[1] Belacqua Wolf {The Golden Compass}

The Listener, Tony Costa

Silver sat up on the upper deck with Tony by her side, watching as Similien and Tony's hawk Lyuba were leaping playfully at one another while the two humans talked together.

"What happened?" Tony asked her gently, noting her trembling hands, as he drew her close to him in a comfort attempt, with but a single arm around her shoulders now.

"We were taken to an apartment in London, by a woman by the name of Mrs. Marisa Coulter. She was only too fond of Lyra, but, she clearly detested both Cain and I." She said quietly, and leaned her head on his shoulder and a gentle, soft screech came from Tony's hawk Lyuba.

"How could anyone possibly detest you?" Tony asked quietly and Silver's lips turned up, only very slightly in an little bit of a smile.

"She didn't like how I allowed Similien and my siblings to speak for me. She didn't like how whenever I in the timing would speak I'd apparently just very much mumble my way all of the way through conversations, with a respectable person and it drove her absolutely mad." Silver scoffed very slightly and she sighes, as Tony's hand reached out, and squeezed her shakin' hand very gently in his own. "It all eventually started, it began just after I managed to defeat her in her own territory. In the apartment flat, it was our home and she was the one in our mind, who was invading our territory by being in our room and in our space without permission. Sim, he managed to defeat the golden monkey, and Mrs. Coulter backed down for the first time in our memories." Silver said quietly a bit, as her head tipped slightly to right in order to indicate the wolf dæmon.

"You don't have to tell me, if you en't wantin' to." Tony murmured and she didn't answer him and, instead now, it was like she was an ostrich, trying to bury her head in the sand.

Except she was burying her head against his chest, as she shuddered with emotions that she never wanted to show.

Tony looked at Kerim and Jaxer, who went downstairs to leave them to talk alone. "They went down below. You're all right." He said as she looked up at him, and he hugged her gently again.

Silver eventually managed to half-talk, half-crying her way through the rest of the story, as Tony's arms all throughout the story, they stayed tight around her.

"You didn't deserve none of that." He murmured and she gently leaned the right side of her head into his chest, as she looked up at the night sky, and the moon was being blocked by smoke, as the factories continue to work into an lonely night. "But you're safe now, all right? I'm not lettin' no one hurt you."

He murmured and she pulled the sword sheath off of her back and she held it out to him, hilt extended out to him. "That? That's yours now, that is."

He said and she leaned against him once again, as the sword lay down flat on the deck next to them. "Thank you, Tony." She murmured and he smiled a little bit.

Then as she felt him gently kiss her briefly on the forehead she slowly felt herself.

Like she was being gently rocked to sleep by the boat, and all of the waves on the wharf around them as the old and steady gyptian boat, it continued to move smoothly across the water.

She saw through half-closed eyes in the moonlight, that both Similien and Lyuba were also sort of cuddling now together, with Similien licking Lyuba's head gently.

Silver felt herself falling asleep and was somehow unsurprised, when she felt herself being lifted up and hears a low voice mumbling somethin', before she was out like a light completely.

She woke up and cried out loudly as she did, but found that a hand was the thing that was mufflin' her screams of panic. In that moment, her humans of course, instincts all disappeared and a moment later, she tasted blood in her mouth.

"Ow! Bloody frick." Silver opened her jaws at once and was wide-eyed when she saw that she'd bitten no intruders, but that it was none other, than Tony Costa.

"I'm sorry." She whispered and he wrapped his hand up quickly, tying the cloth so that it was rather tightly wrapped. "Tony, I'm..."

He shakes his head and handed her another cloth to wipe her own face off to get the blood away from her face as he chuckled quietly.

"I should have known better than to try that on you. Similien is a gray wolf after all." He said ruefully, as she was looking, very now truly apologetically at him at the moment. "Stop." He said, as Ma Costa gave her some food and a few moments later, Tony and her was both up on deck with their dæmons, a bit too willing and they began the gyptian way, with their good many chores aboard the boat.