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"Roger... Roger, where are you..? I can't see.."
The soft mumurs of Lyra's voice echoed through the cave as Mrs Coulter gently switched positions, shuffling closer towards her daughter.
If you had sat her down 3 years ago and told her, she'd be in a cave with her now kidnapped daughter, on the run from the magisterium, she'd have laughed in your face.
She sat here, practically craddling her daughter now though, as close as humanly possible.
Lyra's dæmon Pan, was wrapped ermine form around Lyra's neck; his fur as damp as her hair.
Through Mrs Coulter's eyes she looked so fragile, so innocent yet.. the carefree Lyra she met back at Oxford had long since gone
This however, pained her more than she brought herself to realise.
She took a quick glance over at her dæmon, who was glaring at her and she shook her head raising a hand.
He wasn't one for this idea in anyway, truth be told they both knew what they were hiding from, not only hiding Lyra, but also herself.
She knew the moment of the prophecy that she must, and needed to find Lyra, hide them both.
No matter the cost.
Mrs Coulter placed the beaker carefully and cautiously on a low rock, before kneeling besides the sleeping and half disturbed.
Her hair was damp and her eyes continued to flutter softly behind the closed lids, as she mumbled within her sleep.
Pantalaimon moved closer to her breast, he too bathed in dampness.
The sight of them appearing so.. fraile, sent a sharp pain through Mrs Coulters eyes.
One that caused the Golden Monkey to grunt slightly yet she paid no attention to it.
The Golden Monkey's eyes never left Lyra's dæmon and Mrs Coulter leaned forward ever so slightly to kiss Lyra gently on the forehead.
This quickly, brought her attention to the fact it wouldn't be long before she woke up all together.
Then with one swift movement, the woman gently lifted her daughter, so her shoulders were off the ground and her head lolled.
Then, Lyra within that moment caught her breath, eyelids half opening fluttering heavy.
"Roger..."
"Ssh," Her mother whispered,
"Ssh my darling, drink this."
Holding it to Lyra's mouth she tilted it to let a drop moisten the girls lips gently.
Lyra's tongue clearly sensed it moving to lick them, before Mrs Coulter let more of the licked trickle into her mouth.
However the Golden Monkey was a little unaware of the ground's roughness beneath him and tripped ever so slightly on a rock, nudging the woman's arms and the rest of the beaker's liquid spilt to the ground.
She let out a gasp before turning her head abruptly to her dæmon hissing at it and slapping it across the face.
She too felt the sting of the pain, yet never seemed to give as much as a damn anymore.
That will take me a while to make again. We may lose her beforehand she may wake up!
She glared at the monkey, as he stared cowardly and shamed at the ground.
She huffed in annoyance and anger, but brought back her composure.
She knew she'd just have to hope that she was able to make some more of the sedation drug before her daughter would wake up.
The golden monkey had shuffled further away toward the enterance, and sat watching the path once more.
Mrs Coulter sighed before mopping away any essance of the remaining drug she'd managed to spill into her daughter's mouth.
It was at this time she felt her forehead and raised her eyebrows in concern.
Lyra was hot.
She sighed and knew it would go away with some care.
She took a comb and gently teased out the tangles in Lyra's hair smoothing it from her forehead, before parting it neatly.
She left the sleeping-bag open so the girl could cool down, before standing up to pick her way lightly to the mouth of the cave next to her dæmon and crouched down next to him.
She had no idea however, her daughter's consciousness was becoming stronger by the minute.
This was even with the few swallows of the sedative.
It simply wasn't enough to keep Lyra under her wing, and her safety.
Lyra woke up, slowly her eyelids fluttering a few times to bring her back to reality.
She opened them with caution, careful not to alarm anyone that may be in her eye-view and she looked down to see Pantalaimon looking up at her with fear evident all over him.
Confusion for a moment, painted upon her face before she shifted ever so slightly before stiffling a strong groan of pain.
Clearly she hadn't moved in quite some time, implying she'd been out of consciousness or at least, dazed for days.
It wasn't until she looked towards the mouth of the cave she saw who was standing facing away from her she had to really stiffle a gasp.
Her mother. The woman she spent years wishing was alive, to spend over a year trying to get away from stood with her Golden Monkey as they stared out at what looked like to be an open escape of land.
She wasn't sure what to think, and by the feeling of it nether did Pan.
Lyra felt Mrs Coulter within her dream, she felt that she'd been present with her.
Yet she had no idea that she was present with her in reality.
Not quite directly anyway.
Yet the comfort she felt from her.. felt rather warming in senses.
It truly felt like she cared for her, and she knew this.
The idea of that however, made her feel sick and comforted all at once.
Pantalaimon scolded her for these thoughts, she couldn't blame him really, but it was nice to feel wanted.
