Happy Saturday! Hope you like the chapter 3

Penelope was cold.

It had only been five minutes since she'd opened the door into this new world, but she was already regretting her decision. She'd packed all of her stuff, which had included "winter" clothes, but really? She hadn't been prepared for this.

In her world, winter meant cold mornings and evenings and a chill at noon. Not… this. In this world, it was freezing. She'd never been so cold in her life. The ground was covered in a chilly white powder. She'd made a hole in it and packed down the walls to create a kind of shelter, but she didn't have anything to put as a roof. She had matches, but nothing she could burn. Finally, she decided that the only way to keep warm was to keep walking. She put on every piece of clothing she owned and picked up her bag before clambering out of her hole and looking around.

The sun was still high in the sky but it didn't seem to be doing anything to warm the world. The sunlight reflected off the white ground with a glaring brightness that made it impossible to look directly down.

Far, far away was a still figure. A tree? A rock? Whatever it was, if she headed straight for it she could get there.

She wished she could just go to another world. A warmer world. But she was too tired. She needed food and warmth before she could open a new window.

But a warmer world! A hot world. A tropical island with trees and ocean and a million convenience stores with laid-back owners who she could laugh at…

With a vision of Paradise in her mind's eye, she began her long trek through the desolate landscape.

Priya and Will had stopped for lunch. They said a quick prayer to Liro before spearing and roasting twelve fish. Some of them were for later, or for emergencies, but they each ate two and stored the other eight in a cloth bag.

When they were done eating, they got going again. Will sat at the stern and Priya sat at the bow and they both were still as the boat glided through the water. It was a peaceful day, with a light breeze passing through the trees and the sun beating down on their backs and the cool water in between it all, right under their feet, right under Priya's fingertips as she held her hand out, pulling them along towards the Great Fall.

It was just the right temperature; warm enough that Kirjava's hair was hot to the touch, and cool enough that Priya could still wear her usual dress instead of something lighter.

(Penelope would've found the temperature to be sweltering, but at this point, Penelope would've found forty degrees hot.)

Today was the perfect day for a meeting with Destiny.

Maybe Destiny thought it was a little too perfect. Maybe Seleniah really was annoyed with them. Or maybe this was just the universe spiteing them for not having brought a map, but whatever the reason, at three o'clock on that lazy afternoon, Will and Priya floated into a shadier part of the river. The breeze slowed down, and Priya spotted some pretty blue flowers along the bank. They steered the boat nearer and she picked a bouquet of them.

Will yawned.

Kirjava yawned.

Priya yawned.

But yawns are infectious, so they didn't think anything of it.

They breathed in the sweet smell of the blue flowers and yawned again. Today had been tiring, and the sun was less harsh under the shade of the trees, and the river was getting a bit lazier, and they didn't feel they were in any hurry.

At four o'clock on that lazy afternoon, Will and Priya fell asleep.

They dreamt of meadows with flowers all around them. In Priya's dream, there was a solid figure way out in the distance, maybe a tree or a rock, that she couldn't take her eyes off of.

In Will's dream, Pantalaimon was running towards him and Lyra wasn't far behind, falling into his arms while Pan and Kirjava played together in the meadow.

They didn't want to wake up from their dreams, and there was no reason to, and they were in such a deep sleep that it was surprising that they were dreaming at all and almost nothing could have woken them up. But the river still dragged them along, a little faster now, so that the boat made large ripples in the water as it floated along. Faster and faster it went, so quickly now that it might have woken someone in a softer, lighter sleep up in a moment. As it was, Will and Priya were still fast asleep, blissful in their dreams. Priya was still staring at her rock, for now she was close enough to see that it was a rock, and Will was still holding on tight to his love while their daemons basked in this perfect world.

But a loud roaring sound suddenly interrupted both of their dreams, and when they woke up, they were both disappointed for a moment before terror overtook their bodies.

They were paralysed with one of the few fears that humans are born with: an instinctual fear of falling. Just feet away, too close to avoid, was a cascading waterfall. It wasn't the Great Fall- that was for certain. It could only have been twenty feet down, but falling that far onto water was like falling onto concrete, Will knew. None of them, not even Kirjava, could do anything but stare at the great, foaming mouth of their fate. The misty air made their faces damp and cooled them down considerably, but there was no time to register this fact before they were hurtling down, down, down for what felt like forever but could only have been seconds. They were gripping the sides of the rowboat, but their bags weren't, and flew out as they free fell into the icy water.

