I hurt.....therefore, I am......
It was the nearest the man's mind could muster to an intelligent thought. Every muscle of his body complained of it's abuse, and his leg shouted angrily of an open, harassed wound. At least, it might have been his leg....he felt as though he were watching from a thousand miles away, drifting half into awareness and out again before he could understand what was happening. He was a spectator, and his body, the world around it, were up on stage. He need feel no connection to the performers, only watch with partial interest as they voiced their complaints. It was a peaceable realm, really, but as all forms of peace it cannot last. Soon he drifted into awareness and stayed, the world sharpening and taking form, leaving him without a place to retreat to. The pain was HIS pain now. Despite attempts to fall back again he could not, and with some difficulty accepted that he was now here, permanently.
He tried to open his eyes.
A small feat by any standards, it now seemed an incredible strain, and he only managed to open them to partial slits. Tinted, dirty, and cruelly bright sunlight wretched the nerves there, but he knew if he closed them again he would never reverse the action. Next...he must roll over. He had to move, if only to see where he was, and with a rough groan he managed to haul himself onto his side. His ears...at first they hurt, and then, a muffled, tinny sound like some distorted ocean wave began to register in his mind. Ocean? His eyes focused and he was greeted by an expanse of blue ocean brine, a clear blue sky, and rough sand beneath his palms.
Where was he? He'd never seen this place before. At his feet the cold salt of the sea lapped his torn boots, and before him the sand gave way to a rather eclectic forest. He must have washed up on shore somewhere......had he been on a boat? Had it sunk? Had he fallen overboard? He couldn't remember. A boat...he had to have been on a boat, taking him from.......to.......but he.....
He couldn't remember. SOMEHOW he'd ended up here, but he couldn't remember. And if he didn't belong here, where should he have been? Somewhere, surely. He had to belong somewhere. He forced himself to sit up and move away from the slowly advancing ocean, though his abused muscles voiced their displeasure quite loudly. His left leg, particularly. Still somewhat dazed he leaned down and examined the torn trousers. Though all of his skin had collected scratches and scrapes, a gaping maw still leaking blood and looking greatly harassed was on the back side of his calf. Morbidly curious at the injury he prodded it with a torn knuckle, and nearly bit thru the sides of his tongue when the action awoke the nerves previously dead from the water. But thru refound blood he noticed something black sitting in it's depth, a stone, or a piece of metal...a bullet?
When had he been shot? He strained for an answer but nothing rose to mind. Nothing at all. He was trying to read a book without words, for his minds was completely and utterly blank. Below his ribs the cold, churning sensation of utter panic rose and threatened to consume his body like an overgrown parasite. With some effort he pressed it down but could not destroy it. He had to think about what needed to happen now, not what had happened before. And for now...he needed to find out where he was.
Good. That gave him something to focus on. Unsure of his
ability he oozed upward, to his knees, to a kneel, to a crouch, to an uneasy
limping stance that made the pain nearly unbearable. Setting his
jaw against it he lurched forward, stumbling towards the tree line.
Behind him a trail of claret blood stained the sand, and was eaten by the
endless waves.
"You can't catch me! Whoosh, I'm the wind!"
A barefoot child with long black hair came swooping out of the bushes, running thru the trees with half a dozen blue fairies trailing in his wake.
"Whoosh! I'm an eagle, I rule the wind!"
A second child ran after him, flapping her arms in a mimicry of wings. To her long hair three white fairies clung, chattering angrily at her sudden departure.
"Oh yeah? Well I'm a hunter, I shoot down the eagle!"
"I'm a panther, I pull out the hunter's throat!"
"I'm a--"
"EEEK!"
