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thetomorrowshow · 1 year ago

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empires superpowers au masterlist (not up to date)

this takes place about 10 months after the end of ‘poisoned rats’.

cw: past abuse, flashbacks, heavy dissociation, blood & injury

It’s on the news before it’s anywhere else, which is to say, everyone knows before Jimmy.

Lizzie texts him to ask him if he needs anything, and while it’s an odd message to receive out of the blue, Jimmy doesn’t mind it at all. Lizzie checks in occasionally, particularly after big life events, and it’s just nice to hear from her.

Then Joel texts the same thing, and Jimmy starts to feel that something’s wrong.

He only finds out by chance, though—he turns on the TV and it happens to be on the news, and just before he switches away, he sees the scrolling headline.

MAJOR DISAPPEARS AFTER FIGHT WITH THE ORACLE.

His stomach drops.

The clip starts playing moments later, some newscaster narrating it like a sports game, not like his partner’s life is on the line.

“So here we can see the Oracle grab Major—it’s barely contact, but anything goes with that villain—and then, while Major’s disoriented, he slams him into the ground.”

Jimmy watches, mouth slightly open, as Scott indeed is shoved into the asphalt with enough force to knock a few teeth out. He winces, old injuries twinging in sympathy. It doesn’t stop there, though—as Scott is grabbing at the Oracle’s legs, doing anything to pull himself back up, he goes suddenly limp, and the Oracle lands a terrible hit to Scott’s nose, sending blood spurting everywhere.

The Oracle grasps Scott by the hair, then, Scott’s arms flailing out, and slams his head into the road. Jimmy gasps, reaches out as if he can grab Scott through the screen. This is bad. Scott hasn’t had such a bad fight since Xornoth. The Oracle must be getting more powerful, or gotten more training recently or something, because last Jimmy knew he was a local menace, not actually a danger.

Jimmy almost can’t watch. His hands are up at his mouth, and he can’t tear his eyes from the screen as Scott stops trying to fight back and just tries to crawl away. He almost makes it—the Oracle grabs him by the cape, pulls him back as his fingers scrabble for purchase.

The Oracle drags him up, has him in a chokehold—it’s the perfect position to just kill him, he’s already too weak to do much and the Oracle could easily slip a knife from the folds of his clothing and slash Scott’s throat, but he doesn’t. He just holds him as Scott struggles, whacking at his grip with steadily clumsier arms. Scott stops moving after a moment, and Jimmy’s moving forward, toward the TV, he has to help—

Scott’s only gathering strength though, and moments later he manages to buck backward and throw the Oracle’s arms from around his neck. With a spray of ice on the road, Scott collapses and penguin slides down the hill and past the news van, throwing up a curved wall of ice to make a sharp turn to the right. He disappears from view entirely, and when the camera turns back to the Oracle, he’s gone.

It’s barely a minute-long clip, but it leaves Jimmy breathless in the worst way possible. He needs to find Scott, he needs to help him—he’s opening the front door before he even puts his mask on, only in socks and his gym clothes, he’s got to find him—

His phone buzzes, and without even thinking he answers, everything in him tensing at the thought that it could be Scott, it has to be Scott—

“Jimmy, where are you right now?”

Lizzie. His heart utterly sinks. “I’m—do you know where he is? I’m going out to find him—”

“Are you at home?”

“Yeah, yes, but I’m leaving—”

“Do not leave,” she tells him sternly. For the first time, Jimmy registers feedback from her end—as if she’s outside on a windy day, or standing on the pier. “Stay at home.”

“I have to find him,” says Jimmy, and he needs to grab his key—where is his key, it’s usually right on the hook by the door—

“Joel and I are sweeping the city, all right? You need to stay home.”

“I’m not scared,” Jimmy retorts. “I can fight, I will fight, I’ll kill the Oracle if I have to—”

“Jimmy.”

He stops, reluctantly, at her tone.

“You need to stay home right now, because if Scott is his usual stubborn self and doesn’t check himself into a hospital, he’s going to come to you,” she explains. “Now I need you to listen to me, all right?”

He sighs. He’s still burning with a need to get out there, find Scott, but she’s right. Unfortunately. He slams the front door shut, sighs even louder. “Yeah, fine. What is it.”

