InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You're Soo Pathetic."

Leena Silton // Lyra Silvertongue (thelittleliar) wrote in expresslogs,
@ 2012-07-29 23:00:00

Entry tags:

{lyra silvertongue, {the huntsman

Who: The Huntsman, Lyra, Wolf, and Pan
What: discerning daemon status (and revealing it, as it were)
Where: outside Regina's room, aka, Lyra's old room.
When: Sunday night
Rating: low
Status: closed/ongoing

Lyra had sent a very reluctant Pan to check out Wolf. Well. That wasn't entirely true. Lyra had spent the past week trying to coax Pan into seeing if the wolf was a daemon. None of the others from their world had them, something Pan was all to quick to point out, but Lyra always shushed him. She'd been in Will's world with a daemon, hadn't she?

Honestly, Pan probably only agreed to it because doing it would mean Lyra had something else to focus on. He slipped out of the touring car under Lyra's watchful eye, and crept along the hallways. People came and went regularly, so he wasn't stuck waiting by doors for very long each time (and the times he was, Lyra was creeping along a train car behind him each time, just to keep an eye out on him). He was nearly to the end of the train when he smelled the wolf. After hiding in the bathroom at the end of the train car for about an hour (because Pan was a coward to put all other cowards to shame), he slithered along the baseboards, trying to remain as invisible as possible.

The Huntsman was intently watching the room that he and Lyra (and Amy) used to occupy. When the wolf looked over at Pan, Pan knew instantly that this wasn't just an animal. He suddenly wished Lyra were closer, but didn't want to look back at the train door and lose eye contact with the wolf. Who wasn't a daemon, as far as he could discern, but it was too late to turn and run away now.

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thelittleliar
2012-08-01 02:18 pm UTC (link)

"Only we call 'em daemons," Lyra corrected, but nodded.

"No, I know. I wouldn't want Mrs Coulter to arrive, but my friends from college would be nice. Or Will. Will's my soulmate, but he's from a different world than I am, 'en the angels told us we'd never see each other again until the land of the dead again, but if there's holes in the worlds, then maybe he got through too."

She stared back at him, Pan, curling gently in her arms, trying to comfort her. She tipped her head at him, "What sort of story? Yes, I think I would like a story."

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cryoverwildlife
2012-08-02 02:36 am UTC (link)

"I can tell you a story from my world, perhaps?"

He settled back, sitting with his back against the wall, Wolf relaxing and resting her head in his lap as he idly rubbed her ears.

"Once upon a time..." he grinned slightly, realizing how strange it was that he was now telling a story he remembered as if it were a fairy tale. "There was a beautiful young princess. Her mother had died years before, when she was just a little girl, and she lived in the castle with her father and her stepmother. Her stepmother was jealous of her beauty and kindness, being a cruel and bitter woman herself, and she was jealous of the love that the Princess's father showed his daughter. It was not long after the king was killed by a very mysterious poisonous snake in his bed that the Queen decided that the Princess, who she had always hated, needed to die."

He paused, looking over at her. He was not, perhaps, the best storyteller, especially when telling things that he had not experienced personally. Not yet, anyway. But he was getting there. But for now, he would wait to see if she had any questions - if he had left anything out.

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thelittleliar
2012-08-02 03:46 am UTC (link)

Lyra was open to stories, and she nodded, sliding down the opposite wall until she too was seated, Pan sprawled across her lap.

Lyra frowned as the story continued. "We don't have those in my world," she said slowly. "the princesses, and queens and kings and stuff. Well, the witches have queens, but no princesses. We have lords, but they're just humans, 'en the gyptians have kings. They're all separate though, not all put together like this story is, 'en none of them have princesses."

As an afterthought, she added, "But it makes sense, sorry. Please continue."

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cryoverwildlife
2012-08-02 04:36 pm UTC (link)

"Ah, then it is a very different sort of world from mine," he said with a soft smile. "We have many, and they are all related for the most part. I am none of them, I have not a touch of nobility. But I have known many who do, and some are bad, and some are good - as I am finding is the truth with humanity in general."

