Will Parry (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
becauseheswill) wrote2011-05-27 04:29 pm
becauseheswill) wrote2011-05-27 04:29 pm
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Character Name: William Parry
Series: His Dark Materials
Age: Seventeen.
From When?: Three years post canon.
Inmate/Warden: Warden.
Item: A green leather writing case.
Abilities/Powers: Will is, for the most part, a normal human boy. However, he does have a few unique abilities that have come with his adventures and general upbringing, chief among them that he is able to blend into crowds and escape attention and notice from other people. This isn't supernatural, although it has been referenced by other characters as being almost supernatural, just well practiced understanding of what behavior people tend not to notice and playing that up to avoid detection and attention. Entire crowds have stopped paying attention to him, even after he's specifically called attention to himself and faced down an armored bear to end a conflict for them, and as such, if he wants to be, he can be nearly invisible.
Will used to be the bearer of the Subtle Knife. While the knife itself has been broken so as to avoid the temptation of using it to cut between the worlds again, his ability to wield it has given him a grace to diagnose people's illnesses and suffering, thus making him cut out to be a talented doctor (and future surgeon). At this point, he he tries to hide it as best he can in his own world in fear that others would believe it supernatural. On the Barge, it's likely he'll be less secretive once exposed to other people's powers and abilities.
Because of his journey to the world of the dead, his dæmon - called Kirjava, settled as a large, dark furred cat - has taken physical form, rather than hiding wherever people in "our" world's souls do. Dæmons are the literal physical representation of a soul, and although they have a separate personality and identity from their human, they are considered to be one entity. As such, they are not pets, and are just as intelligent as their human and capable of speech, although generally they talk only to their humans unless there's necessary information to pass along to another human, or if their human is unable to speak for themself. Dæmons do however talk to and interact physically with other dæmons quite frequently. It is very much a symbiotic relationship. If Will is hurt, it affects Kirjava, and if she is somehow in danger, he'll know and be affected as well. Touching another person's dæmon is considered to be taboo - basically a form of assault, in the novel the difference between Lyra and Will touching each other's dæmons while romantically attracted to each other versus someone touching another person's dæmon in any other situation is similar to that between making love and rape - and makes the person who's dæmon is being touched feel extremely nauseous and ill, and the dæmon will struggle to break free as much as possible, although can be overwhelmed by the contact and more or less faint. If Will is killed, Kirjava will vanish (and presumably be revived when Will is), and if she's killed, Will similarly will drop dead instantly.
Usually, dæmons can only move a relatively short distance from their human and separation is painful and can end in death if the bond is stretched too far, but Will and Kirjava can stay great distances away from each other because of their separation when Will journeyed to the world of the dead. That said, being separated for great lengths of time (days, weeks, etc.) is still painful, and as such, the two generally stick close together if at all possible. Humans and dæmons also share a sort of weak telepathic bond, in that they can sense each other's presence instinctively, and can even sometimes pass thoughts telepathically between each other. Dæmons are also more attuned to supernatural things like spirits and ghasts than humans, and are more likely to sense them then their human is.
Personality: Will grew up quickly, even before he was forced into a situation far larger than he initially expected when he first wandered through the window from his world to another. Living with a single mother - his father having vanished without a trace when he was young - with undiagnosed mental health issues forced him to learn how not only to take care of himself, but more importantly, to take care of her. As such, he's been, for all intents and purposes, a responsible adult since the age of seven, and after dealing with issues far larger than those he faced in his own world alone, he's matured even more. He understands how people and the world work, and he knows how to manipulate this to his advantage, staying under other people's radar and trying to look as normal and unassuming as possible, knowing when to do and say the right thing almost instinctively, and knowing how to assert himself when need be to get people to do what he wants. He's independent and self sufficient, and has a tendency to be reluctant to rely on others to take care of him, even if sometimes he yearns for his mother to be the one comforting him, and not the other way around when sick or worried.
This sense of responsibility and maturity means that he isn't concerned by the same problems as other teenagers his age, and this has been an issue since he was a young child. Because of his mother's illness and his fear that if people found out about it, he would be taken away from her, he never really had friends growing up, and his first real friend was Lyra. Even after he returned home permanently, he still finds it hard to relate to others his own age, as he's gone through so much in such a short period of time that it's difficult to really connect with his peers. This suits him just fine, as he's never been a social person and lacks other people's casual ease with strangers. Since returning, he's had slightly more ease in communicating with adults, and generally carries less of a hostile don't approach me edge, as he no longer has to actively worry about the authorities taking his mother away from him or caring for her all by herself. This instead has been replaced with a sort of quiet sadness, as though he's been through a lot and doesn't want to talk about it, which he has and doesn't. Occasionally, he'll have moments of feeling incredibly alone because of all this - not having anyone to look after him, missing Lyra, etcetera - but in recent years, that has ebbed considerably with the help and presence of Mary Malone, and his dæmon, Kirjava, both of whom are ones he can go to to talk about worries and anxieties, rather than keeping it bottled up as before.
Will has a hard time opening up and trusting people right off the bat, and tends to be very secretive. It's instinct to close off and be very defensive and self protective, and even though he has relatively little to fear now that things have settled down and gone back to "normal", it's difficult for him to let his guard down entirely, especially because there are things he's been through that he'll probably never be able to really explain to other people. Unlike Lyra, he is not a skilled or natural liar, and has a tendency to stay very closed mouthed about himself and his life, or just gives out basic facts and leaves it at that in contrast to her constant tall tale spinning to embellish her own life and the things she's done. Will prefers to go through life largely unnoticed, and doesn't want to open himself up to anyone, as left over habits about not being able to trust anyone, and current reasons for why telling the world about what he's experienced have pooled together to ensure he'll probably always have a hard time opening up to someone and trusting them fully without going through some kind of long term bonding experience with them.
That said, once Will adjusts to a person's presence in his life, and assuming he ends up bonding with them somehow, he is a good and loyal friend, willing to do just about anything for the people he cares about. He is fiercely protective of those he cares about. All his life, he has been looking out for and caring for his mother above everything else, and he's never resented her for it, even though it's meant that he's largely done the parenting for her and had no one to look after him while he grew up. While he might from time to time have envied other kids who had less responsibility, he loved and loves her enough not to mind how things turned out, and he continues to be a good son to her. This level of protection and devotion has extended to Lyra and Mary Malone as well. Because of this sense of loyalty and devotion, although they did say they wouldn't refuse to move on if the situation presented itself, it's highly unlikely that Will will ever truly love anyone as much as he loves Lyra, despite the impossible distance separating them, and because of that, it's equally unlikely that he'll ever really love or marry anyone out of devotion to her. It would be impossible not to compare the two, and being that dishonest with someone and constantly worrying about making comparisons when he knows he shouldn't just goes against his nature.
He is extremely selfless. In caring for his mother and throughout the novels, Will makes decisions that benefit other people, but leave him lacking what he truly wants in life, whether that is feelings of security and friends, or a future with Lyra. The easiest way to get at him is to threaten someone he cares about, and he will literally do just about anything to help them. This extends to doing the right thing in general, as if something would benefit him in the short term, but hurt the larder population in the long run, he won't do it, no matter how much he might actually want it.
Will empathizes highly with those being picked on or subjugated for whatever reason because of how people have treated his mother, and has stepped in to intervene on behalf of someone who was too weak to stand up for themselves on more than one occasion. That said, Will is incredibly brave, and while not fearless, knows how to master his fear and fight on anyway. As such, he often appears fearless to others, and only allows himself to be vulnerable when he feels he can, generally in private or in the company of someone like Lyra. Really, he just knows what he wants and how to get it, and isn't afraid of doing what it takes to get it, which often gives him the advantage over others who are unwilling or too scared to take that step. Specifically, while he doesn't enjoy violence, he is certainly capable of it and doesn't shy away at the last moment, going in for brutal attacks that will actually hurt and cause damage rather than have a dramatic flair, which is something he's noted not many other people have the ability to do.
As such, it's not surprising that throughout his time traveling through worlds and fighting against the forces that wished him and his companions harm, Will has been described as a warrior. The first thing the Alethiometer tells Lyra about him is that he's a murderer (although the action was an accident or at most self defense), and he draws frequent comparisons to Lord Asriel and Iorek Byrinson by various characters, is often described as fierce and intimidating, despite his age, and as the bearer of the Subtle Knife is apparently somehow inherently suited for the role, as the knife chose him to wield it. He resents this label, as he doesn't actually enjoy fighting or killing, but he is good at it. Again, he knows how to get what he wants and isn't afraid to take the necessary steps to do it, and if that means hurting or killing another person, he can and will do it, although he might resent the action afterwards. He only kills when it's absolutely necessary, and tries to avoid violence unless as a last resort, and gets angry and frustrated with others who don't use this same approach. Even when its suggested that he or someone in their party should put an injured toad out of its misery in the suburbs of the world of the dead, he points out that the toad might prefer living in pain than the idea of death, and because it can't tell them if it does or not, he isn't going to make the decision for it.
