Lyra smiles when Nona puts a hand on her head. But her smile fades at the question.
"Because I want a big brother," she says honestly. "And because I'm very sad for him, and I think things are more unfair for him than they are for me, and I want to make them more fair."
Lyra hugs her knees and looks over the horizon wistfully. She wonders what her brother is doing now. She wonders if Daddy was lying, if Pyrrhus really does hate her for existing.
"A bad thing happened to him when he was little. He wanted to make Daddy proud, and a lot of people came and told him how he could, so he worked really hard to do it. But then people got scared of him, and all his family decided they didn't like him or want to talk to him ever, even the members who hadn't even met him, like Daddy. Everyone who should've loved him decided he wasn't worth giving a chance before he was all grown up." Lyra tightens her hug around her legs. "And if it happened to him, it can happen to me too."
And that's scary. Lyra is smart enough to know that she can't see the future. The nebulous possibility that maybe something bad could happen, maybe she makes a mistake without knowing it's a mistake, and everyone decides she's too awful to love is a prospect too awful to contemplate. So she must defend her big brother against the judgment of the grownups, must convince them of his worthiness of familial love, because if she doesn't, then no one will.
But then there's a scent of adventure in the air. Lyra perks, instantly recognizing it. And in a moment, Hermes, dressed in foreign clothes but resplendent as ever, alights on the beach. "Papa!"
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"Because I want a big brother," she says honestly. "And because I'm very sad for him, and I think things are more unfair for him than they are for me, and I want to make them more fair."
Lyra hugs her knees and looks over the horizon wistfully. She wonders what her brother is doing now. She wonders if Daddy was lying, if Pyrrhus really does hate her for existing.
"A bad thing happened to him when he was little. He wanted to make Daddy proud, and a lot of people came and told him how he could, so he worked really hard to do it. But then people got scared of him, and all his family decided they didn't like him or want to talk to him ever, even the members who hadn't even met him, like Daddy. Everyone who should've loved him decided he wasn't worth giving a chance before he was all grown up." Lyra tightens her hug around her legs. "And if it happened to him, it can happen to me too."
And that's scary. Lyra is smart enough to know that she can't see the future. The nebulous possibility that maybe something bad could happen, maybe she makes a mistake without knowing it's a mistake, and everyone decides she's too awful to love is a prospect too awful to contemplate. So she must defend her big brother against the judgment of the grownups, must convince them of his worthiness of familial love, because if she doesn't, then no one will.
But then there's a scent of adventure in the air. Lyra perks, instantly recognizing it. And in a moment, Hermes, dressed in foreign clothes but resplendent as ever, alights on the beach. "Papa!"