So this is my first ever His Dark Materials fanfic, just a tiny drabble that came to me because I love Marisa Coulter. I hope it shows at least a little of how complex she appears to me...

The child screams.

(She is no politician's wife, no figure of influence in the Church – a mother.)

The foreign, pink-faced, writhing thing opens a tiny, avid mouth and screams.

Marisa exhales harshly, her whole body tense and numb.

She can't approach the warm little thing in the blanket. She pushed it out of herself, shouting and shaking with the pain. She carried it for nine months, its weight, its cravings imperious in her body. She named her Lyra, after those stars – faraway, fiercely burning, solitary.

(Asriel. Asriel did this to her. Asriel will come to take her away, and good riddance – no – damn him. Damn him and what he does to her world.)

(Asriel)

She can't touch the child. It scares her, terrifies her. It's foreign. It's unwanted. It's going to ruin everything. It came to life, stubborn, selfish and now it shrieks for her to feed it.

Tears flood her eyes and she has to turn away as the gypsy tends to the infant, throwing a withering glare her way.

(She can't. She won't. Someone take the child.)

(Please, please some quiet. To be alone.)

On the floor, her monkey hisses mockingly, touching her leg.

She swats it away.