He has strong morals and convictions, and in general is stubborn and resistant to change how he thinks or feels about something even if it would probably be more productive to accept certain things and move on rather than constantly fighting with himself and nature about it. He makes Lyra pay for things she takes out of other worlds and does the same himself, and constantly tries to do the right thing, striving for fairness and as little death and violence as possible throughout their journey. That said, he is not a strictly by the book sort of person, and in some ways has potential to be just as crafty as Lyra. However, these actions are never done for fun or jest as hers occasionally are, and everything he does he tries to do with a reason behind it, rather than barreling into something impulsively. Of course, this still happens, but he tries to do right by everyone.
This warrior nature has largely been put aside back home, as again, most of the things he had to fight against have been tucked away and he's been back to a mundane, normal life for an English teenager. However, it is still very much a dormant part of him, something that can be called upon in a time of need (as it no doubt will be on the Barge), because although he didn't like it, he did it because he had to. If he has to again, he can.
That said, Will is very much interested in being able to choose his own fate and destiny rather than have someone tell him exactly how his life will or should work out. He directly stops the angel Xaphania from telling him anything about his future or what he should do with himself in favor of choosing for himself, instead of resenting a path chosen for him against his will, and when his father tries to tell him he's a warrior, he still resents the label, and ultimately says that it wasn't a part of his nature and therefore unavoidable: he did it because he had to, and he doesn't have to anymore after the final battle. He would rather do what he wants to or has to for the benefit of the people he cares about and the population at large because he wants to and it's the right thing, not because something has told him he has to.
Although he's generally quiet, he is extremely assertive when he has to be, although this is often done in a more fiercely subtle way than outright shouting for something. He has a sort of quiet intensity about him, a hardness that suggests he's capable of following through on threats and in general is not someone to be messed around with, despite the fact that he's relatively young. When he wants something, he wants it and knows how to get it, and good luck to anyone who stands in his way. As such, he can be fairly bossy, and is a natural leader, reluctant to follow the orders of others unless he sees the logic in them, and even then, he would much rather do his own thing. He can be a decent teacher, if he has to be, although he can be impatient and brusque at first or when already frustrated. He also does have something of a temper, although this has evened out to really only exhibit itself in times of high stress and frustration, so as not to call attention to himself.
He can be curious about new things, although again, is not a instinctively social person, and as such can come off as a little standoffish initially, even if he doesn't mean to. Because of his exposure to other worlds and things like dæmons, windows between worlds, armored bears, Specters and everything else, not much will necessarily faze him in the long term. That said, superpowers and things like floods might be a source of some confusion initially, as they're both quite different from the things he's used to, but again, he's not a stranger to new things, and will likely adapt quickly, as most people do.
As a warden, Will is likely to be assertive and bossy, but can soften after bonding with an inmate, and will be loyal and extremely protective once he's formed a connection with his assigned inmate. He won't be easily intimidated, and won't be afraid to do what's necessary to make sure they don't harm anyone else and can eventually graduate and leave. He'll take his job seriously, and want to be involved in the inmate's life on the Barge, even if it's likely going to be in a less chummy, friendly way as a more instinctively social person might be. He's here to do a job, and it's important; he won't sit around without contacting his inmate for weeks doing other things.
Path to Redemption: N/A
History: Links for The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass (the two books in the series Will appears in), as well as the series in general and Will's for convenience.
Will was born to John and Elaine Parry in his (our) world's 1984. John Parry was a former military man and explorer, and at some point during Will's infancy (in TSK it says Will was an infant, despite John Parry's later claims that he'd been gone for only ten years, not twelve to fourteen depending on how much time passed between the books), he left on a scientific expedition to Alaska. Although the true nature of the expedition was relatively mundane, John Parry secretly was looking for something rumored to be a sort of tear in the fabric of reality, a window to another world. During a blizzard, most of the expedition got lost, and while looking for them, Parry and two others stumbled into this other world and couldn't find their way back to their own. After weeks of no contact, John Parry and the rest of the expedition was declared missing if not dead, and as such, Will was raised by his mother. John Parry's parents were still alive by the time Will was six, but wanted nothing to do with Elaine or their grandson, and although Will didn't really understand who these people were until later, he understood that they had made his mother upset and it was one of those early moments where he knew he had to protect and defend her from people like them.
Growing up, he didn't remember much about his father, instead relying on stories his mother could tell him, which led to asking seemingly endless questions about him - most of which she couldn't answer, as they had to do with why did he leave, was he ever coming back, where did he go, and so on - and he became something of a mythical figure to the boy, one who would frequently feature in his elaborate games of pretend, often as a captive that Will had to rescue. The two would go on adventures through different scenery and always come home to be a real family. John Parry would take care of his mother and Will would have the safety and security he didn't really have but longed for desperately.
Although Elaine Parry loved her son and was certainly a well meaning parent, John's disappearance rattled her irreparably, and as Will got older, she began to display worrying signs of mental illness. Will first realized his mother was different and needed to be protected when he as seven, and the two were shopping at the supermarket. At first, he'd assumed some of her behavior was just her playing a game with him, and one of these games took place in the supermarket where Will would watch out for other people and tell his mother when no one was looking, and only then would she put something in the shopping cart because, in her mind, that meant no one could see it. The paranoia and delusions got worse when she realized her wallet was missing, and Will suddenly realized the game was real - at least, in her mind - and that if other people found out just how badly scared she was of things no one else could see or understand, they would take her away and put him in a home for parentless kids. He couldn't have that, so from that moment on, Will's entire existence went into caring for his mother and keeping other people from realizing how off she could be at times. Although obviously never diagnosed, her behavior was something like extreme OCD with potentially some symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia, and although she had frequent moments of clarity, her grasp on true sanity was still often tenuous.
This meant that throughout his childhood, Will (who was already a quiet child) didn't have friends. Occasionally another boy would invite him over for an afternoon, but because Will couldn't risk people actually getting to know his mother, realizing she was ill and then reporting it to the authorizes, he could never reciprocate. He became defensive, secretive and quiet, and learned a lot about how to avoid other people's attention, and also learned how to intimidate and scare off anyone who would wish his mother harm, even if these people were much older then him. On one occasion, his mother left the house barely dressed to preform one of her tasks that made little sense to anyone but her, and some boys from Will's school found her. They taunted her, and began getting violent, but Will was able to intervene and get them to leave before they hurt her. The next day, he fought the leader of the group and broke his arm, and although he quickly backed off and apologized to avoid further investigation, his point was clear: Will Parry and his mother were not people who were to be messed with under any circumstance.
But his school mates and neighbors weren't the only ones to be concerned about. Two men came by the house and asked his mother questions about his father and where he had gone, and on two separate occasions, Will - although he was obviously much smaller and younger than the men - was able to intimidate them into leaving. However, when it became clear that Will wasn't going to go to the police in fear of them taking away his mother, they became bolder, and at one point, ransacked the house looking for something while Will and his mother were out. Although Will didn't know who they were, he knew they were after a green leather writing case that contained letters his father had written to his mother before he'd disappeared. Why anyone would want them, he didn't know, but he knew he had to get his mother somewhere safe and try to find out how to get the men to leave them alone.
So, Will - by this time twelve - moved his mother to the relative safety of his old piano player's house and asked Mrs. Cooper to watch her for him for a few days. He fully intended to return for her once he was sure it was safe, but when he returned to the house to find the letters, the men came back. He was able to grab the writing case, but when trying to escape, he ran into one of the men at the top of the stairs. Will pushed him out of the way, the man tripped over Will's cat and tumbled down the stairs to his death.
Will panicked. Now certain that he was on the run from the police as well as the man's partner, he fled to Oxford. After spending the day in the city trying to avoid attention, he tried to find somewhere to go for the rest of the night when he spotted a cat doing something strange. The cat had discovered a window, a sort of hole in the fabric of his world and leading into another, and as the cat went through, Will went to investigate and soon followed. He discovered himself in a sort of Mediterranean city, seemingly uninhabited, and after investigating it a little, he chose one of the buildings to hide in for the evening, a little café. As fate would have it, this building was not inhabited at all, and as he went upstairs to investigate, he was attacked by a filthy blonde haired girl who also had a cat with her. They stopped fighting as quickly as they'd begun, and he soon discovered the belligerent girl was named Lyra, the cat was her dæmon and she, too, was not from this world, although not from his own either.