“Get towels you don’t care about,” she instructs. “I know you have a pack of rubber gloves somewhere, so get those and your first aid kit. Disinfect wherever you’re going to help him—I’d think the dining room table, but it’s your choice. Got all that?”

Jimmy’s already halfway to the closet for the first aid kit, grabbing some bleach-stained hand towels from the bathroom on the way. “Yeah. What else?”

“We’re most worried about a concussion here, so he might be confused—especially after fighting the Oracle. Help him know he’s safe and cared for. Maybe get something he’s familiar with to have near, to ground him?”

“Treat it like a flashback, got it.” Jimmy sets the first aid kit down on the table, runs back to their bedroom. He and Scott had gone on a Build-A-Bear date recently, and Scott had gotten the Frozen’s Elsa bear. That should do for grounding, hopefully.

He brings the bear (and after a thought, his own, a brown bear with roller skates) back to the dining room, then cracks open the rubbing alcohol from the first aid kit and starts rubbing down the table and one of the chairs.

“Take care of him, all right?” Lizzie says, sounding almost far away. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you with more updates. Text me if he shows up.”

Before he can even say goodbye, she hangs up.

Great. He just has to deal with this situation alone, then. Scott’s never been that badly injured since Jimmy’s been dating him—sure, there was the broken arm incident, but Scott had still won that fight. He’s never been so badly injured that he had to flee.

What if he doesn’t remember how to get home? It’s not like he’s lived here his whole life, it’s entirely possible that he gets lost on the way back. Jimmy needs to go looking for him, has to be out there to help—

From the office comes the sound of a window sliding open.

Jimmy drops the rag he’d been using to wipe down the table and sprints for the office.

Sure enough, Scott is there, one leg in the window, and looking absolutely awful.

He looks worse than he had on TV. The collar of his costume is drenched in blood, most of which seems to be stemming from his nose but there’s blood in his bright blue hair and dripping from his mouth and all over—

Blood, there’s so much blood and Jimmy’s not sure if its his own or his opponent’s but as he stares at it he feels nothing, nothing but hope that his master will reward him for being so good—

Scott grunts and Jimmy’s back in the present, but his feelings of detachment remain. He crosses the office to the window and wraps an arm under Scott’s armpit to pull him the rest of the way in (Scott cries out, but Jimmy ignores it), then puts his other arm at his knees and fully lifts his boyfriend up.

Scott’s almost too heavy to carry—sure, Jimmy’s been working out, but the deadweight of a muscular, six foot human isn’t anything that he’s used to. So he gathers all of his strength and hurries down the hallway before his arms can give out, carrying Scott to the dining room and settling him in the chair he’s prepared before cracking open the first aid kit.

Jimmy strips off his mask first, grimacing at the bruises already beginning to ring his eyes. Luckily, Jimmy’s set quite a few broken noses in his time, and he mutters a warning before jerking it back into place. Scott lets out another cry, muffled by Jimmy shoving a wad of cotton under his nose.

He holds it there for a few moments while he categorizes the other wounds. The head wound is probably most important—or rather, most dangerous. There’s scrapes and bruises in various places all over his body, visible through the tears in his costume. Red stains his lips, so Jimmy pries his mouth open—yep, missing tooth and bitten tongue. He knows Scott’s already got an implanted molar, but this is one of his front teeth, leaving a gaping hole in his mouth. That’s going to need some cosmetic surgery.

It’s not really a huge concern at the moment, though, so Jimmy moves on, rolling down the neck of Scott’s costume.

Sure enough, bruises are already blossoming around his throat. That’s not something Jimmy can take care of himself—he needs an x-ray to make sure nothing’s broken, probably. In fact, it would be better just to take Scott to the hospital right now.

One last thing to check—across the room, on the hook where he usually leaves it, is his key, a pocket flashlight attached to the key ring. Jimmy retrieves it, shines it in Scott’s eyes.

His pupils don’t dilate smoothly, and the left eye is slower than the right. That’s never good.

“Are you feeling disoriented?”

Scott blinks. “. . . yeah,” he rasps. Jimmy hands him his glass of water, gives him a napkin when he chokes on it.

“We’re going to the hospital,” he announces, clicking off the flashlight. “Put your mask back on, I’ll carry you to the car.”