But the bottom of the waterfall wasn't just cold: it was also rocky. Jagged stones like teeth stuck up from the river, and Will, Priya, and Kirjava had no way to dodge them.

Kirjava especially. Her hold on the boat was loose - how could a cat grip things the way humans do? - And she started to slide. Her claws left marks as she slid down to the bow and then toppled out.

"WILL!" she called as she fell.

"KIRJAVA!" he yelled back before Il Ricordo Dell'amore hit the bottom.

The ground was falling from the sky.

At least, the strange cold, white dirt that made up the ground had started to descend from the heavens like some demented form of rain. Who gave this world the right to be so cold? Penelope was closer to what she was now sure was a rock. She felt like she had been walking for days, but she knew that wasn't true. The sun had only just begun to dip toward the horizon. It couldn't have been past five. And yet the energy was being drained from her body. She had opened up a window, and then been forced to trek through this freezing landscape with inadequate clothing. Her legs were blocks of ice that she was forced to drag along. Her fingers and face were numb and the only thing she had was hope.

Even that was slowly seeping out of her along with her strength and warmth.

But she had a goal, and that was something. She could see the rock getting bigger and bigger, and she was almost there, and this was so very important. She could make it!

The ground was turning the sky white, like in a heavy rainstorm, and soon Penelope could barely make out the silhouette of her destination. Still she trudged along, although she was getting colder and colder by the second.

Soon, she couldn't see more than five feet in front of her. But she kept walking in a straight line, because what else could she do? She needed to get to the rock!

Her feet were freezing. She was wearing three pairs of socks and her slippers inside of her rain boots, but still the cold managed to seep through. She couldn't feel her toes. She could barely walk. She kept her fingers in her mouth to warm them at first, but she needed her hands to shield her face from the gusts of wind that kicked up the white dirt.

People aren't made to survive in these conditions, she thought. It was so hard to walk. Her feet sank into the ground each time she stepped, which made for slow progress. But it was steady progress all the same, and that was what mattered. She needed to get to the rock.

Get to the rock.

Get to the rock.

Get to the rock…

Five seconds later, the only thing Will knew was pain and the crumpled bodies of his daughter and his daemon. But those bodies were getting farther and farther from him as the current pulled him away.

It occurred to him that maybe he should stop the boat so he could help them. Yes, that was a good idea. By some miracle the oar was still there and he used it to steer the boat to the bank. Once Il Ricordo Dell'amore was safely ashore, he ran as fast as he could back to the bottom of the waterfall.

(Granted, that wasn't very fast at all because of the searing pain in his right leg.)

He reached Kirjava first and scooped her up into his arms. She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

"Will…" she hissed as he touched her back leg and a shot of pain went up his leg, too.

"Broken?" he asked. She just whimpered in response. He carried her back to shore before coming back and picking up Priya.

"Oh, Priya!"

She was badly hurt. The rock she'd landed on was sharp and had cut her leg. Her head was bleeding, too, somewhere or other, and she probably had a million other injuries that were ten times worse than any of his.

She was unconscious but still breathing, thank Seleniah. He set her down next to Kirjava before salvaging as many of the bags as he could, which wasn't much.

Most importantly, or, perhaps, fatally, he didn't have a first aid kit.

He cursed loudly, frantically searching through the bags to find what he could use. Some blankets, Priya's bag with her prayer rug and special paper, rope, some extra shirts…

Shirts! Those would do. He grabbed one and tied it as tightly as he could around Priya's leg to stop the bleeding. Then he went back to the bag and grabbed some more t-shirts.

What were you supposed to do for a head injury? He hadn't ever had to do this so the knowledge had slipped from his head. He knew that all the bleeding was normal, and he supposed he should apply pressure…

He held one of the shirts to her head and added another when the blood immediately soaked through. He added two more shirts and then tied them in place with a rope. He searched through the packs and found what he wanted: A small bottle of concentrated healing liquid. Priya had said that just a drop in a few ounces of water would be enough to heal minor injuries: cuts, scrapes, a skinned knee. When he'd jokingly asked how much to heal another two cut fingers, she'd said that five drops would do.

