"Um, this is Lyra. I hope I'm doing this right. Leave me a message if you need to-- Pan don't push that button y--"

Beep!

Lyra awoke with a start, listening for a sound that wasn't there. She yawned widely as Pan uncoiled himself from around her neck.

It was strange, how she felt. Like she was both more tired and more rested than she'd ever felt since...

Since the cave in Tibet.

Lyra scrambled out of her bed in a panic, stumbling over a pile of discarded clothes in her haste to reach her desk. She pushed the button that turned on her computer and fidgeted until the startup process was over. She clicked on the time in the corner of her screen.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Lyra groaned; it was a full week later than it should have been. All the work she must have missed! All the professors she was going to have to explain things to.

Although... She had no idea why this was happening, now of all times. Maybe Professor Aziraphale could help. Or maybe Dr Wilson, if it was medical.

She sighed and got dressed, heading for the common room. Maybe she could grab an apple before class.


[ooc: not open, just establishy.]

I'm flying to Disney world tomorrow. While this is cool and fun, and I'm really, REALLY excited, it means that I won't be around to play Lyra. So, she'll be sleeping from now until next Sunday when I get back.


eee! Disneyworld!

Roger looked up at her, falling backwards in slow motion as the knife that pierced his heart drained the life from his body. Her father stood over him, bloody length of steel in his hand. He should have been smiling, gloating, but strangely there was no expression on his impassive face. Roger's arms pinwheeled as he tried to catch himself, and suddenly his face wasn't his face anymore.

It was Will's.

He landed face up in the snow, eyes already fading from deep brown to cataract blue, staring sightlessly up at the pitiless stars.


Lyra woke up flailing, wrapped in entrapping blankets. She may have screamed; she wasn't sure. She sat a moment, trying to catch her breath before freeing one hand to wipe the cold sweat fro her face. She pushed the blankets away and curled up in the corner of her bed, clutching at Pan, trying to breath evenly.


[ooc: open, I thought it was high time I take advantage of the trauma Lyra's been through. Figured nightmare's'd be the least of it.]

Lyra made sure the bed was made and that her desk was tidy. She brought out the plate of cookies she'd handwavily bought at All and Sundries, and set them, and a couple bottles of water, on the edge of the desk. She opened the door and waited for Dawn to show up, taking notes for Philosophy of Values until then.

[ooc: open for my lab partner, but anyone else is welcome to stop in, too.]

Lyra was in the room, wrestling the folding screen she'd bought at All and Sundries into place. It cut off a corner of the room, but that was a small price to pay for a little privacy. She shook her head. Honestly, she hadn't thought that getting used to a boy rooming with her would have been so easy.

After getting it into place, she took out a small, battered journal and sat at her desk. She'd gotten into the habit of writing to Will during her year at St Sophia's. She knew he'd never read the letters; that wasn't the point. She needed to write to someone who understood what it was like, readjusting to the real world. It kept her sane in a school of girls who were vapid and overexcited with the thoughts of boys, makeup and fashion that filled their heads.

( "Dear Will," she writes. )

After finishing her letter, she stuffed the book under her mattress, went behind the folding screen to change into her pajamas, and climbed into bed, exhausted.

Lyra sat on her bed, cross-legged, surveying her bounty. She'd gone down to Stuff for Sale to pick up school supplies, where Blair had helped her immensely. She'd come away with a bunch of pens (she was sure now that she hadn't picked the pink one) and a new rucksack, in green. She'd also run into a fellow Brit, Evie, who happened to be her neighbor. She was looking forward to tea tomorrow.

She jingled the pouch of ten-pound coins. There were less of them now, but not by much. She certainly had enough to see her through to the end of the year. The Master of Jordan hadn't been stinting when he'd sent her here. And Rory'd thought they were pretty.

Poor Rory. Lyra knew what it was like to lose someone, to think of them and feel ill, because they were there and not here. To both resent and rejoice in the fact that they were elsewhere, living a life that didn't include you, but still living. To... She shook her head. Enough of that.

She stood up, looking inquiringly at Pan. He shook his little pine marten head and crawled under the pillow. Lyra smiled. It was nice to be somewhere where they didn't have to hide the fact that they could be apart form each other. No more hiding their differences. Maybe that's why the Master of Jordan had suggested Fandom in the first place.

Still smiling, Lyra opening the door and headed for the stairs to the roof.

Lyra woke slowly, blinking the grit out of her eyes. Her mouth felt fuzzy and didn't taste very good. She rolled over and came face to face with Pan, who looked slightly annoyed.

"What?" she asked.

"You. You've been asleep forever. You slept through Tuesday!" Pan's litany ended with with a shriek as Lyra tumbled out of bed, limbs flailing.

"Gah, Pan, you should have woken me!" She rummaged through her drawers, making a disaster of them, and came up with a shirt that wasn't too wrinkled, and snatched a skirt off its hanger.

"I couldn't. You were sleeping so deeply, and you know how groggy I get when you're asleep."

Lyra glanced around to make sure Dean wasn't in the room, and then changed with lightning speed. After opening the door to see who was about, she grabbed a brush off her desk and began furiously brushing her hair in anticipation of the rest of the day.

[I had a Japanese test to study for yesterday (yes, already!) which is why I was AWOL. But I'm here now, though, so this is open to whomever. It may be a while, though, as I have a class in 15 minutes.]

Lyra was curled up on her bed, idly leafing through one of the library books she'd picked up today. She wasn't really seeing it, though. She was too busy remembering how busy she'd been since she'd gotten here.

First there was the "newbie party" as she'd heard someone call it. She'd met her big sister there, as well as a fellow student who didn't have a daemon, much to Lyra's disappointment. She'd been hoping, if not expecting, to find someone here from her world. And she'd run into her roommate, who seemed nice, even if rooming with a boy was strange.

After too many instances of her daemon, Pan, being mistaken for a demon, she'd gone to the library to finally figure out what exactly everyone else was talking about. On her return, she and Dean had had a nice conversation about music and the cinema.

All in all, she was exhausted, and when she found herself reading the same sentence three times in a row, she switched off the light on her side of the room and fell asleep, Pantalaimon curled around her neck like a scarf.

[ooc: this is mostly for me, 'cause I'm off to bed, too; if someone really wants to wake her up, it'll be a while before I respond]

Lyra hiked her black messenger bag up higher on her shoulder, and picked up her suitcase. She stood at the front gates of Fandom High, wondering for the millionth time if this was such a good idea. Both the Master of Jordan College and Dame Hannah, the headmistress of her former boarding school, had said that Fandom was the place to go, if she wanted to learn how best to use the alethiometer.

She wasn't even sure how she'd gotten here. Something to do with the angels, she thought. Since Will had shown them how to close the windows between the worlds, they were the only ones who knew how to move between them any more.

A red animal crawled out of the bag and climbed up Lyra's sleeve to sit on her shoulder. If anyone was around, they might have recognized it as a pine marten.

Lyra glanced over at it and smiled. "Well," she said, "this is it, Pan. Are you nervous?"

"No, of course not." he replied. "Well, maybe a little."

Lyra squared her shoulders, adjusting her grip on the suitcase. It contained all of her worldly posessions. Nearly all, anyway. She felt the reassuring heaviness of the alethiometer in her rucksack, and taking a deep breath, stepped inside the gates.


[ooc: Lyra is here! I'm so excited. This was meant to be an establishing post, but if anyone wants to jump in, they're welcome.]