Scott complies, hands moving slowly and shakily. “I—Jimmy?” he asks, voice small.

“Yeah?”

Scott sniffles. “I don’t feel well.” “That’s why we’re going to the hospital,” Jimmy tells him, voice utterly lacking emotion. He doesn’t feel much of anything, right now. “Do you want to bring anything?”

Scott looks around, blinking slowly. He points to the Elsa bear on the table. Jimmy nods, glances around for a moment before finding a reusable plastic grocery bag and stuffing the bear in it.

“You’ll have to leave it in the car, but that’s fine. Let’s go.”

Scott is, for the most part, complacent as Jimmy picks him up, wrapping his arm around Jimmy’s neck. Jimmy carries him out of the house and into the backseat of the car as quickly as possible, then ducks back inside to look for Scott’s thin work wallet, eventually finding it just outside the office window. He grabs it—it identifies Scott as Major, has his SuperInsurance card, and other necessary cards—then heads back out to the car, swinging into the driver’s seat and snapping a mask over his face. He tosses the bag with the bear in the backseat with Scott, then pulls out of the driveway.

The hands on the steering wheel don’t look like his, and it takes until Jimmy clicks on the turn signal at a stoplight to realize that he’s dissociated. In fact, he thinks he’s been out of it since he helped Scott inside. Come to think of it, he doesn’t remember doing anything to comfort Scott, calm instincts taking over to keep him from panicking.

A glance in his rearview mirror shows that Scott barely looks conscious. “Don’t fall asleep,” Jimmy snaps, and Scott jolts up, gasping, one hand clutching at his other arm. His other arm that looks mysteriously swollen, held carefully close to Scott’s body.

How had he focused so hard on the head wound that he hadn’t even noticed an injured arm? It’s clearly hurting Scott, and he had done nothing—

“Stay awake, okay? Talk to me. What are you feeling?”

“My arm hurts,” Scott manages. “I think—Jimmy, I think it’s broken again. I don’t—where are we going?”

“The hospital. Just hang tight, we’ll be there soon.”

They won’t be there soon. They’re still at least twenty minutes away. Scott had actually been closer to the hospital before he’d headed home, so he could’ve saved them both some time and gone straight there.

The hands that are definitely his but don’t look it tighten on the wheel. None of that matters right now. Right now he just needs to get Scott to somewhere for treatment.

It’s a tense drive, but Jimmy manages to stay levelheaded. He knows he’s speeding, so every cop car he passes he sends a burst of power out toward, hoping whatever accident it causes won’t be very dangerous.

He sees the signs for the hospital and cuts across three lanes of traffic to get into it. Once there, he pulls into a parking spot and looks up.

At the hospital.

The dissociation hits full-force.

It’s not the hospital, not the one where he was taken right after, but it’s still a hospital. It’s still tied to needles and blood and long hours on an exam table and distress and pain, and just looking at it makes his head all woozy.

His head presses against something hard. His hands go slack. He’s not sure where he is. He’s not sure what’s real.

It’s easier to believe that he’s asleep, easier to accept that none of this is real. He doesn’t even know what he doesn’t want to be real.

He’s not sure how long he floats there, feeling nothing but anxiety about how he’s feeling nothing. He doesn’t even register that there’s any sort of outside stimulation until he hears words, tinny and staticky.

“Jimmy? Hey, Jim, what’s happening? Talk to me.”

“I don’t know,” he thinks he says. “What’s happening?”

A sigh. “Scott says you just sort of zoned out. Do you know why?”

He’s not sure how to answer, so he doesn’t.

“Do you know where you are?”

“No,” he admits, because he doesn’t. He has no clue where he is or how he got here, and now that he’s realized that, the anxiety develops into panic.

“Look around, Jim. Tell me five things you can see.”

Five things—that’s a grounding exercise. Jimmy knows that’s a grounding exercise. He glances around. “There’s a steering wheel. Radio. A seat. I’m in the car.” It hits him like a train, the understanding that he was driving, and he can’t remember that he was driving, and he can’t remember why he was driving, but he’s in the car behind the steering wheel. “Um, asphalt. Parking lines.”

“Cool, four things you can touch?”

The hands in front of him don’t exactly look like his own. One of them lays itself on the steering wheel, and he’s not sure if it’s by his own instruction or not.

