Killian stepped aboard the Jewel of the Realm, and chastised the crew for drinking before his brother, the captain, climbed onboard.
Emerlyn poked her head up from below deck, watching.
Killian turned to her and winked, smiling faintly as his brother stepped forward.
She smiled back and ducked beneath the deck.
Liam shook his head at the pair, but smiled faintly at his niece before she vanished. When they set off, Killian went below deck.
Emer was sitting just out of sight of the crew mates, idly swinging her legs as she sat on top of a barrel tucked into a corner.
He smiled at her. "Morning, Em."
She grinned back. "Morning." She returned. "How's everything?"
"Wonderful. Ready for sailing." He said as he sat beside her.
"And where are we going this time?" She asked like they hadn't just had this conversation the night before.
"Why don't you ask the captain? I'm not sure."
She stuck her tongue out at him. "You're first mate."
"But I don't know," he said with a laugh. "Your uncle got orders from the king himself."
"And he didn't tell you?" She asked, leaning to nudge him with her shoulder.
"Not yet. He told me it was special though. So I have a feeling it's going to fantastic." Killian told her with a smile, kissing the top of her head as she leaned over.
She grinned quickly hugging her father before he slipped off the barrel beside her.
"I'll come get you tonight so you can see this place." He promised, kissing her forehead.
She nodded and slipped down a little further into her hiding place. "Star watching too?" She asked hopefully.
Killian turned over his shoulder to smile at her again. "Of course. You bring that little journal of yours?"
She nodded quickly and he grinned at her again before climbing above deck once more. She pulled it out and quickly scribbled down a few notes.
When her father finally came back to get her, it was well past dark, the whole deck covered in shadows and the stars bright overhead.
She followed him quickly up the stairs.
He smiled at her as she stepped up, looking quickly up at the stars to see if there were any new ones, or if these were the same ones she could see from home. They weren't the same, not all of them, and she couldn't help but notice there seemed to be two north stars. Second star to the right. She wrote that down in her notebook.
"Stay here." Her father whispered quickly. "I've got to talk to your uncle."
She nodded, sitting on the side and jotting down more notes with quickly sketched maps.
Her Uncle Liam pulled a rope and opened a sail made of Pegasus feathers, and the mass of white downy lifted them into the sky at the next breeze.
Emerlyn laughed and faced the wind, letting it sweep back her dark hair.
When her father returned, he smiled quickly at her and told her that he and her uncle would have to go ashore soon, and he wanted her to stay on the boat no matter what.
She did not agree. "I thought you didn't like leaving me alone with the other sailors."
"I don't. Which is why you are going to stay in the captain's quarters with the door locked."
"Why can't I just go with you?" She asked with a frown. "Nothing bad's gonna happen. Especially not with both of you there with me."
"I don't know, Em." He sighed. "We don't really know what's out there."
"Please?" She asked again. "I want to go."
He looked out at the shoreline and dragged a hand through his hair. "Alright." He sighed at last. "But you stay beside me the whole time."
She nodded quickly. "Yes sir."
Killian laughed quietly. "Makes me feel old."
"Would 'yes, Lieutenant' make you feel better?"
He snorted and shook his head. "Not at all. 'Papa' will do just fine."
She smiled.
He scrunched up his face at her before Liam emerged and looked at Killian skeptically. "I thought she was going to stay in my room."
"Change of plans." Emer said with a grin. "I'm coming with you."
Liam raised an eyebrow. "You're sure?" He asked Killian.
"No, but she's managed to convince me."
Liam smiled. "Never takes much with her, does it?"
"No." Killian agreed with a grin of his own.
She smiled sweetly at both of them.
"Let's go." Liam said as he started forward. "We only have so long to get what we're after."
"Which would be what?" Killian asked as he quickly followed his brother, hand gently holding Emer's elbow.
She was curious too as she put down her notebook, hiding it on the deck.
"I'll tell you later." He promised.
"Mate," Killian started with a laugh. "It's as late as you can get right now."
"I'll tell you when we're on the island."
"Alright." Killian agreed hesitantly before they set off for the small island.
He helped Emerlyn into to boat.
She smiled slightly at him before they started rowing out.
