The Universe's Mixer

[Eep, backdated to Valentine's Day? :X]

Haku had found himself a quiet little nook of an apartment. It wasn't anything fancy - he found he could just afford it, though he couldn't quite remember where the money had come from. Some of it was from working at Dinah's flower shop, but somehow he'd come up with more money than she'd paid him. After puzzling over it for awhile, Haku had accepted it as another part of the city's strangeness (while also reassuring himself that if it should somehow turn out to be a trick, he could always escape via the window).

So when he came home with a little bamboo shoot he'd transplanted into a teapot, he also accepted the telephone that he suddenly had. He knew he hadn't had that before. He had no need for it, after all.

But there it was, blinking accusingly at him. He set the plant down on the counter and pushed the biggest button tentatively. Haku had swam deep under water and flown high into the clouds, had nearly lost his identity forever and nearly died of a witch's curse.

He'd never had an answering machine before.

"You have... four unheard messages," the machine informed him.

The first message was from a woman. Or a girl. Or something else female-sounding. "Hi. I'm Raven. I'm, uh -- well, I'm a demon, but a nice one. Promise. If you want -- uh. I work at the Magic Box. If you want to stop by sometime, you can."

Something else, indeed. Haku wasn't quite sure why this demon called Raven was calling him, but he made a mental note of her workplace. If he could find it (and he had a feeling that if he went looking for it, he would), maybe he'd stop by. Dinah was very nice, but it would be good to meet other people too, he supposed.

The second message was short and to the point. "Dragon?!"

It was also quite startling to hear, since Haku generally didn't make a point of going around showing off his true self. He'd shown Dinah because it had been a possible way out, but... well, maybe word had gotten out somehow. He didn't make a note of this message. There didn't seem to be anything to say in reply to it (aside from, "...yes?").

The third message was also short, and not entirely helpful. "Dragons have voicemail? Okay, that's creepy."

"I didn't until today," Haku muttered to himself, feeling that it actually was rather creepy for him to suddenly have voicemail. That didn't seem like quite a good response, though, so he let that message pass without thought.

The fourth message was ominous and despite being just as random as the other messages, was somehow more unsettling than the magically-appearing phone. "Oh, little dragon. You should be very careful. There are Baba Yagas everywhere. You don't want to upset them, do you?"

Haku wasn't familiar with Baba Yagas, not by that term, at least. It did sound a bit like Yubaba, and she certainly wasn't a witch to be messed with, but she wasn't here, was she?

But... he thought he'd seen that term before. Baba Yagas, Babas? Yagas...? his eyes fell upon the newspaper he'd wrapped the teapot in. He'd randomly grabbed it from the pile of extra copies that had been floating around. He'd skimmed it for any news that might be useful, but it'd only been a personal ads section, and dragons definitely had no use for that.

And yet, there it was: Misplaced dragon searching for other mystical types to befriend. Must be clean and like nature, especially water. Yagas not welcome. Can be reached at #441144

Haku dropped the paper and backed away from his phone, which had at least stopped blinking. He hadn't written that. He wouldn't. He was beyond such trivial, frivolous things, even if he'd had the slight good luck to have escaped the Men Seeking Women section. Well. Raven, at least, had seemed sincere, so perhaps something good would come of this. He made another note to find out where this Magic Box was, and made a point of stomping down heavily on the crumpled newspaper as he went to give his new plant some water.

How ironic that she should find some solitude in a public transit. Mrs. Coulter! In a public transit! When she had her own flying zeppelin and a whole staff catering to her needs and now she travels with the masses.

But it did not really matter in a world who did not know who she was. Well, certainly not until that scandalous press release from the daily periodical, which continued to flood her apartment and cause incessant ringing of that communicative device, the 'phone'.

It was not the slightest bit amusing. It did not tickle her fancy those flirtatious phrases and the excruciating cliches. If anything, they were honey coated knives.