The girl's shriek made the boy turn on his heels, and following her pointed finger he saw what she saw. A sticky spatter of blood formed a trail across their path, and ended in the hollowed out body of a wide neveroak. It was not this alone that made the girl shriek. After all, she was a redskin's daughter, and knew well the rules of life and death in the forest. It was that even in the heavy shadow of the tree's interior, the body of a man was visible. It was not a redskin man, nor one of the Lost Boys, nor even one of the pirates she had seen on occasion from the edge of the beach. He was curled into a fetal ball and shaking terribly. Around him, covering the legs of his tattered trousers and smeared across his deathly white skin, was the blood that had made such a trail here.
The boy took up a stick from the ground and poked (rather stupidly) the injured man's ribs. He twitched, but did little else.
"Who do you think he is?" the girl said, ignoring the tangled fairies' cursing as they picked their way from her hair. "Is he a pirate?"
"He doesn't look much like a pirate. Maybe one of the Lost Boys?"
"The Lost Boys don't have any grownups, silly. He must be a Lost Grownup. No one ends up in Never Land who isn't lost."
"Yeah. He's bleeding pretty bad. Do you think we should tell someone he's here?"
The white fairies, having finally untangled themselves, dragged the blue fairies into a swarm above their heads. The flickering lights cast odd shadows about the trees before they vanished quite suddenly above the forest roof. Neither child noticed.
"You can stay here." the boy said. "I'll go back and get someone."
Before she could argue he, too, had vanished. Suddenly quite alone,
she sat down at the base of the tree and waited for help to arrive.
He dreamed. In the great void of liquid darkness thru which he floated, he dreamed. They were blurry, fragmental dreams, frustrating in their elusiveness and uselessness. People with faces made from sky drifted past him, while above, the sky was made of faces. No real faces, to be sure, but shifting, liquid masses that here looked like a woman, and there looked like a man. Expressions were lost in an instant but for a long, silent scream, surfacing here and there with new eyes of utter terror and disbelief. He wanted to name them. Names stood on his tongue but he could not claim them, no matter how he mouthed the syllables to himself.
He awoke. The darkness behind his eyes lifted long enough to open them. Light was dim here, lending a disquieting appearance to the curve of the mud and stick walls. It's only source was from under a skin tacked over the small doorway. Sitting up, and regretting it immediately from the pounding this caused in his head, he reached weakly towards the entrance, cracking lips moving but his throat too dry to sound. He wanted to cry out to someone, anyone, who could tell him what was happening. Where he was. Why he was here. And perhaps, someone even knew his name.
Attempting to rise to his knees, he found his action impeded. In the dim light he saw he lay on a thick furred skin, and his leg immobile upon it from a stiff splint holding his knee. His trousers had been torn off at the thigh on that leg, though they were clean and patched, and his shirt was also. It was a better condition than he had awoken to last time.
Rolling onto his stomach and crawling to the small entrance, he flicked back the skin covering and was nearly blinded by the onslaught of amber summer light. His eyes adjusted, though, and in a moment he could see a scattering of huts similar to what this one must be, small fires, trees, and something he took a moment to recognize as a partially rendered deer. Two young men with dark, reddish skin were working on the carcass, and had turned to stare back at him. One whispered to the other, and the latter vanished into one of the huts.
Apparently the two boys were not the only ones out, because something in the edge of his vision moved and he saw a woman move away from some sort of beading work she'd been doing in the sun. In a moment she reappeared with a water skin. The remaining boy watched suspiciously as she approached and gave a small smile, and held the water skin above his lips. He forgot the glaring brave and gulped the stream of water as if it were the best thing he had ever tasted. In many ways, it was.
"So your finally awake." came a heavy baritone voice. The man choked on the water, startled, and he turned his head to face it's source. A redskin man, somewhat old, quite massive, and entirely bald stood there, with the young man who had left beside him. "You were out for three days. We thought you wouldn't wake up. How's your leg?"
Confused and flustered, he rasped "D-do I know you?"
"No. But my name is Blue Hawk." There was an expectant pause. "Now, I believe, it is customary to tell your own name?"
Four sets of eyes were staring at him as his brain whirred helplessly.
"I-I don't know. I don't know my name."
