Disclaimer: I do not own the His Dark Materials Series.

A/N: I had so much inspiration lately, thinking about the complicated nuance here of Mrs. Coulter and Lyra being together but separate, and of Mrs. Coulter juggling so many things at once! I also realize it'd been a while since we heard from Lyra's POV, so I thought I'd come back to it here for this one. Thanks for reading!

Luxurious Lies

51.

Matters of the World

Mrs. Coulter waited about two weeks until she visited the Rabbit's Den bar again. The golden monkey had some misgivings about being back there, but they didn't have a choice, really. It was getting harder for Mrs. Coulter to focus on the work the Magisterium wanted her to do. Whispers were that they were close to resuming the severing operations, which Mrs. Coulter had promised herself not to contribute to again. So she had to move fast, finding some allies and some potential whistle blowers and anyone who could possibly help her figure out what was going on.

"You're back," he said, casually, as she came up to the spot next to him at the bar. It was the man from before—tall, lanky, and with a distinctive angular cap. Mrs. Coulter resented the bubble of excitement that stirred in her then, as he dipped his head once at her. Whereas he was leaning against the wooden booth, she smoothed down her dress and sat delicately on the barstool.

"I am," she replied, voice singsong as she offered a quick smile. "As are you. Or, have you even left?"

"Very kind of you," he spat back, gesturing to the bartender. "Bring her a whisky," he ordered.

"Oh, thank you, but I—"

"I ain't asking ya."

Secretly, Mrs. Coulter liked this brash boldness of his. Most of the men she'd been involved (with the shining exception of one) were so soft and so mannerly with her. It was always, "May I tempt you, m'lady?" or "Please, allow me" with them. Never this commanding, yet, at the same time, so casual. They weren't in a ballroom at a political fundraiser but at a dive bar after a long day of work for the both of them. The golden monkey didn't like it and glared coolly over at the man's mountain lion daemon.

What was it about men with giant cat daemons, Mrs. Coulter faintly wondered?

The bartender returned to them with two glasses of whisky.

"A whisky neat," Mrs. Coulter observed, watching as the man scooted one glass closer to his still-full beer and nudging the other closer to her. "What if I'd have preferred it on the rocks?"

"Only airheaded women like that shit," he simply scoffed, taking a deep swig of his beer.

"And I'm not an airheaded woman, I suppose?"

He didn't say anything at that, but merely watched her. His gaze was intense, like a surge of anbaric lighting. His eyes, one blue and one green, moved from her eyes to her lips and then downward. It'd make most women uncomfortable, Mrs. Coulter supposed, but she wasn't most women. Even as she pretended to be one. So she let his gaze wander for a moment.

"So," she said, breaking the silencing and forcing his eyes away from her body. "I never did catch your name last time."

He snorted then, his lips twitching up into an almost-smile. "You never gave me yours, either."

"Maria Clemson," she said in a stiff, formal voice, straightening her shoulders and graciously giving him a half-bow. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr…?"

"Hmph," he said, eyes glinting at her as he moved a little closer. "Maria Clemsen. That's your name, then?"

For a striking second, Mrs. Coulter felt exposed. As if he somehow knew, which he couldn't have, of course. No one knew. Her alias was perfect. She had all the prowess and influence of the Magisterium behind it. Hell, she'd even changed her hair for it, lightening it some and styling it in a way the Mrs. Coulter of old never would have. It was infallible.

Unless it wasn't, a small voice inside her doubted.

Just chat him up, the golden monkey offered, his attention still trained on the mountain lion daemon. Interestingly, the daemon was agile and well-behaved, unlike her human. There must be more depth behind the man than what met the eye.

"Maybe," she simply smiled back in return, picking up the whiskey glass and drowning it all in one, large sip. "Bartender, another, please? On the gentleman's tab, of course."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Lyra, would you be a dear and check on the kettle for me?"

Lyra was sitting in the drawing room at Madame Bisset's, reading her books for the day's studying. The lore of alethiometer symbols was more involved than simply memorizing a bunch of symbols and their possible meanings. Since a great deal of alethiometer work was knowing which layer of meaning to assign at a certain place, it meant reading up on matters of the world. Of love, of greed, of politics, of the natural sciences and even the social sciences. Madame Bisset had no clue that Lyra could suss out such meanings on her own, of course, so she busied Lyra with all these life lessons and investigations. Even if they were painful.