Those pamphlets so harmless, so common, so ubiquitous the past few days held information. Secrets, insider information, shamelessly displayed for all to see. Daemon the word flashed at her at the edge of the page. Never, had she even imagined of disclosing the nature of the golden monkey to anyone in that world, as was only wise. He was a 'pet', an animal companion, a poodle trotting after his mistress, one that just happened to be very intelligent one it seemed it had a mind of it own, and in which it did, but no one was supposed to know that. It should end in speculation.

Yet someone in the City has uncovered it, and published it so.

Mrs. Coulter should not be too worried yet, it was not as though it linked the word to the monkey, but any moment, it would, it could...They will see the monkey for what it is. Her heartbeat.

How much did the City know about her? About them? Was there an intention behind their placement? Were they not there by accident? By unfortunate circumstances? Experiments gone out of hand?

The nagging questions set her in a foul mood in that City bus, and her temper was already sore to begin with since her faithful spyflies remained missing for already the fourth day. She had no new information, no new names and places, the gathering of which has not--and likely will never--conclude as the City continues to shift like a child's daemon. But if her precious flies, her eyes in the City, were utterly paralyzed then it would be much akin to blindness. A certain danger in a City that probes and spies back with increasing and malicious fervour.

Her thoughts were interrupted as the bus stopped to accomodate new passengers. There was plenty of space at the back where she was seated, and the lady Coulter had such a comely face, if not just for the monkey on her lap who glared at everything.

"Not again Lyra, we've climbed this one about forty times by now-"

"Oh come off it Pan, where's your sense of adventure?"

"Safely on the ground where i left it."

"Well it ain't much good down there."

A scrawny, rascal of a girl scaled what appeared to be a run-down, old looking house with apparent ease. She didn't flinch when the brick she had stepped on slid out from beneath her, narrowly missing the large blackbird that was hovering anxiously below her. She simply kept on climbing, until she reached the the top.

The rooftop was pretty much the only place where Lyra felt truly safe. Perhaps a part of her felt 'untouchable' from such a great height, away from the ghosts of her past that wouldn't leave her alone. Her mother, her father, and poor Roger....

She picked up a pebble, and tossed it down onto the street below. Roger would have liked this place, she decided. He would have thought it was a marvelous place to be, away from their minders, and Oxford - out in the real world. Well, a strange world anyway. It was a bit of a lonely place, she missed her friends, and strangely enough her father, for some unfathomable reason. At least she had Pan, bloody hell! If they had been separated....She couldn't even bear the thought.

Bzzzzz. Something gold whizzed past her ear.

"Gerroff, Pan! You know I hate it when you turn into a bloody bee!" She flailed her hands about in annoyance.

Bzzzzzzz. There it was again, only times two.

"Its not me!" Pan huffed, trying to peck at the whizzing thing as it flew past. "I'm no more fond of them than you are."

The glitter of gold flickered in her peripheral vision, but this time she caught a better glimpse of what it was. It looked awfully familiar, like something she'd seen not so long ago back home. In fact, it reminded her of...

A knot formed in Lyra's stomach. It couldn't be...

"SPYFLIES!" She slid down the roof at breakneck speed, and somehow managed to climb down without breaking a limb, breathing heavily through her nose. She scrambled over to a near by trash-can, and started to paw through the garbage - Because if she was correct? Not only were those things deadly, but they would report back to their owner. Blast it! There was nothing of use in the bin, and the flies were now circling around her head, making her dizzy.

Instinctively, Pan knew what to. He created a diversion, giving Lyra enough time to scramble over to the brick that she'd knocked out earlier. It was a bit of a long shot - last time she'd only caught the fly, so she wasn't sure if this method would work so well. But it was really the only option she could think of.

SMACK!

One fly fell to the ground, and with a few lifeless wiggles, it became still. Not taking any chances, it was scooped up into an old jar that Lyra had found, and tucked away for safe keeping - or at least, until she could figure out what to do with it. The other, despite a broken wing had flittered away unnoticed.

And back to his mistress.