"But it has to be for kindness," she had warned. "You can't heal someone just to-" she cringed as she said this - "hurt them more. Not that you would ever commit such vonmalum. Or, what do they call it in your world? Eve?"

"Evil," he'd corrected.

"Vonmalum," he muttered under his breath now. Then he shivered, because even the word itself seemed to awaken something deep under the ground. He shook his head and looked over at Priya.

He knew he shouldn't've moved her. He hadn't been thinking straight. You weren't supposed to move an unconscious person. Not unless you were a trained medical professional, which he guessed he was, but trained medical professionals weren't trained to stay on track when their own daughters had been severely injured.

He had plenty of water: an entire river was right in front of him. But that water probably wasn't clean. He'd need to sterilize it. Why hadn't he brought iodine? What had they been thinking? Sure, they'd brought water, but not nearly enough for an entire trip!

Then he remembered something: a small clay pot that Priya had brought to make tea in. He found it in a bag, thankfully not even chipped. He made a fire from some sticks he found and set some stones right next to it. They would hopefully get warm enough to heat the river water that he'd filled the pot with. He sat the clay dish on the stone and waited.

It felt like forever as he held Priya's wrist with two fingers on her pulse. The steady beat did nothing to calm him, though - blood loss was serious. He looked at her head. How long was he supposed to apply pressure? Ten minutes? Fifteen? It had probably been about seven minutes at this point. Better to leave it on.

The water finally came to a boil and he carefully took the pot off of the stone, hissing with the pain of his burning hand. He set the water on the ground and took out the vial. He opened it up and put in one drop, then another, just in case. He stirred it with a wooden utensil as the liquids slowly dissolved into one. He'd already taken the cloth off of Priya's head, and the flow of blood had slowed to a thick trickle. Her hair was disgusting, but he couldn't do anything about that yet. He dipped another shirt in the liquid and then held it to Priya's head. The trickle got slower and slower until finally, after half an hour, it stopped. The wound wasn't closed up - as Priya would have said, it may be miraculous, but it's not magical - but as long as she wasn't losing blood, that was fine by him.

Penelope was dead.

Or rather, that's what her body was telling her. She felt like she was made of ice. The walk through this world was like being stored in a freezer.

A kid had died that way last year.

She shook her head. No, she wouldn't die. Not if she could make it to the rock.

Get to the rock.

Get to the rock.

Get to the rock…

Finally.

Finally! She'd arrived at the rock.

It was huge, almost three times her height and half as wide as Mr. Shotgun's store. When she reached it, she laughed with delight and kissed her savior.

Sure, she was still cold, and she was deliriously hungry, and the ground was still falling from the sky, but everything would be okay because she'd made it to the rock!

She ran around to the other side of the rock and discovered that there was an alcove, about five feet deep and six feet wide, that she could take shelter in.

"Thank you, universe!" she shouted before diving into the space.

She sat up and took off her backpack before looking around. It was too dark to see much, so she took out her box and lit a match. When she saw what was there, she screamed.

Two bodies were huddled in the corner, their thick coats still clinging to their rotting flesh. They were obviously dead, and had been that way for weeks at least. Maybe even months.

Although she hated the idea of wearing a dead man's clothes, she didn't think she had a choice, so she took the coats off of the bodies and put them on. She took the rest of their clothes off of them too, but she didn't dare put them on. She would wear a corpse's coat, but not its undershirts.

There was a satchel nearby and the remnants of a small fire. Inside the bag were countless flammable items: books, newspapers, extra clothes (why they hadn't worn them, Penelope had no idea), and some small boxes with trinkets in them. Maybe this stuff had been important to them, but Penelope had no qualms about burning any of this stuff. She made a fire out of the boxes and began to get warm.

Priya woke seeing stars.

Her vision was blurry and her head was pounding, but she could very clearly make out the river of stars above her. They were bright and beautiful and looking at them, she felt at home.

She couldn't see the moon.

"Will?" she mumbled.

"Priya?" His face appeared above her. "Priya! You're awake! Do you want some-"

"Where's the moon?" she mumbled.

"What?"

"Where's the moon?"

"It's a new moon today," he said, looking down. "I did the special ceremony before we got going, so I think we should be safe, but… I know it's not ideal."

