Carlisle by Night

(OOC: Set the evening after Elysium... Sorry it's a long 'un!)

The room was quiet and dark. It was still quite early in the evening. The door to the room opened, a deep voice was grumbling about the place already stinking of cats. A pair of red eyes entered the darkness. They paused in the doorway, looking around for a moment until they settled on what they were looking for. The red eyes moved forward a bit, accompanied by the sound of paws on bare wooden flooring.
"Miss Lyra?" The deep voice rumbled.
Silence...
"Miss Lyra, are you ok?"
Again, silence.
The red eyes turned away and there was again the sound of paws on wooden floorboards. There was a thump of something hitting a wall, followed by a click and the room was thrown into brightness.

Jeremy flopped back down from switching the lights on and moved back towards the bed.
Lyra was sat on the bed, her skinny legs dangling lifelessly over the edge. Her face was pale, even for her, and her make-up was smeared and smudged, her eyes and cheeks caked with dried bloody tears.
"Miss Lyra?" Jeremy asked again.
Lyra sniffed but ignored him, her dead, dark grey eyes were looking right head of her at the bare wall of her bedroom and were glistening a light pink colour, forcasting more tears.
Jeremy jumped up onto the white wrought iron bed with more grace than would be expected for his size, and lay down next to Lyra, laying his large head across her lap, nuzzling into her stomach to try and provoke something from her.
Nothing.
Lyra sat there like a life sized doll. Not a muscle moved. Her hair looked 'slept on', and she was wearing the clothes she'd been wearing to Elysium. The only things she'd removed had been her fur boots and her socks.

Jeremy wimpered. That normally got a reaction from Lyra, who possibly loved Jeremy more than almost anything. Nothing. Not even a split second of a reaction. Jeremy lifted his head and looked closely at his misstress. Was she hurt? Under a spell of some sort? He couldn't tell. He decided the best thing he could do, would be to stay where he was and be there as comfort for her whenever she decided to come out of this...trance.

(OOC: Yes! I think he's clever enough to turn lights on, Dale agreed lol)


Lyra's mind felt like it was full of tiny birds, all trying to escape. Their wings fluttered and flapped loudly as the birds bashed into the sides of her skull, falling to the floor for a moment before shaking their tiny heads and then flying again, trying to find another escape route.
Lyra was sure that if she breathed, she'd be panting right now. Breathing heavily like someone running and hiding from their worse nightmare, from some huge ogre, or a dragon, or someone they thought they could trust...
She could feel more tears tricking down her cheeks, but her arms weren't listening to her. They wouldn't move to wipe the tears from her face. Her voice wouldn't answer Jeremy. Her eyes wouldn't stop staring. But they weren't staring at the bare wall. Not to Lyra.

Lyra was replaying the entirity of last night through her mind, seeing it as if it were in front of her. Henry, acting angry. Scaring her to much that she'd fled to Maryport to Mr Dante, seeking his company. That messenger, with the green hands. Mentioning Daddy and telling her not to bother.
Henry, coming over to her for the first time since Christmas 'morning', telling her he knew how she could help Daddy and Annie. Henry talking to Mr Tristan, before motioning for her to follow. The trip to Rickerby Park. The pitch blackness of it all. The circle of rocks with the body of a dead sheep. Henry, who had been so gentle, slitting the throat of a second sheep in front of Lyra's eyes.
Then Lyra saw the Lady of Spite appear. Looking as deathly beautiful as always. The disgust and disapointment on her face when she saw Lyra. She saw her turn to Henry.
"I didn't say I wanted the whole Seer. I said I wanted the Seer's eyes..."
Lyra's vision blurred for a moment, "Mr Dante! Mr Dante! It's The Lady of Spite! She wants my eyes! We're in Rickerby Park!" She heard her own Telepathic message to Dante.
Then the monster. The Child Eater. Annie's Daddy. Lyra saw Rosie flying up to her eyes, and the world was darkness. She could still hear the fight though. The clanging of weapons and the grunts and cries of pain. She braved a peek as she heard a thud beside her and saw Henry laying there. His head the wrong way around on his body. Lyra was trying her hardest to not be noticed, but let out a scared squeak.
She saw the killing blow. She watched Mr Tristan fall and turn into ash at the same time. She Obfuscated. Praying to anything that was out there that she would not be noticed. She was too scared to move. But too scared to stay there. Finally, courage won out and she started to creap away ever so slowly, terrified that moving too fast would reveil herself.
Suddenly she was surrounded by Kindred. Mr Dante, Voq, Mr Handcock, Connor, Mr Di'Luca! Lyra huddled behind Dante and Mr Di'Luca as they faced the Lady of Spite, still too terrified to let her tiny Obfusacte drop. Their conversation passed in a blur of words to Lyra. She was too scared to listen. She heard Dante ask her if she was safe. She whispered back yes but that was it.
She refused to come out of her power until she was as far away from Rickerby park as she could get.

