Most people believed that daemons were manifestations of your soul. Aspects or sides of you that were similar but different, and reflected other parts of you for the world to see.
They shifted form constantly while you grew up, but after you matured, they stopped and settled, and then the world knew what kind of person you were.
Some forms were more common than others: Cats and dogs were normal to see, and it wasn’t uncommon to see mice here and there.
Occasionally, you saw a rarer form, like golden-furred monkeys and the well-known birds of the witch clans, but even they didn’t draw more than a few curious glances.
That was where the book ended, and he leafed through the pages desperately for more. When he found nothing, he cursed, and threw the book on top of a growing pile.
He pulled the next volume off the shelf, and then Skye padded into the room, all soft steps and lithe muscle, nuzzling against his leg. “Hey,” she whispered softly. “Everything alright?”
He sighed, sinking into a chair. “Dead end again. The books have nothing we don’t already know.”
She shifted, her fur giving way to scales as she coiled herself gently around him.
“What’s wrong? You’re all…twisted.” she hissed lightly, flicking her forked tongue across his face. “Like something’s eating you on the inside.”
“You’re not wrong,” he chuckled darkly, eyes falling to the pile of useless books. “I….I just thought we would have found something by now. I…..we need to know. Even a hint would’ve done wonders.”
Skye gave him a sad look. “It’ll be alright. There’s still three more places to check after this, and I’m sure one of them will have something that can help us.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. “I hope so.”
Most people’s daemons settled during puberty, although there’d been a few cases of daemons settling as late as 18 and 20. So when Skye hadn’t settled after his sixteenth birthday, he hadn’t been worried.
But he was twenty six now, and Skye still had no form. It earned them a lot of odd looks and devil eyes, people muttering about curses and superstitions that they put little stock in.
Still, they’d be lying if it didn’t bother them, and that was what started them on this little journey.
He scanned the shelves carefully, then sighed. “Milan’s got nothing more for us. Next place on the list?”
“London,” Skye said simply.
—————————————————————————————————————————
London was pretty, and that was nice for him, but annoyingly, it seemed to be as useless to them as Milan was.
He replaced another useless book before pulling a prospective one off the shelf, skimming it with a disappointed air.
It came unexpectedly, a flash of something that he almost missed before flicking back to it.
There was a noise from the room nearby, and he heard shouting and furious yowls through the walls. Something smashed against the floor, and pain lanced through his arm-
“Skye!” There was a faint acknowledgment through the bond, but she didn’t come to him.
There was a wrongness there, something Skye was hiding and holding back, and his arm still stung. “Skye, are you okay?”
“….Fine,” she muttered, her voice barely a flicker in his mind, and now he knew something had to be wrong.
Skye was the more open of the two, more confident and outspoken, and for her to be like this….
Silence reigned across the bond, and he started getting ready to- “Here.” she said quietly, and an image of their hovel room came to him.
He looked down at the book he was carrying, memorising the important page before chucking it down and running to the hovel.
He was there in minutes, stumbling through the doors and almost running headfirst into the lift, and then he laid a hand on the doorknob and turned it gently.
“Wait….” she said, and he paused. “I’m…..different from what you’d expect. Not in a good way, either.”
He opened the door, and Skye stared quietly at him in the form of a cat. She turned into a lynx as he knelt beside her, and her head sank.
“What happened?” he said urgently. “Why did you run?”
Skye didn’t move. “….I don’t know. I….found a book. It said that sometimes, daemons can pick the form they settle in, and I thought that that might be why I haven’t settled yet. So I shifted into a cat, like I usually do, but….it felt odd. Like I was trying to be something that I wasn’t.”
She shuddered. “So I shifted, but….” She trailed off, and it was then that he realised that she wasn’t a lynx anymore. She was a dog, and then she was a bird, and then she was a mouse.
Skye tensed, and then she was a cat again, but tears shimmered in her eyes. “It’s hard to hold a form now, not like it was before. Every part of me wanted to shift, and it freaked people out. They threw things, and one of them glanced me slightly….So I ran back here.”
“It’ll be alright, Skye. We’ll fix this,” he hushed, taking her into his arms. “How?” she sniffed, nuzzling her face into his chest. “Because I found something. But we need to travel again.”
“Where?”
“Well, you did say you’ve always wanted to go to Svalbard…..”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Svalbard was cold, but they’d expected that, and he’d wrapped up warm for the journey. Still, he couldn’t help the occasional shiver as they trudged through the icy fields.
He glanced at Skye, and a small smile touched his lips. Today, she seemed much better, having adopted the form of an arctic wolf, and she loped easily beside him.
“You know,” she said curiously, “you still haven’t told me where we’re going.”
“I’m hoping we can meet Iorek Byrnison.” She almost stopped at that, giving him an incredulous look. “Why do we want to find the king of the panserbjørne?”
“Because the book I found was a historical one, and mentioned that Iorek spent time with a human companion before he became King of the panserbjørne. And that companion he spent time with had a daemon that they thought would never settle, but eventually did.”
Skye’s maw opened in a silent realisation, and they started running.
In the end, it was the panserbjørne who found them first, and after explaining themselves, they were led warily to the doors of Iorek’s ice fort.
Word had been sent ahead, it seemed, because they were ushered in before a low growl bade the guards to leave.
“My scouts tell me that you wished for an audience,” a voice rumbled, and their eyes flicked towards the imposing figure of Iorek Byrnison and his armour.
“Tell me, human, why have you come to Svalbard?”
