InsaneJournal

Although it was not the 24th of June, Lyra was at the Botanical Gardens in Oxford, on the bench she and Will knew was in both her world and his. She came here often just to sit and think, whenever she was in town and not on her travels. In all honesty, Lyra was a little burnt out on traveling. On life, maybe. Sometimes it was hard to keep going, though Lyra was far too stubborn a person to admit to needing a break.

“I miss them too.” Pan’s voice rang softly but clearly to Lyra, his words meant for her and her only. He often spoke the thoughts she wouldn’t say, the vulnerabilities she wouldn’t admit to. The yin to her yang. The caution to her wild. “It seems like it all is working, though. Everything is getting back to normal, isn’t it?” She knew it would take years to close all the doors to all the worlds that had ever been opened. She wondered if Will was still closing them. Had he gotten them all? Had he traveled in his own world to find all the windows to her world and all the others?

Was it even possible? Would it ever be enough?

“It’s enough.” Jumping softly into her lap, Lyra placed a hand on his head and patted it lightly, sighing. It felt nice to be close like this. Although she would never forgive herself for what she had had to do in order for everything to play out as it had, Lyra sometimes wished she hadn’t gone to the land of the Dead and separated herself from Pan as she had. Though they were still connected, it had never been quite the same as it had.

“I know, Pan. I know.” She closed her eyes, hands lifting up to push her hair back out of her face. “I just…” She let the words trail off, not really needing to explain herself to Pan as he knew her thoughts as well as she did. “I hope -” This time, she didn’t stop talking because she didn’t need to finish her thoughts, she stopped talking because when she opened her eyes what she saw in front of her was not where she had just been.

Pan wrapped himself around her neck like a scarf as she stood up, quickly taking in her surroundings. She was still outside, in a park of sorts it seemed - there was a rather large fountain a bit aways. It wasn’t like her gardens and the buildings… Well, if she were being honest, this looked more like Will’s world than her own.

“Are we… Pan, have we lost our minds?” She asked, loudly enough for others to hear if they were paying attention. Pan hissed, clearly telling her to be quiet. “Oh don’t hush me, we're - we’re not in our world, Pan, look. It’s - this is like Will’s world, or like Citigazze, somethin’ other than where we’re from. How did we get here? You don’t think - I mean, d’ya think somethin’ went wrong, are the worlds breakin’ apart?”

Pan hissed again, jumping down to smell the grass. Lyra took a few steps forward, trying to get her bearings. “It doesn’t make sense Lyra, we can’t be here.” “Well, we are, Pan.” She added uselessly, hands balled up into fists now. “Lyra, look.” Pan had made his way back to the bench, and quickly brought the piece of paper there for her to look at. Dear Lyra...

“Goodland? What the hell is this?”