Nᶒ√ᶒяlaᵰd:
Prologue
Right, so, has anyone actually noticed that Peter Pan (in the book), while quite young, is kinda… evil? Ruthless? A Bastard over all Bastards? And Wendy is just so focused on being a mother that she just sorta does…..nothing? I have taken it upon myself to fix this by setting it in a dystopia because Oppression Fixes Everything. Peter Pan, you have now been relegated to the stuff of nightmares. Good luck, dear reader, I made up a dystopia so it's probably going to have about a million similarities to other dystopias. Pairings if I make up my mind, but I don't wanna give away anything. Also, this is mostly book stuff, because I can't remember back to when I was five and saw the movie.
Disclaimer: I don't own this. And by this I meant Peter Pan. And by that I mean in a legal sense because I totally own a copy. That I own. Not in a legal sense.
Anyway.
Let us begin.
"The gaiety of those romps! And gayest of them all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her you may have got it." –J.M. Barrie
Wendy Moira Angela Darling lived at number 14 in a tall stout building, a little bit derelict and full of lower middle class families. The Darlings were so poor in fact, that they almost sold their old heirloom piano, the rotting one in the corner that was nevertheless played every Sunday when they danced to the old tunes like Jingle Bell Rock and Let It Go. The songs were so unlike the dirge variety that played in the streets over the constant intercom every second Thursday of the month that Wendy often wondered if they were songs at all. The piano was protected by an extremely upset Mr. Darling, Wendy's beloved father.
Wendy's father was a Bank Manager, a highly esteemed position, one that ranked third on his List of Important Things, after family and piano playing. He did so love the rickety old piano and played upon it every Sunday for their weekly romp. He was Chosen for Mrs. Darling at the age of nineteen and had proposed to her immediately. Strangers would say that they were besotted with each other. Those that knew the family would say that they had something much more precious; Respect. That was rated number four on Mr. Darling's List of Important Things.
Wendy's mother, Mrs. Darling was an enigma to everyone, including her daughter and husband and not to mention the Scanners that the population wore every night to bed in order to detect every disloyalty to the Nation. Her mind was like many boxes, one inside another, inside another, a puzzle so that the Scanners could never see what was inside that innermost box, what was hidden from the world. The Kiss.
The family were among the poorest living there but they loved each other and they were happy. Well they seemed happy, as it was quite hard to tell with Mr. Darling's pianist tendencies and Mrs. Darling's innermost box and Wendy's penchant for getting into trouble and breaking the law by wearing a thimble around her neck almost constantly. Let us just assume that they are happy and move on.
Wendy was friends with the Robinson boys, John and Michael, because the only other child on the third floor was Jane Dutch, a rather snooty girl who, despite only being older than Wendy by a year at fifteen, pretended that she was all grown up and that she was rich and sophisticated. Wendy had no time for girls that were in such denial. She preferred playing with the boys, old games her father and mother had taught her, like Sardines and Hide 'n' Find, which was like Sardines, only in reverse.
They also had adventure games, and Wendy would pretend to be a cop and wave her sword about and the boys would be the burglars, climbing in with bows and arrows. The Watcher for that section took great delight in Watching the children play on the ever-present, nostalgically remembering his own adventures as a kid and swearing to himself that if Liza, everyone called her and Mrs and Mr. Darling and Liza's aunt, Nana, ever went missing for one reason or another, he would adopt them on the spot. That's how sweet they were, even if Wendy was old enough to know that cops didn't really have swords, she catered to the boys.
The boys and Liza and Nana, an old prim wrinkly lady who moved surprisingly fast, would join the Sunday dance, the boys getting under everyone's feet with their passion, especially Michael, who was quite young and didn't really understand the concept of "slow" yet. Liza was an old friend of Mr. and Mrs. Darling from their school days and she and Mrs. Darling got on famously, if awkwardly, well. The Dutch's from 27 were there too, of course, except Jane who found such things beneath her.
And so they danced, Mrs. Darling outdancing them all and Mr. Darling playing Tumbalalaika from a ripped and stained edition of Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course Level Two. Everyone was there, except for Jane and Liza's husband, who had been arrested for being able to summon fire without a licence for an Ability. Even the Watcher was there, in a way, tapping along, ignoring the blatant disregard for the rules and hoping his superior didn't come in and find him watching them have a merry time on the cameras. The time got late and Nana eventually took them all to bed at Liza's place, tucking them in and leaving the lamp on to scare away shadows. She stood guard just outside the door, waiting for Liza and Mrs. Darling.
And so they came, giggling like a pair of school girls, slightly high on euphoria. They sobered up as soon as they saw the old lady though (Nana had that affect) and immediately entered to kiss their children good night and place their Scanners on their heads. Wendy murmured in her sleep. All was peaceful. Liza and Mrs. Darling sat comfortably side by side, watching the Scanners relay a constant feed to the Watchers.
The headband shaped Scanners glowed with a soft light, almost peaceful as they scanned for keywords and images, rummaging through her memories for something she may have done or someone she had caught sight of. That thought woke Mrs. Darling up quick. She watched as an amalgam of words and fuzzy pictures and shapes flashed across her screen, trying to see if someone they knew had been caught doing something they rather shouldn't have. Beside her, Liza fell asleep, a comforting presence that she hoped she was never rid of. The screen went on, trying to match up her daughter's mind with a column of names and offences and random words associated with defiance. It wasn't totally fool proof, you had to picture things in order for it to be swept up in the net, so to speak, but it was a good way of catching criminals who were stupid enough to show their faces or someone handing out anti-Nation pamphlets. That's how Mrs. Darling had kept the innermost box secret.
The screen scrolled down á la Matrix, the column running faster and faster in white print while the memories scrolled down at a leisurely pace. The column started being littered with bits of red, a name flashing by, almost too quickly to see what it was.
But Mrs. Darling saw it. She saw what it said.
PETER PAN
She had seen it before, somewhere. It was cloudy on her mind, a storm cloud bringing death and destruction. Until she remembered.
Peter Pan was the product of Nations dark side, an urban myth everyone heard in some way or another. He was an assassin, immortal, forever young. He seemed innocent until he plunged his dagger into your heart. But there were worse stories about him, rumours propagated by the Nation that he took your children away to Neverland. And when they came back they were, different, somehow. Much the same but different: Happy. Innocent. Heartless.
The red spread like a virus, spreading everywhere. It took over the white and the rest of the screen, making it bleed and Mrs. Darling panicked and thwapped the screen, waking up Liza, but she didn't care, she just wanted everyone to stay away, just stay away from her wonderful daughter.
PETERPANPETERPANPETERPANPETERPANPETERPANPETERPANPETERPAN
Angela broke down on the floor crying, sobbing, with Liza trying to comfort her.
Yes, well I warned you. But good news is: Mrs Darling finally gets a name! Hurray! And it works! Don't deny it. I made all of this stuff up at three in the morning. I'm not sure if it turned out well. Will be back next week in a whirlwind of the first chapter. Be prepared!