess was responding to her last thought, rather than her words. "Oh, so she really is the fourth-year prefect?" she said, quite unable to stop herself pointing out the first of Lyra Bellatrix's many lies which came to mind.

Alethia laughed. "I was referring to the fact that Chaos is hardly strictly Dark in the sense you think of it. Though little Lyra doesn't realise that yet, either. I imagine it will become obvious, given time, that social upheaval needn't be entirely destructive. It can, in fact, function as a force of revelation, in much the same way her attempts to deceive tend to draw more attention to the fact that she is lying."

"But she doesn't lie badly to reveal anything, she just likes confusing people."

"Is confusion inherently Dark? It is, admittedly, antithetical to Order, and a certain degree of Order is necessary for a society to function, but Order also encourages stagnation, which I think you would agree is bad."

"Well, yes, but..." But...she wasn't sure why that didn't seem right.

"Because you're reducing people and Aspects to a single characteristic. The system you use to classify gods, these so-called Powers, are neither Light nor Dark, good nor evil. The axis of Life and Death is, I think, closest to your idea of that spectrum." Maybe. Luna tended to think of the Light as helping people, and the Dark as hurting them. "But it is not a perfect match, nor is truth and deception, or enlightenment and ignorance, or change and stagnation, or peace and war. That model, flawed though it is, recognises that much, at least, giving them their own axes. Their extremes are defined with no consideration of their relationship to each other, or to Life and Death or Light and Dark."

"So Truth...isn't part of the Light." That...explained how it could be both good and bad to tell, at least... (And, perhaps, how people could be both innocent and terrible.)

"It is not. Nor is it inherently Dark. It's Truth. I, and most of the Aspects you would consider Light, consider balance to be good, equilibrium, because no person or society can function solely at the extremes of any of these axes, in complete rejection of the other. Even the one they call the Avatar of the Dark, reveling in pain and suffering, Destruction and Madness, moderates herself, lest she bring about the end of conscious life on this planet, Magic included."

"So what does that mean?" Luna asked hesitantly, suddenly uncertain whether she wanted to devote herself to Truth after all. Especially if she could not reverse Gelach's punishment. Perhaps it was better not to serve any of the Powers or Aspects or ideals, but simply live her life as best she could, doing what she thought was right.

Alice Prewett's lips twitched in the tiniest of amused smirks. "It means that there are different ways to worship any Aspect. You could go around revealing truths with the intention of hurting people, calling out their harmless delusions and the lies they tell to avoid hurting each other, and dragging their shameful secrets into the light. But you could, just as easily, help people see self-deceptions holding them back from reaching their goals and warn them of dangers lurking behind harmless façades — reveal secrets which could cause untold harm, were those responsible not held to account. One truth is clearly 'Darker' than the other, and one 'Lighter', but they're equally valid from where I stand.

"It also means that even though I am, in essence, the revelation of truth, what is, I recognise the necessity of presenting that truth in ways which can be understood, through stories and models, digestible representations of an infinitely complex reality, and ways which allow it to be accepted rather than repressed, as in your father's satire."

"Or 'Utah'," Luna suggested, still not entirely certain the twilit landscape before her was real.

The goddess laughed. "Just so. And yes, this is a real place. On Earth, even. You could go there on holiday."

Maybe they should, Luna thought, looking out over the desert plain, so very strange compared to everything she'd ever seen — Daddy would love it.

That didn't sound so bad, though. Choosing which truths to tell, she meant, not going on holiday. (Though going on holiday sounded nice, too — they'd only been back to school for a few weeks, and Luna was already ready for a break.) Even if Truth wasn't Light, swearing herself to Alethia wouldn't mean Luna couldn't still work to help people. And in all honesty, she wasn't entirely sure how to decide what was right for herself.

"That," Alethia said flatly, "is a terrible reason to dedicate yourself to anyone. You do know what you feel is right, when you're not overthinking it. Were you not just thinking that you wanted to help people? If you just want someone to tell you what to believe in, you might as well devote yourself to a god of life or fertility, and have the curse Gelach placed on you reversed, too.

"You wouldn't have gotten this far if you hadn't already known that dedicating yourself to me is more true to yourself. But all I can do for you is tell you that the gift she revoked, awakening your talents—"

What? Luna hadn't even considered that Gelach might have taken back her gift, as well — wasn't taking her ability to bear children punishment enough? (Though really, not being an empath might be more of a gift, so perhaps it wasn't.)

