I do not own any rights to Peter Pan or the Shadow, nor do I own the rights to the dialogue immediately following this disclaimer. The initial dialogue has been taken from the show (Season 5, Episode 9) to provide context for the time frame this story takes place in. I own nothing from Once Upon a Time.
Anyways, here's my first shot at actually typing out my fanfiction! Let me know how it is, please feel free to review or send me a PM :)
"What's the hourglass for?" Peter Pan asked incredulously as he landed on the floor of the cave, glancing around.
"It represents the magic fueling your youth. The magic allowing you to stay here, to stay young." The Shadow responded, floating next to the large object.
"What happens when it runs out?"
"Your youth will be taken… and you will die." The Shadow stated simply.
"But I thought I was going to stay young forever?" Pan asked incredulously, whirling on him.
"Neverland is a place for children to visit in their dreams, not a place for them to live. You were the first one to try and stay, and in doing so, you're breaking the rules." Hissing, the Shadow swooped down in front of him.
"Any rule can be broken, especially here! I made this place without even thinking about it. There has to be a way." Pan moved past him, walking to stand staring up at the golden dust trickling through the funnel.
"Perhaps."
Peter Pan stared up at the hour glass in front of him as the sand slowly trickled down into the lower reservoir. "Then I will find it. I will find it. I believe."
The Shadow floated behind him, its eyes' sinister light reflecting in the glass menacingly. Had he had a mouth, he would have smirked.
Lyra Hall sat at her desk in her dimly lit room, staring absent-mindedly at her computer screen, scrolling through one of the mindless blogging sites she all-to-often frequented. Sighing, she shut down her laptop and stood up to yawn and stretch as a cool ocean breeze blew lightly through her open window. She turned and went to sit on the bench below the window, leaning out onto the sill and breathing in the fresh, salty air. She could barely make out the sea behind the blocks and blocks of Cape Cod houses, yet still, it was there.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled in her windows and latched them shut, pulling the curtains closed as well. She checked the clock: 3:02 a.m. "Another late night." She muttered as she changed out of her jeans and pulled on a pair of light sleep shorts and a tank top and crawled in bed. And for absolutely no reason either, She finished as she turned out her light and sank into the pillows.
She stared at the ceiling for a while, unable to quiet her mind enough to close her eyes and drift off into empty slumber. Dreams had been escaping her as of late. Try as she might, when she awoke she could remember nothing of her adventures in her mind, and it felt as if she hadn't been sleeping at all. It was miserable.
When she finally gave up and glanced at the clock, it read 3:24 a.m. Lyra groaned into a pillow, suppressing the urge to scream. Had it really only been twenty minutes?
When her suppressed anger drained away, she rolled over and reached for her book on the side of her bed, A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. Sighing, she turned on her bedside lamp and thumbed to the page where she had last left off, and began to read.
"Your job is to guide the dream-selves of children to Neverland so that they can spend their time here while they sleep. They will find their own way back as they wake." The Shadow told Pan abruptly as they flew over the trees of Neverland.
Pan's hooting ended abruptly, and he stopped mid-air. "You mean I have a job to do? This is ridiculous! I thought that was your job!"
The Shadow had paused a few feet away from him, floating deadly still. "It was, yes, but now that you're on the island, you'll need something to keep you busy. And other children, as well. I have more important matters to attend to."
"Like what?! You're a shadow, what could you possibly have to do?" Pan sneered.
The Shadow swooped in dangerously close, but Pan did not flinch. "That is not your concern." Turning, the Shadow pointed to the sky, at the various stars that littered the black abyss. "Those are not stars, those are worlds. There you will find the children you are to guide here, one at a time. Simply fly towards any of them and you will be transported there after some time. Once you extract a child's dream-self, it will follow you back here. Only once it has entered Neverland will it become conscious of its surroundings."
Pan scoffed. "And how exactly am I supposed to get back here? I'm not your lackey!"
The Shadow was mere inches from Pan's face. "Find the brightest star in the sky, and fly towards the one to its immediate right. Second star to the right, do not forget it." He turned to fly away towards the other end of the island before turning back to Pan. "A word of warning: Time has no effect here; here, time stands still. Therefore the worlds you travel to will not be of the same time period of which your world was. You could travel to a world a thousand years in the future, or one hundred years in the past. It makes no matter, children are children, and you will bring them here all the same. That being said, the longer you stay in one world, the more you will age. You have eternal youth only here in Neverland. Stay in one world for longer than a few minutes, and when you return you will be older. This I cannot reverse. Spend your time wisely, Peter Pan."
And with that the Shadow vanished into the trees, leaving Pan alone amongst the tree tops. For a while he glared into space before finally turning to the sky. He crossed his arms over his chest before deciding on a considerably inconspicuous and dim star to his right. Frowning, he took off for it at full speed, curious to see a new world. He never once thought of Rumple.
