The Monster In The Cage
Prologue
A/N: Helloooo! Sorry about the delay on the sequel! I won't babble on too much here. I just hope you like it!
Disclaimer: much to my absolute anguish, I don't own any of the settings or characters within this fic. Just borrowing them for a bit if that's okay :)
"Who are you?" The boy tightened his fingers around his hammer and tried to stop them from shaking along with his voice. He didn't look at the girl as he spoke, although he felt her shift towards him inside her cage. He hadn't seen her face since he'd arrived but her voice, and the confirmation of the Boys who had been here since before her imprisonment, assured him that she was indeed a girl. A person, not a creature. He knew it was probably not wise to ask, but he was not wise. He was drawn to danger, to the thrill of it. That was why Peter Pan had let him stay in Neverland.
Because he was brave. Because he was reckless enough to believe in anything and everything.
"I'll tell you my name if you tell me yours. You're new here, are you not?" her voice was soft, but he didn't let that fool him. He had been told about her; the way she liked to make deals. The way she liked to lie. He had been so afraid when he was first sent to stand guard for her. Afraid, and excited. That was the day it was decided; that he was a Lost Boy, well and truly. Guarding the girl in the cage was his honour.
"I don't have to tell you anything," he said.
"Hmm. I suppose I'll have to give you a name myself, then," she mused. When he turned around, she was pressed against the side of the cage, fingers looped through the gaps. He could see her eyes- blue, wide. Human. They were fixed on him.
"My, you've got curly hair," she murmured. "How about that? Curly." She grinned, although he could only see half of it. Adrenaline kept him rooted to the spot, perplexed. She didn't seem to him to be monstrous. That must be the most dangerous thing about her, he thought.
"My name isn't Curly."
"Too late," she said mischievously. "You had your chance to choose your name. Don't you know? If you don't do it quickly, somebody else will choose one for you."
"Nobody chooses their own name," he told her.
"Sure they do," she said. "I, for example, am Red Handed Jill." Her eyes were glinting through the bars. "So named because of the blood of my enemies that simply soaks the earth wherever I go," she was whispering, and he was closer than he'd first thought. With a start, he jolted back, raising his hammer in front of him in warning.
"Don't try anything," he spat bravely. "I'm not stupid. I've heard the stories."
"Well I haven't," she said. "Tell me, what do they say about me? What does Pan tell his new recruits to make them fear the monster in the cage?"
"He tells us the truth," he said. He felt a rush of pride, then. Pride at being a Lost Boy. Pride at being Pan's Lost Boy. He had a leader who did not spout rules at him. He had a leader who let him do whatever he wanted. He would not let him down.
"And yet," she said, "he did not tell you my name." There was a note of victory in her voice.
He hesitated, because he could not deny that she was right. Pan would let him do whatever he wanted. But he would not tell him everything. He knew more about the mysterious Truest Believer than he did about the girl in the cage, and the little he knew, he'd heard from Tootles and Nibs. His curiosity singed him, wavering his loyalty. He felt like he would be letting Pan down, if he asked for her name, and he would not let Pan down. He wouldn't.
But as it turned out, it wasn't up to him.
"My name is Wendy Darling," the girl said, clearly, so that there was no chance of him mishearing her, and he was suddenly full of the satisfaction of knowing- and the guilt of knowing that he shouldn't know. "Tell me, Curly, are you really scared of me?"
He flinched and looked away. He didn't have to talk to her. In fact, he shouldn't talk to her. So he returned to his silent post, staring into the forest.
He didn't see the smile that twisted Wendy Darling's face as she slid back, letting herself lean against the back of the cage. He was afraid of her, alright. The way that he jumped around her, too scared to speak- it was glaringly obvious.
"Good," she whispered to herself, and if the Lost Boy could hear her, he said nothing in response.
Wendy didn't know how long she'd been stuck in that cage. At first, she'd tried counting, keeping track- but she knew from her game with Pan that in Neverland, such strategies would do her no good. So she gave up, and let her limbs curl in, and let the Boys who came to guard her think she was just stewing in there, plotting against them.
In a way, she was.
In a way, she liked it.
She liked the reputation she was given, hand-crafted ever so courteously for her by none other than Peter Pan himself. She liked that they were afraid of her- and she liked that Pan himself must be afraid as well, for since she'd first awoken in her cramped prison, he hadn't come to see her once. She had played the game of waiting, at first; waiting for him to come back. Waiting to see his face, hear his smug taunts or desperate excuses. Waited for an opportunity to spit in his face, to tell him what she really thought of him. But as time passed, and he did not come, she grew tired of waiting. Still the fact that he was constantly sending Lost Boys to bring her food and water and let her out of the cage if only to wash herself, meant that he hadn't forgotten her. They would replace her cage on occasion, each slightly bigger, each slightly stronger. Each less relenting when she shoved her all weight against it, tearing at the twigs.