After reaching a somewhat uneasy understanding, Will agreed to help show her around his Oxford the following morning, as she was looking for information on something she called Dust, and was apparently from Oxford in her world as well. Lyra was stubborn and imperious, and the two didn't exactly get along at first, although both found the other interesting because of their different origins. Heading back to Will's Oxford, Will began looking for more information about his father, but found little he didn't already know - he was missing, it was mysterious, etcera - and meanwhile, Lyra found a physicist who was studying what she called Dust. Will taught Lyra about how to blend in his world, and exposed her to things like movies and soda, which they apparently didn't have in her world, and the two began to trust each other, although initially on Will's end, it was potentially a trust built out of necessity rather than actual trust.
Going back to the other world - the city they were in was called Cittàgazze, where beings called Specters preyed on adults but were invisible to children, so the city was primarily inhabited by children at the moment - Will and Lyra saved a cat tormented by some of the children. That night, he read his father's letters, and discovered that he, too, had been looking for and potentially discovered a window between worlds, and he knew that this was the information the men bothering his mother must be looking for.
The following afternoon, Lyra headed back to visit the physicist again, despite being warned against it by her Alethiometer (a truth telling device that looked something like a gold and ivory compass, which actually told her her task was to help Will find his father), and accidentally revealed to the police at her office that she knew where Will was. While fleeing, her Alethiometer was stolen by a man she'd met in a museum the previous day, called Charles Latrom. She raced back to tell Will, who was furious with her, and the two headed back to Will's Oxford to get it back. Latrom, who looked oddly familiar to Lyra for reasons she couldn't place, agreed to give them the device back, but only if the children brought him a knife from Cittàgazze.
They headed to the Tower of Angels in the middle of the city, a building that had already caught there attention as something creepy and somewhere to be avoided, and after surveying the building, they headed into the tower to try and find the man holding the knife. Instead of just one man, they found an elderly man - the true bearer of the knife - being held hostage by a younger man. Will and Lyra fight him and Will manages to get the knife away from him, losing his little finger and ring finger on his left hand in the process. The old man then explained the lore of the Subtle Knife - a blade that can cut through any surface, no matter how hard, and also cut windows like the one under the hornbeam trees in Oxford - and that Will was the new bearer.
With the knife, Will and Lyra went to steal the Alethiometer back from Sir Charles, only to find out that Sir Charles was actually Lord Boreal from Lyra's world, and her mother, Mrs. Coulter, was his guest that night. Moving quickly between worlds with the knife and with the help of the cat they'd rescued, Lyra and Will were able to steal back the Alethiometer, Lyra decided that she was here to help Will, not to selfishly do what she wanted, and Will's wound from his missing fingers was still bleeding badly.
The following morning, they were attacked by the children of Cittàgazze, led by the sister of the man who had tried to steal the knife and a boy who had been the head of the group tormenting the cat Will and Lyra had saved. The man - Tullio - had succumbed to the Specters, and after fleeing to a citadel, Will and the boy very nearly started fighting, but a group of witches from Lyra's world, led by Lyra's friend Serafina Pekkala, intervened, scaring the Cittàgazze children away and allowing Lyra and Will time to escape. The witches explained that they'd come from Lyra's world to protect her, and because her task was now helping Will find his father, their protection extended to him as well. They even attempted stopping his wounded hand from bleeding, but even their spell couldn't stop it, causing a fair amount of concern.
They slowly progressed through Cittàgazze's world, Will needing to stop frequently to rest because of the bloodloss, their path guided by the Alethiometer. Finally, as they stopped on a mountain, and unable to sleep because of his injury and the anxiety about what was happening, Will left Lyra and the witches and climbed up higher, where he was promptly grabbed by a mysterious figure. He fought against the man, unable to see him in the darkness, but finally was overpowered, as he was exhausted and basically at the end of his rope emotionally as well. But instead of killing him, the man cleaned his injury with a special ointment to stop the bleeding and told him that he had to take the knife to fight on the side of Lord Asriel in the upcoming war, because he was the knife bearer and a warrior by nature, even if he didn't want to be. Wanting to see the boy's face before they parted ways, there was a quick moment where Will and the man realized who the other was - the man was John Parry, his missing father, who had gone on to live in Lyra's world as a shaman when he couldn't find his way back to his own - one of the witches killed him because years before, he had refused to be disloyal to his wife for her. The witch then committed suicide, and Will was left with his father's body. After a moment of staying with the body, trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened, he reluctantly decided to follow his request to help Lord Asriel, and headed back down the mountain.
On the way, he was approached by two angels, who said they were to lead him to Lord Asriel's base. Will refused to leave without Lyra, but when they returned to the camp, it was to find Lyra missing, the witches guarding her dead or lifeless from attacking Specters, and the bag with the Alethiometer discarded with the device still in it. He refused to go to Lord Asriel without her, and the angels reluctantly agree to help him find her first, one, Baruch, leaving to look for her while the other, Balthamos, stayed to watch Will. The two traveled onwards, finding out that Lyra had been taken by her mother back to their own world, but when Baruch returned, they were attacked by another angel, who tried to summon the Lord Regent Metatron to the group. Will killed the first angel with the knife, and the trio was able to escape to another world before Metatron got to them. Baruch and Balthamos explained that they had known Metatron was looking for them because the knife and Will are incredibly dangerous to him, and Baruch leaves to tell Asriel about what has happened, while Balthamos and Will continue to look for Lyra, who was being held captive by her mother somewhere in central Asia.
After stopping briefly in a town where a priest told him there were armored bears making their way towards Lyra's general location. Will and Balthamos, posing as Will's dæmon, arrived in a town under siege by bears, or more accurately, bears under siege by the town, as the scared villagers were reluctant to give the bears the supplies they needed to finish their journey. Will challenged the leader of the bears to single combat, and after slicing apart the helmet of his armor with the Subtle Knife, thus proving he was a worthy opponent, the bear relented, the townspeople gave them the supplies they needed, and the bears went on their way, with Will in tow. The bear he had challenged was Lyra's friend and protector Iorek Byrnison, and the two headed to the valley where Lyra was kept with Balthamos.
After confronting Mrs. Coulter and being profoundly disturbed by her, Will plotted how to get Lyra to safety and away from her mother. She was being drugged to keep her asleep, but a local girl who'd found out about the drugging had a powder that would wake her. Lord Asriel's army, the army of the church, and Will, Iorek and Balthamos converged on the cave in the same night, and after a struggle, Lyra and Will were able to escape, but in the process, Will shattered the knife because he thought of his mother while trying to cut a window to another world, thus unknowingly forcing the knife to cut a bond that was unbreakable. Balthamos fled, but Will, Lyra and two Gallivespian spies from Lord Asriel's army escaped to another world. The spies wanted to immediately head to Asriel's base, but Will and Lyra had other plans - first the knife needed to be fixed, and a prophetic dream about a world of the dead made Lyra want to find it, so she could apologize to the friend she'd unknowingly led to his death.
They returned to Lyra's world, and Iorek fixed the knife, although cautioning Will that the blade had intentions of its own that they were unaware of. They parted ways and the spies reluctantly agree to accompany the children on their journey to the world of the dead, if such a thing existed, and almost accidentally, they did stumble upon it. They traveled to the suburbs of the dead, and after being led to the docks where a boatman would ferry ghosts across to the main island, Lyra was forced to abandon Pantalaimon on the dock, as dæmons were not allowed to travel into the land of the dead itself. Although Will and the two spies did not have corporeal dæmons, as soon as the boat pulled away from the docks, they experienced a similar pain as their dæmons were ripped away from them as well.
They survived, and headed towards the gateway to the world of the dead, but were stopped for a moment by harpies, who after listening to one of Lyra's tall tales attacked her, leaving her bleeding and scared. She and Will ran off, and finally encountered the ghosts, who were all shocked to see living beings again. Lyra met Roger's ghost, and an idea slowly formed in her mind. After telling the ghosts stories of being alive and what life in the real world was like, Will and Lyra decided to try freeing them, and with the assistance of the harpies, who had been invigorated by Lyra's stories, began to lead the ghosts to a point in the world of the dead where they could easily access other worlds and cut a window open to release the ghosts. Most other places in the world of the dead were underground in other worlds, and cutting through bedrock would take too long to get to the surface and escape. Once entering the real world again, they would dissolve into atoms, and once again be part of all matter in existence. The harpies would lead the ghosts to this window for the rest of time, so long as the dead told them true stories of their time on earth.
As they continued their journey, the ghosts of John Parry and Lyra's old friend Lee Scoresby caught up with them and had Will cut a particular section of Lyra's hair off to the roots, and hide it in another world. The church of Lyra's world and their combined forces had created a bomb to try and destroy her, but because of the action, it misfired, tearing a giant chasm in the fabric of the universe, like a giant window into nothingness. Lyra, in a moment of carelessness, almost fell to her death in it, but was rescued by the same harpy who attacked her, and they journeyed on.