Lyra woke with a gasp, sitting straight up in bed as she coughed for air. A thin sheen of sweat beaded down her arms and cross her forehead, and she threw off the covers and shivered, glancing about the room suspiciously. She checked the clock. 5:39 a.m. So she had gotten maybe two hours of sleep at best. She groaned, turning to throw a pillow at the clock until she noticed the window: wide open, with a breeze fluttering gently through the curtains. The observation froze her to the spot, unable to move or scarcely breeze.
I know I shut it, and I latched it too, I know I did. She thought frantically, her eyes slowly raking the room for any signs of an intruder. It was unlikely; her room resided on the second story, and it had no balcony either, yet still she searched. When did the lamp turn off? Had she done that before she fell asleep? She couldn't recall. And where was her book? The last thing she remembered, she had been reading in her bed with the lamp on and the window shut.
She thought she heard movement in the back corner of her room, yet even by moonlight she could see nothing, the corner was drenched in shadow. Still, she chucked the pillow at it, and it landed with a soft thud on the floor, not hitting anything.
Lyra sat in bed for a few moments longer, her hair lazily drifting around her face from the wind. Finally she let out the breath she had been holding and climbed out of bed, moving to latch the window once more.
Yet when she stepped onto the floor, she heard rustling beneath her bed, and she squealed and jumped to the side, towards her desk. "Who's there?!" She shouted, grabbing her 3-hole-punch to use as a weapon if need be.
Suddenly, a shape leapt out from beneath her bed and dove out the window, and Lyra suppressed a screech of shock before running after it, bracing herself against the sill as she threw her head over the side to look down, but when she glanced at the ground, there was nothing there. She looked frantically around the yard, yet still, nothing. Her heart pounding, she let her makeshift weapon fall to the cushion beneath her and pulled the windows in once more, latching them as well as setting in the permanent locks on the side before pulling the curtains shut completely. She backed away from the window slowly before sitting down on her bed.
It was a long while before she could finally lie down once more, and by then, it was mere minutes until her alarm went off for school.
Peter Pan found himself on the shore of an unknown world with strange, tall buildings and structures along the coast, as well as strange bridges jutting out into the open sea that led to nowhere. For a while he was dazed and confused. What kind of weird place is this? He thought, before remembering the Shadow's warning. If he stayed too long in one world, he would begin to age again. Therefore it was more out of fear than excitement that he began to fly from house to house, looking for a child to bring back to Neverland with him.
Yet the first house he stopped at drew him in not because of the child, but because of the bright light emanating from the window. He drew closer and peaked in, shielding his eyes and taking precautions not to be seen. His jaw slowly fell at all the strange things he couldn't even begin to describe in the room, but what caught his attention was the girl sitting in the bed.
She was not so much a child, but rather appeared to be a few years older than his body now, yet she was not an adult, either. Her wavy, espresso colored hair sprawled in soft waves and loose coils across her shoulders, cheek, and pillow, one strand caught between her pursed pink lips. A book rested atop her chest, one strap of her tank top fallen off her shoulder, her arm flung across the remainder of her large bed. Pan chewed his lip, wondering how to continue.
He floated over to the window and used his knife to raise the latch, then gently pulled the window open. Drifting inside with the sea breeze, he moved to float over the girl, noticing the faint smattering of freckles across her cheeks. When he glanced at the thing the light came from, it snuffed out. He looked back to the girl, reaching a hand down to gently move the hair from her face. She was very beautiful, he decided. He picked up her book, glancing at the symbols incredulously before tossing it to the side. It's not like he could read what they said, anyways.
So, how do I extract her dream-self…? He thought to himself as his hand lingering in front of her lips, feeling her shallow breaths on his fingertips. He stared hard, beginning to see a second shape forming beneath her skin. That must be it! He realized, and pinched her breath between his fingers, beginning to draw her second-self out between her lips.
That is, until she sat straight up in bed with a gasp, sucking her dream-self back into her body. It was all Pan could do not to cry out as he reeled backwards, quickly swooping under the bed before she had a chance to register that he was there. He heard her shifting in bed, saw the pillow land in the corner of the room where she thought someone was. Shit. She knows someone is here. Pan suppressed a groan.
When he heard her step out of bed, he went to slip out the other side, near her door, to ready himself to launch out the window. He wasn't quiet enough, though, and her squeal signaled that she had heard him. When she shouted, he lost all sense of pretense and launched himself out from under the bed and dove out the window, swinging upwards to land on the roof and catch his breath.
He heard her scamper to the window, saw her look around frantically for him, and he thanked his lucky stars she had not looked up. When he heard the window latch and lock, he swooped back down again to peek inside, but found the curtains drawn. He sighed, then remembered the Shadow's warned, and dashed off towards the second star on the right, not wishing to face the consequences of staying in this world another minute.