To feel needed. Even if she had been..
Sedated.
"Mother.."
Lyra watched with fear as she observed her Mother's body freeze up with tension as she shared a look with the Golden Monkey before turning gently.
Lyra took this moment to try and make a run for it with Pan.
What even made her think she had a chance of out running Mrs Coulter, especially after being sedated, with the fact she was stood at the mouth of the cave was beyond her but she had to try.
She felt her body dragging her forward as she scooped up Pan and made a dash for the enterance to the cave.
She tried to doge her mother, yet she evidentally wasn't her obstance.
The second she tried to run forward her entire body gave way and she felt herself wretching, and hurling before everything, which was very little came upchucked onto the floor.
She lay on the floor, and it was only in this moment she realised herself she was crying.
Pan moved to nuzzle into her, and the pair of them knew there was no point in running.
Her eye's were blurry with tears, and she could only make out a figure of her mother walking softly toward her, evidentally not angry at her, which took Lyra by surpise.
She blinked a few times before her vision became clear and she too saw her mother was crying, and this caught her quite off guard.
"Lyra, my darling daughter.. Oh I.. I'm so sorry."
Her eyebrows raised with shock and her jaw slacked when she heard how Mrs Coulter's voice clearly had faultered through the sentence.
She couldn't afford sympathy however, she had to keep her guard up.
The free girl, the innocent and overly loving Lyra back at Oxford couldn't come out to show herself after everything she'd been dragged through.
Even if it was what her very heart ached to feel.
Deep down Lyra knew all she wanted was to feel loved.. to be loved, by her parents.
She had a stront gut-wrenching feeling all her Mother wanted was love too.
"For what exactly? Abandoning me for 12 years, letting Edward Coulter nearly kill me," She did however watch her mother flinch at that name, and Lyra felt a surge of guilt but wavered it off quickly.
"Or for keeping me drugged her against my will for your own selfish reasons."
Lyra tried to add as much venom, as much anger and hatred into the sentences that poured out of her mouth that she could muster.
However, by the end her voice managed to break and she scolded herself for letting that happen.
Her mother didn't respond for a few moments, she went to rest her hand upon her daughter's face.
Yet the moment her hand came into contact with Lyra's skin, her daughter couldn't help but flinch, and this pained Mrs Coulter.
She too let out a few tears, leaving both of them feeling rather guilty.
A few more moments passed before the woman let out a long audiable sigh and managed to only just meet her daughter's eyes.
Lyra could see the pain, the guilt and softness in them, causing her own to unconsciously soften.
"My husband.. well Edward.. he wasn't a man you wished to, know. It wasn't a wishful marriage ether. It was practically forced, and I nor he wished for it. Well he didn't show it anyway.."
Her voice was broken, cracked and she showed nothing but sadness painted upon her face.
She atched her mother's face falter for a moment before continuing, as she scolded Pan for the urge to go and comfort the Golden Monkey.
Pantalaimon, had always despised or shown a rather large discomfort whenever he was around, so for Lyra to feel Pan's urges of comfort this took her completely off guard.
Nevertheless, she tried her best to focus upon what her mother was saying.
"When you.. when I gave birth to you, Asriel your father, he wanted to see you, and of course he was obliged to see you. He was your father after all.. Edward he found out instantly all of it. He already suspected a great deal.. and I knew I couldn't.. I couldn't risk you being near him. He'd caused me and..." She gestured towards the monkey as he looked sadly down.
"To have great deals of issues, up to the stage now where they're practically unfixable. We weren't always this way Lyra darling. We were poisoned. I wanted to keep you.. You were my daughter, I should have found a way I know that. Yet all I wanted was your saftey. I couldn't keep my own saftey, not from him. Asriel tried his best to.. keep me safe. I am greatful for your father for that.. Yet I couldn't keep you.. I wished-"
Yet, Mrs Coulter never finished that sentence before she had to hault as she felt a wave of emotion hit her.
She covered her cries with her mouth and she turned away from Lyra, not wanting her daughter to see her in this state.
The monkey didn't even protest the emotions himself, only sat there tail curled inward as he drooped his head further down to the ground looking away.
Before Lyra could think of what to do, she felt Pan slip from her grip and slowly make his way toward Mrs Coulter's dæmon, and approached him with caution.
Lyra watched in shock and surprise her mother too freezing as the Monkey looked down a softening look on his face, as Pan changed into a smaller form of a monkey.
Lyra refrained a gasp, however she didn't scold nor complain at Pan, only watching him walk to the monkey, before embracing him tightly.
Both Mrs Coulter and Lyra felt the embrace, and both of them gasp, as they felt tears trickle down their faces.