"You've forgotten your own name?" said Blue Hawk, curiosity and suspicion raising one of his eyebrows. "How does one forget something as simple as one's name?"
"I don't know! I don't know anything! I don't.......I don't REMEMBER anything....."
"Nothing at all? Not your home, your family, not even how you were shot?"
"No...nothing."
The old redskin approached and kneeled beside the man, who was still sitting awkwardly on the ground.
"Whatever incident caused your injury and set you adrift in the sea could have shocked the memories out of you. Or perhaps a knock on the skull chased them away."
One of Blue Hawks massive hands touched the back of the man's head. Some unknown instinct tore thru his gut and he jerked forward into a heap, hands covering his head protectively. No one spoke. After a moment he pulled back up, shaking some and head throbbing from the sudden motion.
"You need rest." was all Blue Hawk said. He stood and, as if he weighed no more than a child, scooped the lost man into his arms and carried him back into the hut from which he came. "The rest of my tribe will be back shortly. Together we will decide what to do with you. For now, you need to rest. Deer Sister will bring you something to calm you."
He felt he should have protested to being handled in this manner, but in his current position it seemed unwise to protest anything. Blue Hawk left, and the man propped himself up on his elbows, staring blankly at the walls of the hut. His mind wanted to be full of thoughts, of plottings and questions and curiosities, but he could not give it what it wanted. The meager experiences his mind had to work from, both disconnected and all to short, did not supply a brain as labirithian and laborious as his was finding itself to be with much material. In it's momentary solitude it picked apart every snippet of information it had collected, tried feebly to connect the two events, and failed on most all accounts. The best it could summon was that he was still in the same area as he had washed up, because the trees near the village were the same mix as the ones he'd seen before passing out. The information was only slightly useful, but not terribly.
On a more useful note, his brain noticed the vast difference between the color of the flesh these people were built from and the pale tone he saw on his hands. This difference could not be solely attributed to blood loss. This meant he had either washed up very far from home, or he had been an odd one where he had last lived.
So he knew he was in the same place he had been when he washed up, and very far from home.
It somehow didn't feel like an achievement to know this.
The skin over the door flipped up, and the same woman who had given him water stepped inside. She really was quite pretty. She looked to be perhaps in her fortieth year, with a warm, patient glow in her eyes that only mothers tend to have. The look was comforting. In her hands she held a pottery bowl with triangular birds painted in black on the sides. With utmost care she knelt beside him and helped him to lean against the wall.
"You must be Deer's Sister?" he asked. The woman nodded, and handed him the bowl. It was filled with a warm dark liquid with a slightly herbal scent. Before he could discern what it was she slipped from the hut.
Might as well try anything once, and his stomach was wanting of something inside it. He sipped it experimentalyl. It tasted something faintly like sage, and another thing he couldn't place. Whatever it was, it was pleasant, and he swallowed half the bowl in a few gulps. In his pause he noticed an image dancing on the surface of the liquid. A reflection. Good lord, was that him? He raised a pale hand to touch his cheek. The image moved as well. It WAS him!
He was deathly pale with rude discolorment around his eyes. His features were largly good, if a little rough, and he noticed he must have been a very merticulouse person back when he couldn't remember. His hair was black and slightly curled, and trimmed precisely at a perfect, short length that struggled to fall in place even when so tangled as it was now. He raked his fingers thru the mess and checked his reflection again, and was pleased. Two pale eyes stared back at him from the bowl, and he wondered just what color they were, since the reflection was tinted. His moment of self absorbtion was inturrupted by his mind throwing forth a word triumphantly. The word felt as if it did not belong in his head, as if it had been stolen from someone else who had long been deceased.
The word was 'James'.
"James." he murmered, staring into his own pale eyes. "James? Can that be right?"
