A Lyre's Tale

Lyra walked down once again into the basement after giving the book to BonBon, who promptly went to bed. Early to bed, early to rise, as she always would say. Lyra was amazed that BonBon hadn’t noticed anything strange going on at all.  Whenever she spoke to anyone anymore, she could always feel herself break into sweat and start quivering.

Lyra had 7 hours left until the human was to awaken. The Cauldron still emitted a glow from its core. What was there to do for the next hour? She set her saddlebag down and mouthed out the books she had just borrowed. This time around it was a piece of historical fiction, based in a time of these human devices called cannons and rifles. It appeared that they were at what they called war, and it seemed a lot more dangerous then combat on the western planes.

Looking further, it seemed as if they were actually leaned to kill each other. Lyra shivvered. She didn’t like that idea at all. Yet, despite the incredible violence shown in the book, there were also mentions of great feats of charity and fraternety, even across the battlefield. Lyra read the last line of the book mentioning the larger scheme of things:

“The events leading up placed brother against brother in a prolonged, bloody conflict which, though a great tragedy in their history, was unavoidable.”

‘Unavoidable?’ It seemed to be the most violent word in the entire book. Were humans warlike? Were they really as awful as she thought that they were? But that was impossible. They still had good in them, even sometimes showing love to the people they were commanded to kill. There must have been a reason. Suddenly, it came to her. The reason that the humans were provoked into war is because they don’t have a mediator who is both just, supreme, and tangible, like the princess. If only…

Lyra spent the next untracked amout of time drifting in her thoughts at random. Nothing stayed with her for a long period of time. After a while, they landed back on the human on the table. She looked at it as if it were the first time she examined it. This time, her search wasn’t anatomical: she didn’t examine the human’s toes or hands or bone structure. She looked right at her face. She (if it was a she)* had, from what Lyra could discern, a calm, serene expression on her face.

Lyra smiled. Then she frowned. Her thoughts were now on topic as to what was really going on.  In just hours, a human was going to wake up in this room and it was hers. Or so she saw it. She had brought the human into the world,  she was to show her through the world, she was responsible for her, and for her actions.

After  a while, Lyra almost thought of this human as her own, like her own daughter. Looking at this from the third person, this notion sounded silly, even ridiculous, but  in Lyra’s bright eyes, this felt like the moment her whole life had been waiting for.

She had already seemed to establish a connection with this human just by looking into her face. She finally admitted to herself: she loved the creature from the moment she first laid eyes on it.

These thoughts cycled through her mind for what felt like hours for her. After snapping to, her eyes drooped. It was probably somewhere in the middle of the night. She shivvered violently.  Where was she to sleep in this hard room with stone floor? It was getting very cold. She would need fuel to light the furnace, but there was none to be found. She certainly wasn’t going upstairs. She wanted to see the human awaken with her own eyes. She needed something warm to be with, and fast. She looked, and there she was, almost waiting for her.

Lyra did the craziest thing that she had ever done in her life. She crawled up on top of the table, found a place to sleep, circled once, and lay down almost right on top of the human on the table in the basement. As her thoughts slowed and a dream fell in, Lyra could have sworn that she felt something wrap around her torso- something warm and welcoming…

Lyra awoke to a moaning. Her eyes opened and she gasped. Falling off the table, she scrambled to see what was going on, listening carefully. Silence. But wait. There was a noise. A  soft breathing sound, almost like a snore. The Candles had burnt out. It was probably well past 2:00 in the morning. Before lighting her horn, she saw that the cauldron had gone out; no glow within. It seemed so very dead. It reminded her of an imcomplete memory.

She closed her eyes, remembering the spell. The gold aura of her horn was cast in a whirl surrounding her, the table, and the cauldron itself. She took the last ingredient: Heart’s Desire, and dropped it into the mix.

Suddenly, the snore-breathing stopped. A long yawn came out from behind her. She froze. Turning around, she looked carefully. As if on cue, when she was ready to see, the human’s eyes opened.

Green.