(Untitled)

[lyra_silver]

Yesterday, Lyra Belacqua Silvertongue finished the sixth form at St Sophia's School, Oxford. Her overall marks were good but not stellar, although she earned a first in Rhetoric and another in her independent study of Alethiometry. In the fall she'll be going on to St Sophia's College

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[subtle_will]

Someone is certainly there, yes.

Someone with dark hair that has grown slightly shaggy about the ears--looking like someone untrained has recently been at it with a pair of scissors.

(It was Mary, the other day. You need a haircut, she said, and that was all the warning he'd gotten.)

Someone with a book, held up in one hand with a thumb in the crease between the pages and his fingers splayed against the binding to support it as he reads.

Someone with a cat by his side, watching the room, alert.

[lyra_silver]

Lyra and Pan see Will and Kirjava at once, of course, and as soon as they see them, they start running. Lyra trips on a chair (possibly on purpose?) and lands in Will's lap, laughing. "We knew you'd be here today, we knew it."

[subtle_will]

Kirjava had started moving as soon as Pan and Lyra did, a streak of black-blue-smoke-gray-charcoal that barrels into the red-gold gleams on Pan and wrestles with him lovingly.

For his part, Will catches Lyra with a laugh and holds on, letting his book flop onto her stomach.

"You got us, Lyra. We can't trick you, ever."

[lyra_silver]

"Not ever," Lyra agrees happily. She looks down at the book, trying to read its title without letting go of Will's waist. "Even if you can trick everyone else." Pan paws at Kirjava, half-wrestling, half-stroking.

[shall_go_free]

Xas takes a sip of his wine, looking curiously at this girl and her--pine marten, is it?--companion.

"I hope you don't think me overly foward if I ask who you're waiting for?"

[lyra_silver]

Lyra smiles. "No, that's all right. I'm waiting for my ... I don't know what the word is. Friend's not enough and love isn't either." The smile grows sadder; Pantalaimon snuggles against Lyra's leg. "We meet every year, as well as we can."

[shall_go_free]

Xas doesn't freeze, not at all.

"I've found that such meetings are often enough to spur a remarkable degree of familiarity."

He bites his lip, half-smiling.

[lyra_silver]

"It wasn't like that," Lyra says. She's stopped smiling altogether. "We knew each other before, for a little while, and then we had to go back to our homes... so every year we sat near each other, as near as we could get, but we couldn't see each other or hear each other... and maybe now this year will be different. Maybe this time we'll actually be in the same place."

[kurosakiboy]

There's nothing at all odd with hanging about in the rafters. Of course not. Nor is there anything odd about hanging upside down from those rafters. Anybody who claims so can go up there and say so to Ichigo's face.

Speaking of the teenager, something inside of him picks up a whiff of something familiar, and his eyes are instantly flicking towards her, and then, with a frown, towards the furry...thing.

And so it is with a curious furrow of his brow that Ichigo drops down, landing acrobatically on his feet, and then makes his way swiftly over with little regard for personal space. He may very well poke the little animal, so she might want to stop him. As of right now, he's right in front of her, leaning closer to Pantalaimon with an almost awed expression on his face.

"Holy crap..."

[lyra_silver]

Pantalaimon wriggles backwards, behind Lyra. Lyra says, warily, "What do you want?"

[kurosakiboy]

"What the hell is that thing?" He asks, leaning back a bit. He's slowly realizing his approach may not be the best, but this is a bit too weird for him. It feels like...well...something that should NOT be on the outside.

[lyra_silver]

Lyra reaches down and takes Pantalaimon into her arms. "He's Pan and he's my daemon. And you shouldn't talk about him like that."

[river_meimei]

River is half-draped across the bar, head turned to one side. She's not asleep, though. Her eyes shift about the room, abstracted but alert.

Her gaze settles on Lyra, and then on Pantalaimon.

[lyra_silver]

The red-gold animal moves softly towards River, peering up at her with his muzle. He stops just out of River's reach. Lyra follows behind, smiling at the other girl. "I'm Lyra, and this is Pan."

[river_meimei]

"Marten," says River to him, seriously.

"It's in the fur."

[lyra_silver]

"Yes," says Pantalaimon. "Yes," agrees Lyra, in case River can't hear him. "He's my daemon."