Note: This is a sequence of scenes inspired by select sections of Tennyson's "In Memorium." The title and some sentences from each chapter are direct allusions to the poem. Though "In Memorium" is in the public domain, the rights to Peter Pan are still owned by the Great Ormand Street Children's Hospital.
Shaken into Frost
It is usually good weather in the Neverland, ideal for adventures, but some nights, flakes of white fall to frost the little island. This coincides with the nights Peter has trouble sleeping. Some springs, he's brought with him a mother who comforts him and rocks him in his sleep, but more often, the lost boys look on, not knowing what to do and barely understanding why their home under the ground has grown so cold.
By the time Peter wakes , they are all asleep again. He lays in his corner, his head propped up on a tree root and wonders why he has awakened. It is both the gift and the curse of Peter's circumstance that he cannot remember his nightmares, and while he tells himself that he doesn't care, some piece of him from long ago asks the question in a tiny voice "what is it makes me beat so low?"
Some deeper part of him understands there is something missing, some pleasure from long ago which he has lost, sacrificed, to live here. He has forgotten family, forgotten mother, and the part of him that wanted to grow up, wanted to be a son is as cold and dead as the layer of snow covering the ground above him.
He shakes his head, muttering to himself not to be a fool and returns to sleep.