and walked into the sky [Worm/His Dark Materials fusion]

[YseultNott]

Taylor is scary. She knows this.

She is Wayward. Vitiated. Defiled. People look at her and they see a sinner, they see a fool, they saw someone who succumbed and who broke, a parody of a person.

(There are whispers about the Wayward, talks about quiet, empty people. There are places in the Magisterium where the Wicked scream and beg, and Taylor has never seen a daemon to Colin.)

Alasdair is always white. Be it scales, feathers or fur, Alasdair is always white, and scars crawl over his skin.

Her mother's daemon is a great horned owl.

When Alasdair turns into an owl, people feel as scared, as lonely as Taylor was when she was six and strangers came to take her mother away.

Taylor is lucky, in a way.

It could have been worse.

 

[YseultNott]

Taylor's mother isn't dead, she knows that much.

She was arrested for heresy, and forced to work for them. The Magisterium keep her prisoner, but she has space and materials to work with, and the house she is kept in is comfortable. Taylor knows that because Colin told her.

Taylor is pretty sure he didn't lie. He wouldn't have let her keep false hopes.

Taylor doesn't really remember her mother. She was too young. Mostly, she remembers losing her.

Taylor wishes she still had a mother, or a father, but all she has is Colin and he tries, he really does, but his hands are tied and he's the one who took her mother away.

 

[YseultNott]

There is a child walking in the Magisterium hallway. He looks to be seven or eight, and is very, very pale in his hospital gown.

The boy has no eyes.

The boy has no eyes.

The boy walks into a wall, and Taylor rushes to his side.

He's sobbing, and Taylor doesn't know what to do. She's not used to interacting with children. Parents generally keep them away from her.

"It's, er, it's okay," she says, and she awkwardly rubs the boy's back. "It's fine. Err, what's your name?"

"S… Sammy," the boy chokes out between sobs.

"Okay, Sammy," Taylor says. "Can you tell me what's wrong? Maybe I can help."

"My head hurts," Sammy says. "I can see all those things and it hurts."

Taylor doesn't understand, and Sammy's daemon, peeking around his ankles, has scars like ropes in its brown fur.

 

[YseultNott]

Colin was sixteen when he saw a girl in a hallway, only a year older than him, her blonde hair brushing her shoulders.

There was no daemon with her and she looked empty. Wrong.

When he tried to talk to her, she didn't react.

A woman dressed like a nurse came and took her away.

(Later, Colin learned about the Intercision. About the Magisterium cutting daemons away. About the attempts to free the Vitiated from their sins.)

(He learned that it didn't work. He learned that this particular project was stopped mere months before his own defilement.)

Colin was sixteen when he learned he was lucky.

(The nurse called the girl Carol. He took care to remember her name.)







Colin never liked any of the things that were going on in the Station, and he never was comfortable with his own role in Annette Hebert's involvement.

(She didn't volunteer. They dangled Taylor's daemon and life in front of her, and she did what they asked. It's his fault, really. He should have…)

(There had to be another way.)

Colin saw what they did, with children daemons and titanium-manganese knives, and no matter how successful the experiments, a part of him whispers it wasn't worth it.

 

[YseultNott]

Taylor asks Colin about Sammy.

"I've heard of him," he says. "He's part of a special program. He's not Vitiated, not quite, even if there are… Similarities."

"The scars," Taylor says.

"As well as some abilities, yes" Colin confirms. There is something in his voice, something heavy and tired.

"You said you knew of him, specifically," Taylor points out.

Colin sighs.

"He can see freely into other worlds,"he says. "This is obviously of great interest to the Magisterium."

"Matthew could already do that," Taylor says.

The Magisterium introduced him about a year after her mother's arrest. A man, a teenager at the time, who could freely open doors to other realities.

"Not inhabited worlds," Colin says.

He sounds worried.

 

[YseultNott]

"You're worried," Taylor says.

Colin hesitates, then sighs again.

"Yes," he says. "I am."

"Why ?" Taylor asks. "I mean, there are other inhabited worlds! We could meet people from other worlds! Don't you want to?"

"Of course I do," Colin says. "We could gain a lot from such an encounter. The possible differences in scientific discoveries alone…"

His voice trails of for a few seconds.

"What worries me is…" He says, going back to his original point. "Well. The Magisterium has its eyes on expansion, nowadays. People up high wants more. To be more. To have more. It's not a bad thing, of course, to have more people under the Magisterium's guidance. But people on the other side will likely not see it this way."

Taylor feels a stone falls in her stomach.

"You think there will be a war?" she asks.

"Yes," Colin says. "I think there will be a war."