Connor had already dragged Henry back to the court. Hancock was not happy at all. Lyra hid behind Dante and Mr Di'Luca, chewing on Rosie and wishing more than anything that she could feel Jeremy's warm fur beside her. Hancock was really shouting now, Lyra could feel herself trembling and she felt Mr Di'Luca place his arm around her shoulders. Hancock threw Henry at Connor who dragged him outside. Lyra knew he was dead.
Then she was outside. She couldn't stand to be around anyone. She was sat on the cold wet ground, with Jeremy almost covering her and she shivered and clutched onto his warm fur as tight as she could. After a while, Connor came out. Lyra told him she was scared that the Lady of Spite would come back. Connor was explaining that she had forfeited her end of the bargin for my eyes, by not bringing Dr J for us. He offered to have Lyra stay at his. Jeremy's chest grumbled. Connor offered to stay with Lyra. And she accepted. He left her his card and went back to the others. Lyra snuggled back into Jeremy's warm fur...


Jeremy looked up at Lyra. She had sniffed again. And he saw her eyelids blink away some more bloodied tears. He nuzzled her hand, trying to place it on top of his head. Suddenly Lyra turned and looked at him. Her eyes wide with fear, staring at him as if she wasn't sure who he was. Then her face softened, and the next second it crumpled as she grabbed Jeremy on both sides of his neck with her hands and balls his fur into her fists.
She burried her face in his neck and Jeremy could feel her tiny, fragile looking body trembling. Whatever she had been seeing, it had scared her. He rested his large muzzle on her shoulders, his way of giving her a hug.

Jeremy decided not to talk to Lyra about the stink of cats afterall...

Lyra stood infront of the door and stared at it. She hadn't entered this room in almost 20 years. When Daddy disapeared, she went in there a few times, to smell his scent as a comfort before she made Rosie. After Micheal went away, Bea had his piano moved up here. Lyra had locked herself in her room and refused to come out until it was moved and the door to Stephan's room was shut.

Jeremy was sat outside of Lyra's bedroom door, sensing that she needed her own thoughts for now, her own space. But he was watching, so he could be there if she needed him. She somehow looked thinner lately, more fragile and pale. She was only wearing an oversized teeshirt, one Jeremy was sure was once Thomas'. He had watched Lyra open that envelope. Watched what colour she had left drain from her face, the corners of her mouth turn down and her eyes start to look glazed with pink.
The teeshirt only came down almost to Lyra's knees, exposing her thin legs and her pale feet, made even paler by the black nailvarnish on her toes. Her hair was unkempt, starting to look almost like rats tails. Jeremy had however managed to pursuade her to wash her face, so that it no longer bore the marks of her smeared make-up.

Lyra looked down at her hands. In her left hand, she was dragging a bundle of clothes. She watched her own right hand as she slowly lifted it up to the door handle infront of her. Her grey eyes were wide with fear as she wrapped her hand around the brass handle and twisted it. The door swung open, creaking as it did so.
Lyra stood in the doorway was for a moment, taking it all in. The room was just the way Stephan had left it, except for Michael's piano. The bed was neatly made. The dressing table still held his wash bowl and jug and his shaving things, even though he'd never had to shave for centuaries, and there was still an old fashioned 'hot waterbottle' under the bed. There was still the painting of the Not-Lyra on his bedside table. And of the beautiful red headed woman, which Lyra now knew to be his mortal wife and daughter.
Lyra lifted one bare foot and let it hover over the threshold for a while, almost afraid to put it down. Slowly, she lowered it to the wooden floorboards. As her foot touched the floor inside Stephan's room, she visably relaxed. Her shoulders weren't so tense and her eyes weren't so wide. It was almost like she was scared that something was going to jump out and get her if she went in her Daddy's room.

