"My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety."
– William Wordsworth
Adults are pirates they say. Ruthless, blood thirsty, pillaging pirates. They terrorize children, but are children who terrorize themselves. It's a cycle – a compulsion to repeat. The sins of the father, affect the child to repeat them on their own kin. A dangerous, cyclical path without an end.
An abandoned child, without a real home, with a wish on his lips and his chin tilted up to the sky. He was never certain how it happened, if he'd walked into the lake and drowned, dreaming up a world all of his own as he slipped out of life. But the dream, his supposed suspension of reality, existed for so much longer than he'd expected that it soon became apparent that Neverland was very real.
Killian Jones had been his name, but all children forsake their given name for one they chose themselves. So Peter Pan he became.
Peter, the stone – the steadfast place that you build your home upon without fear of sinking sands.
Pan, the magical flute of a lyrical god, light as the air and as whimsical as the fairies.
Their bold and prideful leader, skilled in the art of being a slick tongued and charming young man. He won all their hearts and earned all of their trust. But all good things come to an end. He sought to grow up, ready to take the world in his hand.
He was ready to go and find love so he chose to grow up.
"And that dismal cry rose slowly
And sank slowly through the air,
Full of spirit's melancholy
And eternity's despair;
And they heard the words it said,—
"Pan is dead! great Pan is dead!
Pan, Pan is dead!"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Pan is dead! Pan is dead!" They shouted, jeering at the pirate and making provoking gestures as the stood atop their stones and crouched among the tree branches. The boys, who had once been his brothers, had turned into his enemies. Stones and sticks struck him, proving to make his anger that much hotter.
"Indeed," He growled. "Pan is dead." He drew his sword, slashing at which ever daft boy chose to dart at him.
This was why adults terrified children and children terrified adults. They were unpredictable menaces, the both of them.
"If Pan is truly dead," Killian started with a dangerous glint in his tone, "Then come and prove to me you fight in his name you little sons of whores." Vicious words that he would have never thought of years ago.
But time had changed their Peter. Pain changes all. He was a cruel, hardened man, still working through the pain of loss – the pain of alone. He'd pushed away everyone, arrived at the coast of Neverland without a crew.
This was a job for him and him alone.
Killian slashed at every boy that lunged at him, barely – almost on purpose – missing them with his blade.
"No you don't!"
Killian wrenched around, swatting with his hook at the owner of that tiny shrill voice. "Tinkerbelle!" He snarled, nearly catching the menacing fairy with his hook. "Be gone little wretch." He hissed as she tugged at his hair, sharp cracks of magic slicing against his scalp.
He sheathed his sword, spurred on by the vicious mocking calls of the boys, spun around and caught the fairy in his fist.
Crack.
The pirate's grip loosened up and the limp body of the fairy fell to the mossy ground below.
"You killed Tinkerbelle!" They screamed in unison, the horror and disbelief evident in their voices. Even if they didn't know who he was, his act was the most heinous thing they'd ever witnessed.
There was a moment, of realization, of horror and disgust in himself – but it passed far quicker than it should have. He snapped upright, sword drawn again, with a sinister grin on his face. "Who's next?" He chuckled as awaited their next, predictable, attack.
"Captain Hook. Captain Hook." A mantra repeated a hundred times over as the boys gathered around the faded or fading body of their chosen leader Rufio. Pierced through his prideful heart by the hook of the vicious stranger.
He could hear it again and again as he sailed from the coast. He had what he came for. He had what he needed. And Captain Hook swore on that night that he was Killian Jones no more.