She frowned. She needed the moon. She needed Seleniah. She loved Will, but he wasn't her goddess. Will couldn't light up the night the way she needed right now.

The throbbing pain continued and she slowly lifted her hand to wear it hurt. Her fingers came away sticky with blood.

"W-what happened?" she asked, staring at her grotesquely red-painted fingernails.

"You fell," he replied. "Down the waterfall, remember? You hit your head pretty hard and got knocked out for a few hours. I treated the wound, but… I thought… you'd want us to keep going."

She nodded. "Okay."

He began rowing again, which he really didn't need to do, but it distracted him.

They didn't stop to rest that night, just kept going. Neither of them could really sleep, so they just sat there in silence until the sun rose and they finally pulled the boat over to eat.

Penelope slept well that night.

She'd always slept better in the cold. Hot, sticky air felt suffocating. And while she was used to sleeping in stuffy warehouses, she preferred basements or rooms with air conditioning in the summer.

She slept like a rock and when she woke up the ground was no longer falling from the sky. It was still unbearably cold, though, and she didn't dare leave her little alcove. Instead, she ate a few mini donuts and drank a little water.

Once she was feeling a bit better, she opened up the satchel that had belonged to the dead travelers and looked through the stuff. All of the extra clothing she was either wearing or had already burned, but there were still plenty of strange items in the bag. There were journals and wooden trinkets and a small box with a stone and what appeared to be a miniature violin bow inside.

She was still cold and tired, and she had nothing better to do, so she grabbed a twizzler, opened a journal, and began reading.

This new world is too empty…

Lyra sent the letter the day after she had dinner at Dr. Relf's. It was addressed to Dr. Michael Archambeau at the University of Paris. She simply requested that they meet to discuss the alethiometer, not stating a place or time. But she knew that he would understand why: the matter that they really had to discuss was almost heretical.

Lyra wasn't afraid of committing heresy. She was afraid of getting caught, though, because the Consistorial Court of Discipline was stronger than ever. When she was younger, she wouldn't have cared. She was Lyra Silvertongue, for God's sake! If she could trick a bear, she could escape the CCD.

She still knew that she could bluff her way through anything, but she wasn't so confident to be careless anymore. She couldn't trick her way out of a high-security prison the way she could get out of a class or a fancy dinner.

After the letter was sent, she went back to her flat to study the alethiometer some more.

"Pan?" she asked as her daemon curled up on her shoulder.

"What?"

"Do you think - Do you think Dr. Davies was right?" she asked tentatively.

"About… about Lord Asriel?"

She nodded.

"Well, let's see if it fits. Right now, we've got-"

"Sword, helmet, madonna, angel, sun, hourglass. Griffin, wild man, hourglass. Serpent, madonna, griffin, wild man, baby, thunderbolt, hourglass."

"Right. So if we focus on griffin, wild man, hourglass, and the wild man symbol means Lord Asriel, then we've got treasure, Lord Asriel, death-"

"Which could mean that Lord Asriel is dead-"

"But what about the griffin? It's got to have something to do with it!"

"Maybe he had some sort of treasure! Lord Asriel's treasure is dead. Maybe that means it's lost!"

"That could be it!"

It was one of those amazing moments where Lyra and Pan were one being, one soul, one body, one mind, working in perfect synchrony. Of course, they were one being. They were one soul. But it didn't always feel that way. Sometimes, it felt as if when they'd separated at the shore of the land of the dead, they'd become two separate entities. They still loved each other very much and neither would ever dare hurt the other, but they had a delicate balance between them; a wall that couldn't be taken down. Except for moments like this one, where they were once again like they had been when they were younger: one person, and each the most important thing in the other's world.

"But what kind of treasure would he have had?" Lyra asked, and they took a moment to think.

"A fortune?" Pan suggested.

"No, that's not it. It's a… specific treasure. How would you lose a fortune?"

"You could go broke."

She gasped. "Lord Asriel? Gone broke? That- that's-"

"I'm not saying that's what happened!" he clarified, standing up on his hind legs to make himself bigger. "You just asked me how you could lose a fortune, and that's all I could think of!"

