Chapter 1 - Neverland & Peter Pan
The day she arrived in Neverland it was the same day she met the real Peter Pan. She had climbed a tree to get a better view of the forest, looking for a path of some sort. Having had departed her own realm quite suddenly, without much of a plan, she was only decked out in her favorite jeans and T-shirt, a sweatshirt tied around her waist. No weapons, no cell phone, not even a bottle of water. A rag-tag group of boys, from ages 6/7 to upper teens; barely dressed in tatters, covered in dirt and mud had surrounded her, and had just started throwing rocks and sticks at her to get her out of the tree. When Pan finally slithered out of the brush, she was challenging them to a good old fashioned fight. "Are these your Boys?" She asked. "Not one of them will fight me. They'd rather be cowards and hide behind those rocks and sticks. They won't face me hand to hand. "
"We don't fight girls." One yelled at her. Pan remained silent, as if he were just observing.
"No? But you'll throw rocks and sticks at one, that's real respectable." Kadence sneered, fake lunging towards the boy.
"She has a point, there, Shiny." Pan laughed, his green eyes gleaming. Pan loved a good fight. He didn't care if she was a girl or a boy, pirate or crocodile. A fight was a fight.
"Aw, Pan. I'm not gonna fight no girl." Shiny stuttered.
"This here is no ordinary girl, Shiny." Pan circled around Kadence. "This here is the Champion."
"The what?" Shiny asked. He had never heard of the word, Champion.
"This here is the Champion of the State of Connecticut." Pan waved his hand in the air in a grand sweeping gesture.
"What's Connecticut?" Said a smaller boy with a slight English accent, his hair caked with dirt.
"You don't remember the other Land, Charlie." Pan said almost sweetly, touching the top of the child's head with affection, "In the other Land there are countries and towns, and villages. She's from Connecticut."
Charlie gazed over at the girl. Something in his eyes revealed a little more emotion than the other boys. Charlie may not remember the other Land, but he missed it anyway. This girl was from There. His lips formed the word again, "Connecticut." He paused, "Is that near where I was from?"
Pan let his hand drop to his side with disappointment. He hoped all his Lost Boys would forget about where they were from, and learned to love the life in Neverland. "No Charlie, not close at all."
Kadence stared after the leader of this gang of misfit boys. "What are you even talking about?" She asked.
"All those gold statues in your bedroom. Imagine all the foes you have bested." Pan continued to circle around the girl, menacing.
"You were IN my bedroom?" Kadence sneered. "In Connecticut?" The idea made her skin crawl. "When were you in my bedroom?"
She still did not trust the boy's smile as he smiled when he spoke, "Not me. But my shadow has free reign of all the realms." She saw blackness in the shape of a boy hovering behind Peter Pan.
"That's still creepy. Your shadow visits kids' bedrooms while they sleep. That's creepy." Kadence spoke with confidence, and a hint of revulsion.
The Lost Boys glanced to each other and then to Peter Pan. They weren't sure what was creepy about Pan's shadow visiting bedrooms. That's what Pan's shadow did. The Boys were away from the real world so long, and from such a young age that they didn't quite get the creepy factor of it. Peter had often told them that the world they came from was corrupt and unsafe for children. That they were free in Neverland. Free from the dangers and rules of adults.
"You see?" He postured to the boys grandly, "She's so traumatized from her land that she doesn't even think her bedroom is safe."
"From the Peeping Tom of YOUR shadow." Kadie yelled, stepping forward in a slightly assertive gesture. Pan stepped back feigning surprise.
"So, yeah, I am a champion. I go to tournaments, and I win trophies. I was State Champion last year. So, Yeah, what of it?" Kadence admitted quickly, placing her feet slightly apart, in a defensive fighting stance.
Peter smiled again, that distrustful smile, "So these boys should care if they fight you. Girl or not." It was as if his smile wasn't a smile at all. A smile meant the person was happy or amused, not on Peter Pan. It meant something all together different on Pan.
"I fight boys all the time." Kadence said confidently, "I've fought grown up men too sometimes. We do all sorts of sparring at our Dojo."
Charlie mouthed the word DOJO, not knowing in the least what it meant, but it sounded magical and mysterious. Kadence continued, as she glanced through the faces of the Lost Boys, "But I have no interest in fighting your Boys. Why don't YOU fight me Peter Pan? Or are you afraid to face a Connecticut State Champion." She knew the phrase Champion elicited a certain amount of fear and respect to these Boys, so she used it to her advantage. It was true. She was a Martial Arts Champion in her state back home. Those were regulated sparring matches with rules, and protective gear. It wasn't a group of ragged boys in a forest. But she also knew that she was well trained. This was what she was trained for. To be able to defend herself in any threatening situation.