"Oh, you're still an empath. It's in your blood. Gelach's gift to you wasn't empathy, or to See. It was to awaken the latent abilities you already carried, well before they naturally would have developed. And will still do, in their own time. I can also offer you a gift of my own, though if you think it a gift not to Feel, you may not want it. Seeing things as they are can be even more difficult than knowing people's hearts and the echoes of their futures."

Luna didn't see how. She didn't remember clearly what life was like before Gelach, but she did remember last year, and the one before that, suffocating under the emotions of everyone here at Hogwarts. (Especially last year — even the thought of dementors still made her feel rather ill.) She'd barely noticed the maybe-futures surrounding them, drowned out by their feelings in the here-and-now.

"The truth often isn't pretty."

People in general often weren't pretty, especially when one knew what they were feeling, too. "I'm kind of used to that." And She wasn't wrong about Luna having decided, well before she entered this clearing, that she wanted to give her allegiance to Truth.

Alethia smiled. "Well, if you're certain, I'm not going to tell you no." The rock sculpture beneath them vanished, replaced in an instant by the dark, somewhat overgrown clearing she and Theo had left their bodies in, only a few feet away. The fire had burned down to red coals, but aside from that, it looked exactly the same as it had when she'd left her body. (Theo had not been overtaken by a plague of insects or otherwise visibly damaged by basically sleeping in the bloody forest.) The goddess, on Her feet equally suddenly, offered her a hand up.

Without any ceremony whatsoever, she leaned forward to lay a kiss on projection-Luna's forehead, a whisper of magic settling over her mind much like the veil which wasn't. Not that she had really expected ceremony, she hadn't even noticed her dedication to Gelach, but she'd thought she'd notice something other than—

She blinked.

Oh. Never mind.

Where the image of Alice Prewett had stood, there was now a...wrinkle, or a rift, perhaps, a tear in the fabric of the universe, or a point of contact between this plane and another, twisting in the air before her, light shining out from it, or rather, raw magic, a conscious concentration of power whose reach was vast, connected to every human soul possibly everywhere, including Luna. She shivered at the echo of awareness she could feel in it, simply beyond anything she could possibly have imagined.

A very amused concentration of power. A not-thought, more like phoenix song than words, washed over her, or through her, a suggestion, she thought, that Luna still wasn't seeing what Alethia was, only the parts of Her that weren't entirely beyond human comprehension. And a hint of I told you so, regarding whether it was better to show Luna a false face, at the beginning of their conversation. Followed by a soft encouragement urging her to return to her body, even as the immediacy of the goddess's presence retreated, fading out of Luna's awareness.

Which did seem like a good idea.

Astral projection wasn't terribly difficult, especially within the bounds of the ritual Theo had found, the smoke helping to relax the bond between soul and body — though not too much. She'd made certain, in assembling the herbs to be burned, that their effects would be bound into the shape they required, and limited to make it easier to rejoin their physical forms before the fire died, just in case something went wrong. (Using both nightshade and mugwort was overkill anyway, especially for anyone who was already familiar with perception-altering magic, which both she and Theo were.)

All she had to do to go back was overlie the space occupied by her physical body and blink, willing her real eyes to open along with what she was currently perceiving as her eyes.

Which she did.

She knew it had worked even before she sat up, still feeling oddly distant from her limbs, far too aware of the air in her lungs and her heart beating in her chest, but that would fade quickly, it always did. The pervasive chill that had seeped into her, lying on the ground as the world turned toward winter, would probably linger longer. (They should have brought more blankets. Or learned a warming charm first. Poo.) She lit her wand, looking about for twigs and leaves she might use to build up the fire again.

It wasn't until she managed to stop shivering uncontrollably that she noticed Theo was still just lying there, his body dark and cold and unmoving, no hint of magic about it, no indication that his soul hadn't fled entirely.

For a brief, terrifying moment, she was certain he was dead — there was always a trace of life in a living thing, always. But then she realised, horrified, she couldn't feel any of the life in the little clearing, not the brush or the bats flitting overhead. She could hear other, larger animals moving out in the trees, but she couldn't feel them, she didn't just know they were there. She could feel Theo's pulse under her fingers, his breath on her clammy, anxious palm, but—

Was so much of her awareness of the world around her dependent on Sight? She hadn't realised... And now... Now she was blind, and the world quite suddenly seemed far more threatening. Unpredictable.