Finally, they reached a point where they could cut through, and Will made a window to release the ghosts. Some of them, lead by his father and Lee, held back to help fight in Asriel's final battle, and Will and Lyra entered the fray to try and find their dæmons. During the battle, they freed the angel known as the Authority (for all intents and purposes, God) from his crystal chariot, releasing him and letting him happily rejoin the world as matter just as the ghosts did. Old enough now to be affected by Specters, the battle is especially dangerous for them, but with the help of the ghosts, Gallivespians and the timely arrival of Iorek Byrnison, they manage to survive and retrieve their dæmons, fleeing into the safety of the same world they'd released the ghosts into.
Exhausted and battered, the two buried the bodies of their Gallivespian companions and collapsed, and the following morning, were approached by the inhabitants of the world, creature called the mulefa, who took them back to their village, where Lyra's physicist from Will's Oxford, Mary Malone, had been living for the last several months. She made sure they were given time to recover, and after discovering the window where the ghosts were reentering the world, was inspired to tell the children stories of her own, including how love had made her realize she wanted to leave the church because it was a sham. This made Lyra realize she loved Will, and while the two were picnicking and looking for their dæmons, who had vanished again when they'd first entered this world, she recreated a moment from Mary's story, she puts a fruit to Will's lips, and the two quickly they love each other and share their first kiss. This gesture stabilizes the flow of Dust, which until then had been escaping from the world rapidly and thus potentially dooming creative thought and existence itself. Will and Lyra spent the next several days together, enjoying each other's company and their new revelation.
But this wasn't to last. Their dæmons returned, and revealed that through talking to angels and Serafina Pekkala the witch queen, they learned that some of Lyra's friends from her world were on their way to return her to her proper world, and that all the windows between worlds must be closed except the one for the dead to escape their prison, because through the windows, Dust could escape. As people could only survive for approximately a decade in a world other than their own, their options were either one leaving their world permanently and dying in ten years, or separating permanently and living full lives. Although the choice was heartbreaking, they both realized they couldn't build the Republic of Heaven in only ten years, and one couldn't let the other throw away their life just so they could be together. After deciding, in a moment of intense sorrow and love, Lyra touched Will's dæmon - now called Kirjava - and he touched Pantalaimon, thus choosing the two dæmon's final forms: now that they had felt a lover's hand on them, they would want no other form, and had settled.
Thus, the two children who were now adults eventually reunited with Lyra's Gyptian friends and headed back to their respective Oxfords. Before parting, Lyra came up with a plan: every year, the two would meet at Midsummer's day in the Botanical Garden in Oxford and sit on a particular bench, and as their worlds overlapped, it would almost like being together again. After cutting one last window for Lyra to get home, Will closed it and broke the knife again with a thought of Lyra, thus removing the temptation of cutting a new window (and thus giving birth to a Specter). Mary accompanied Will back and as she had promised Lyra and genuinely wanted to help, offered to help him find his mother and be a supportive friend to him, as they had both experienced amazing things, and needed someone to rely on, especially considering both were technically in legal trouble, and they needed to find Will's mother.
Afterwards, Will tried to adjust to normal life. Things were more stable then they had been in his childhood, as he no longer was solely responsible for his mother and protecting her from the rest of the world. Mary found work as an author (fiction, based on her experience with the mulefa), Will went back to school, and the two were able to look after Elaine Parry as best they could. Will realized fairly quickly that he wanted to do something good and productive with his life, and help heal them to not only atone for the killing he'd been forced to do during the conflict, but also because it would help foster the kindness and happiness necessary to really build the Republic of Heaven Asriel had been trying to build. He kept his promise to Lyra and visited the bench often, but always on Midsummer's day.
But things weren't perfect. It was as hard as ever to connect to kids his own age, perhaps even more so now that he knew that petty school issues really had no bearing on anything and that life had so much more to offer, and as such, he still largely kept to himself. That said, he was able to have more positive relationships with adults rather than distrusting everyone he encountered, and became good friends with Mary, who was really the only person who understood even a fraction of what he'd gone through.
The biggest issue though was his mother's continual health problems. Elaine Parry still had moments of intense fear and odd behavior, and while having Mary to share the burden with made it easier, and they were able to get her some medical help, she made little progress over the year, and even with the ability left over from wielding the Subtle Knife, Will didn't know what to do to help her.
And by this point, the seventeen year old was willing to make a literal deal with the devil to find an answer.
Sample Journal Entry:
[The video feed switches on to show a dark haired teenager sitting at a desk in a room that looks like a fairly normal apartment. It's not quite messy or organized, with things organized in a fashion that suggests he at least tries to keep the space straightened, and a large, dark furred tabby cat is sitting on the desk next to him, looking at the camera as well.]
It's my understanding we've all been pulled in from different worlds. Or different points in time, I guess, for some of you. Where is everyone else from?
[There's a short pause, where he manages to both look a little uncomfortable, frustrated, and sheepish. He's never had the natural ease with strangers as certain other people.]
I suppose it's only fair I go first.
My name's Will Parry. I've been brought here as a warden, and I've been living in Oxford for the last three years, but I grew up in Winchester. England.
Sample RP:
He kept his promise.
Of course he had. The idea that he would have just walked away and never looked back was simply out of the question. Everything that had happened was simply too shattering to just brush away like that, as if nothing had happened or changed, was impossible. A day wouldn't go by where he didn't relieve everything that had happened and wonder over it, and the fact that he could talk to no one but Mary and Kirjava about it was almost smothering. The problems and worries of his peers seemed nothing in comparison to feeling his soul ripped out of his chest, facing down an armored bear, seeing blood spill out of the stumps where his fingers had been, closing a tear in the very fabric of reality with his fingers, and realizing that he would never really be able to see his best friend and love ever again, so soon after they had realized how deeply they felt about each other.
It had been three years since he'd last seen Lyra, watched her disappear back into her own world before breaking the knife. He still kept the pieces of the knife, but it would never be whole again, and while he tried to stay hopeful and positive that things would get better, they'd find a way to see each other again like the angel had promised, some days, even years later, he missed her so desperately that it felt like a physical wound someone was rubbing salt into.
So, until he figured out that other way, which still sounded like a poor substitute, even if he perfected it, this would have to do.
The bench was in a quiet part of the garden, and he often came here to think over things, to get some time away from Mary and his mother, his peers and teachers, and just have time to think, to process everything that had happened and to wonder faintly if Lyra was doing the same thing. If she'd been having a difficult time readjusting to "normal" life in her world, if she'd ever found out what happened to her parents, if she still lived at Jordan College or if she'd gone somewhere else to finish school, had she seen Iorek recently...
It wasn't pining (at least, that was what he liked to argue with himself) so much as wishing he had someone else to talk to about all of it. Mary understood most of it, certainly, but it was... different. Her time among the mulefa had mostly been peaceful and interesting, and while Will had certainly found traveling interesting, it had been far from peaceful, and there was really only one other person who understood what he'd gone through, and she was locked away from him forever.
There was a sudden lick at his cheek, startling him out of his not-pining, suddenly face to face with the familiar cat face of his dæmon, Kirjava.
"Enough, Will. We have to get back. Mother will be home soon, she'll be worried if we're not there."
"Right."
He stood up, scooping her up into his arms and holding her for a moment, reassured by the feeling of her heart beating against his. He knew she missed Lyra and Pantalaimon as much as he did, but she was right. There was no use sitting around feeling sorry for themselves, and he appreciated her always being willing to snap him out of it before he got too deep into self pity. She was the part of himself he'd never really known existed until they'd gone to the world of the dead, and the one who did actually understand what he had been through, better even than Lyra. How could she not, after all? They were two parts of the same being, and as strange as that had been to think about at first, she had been a blessing to know and to have as a companion through trying to adjust to life in their own world again.
He set her down gently, and young man and dæmon headed back to the flat they shared with their mother and friend, leaving the bench until their memories once again became too hard to ignore and drew them back towards it for some kind of comfort.
Special Notes: Kirjava's breed and general appearance is never explicitly stated in the book or depicted in any official art work beyond being a large cat with black, gray and blue markings. As Moxie and the cat who helps them in TSK are both tabby cats, and Kirjava's name means multi-colored or spotted, I've chosen a gray tabby as her final form.
The post canon information (and the ability to diagnose problems with people because of his experience with the knife) is derived from extended canon from the 10th anniversary edition's bonus materials, specifically this "Lantern Slide": Again, Will, later: the sense his hand and mind had learned together as the point of the knife searched among the tiniest particles of the air, the sense of feeling without touching, of knowing without spoiling, of apprehending without calculating. He never lost it. When he was a medical student, he had to pretend to make a wrong diagnosis occasionally: his success was in danger of looking supernatural. Once he was qualified, it became safer to go straight to the right answer. And then began the lifelong process of learning to explain it.
He's also missing the smallest finger and ring finger on his left hand.
