A great flash of blue light suddenly blazed across the sky above the Gyptian camp (currently in the fields near Jordan College), narrowed, and then began to come lower and lower.
When it settled, dimming ever so slightly, a beautiful golden-haired girl with a milk-and-honey complexion stood at the borders of the camp, faint silvery-azure light still radiating off of her. She was a star, the daughter of Ramandu.
The first Gyptian to notice her was a thick-set fellow with a black mustache dressed in a gray tunic over an indigo shift. To most persons he looked unfriendly, but those who knew him best-mainly other Gyptians he traveled with-thought of him as being very cheerful and loving. His dæmon was a crane, tall and simple, with small, black, happy eyes.
He could see at once that this star was an important lady (her dæmon was not with present), so he bowed to her. "Good evening, your ladyship."
"A good evening to you, as well," said the girl, trying to be courteous but clearly suffering from more anxiety than was good for her. "I've come to see my aunt, Serafina Pekkala Le Fay. Please, will you tell her I am here and that I've urgent news that she ought to be told of at once?"
"With a good will, lady."
"Thank you," said Ramandu's daughter, seating herself down on a smooth boulder a few inches away from where they'd been standing while they spoke. "I shall wait here."
Farder Coram was resting on the cushion that took up more than half of the space inside his tent. He was not sleeping, but he was not awake in the sense of being fully alert and ready to spring up at the slightest sound either; he was quite snug under his 'quilt of many patches' which also had some deer-hide and bear-hide in it, making it even warmer. And, of course, Farder Coram was rather an old fellow, he got tired out more easily than the younger Gyptian men did. What was more, he was, for lack of a better word, crippled.
His dæmon, a large yellow-orange tabby (Lucy Pevensie always thought it looked, perhaps because of its sheer size and the odd shape of its ears, more like a caracal, but that was only her own personal opinion on the matter and some might have disagreed with her if she'd ever thought it important enough to mention aloud), was resting a short way off from her human's head, a faint purr coming from her ruffled-yet still somehow glossy at the same time-throat; the tip of her tail moved up and down in time with Farder Coram's slow, steady breaths.
Sighing contentedly to himself, Farder Coram opened his eyes a little wider and shifted his gaze over to the other side of the cushion, looking tenderly at the woman who was lying there, his wife. He'd never thought he would have a wife, especially at his age. And certainly he never imagined a wife like the one he had gotten so unexpectedly. She was none other than Serafina Pekkala Le Fay.
Her long black hair was pulled back into a braid that had come loose at the end, looking-Farder Coram thought-not unlike a fern plant when it has been pulled apart, a couple of stray, thin dark ringlets falling out of the loop and framing her face haphazardly like dusky down-feathers.
She had a dæmon, of course, but he was not present. She was a fairy, and both the dæmons of fairies and those of stars were known for being able to go a long distance away from their persons without the 'separation pains' kicking in. No matter how far apart they traveled, the link that connected them was never torn apart. It would not have been at all surprising if one of Mrs. Coulter's ambitions-back when she was alive-had been to experiment with this and see if what she called 'Intercision' worked on them or not, but no such opportunity ever presented itself to her in her life. After all, fairies and stars were not so easy to lure away as unwanted street urchins or Gyptian children; more row would be caused over them going missing-so it had been quite impossible.
Anyway, Serafina's dæmon was named Kaisa; he was a grey goose. Currently, he was acting as ruler of the Silver Sea. That was how it had to be; every other month, they switched places, and Serafina had to take leave of her husband, leaving Kaisa behind as a companion for Farder Coram's tabby-dæmon. Serafina Pekkala Le Fay was clan queen by right of birth, which made her the successor to the throne when the former monarch passed away at the age of seventy thousand.
There was nothing Serafina would have liked better than to have become a full-time Gyptian wife; she wasn't troubled over the nomadic life-style of the vast majority of that race, or about cooking and cleaning, getting her hands dirty-none of that bothered her. But she was born with a sense of duty, and the way she saw it was that when she died, she would have to yield the throne in favor of whomever was next in line, but to abdicate prematurely seemed wrong, disgraceful somehow.
For, undoubtedly, though she hated thinking about it, she would out-live her husband. Fairies and stars were always out-living their human lovers. It was a painful reality of their lives that there seemed no end to and no way out of, aside from-of course-not falling in love with humans in the first place. Her niece had been lonely for her Telmarine Gyptian lover, Caspian the first, for a very, very long time now. Her heart ached noticeably less only whenever she was in the presence of his tenth descendent, a kindly young man who happened to have a seagull dæmon of the same sex as himself, and also happened to be one of the few Gyptians who actually owned an estate, having inherited it after his disreputable Uncle Miraz had been killed in a duel. Farder Coram thought himself too old for his wife because of her ageless beauty, a stunning woman-barely more than a girl-with an old crippled nobody like himself; he often forgot that, really, Serafina was much older than him, even if she didn't look it.
In fact, poor Farder Coram still wasn't even sure why Serafina had chosen to love him out of all men. She could have had anyone, someone who was still as 'young and beautiful' as this benevolent fairy queen claimed he himself had been when they'd first met through his rescuing of her dæmon, and yet, she'd wanted him-old and broken man that he was, she wanted him. She hadn't even cared that he was too old to give her children, too old for her to have a proper family. No, there wasn't a single note-worthy objection he could have raised to her that would make her love him any less or not want, more than anything else, to become his wife. Nothing would please her without his proposal of marriage; and, of course, loving her in return, he'd eventually given in and let her have her own way.