It hit her all at once, the enormity of what she'd done tonight, of what she'd lost — what she'd given up, all to save some hypothetical future child who would now never exist. When Alethia had told her that she was no longer a Seer, it had seemed a far lesser punishment than taking the possibility of children from her future, but now — looking out on the impenetrable darkness of the forest, alone with a boy who might as well be dead — the might or might-nots of her future seemed a very remote concern.

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve — she hadn't even noticed that she was crying again — trying not to give in to self-pity (no matter how very tempting it was, at the moment). She curled into a ball, cold despite the warmth of the fire (crackling cheerfully, blissfully ignorant of her suffering), watching Theo's chest rise and fall ever so slightly, trying not to think. Hopefully his night was going better than hers.

And hopefully he would wake up soon.

፠

Theo came to slowly, the first sign that he was regaining consciousness an awareness of a pain unlike any other he'd experienced in his life. It was reminiscent of suffering magical backlash...much like the Cruciatus was reminiscent of a Nerve Tweaking Curse. He had the sense that it had faded somewhat too, settling into a healing sort of ache rather than the immediate, visceral pain of being beaten — or, in this case, having his soul torn apart and...reshaped? Maybe? (He would have to try to figure out exactly what Thōth had done to him, and how, later. When he wasn't completely exhausted, and wincing at the very idea of casting reflexive soul analysis charms.)

"Theo!"

"Luna?" He pried his eyes open to see the little blonde kneeling beside him, practically hovering in anxious concern.

"Are you— You're okay?" she asked, helping him to sit up.

It was well and truly dark now, the moon and stars obscured by trees and clouds. Luna had folded the blanket over him, and built up their tiny fire quite a lot — it had seemed a good idea to keep it small, since it would still be burning while they were unconscious — the space around them filled with ruddy, dancing light, but beyond that...

"How long was I out?" he asked. He felt as though his voice should be rougher than it was, reflecting his pain. Really, though, he just thought he sounded tired. (Which he was, he felt like he could sleep for a week — he had definitely underestimated that will hurt.)

Luna flicked off a tempus charm. It was almost three? They'd been out here almost eight hours? "I woke up a couple of hours ago, and I couldn't — I can't — tell if you're okay, everything's just— It's dark. I was worried about you, but I didn't want to interrupt, or leave you here alone, and...I don't actually know how to get back to the school to get help, anyway. I'm so glad you woke up!"

"I'm fine." His feet were cold, and his soul was aching, but he was alive, and apparently a priest of Thōth, and when he'd recovered from the ordeal at the end he would be able to do all the magic, so really, he was better than fine. Luna, on the other hand... "Are you okay?" Because that was probably the most...overwrought thing he'd ever heard Luna say. Normally, even when she was terrified, she was calm and very...contained. And he wasn't certain — it was hard to tell in the flickering light of the fire — but it looked like she might have been crying.

"I... It's... No. Maybe? I don't— I don't know. I can't see your magic and I can't feel you, I thought you might be dead when I woke up and you didn't and I didn't see— I knew, Lady Alethia told me, that Lady Gelach had taken back Her gift, but I didn't realise..."

Wait. Did that mean... "You're not an empath anymore?"

Luna gave him a helpless shrug. "Lady Alethia said that it would probably come back to me, but now? No." She changed the subject before he could think of a response. "What happened with you, and Lord Thōth?"

"Ah...apparently Lyra was right. I was overthinking...everything. Also, realigning your magic hurts."

Luna gave him a blank stare. "Of course it does. It's changing your soul."

"I know that, it's just...worse than I expected." By a lot. "But you, how did things go with Lady Alethia?"

Luna shrugged. "Well. She reminds me of Ginevra." Yeah, Theo could see that. Gin could be disturbingly direct at times, especially about the whole possession ordeal. "We talked about philosophy. But it was never that part of the dedication I was concerned about. Lady Gelach... She looked like Mummy. And She... She told me I will never have children. That was my punishment, for leaving, and not promising Her a child. I..." Her voice broke, threatening to fall into tears again. "I don't want to talk about it," she said, her tone suggesting she thought he was going to make her do so anyway.

"We don't have to." The words spilled out of him more quickly than they should have, probably, but he had no idea what to do with crying girls. The only girl he knew who cried where anyone could see her was Astoria, Daphne's little sister, and he could count the number of times she'd been overwrought and Daphne or Blaise hadn't been around to deal with her on one hand. "We can talk about... How are we going to get back to the school?"

Luna gave him a weak smile. "If you didn't wake up, I was going to wait until morning and use a point me spell to find the Lake."

