(Untitled)

[alethioliar]

Dressed in furs and thick suede from the clothes box, Lyra Silvertongue stood in front of the island memorial with her daemon hugged tight in her arms. With her boots buried ankle-deep in snow and one of the red saucers from the games closet propped up against her leg, she stood there staring and cuddling Pan close, comforted by the feel of his

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[sortofaman]

The Doctor was going to not look miserable on skis, come hell or high water. He knew full well Chase was going to force him up there, and while he was good enough, he was decidedly rusty.

As he passed the memorial, he saw a slightly familar face looking at it. He himself tried not to, most of the time (though now again he wasn't the last of the Time Lords--but he'd rather Romana was here than him). Will's friend. From the world where people had...those animal beings with them, like the imperious wank with the snow leopard.

Shite, it all seemed really familiar, like a book he'd read once.

"Hullo," he said.

[alethioliar]

Lyra glanced in the direction of the voice and bunched her mouth up briefly, as if weighing her options. Quickly enough, however, she settled on a cheerful, "I know you. Hello," while Pan climbed up to curl around her neck.

"Are you goin' up there?" she nodded at the chairs, the ones that looked like some sort of trolley ride up the mountain.

[sortofaman]

The Doctor noticed her face change slightly. "I hope I wasn't interrupting," he said. "Yeah. Yeah, I was, were you?" He gestured to the sled.

[alethioliar]

Lyra shook her head 'no.' And then she crouched down to scoop up the red saucer sled and flip if over in her hands as if the gesture alone should explain her plans.

"Yeah, I was. Will and I went sledding the other day, but I figured it's got to be better up there," she mused, her posture unconsciously straightening and her eyes lighting up at the mere mention of Will. This was one of the few times she wasn't in thorough control of any changes in her outward appearance.

[cryptogam]

One good thing about the return of cold weather was the plethora of northern flora and fauna to be found. Stephen had spent the day botanizing - had discovered an entirely new form of lichen and observed the growth of three species of conifers - and now he was headed back to the Compound for some coffee, with Lucy the genet perched on his shoulder.

"Good day, madam," he said to the young girl, peering interestedly at the animal huddled in her arms. "Is that a pine marten, perchance?" Lucy sniffed at the animal with equal interest.

[alethioliar]

Pan perked up immediately, turning over in her arms to get a better look, and at once she felt a rush of warmth flood her heart that she assumed must have been Pan's satisfaction.

"Most people think he's a ferret or something," she scoffed to show her displeasure at that and then nodded. "He's a pine marten all right. When I was younger I used to want him to settle into a bird or a great fierce dragon, but when he chose the pine marten form I wasn't too bothered."

[cryptogam]

Stephen put on his reading glasses so as to get a better look. "Martes martes is related to the ferret, being a fellow member of the family Mustelidae, so the misnomer is not so far from the truth. There are wild martens about on the island at this time of year; I have seen glimpses of them in the trees."

He raised his eyebrows at the girl's additional comment. "Is the creature a shapechanger? A werebeast of some sort?" Perhaps the girl had an over-active imagination, or perhaps there really were shapechanging animals in other worlds.

[alethioliar]

Lyra shifted just as Pan leapt from her breast and onto the snow, scampering around as if to look for the man's own daemon, though they held out little hope that Pan would be able to meet her. "Well that may be but the point is he en't one," she insisted.

"He's my daemon," Lyra explained, eying the man with renewed interest. The way he spoke, well it was entirely academic. Normal people didn't just go around speaking Latin. "You're a Scholar, en't you? I like Scholars."

[violet_ribbons]

Violet was on her way to the playhouse, wrapped in the blue peacoat that she'd gotten second or third or more-hand from Mr. Poe and his family, when she'd been on her way to her Aunt Josephine's.

Who wasn't her Aunt at all. She'd wondered, occasionally, what had happened to her own things when she'd been here the first time. If there was a chance that there was another black ribbon somewhere, frayed on the edges from the security and peace taken from it.

But all thoughts of that left as she paused in the Memorial Wall, where there was a girl standing there in the snow.

"Are you alright?"

[alethioliar]

"What? Oh, mmhmm," Lyra nodded when she spotted the other girl. She looked very much like one of the girls from the boarding school at St. Sophia's, and she wasn't quite sure how she felt about that just yet.

