On the Presence of Daemons

By Oriondruid

My name is Mary Kelly. I do not know exactly how I came to be here, however I remembered that I'd had a bad car accident when I woke up in the hospital here in this strange and wonderful new world. Maybe I fell through a portal between the worlds whilst unconscious, or flowed through a gap along with the Dust, that mysterious and illusive substances that both fascinates and terrifies this world's rulers.

As I recovered I also remembered my old home and my old self and I hope my family did not long grieve my loss. In many ways, viewed from here it was a quite lonely world and childhood I was born into. I was 'different' and in my life as an adult I had to conceal my dangerous secret from a society that would brutally condemn me and my 'kind', social and sexual differences being very strongly oppressed in that 'version' of reality.

It is strange to me now to think back, to recall a world where my darling Arissa was not walking by my side, that old world where myself and my conscience, my very soul were internal and the better part of me was often mute. When I awoke here Arissa was with me and we have never been separated since that time. Now I am not one alone but two, united in a love and companionship closer than anything I could ever have known in my original world. Now, here in this new world I am part of a duality that now enfolds me with love and gives me much greater self-worth.

I prefer my life here and now to my old life, here now with my darling daemon to hold, to love, to console and counsel me. I am one of the minority who's daemons are the same sex as myself. Here in my new life that has a specific meaning which ensures that no concealment is either possible or necessary, no hypocrisy or lies are needed and no discrimination can stand. That is , at least, one of the few things that the otherwise all pervasive Magisterium does not heavily persecute, as long as one is discrete.

I have truly found a home, here in this 'other' Oxford. Even if the Magisterium does everywhere exert it's subtle, often not so subtle, and sometimes even brutal oppression in several ways. Even despite this I feel more free here than where I came from. The Magisterium believe they are inviolate and invincible in their power, but word has recently reached me of a rebellion that has started in the far North. With luck and faith in the power of love and freedom I believe their days of absolute power are numbered.

Arissa and myself have decide that we will soon depart from here and go to join the rebellion. With luck a better and liberated new world will be born after our hoped for victory. The Northern Lights call me and my beloved daemon and who knows what adventures await us?