He then nodded and continued with his 'story'.

"The Queen believed that personally killing the princess - who was incredibly popular in the kingdom because of her beauty and kindness - would destroy her credibility, so she began to seek for a person heartless enough to do the deed brutally and without emotion. She finally settled on a notorious Huntsman, a man who had been raised by wolves and had little love for any sector of humanity. He agreed to the task if the Queen would, as payment, ban the hunting of wolves and protect them. A few days later, he ventured forth into the woods with Snow White, assuming the identity of one of the Queen's knights escorting her on a walk. Snow White did not take long to realize that he was not as he presented himself, and that he meant to kill her. She attacked him, and as he was not used to the heavy armor he had been forced to wear, temporarily bested it, making for the safety of the woods. But he knew the woods better than she did, and very quickly, he found her sitting on a rock, frantically writing a letter. He was surprised at this - that she would take a pause in running for her life to compose a letter, although he realized that with his knowledge of the woods, any running was to be in vain. The brave girl handed the Huntsman the letter, begging him to deliver it to the Queen after he killed her. Curiosity getting the best of him, he unfolded the Princess's letter and read it. It was then that the goodness of her heart revealed itself to him, and he found himself crying for the wrong that had been done for her."

He stopped a moment, swallowing in this retelling of the most crucial moment of his life to get control of his emotions and again allow her time to comment or ask question.

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thelittleliar
2012-08-03 08:22 pm UTC (link)

Lyra listened, and it became fairly obvious that he wasn't telling her a story, but telling her the tale of his own life. His tale, of a being a man who found himself having to make a choice of good or evil, was incredibly familiar to her, even if the details were not. She'd been a pawn in a war based entirely on that premise, hadn't she. Sometimes bad people made good choices, and sometimes good people made bad ones, and then were the good people struggling with what was the right choice, and trying desperately not to come up short.

"You remind me of Lord Faa," she said, after a long moment of silence. Lord Faa, who had, despite the protestations of some his people, seen the worth of every child - even the non-Gyptian ones, and had led his people to save them all. Lord Faa, who struggled with what was right, and what was not right.

That was all she had to say on the matter, and she could tell the Huntsman was emotional about it. "I could tell you a story too," she offered. "But only if you'd want one."

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cryoverwildlife
2012-08-05 02:02 am UTC (link)

He was glad for the break in his story, and smiled at her gently.

"Who is Lord Faa? And why do I remind you of him?"

He settled back against the wall, thinking it likely best to end his story there, anyway. She did not need to hear of the horrors he had suffered after he had spared Snow White, and how Regina had degraded him.

"I should like to hear your story, yes."

Wolf looked over at her and thumped her tail, as if to accent his words.

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pt 1 - sorry it's so long!

thelittleliar
2012-08-05 02:43 pm UTC (link)

She smiled back, ducking her head slightly.

Lyra pondered the question before answering. "He was the King of the Gyptians. When I was younger, we fought in a war together. I watched him make a lot of hard choices." she answered simply.

She smiled at the wolf, and wondered what story to tell, Pan still flopped lazily over her lap. She might as well just start at the beginning, right?

"Once upon a time, there was a wild little girl. She was wild, see, because her relatives had abandoned her at a College to grow up. The scholars there were to treat her as a learner, due to the social status of her parents. She didn't like much following the rules, and with no-one else to play with, she made friends with the Gyptian children, and the children of the workers around the College. One boy in particular, Roger, the son of the cook, was her best friend. He had to work in the kitchens too, but during the times he didn't, he and the girl were inseparable.

"One day, the girl's uncle came to the college and the girl sneaked in to where he was giving a lecture on fantastical new worlds. He said they could be found in the North, and she knew that was where she wanted to go. A little while later, the most beautiful woman the girl had ever seen came to visit, and told the girl she would take her to the North. The girl didn't know it at the time, but she was an evil woman - like your Regina, she was deceiving. Before she left, she searched everywhere for her friend Roger, but couldn't find him anywhere.