User LJ:
1jobonthisship AIM/IM: girlwonder004 @ AIM
E-mail: isthereair@gmail.com
Other Characters:
batmanschmatman, inhistorybooks, knowsthepeople, result_of_war Character Name: William Parry
Series: His Dark Materials
Age: Seventeen.
From When?: Three years post canon.
Inmate/Warden: Warden.
Item: A green leather writing case.
Abilities/Powers: Will is, for the most part, a normal human boy. However, he does have a few unique abilities that have come with his adventures and general upbringing, chief among them that he is able to blend into crowds and escape attention and notice from other people. This isn't supernatural, although it has been referenced by other characters as being almost supernatural, just well practiced understanding of what behavior people tend not to notice and playing that up to avoid detection and attention. Entire crowds have stopped paying attention to him, even after he's specifically called attention to himself and faced down an armored bear to end a conflict for them, and as such, if he wants to be, he can be nearly invisible.
Will used to be the bearer of the Subtle Knife. While the knife itself has been broken so as to avoid the temptation of using it to cut between the worlds again, his ability to wield it has given him a grace to diagnose people's illnesses and suffering, thus making him cut out to be a talented doctor (and future surgeon). At this point, he he tries to hide it as best he can in his own world in fear that others would believe it supernatural. On the Barge, it's likely he'll be less secretive once exposed to other people's powers and abilities.
Because of his journey to the world of the dead, his dæmon - called Kirjava, settled as a large, dark furred cat - has taken physical form, rather than hiding wherever people in "our" world's souls do. Dæmons are the literal physical representation of a soul, and although they have a separate personality and identity from their human, they are considered to be one entity. As such, they are not pets, and are just as intelligent as their human and capable of speech, although generally they talk only to their humans unless there's necessary information to pass along to another human, or if their human is unable to speak for themself. Dæmons do however talk to and interact physically with other dæmons quite frequently. It is very much a symbiotic relationship. If Will is hurt, it affects Kirjava, and if she is somehow in danger, he'll know and be affected as well. Touching another person's dæmon is considered to be taboo - basically a form of assault, in the novel the difference between Lyra and Will touching each other's dæmons while romantically attracted to each other versus someone touching another person's dæmon in any other situation is similar to that between making love and rape - and makes the person who's dæmon is being touched feel extremely nauseous and ill, and the dæmon will struggle to break free as much as possible, although can be overwhelmed by the contact and more or less faint. If Will is killed, Kirjava will vanish (and presumably be revived when Will is), and if she's killed, Will similarly will drop dead instantly.
Usually, dæmons can only move a relatively short distance from their human and separation is painful and can end in death if the bond is stretched too far, but Will and Kirjava can stay great distances away from each other because of their separation when Will journeyed to the world of the dead. That said, being separated for great lengths of time (days, weeks, etc.) is still painful, and as such, the two generally stick close together if at all possible. Humans and dæmons also share a sort of weak telepathic bond, in that they can sense each other's presence instinctively, and can even sometimes pass thoughts telepathically between each other. Dæmons are also more attuned to supernatural things like spirits and ghasts than humans, and are more likely to sense them then their human is.
Personality: Will grew up quickly, even before he was forced into a situation far larger than he initially expected when he first wandered through the window from his world to another. Living with a single mother - his father having vanished without a trace when he was young - with undiagnosed mental health issues forced him to learn how not only to take care of himself, but more importantly, to take care of her. As such, he's been, for all intents and purposes, a responsible adult since the age of seven, and after dealing with issues far larger than those he faced in his own world alone, he's matured even more. He understands how people and the world work, and he knows how to manipulate this to his advantage, staying under other people's radar and trying to look as normal and unassuming as possible, knowing when to do and say the right thing almost instinctively, and knowing how to assert himself when need be to get people to do what he wants. He's independent and self sufficient, and has a tendency to be reluctant to rely on others to take care of him, even if sometimes he yearns for his mother to be the one comforting him, and not the other way around when sick or worried.
This sense of responsibility and maturity means that he isn't concerned by the same problems as other teenagers his age, and this has been an issue since he was a young child. Because of his mother's illness and his fear that if people found out about it, he would be taken away from her, he never really had friends growing up, and his first real friend was Lyra. Even after he returned home permanently, he still finds it hard to relate to others his own age, as he's gone through so much in such a short period of time that it's difficult to really connect with his peers. This suits him just fine, as he's never been a social person and lacks other people's casual ease with strangers. Since returning, he's had slightly more ease in communicating with adults, and generally carries less of a hostile don't approach me edge, as he no longer has to actively worry about the authorities taking his mother away from him or caring for her all by herself. This instead has been replaced with a sort of quiet sadness, as though he's been through a lot and doesn't want to talk about it, which he has and doesn't. Occasionally, he'll have moments of feeling incredibly alone because of all this - not having anyone to look after him, missing Lyra, etcetera - but in recent years, that has ebbed considerably with the help and presence of Mary Malone, and his dæmon, Kirjava, both of whom are ones he can go to to talk about worries and anxieties, rather than keeping it bottled up as before.
Will has a hard time opening up and trusting people right off the bat, and tends to be very secretive. It's instinct to close off and be very defensive and self protective, and even though he has relatively little to fear now that things have settled down and gone back to "normal", it's difficult for him to let his guard down entirely, especially because there are things he's been through that he'll probably never be able to really explain to other people. Unlike Lyra, he is not a skilled or natural liar, and has a tendency to stay very closed mouthed about himself and his life, or just gives out basic facts and leaves it at that in contrast to her constant tall tale spinning to embellish her own life and the things she's done. Will prefers to go through life largely unnoticed, and doesn't want to open himself up to anyone, as left over habits about not being able to trust anyone, and current reasons for why telling the world about what he's experienced have pooled together to ensure he'll probably always have a hard time opening up to someone and trusting them fully without going through some kind of long term bonding experience with them.
That said, once Will adjusts to a person's presence in his life, and assuming he ends up bonding with them somehow, he is a good and loyal friend, willing to do just about anything for the people he cares about. He is fiercely protective of those he cares about. All his life, he has been looking out for and caring for his mother above everything else, and he's never resented her for it, even though it's meant that he's largely done the parenting for her and had no one to look after him while he grew up. While he might from time to time have envied other kids who had less responsibility, he loved and loves her enough not to mind how things turned out, and he continues to be a good son to her. This level of protection and devotion has extended to Lyra and Mary Malone as well. Because of this sense of loyalty and devotion, although they did say they wouldn't refuse to move on if the situation presented itself, it's highly unlikely that Will will ever truly love anyone as much as he loves Lyra, despite the impossible distance separating them, and because of that, it's equally unlikely that he'll ever really love or marry anyone out of devotion to her. It would be impossible not to compare the two, and being that dishonest with someone and constantly worrying about making comparisons when he knows he shouldn't just goes against his nature.
He is extremely selfless. In caring for his mother and throughout the novels, Will makes decisions that benefit other people, but leave him lacking what he truly wants in life, whether that is feelings of security and friends, or a future with Lyra. The easiest way to get at him is to threaten someone he cares about, and he will literally do just about anything to help them. This extends to doing the right thing in general, as if something would benefit him in the short term, but hurt the larder population in the long run, he won't do it, no matter how much he might actually want it.
Will empathizes highly with those being picked on or subjugated for whatever reason because of how people have treated his mother, and has stepped in to intervene on behalf of someone who was too weak to stand up for themselves on more than one occasion. That said, Will is incredibly brave, and while not fearless, knows how to master his fear and fight on anyway. As such, he often appears fearless to others, and only allows himself to be vulnerable when he feels he can, generally in private or in the company of someone like Lyra. Really, he just knows what he wants and how to get it, and isn't afraid of doing what it takes to get it, which often gives him the advantage over others who are unwilling or too scared to take that step. Specifically, while he doesn't enjoy violence, he is certainly capable of it and doesn't shy away at the last moment, going in for brutal attacks that will actually hurt and cause damage rather than have a dramatic flair, which is something he's noted not many other people have the ability to do.
As such, it's not surprising that throughout his time traveling through worlds and fighting against the forces that wished him and his companions harm, Will has been described as a warrior. The first thing the Alethiometer tells Lyra about him is that he's a murderer (although the action was an accident or at most self defense), and he draws frequent comparisons to Lord Asriel and Iorek Byrinson by various characters, is often described as fierce and intimidating, despite his age, and as the bearer of the Subtle Knife is apparently somehow inherently suited for the role, as the knife chose him to wield it. He resents this label, as he doesn't actually enjoy fighting or killing, but he is good at it. Again, he knows how to get what he wants and isn't afraid to take the necessary steps to do it, and if that means hurting or killing another person, he can and will do it, although he might resent the action afterwards. He only kills when it's absolutely necessary, and tries to avoid violence unless as a last resort, and gets angry and frustrated with others who don't use this same approach. Even when its suggested that he or someone in their party should put an injured toad out of its misery in the suburbs of the world of the dead, he points out that the toad might prefer living in pain than the idea of death, and because it can't tell them if it does or not, he isn't going to make the decision for it.