He’s sitting in the car, though, so he can assume some certain things. “The seat. The armrest. Um.”

“That’s good. Anything else?”

The voice sounds rushed. Jimmy cringes. He can’t really feel much, other than the awareness that a thing is touching him. Another sigh.

“Right, hand the phone back to Scott, okay? Scott, where are you?”

Is he holding something? He’s holding a phone, and that’s where the voice is coming from. Jimmy stares at it, not quite sure what he can do with it. “Hand it back to Scott,” he echoes.

“Jim’s really out of it, Scott, so can you just look out the window and tell us which hospital it is? Then Lizzie and I’ll be over.”

“It’s . . . United. You guys are coming here?”

“Yeah, well, it sounds like you two are being a bit dysfunctional right now. I’ll escort you and Lizzie’ll stay with Jimmy, and that way all bases are covered. Sound good?”

“I guess?”

It’s warm, Jimmy thinks. Like he’s lying next to a heater. At least it’s feeling something. He feels so detached, so out of his body, that he’s not sure of anything anymore.

He doesn’t hear any more speaking, and he’s not sure if that’s good or not. He just sort of . . . exists, less-than-present but not nonexistent.

At least, until there’s someone grabbing his arm.

He’s not exactly snapped back into his body, but he can see it now—someone heaving him out of the car, someone with pink hair, wrapping an arm around him and walking him to the other side of the car. It feels like he’s observing from above, knowing that it’s his body being moved but feeling no real attachment to it.

It all becomes foggy again as he’s set down in the passenger seat, but he manages to register something clicking and then the car moving. He doesn’t know how long the car moves, but at some point, there’s someone talking to him.

“Scott’s all right, you’re all right, everything is fine. Jimmy, are you with me?”

He tries to nod. He’s not sure if he does it properly.

“No, you’re not. Can you hold this?”

Something’s put in his hand. He doesn’t know what it is.

“Smell that, all right?”

He lifts it up to his nose. It smells sharp, citrus-y.

“What’s that smell like?”

“Oranges,” he answers dutifully.

“Keep your hand up, keep smelling it. Can you describe it?”

He sniffs it again. “Nice,” he eventually says. “Clean. Oranges, and lemons.”

“What does an orange taste like?”

He puts the thing in his mouth.

“No—! No, Jimmy, don’t eat that! That’s—that’s an air freshener, it’s not an orange! Please take it out of your mouth!”

It’s bitter, he thinks, as he obeys. Not like how oranges usually taste. Oranges usually taste sweet, a bit sour, and have all those stringy bits that you have to get off otherwise eating the segments aren’t worth it. It’s one of his favorite tastes, though; the fridge always has orange juice in it and there’s usually oranges on the table. Not just because they taste good, but because they’re decent tools for grounding. The peel has a strong smell and texture, and when you’re done peeling you can taste it.

This isn’t an orange. But it feels suspiciously like a grounding exercise. Why would he be doing grounding?

He blinks, looks up at Lizzie. She’s here. He doesn’t remember her getting here. “Am I dissociating?” he asks.

She laughs a little. “Yeah, I think you might be. Can you smell the air freshener again?”

It’s wet with his own saliva in his hand, but he raises it to his nose anyway. “I’m smelling the air freshener.”

“Good job. Don’t eat it.”

“Don’t eat the air freshener.”

“Smell it.”

“Yes.”

“It smells like orange.”

“Mhm.”

Jimmy closes his eyes and breathes in deep. It smells like orange, but not quite. More bitter than an actual orange. Like the way it tasted bitter. “Did I put an air freshener in my mouth?”

Lizzie laughs again. “You very much did. Are you back?”

“No,” he tells her, then goes back to smelling. He can smell something else on his hands, something just as familiar as an orange. Something clean, yet bad. Something that hurts.

“Jimmy, you’re crying. Can you keep smelling the air freshener? Lift your hand back up. What’s it smell like?”

He smells it. “Orange.”

“That’s right. Do you like it?”

“Do I like it.”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

Jimmy likes oranges, so it only makes sense for him to like this scent, right? But in the same way it tastes bad, he’s not sure that the smell of it can hold a candle to real oranges.

“I don’t know,” he says slowly.

“All right. What do you know?”

