“On the beach, just before you tried the alethiometer. He said there wasn’t any elsewhere. It was what his father had told you. But there was something else.”

“I remember. He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn’t live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.”

“He said we had to build something…”

“That’s why we needed our full life, Pan. We would have gone with Will and Kirjava, wouldn’t we?”

“Yes. Of course! And they would have come with us. But…”

“But then we wouldn’t have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…”

Her hands were resting on his glossy fur. Somewhere in the garden a nightingale was singing, and a little breeze touched her hair and stirred the leaves overhead. All the different bells of the city chimed, once each, this one high, that one low, some close by, others farther off, one cracked and peevish, another grave and sonorous, but agreeing in all their different voices on what the time was, even if some of them got to it a little more slowly than others. In that other Oxford where she and Will had kissed good-bye, the bells would be chiming, too, and a nightingale would be singing, and a little breeze would be stirring the leaves in the Botanic Garden.

“And then what?” said her daemon sleepily. “Build what?”

“The Republic of Heaven,” said Lyra.

- Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials (The Amber Spyglass)

(via intotheobscurity)

theredvirgin:

Lyra and Pan by ~geek-core

(via goldencompass)

(Source: solitudeofself)

heidipie:

Hester Hare and the Bottle of Tokay!

etosaurus:

what if Andalites and Mulefa were best friends

what if I learned how to draw hoofed critters

(ps- I used Zoe’s Mulefa Anatomy Sheet for the feet and generally making sense about how their bodies look (sorry Zoe, I know you probably didn’t want that drudged up rofl BUT I THINK IT MAKES SENSE) with some modifications to their heads and stuff because I always imagined them to be kind of like macrauchenia.)

He saw her before she saw him. There was a bounding and a heavy clank of metal, and in a flurry of snow Iorek Byrnison stood beside her.

“Oh, Iorek! I’ve done a terrible thing! My dear, you’re going to have to fight Iofur Raknison, and you en’t ready- you’re tired and hungry, and your armor’s-”

“What terrible thing?”

“I told him you was coming, because I read it on the symbol reader; and he’s desperate to be like a person and have a daemon, just desperate. So I tricked him into thinking that I was your daemon, and I was going to desert you and be his instead, but he had to fight you to make it happen. Because otherwise, Iorek, dear, they’d never let you fight, they were going to just burn you up before you got close-”

“You tricked Iofur Raknison?”

“Yes. I made him agree that he’d fight you instead of just killing you straight off like an outcast, and the winner would be king of the bears. I had to do that, because-”

“Belacqua? No. You are Lyra Silvertongue,” he said. “To fight him is all I want. Come, little daemon.”

She looked at Iorek Byrnison in his battered armor, lean and ferocious, and felt as if her heart would burst with pride.

[…]

Lyra was in tears. Her dear, her brave one, her fearless defender, was going to die, and she would not do him the treachery of looking away, for if he looked at her he must see her shining eyes and their love and belief, not a face hidden in cowardice or a shoulder fearfully turned away.

So she looked, but her tears kept her from seeing what was really happening, and perhaps it would not have been visible to her anyway. It certainly was not seen by Iofur.

Because Iorek was moving backward only to find clean dry footing and a firm rock to leap up from, and the useless left arm was really fresh and strong. You could not trick a bear, but, as Lyra had shown him, Iofur did not want to be a bear, he wanted to be a man; and Iorek was tricking him.

At last he found what he wanted: a firm rock deep-anchored in the permafrost. He backed against it, tensing his legs and choosing his moment.

It came when Iofur reared high above, bellowing his triumph, and turning his head tauntingly toward Iorek’s apparently weak left side.

That was when Iorek moved. Like a wave that has been building its strength over a thousand miles of ocean, and which makes little stir in the deep water, but which when it reaches the shallows rears itself up high into the sky, terrifying the shore dwellers, before crashing down on the land with irresistible power-so Iorek Byrnison rose up against Iofur, exploding upward from his firm footing on the dry rock and slashing with a ferocious left hand at the exposed jaw of Iofur Raknison.

It was a horrifying blow. It tore the lower part of his jaw clean off, so that it flew through the air scattering blood drops in the snow many yards away.

Iofur’s red tongue lolled down, dripping over his open throat. The bear-king was suddenly voiceless, biteless, helpless, Iorek needed nothing more. He lunged, and then his teeth were in Iofur’s throat, and he shook and shook this way, that way, lifting the huge body off the ground and battering it down as if Iofur were no more than a seal at the water’s edge.

Then he ripped upward, and Iofur Raknison’s life came away in his teeth.

[…]

“Let me help you-I want to make sure you en’t too badly hurt, Iorek dear-oh, I wish there was some bandages or something! That’s an awful cut on your belly-”

A bear laid a mouthful of some stiff green stuff, thickly frosted, on the ground at Iorek’s feet.

“Bloodmoss,” said Iorek. “Press it in the wounds for me, Lyra. Fold the flesh over it and then hold some snow there till it freezes.”

He wouldn’t let any bears attend to him, despite their eagerness. Besides, Lyra’s hands were deft, and she was desperate to help; so the small human bent over the great bear-king, packing in the bloodmoss and freezing the raw flesh till it stopped bleeding. When she had finished, her mittens were sodden with Iorek’s blood, but his wounds were stanched.

- Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass)

(Source: sjaejones)

(Source: windowonthewest, via moremiserythancreature)

skyjakljufur asked:

Hii! I saw you on the His Dark Materials tag and I was wondering if you could check out my HDM blog, moremiserythancreature. :3 I feel so awkward pimping it out, but I just wanted to spread the HDM love since our fanbase is so little. ):

Answer:

Here’s a direct link to follow, Sraffies!: http://moremiserythancreature.tumblr.com/

30kiloslighter:

It only takes a parcel to fix some of the shittiest days you’ll ever have.

(via goldencompass)

shukfollowsstuff asked:

I've just read "His Dark Materials" because of your tumblr posts! It's a great series, I loved it! Have you listened to the Guardian Books podcast with Philip Pullman already? It's very interesting, so you might want to check it out if you haven't listened to it yet. Tumblr doesn't allow me to post links (why oh why?), but it's the first hit if you search for "guardian books podcast his dark materials".

Answer:

Yay, this makes me so happy I can’t even! HDM deserves so much more love than it gets (though I’m sure the movie treatment didn’t much help in that regard).

I haven’t heard of the podcast, but I’ll definitely check it out. Something to tide me over until the Book of Dust is released! Thanks for the tip! :)

Hey, if you enjoy audiobooks, Pullman narrates HDM himself. And there’s a full cast! Iorek sounds exactly how you’d expect. It’s awesome and now I totally want to listen to it again!

kororaa:

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

WHAT.

hungry-for-books:

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials (by Arne Frey)

Buy ALL the editions!

(via brieana90)

showittotheharpies:

WOOHOO!!!! Thus concludes Book One of the HDM Trilogy!! Now we move on to The Subtle Knife! 

once again I apologize for the horribly delayed update. >_< 

and for the uh

the two story tall lamppost 

Ch. 22: The Bridge to the Stars

“And we’ve got the alethiometer,” she said “Yeah. I reckon we’ve got to do it, Pan. We’ll go up there and we’ll search for Dust, and when we’ve found it we’ll know what to do.”

Roger’s body lay still in her arms. She let him down gently.

“And we’ll do it,” she said.

She turned away. Behind them lay pain and death and fear; ahead od them lay doubt, and danger, and fathomless mysteries. But they weren’t alone. 

So Lyra and her daemon turned away from the world they were born in, and looked toward the sun, and walked into the sky.