Not Supposed to Be a Mother

She'd been a mother for a matter of days but Marisa Coulter had scarcely even seen her child, nor had she made an attempt to. She'd caught her daemon gazing at the door leading to the child's nursery multiple times, which had made her pinch him in anger, because she simply wasn't supposed to be a mother.

One night while going to turn in for sleep however, the golden monkey's curiosity got the better of him. Finding the door of the nursery ajar, she could feel his pining in their shared link and, with barely a glance at her, he'd started to move into the room before she could stop him.

"Don't," Marisa hissed, feeling the urge to hit her daemon for his disobedience as she followed him into the room, but the anger she felt was replaced with some other emotion she couldn't quite place as her gaze set on the crib and she caught sight of the infant inside it.

Mrs Coulter had never found babies particularly endearing and when Lyra had been born screaming and covered in blood, Marisa's intiial reaction had been disgust rather than anything maternal. However, as she stepped close to the crib and her eyes found her daughter's sleeping face, it made something stir in the woman's heart. There was Asriel in some of Lyra's features, enough to make her mother panic to see it but subtle enough that she hoped that it wouldn't be as obvious to others, but Marisa also recognised a little of herself in this infant's face. It was scrunched up in a light frown, tiny lips just slightly parted, and Mrs Coulter couldn't help but smile a little at the expression.

Lyra's daemon was in the form a tiny kitten and when his eyes blinked open and he let out a tiny mew, the golden monkey climbed up on to Marisa's back - she had to resist the urge to shove him off of her - and reached in to the crib to pet the other daemon's head. Lyra herself stirred moments later, letting out a fussy noise, and Marisa reacted before she could even register what she was doing.

"Shhh." She reached to cup one of the newborn's cheeks and gently rubbed a thumb over the soft skin there. This seemed to soothe the baby, who momentarily blinked her eyes open to stare at her mother, before closing them and turning her head to sleep more. Marisa smiled again, though there was some momentary confusion at what she was doing behind it, and her hand moved up to the top of her daughter's head, her fingertips running over the thin dark hair there.

Then the moment was over and as the golden monkey moved off of her back, Mrs Coulter's anger returned. She reached to grasp a chunk of his golden fur in her hands, giving it a warning tug, and moved towards the door and out of the nursery. The golden monkey spared one last glance towards the crib, before following her out.