Theo winced. While that probably would work, daylight wasn't exactly a guarantee that they'd be safe, wandering around the Forest alone. But he didn't have any obviously better ideas. Especially since he wasn't feeling up to casting a lumos right now, let alone any spell they could use to summon help. "I don't suppose you know the Messenger Charm?" Conjuring a little paper aeroplane with one's message written on it, animating it, and sending it to find the recipient was hard, especially when you didn't know where they were. "I...don't think I can cast anything, at the moment."

"I might be able to make one. Maybe..." She didn't sound very confident about that. "But who would we send it to, even if I could?"

"Er..." His first thought was Professor Snape, but he would almost certainly want to know what the hell they were doing out here — or worse, he'd take one look at them and know what they'd done. Theo didn't really think he would have a problem with it, but Professor Snape didn't already know about his ambition to become a black mage. Plus Theo thought there was a very good chance he would have a problem with having to come out to the woods to rescue them in the middle of the night. Lyra, who did know, wouldn't mind — she'd probably be delighted, actually, because they'd done it, finally — but there was really no guarantee that she was anywhere within the range of such a spell. It was hardly a secret that she shadow-walked back to London whenever she liked, and it was a Friday (Saturday, now), she might not be back for days.

There was only one other option, really. "Professor Lovegood would probably be best..."

"Aunt Cassie? I guess I can—" She froze. "What was that?"

What was what? Theo started to ask, but before he got halfway through the first word, he heard it too, a rustling at the edge of the clearing.

Was that a wolf, slinking toward them? It stopped when it got to the palings Theo had set to prevent unwanted bugs and predators from intruding on their ritual, whining, and disappeared again into the trees.

A moment later they heard a high, clear (familiar) voice lecturing (or rather, berating) someone. "—almost got him killed, and while that would be no great loss— Oh, shut up, growling at me doesn't change the fact that you're both idiots! And you— Sylvie? What's— Oh. Hi, Theo, Luna. I knew you were out here somewhere, but I didn't realise you were here, here. Hey, Cassie! Catch up, we've got company!"

Lyra grinned at them, naked and barefoot, leaning on a wooden spear. Both she and it were covered in dark streaks and splashes that Theo was willing to bet would be blue in proper lighting — acromantula blood — and she was accompanied by a handful of wolves — wilderfolk, most likely — of various sizes. (This was both weird, and simultaneously exactly the sort of thing he imagined Lyra did in her free time.) The one who'd come across them first was the largest, and obviously the most comfortable with Lyra, sitting at her side tongue lolling out as her fingers scratched idly at the wolf's ears. Probably, Theo supposed, the "Sylvia" she kept dragging people out here to meet. (Theo had turned down every invitation for the obvious reason — they lived in the forest. With the bugs. Also, wilderfolk were...weird.) The smaller ones — just puppies, really — formed a little clump, hanging back slightly.

"Lyra? What are you doing?"

"Oh, well, we were hunting, obviously, but that one—" She pointed at a wilderfolk kid who was positively covered in dark blood. "—thought he could take on a three-meter spider by himself, and then those two—" who looked for all the world as though they were being scolded for widdling on the carpet, "—tried to save him, only ended up getting in Cassie's way, and one of them almost got her head bitten off, and I had to save the little one, which meant Sylvie was on her own dealing with three of the things — if she weren't as good at magic as she is, we'd all probably be dead. Or, well, they'd be dead, and I'd be exiled from the Forest for letting them get themselves killed. I told Cassie this was going to be a train-wreck — not that I mind, really, but she does, putting kids in danger and all, so—"

Professor Lovegood darted into the clearing before Lyra could finish her explanation, equally nude and covered in blood, and similarly armed, but with a fireball of some kind wrapped around her off hand, and apparently under the impression that they were under attack...right up to the point that she saw Theo and Luna standing beside their fire, clearly safe (and not horrifyingly intelligent, man-eating arachnids).

"I thought there were spiders," she flatly explained ("Obviously," Lyra interjected.) before adding, rather defensively, "Lyra usually only sounds that excited when something's trying to kill her." ("Hey!")

"Hello, Aunt Cassie. There are no spiders. Or any bugs at all — Theo chased them away because he's scared of them."

"I'm not scared of them," Theo snapped. "They're just...creepy." In a kill them all with fire sort of way. Personally, he thought Lyra (and Professor Lovegood, now) were doing the world a fucking favour, exterminating the local acromantula colony, no matter how sapient they might be. "Ah... Hello, Professor. Lyra. ...Sylvia and company." (He wasn't really certain how one was meant to address wilderfolk, but he suspected none of them cared, anyway.)