There was a loud rustling outside the tent (the traveling-Gyptian equivalent of knocking) and at last Farder Coram woke up fully and opened his eyes all the way. Serafina did not stir, she stayed asleep.
"Farder Coram, there is a star outside the camp, come to see Serafina Pekkala. She says it is quite urgent."
Farder Coram's tabby blinked at the man's crane dæmon in acknowledgment and the crane nodded back at her.
"Serafina," said her husband softly, shaking her shoulder as carefully as if his beloved was made of glass and might fall off of the cushion and shatter if he should touch her too roughly. "Wake up. There's someone here to see you."
"Hmm?" Serafina stretched her legs, shifting them from the scrunched up manner she'd been sleeping with them in.
He repeated himself.
"All right, my love, I'm up." Her eyes were open now and she was sitting up on the cushion with her back perfectly straight.
The Gyptian man with the crane dæmon told her that her niece was waiting to speak with her.
It was a little chilly, so Serafina pulled a soft, sea-green shawl with laurel patterns embroidered round the edges Ma Costa had given her as a belated wedding gift around her shoulders before stepping out of the tent.
Farder Coram followed her but did not go all the way to greet Ramandu's daughter, getting a sort of idea that there might have been something private the fairy and the star needed to discuss. Besides, if it were any of his concern, he'd no doubts that Serafina would tell him when the time was right.
When Serafina came back to him-or rather, to where he was standing, waiting for her-she seemed anxious.
"Something's the matter," he said; it was not a question.
She nodded gravely. "Do you remember when we met on Lord John Faa's ship, the Dawn Treader?"
"How could I forget?" He smiled warmly at her, fighting back a worried frown. "I hadn't even known we'd met before that-through Kaisa."
"Yes," she sighed, her voice distant. "Well, you remember then what I told you that night, about the son of Edmund Coulter?"
"To look after him," said Farder Coram without hesitation; "that he was part of the solution to the ending of the tyranny of the Ruling Powers."
"The Ruling Powers have taken him prisoner." She kept her gaze bold and firm, but her expression was one that an ordinary person usually has when they are looking down at their feet. A regal fairy never looked down at her feet when talking about anything of importance. "That is what my niece was sent to tell me."
"What will they do to him now?" The yellow tabby's eyes widened in horror.
"It is uncertain," said Serafina. "While it is the daughters of Lord Asriel who will play the most important parts in what is to come, taking Edmund Belacqua out of the picture would be a terrible blow to all who wish to over-throw the Ruling Powers. All the more so since he's an alethiometrist.
"If the Ruling Powers can, they'll keep him alive, perhaps in hopes of getting him-likely by force-to complete the work his mother started. As someone on their side, he would have no right to question their authority, and, of course, he would be required to keep all that he now knows about Aslan and Dust to himself-act as if he'd never learnt it to begin with."
"Will he really side himself with the Ruling Powers, whatever them wicked people say or do to him, though?"
Serafina shook her head. "I wouldn't think so, not Edmund. They don't realize how strong and stubborn-and determined-he is. But they'll make it hard on him."
"What about Sarah's daughter?" Farder Coram had to know. "What happens to Lucy and Reepicheep now?"
"The stars report that she was not captured with him," Serafina told her husband. "It seems he hid her before they broke into his flat and took him prisoner."
"Where is she now?"
"We're not sure, that is one of the reasons I must leave at once. I must go and find Lee Scoresby, our old aeronaut friend. We hope that, if the stars can determine Lucy's location, he can go in his airship and take her on board before any harm befalls her. Then, once she is safe, we can try to rescue Edmund."
"God's speed, Wife," sighed Farder Coram, clasping her hands in his and squeezing them lightly. "Is there anything we-I mean, us Gyptians-can do?"
"I'm sure there is," Serafina Pekkala Le Fay answered. "But, in the meantime, you must await further instruction. It will come."
When her husband released her hands, Serafina went back to the tent where, behind one of the interlocking draping cloths, she always kept her cloud-pine branch concealed. She needed it for flying and knew she daren't leave it out where it could be stolen or lost.
Less than an hour later, she had alighted her branch and was sitting on the railing of an airship, waiting for the aeronaut who steered it and his dæmon, a large artic hare called Hester, to notice her.
They had not seen her in over a year, and the last time had been at a distance, so for a moment the pair gaped at her, startled.
"Howdy, your Majesty," Lee Scoresby managed at last.
"Greetings, Scoresby." She spoke warmly, but her smile was faint, strained.
"Good day," said Hester.
"Is something wrong?" asked Scoresby after a moment of silence ticked by-a few seconds feeling like an hour.
She told him then of what had happened to Edmund Belacqua and of the stars' worry also for Lucy Pevensie.
"You have to understand, Mr. Scoresby," said Serafina urgently, not so much as a half-flicker passing through her serious, still eyes, "just how important this all is. If the Ruling Powers cannot keep the secret that are in fact billions of other worlds, other universes, a secret for ever as they hoped, they will seek to control every world even more firmly than they control this one. They may not have been able to extend their tyranny until now, but if they do find a way…nothing will stop them…nothing but the daughters of Lord Asriel, with the help of a certain young alethiometrist now held captive. We will help those children, that is our role in all of this. And we must not fail."
"No," said Lee Scoresby, Hester's nose twitching fearfully, as he steered his airship to the starboard side. "I reckon not."
AN: Please review.