He has strong morals and convictions, and in general is stubborn and resistant to change how he thinks or feels about something even if it would probably be more productive to accept certain things and move on rather than constantly fighting with himself and nature about it. He makes Lyra pay for things she takes out of other worlds and does the same himself, and constantly tries to do the right thing, striving for fairness and as little death and violence as possible throughout their journey. That said, he is not a strictly by the book sort of person, and in some ways has potential to be just as crafty as Lyra. However, these actions are never done for fun or jest as hers occasionally are, and everything he does he tries to do with a reason behind it, rather than barreling into something impulsively. Of course, this still happens, but he tries to do right by everyone.
This warrior nature has largely been put aside back home, as again, most of the things he had to fight against have been tucked away and he's been back to a mundane, normal life for an English teenager. However, it is still very much a dormant part of him, something that can be called upon in a time of need (as it no doubt will be on the Barge), because although he didn't like it, he did it because he had to. If he has to again, he can.
That said, Will is very much interested in being able to choose his own fate and destiny rather than have someone tell him exactly how his life will or should work out. He directly stops the angel Xaphania from telling him anything about his future or what he should do with himself in favor of choosing for himself, instead of resenting a path chosen for him against his will, and when his father tries to tell him he's a warrior, he still resents the label, and ultimately says that it wasn't a part of his nature and therefore unavoidable: he did it because he had to, and he doesn't have to anymore after the final battle. He would rather do what he wants to or has to for the benefit of the people he cares about and the population at large because he wants to and it's the right thing, not because something has told him he has to.
Although he's generally quiet, he is extremely assertive when he has to be, although this is often done in a more fiercely subtle way than outright shouting for something. He has a sort of quiet intensity about him, a hardness that suggests he's capable of following through on threats and in general is not someone to be messed around with, despite the fact that he's relatively young. When he wants something, he wants it and knows how to get it, and good luck to anyone who stands in his way. As such, he can be fairly bossy, and is a natural leader, reluctant to follow the orders of others unless he sees the logic in them, and even then, he would much rather do his own thing. He can be a decent teacher, if he has to be, although he can be impatient and brusque at first or when already frustrated. He also does have something of a temper, although this has evened out to really only exhibit itself in times of high stress and frustration, so as not to call attention to himself.
He can be curious about new things, although again, is not a instinctively social person, and as such can come off as a little standoffish initially, even if he doesn't mean to. Because of his exposure to other worlds and things like dæmons, windows between worlds, armored bears, Specters and everything else, not much will necessarily faze him in the long term. That said, superpowers and things like floods might be a source of some confusion initially, as they're both quite different from the things he's used to, but again, he's not a stranger to new things, and will likely adapt quickly, as most people do.
As a warden, Will is likely to be assertive and bossy, but can soften after bonding with an inmate, and will be loyal and extremely protective once he's formed a connection with his assigned inmate. He won't be easily intimidated, and won't be afraid to do what's necessary to make sure they don't harm anyone else and can eventually graduate and leave. He'll take his job seriously, and want to be involved in the inmate's life on the Barge, even if it's likely going to be in a less chummy, friendly way as a more instinctively social person might be. He's here to do a job, and it's important; he won't sit around without contacting his inmate for weeks doing other things.
Path to Redemption: N/A
History: Links for The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass (the two books in the series Will appears in), as well as the series in general and Will's for convenience.
Will was born to John and Elaine Parry in his (our) world's 1984. John Parry was a former military man and explorer, and at some point during Will's infancy (in TSK it says Will was an infant, despite John Parry's later claims that he'd been gone for only ten years, not twelve to fourteen depending on how much time passed between the books), he left on a scientific expedition to Alaska. Although the true nature of the expedition was relatively mundane, John Parry secretly was looking for something rumored to be a sort of tear in the fabric of reality, a window to another world. During a blizzard, most of the expedition got lost, and while looking for them, Parry and two others stumbled into this other world and couldn't find their way back to their own. After weeks of no contact, John Parry and the rest of the expedition was declared missing if not dead, and as such, Will was raised by his mother. John Parry's parents were still alive by the time Will was six, but wanted nothing to do with Elaine or their grandson, and although Will didn't really understand who these people were until later, he understood that they had made his mother upset and it was one of those early moments where he knew he had to protect and defend her from people like them.
Growing up, he didn't remember much about his father, instead relying on stories his mother could tell him, which led to asking seemingly endless questions about him - most of which she couldn't answer, as they had to do with why did he leave, was he ever coming back, where did he go, and so on - and he became something of a mythical figure to the boy, one who would frequently feature in his elaborate games of pretend, often as a captive that Will had to rescue. The two would go on adventures through different scenery and always come home to be a real family. John Parry would take care of his mother and Will would have the safety and security he didn't really have but longed for desperately.
Although Elaine Parry loved her son and was certainly a well meaning parent, John's disappearance rattled her irreparably, and as Will got older, she began to display worrying signs of mental illness. Will first realized his mother was different and needed to be protected when he as seven, and the two were shopping at the supermarket. At first, he'd assumed some of her behavior was just her playing a game with him, and one of these games took place in the supermarket where Will would watch out for other people and tell his mother when no one was looking, and only then would she put something in the shopping cart because, in her mind, that meant no one could see it. The paranoia and delusions got worse when she realized her wallet was missing, and Will suddenly realized the game was real - at least, in her mind - and that if other people found out just how badly scared she was of things no one else could see or understand, they would take her away and put him in a home for parentless kids. He couldn't have that, so from that moment on, Will's entire existence went into caring for his mother and keeping other people from realizing how off she could be at times. Although obviously never diagnosed, her behavior was something like extreme OCD with potentially some symptoms characteristic of schizophrenia, and although she had frequent moments of clarity, her grasp on true sanity was still often tenuous.
This meant that throughout his childhood, Will (who was already a quiet child) didn't have friends. Occasionally another boy would invite him over for an afternoon, but because Will couldn't risk people actually getting to know his mother, realizing she was ill and then reporting it to the authorizes, he could never reciprocate. He became defensive, secretive and quiet, and learned a lot about how to avoid other people's attention, and also learned how to intimidate and scare off anyone who would wish his mother harm, even if these people were much older then him. On one occasion, his mother left the house barely dressed to preform one of her tasks that made little sense to anyone but her, and some boys from Will's school found her. They taunted her, and began getting violent, but Will was able to intervene and get them to leave before they hurt her. The next day, he fought the leader of the group and broke his arm, and although he quickly backed off and apologized to avoid further investigation, his point was clear: Will Parry and his mother were not people who were to be messed with under any circumstance.
But his school mates and neighbors weren't the only ones to be concerned about. Two men came by the house and asked his mother questions about his father and where he had gone, and on two separate occasions, Will - although he was obviously much smaller and younger than the men - was able to intimidate them into leaving. However, when it became clear that Will wasn't going to go to the police in fear of them taking away his mother, they became bolder, and at one point, ransacked the house looking for something while Will and his mother were out. Although Will didn't know who they were, he knew they were after a green leather writing case that contained letters his father had written to his mother before he'd disappeared. Why anyone would want them, he didn't know, but he knew he had to get his mother somewhere safe and try to find out how to get the men to leave them alone.
So, Will - by this time twelve - moved his mother to the relative safety of his old piano player's house and asked Mrs. Cooper to watch her for him for a few days. He fully intended to return for her once he was sure it was safe, but when he returned to the house to find the letters, the men came back. He was able to grab the writing case, but when trying to escape, he ran into one of the men at the top of the stairs. Will pushed him out of the way, the man tripped over Will's cat and tumbled down the stairs to his death.
Will panicked. Now certain that he was on the run from the police as well as the man's partner, he fled to Oxford. After spending the day in the city trying to avoid attention, he tried to find somewhere to go for the rest of the night when he spotted a cat doing something strange. The cat had discovered a window, a sort of hole in the fabric of his world and leading into another, and as the cat went through, Will went to investigate and soon followed. He discovered himself in a sort of Mediterranean city, seemingly uninhabited, and after investigating it a little, he chose one of the buildings to hide in for the evening, a little café. As fate would have it, this building was not inhabited at all, and as he went upstairs to investigate, he was attacked by a filthy blonde haired girl who also had a cat with her. They stopped fighting as quickly as they'd begun, and he soon discovered the belligerent girl was named Lyra, the cat was her dæmon and she, too, was not from this world, although not from his own either.