Lyra slowly walked around the room, running her fingers over the surfaces leaving little trails in the layer of dust. Touching Stephan's things, letting her powers work to feel his presence with her for a few seconds.
She stopped at Micheal's piano. She looked at it for a few moments, before slowly lifting the lid on the keys. She pulled up the stool and sat down, dumping the pile of clothes on the floor with a flourish of dust, and placing Rosie on her knee. Lyra gently placed her hands on the keys and pressed down making an awful noise. Jeremy out in the coridor, flinched. Lyra looked at Jeremy and giggled. She again placed her fingers gently on the keys and this time started to play beautifully. Micheal had taught her to play this song. He said he'd written it for her. She stopped as she felt Jeremy's fur against her leg. She reached down and ruffled his fur before lowering the lid on the piano again.
She stood again, looking at the bed, then at the pile of clothes on the floor. Kneeling down, Lyra picked up the clothes and held them to her face.

"So many lost," she said almost dreamily to Jeremy as she sat down on Stephan's bed, causing a small mushroom cloud of dust.
Jeremy answered by rubbing his head against her bare leg.

Lyra lay down on the bed, cuddling Rosie and the pile of clothes to her. She reached over and grabbed Stephan's pillow, holding it to her face and 'breathing' in. There was very little trace of his scent on the pillows now, but Lyra allowed herself to lay hugging it for a while longer.

She sat up, and pulled something navy from the pile of clothes. Bea's jacket. Lyra had loved Bea in this jacket. It was silk lined and tailored to fit Bea perfectly. It would never fit Lyra's skinny frame but she'd kept it anyways. Lyra hugged it the way she had the pillow.
Next she pulled out a small black teeshirt. It was one of Flynn's, her ghoul. Lyra hugged that to her face also, rocking it as if it were a baby. She gently placed that with the pillow and Bea's jacket.
Next there was a white shirt. One of Henry's. Henry had scared Lyra towards the end. Espcially when she found out he'd offered her eyes to the Lady of Spite. But he had looked after her. He had never asked anything of her, apart from library access. He had been company for her. Almost a second father figure.
She lifted up her teeshirt and in the waist band of her knickers, there was a rectangle of card. She didn't own anything belonging to this person. This lost 'protector'. All she had was his buisness card. And his brothel. Tristan...
All that was left on the bed now, was a battered old flannel shirt. Lyra picked it up as if it were a butterfly and that a wrong touch could turn it to dust. She stared at it for so long, as if taking in where every single thread was woven to make the fabric from which it was made. She hugged it to her body tightly, burrying her face into the fabric and trying to breath in as much as she could from the shirt. She took a piece of paper from the pocket, and started reading it again, her eyes once more forcasting tears.

"My Dearest Lyra, the time we spent together was good for me, it reminded me very much of the human i used to be and the love i used to have, however in Glasgow i learned one thing, and that is im not human and i can never love the same way again, all i am now is a beast and a cursed one at that, and thus i would like to thank for you loving, all be it misguidedly, your lion in these dark times...
It was signed "Your Lion"

Jeremy felt a rumble of a growl in his chest, but kept quiet. Instead he climbed up on the bed beside Lyra and nuzzled her face.
Lyra folded Thomas' letter back up and placed it back in the shirt pocket. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, even though the shirt drowned her, and lay down on the bed surrounded by things from people she had lost.

Stephan's bed.
Micheal's piano.
Bea's jacket.
Dr J's dog.
Flynn's teeshirt.
Henry's shirt.
Tristan's card.
And Thomas' shirt and letter.

Lyra wondered, who she would loose next...

hows dante shaped for next friday at lyras, bring the razor, she needs something to remember you by

Lyra lay in her bed on her side, still dressed in Thomas' teeshirt and shirt. Jeremy was curled up on the bottom of the bed, his eyes half closed in a doze. Lyra watched the clock on the wall...

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

The seconds seem to drag for Lyra. She had a bad feeling about tonight. It felt like Connor had left for the court ages ago. It was now almost midnight. Lyra signed and turned over, turning her back on the clock.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

If Thomas' was with her, she would be cuddled up with him. He would be telling her stories of all sorts of things. Kissing her...

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Suddently, Jeremy's eyes snapped open. His fur started to stand on end. He jumped down from the bed, his eyes wide with fear and his teeth bared.

Ti...

Lyra flew from the bed, her face contorted in rage. Fangs fully lengthened. She was shouting and screaming like a wild animal in pain. Jeremy bolted for the bedroom door and out of the house to avoid Lyra's frenzy. He crouched low in the thick bushes in the backyard, his red eyes warey and watching Lyra's window carefully. He could see her small silloute against the curtains. He could hear her throwing anything her tiny hands could touch. He could hear the crashing of books against walls and wooden floors. The smashing of vases and other valuble items. The thumps of tables being overturned. The ripping of the curtains on her bed and the bedding, and probably some of her clothes too.