His brain slowly connected the word James to the face before it. His name was James. The triumph that should have been that moment was tainted by the feeling of the word. It had come from some place of darkness, some deep buried grave that should well be left alone. It was saturated with the fragmental remenants of someone elses agony. He could not define what, but he did not like it at all. Was that his mind? Was that him before he could remember? Nausea threatened to take him as he realized it was. The mind that had been shut away from him was a dark and miserable place. It burned with fear, pain, and anger, old wounds that could never heal and new wounds just blazing into life. Certainly everyone's mind wasn't so terrible after only his questionable years. Whatever had caused this he did not want to see, and forced his churning brain to be content with just a name.
"My name is James. I. I am James."
Out on the churning water surrounding Neverland, dancing across the sea that had so rudely treated James before, a great rotting bulk of ship tripped from wave to wave. It's sails were patched and dingey, and it's mast was splintering at the top. In worn red letter near the bow it claimed it's name; The Jolly Roger. Holding true to it's nature that exact thing waved bravly from atop the mast. It was a tattered red flag bearing a black skeleton, raising a rum glass...the flag of choice for pirates of the main.
"You rotting meatbags! You pathetic excuse for a crew! We're almost to the land, do you want the bloody redskins to take US unprepared? Get your tails moving, before I cut them off!"
That was the captain,who has known many names, but here will be called Barbecue. He stood aloof from his crew with his hands fisted on his hips. His image is a familiar one, ragged and unshaven, with a missing leg replaced by wood. Many remember another adventure he'd had before vanishing to Neverland, and if time had done anything to this man he had become twice as foul in his ways and entertainments, rivaling even the feared Captain Low.
Understandably, his men gave perfect respect.
A cool south wind pushed them obligingly towards Neverland, and as the island came in sight the final preparations had been made. All men were armed, those who had the pitch hardened sort of armor wore it, though they doubted their targets would have a counter attack, or even a defense ready. But they prepared for the worst; all knew too well that their captain did not tolerate the injured, and more often than not he used them for his 'entertainments'.
The most densly forrested area of the island was to be their landing
point, and the captain was correct in his assumption no one would see them.
The redskins rarely came there. Though the hunting was good they
thought evil spirits lurked in the woods, and would not enter. That
gave the pirates a clear area of one quarter mile before encountering the
indian village. Most any other form of man would find it unbearably
greusome and entirely unfair to attack a people without warning or due
provocation. But the pirate was exactly the form of man that could
do it. And they would. Shortly.
Whatever had been in the drink sent James back into a dark and empty sleep, where, blessedly, no dreams came to taunt him. The cold silence of this nether world cooled the futilly churning gears of his brain, an effect that lasted even after he was prodded awake in a dark and primitive setting. Judging from the quality and lack of light that came from the enterance it was night, or nearly so, but the flickering glow of an unseen fire cast trembling shadows on the wall. Above him stood a man just slightly older than Blue Hawk, who's black eyes shifted eerily in the unsteady light.
James began to speak, but a raised hand silenced him.
"Be at peace. My name is Great-Big-Little-Panther. I am the leader here. And you are the one who has no name."
"Er, actually, I think my name is James...." he inturrupted meekly.
"James. And that is all?"
"That I can remember."
Great-Big-Little-Panther nodded. "And you are James." He paused, then continued. "I have held council with my guides, both here and in the spirit realm. Blue Hawk and Running Tiger are my most trusted advisors, and they beleive you to be of no harm. However...."
The cheif got a far away look in his eyes, and James wondered if he was allright.
"My advisors of the spirit realm do not tell the same story." He finally said. "The raven and the crow say your nature is one of death. You have killed before, and will kill again."
James's eyes went wide, but the chief continued.
"The panther tells me the nature of your time, which will be long, with two rebirths yet to come. The serpent tells me you will one day be our enemy."
Now James's jaw clenched. He was sure they would kill him now, to prevent the future they thought would come. He wondered if he could sneak away the next time they left him alone.
"But the songbird...." he said, voice softening. "Tells me you will first be our friend."
"A-are you going to kill me, then?" James stuttered.