She sat down, helping when the two adults would let her, which wasn't very often. She was usually stuck watching the two of them and the island drawing ever closer. Once they ran aground, Killian turned expectantly towards his brother. "What are we after?"
"Dreamshade, a plant that can cure any illness." Liam said, at least that's what he thought it was.
Emer thought she had heard the name once before, and she didn't truly believe it was for healing, but she couldn't be sure. And her father's questioning expression as he saw her skepticism didn't help anything. She waved him off, sure it was nothing.
He nodded and the three set off into the forest, Liam leading the way with Killian and Emer close behind.
When they found the Dreamshade, a boy that looked about Emer's age appeared beside them, dressed in dark green clothes. "I wouldn't," he warned. "That's poison."
"Poison?" Killian repeated incredulously. "I think you're mistaken."
"Am I?" He asked. "I only live here."
Killian and Emer both turned to Liam, and Killian eased over to stand in front of his daughter.
The boy was watching her closely, curiously.
"Nonsense," Liam scoffed. "I'll prove it." He tore off a branch of the plant and cut himself with a thorn, dragging it up his arm from just above his wrist to just below his elbow.
Killian leaned forward, trying to stop him, but it was too late. Black veins bulged on his arms and he hit the ground.
Emer gasped, blue eyes wide with fear.
Killian shoved her back from the dreamshade and her uncle, blue eyes wide and fearful as he knelt beside his brother.
"He'll die when that poison reaches his heart," the boy in green told Killian.
"How do you stop it?" He demanded, trying not to touch the dreamshade while helping his brother as much as he could.
He waved a hand and it opened a waterfall behind the dreamshade. "The water will heal him, but all magic comes with a price. Are you prepared to pay it?"
"What's your price?" Killian asked, already starting to prepare himself to drag Liam to the falls. But the boy was gone.
"Papa," Emer said quietly. "Give me your canteen. I'll get the water."
"No." He said protectively, quickly rising from his brother's side. "I'll get it."
She nodded slightly, moving to her uncle's side.
She turned her back on her father as he knelt to retrieve the water.
The boy appeared behind her again.
She gasped and fell on her butt.
"You're pretty," he said bluntly, and Emer blushed.
"Thank you…What's your name?" She asked quietly, still not able to look him quite in the eyes after his blunt compliment.
"Peter. Peter Pan."
She glanced down to her dying uncle before looking back up at the boy and fighting not to turn and look for her father. "What was that price you mentioned?" She asked softly. "What kind of magic?"
"All magic," he said with a shrug. "Doesn't matter what kind."
"Okay," she said slowly. "And what is he going to have to pay?"
"Depends for all kinds of magic."
"Gold?"
"No." Peter said slowly. "Usually something more precious than that."
"Like what?"
He shrugged.
"Okay?"
"Oh, I think it's been paid." Peter said excitedly, pointing for her to look.
"What?" She asked as she looked that direction.
Her father was gone, and so was the waterfall.
Emer gasped and turned back to look at her uncle, but he was gone too. It was only her and Peter Pan left alone in the forest. But she hadn't been in the forest…
"What did you do?!" Emerlyn asked in alarm.
"What did I do?" He asked with wide eyed innocence. "What makes you think I did something. Maybe the price to save your uncle's life was you."
She opened her mouth to protest, but… maybe it was. But she was sure that her father wouldn't just leave her here. Not with this strange boy. Not just… just abandon her like that.
She felt cold dread settle in her chest. She'd been left behind.
She knew he loved her Uncle Liam, but to just leave her? She tried her hardest not to accept it.
"He wouldn't." She whispered. "He wouldn't… wouldn't just leave me here."
"See for yourself." Peter urged, stepping over to push a stand of saplings aside so Emer could see their ship out in the cove… sailing away… And she had tears running down her cheeks.
"Come on," Peter said softly. "I know somewhere you can go. Where everyone was abandoned, just like you."
"Em!" Hook called desperately. "Emer?! EMERLYN!" He shouted, crashing through the trees like a madman. He had turned for one second, and once he looked back… Liam was gone and his daughter and the boy had vanished.
She could've sworn she heard him. "Dad?!" She called back.
"He's not coming back for you." Peter said sharply, waving his hand and the call of her father abruptly faded.