Jeremy cowered lower as he heard Lyra overturn her bed and roar some kind of battle cry. He lay there, listening to Lyra's frenzy for what seemed like ages. His legs started to ache. He took a sniff of the night air and caught something...familar.
He crept from his hiding spot, and back through the house, sneaking out of the front door. He stopped at the front gate, sniffing the air again, before turning left and running down the road, sticking to the shadows.

Jeremy hadn't been running for too long when he stopped dead in his tracks. In front of him was what he had caught the scent of. That thing that was so familar. That thing that meant almost as much to him as Miss Lyra did. Felicia. She turned and saw him too and came running over to him. They greeted each other, nuzzling and licking each others faces.
"I have to get home, Miss Lyra isn't well!"
"Master's dead," Felicia told Jeremy.
Jeremy shook his shaggy head, "She's angry. She's frenzying. I can't leave her much longer. Come with me."
The two black dogs ran back towards Lyra's home, running quite close together as they did so.

As they aproached the house, all was silent. Jeremy stepped infront of Felicia protectively, and made his way slowly up the stairs. As he reached Lyra's door, he could head sobbing. He pushed the door with his paw to open it but it wouldn't budge. Instead he stood on his hind legs and put his front legs on the door and pushed it open, pushing the shredded clothing and books out of the way as he did so.
Lyra was sat in the middle of a completly trashed bedroom. It looked as if a thousand stray cats had come in and had a party in here (OOC: Yes, he dislikes cats ).

Lyra looked up from sobbing into the fabric of Rosie. She'd known it was going to happen. She knew Thomas was going to die. He'd told her so. But it hurt, so so much, even though she had tried to prepare herself. She felt as if someone had ripped her heart out of her chest and stomped on it. Jeremy was clowly walking over to her. When he got close enough, Lyra lunged at him and hugged him tightly.

"He's dead, Jeremy, he's gone," she sobbed into his fur, "I'm sorry I scared you Jeremy. I'm so sorry. I don't want to loose you too..."

Jeremy let Lyra cling to him for a few moments before speaking.

"Miss Lyra... Look who I found..."

Lyra looked up at the doorway. There was a shaggy black dog stood there. Smaller than Jeremy, with black eyes instead of red. The dog bowed it's head.

"Master told me to come to you," the dog told Lyra in a female voice.
"Felicia!" Lyra cried, flinging herself at the smaller dog and hugging it too.

Jeremy made his way over to them, and Lyra wrapped her arms around both of them.
"I'll never loose you two," Lyra vowed into their fur, "Never..."

It sounds like Lyra is turning ito one of those crazy "cat lady" widow types!

Steve

Lyra sat on the sofa, Jeremy on one side, Felicia on the other, Rosie on her lap. The TV was playing Spongebob Squarepants but she didn't seem to actually be watching it. Her dark grey eyes looked glazed, as if she wasn't seeing what was in front of her. She was once again wearing no make-up and still wearing the same t-shirt and jacket of Thomas'.
Jeremy looked over at Felicia, who looked back at him, their eyes looking worried.
"Miss Lyra," Jeremy rumbled, "Are you going to attend the Elysium this weekend?"
Lyra slowly looked at Jeremy as if she hadn't noticed he was there.
"Would you like us to come with you?" Jeremy asked.
Lyra smiled sadly, snuggling into the warm fur of the two dogs, who once again exchanged worried glances.
"Miss Lyra, are you going? I think it would be for the best. You cannot sit in the house forever."
Lyra looked sulky, "I went out last night."
"Only to feed," Jeremy pointed out, "You need to see people of your own kind."
Lyra frowned and shook her head, "They might die."
Felicia lapped at the side of Lyra's face affectionatly, causing a slight smile.
"Why would they die?" Jeremy asked.
"Because everyone who's helped me has died, or gone missing..."
Jeremy looked thoughtful for a moment, "I'm still here, and Felicia. Mr Negroni and Mr Dante are still 'alive', are they not? Same with...Connor and his cats."
Lyra nodded, her eyebrows knitting together and her dark eyes looking troubled.
Jeremy nuzzled her with his nose, causing another small smile to escape from Lyra.
"I suppose I can't spend the rest of my life here," Lyra said in a very small voice...

......"I have more Kindred to slay" mwhaaaa mwhaaa mwhaaaa.