 

[YseultNott]

Taylor doesn't want there to be a war.

She doesn't want people to die. She doesn't want to kill them.

If there is a war, she will have to fight, she knows that. The Magisterium will send her to the front lines, to scare the enemy and break assaults and push them to desertion or, worse even, she will be sent amongst civilians to break morale by terrifying crowds. Colin will be sent somewhere else to produce equipment for soldiers.

If there is a war, Taylor will kill, or she will die.

She doesn't want to kill. She wants to kill for the Magisterium even less.

She most certainly refuses to die for them.

 

[YseultNott]

"I think you're wrong," Taylor tells Colin, and it might be the most dangerous thing she ever did.

"Wrong?" Colin asks. "What about?"

Taylor takes a deep breath.

"You said other worlds being under the influence of the Magisterium wasn't a bad thing," she says. "I think you're wrong."

Colin tenses.

"Taylor, that's heresy," he hisses, but he on his face there is more worry than anger, and so she continues

"What if there are people like us there?" she asks. "What if they're… What if they're fine? The Magisterium is going to treat them like us, like they're…"

Vitiated.

Wayward or Wicked.

Colin opens his mouth to speak, and Taylor already knows what he's going to say. About Sin. About redemption. About making up for one's failings. About penance through service.

"Do you think," Taylor asks, "that I deserved it?"

 

[YseultNott]

After Annette Herbert's arrest, it took Colin months to be able to look Taylor in the eyes.

Vitiated. Wayward. Defiled.

It was his fault. He did it to her.

Father Renick said it was her own fault. She let herself be tempted. The guilt, the nagging guilt, won't let Colin forget that she was only six, and he was the one who brought the temptation to her, to the little girl who fell.

Vitiated. Wayward.

(Not Wicked. Never Wicked.)







After Annette Herbert's arrest, it took Colin months to be able to look Taylor in the eyes. Sometimes, he still can't, the guilt turning his stomach like a bad wine.

It was his fault.

Sometimes, Colin looks at her, at her growth and victories, and he feels pride.

She could have been so great.

(No, he doesn't think she deserved it.)

 

[YseultNott]

When Taylor sees Colin again after their fight, there is a woman with him she doesn't recognize, and her stomach drops like a stone.

He gave her in.

She… She knew it was a risk, but she didn't actually thought he would.

Taylor feels her throat close.

He raised her. As angry as she was at him, and for all their disagreements… He raised her.

She thought he cared.

Alasdair turns into an owl, the familiar aura of fear and loneliness spreading around them.

Taylor refuses to go down without a fight.

"Wait," Colin says.

"Taylor?" the woman asks and, under the fear and the loneliness, there is a heartbreaking mix of hope and wonder.

Her hair looks like Taylor's, and her daemon, flying around the corner, is an owl.

 

[YseultNott]

"Mom?" Taylor asks, and the woman nods, tears in her eyes as Alasdair turns into a more innocuous bird.

Her arms close around Taylor. She smells like ink and paper, like blood and ashes, and Taylor doesn't know how to feel.

This is her mother. This is the woman who gave birth to her, who raised her for two fifth of her life, who loved her more than anyone else did.

This is a stranger, clinging to Taylor like a lifeline in a storm.

"I'm sorry Taylor, but we don't have time for this," Colin says. "We need to get Matthew and Samuel before they realize she's gone."

"I am right here," the woman, Taylor's mother, says as she breaks the embrace, "and we would have more time if you didn't burn my research."

"There would be little point in taking Samuel from the Magisterium if we left them instructions about how to recreate him," Colin says, and Taylor feels a bit lost.

"What's going on?" she asks.

Colin takes a deep breath.

"We're stopping a war," he says.

 

[amateras]

This is just wonderful. Thanks for writing!

 

[YseultNott]

"What's the plan?" Taylor asks.

"We're getting the Clairvoyant, and if possible the Doormaker, out of the Magisterium hands," her mother says. "There won't be a war if they can't reach the other side."

"Afterwards," Colin continues, "If Matthew has agreed to come with us, we will travel to a different world to avoid pursuit. If not, we will attempt to gain a country where the Magisterium has less power, like Texas."

"Clairvoyant? Doormaker?" Taylor asks.

"I was not made aware of the name of my patients," her mother says.

Her patients?

Nevermind. They do not have time for this.

"It would be faster if we split up," Taylor says.

Colin hesitates.

"They are unlikely to agree to follow you, Mrs Hebert," he tells her mother.

"I don't trust you," her mother tells him.

Damn.