Pan pointed back to the ship sailing away from the island. "He's already left, Emer." He said, much softer, hand on her shoulder.
She shrugged him off. "I heard him," she said quietly, tears still falling down her cheeks.
"Sometimes the mind plays tricks." Pan insisted. "Here, listen again…"
Nothing. Only the wind in the leaves and the birds chirping overhead like Emer's whole life wasn't vanishing before her.
Killian had screamed himself practically hoarse, he had heard her, heard Emer call for him. But she never shouted for him again. His mind immediately went to the worst possible thought he could have thought.
He couldn't lose her though. Not today. Not ever. And especially not after just losing Liam too. He searched all over the island for her, crying out for her until he was so far past hoarse he could barely breathe.
Killian finally collapsed as the sun started to set again. It was hopeless. She was gone too. If she had been able she would have called back for him, let him know she was still alive. He let himself sob for his lost family, cry into the forest as he mourned the loss of now what little was left. It was only him.
After such a long time of hopeless, broken sobs expelling from his throat that already felt like pins and needles every time he took a breath, he forced himself back to his feet. "I will find you, Emerlyn," he vowed to himself before screaming. "You hear me?! I will find you!" And he left for the ship—his ship. With Liam gone he was captain, and he wasn't leaving this cursed island until he found his daughter.
Except for one problem, he still worked for the king's navy. So, he went back and fixed that quickly, declaring himself as a pirate. Then he met Milah.
And for a time, he was distracted, blessedly numb to the loss of his daughter, but when he lost his hand and the dark-haired beauty to the crocodile…
He returned with a vengeance to Neverland. He wanted to destroy the person that had taken his daughter from him. He was going to kill Peter Pan if it was the last thing he did.
But when he looked back on what had happened with Milah, he realized he hadn't been numb to the loss of his child, despite what he thought. When he needed to find somewhere, he looked at her journal of stars, when he was especially tense he hummed the old sea song that he used to sing to Emer as a lullaby. Everything made him miss his only child. That was a hole in his chest that could never be refilled. Not until he found her. And he wasn't going to stop searching, and then he'd rip out that mongrel Pan's heart out with his shiny new hook.
He actively hunted the Lost Boy leader and his band of brats. He never caught sight of his daughter, just heard her beautiful singing voice every so often as she called to recruit more. He had to leave behind his crew every time they heard her. They couldn't hear, they weren't lost, but he could hear, and he felt his heart break a little every time at the thought that she believed she had been left behind.
She had no idea that the so-called villain Captain Hook was her father searching for her all across Neverland. And he knew it was because Pan wouldn't let her, whatever he was doing it was keeping Emer from getting anywhere near him. Because Pan knew that the moment Emerlyn found out her father hadn't left her, he'd lose his favorite Lost One. She was very much his favorite. His only Lost Girl. The most beautiful of their group. And her voice entranced him just as much as it did the first time he had heard it, called to him just as strongly as it did to the Lost Boys—maybe even a little stronger.
He followed her everywhere. There was almost no moment when she wasn't in sight of either him or Felix, she was constantly watched, and when she wasn't singing to attract more Lost Boy's, she was at the compound, and forced to be by Pan's side when he wasn't drawing away the pirates. For the first few years it was alright, she didn't mind so much, but after a while it became smothering, then he turned almost obsessive towards her.
She tried to sneak away, using the excuse that she was continuing to call lost boys. But Felix was always close behind her, Pan would never let her stray far. And if she ever did start singing, he would appear behind her.
Especially when she unintentionally made her voice stronger, unaware that she had.
Pan stuck even closer to her than her own shadow after that, only leaving her when he had to scare off Hook. And most of the time, he used his shadow for that—if it would work.
For another several years, Emer was trapped by him, and the closer he got, the more his true colors shone. The dark colors, the evil he had only hinted at before. He was a monster. And she wanted nothing more than to escape.
He wouldn't let her go, he truly was obsessed with her. And Peter didn't like to let go of what he had taken, which only made her want away from him even worse.
It finally got to the point that she snuck away one day, grabbing onto the sleeve of a member of Captain Hook's crew in desperation once she was far from the compound.