He sniffs the air freshener. “It smells like oranges. I’m holding it. It tastes bad. You’re here.”

“I’m here,” agrees Lizzie. “Do you want me to hold your hand?”

Jimmy frowns. “Holding the air freshener.”

“You have two hands.”

Oh. Right. He extends his other hand, Lizzie taking it in hers. Her hands are cool, but not nearly as cool as Scott’s. Her nails are pointy, brushing against his skin. The skin. Of the hand. It doesn’t look like his.

“I’m dissociating real bad, I think,” he murmurs. Lizzie’s hand grips his tighter.

“That’s all right. I’m here until you feel better.”

It’s a long time until Jimmy feels more like himself. When he fully becomes aware again, he’s sitting on his couch next to Lizzie, sharing some leftover pasta between them. He blinks at it, vaguely remembering the process it had taken to get him to eat it at all.

“I’m back, I think,” he says, blinking a couple of times. He licks his lips, tastes the pasta sauce there.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lizzie sighs in relief. “I was just going to try getting you to nap next, I was completely out of ideas.”

Jimmy laughs a little, thoughts still somewhat out of order from all the fog settled around his brain. “Norman usually helps. Did you get him?”

“Check your feet.”

He looks down. Sure enough, Norman is curled up on his feet, purring loudly.

Jimmy doesn’t remember much from the past—however long it’s been. He has bits and pieces of the drive home from the hospital, but he has no idea when Lizzie turned up or what happened to Scott.

Scott.

He jolts up, almost knocking his plate of pasta to the floor. “Scott,” he gasps out, “is he—did—”

“Scott’s fine,” Lizzie says placatingly, gesturing for him to relax. “Joel just texted me a few minutes ago. He got some stitches and they just finished his scans, they’re waiting on the results. They got him on some pretty good pain meds, I heard, so he’s doing fine.”

Reluctantly, Jimmy sits back, wringing his hands. Sure, Lizzie can tell him that Scott’s fine. But he hasn’t seen that, he doesn’t know for sure, all he knows is that he barely did anything to treat Scott’s wounds and then couldn’t even walk him into the hospital.

His head hurts.

“We can call him, maybe?” suggests Lizzie. Jimmy nods after a moment. That might help.

He sits in silence as she fiddles with her phone, doing who knows what. Every second that passes is another second that Jimmy doesn’t know how Scott’s doing.

Then Lizzie’s phone rings.

She answers, grimaces at the screen, then hands it over to Jimmy.

It’s a video call, and Scott’s there. His nose is properly bandaged, now, and Jimmy can see through the eyeholes in his mask that his eyes are puffy and bloodshot. There’s a large bandage along his jawline, and his split lip is actively bleeding. The ring of bruises around his throat is stark against the hospital gown.

He looks absolutely beautiful.

“Jimmy!” Scott cries, delighted, then sheepishly ducks his head when Joel shushes him offscreen. “Joel—sorry, the King says I can’t say your name.”

Jimmy chuckles, nerves quieting as he gazes at Scott. “That’s fine, Major. How are you feeling?”

“Not great,” Scott admits. He shrugs. “My head hurts, but they put some good drugs in my arm and I can’t really feel it so that’s good!” He tips the screen to show an IV. Jimmy shudders and looks away.

When he looks back, Scott’s turned it back to his face, concern written all over it. “Are you okay? You were . . . uh, what’s the word. . . .”

“Dissociating,” Jimmy finishes.

“Yeah. That. Lizzie said it got really bad, but when we got to United, you just sorta . . . blanked out.”

Jimmy bites back a retort. He doesn’t actually want to be mean to Scott, especially not when he’s floating on pain drugs. He’s just exhausted and foggy from the dissociation. “I’m good, just worried about you. And maybe don’t say real names, yeah?”

“Oh. Right. Joel, how much longer?”

A sigh from offscreen. “Probably half an hour, maybe more. Done talking to your man?”

“J—the King wants his phone back,” Scott whispers. “Are you really okay? Do you need a nap?”

Jimmy can’t help but laugh. “I’ll go rest if you rest, yeah? Love you, keep annoying the Mad King.”

“I love you so much,” Scott says seriously. “I wanna kiss you right now, but I don’t wish you were here because that would be bad for you. So I can wait until we go home.”