"No. It could not change the future if we did. No death is final, especially not here. Especially not now."
The cryptic feel of the statement sent James's mind into action, but he would have no chance to question the man.
"You may stay with us, until memory or destiny sends you to your fate."
"Thank you."
Great-Big-Little-Panther shook his head. "Do not thank us. You will find, perhaps, a greater kindness had we killed you."
James went stiff "What do you mean by that?!"
The cheif ignored him, and pushed open the flap to leave.
"What do you mean, it would have been kinder to kill me!? What are you talking about?!"
But he was allready gone.
Long tendrils of night twined round worn leather boots and muffled the sounds of footsteps. A dozen or so men with their back's stooped and hands on their swords crept as silently as they knew how over the rotting vegetation of the forest floor. Most could see nothing; night had fallen completely over Neverland, and the thin light the moon afforded barely even reached the ground. Each followed blindly the man before him, and the lead man followed Barbecue, who seemed to have no trouble in the dark. Even with his ungainly wooden leg he was quieter than the rest, and saw obstructions before falling into them. Despite it's usefullness the men found this ability disturbing. Their captain's behavior was allready ghoulish even to their hardened minds, and even the slightest hint of supernatural about him made him too frightening to want to share ship with.
Barbecue knew his men's superstitions and paranoias well; he had to, to avoid a mutiny. Most had been pirates before coming to Neverland, and had lived under the vaugly democratic system of pirate ships. They were used to councils and quartermasters, an elected captain and the ability to overthrow him if he went against their will. The captain had no REAL power there. Barbecue was of the nature to want real and absolute power, and the only was he could obtain this was to join the legitimate Navy and work his way up to captain. He did not have the patience or discipline to bother with that.
Of all the pirates he had known on previouse exploits, pirates lost to Neverland were the easiest to control. They had been completely severed from the familiar world where logic and law applied. Some even thought they were dead. This made them very easy to dominate by someone who seemed to know what was going on and how to overcome it. It was an act, of course. Barbecue had no more of an idea as to where they were, how they got there, and why all logic had fallen thru than the rest of his crew did. He simply didn't care as much. So what if they were dead? So what if they were in a dream? Whatever got them there did not change the fact they were there, and he was going to make the best of it.
That is why they were attacking the redskins. Berbecue needed to stay in power, and to do that, his men had to be loyal. The only way thay would follow him and still put up with his behavior is if he kept them occupied and focused on an outside enemy, not him. The redskins were as good as any. In fact, they were really the only option. The only other inhabitants of the island were a gaggle of boys who flew by fairy magic, and they were few, unorganized, and generally a poor target for such a campaign as his. Besides, they were friends with the redskins, and whichever he chose to fight he would inevitably end up fighting both. It worked in their favor, anyway. That their enemy was allied with supernatural children made his men even more set against them.
_Thanks for you cooperation, Peter._ Barbecue thought to himself, amused.
From somewhere ahead the faintest flicker of motion caught Barbecue's attention, and his hand stretched back automatically to stop the man behind him. They had to be near the indian village, and any motion or sound might mean they had been detected. But the action did not occur again. Barbecue motioned his men forward.
At the edge of the village, he saw the fires had been covered and the leather flaps of the hut entrances were pinned together for the night. The redskins were asleep. What blessed luck was this! Taking a deep breath, he nodded, and all the pirates drew their swords and ran into the village to find....
...nothing. The violence with which the huts were slashed open dissipated to confusion as they were found empty of sleepers. The entire village was deserted. Barbecue froze. From the corner of his eye he saw the small motion of a bow being aimed. The bloody indians were ambushing THEM!
He didn't even have a chance to curse before a rain of arrows (none aimed to kill, thankfully) rained down on them, and in a panic his men scattered. Enraged, the captain raised his sword and ran blindly into the trees, though whether he was aimed to chop the indians or his own cowardly men, we can't be sure. Fortunatly he did not catch either. In his rage he'd forgotten the indians were still armed, and in passing an arrow struck his posterior and stuck there.