She sighed with relief. But really, why did she care? She didn't want his money. She was better off without it. She was doing just fine, working part-time at the mail station, living at Jordan College and studying the alethiometer with Dr. Relf. This life was so simple, and if she had a fortune she could change so much…

No! That wasn't the point! The point was that this life was fine as long as she was spreading kindness and love and… and… making progress, as a woman, that would be enough change for her. But with a fortune…

"If it's lost…" she started, hoping Pan would catch on.

"...Maybe it needs to be found!" he finished.

"Yes!" she exclaimed, jumping up from her chair. "We are going to find the treasure!"

"We are going to find the treasure!"

Penelope had no idea how much time had passed. She'd never worn a watch, and even if she had, the gears would have frozen together in this freezing place. She was getting hungry again, though, so she closed the journal and indulged in another mini donut and a few more twizzlers.

As she chewed on the cold candy, she dug through the bag and examined some of the items. She pulled out a large red gem that was almost hypnotizing to look at, a bit of fabric embroidered with what appeared to be gold thread, and an exquisitely carved wooden figurine. Even Penelope, who knew next to nothing about art, could have guessed that these were priceless. Why were two random guys carrying them through this icy world?

Maybe they'd gotten stuck.

Penelope shivered at the thought and threw another carving into the fire, wincing as she watched what was probably worth thousands of dollars burn. She knew it was necessary, though. She needed to survive. She needed to regain her strength. She needed to get out of here.

She needed to sleep.

Priya couldn't sleep, so Will let her take first watch. The throbbing pain in her head made it almost impossible to think straight, but she could see and hear if there was any danger.

Seleniah, she prayed, please let everything be okay.

She looked up to the moon, pleading with the silver crescent. The moon was just a sliver today, but it was better than yesterday's new moon. Maybe that was why she'd hit her head - Seleniah couldn't protect her.

Priya stared up at the stars. Everyone who had ever died in her world was up there. The only exceptions were Priests, who would go to the palace of the gods when they were dead. Priya would go there someday. She hoped that Penelope was a priestess, too, so that they could stay together in the afterlife. Or maybe Seleniah would be kind enough to let Priya take her soulmate with her. She'd heard of gods doing that before.

The stars were bright and the crickets were chirping and the river was getting wider. Priya could feel the magical energy of this place. It was like a rush of adrenaline, heightening her senses. She felt safe, as if she were coming home, but at the same time, she felt like she was in grave danger.

"Will!" she whispered, shaking his arm. She was getting more and more frightened by the second. "Will!" she called, a little louder. But he was fast asleep, and he wouldn't wake up.

"WILL!" she shouted, and he jolted awake.

"What! What?" he asked frantically. Then he looked straight at where the boat was headed and said. "Oh… oh, Priya…"

She followed his eyes and gasped. "Oh!" she exclaimed.

The river had widened to about two hundred feet. It was clear and blue by the light of the stars. Most importantly, it was about to drop two thousand feet down.

They'd arrived at the Great Fall.

"Row!" Priya exclaimed. "We need to get to the shore!"

They both took an oar and began to row, turning the boat sideways and using all of the strength of their arms. The river was getting faster, but for now, they could make it.

"Faster!" she called.

Will was still half-asleep, and couldn't row as fast as she needed him to. She looked around, trying to find another way to stop them from plummeting to their deaths.

"There!" she yelled. "A rock!"

It was much closer than the shore, and she was sure they could make it. She began rowing toward it with all of her strength.

"Come on, Will!"

He, too, was using all the strength of his arms, and was beginning to wake up.

"Come on!" Priya shouted again. "We have to get to the rock!"

They rowed as fast and hard as they could.

"Come on, Will!"

They were almost there…

"We can do it!"

And…

"Will! Hold on to the rock!"

They were there! Will grabbed hold, and Priya tied the boat to the rock with some extra rope. When Il Ricordo Dell'amore was secure, she took Will's hand and pulled both of them up.

They fell to their knees and looked up to the sky.

"Great Anata!" Priya shouted into the spray. "We have journeyed here to your fall, and we wish to see Destiny! We ask for a blessing! We humbly wish for a miracle!"

A gust of wind blew over them and the crickets stopped. The world was silent. The air in front of them shimmered, and a window appeared, just like the one they used to get to Will's world.

Will gasped.

"Great Anata, we thank you!"

If all goes well, I'll post again next Saturday. Love you guys!

Ivy 3