Suddenly choked up, Jimmy manages a wave, which Scott sets the phone down to return. Then Jimmy passes it back to Lizzie, who exchanges a few words with Joel before hanging up.

Jimmy doesn’t go to bed. He curls up on the couch and turns on some episode of a 90s sitcom to watch in silence.

“You didn’t fail him,” Lizzie says during a commercial. “You did good.”

Jimmy sighs. “Lizzie, I was dissociating before I even helped him into the house. I didn’t call you, I didn’t actually do anything to help him, and I couldn’t even go into the hospital with him. I freaked out and couldn’t help when he needed me.”

“You fought a trauma response to assess your boyfriend’s injuries and were able to drive him to the hospital,” Lizzie counters. “You set his broken nose and kept your head, despite having triggers all around you. Not to mention, driving him to the hospital was probably the best choice you could’ve made—I don’t have a car, and Joel was halfway across the city. There was no way we could get him to help. You did everything you could.”

Jimmy doesn’t argue. He’s too tired. He just turns his attention back to the TV as the commercial break ends.

When Joel helps Scott in the house several hours later, Lizzie’s made pancakes for them all, and Jimmy’s set out plates and spreads. Scott eats a single pancake, eyelids heavy, before limping off for bed. Jimmy follows him, rearranges the pillows so that Scott’s newly-casted arm can be elevated.

“You’re gonna be here a while, mister,” Jimmy tells him, handing him an ice pack. “Doctor’s orders. A week of bed rest, all for you.”

“At least I can give you kisses,” Scott slurs, smiling the best he can with a split lip and swollen mouth. Jimmy giggles, stripping off his shirt and climbing into bed next to him.

“I think even kisses are gonna hurt, baby. It’s okay, though. You’ll be okay.”

Scott nods sleepily, eyes already closed. “Yeah. We both will be.”

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sage-nebula · 12 days ago

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Having reread The Golden Compass, it really is apparent how much of Lyra's behavior stems from her being an abused and neglected child.

I don't think that Pullman really intended for her to be seen as abused, at least not when it comes to how much she was beaten as a child. Lyra's beatings are mentioned casually, and Pullman is 78 years old; he would have grown up in a time where corporal punishment was seen as normal, and it wouldn't be surprising to learn he was one of those who thinks "I was spanked and I turned out just fine." (Plus, given how he treated her in the following two books, I'm sure he would similarly think she deserved the abuse she got.)

But there have been countless studies showing how psychologically damaging corporal punishment is, and more than that, people who are abused will come up with defense mechanisms to try to prevent further abuse. These defense mechanisms can vary, but Lyra's primary one seems to be lying, along running away and hiding. To explore this, lets first look at the times it's mentioned that Lyra is beaten as a child, and how this teaches her to fear the adults around her:

The visitor mentioned by the Master, Lord Asriel, was her uncle, a man whom she admired and feared greatly [. . .] He was fierce: if he caught her in here she'd be severely punished [. . .] (TGC, 6).

. . .

Lyra was afraid of the Steward, who had twice beaten her (TGC, 7).

. . .

She couldn't help herself. She tumbled out of the wardrobe and scrambled up to snatch the glass from his hand. The wine flew out, splashing on the edge of the table and the carpet, and then the glass fell and smashed. He seized her wrist and twisted hard. "Lyra! What the hell are you doing?" "Let me go and I'll tell you!" "I'll break your arm first. How dare you come in here?" "I've just saved your life!" They were still for a moment, the girl twisted in pain but grimacing to prevent herself from crying out louder, the man bent over her frowning like thunder. [. . .] Her uncle looked down with a restrained fury, and she didn't dare meet his eyes. [. . .] There was a knock on the door. 'That'll be the Porter,' said Lord Asriel. "Back in the wardrobe. If I hear the slightest noise, I'll make you wish you were dead" (TGC, 14 - 15).

. . .

". . . Don't argue anymore or I shall be angry." And his daemon growled with a deep savage rumble that made Lyra suddenly aware of what it would be like to have teeth meeting in her throat (TGC, 28).

. . .

It was a mighty voice, a woman's voice, but a woman with lungs of brass and leather. Lyra looked around for her at once, because this was Ma Costa, who had clouted Lyra dizzy on two occasions [. . .] Lyra admired Ma costa greatly, but she intended to be wary of her for some time yet, for theirs was the boat she had hijacked" (TGC, 54)

. . .