The boys that surrounded them groaned. They knew Peter Pan was the best Swordsman of all of them, but something in the way the girl stood made them leery of the challenge. Shiny handed Peter a long thick stick. Pan examined it for a moment, from tip to tip, and then handed it to the Champion of Connecticut. "If I win. If I best the Champion, what does that make me?"
Kadence wanted to say, 'it doesn't exactly work that way.' But she went along with the Largest Lost Boy's logic, "Then you shall be the Winner of the Triple Crown, of course." She pulled that title from her Martial Arts tournament lingo. It meant winning first place in the Three National Tournaments of the year. She held her wooden stick sword in front of her, ready.
"I quite like the sound of that." Pan boasted. He held up the second wooden sword he was handed, on guard.
Kadence nodded, and lunged forward, thrashing her sword into his. It made a thick clunking noise of wood against wood. Pan's green eyes never left hers. He parleyed his sword again, hitting the edge of hers as she blocked him easily. She assaulted out at him again, their swords hitting together, their edges against their edges. She pushed off of him with a groan, twisted to her right, bringing the sword towards his head in on downward sweep. Peter blocked this expertly, but the sound of the swords coming together made a reverberating crashing sound, like cymbals in school band. Like metal hitting against metal. Peter's eyes flickered ever so slightly from Kadence's, only to accent his deceitful smile. Kadence refused to show her surprise that their wooden swords had mutated into real metal swords. "Nothing in Neverland should surprise me." She thought as she swiftly circled her sword around her wrist, knocking Pan off balance and causing his sword to clatter to the ground.
"I appreciate you trying to make it a little more interesting." Kadence said, kicking the sword further away from Pan, "But I still win."
Pan growled loudly, heaving himself up from the ground, he ordered his men, "Get her!"
Shiny, Charlie and the others stood still, "But, "Charlie said softly, "She won. It's not fair."
Peter Pan wiped his hands onto his already dirty pants, "There are no rules in Neverland. Only our Rules. Only the Lost Boys rules. Now Get her!" Shiny and Charlie looked at each other, and hesitated.
"Right." Said a deep, manly voice from the bushes, "She bested you mate. This GIRL, bested you." The man that stepped into the clearing was dressed all in black leather from the collar of his vest to the tips of his long boots. Leather vest, leather, pants, leather boots. His black cotton gauzy shirt was unsnapped almost to his sternum, showing a weird amount of black curly hair. That was something that Kadence would have normally thought was disgusting but somehow, it worked on him. "Now in my book, that means something."
"Shut up Hook." Peter sneered, looking to pick up his sword again. He hated nothing more than that pesky pirate nosing into his business once again. Suiting his name, the man indeed had a gleaming silver hook instead of a left hand.
Kadence blocked his reach with her body and sword. She admired the sword. It was a beautiful silver blade, with a dragon's head on the hilt, inlayed with blue crystals where the eyes should be, and etched scales. "This is a nice sword. Can I keep it?" She asked.
"Of course." Charlie said eagerly. "It's yours."
"Shut up Charlie." Pan raged. The little boy did not know when to shut his mouth. Charlie looked offended.
"Don't you be mean to him." Kadence growled, raising her sword towards peter Pan again. She was feeling a lot of confidence having had beat the leader of the Lost Boys, and had Captain Hook on her side. Pan held up his hands in surrender. It was too late anyway, Pan's sword had retreated back to its natural state, a simple wooden stick.
"What do you mean it's hers, mate?" Hook asked crossing in front of Charlie and Shiny, questioning the boy.
"It has to be hers. We don't have real swords." Charlie shrugged. It was a 6 year old's logic for sure.
Shiny spoke up, "She summoned it. It came to her."
"Aye." Hook nodded, rubbing his gloved (black leather of course) hand across the stubble of a beard that decorated his chin. "Magic never ceases to pop up in unexpected ways." Hook raised just one eyebrow to Peter Pan, "Are we done here?"
Pan nodded once, and sauntered away; his Lost Boys filing in a line behind him, the last, Charlie, tugged on Kadence's sweat shirt, "Miss? Are you staying in Neverland? We've only had a girl here once in Neverland before... well, except for the fairies …. And, well, that other girl used to read stories to us, and …"
"Charlie! " Shiny's voice called out to him, and Charlie jumped from the tone.
"I can certainly read to you." Kadence smiled, a beautiful kind and generous smile. "I love books."
"We only have one book." Charlie answered over his shoulder, sprinting towards the forest after Shiny's voice.
Kadence laughed, "That's fine."
"Aye, Lassie. You just made an enemy of Peter Pan. You do not envy you." The pirate said somewhat solemnly.
"Not like you're best buddies with him either." Kadence shrugged, turning her blade in the sunlight. "So this here is a magic sword?" She asked.
Hook kicked the stick that was Peter Pan's weapon, "Aye. Seems to be."
"Do you think it will cut Dreamshade?" She wondered, the dragon's eyes glittering in her hand.
"That's why we're here, isn't it?"