After reaching a somewhat uneasy understanding, Will agreed to help show her around his Oxford the following morning, as she was looking for information on something she called Dust, and was apparently from Oxford in her world as well. Lyra was stubborn and imperious, and the two didn't exactly get along at first, although both found the other interesting because of their different origins. Heading back to Will's Oxford, Will began looking for more information about his father, but found little he didn't already know - he was missing, it was mysterious, etcera - and meanwhile, Lyra found a physicist who was studying what she called Dust. Will taught Lyra about how to blend in his world, and exposed her to things like movies and soda, which they apparently didn't have in her world, and the two began to trust each other, although initially on Will's end, it was potentially a trust built out of necessity rather than actual trust.
Going back to the other world - the city they were in was called Cittàgazze, where beings called Specters preyed on adults but were invisible to children, so the city was primarily inhabited by children at the moment - Will and Lyra saved a cat tormented by some of the children. That night, he read his father's letters, and discovered that he, too, had been looking for and potentially discovered a window between worlds, and he knew that this was the information the men bothering his mother must be looking for.
The following afternoon, Lyra headed back to visit the physicist again, despite being warned against it by her Alethiometer (a truth telling device that looked something like a gold and ivory compass, which actually told her her task was to help Will find his father), and accidentally revealed to the police at her office that she knew where Will was. While fleeing, her Alethiometer was stolen by a man she'd met in a museum the previous day, called Charles Latrom. She raced back to tell Will, who was furious with her, and the two headed back to Will's Oxford to get it back. Latrom, who looked oddly familiar to Lyra for reasons she couldn't place, agreed to give them the device back, but only if the children brought him a knife from Cittàgazze.
They headed to the Tower of Angels in the middle of the city, a building that had already caught there attention as something creepy and somewhere to be avoided, and after surveying the building, they headed into the tower to try and find the man holding the knife. Instead of just one man, they found an elderly man - the true bearer of the knife - being held hostage by a younger man. Will and Lyra fight him and Will manages to get the knife away from him, losing his little finger and ring finger on his left hand in the process. The old man then explained the lore of the Subtle Knife - a blade that can cut through any surface, no matter how hard, and also cut windows like the one under the hornbeam trees in Oxford - and that Will was the new bearer.
With the knife, Will and Lyra went to steal the Alethiometer back from Sir Charles, only to find out that Sir Charles was actually Lord Boreal from Lyra's world, and her mother, Mrs. Coulter, was his guest that night. Moving quickly between worlds with the knife and with the help of the cat they'd rescued, Lyra and Will were able to steal back the Alethiometer, Lyra decided that she was here to help Will, not to selfishly do what she wanted, and Will's wound from his missing fingers was still bleeding badly.
The following morning, they were attacked by the children of Cittàgazze, led by the sister of the man who had tried to steal the knife and a boy who had been the head of the group tormenting the cat Will and Lyra had saved. The man - Tullio - had succumbed to the Specters, and after fleeing to a citadel, Will and the boy very nearly started fighting, but a group of witches from Lyra's world, led by Lyra's friend Serafina Pekkala, intervened, scaring the Cittàgazze children away and allowing Lyra and Will time to escape. The witches explained that they'd come from Lyra's world to protect her, and because her task was now helping Will find his father, their protection extended to him as well. They even attempted stopping his wounded hand from bleeding, but even their spell couldn't stop it, causing a fair amount of concern.
They slowly progressed through Cittàgazze's world, Will needing to stop frequently to rest because of the bloodloss, their path guided by the Alethiometer. Finally, as they stopped on a mountain, and unable to sleep because of his injury and the anxiety about what was happening, Will left Lyra and the witches and climbed up higher, where he was promptly grabbed by a mysterious figure. He fought against the man, unable to see him in the darkness, but finally was overpowered, as he was exhausted and basically at the end of his rope emotionally as well. But instead of killing him, the man cleaned his injury with a special ointment to stop the bleeding and told him that he had to take the knife to fight on the side of Lord Asriel in the upcoming war, because he was the knife bearer and a warrior by nature, even if he didn't want to be. Wanting to see the boy's face before they parted ways, there was a quick moment where Will and the man realized who the other was - the man was John Parry, his missing father, who had gone on to live in Lyra's world as a shaman when he couldn't find his way back to his own - one of the witches killed him because years before, he had refused to be disloyal to his wife for her. The witch then committed suicide, and Will was left with his father's body. After a moment of staying with the body, trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened, he reluctantly decided to follow his request to help Lord Asriel, and headed back down the mountain.
On the way, he was approached by two angels, who said they were to lead him to Lord Asriel's base. Will refused to leave without Lyra, but when they returned to the camp, it was to find Lyra missing, the witches guarding her dead or lifeless from attacking Specters, and the bag with the Alethiometer discarded with the device still in it. He refused to go to Lord Asriel without her, and the angels reluctantly agree to help him find her first, one, Baruch, leaving to look for her while the other, Balthamos, stayed to watch Will. The two traveled onwards, finding out that Lyra had been taken by her mother back to their own world, but when Baruch returned, they were attacked by another angel, who tried to summon the Lord Regent Metatron to the group. Will killed the first angel with the knife, and the trio was able to escape to another world before Metatron got to them. Baruch and Balthamos explained that they had known Metatron was looking for them because the knife and Will are incredibly dangerous to him, and Baruch leaves to tell Asriel about what has happened, while Balthamos and Will continue to look for Lyra, who was being held captive by her mother somewhere in central Asia.
After stopping briefly in a town where a priest told him there were armored bears making their way towards Lyra's general location. Will and Balthamos, posing as Will's dæmon, arrived in a town under siege by bears, or more accurately, bears under siege by the town, as the scared villagers were reluctant to give the bears the supplies they needed to finish their journey. Will challenged the leader of the bears to single combat, and after slicing apart the helmet of his armor with the Subtle Knife, thus proving he was a worthy opponent, the bear relented, the townspeople gave them the supplies they needed, and the bears went on their way, with Will in tow. The bear he had challenged was Lyra's friend and protector Iorek Byrnison, and the two headed to the valley where Lyra was kept with Balthamos.
After confronting Mrs. Coulter and being profoundly disturbed by her, Will plotted how to get Lyra to safety and away from her mother. She was being drugged to keep her asleep, but a local girl who'd found out about the drugging had a powder that would wake her. Lord Asriel's army, the army of the church, and Will, Iorek and Balthamos converged on the cave in the same night, and after a struggle, Lyra and Will were able to escape, but in the process, Will shattered the knife because he thought of his mother while trying to cut a window to another world, thus unknowingly forcing the knife to cut a bond that was unbreakable. Balthamos fled, but Will, Lyra and two Gallivespian spies from Lord Asriel's army escaped to another world. The spies wanted to immediately head to Asriel's base, but Will and Lyra had other plans - first the knife needed to be fixed, and a prophetic dream about a world of the dead made Lyra want to find it, so she could apologize to the friend she'd unknowingly led to his death.
They returned to Lyra's world, and Iorek fixed the knife, although cautioning Will that the blade had intentions of its own that they were unaware of. They parted ways and the spies reluctantly agree to accompany the children on their journey to the world of the dead, if such a thing existed, and almost accidentally, they did stumble upon it. They traveled to the suburbs of the dead, and after being led to the docks where a boatman would ferry ghosts across to the main island, Lyra was forced to abandon Pantalaimon on the dock, as dæmons were not allowed to travel into the land of the dead itself. Although Will and the two spies did not have corporeal dæmons, as soon as the boat pulled away from the docks, they experienced a similar pain as their dæmons were ripped away from them as well.
They survived, and headed towards the gateway to the world of the dead, but were stopped for a moment by harpies, who after listening to one of Lyra's tall tales attacked her, leaving her bleeding and scared. She and Will ran off, and finally encountered the ghosts, who were all shocked to see living beings again. Lyra met Roger's ghost, and an idea slowly formed in her mind. After telling the ghosts stories of being alive and what life in the real world was like, Will and Lyra decided to try freeing them, and with the assistance of the harpies, who had been invigorated by Lyra's stories, began to lead the ghosts to a point in the world of the dead where they could easily access other worlds and cut a window open to release the ghosts. Most other places in the world of the dead were underground in other worlds, and cutting through bedrock would take too long to get to the surface and escape. Once entering the real world again, they would dissolve into atoms, and once again be part of all matter in existence. The harpies would lead the ghosts to this window for the rest of time, so long as the dead told them true stories of their time on earth.
As they continued their journey, the ghosts of John Parry and Lyra's old friend Lee Scoresby caught up with them and had Will cut a particular section of Lyra's hair off to the roots, and hide it in another world. The church of Lyra's world and their combined forces had created a bomb to try and destroy her, but because of the action, it misfired, tearing a giant chasm in the fabric of the universe, like a giant window into nothingness. Lyra, in a moment of carelessness, almost fell to her death in it, but was rescued by the same harpy who attacked her, and they journeyed on.
