The Delamare Sisters

Who Is She?

Marley strode out of the small inn (they weren't the best lodgings but they would have to do) with a mouth crammed full of bacon and a flask full of black coffee concealed in her coat. She wore brown leather trousers with pockets resembling cargo trousers, a plain white shirt and a long camel coloured coat with a furry hood. Her big winter boots picked up mud and gravel as she plodded towards the docks, making a bee line for a figure wearing a cow boy hat.

She tapped him lightly on the shoulder and he turned around quickly playfully attempting to wrestle the coffee flask out of her hand. They both giggled and then kissed.

"You made it, finally! Did you get the parts that you needed?" She asked patting a hot air balloon ballon tightly packed in it's box. "Sure did." He said. "Now it's fit for a rather large old friend." He said with a chuckle pulling her closer. Her dæmon thought "we have to find him first." But Marley ignored him trying her hardest to be optimistic.

Their dæmons had been playfully chasing one another around the docks until a gyptian cart pushed the two apart, aggravating Kona, Marley's Albatross dæmon. "What's with all the gyptians?" Him and Marley thought. Lee stared too as if wondering the exact same thing until he turned around and declared: "It's bacon time!" The two started walking back to the inn, arm in arm.

Then a tall man, big in build with tufts of ginger hair falling from his hat came striding past from the witches console with a young girl in tow. He bumped into Lee sending him backing quite a distance. "Oh sorry 'ere let me 'elp you!" He mumbled helping Lee regain his balance. Marley couldn't help but laugh to herself after checking Lee was okay of course. Then her attention switched to the girl beside him. She thought he was too old to have a daughter that age but he looked too young to be  grandfather. She caught the girl's eye, who smiled kindly at her. From somewhere, some long suppressed memory she remembered that smile, those eyes even that nose. She stood for a few seconds trying to find where she had seen that face before until Lee shook her and asked her if she was ok. 

"You look like you've seen a ghost!" He said his texan accent stronger than ever. She brushed him off saying that she thought she saw their old friend but it turned out to be a crate of wool. Lee chuckled at this and they started to walk back to the inn.

But those eyes still lingered in the back of her mind. Who was that girl?

As the pair walked through the doors, Marley hesitated. "You ask around here I'm going to do some ground work see if I can find him in the village." She said vaguely. But her intention was not to look for her old friend, she wanted to follow that girlsomething about her bugged Marley, she knew she had seen her before and not just in passing either. "Oh uhh yeah sure..gee are you sure you're ok?" Was Lee's response, his dæmon Hester (in the form of an arctic hare) looked quizzically at Kona, who just stared back blankly. Marley nodded reassuringly and kissed his cheek before walking out.

"Why this girl?" Kona asked her once they were back on the dogs following in the direction she was sure the girl went. "Your guess is as good as mine, you recognised her too though right?" He nodded in response. She looked all along the docks but all she could see were the gyptians unpacking gear.

Marley sighed but something caught her eye before she turned back. The girl was perched on a barrel by herself staring down at something golden that Marley couldn't quite make out. She started to walk over to the girl and her arctic fox dæmon. 

As soon as the girl saw the woman approaching, she shoved the gold item in her fur coat. "Hi," Marley said sitting down. "Got a name?"

Normally a stranger approaching you might alarm you but Lyra was intrigued as she had seen this woman around and new that she was an explorer. But there was something oddly familiar about this woman that Lyra couldn't quite put her finger on.

"Umm it's Lyra." She replied with a smile.

Something about the name made Marley shiver slightly. "Lyra....?"

"Belacqua."

It clicked in Marley's mind. The eyes. Of course she was Asriel's.