"Luna, Theodore. What are you—"

"Their dedication ritual, obviously. Finally."

"Ah." Professor Lovegood smiled, with a casual wave of her hand dissolving Theo's palings so the wolves could enter the clearing along with her. "I suppose congratulations are in order, then." Theo tried to give her a solemn nod of acknowledgment, but he couldn't stop himself grinning. "Though... Luna, are you okay?"

Luna was simply standing there, staring at her aunt, as though dazed. After a moment she shook her head, perhaps to clear it, though it did serve to answer the question as well. "No. Everything's dark and quiet and lonely," she explained plaintively, slowly walking over to the (obviously confused) professor and wrapping her arms around her (heedless of how very naked and covered in blood she was). After the briefest hesitation, her aunt returned the hug, mouthing silently over the little blonde's head — What happened?

Theo winced. It seemed insensitive to just tell her, right in front of Luna, but—

"Gelach put her talents back to sleep." Of course Lyra couldn't care less about tact. Theo rolled his eyes — he didn't know why he bothered trying, honestly. "Not sure what the big deal is, honestly, being an empath sounds kind of shite. Actually, so does having kids, for that matter." Luna pulled away from her aunt to glare at Lyra, opened her mouth as though to say something, but Lyra just smirked at her. "Didn't Alethia tell you you're better off without that creepy bitch in your life? You know she doesn't lie, right?"

Doubt entered Luna's expression. "She didn't call Gelach a creepy bitch, but yes. How did you know that?"

Lyra giggled. "How do you think? We are on speaking terms with Alethia." As though it was perfectly normal to be on speaking terms with a goddess...or even weirder, not. Theo wasn't the only one who thought so, either, he caught Professor Lovegood giving her a sideways glance, too. "We wouldn't have suggested her if we weren't."

"You suggested—"

"Eris did, yes." Lyra shrugged. "Though it was pretty bloody obvious, if you think about it. I'm sure you and Theo would've considered her on your own, too. Also, Theo? I totally told you so."

Theo scoffed at her, because that was a crock of shite. "You told me there was an explicit agreement, and that I should ask for a patronage gift! You didn't tell me I'd look like an idiot because time isn't the same for gods, so He already considered me to be one of His priests, and apparently He doesn't do patronage gifts."

"Well, I didn't know you were going to choose that old of an Aspect, did I? Time isn't the same for all the gods, either. If you'd asked after you made your decision, I could've told you to ask Cassie about it, Artemis has more continuity going back far longer than Eris." ("Wait, what?") "But I definitely told you you were overthinking it. I mean, Thōth is a bird."

Theo managed to hold in a snort. "I noticed."

Professor Lovegood, fixing Lyra with an odd, uncertain stare, followed up her earlier interjection with, "I'm not actually dedicated to Artemis, Lyra."

Lyra blinked at her, still bloody and armed from the hunt, sheltering her niece in her arms — looking very, very much like someone dedicated to Artemis. "Are you fucking with me?"

"No, I'm really not."

"I'm pretty sure you—"

"I think I would know! Artemis doesn't go in for that kind of thing."

"So you think she goes around showing up in mortals' dreams and shagging them at random? You admitted you're one of her Huntresses, I'm not sure what—"

"I'm pretty fucking sure I never called myself a Huntress."

"Urgh. Okay, I said, you belong to Artemis, right? and you said right, yes, I belong to Artemis. What the hell did you think I was asking? Artemis doesn't have a cult or a temple — or, well, I guess she did, in Athens, but that was actually kind of insulting, making it a social duty to serve her before going on to be all conventional and boring, whatever, the Athenians were shite-heads not the point. She has companions, her Huntresses. And, I mean, I know she's not big on labels, but you live your life in emulation of her, do what you do with conscious acknowledgment that this is something she would approve of — that's pretty much the definition of white mage."

For a moment, Theo was struck by how odd it was, Lyra insisting that she knew more about a goddess Professor Lovegood actually served. Out of the two of them, Professor Lovegood, about a foot taller and twice as old, looked far more authoritative than Lyra. For all that either of them looked all that authoritative, naked and covered in blood and sporting identical expressions of annoyance.

"Plus, Eris says you are. So there."

Then again, there was that.

"...My relationship with Artemis is none of Eris's business."

"Your relationship with Artemis is boring, and besides, we like her. It's just incredibly annoying that you, of all people, think that whether something's formalised matters even a little bit, especially to her. Also, fucking asinine."