 

[YseultNott]

In the end, Colin and her mother go fetch Samuel together so that they can keep an eye on each other, and Taylor goes to find Matthew.

It's a relief. It probably makes her a terrible person, but getting some time away from her mother and Colin… It's a relief.

She needs time. She needs to process.

Colin isn't her father, isn't her dad, but he raised her. He told her stories as a child, half-remembered fairy tales where he made up the missing parts, she sat on the floor of his workshop as he made impossible machines and explained to her that the Sun was a star, she learned to read on the Scriptures, his fingers running under the words. He gave her candy on her birthdays and taught her everything he could and whenever she did well, he put his hand her shoulder and she knew he was proud of her.

He taught her about Sin, and penance, and service. He made her feel so scared she became the scary one. He took her mother away.

He betrayed the Magisterium for her. He gave her mother back.

Her mother, whose voice broke when she said Taylor's name. Her mother, who hugged her, who smells of ink and ashes. Her mother, who is a stranger.

Her mother, who doesn't like Colin.

When this is over, when they're in another world, or maybe Texas, will they stay together? Or will they split up?

Will Taylor have to choose?

She reaches Matthew's rooms.

He isn't there.

 

[YseultNott]

One time, when she was ten, Taylor asked him if he ever wanted to leave the Magisterium, and Colin had to think of an answer.

The answer, if he was fully honest, was yes.

He knew it shouldn't have been. He was Wayward. Vitiated. Sinful. He needed the guidance. The penance. He deserved it.

He was Sinful. Vitiated. Wayward. He strayed, if only in thought. He was Greedy, Envious, Prideful, Wrathful and Lazy.

(He wanted more, or better. He wanted to be treated the way normal, good people were. He wanted to be thanked for his work, to be recognized for it. He was angry, sometimes, that he got none of those things he shouldn't have desired.)

(He wanted to have a day for himself and rest.)

Colin shouldn't have wanted to leave the Magisterium, but even at his most Wayward, he knew he wouldn't anyway.

They had Eleutheria locked in a cage, the distance between them heavier than any chains.

One time, when she was ten, Taylor asked him if he ever wanted to leave the Magisterium, and Colin had to think of an answer.

"No," he said.

It was easier than the truth. Safer. For both her and himself.







Colin finally reaches Samuel's room and, after a brief struggle, manages to knock out the guard.

"This would have been easier with your armor," Annette Hebert says behind him. "You know, the one you were wearing when you arrested me."

Colin chases away a flicker of impatience.

"It's kept under key when not in official use," he says, "and waiting for the next maintenance would have taken too long."

He opens the door of Samuel's room. A priest is inside, sitting besides the Boy.

He has a gun.

 

[YseultNott]

Taylor needs to find Matthew.

She doesn't have the time to run around in circles, nor does she have the possibility to ask.

She needs to think.

Where could he be? What could he be doing?

The first answer to come to her is that he's working, that he's opening doors for the Magisterium, assisting in the preparations of War, and Taylor hopes it's not that, hopes he's doing something else, because she can't think of anything they could do.

The second answer is that he's taking in some fresh air, in that out-of-the-way courtyard he likes.

It's not far from Samuel's cell. At worst, she can find Colin and her… Her mother, and they will advise.

Yes. It's a plan.

It's better than nothing.

 

[YseultNott]

Matthew is in the courtyard.

He's sitting on a bench with a book in his lap, fingers running on the pages, and the Sun draws patterns on the stone pavement. The scene looks peaceful, almost out of time.

Taylor taps Matthew's shoulder and he jumps, a little, and offers his hand for her to sign her name.

"Hello, Taylor," Matthew says. "What brings you here?"

I wanted to ask you a question, Taylor writes in his palm.

"Oh?" he says.

Taylor nods, then remembers he won't be able to see it.

Why do you work for the Magisterium? she asks.

"They take care of me," Matthew says. "They have, since I was a child. Even if they were the ones who made me the way I am, I don't really have any other option."

Oh.

She… She might actually have a chance.

If someone swore to take care of you, Taylor signs, torn between hope and dread, and going with them would save thousands of lives, would you do it?

 

[YseultNott]

Matthew still hasn't answered Taylor, still has to think about it when Colin and her mother reach the courtyard, little Sammy in tow. There is a bruise darkening on Colin's cheekbone, and a long cut along his side. He has a gun, the same kind Father Renick hides under his coat.

"A priest was there," Colin says. "We managed to escape with Samuel."

For a second, there is silence.

"I would," Matthew says suddenly, blind and deaf to their arrival, and Taylor can feel her cautious hope bloom in her chest like a dangerous flower. "I will. If you will have me."