Finally, they reached a point where they could cut through, and Will made a window to release the ghosts. Some of them, lead by his father and Lee, held back to help fight in Asriel's final battle, and Will and Lyra entered the fray to try and find their dæmons. During the battle, they freed the angel known as the Authority (for all intents and purposes, God) from his crystal chariot, releasing him and letting him happily rejoin the world as matter just as the ghosts did. Old enough now to be affected by Specters, the battle is especially dangerous for them, but with the help of the ghosts, Gallivespians and the timely arrival of Iorek Byrnison, they manage to survive and retrieve their dæmons, fleeing into the safety of the same world they'd released the ghosts into.
Exhausted and battered, the two buried the bodies of their Gallivespian companions and collapsed, and the following morning, were approached by the inhabitants of the world, creature called the mulefa, who took them back to their village, where Lyra's physicist from Will's Oxford, Mary Malone, had been living for the last several months. She made sure they were given time to recover, and after discovering the window where the ghosts were reentering the world, was inspired to tell the children stories of her own, including how love had made her realize she wanted to leave the church because it was a sham. This made Lyra realize she loved Will, and while the two were picnicking and looking for their dæmons, who had vanished again when they'd first entered this world, she recreated a moment from Mary's story, she puts a fruit to Will's lips, and the two quickly they love each other and share their first kiss. This gesture stabilizes the flow of Dust, which until then had been escaping from the world rapidly and thus potentially dooming creative thought and existence itself. Will and Lyra spent the next several days together, enjoying each other's company and their new revelation.
But this wasn't to last. Their dæmons returned, and revealed that through talking to angels and Serafina Pekkala the witch queen, they learned that some of Lyra's friends from her world were on their way to return her to her proper world, and that all the windows between worlds must be closed except the one for the dead to escape their prison, because through the windows, Dust could escape. As people could only survive for approximately a decade in a world other than their own, their options were either one leaving their world permanently and dying in ten years, or separating permanently and living full lives. Although the choice was heartbreaking, they both realized they couldn't build the Republic of Heaven in only ten years, and one couldn't let the other throw away their life just so they could be together. After deciding, in a moment of intense sorrow and love, Lyra touched Will's dæmon - now called Kirjava - and he touched Pantalaimon, thus choosing the two dæmon's final forms: now that they had felt a lover's hand on them, they would want no other form, and had settled.
Thus, the two children who were now adults eventually reunited with Lyra's Gyptian friends and headed back to their respective Oxfords. Before parting, Lyra came up with a plan: every year, the two would meet at Midsummer's day in the Botanical Garden in Oxford and sit on a particular bench, and as their worlds overlapped, it would almost like being together again. After cutting one last window for Lyra to get home, Will closed it and broke the knife again with a thought of Lyra, thus removing the temptation of cutting a new window (and thus giving birth to a Specter). Mary accompanied Will back and as she had promised Lyra and genuinely wanted to help, offered to help him find his mother and be a supportive friend to him, as they had both experienced amazing things, and needed someone to rely on, especially considering both were technically in legal trouble, and they needed to find Will's mother.
Afterwards, Will tried to adjust to normal life. Things were more stable then they had been in his childhood, as he no longer was solely responsible for his mother and protecting her from the rest of the world. Mary found work as an author (fiction, based on her experience with the mulefa), Will went back to school, and the two were able to look after Elaine Parry as best they could. Will realized fairly quickly that he wanted to do something good and productive with his life, and help heal them to not only atone for the killing he'd been forced to do during the conflict, but also because it would help foster the kindness and happiness necessary to really build the Republic of Heaven Asriel had been trying to build. He kept his promise to Lyra and visited the bench often, but always on Midsummer's day.
But things weren't perfect. It was as hard as ever to connect to kids his own age, perhaps even more so now that he knew that petty school issues really had no bearing on anything and that life had so much more to offer, and as such, he still largely kept to himself. That said, he was able to have more positive relationships with adults rather than distrusting everyone he encountered, and became good friends with Mary, who was really the only person who understood even a fraction of what he'd gone through.
The biggest issue though was his mother's continual health problems. Elaine Parry still had moments of intense fear and odd behavior, and while having Mary to share the burden with made it easier, and they were able to get her some medical help, she made little progress over the year, and even with the ability left over from wielding the Subtle Knife, Will didn't know what to do to help her.
And by this point, the seventeen year old was willing to make a literal deal with the devil to find an answer.
Sample Journal Entry:
[The video feed switches on to show a dark haired teenager sitting at a desk in a room that looks like a fairly normal apartment. It's not quite messy or organized, with things organized in a fashion that suggests he at least tries to keep the space straightened, and a large, dark furred tabby cat is sitting on the desk next to him, looking at the camera as well.]
It's my understanding we've all been pulled in from different worlds. Or different points in time, I guess, for some of you. Where is everyone else from?
[There's a short pause, where he manages to both look a little uncomfortable, frustrated, and sheepish. He's never had the natural ease with strangers as certain other people.]
I suppose it's only fair I go first.
My name's Will Parry. I've been brought here as a warden, and I've been living in Oxford for the last three years, but I grew up in Winchester. England.
Sample RP:
He kept his promise.
Of course he had. The idea that he would have just walked away and never looked back was simply out of the question. Everything that had happened was simply too shattering to just brush away like that, as if nothing had happened or changed, was impossible. A day wouldn't go by where he didn't relieve everything that had happened and wonder over it, and the fact that he could talk to no one but Mary and Kirjava about it was almost smothering. The problems and worries of his peers seemed nothing in comparison to feeling his soul ripped out of his chest, facing down an armored bear, seeing blood spill out of the stumps where his fingers had been, closing a tear in the very fabric of reality with his fingers, and realizing that he would never really be able to see his best friend and love ever again, so soon after they had realized how deeply they felt about each other.
It had been three years since he'd last seen Lyra, watched her disappear back into her own world before breaking the knife. He still kept the pieces of the knife, but it would never be whole again, and while he tried to stay hopeful and positive that things would get better, they'd find a way to see each other again like the angel had promised, some days, even years later, he missed her so desperately that it felt like a physical wound someone was rubbing salt into.
So, until he figured out that other way, which still sounded like a poor substitute, even if he perfected it, this would have to do.
The bench was in a quiet part of the garden, and he often came here to think over things, to get some time away from Mary and his mother, his peers and teachers, and just have time to think, to process everything that had happened and to wonder faintly if Lyra was doing the same thing. If she'd been having a difficult time readjusting to "normal" life in her world, if she'd ever found out what happened to her parents, if she still lived at Jordan College or if she'd gone somewhere else to finish school, had she seen Iorek recently...
It wasn't pining (at least, that was what he liked to argue with himself) so much as wishing he had someone else to talk to about all of it. Mary understood most of it, certainly, but it was... different. Her time among the mulefa had mostly been peaceful and interesting, and while Will had certainly found traveling interesting, it had been far from peaceful, and there was really only one other person who understood what he'd gone through, and she was locked away from him forever.
There was a sudden lick at his cheek, startling him out of his not-pining, suddenly face to face with the familiar cat face of his dæmon, Kirjava.
"Enough, Will. We have to get back. Mother will be home soon, she'll be worried if we're not there."
"Right."
He stood up, scooping her up into his arms and holding her for a moment, reassured by the feeling of her heart beating against his. He knew she missed Lyra and Pantalaimon as much as he did, but she was right. There was no use sitting around feeling sorry for themselves, and he appreciated her always being willing to snap him out of it before he got too deep into self pity. She was the part of himself he'd never really known existed until they'd gone to the world of the dead, and the one who did actually understand what he had been through, better even than Lyra. How could she not, after all? They were two parts of the same being, and as strange as that had been to think about at first, she had been a blessing to know and to have as a companion through trying to adjust to life in their own world again.
He set her down gently, and young man and dæmon headed back to the flat they shared with their mother and friend, leaving the bench until their memories once again became too hard to ignore and drew them back towards it for some kind of comfort.
Special Notes: Kirjava's breed and general appearance is never explicitly stated in the book or depicted in any official art work beyond being a large cat with black, gray and blue markings. As Moxie and the cat who helps them in TSK are both tabby cats, and Kirjava's name means multi-colored or spotted, I've chosen a gray tabby as her final form.
The post canon information (and the ability to diagnose problems with people because of his experience with the knife) is derived from extended canon from the 10th anniversary edition's bonus materials, specifically this "Lantern Slide": Again, Will, later: the sense his hand and mind had learned together as the point of the knife searched among the tiniest particles of the air, the sense of feeling without touching, of knowing without spoiling, of apprehending without calculating. He never lost it. When he was a medical student, he had to pretend to make a wrong diagnosis occasionally: his success was in danger of looking supernatural. Once he was qualified, it became safer to go straight to the right answer. And then began the lifelong process of learning to explain it.
He's also missing the smallest finger and ring finger on his left hand.