"Don't want to look at nothing," Lyra muttered. Mrs Lonsdale smacked her leg. "Wash," she said ferociously. "You get all that dirt off." "Why?" Lyra said at last. "I never wash my knees usually. No one's going to look at my knees. What've I got to do all this for? You don't care about Roger, neither, any more than Chef does. I'm the only one that --" Another smack, on the other leg (TGC, 64).

. . .

She didn't finish the sentence, because Mrs. Coulter's daemon sprang off the sofa in a blur of golden fur and pinned Pantalaimon to the carpet before he could move. Lyra cried out in alarm, and then in fear and pain, as Pantalaimon twisted this way and that, shrieking and snarling, unable to loosen the golden monkey's grip. Only a few seconds, and the monkey had overmastered him: with one fierce black paw around his throat and his black paws gripping the polecat's lower limbs, he took one of Pantalaimon's ears in his other paw and pulled as if he intended to tear it off. Not angrily, either, but with a cold curious force that was horrifying to see and even worse to feel. Lyra sobbed in terror. "Don't! Please! Stop hurting us!" Mrs Coulter looked up from her flowers. "Do as I tell you, then," she said. "I promise!" [. . .] "What do you think off the flowers, dear?" said Mrs Coulter as sweetly as if nothing had happened. "I suppose one can't go wrong with roses, but you can have too much of a good thing . . . Have the caterers brought enough ice? Be a dear and go and ask. Warm drinks are horrid . . ." Lyra found it was quite easy to pretend to be lighthearted and charming [. . .] (TGC, 86 - 87).

There are probably more examples, but all of these are only in the first hundred chapters of the first book of the novel. It is mentioned that Lyra is beaten, that she is smacked; her own father (whom she believes to be her uncle) twists her arm and threatens to break it because she dared to be in a room she wasn't supposed to be, and spilled some wine. Her mother (whom she doesn't know is her mother) has her daemon almost twist the ear off Lyra's daemon for daring to talk back, and then makes Lyra kiss her cheek in apology and pretend like nothing happened. And all of this treatment -- all of this abuse -- is treated like perfectly normal for Lyra's upbringing.

So considering this, is it any wonder she learned to lie so well? That she calls herself a practiced liar? We see throughout the first book especially that Lyra lies to get herself out of danger, with the most iconic moment being when she lies to Iofur Raknison in order to survive being captured by his bears (and restore Iorek to the throne). When she can't lie, she avoids eye contact, runs away, and/or hides. She admires some of the adults who scare her (Asriel, Ma Costa), but she also fears them because they've physically assaulted her in the past and could do so again. Later books especially try to treat her lying as a genetic trait inherited from her mother, but it's clear to me that Lyra learned to lie precisely to protect herself from the way the adults around her would beat her without a second thought.

(It's also worth noting that the first book makes it clear that while Lyra has the charm of Mrs Coulter, she also has the ferocity of Asriel. The latter two books took the Asriel comparisons and gave them to Will instead, but that's a rant for another time.)

As for the neglect -- later books mention how Lyra was never held or cuddled as a baby or child. She has no memories of ever being shown any warmth. So not only was Lyra beaten by the adults at Jordan College (and Lord Asriel, and Ma Costa, and later Mrs Coulter), but she was never given any warmth, either. Is it any wonder that she turned out to be a mistrustful little liar? She wasn't bad; she was trying to protect herself given that the adults in her life never did. Her practiced lying is something to sympathize with her over, not look down on her for.

#his dark materials #the golden compass #lyra silvertongue #lyra didn't have a single adult actually treat her right until she met Farder Coram #and later Iorek Byrnison + Lee Scoresby + Serafina Pekkala #although Ma Costa came close she still hit Lyra so hard she got dizzy *twice* before #and yeah Lyra doing things like stealing the boat isn't great. but Lyra was a *child*#and it's not okay to hit children #(the one time Iorek hit her it was to knock her out of the way of an arrow. so he is given a pass bc he was saving her life)#i don't think John Faa ever hit her either. tho she did fear him. and she never feared Farder Coram #so that's why i give it to Farder Coram over John Faa

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