Title: Remembrance
Fandom: The Old Kingdom series
Rating: G
Length: 500 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: I haven't actually read the series through in a while, but writing this made me remember all sorts of fun snippets from the books and now I want to read them again! Also fills the 'Jewelry' square on my bingo card!
Summary: Lirael's librarian's bracelet brings back memories.



Lirael was emptying out an old travel bag when she found it.

The bracelet tumbled from the bag to the floor, the silver and emeralds glinting in the candlelight. Lirael scooped it up, staring at it, and felt a lump rise in her throat.

She had been training as the Abhorsen-in-Waiting for nearly six months now, and away from the Clayr's Glacier for far longer than that, given everything that had occurred after she had left the Library. But somehow, her librarian's bracelet had survived all of that, hidden away in an old bag until it had arrived in the palace with her.

The five awoken key-spells glowed, golden Charter-marks swimming through the emeralds. Lirael traced them with her fingertips.

This one had been unlocked from the start, this one unlocked when she had become a Second Assistant Librarian… and the other three she had unlocked herself, hiding them under an illusion. Either the illusion had faded, as old Charter-spells sometimes did, or it had somehow unravelled.

Lirael wondered which doors would have been opened by the last two emeralds. Wondered if she would ever have reached a station where they would have been unlocked, had she remained at the Glacier, never discovered her abilities as a Remembrancer, her heritage as Abhorsen-in-Waiting. She didn't often let herself dwell on the past; thinking about it for too long only made her miserable, and if she had learned anything from the Disreputable Dog, it was that the canine would have disapproved of Lirael sinking into depression again.

But it had been a different life, in so many ways. In just a few months Lirael's path had changed utterly, from Librarian to Remembrancer to Abhorsen-in-Waiting, and sometimes she still wasn't sure of how to find her feet in this new life.

The bracelet was somehow both comforting and saddening. On the one hand, it reminded her of what she had lost, what she had perhaps never really had. But on the other hand… it was a part of her past. Through the bracelet, through the key-spells she had unlocked, Lirael had encountered and eventually bound the Stilken and countless other dangers in the Library. She had rediscovered places buried under the ice, using her Charter-skins to explore where others could not.

And, most importantly of all… without the bracelet and its key-spells, Lirael would never have found the Disreputable Dog.

Smiling a little to herself, Lirael looked at the bracelet again. Then she clipped it around her wrist, tucking it under her uniform where it would be safely out of the way.

After all, she wasn't just Abhorsen-in-Waiting. Once, and still, she had been one of the Clayr, even if she had never and would never gain the Sight. Once, she had been not Lirael, Abhorsen-in-Waiting and Remembrancer, but simply Lirael, Third and then Second Assistant Librarian.

Putting away the bag that had started all of this, Lirael rose, and went to ask if she might borrow a Paperwing for a few days.