Nevertheless, she wandered over through the snow, "I was just looking at the memorial," she thought she ought to explain. "So many people have come and gone and then showed up again. It's odd, that's all."

[violet_ribbons]

Violet licked her lips, and looked at the memorial.

And wondered, perhaps, if Klaus would have eventually put her on it. The way he'd changed... "I could be up there." She looked back at the other girl. "Apparently I was here - that my siblings and I were here at the very beginning, or close to it, then I... left. And came back."

[alethioliar]

Lyra's eyes lit up then, simultaneously empathetic and intrigued. "Oh, I'm sorry," she chewed her lips and let Pan leap down and onto the snow, his little paws leaving prints as he scampered over to the wall and rose up onto his hind quarters to get a closer look.

"That must be a right shock to know that. And you don't have any memory of the island at all?"

[adamant_command]

"I've wondered," came Lord Asriel's cool voice from a few paces back. He was also dressed well at the whim of the clothing box's deceptive kindness. "What is this? D'you know the significance of these names?"

Upon spotting Lyra that day, he'd only wavered momentarily on the decision to approach her. Far as he was from admitting to it, the girl's father had been harbouring a twitch of pride in his heart since he'd heard of her exploits in the land of the dead.

[alethioliar]

Lyra froze where she stood and cuddled Pan that much closer, seemingly still in thought as she listened to her father's voice.

It seemed foolish, now, that she'd once mistaken her adoptive guardian for the man behind her. But she knew very well what people were willing to overlook when faced with new challenges. "They're the names of people who've come and gone," she announced as clearly as she could and then turned around to come face to face with Lord Asriel. "People who others cared about enough to remember. I know how long you been here and I know when you come from, but it's been a longer time for me than it has for you. I'm older now," she said simply, maybe to let him think a lot had changed when more than enough had stayed the same.

[adamant_command]

She was, as she'd said, older. And while this truth had registered intellectually when he'd spoken to the boy, Lord Asriel was not prepared for the strange surge of emotion the sight of his grown daughter conjured.

Stelmaria exhaled softly and leaned her shoulder against his legs.

"I can see that," he said, without a skipped beat. "I'm sure you have tales to tell."

[alethioliar]

Pan leapt down from her arms then and scampered across the snow to Stelmaria, his rust-golden fur not bristling, per se, though he did rise up onto his hindquarters and cant his little pine marten head at her

[blondbond]

Bond did not spend time around memorials if he could help it and he refused to allow himself to glance at the names carved into the rock slabs in an effort to locate Dexter Morgan. He wasn't in the mood to be mournful or morose. Not with snow on the ground and all over the mountain.

He set his skis and various assorted ski-related accessories down next to the red saucer before considering Lyra and her pine marten.

"This won't do," he gently informed them both. "You ought to be enjoying some aspect of a day as fine as this one. At the very least, I expected Pan to be hard at work building a small snowman."

[alethioliar]

Lyra looked up and immediately felt her face light up. It was still a guilty pleasure of hers, that first instinct of warm, genuine happiness at the sight of his face, but she didn't feel too bad about it since the happiness only lasted because he was James Bond and not her biological father.

"Oh, I am, I am," Lyra insisted. "But I can be observant too." It was something Lara had taught her. "Anyway, I'm done I am," she nodded, letting Pan down from her arms. Immediately he scampered over to the skis, equipment and her chosen saucer, sniffing around before curling up on the red sled. "I never been up on one of those before," she pointed at the chair lift not too far away.

[blondbond]

"Let's be observant somewhere else," James reasoned, offering her a smile before glancing over at the pine marten once again. He often wondered what M would have to say about his caring about the mental and physical well-being of any sort of weasel let alone a vaguely magical one.

"As far as lifts of this sort are concerned, they're relatively safe. We could go up together if you like." The fact that he would have liked that arrangement seemed obvious enough that he didn't feel the need to say so.

[alethioliar]

"All right," Lyra said simply, finding no reason to protest the idea. Though she was known to be rather stubborn and headstrong, she did follow advice when it was sensible or appealing.

Before she could tell him to wait, Pan uncurled himself and took off towards the lifts, climbing up one of the poles to take a closer look at how the machinery worked. "You been up this one before? What's up at the top? Are there more animals living up there?" she asked all of these things while gathering up her saucer and fixing her gloves.