She feels like she could fly, like nothing could ever hurt her again, and she turns toward Colin to share a smile, and…

"Taylor," he says. "I… They still have her. Eleutheria."

For a second, she doesn't understand. She doesn't know that name, has never heard it before.

And then, she feels Alasdair's fur under her fingers, and she remembers the empty space at Colin's side.

The flower wilts.

 

[YseultNott]

They step through a door Matthew makes and walk inside a room, and the room is full of cages, and the cages are full of daemons, scarred and white as snow and bones.

They look numb. Tired. Sick. Like they stayed in their cages for too long and lost both hope and their will to fight.

There is a lump in Taylor's throat, and she buries her hands in Alasdair's fur.

(He's there. He's with her. He's not in a cage, not torn away, he's there.)

"Eleutheria!" Colin screams, "Eleutheria!"

"Colin!" the voice is feminine, and strangely warm. "Colin, it's…"

Colin falls on his knees, gasping. The voice is screaming, an inarticulate sound that makes Taylor want to hurl.

"I am disappointed in you, Nicholas," Father Renick says, and he's holding a crow in his bare hands, a white crow covered in scars, and that is wrong, wrong, wrong, he's not allowed to do that, it's worse than… Than…

It's wrong on a level Taylor has no words for, but Samuel is still clutching her hand, and his daemon has scars, too, and the Magisterium already did worse.

Father Renick tightens his grip around the crow. Colin sobs.

"Stop," Taylor says, and her voice feels very distant. "Please, stop. Let her go."

"No," Father Renick says. "I don't think I will. Really, you should count yourself lucky. There are many things I could be doing, and none is as gentle as merely holding it."

He smiles.

"I advise you surrender," he says.

 

[YseultNott]

Taylor can't move. Taylor can't move, and neither can Alasdair, or her mother, fists held tight, or Matthew, who can't even tell what is going on, or Colin, kneeling on the floor. Father Renick watches, and his hands are on Eleutheria, and Taylor can't think of a way to act where white feathers won't turn to Dust.

No one is paying attention to Samuel's daemon, to little brown Saxonne, always a sparrow or a mice or something small and scared, remarkable only for her scars.

Saxonne turns into a wolf and jumps at Father Renick's dog daemon's throat.

It's not enough, not quite, it doesn't kill her, but it hurts her, and him, enough that his grip opens and Eleutheria escapes.

Colin doesn't get up, stays kneeling as for a prayer, but before Taylor can act, before anyone can move, the gun in his hand, the gun he took from the priest, the gun doesn't waver.

Colin presses the trigger, and Renick falls.

(Her mother puts a hand on her shoulder, turns her head away from the blood, and Taylor realizes she won't have to choose.)

 

[YseultNott]

On the first night Colin spent in the Magisterium, Father Renick locked the door of his room.

The room was small, and sparse. A cot, a blanket, a shelf with a Bible and two changes of grey clothes, a naked lighbulb on the ceiling, and nothing else.

Colin sat on the cot, and looked at the cold tiles on the floor, and the white paint on the walls, and the metal of the door that wouldn't open.

It took him hours to fall asleep, ears still filled with the sound of the lock clicking in place.







Father Renick is dead.

Father Renick is dead, and Eleutheria is here, Eleutheria is right here, perched on top of a cage, and Colin doesn't dare touch her.

(What if she leaves? What if she goes away forever?)

"We have his daemon," Annette Hebert says. "Time to leave now."

"Wait," Taylor says. "Just… We can't leave them like that."

"No," Matthew says. "We can't. And I would appreciate some revenge on the Magisterium, as petty and sinful as it may be."

He's holding Samuel's hand, seeing through his eyes. There were theories he would be able to do that.

"We don't have time," Annette Hebert says.

"We don't need it," Matthew says, and he opens a door at the bottom of every cage, and then another in front of himself, and through the door Colin can see a sky so blue, and a grass so green, and the wind brings the sound and the smell of the sea.

A way out. He… He never dared to think of one, not really. Didn't think he would survive his desperate attempt to escape.

(He doesn't deserve it.)

Taylor steps through the door, then her mother, and Matthew, still holding Samuel's hand, and Eleutheria follows them.

(He doesn't deserve it.)

He walks through the door, leaving the Magisterium behind and, for the first time since he was fifteen, under the Sun of another world, Colin holds his daemon in his arms.

Spoiler: Final Author Note

And that's done! Hope you had a good time!

 

[YseultNott]

This story now has a sidestory, whatever little chance of safety there is, focused on Colin and Taylor during the timeskip.