Skye stepped forward nervously. “We were hoping you could help us with a problem, though probably not in the way you think.”
“My daemon seems to be unable to settle, and everyone we’ve consulted has been useless. All they’ll tell us is that something must be wrong with Skye, but she doesn’t feel wrong.”
He knelt before Iorek. “We’ve been travelling everywhere looking for something that could help us, and the last text we found led us here. Will you help us, King Iorek?”
The armoured bear hummed. “I know little of daemons and human society. Why come to me?”
“The books we found made reference to a companion of yours. One who had a daemon who claimed he would never settle, but eventually did. We were hoping you could take us to her.”
“You speak of Silvertongue,” he said. “I cannot take you to her, but I will tell you where she lives. Be warned, though,” he growled. “I do not believe you intend to cause her harm, but if you do, there is nowhere in the worlds where you can run from me.”
—————————————————————————————————————————
“After all this travelling, we end up in Jordan, huh.” Skye muttered, padding along in the form of a lioness.
“Well, Iorek said Silvertongue was born here,” he replied, mentally counting off the streets as they walked along.
“So where do you think this “Silvertongue” lives, then?” Skye asked. “Some grandiose place, maybe? Jordan College?”
“Could be,” he mused. “But then again….” He reached the number Iorek had told him, and turned. And then he cocked his head.
“We’ve been wrong before.” They stood before a quaint, if rather large cottage, and the two exchanged glances. “You want to knock?”
He rapped the door three times, and a slim brunette answered the door, wrapped in casual clothes with the exception of a long fur scarf around her neck.
A pine marten was perched on her shoulder, and he twitched his nose at them. “Can we help you?”
“Is this where Silvertongue lives?” Skye asked, and the woman gave them a surprised look. “Come in,” she said, ushering them into the foyer.
“Twenty years, and Iorek still insists on calling me Silvertongue,” she chuckled, her pine marten dashing into the kitchen and returning with drinks for the four of them.
“So, why’d Iorek send you here?” she asked casually, sipping the tea she’d been brought.
“Well, Mrs Silvertongue-”
“Lyra.”
“Lyra, then, we were hoping you could help us. My daemon, Skye…..she hasn’t settled, even after all these years. We both feel like we’re ready, but trying to hold a form makes her feel wrong, and it earned us a lot of looks in our old town.”
“I know the feeling,” Lyra said, a sour look on her face. “Although it went away after Pantalaimon settled.”
“Can you help us?” Skye pleaded, her form rippling briefly before she suppressed the changes again.
Lyra inspected Skye carefully, lifting a paw and examining her fur and eyes while the two of them shifted uncomfortably. “I have my suspicions as to what the case is, but I need to do one more thing.”
She reached into a pouch at her waist, and pulled a golden object from it. “Is that an alethiometer?”
Lyra gave them a cheeky grin, fiddling with the device all the while. “I used to be amazing with this thing, you know. Lost that skill after Pan settled, and they told me it would take a lifetime to learn again. Turned out it was like riding a bicycle after a while. Can’t really forget it.”
She turned to them. “If you want, I can use the alethiometer to determine your truth, and that might tell you why Skye there seems unable to settle.”
They barely even thought about it, each coming to the same unspoken conclusion. “Do it.”
The needles on the alethiometer began to spin as Lyra set three symbols into it, turning wildly before finally switching to two symbols.
Lyra hummed thoughtfully, placing the device back in her pouch. “The two of you are interesting ones, that’s for sure.”
“What did it say?” Skye asked.
“Well, I asked it why you hadn’t settled, accounting for your journey, and it showed two symbols. There was Moon, which can mean mystery, and then there was the Hourglass, which usually represents time and finality. It kept flickering between those two.”
Pantalaimon took over from there, explaining what the symbols Lyra set meant for the question before finally coming to what they meant. “What we think the alethiometer means is that you two have already settled.”
“I guessed from the forms you’ve taken and the journeys you’ve been on,” the pine marten said,
“and Lyra had her own suspicions too. You’re a restless spirit, Skye, which presumably extends to your human there. We used to be that way as well, but we settled down eventually.”
“But,” Lyra took over, “the alethiometer also indicated finality. You’ve mentioned that Skye doesn’t feel wrong, but feels odd when she tries to stay in a form too long?”
Confused, the pair nodded.
“That settles it then,” Lyra said, snapping her fingers. “You’ve already settled, or rather, you settle by always being unsettled. Never seen this before, but I suppose it makes sense for a restless spirit to have a form that always changes.”
He didn’t know what to think. Should he be mad? Should he be happy? Then Skye started to laugh, her happiness ringing through the air.
“It makes so much sense now,” she laughed, turning her emerald eyes on him. “All those times when we could never stay still, or we’d go exploring around the woodlands, all those dreams we had of travelling the world?”
He chuckled lightly at the reminder, the idea starting to dawn on him. “We drove the teachers mad with that, didn’t we?”
Skye smiled at him, shrinking down into the form of a tabby cat before leaping onto him and curling herself around his neck. “We were never meant to be tied down, were we?” she asked Lyra, who shook her head firmly.
“I’m a bit jealous of that, actually.” she admitted. “Part of me misses the days when I had my adventures. Even Pan does sometimes, though he’d never admit it,” she said, nudging the pine marten playfully.
“Still, my journeys are over for the time being,” she said, ushering them gently to the doorway.
“I’ve accepted that by now. But it looks like yours are just beginning. Do give my greetings to Iorek for me, will you?”
And with that, Lyra grinned, and closed the door on another chapter in her life.
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