Professor Lovegood seemed to be rather at a loss as to how to respond to that, so Theo took the opportunity to jump in. "Not to interrupt—" ("Liar," Luna muttered, though she sounded vaguely amused.) "—but could one of you show us how to get back to the school? Some of us like to sleep at night."

The mad, blood-splattered witches broke off their glaring contest to blink at him instead.

"Oh, right. Sleep," Lyra said, as though she had forgotten that it was a thing that existed, despite the fact that Theo saw her sleeping during every single one of their History lectures.

"I'll take you back," Professor Lovegood said, rolling her eyes at Lyra's silliness.

"What?! No! This whole Mabon thing was your idea! I am not getting stuck with the un-fun part. I'll take them back."

"I thought you weren't allowed to celebrate Mabon." Theo was pretty sure she'd told him that at some point. Unless, maybe it had been Blaise? Whatever, it wasn't really important.

Lyra gave him an exasperated sigh. "I'm not, it's not a ritual thing. Miss totally not dedicated to Artemis just thought it would be a good idea to teach the little wolves how to hunt, and she's using the holiday as an excuse. Which, yeah, okay, it did make things more interesting keeping them alive and killing spiders, but now we have to do the part where we talk about what everyone did wrong and how to do it better next time. Which I have no interest in."

"Weren't you doing exactly that when you arrived?" Luna pointed out.

"No."

"Liar."

"Do you want to get back to the school before morning, Luna?"

"Okay, enough. Lyra, you agreed to help, so you're staying. I'm sure you can find some way to entertain yourselves while you wait for me to get back," Professor Lovegood said with an insinuating smirk, her eyes flicking from Lyra to the wolf still sitting beside her. Was she suggesting...

"I'm not sure if you think you're subtle or if you're trying to embarrass me, but either way, not working. And no matter how fun orgasms are, there's really nothing arousing about waiting around in anticipation of more tedium."

Apparently, yes. That was just... Really? Theo liked to think he was more open-minded than most of his peers, but... She was a wolf. (Half-wolf, technically, but canine-shaped most of the time, anyway.) Granted, Lyra wasn't really human, either, but it was still kind of...weird. Uncomfortably weird.

It wasn't made any less uncomfortable by the wolf shifting back into her human form — a few years older than him, with a lanky runner's build and no curves to speak of, also completely naked and completely covered in blue-black blood — to point out, "All of this talk goes nowhere, and the little ones are tired. If we wait, they will fall asleep before the talking is done and not learn anything." Two of them, in fact, looked like they were already asleep. "I will take the humans to the edge of the forest, and the moonchild will teach and you will explain what she says to the little ones. Come."

She popped back into her wolf form, wending her way through the overgrown clearing, back toward the trees, without giving Lyra a chance to object. Which didn't mean she didn't try, but did mean that no one paid her much attention when she did, including Theo. He just offered a hasty farewell, and hurried to catch up.

If he was lucky, he'd remain conscious long enough to make it to sweet, glorious bed...

---

Chapter subtitle: In Which Luna Lovegood Discovers Blue and Orange Morality

Having one scene in each chapter means I can write sixteen-thousand word scenes, right?

Feel free to mock me for not realizing until Sandra told me a few months ago that I've been using the word "dedicate" wrong for years. I thought it was a noun, too. It's definitely not. Oops.

Also, Theo's love of the outdoors is largely based on Sandra. I'm making her very uncomfortable even mentioning hair centipedes. So, um…trigger warning? (Belated, sorry.)

(I'm pretty sure Leigha is mocking me. I feel attacked. —Lysandra)

Thōth is pronounced "tote".

In case anyone is wondering, no, Gelach is not a real-world goddess. Her traits in this story (and Mary Potter, where she first shows up) are a syncretic amalgamation of the Irish goddess of the winter sun (Grian) and Roman and Viking influences including Proserpina, Iðunn, and Diana.

(I'm resisting the urge to go on a rant about how Gelach and Grian/Áine being associated makes no sense whatsoever. Nobody needs to read that, it's fine. I'm okay. It's fine. —Lysandra)

Alethia takes Luna to Arches National Park. If you've never been there, I highly recommend you google it, it's gorgeous.

And Lyra is meant to be 'explaining' what Cassie is teaching the little wolves by translating it into Thunderbird, because they don't speak English. She just really, really hates translating, seeing as the point of the exercise is repeating things that were just said.

—Leigha