"Sad and happy at the same time, she went with the woman, who began to show her true colours. The woman didn't take the girl North, and instead kept her as a shiny pet in the city, grooming her and showing her off, but not letting her have any other freedom. One day, the girl couldn't take it anymore, and she ran away. But the woman was powerful, and soon had agents all over the city looking for her. They caught up to the girl, and threw a huge net over her. It wasn't the end of the story, you see, for the Gyptians were on instruction from the girl's Uncle to keep an eye out for her, and they were. They freed her from her captors, and she went to hide on their boats, so the evil woman wouldn't find her again.

"There on the boats, the girl learned that not only had her uncle been captured and imprisoned, but that Roger had been taken by a group of people attempting to test the limits of severing children from their daemons - led by the evil woman who had kept the girl as her pet. Most of the children taken were Gyptian children and worker children. Children who wouldn't be missed. The Gyptians had to decide which of the children to save, and under their leader, made the right choice to go North and save all the children.

"Through a twist of luck, the girl got to go along too, even though it was very risky. There were many challenges, and the girl herself wound up a captive of the evil people cutting away daemons. She herself nearly had her daemon cut away, but the evil woman was there, and saved her, which might be the only decent thing the woman ever did for her. The evil woman was really her mother, you see, that's why she had such an interest in the girl and wanted to protect her.

"Anyway, so the girl escaped the clutches of the evil woman, and freed the children from the evil people in the facility, with help from the Gyptians and an armoured bear. She was reunited with her friend Roger, and it seemed things were finally looking up. There was another misadventure, involving a storm and a balloon, and the girl also managed to liberate the ice bears from the evil King and restore the rightful King to the throne."

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pt 2 of the epic long reply.

thelittleliar
2012-08-05 02:43 pm UTC (link)

"As it turned out, her uncle was being held prisoner nearby, and she set out to visit him with her friend Roger. It wasn't like a normal prison, see, it was just that he was trapped way up in the North with the ice bears, but he could still do his research. And the final thing he needed in his research was a child. He was trying to split open the worlds, and the only thing powerful enough to do it was the energy created at the moment a child's daemon was severed from them.

"He was shocked to see the girl, he hadn't sent to see her, and he didn't want to be forced to use her. You see, she was his daughter, he wasn't really her uncle, he was her father. Roger, who had come with the girl because they were friends, and he had just rescued her, was taken by her uncle up the mountain, to the place where the worlds touched. The girl ran after him, and she and her daemon fought alongside Roger and his daemon against her father and his daemon. But they were just two kids, and he was a very powerful man. His daemon pinned down her daemon, and there was nothing she could do while her friend - her best friend - was killed by her father to create a bridge between the two worlds."

She stopped there, unsure of how to proceed next. She had walked over the bridge, but that would mean telling the rest of the story of the war, and she'd already done a bad enough job as it was, leaving so many details out.

Pan hadn't been stoic during the story. As Lyra told it in her steady, calm voice, he revealed her true, torn emotional nature; he fretted during the story, twisting in anger and sadness at various points during the story. At the end, with the pain of losing Roger still sharp, he stood on his hind legs, placing his front paws on her chest and touching nose to nose with Lyra. That the pain of losing Roger was still this sharp all these years later was a testament to how much she had loved the little boy.

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Re: pt 2 of the epic long reply.

cryoverwildlife
2012-08-06 04:14 am UTC (link)

He, also, had quickly caught on to the fact that this was not simply a 'story', but her story, and he had listened with rapt attention, feeling a sadness in his heart for everything the girl had been through, everything she had suffered - and at such a young age.

"I think this girl is very strong, and very brave," he said softly. "And that she has been through a great many tragedies. I also think...that she would be very lonely. I know very much how hard it is to make it through such things alone, to suffer in solitude. And I am very sorry that her friend was lost to her."

He stopped for a moment, watching her closely.

"Please, continue? I should like to hear more of your story."

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