The indians were laughing as the pirates went running back towards the
ship.
Some ten minutes prior to this failed (and embarrasing) attack, James had been shaken awake by small hands. In the dark, two pairs of enormouse black eyes stared down at him.
"What--"
"Shh!" One of the children put a hand over James's mouth, and whispered "Be quiet. You have to come with us."
"Why?" he replied quietly, though still not helping as the children tried to push him to his feet.
The smaller child, whom he realized was a boy, answered. "The pirates are coming. Our father ordered everyone out of the village so they can't attack us."
"Pirates? What pirates?"
James's memory may be faulty, but he knew well enough that pirates were only a threat at sea, and rarely attacked inland towns, especially ones with so little to offer as the indian village.
"Just come on!" hissed the other one. Female, he thought, and older.
Finally conceding, he tried to move up to his feet, and leaning his palms quite heavily on the childrens' shoulders, he hobbled out with them into the lesser dark of the nighttime world. He could now see that he had been correct in his guesses as to the childrens' gender. The girl looked to be perhaps eight, though she was a very upright child, and the boy perhaps six. Both had small bows and three arrows on their backs.
They led him to the trees, where he would have run into the perfectly still indians had the children not been there. All who could shoot had their bows in hand and an arrow limp on the string. The children joined them, leaving James leaning akwardly against a twisted old tree, trying not to put weight on the injured leg and failing. It was damnable, really, that the wound was very nearly in the back of the knee. This meant he could not bend without reopening the thing, though the sticks placed in with the bandages prevented that. It made it intolerably hard to walk or stand since all had to be done with one leg. He was still light headed enough from the loss of blood to make standing on one leg nearly impossible.
The battle, which does not bear repeating, ended swiftly. The usual stoic pride of the indians melted as they returned to their village, and even James could not help laughing as he watched the two children giggling and bragging. The youngest was strutting around like he had defeated the pirates all by himself.
"James, did you see, did you see?" said the girl, after proudly waving her bow at her father and receiving a light and amused verbal chastisment for bragging. She didn't care. She showed her small bow and remaining arrow to James "I got the captain! Right there!" she said, patting the rear of her deerskin skirt. "He won't be forgetting ME for a while, huh? I'll bet it hurt! Did you see?"
"Yes, I saw." he chuckled.
"Warrior princess Tiger Lilly!" she crowed, and ran off to tackle the other child.
In only a short time, Great-Big-Little-Panther seperated them good naturedly.
"It's time to sleep now. You've had enough excitement for one night."
"But Father, we helped chase off the pirates!" protested the boy. "Can't we stay awake and talk over the fire, like the warriors?"
"Hard-To-Hit, you'll live like the warriors when you're old enough to be one."
"I'm old enough, aren't I? I was old enough to fight..."
Tiger Lilly spoke "Please, Father? We won't inturrupt anybody, we'll be good! Honest!"
Great-Big-Little-Panther paused a moment. He knew his children well enough that he trusted them not to pester, but he also knew they needed to sleep. If he let them stay up, and sit around the fire listening to men prattle out stories, they would likely drop off much faster than if they lay on the mat in the hut grumbling over a missed oppurtunity.
"Allright, you can stay up and listen." he said. They cheered and ran off to help with the fire.
Of course, he was right. Nothing is quite so interesting as it seems when you're a child and not allowed to join, and within minutes of one of the elders beginning the well-known creation myth, Tiger Lilly was curled up on the ground beside him, and Hard-To-hit on his lap, both sound asleep. They didn't wake up when he took them one at a time up into his arms and carried them to the hut, laying them both gently on the heavy furs they slept on. After the fire died down and all the remaining warriors went to their respective huts (including a confused and fading James), he leaned down carefully beside them and kissed each on the forehead.
"Good night, my children. May your nights be sweeter than your days."
And they were.
To Be Continued...