Sighing, Lyra nodded her head and got up from the sofa, Pan following her as an ermine. It'd always been his favorite form since they've been young, and he'd been clinging to it more and more as the days went on. Lyra wondered if that meant he'd eventually settle as it. She didn't like thinking about such matters, though, so ignored it as they sauntered into the kitchen.

"When will this end?" Pan asked her, jumping up onto the counter beside the stove. "I can't take much more of this."

"You're not even the one who has to read all the things," Lyra pointed out to him, checking the stove's dial and watching as more steam poured from the kettle.

"I know, but it means we can't do anything else when you're busy with that," he complained. "We could be out exploring this place, and the sea and the mountains. We'd never seen this kind of stuff last time we were in the North."

Indeed, Lavia was an interesting place. It was northern, but at the same time, it wasn't. They could see snow in the horizon on the mountains, and the locals said the brisk of winter hit here as it did anywhere else, but the current season was so warm and so bright. Lyra wanted to explore, to see what was out here, see what people were like, and see her moth—

Lyra stopped at the thought, feeling the familiar surge of sadness overcome her. It'd been a whirl of emotions since they'd arrived at this town and found Mrs. Coulter to be here as well. It surprised Lyra, how conflicted she felt over the matter. Not too long ago, she would have rejoiced to be reunited with her mother again, after wondering if she'd made the right choice in leaving her and if she'd been too unfair. But then she began to learn more and more about the Magisterium and their increasing control over society, and their growing plans. And to see her here in such a position and under the control of the Magisterium was just too much for Lyra.

But at the same time, she was curious about it. Lyra had been in Lavia for a few weeks now and Mrs. Coulter hadn't reported her or led on that she'd known her at all. And she wasn't doing anything with the children except teaching them and helping raise and take care of them in the way schoolteachers in small towns like this do. It was all very innocuous, really, and made Lyra wonder if she was telling the truth.

Telling the truth. There was a way she knew how to do that, of course, and had tried to. But the thing about the alethiometer was that it had a funny way of pressing its own agenda onto its users. Lyra had purposely not sought out information about her mother due to the pain of even thinking about it, and now that she'd considered it—gestured it, really, during her recreational readings—the machine seemed to sense what she wanted and steered her away from it.

"Is that the kettle blowing?" Madame Bisset called from the other room, snapping Lyra back into her thoughts.

"Yes, I'm coming with it," Lyra answered, turning the dial down and putting the kettle onto a cold burner.

"We could try to see her more, though," Pan whispered, knowing her thoughts almost better than she herself did. "It wouldn't be hard to do. And…maybe there's been enough time now for things to get better."

That was a thought. Sighing, Lyra arranged the kettle onto the warmer along with two chipped glasses and a small wooden bowl of sugar. Just looking at it, Lyra could only wonder what Mrs. Coulter would think. Everything back in her apartment at London was so fancy and expensive. She wondered what her home here in Lavia was like, and what kinds of comfort it brought? She wondered what she was doing right now, and how she could even get in touch with her, and so much so that it jumbled her brain and distracted her as she carried the tray back into the drawing room.

"Very nice," Madame Bisset chimed as Lyra set the tray down on the table and poured her a glass. "Are you alright, dear? You seem lost in thought."

"Just thinking about my studies, ma'am," Lyra lied easily, willing her thoughts to come back into focus.

"That's good. Now, you have an afternoon snack and then get right back to it. Aren't you making your way through Descartes now?"

"Yes," said Lyra, pouring her own tea and taking a biscuit before plopping back down on the sofa. Madame Bisset didn't say anything about her rather uncouth plop as she rattled on about the history of philosophy and some of Europe's greatest minds. Mrs. Coulter would have made a light comment about it, something about minding her energy and taking care to arrange herself more perfectly on the furniture. It'd been a long time since she'd heard Mrs. Coulter fuss over her behavior and her mannerisms. And, with a startle, Lyra realized how much she actually missed it, whereas there was a time before she wanted nothing more than to be rid of it forever.

It'll be okay, Pan thought to her, resting his head on top of her knee. We're gonna be okay. We can make it work here.

I hope so, Lyra sighed to them both, because like Pan, she wasn't sure if she could take much more of this.

A/N: aww, sad Lyra breaks my heart :( she's been through so much.