She had escaped from her first cage that way- slowly working at the back wall, making a hole, then making it bigger. She had slipped out at night, and the Lost Boy on duty hadn't seen her leave- at least, that was what the boy said. Truthfully, it had been Tootles who had watched over her that night. He had been the one to tell her that Rufio had died. It couldn't have been more than a few days since she'd been captured, and she'd begged him for the truth. When he gave it to her, he'd seen the look in her eyes and he knew that her friendship wasn't a lie. He'd let her run. He'd hoped that she would make it. But Pan had known. Somehow, Pan always knew. He sent Felix to stop her, and he'd blown poppy dust in her face.
That made it the second time Wendy had woken up in a cage.
It was a dull life, but not so dull as one might think. She entertained herself via the boys who guarded her. When Tootles did it (which was an infrequent occurrence as it was), she could merely talk to him; he would tell her of the games they had played that day, or of new Boys who arrived on the island. But normally, she enjoyed playing up to her menacing reputation- making dark, malicious statements, singing songs of blood and death, claiming that she knew just how to curse a boy if he didn't give her the information she wanted. It was amusing when it worked, and it was amusing when it didn't, because then, she watched them squirm. If they didn't believe that she was a hideous monster than that meant that they didn't believe Pan, and that would make them a traitor. It wasn't a position any Lost Boy wanted to be in, and Wendy loved to gently push them into it.
Curly was the newest of the Lost Boys.
Wendy liked him, as much as she could possibly like a member of Pan's impossible group of Disciples. He was brave, and curious, and stubborn. She commended Pan for choosing to keep him. She knew from Tootles that Pan hadn't been keeping many of the Boys the Shadow brought back anymore. He'd discarded dozens, sending them back to their homes. He sent them howling. Wendy heard their screams, and she wondered what they had each done to endure Pan's wrath. Of course, she knew it wasn't so much a question of what they had done to be banished, but of what the others had done to make him like them enough to let them remain.
She sighed as the first rays of sunlight began to touch her face. The nights were bearable, but the days were endless boredom. The days were when the Boys would play, and, aside from somebody being sent to slide an apple through to her as cautiously as one might feed a python, she was left to her own devices, with nothing to do but think. Thinking, she quickly discovered, was its own kind of torture. So Wendy made a point not to think about herself or a predicament- for that would do her no good. Instead, she dedicated her time to noticing things. She noticed the island. She noticed that, even while the sun was shining, there were layers of grey clouds not far away, threatening to swallow it up. She noticed that there was a certain kind of bird- a tiny, green one- that had made its nest in the tree to her left. She noticed that it fed on blue berries, even though Pan had told her that they were poisonous when she had tried to eat them, once. She noticed the Lost Boys- when they would run past her in the midst of a game. Nibs had lost two of his fingers, no doubt playing a variation of one of their more deadly games. Tootles was becoming thin, and fast. Why, just the other day, she'd seen him catch Slightly in a game of tag, and everyone knew that Slightly was quick. Curly had been dropped into the ocean when he'd arrived, and Felix had swum out to retrieve him- only to find Curly battling the waves perfectly well on his own.
Felix, though his smile was still a rare sight, was thriving. He was Pan's second in command, his champion, his trusted advisor. He wore that title like it was a crown of gold around his head. How long would it take, Wendy wondered, before he realised that, even though he was back in Pan's good graces, he still didn't have what he wanted? She hated Felix for a thousand reasons, but somehow, when she thought about that, she felt a little sorry for him. He was fooling himself, and that never ended well. She should know.
Then there was Hook. Tootles had told her of what had happened- how he had finally been able to leave Neverland in search of his revenge. She was glad of that; glad that one of the three friends she'd had on the island had managed to get what they wanted. She still wasn't sure what his revenge was to be, but if she were to hazard a guess, she would say it must have something to do with the woman called Milah- the one whose necklace she still wore. The necklace Pan had given her. Pan, and not Peter- not anymore.
He was one of the two people whom Wendy hadn't seen since she'd been trapped, and for that, she was pleased. On the one hand, it filled her with satisfaction, knowing that she had affected him enough that he couldn't bear to see her face. On the other, it filled her with relief- for he had hurt her too, whether she wanted to admit it or not, and she feared that if she looked him in the eye, she might have to admit it- at least to herself.
Tinkerbell was the second person Wendy hadn't seen, and this time, she wasn't pleased at all. She wanted to see her old friend, more than anything else.
Wendy is my friend.
It was the last thing she'd heard her say, and then she had heard her be slapped down for it, punished because she'd refused to betray Wendy. She wanted, so very much, to tell her that she was her friend, too. But even Tootles hadn't been able to tell her of the fairy's fate- for what had happened to Tinkerbell was so secret that he guessed only Peter Pan and Felix would know. Wendy didn't plan on ever speaking to Pan again, and Felix wouldn't tell her if she asked.
That was another thing that Wendy tried not to think about.
The next chapter should be up at some point tomorrow. Stuff will actually start happening then :P
Thank you for reading! Please do review and let me know what you think!