Their dæmon's embracing each other tightly nether of them evidentally caring about Mrs Coulter nor Lyra's view upon this.
They just sat there in shock, and the feeling of warmth, and comfort embracing all of them at once within the cave.
Lyra had always wanted this, the comfort of a mother.
To know the feeling of what it would be like to feel a mother's love, a mother's touch, an embrace.
To curl up a night, drinking hot chocolate or tea upon the sofa with the crackling feeling of a fire.
The idea of placing up a christmas tree around December time, and the playful fight's and jokes made between the two.
The feeling of being afraid of nightmares at night, to go and find her mother and crawl into bed with both of her parents and curling around them.
She'd always wanted a family.
This wasn't what she had imaged. What she'd wanted, nor what she'd craved, yet somehow it was enough.
Mrs Coulter being her was enough, embracing her love for her, no matter how posionous it was, no matter how toxic it had appeared, it was enough for Lyra.
Which may have explained as to why she was about to state what she thought without really thinking it through.
"You'd have been a good mother you know." The comment itself took Lyra by surprise, just as much as it did Pan, as he froze within the monkey's embrace but didn't remove from it.
Only curled further into it.
She watched as her mother met her eyes once more shock, and a softness over took her face.
"You truly believe that?"
"I do, I think you could have been one of the best mother's in the world given the chance. I did enjoy growing up at Jordan college, but if I could have lived with you, forgetting the issues with.. everything, I'm not sure. I never thought about it but when I was with you at first, you were the closest thing I had to a mother. You loved like one. You would, and could be the best one."
Lyra added all of her emphasis and emotion into the word could, and she smiled when her mother let out a form of sob.
Not out of sadness, mainly relief as the two felt the golden monkey, and the smaller one curl happily into each other.
She herself shuffled forward toward Mrs Coulter, her own mother and did what she hadn't done since she met her back at Jordan College.
She embraced her, tightly and this time with warmth, and lovingness.
She felt her mother freeze for a moment, her arms held in place before quickly relaxing from her daughter's embrace as her arms came up to rest around Lyra's torso, tightly but not enough to hurt.
Only enough to pull her closely, until Lyra was practically sat in her lap.
This was what they had all wanted, Pan embracing the Golden Monkey, him embracing Pan, with a loving warm gesture.
Mrs Coulter's arms wrapped around her daughter, and her daughter's around her own.
Quite the content little family. It was what all of them had ever wanted.
Love, and nuturing.
Upon both accounts, a family felt like it was being born within this cave, and it was one of the most warmest, yet scariest feeling any of them had ever yet to encounter.
They stayed in the embrace of each other for quite some time, nether of them, Lyra nor Mrs Coulter wishing to move.
Only the two of them wishing to basket it in, the moment they were sharing.
They did however move only to lean against the cave and sigh, Lyra still remaining upon her Mother's lap.
Pan however made no attempt in moving nor did Mrs Coulter's dæmon.
They spoke of their memories, sharing laughter and nothing but peace within the cave.
Their favourite foods, being shared amongst the two, nothing more content was being said.
Lyra sat within her mother's embrace, and her mother's hands running gently through her hair.
They shared moments upon, Lyra's time at Jordan College, no lies being shared, only the truth, some of it rather mischevious mind.
Like the time Lyra stole a gyptian boat and went ferral upon the caskets of the dead master's and stealing of wine's.
Some earned her shaking of Mrs Coulters' head, other's scolding, but nether of the seriouness.
It was although they'd been doing this for years, it felt ordinary.
Normal, like a mother and daughter should.
Mrs Coulter shared her own memories with Lyra, of the time's she and her dæmon would get into trouble herself when she was a child.
Especially when she attended college, and all the mischieve she herself would get into, earning tears of laughter shared with the both of them.
She explained her memories with Lyra from the North, avoiding of course any painful ones that could ruin the moment, only her true adventures she'd get herself mixed in with.
She even shared her romanticised story of meeting Asriel.
Lyra could tell behind the mask her mother created, behind the pain and anger toward Asriel she'd shown there was something stronger, something more ferocious that triggered all of that.
It was a strong passion for love, and her Mother's love for her Father.
Lyra smiled at Pan and he nodded at her enjoying the petting himself from the Monkey.
Lyra shared her own memories with Asriel most of them true of course, only a few little white lies here and there.
although she was she Mrs Coulter could pick up on these, judging by her facial expressions when she said them, yet she never seemed to comment on them, only listen to Lyra's stories.
For the first time in both of their lives, they felt wanted.
They felt a strong love in each other's presence, and they had what they always wanted.
They had each other.
Yet within seconds it all came crumbling down when Will screamed Lyra's name, and all the shared memories, the moment's the peace and love came to a halt and the shared happiness was snached within minutes.