"I want off the island." She whispered quickly, a dirty hand clamped over his mouth to keep the man from screaming. "Tell your captain to meet me behind the waterfall at mermaid lagoon. No Pan. No tricks."
He nodded quickly.
She sighed a quick breath in relief, nodding herself. "Thank you." And just like that, she was gone into the trees again, vanished without a trace as the man ran back to the ship to tell the infamous Captain what the Lost Girl wanted.
She waited out there for the Captain.
He never showed though, Peter had attacked him just as he entered the lagoon, and the male to step through the waterfall wasn't the pirate she was expecting.
Felix glared murderously at her from under soaked bangs. "Oh, you've done it now." He accused.
She stepped back. "Stay back, Felix." She warned in a voice that was surprisingly not shaky.
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Or what? You were going to betray us." He hissed. "Leave Peter."
"Peter's not my family!" Emer snarled.
"Your family left you!" Felix shouted. "Your family abandoned you!"
"Pan stole me from my family!" She snapped back.
"That's not true." Felix snarled.
Emer flinched as he charged her.
"You have no family." He spat. "They left you like they left all of us."
"You gave up on your family!" She snapped, fighting away from Felix. "I haven't given up on mine. I will get off this island and I will find my father!"
"Your father has already given up on you." Felix insisted.
"They've all given up on you. Don't you think they would have come looking if they hadn't?" The voice that spoke that was calmer, yet struck more fear in Emer than the furious Felix before her.
Pan had arrived, and just because he didn't sound angry didn't mean he wasn't just as angry as his second in command.
She slapped Felix across the face and screamed so loud that she made leaves die and fall of trees.
Less than three hundred yards from the cave, Killian tried to move forward at his daughter's scream. He had no idea what Pan had done to him, but it took every ounce of his strength to even try and move, his vision blurry and dancing with dark spots that threatened to overwhelm him as he dragged himself forward inch by agonizing inch.
Emer bolted away from the Lost Boys, but she never saw her father. She dashed to the right, the direction opposite of Pan's compound, whereas he had collapsed on the left side of the rocks, the outcroppings completely hiding him from her line of sight.
When Hook finally got free, he found Felix and attacked. "What did you do to her?!" He snarled, his hook pressing against his throat.
Felix backed up, chin high and the left half of his face covered in a bright red handprint. "Told her the truth." He spat. "That her father wasn't ever coming back for her."
Killian pushed the hook closer to his skin, pinning the Lost Boy against a tree with a furious cry. "You stupid bastards are the reason she's lost. I never ever stopped looking for her. And I never will. And when I kill Pan, my daughter's coming home."
"Then I guess you should kill me." Felix suggested. "You're never going to kill Peter. You're never going to get your daughter back."
Killian made a noise that sounded like an animal's snarl and slung his hook across Felix's face before he was gone in the other direction, following Emer's trail.
Felix touched the new cut, his fingers coming away red.
He glowered after the man as Pan appeared beside him again, furious. "You've done well, Felix." He complimented as gently as he could. "But find her. Emer can't leave this island."
"Yes, Peter," Felix said, following them through the woods.
They tracked Hook first, the man leaving a much more obvious trail than the small teen had. But they were going the same direction, so they didn't need to track her.
Or they thought they didn't, Emer didn't know it was the captain following her, and in the fear, she tried to lose him, throwing him off her trail as best she could. But Killian knew her, and he knew what she'd do.
She wanted off the island, so she was going to try and find a way off. His ship.
And if she made it they could both leave Neverland forever. So, he took a different trail to lead Felix off her path, and it worked.
Pan wasn't so easily fooled though, while Felix chased after Hook, he flew overhead to try and catch Emer in her ruse and betrayal.
She gasped and swerved through the woods, trying desperately to reach the beach and the pirate ship. She reached the beach and tore across the sand, her eyes going wide when she saw the ship. It was her uncle's, but… he was gone, so it was her father's. She saw Pan gaining on her and rushed into the water, diving under the waves.
He hesitated just over the water, she might have submersed herself, but he was still right on top of her. He wouldn't let her go. Emer felt panic setting in, she wanted to just let go, stop holding her breath and let the ocean pull her out, sink her to the bottom. Anything to get away from Pan.
She could see the bottom of her father's ship and she was going to get to him.
She swam as fast as she could to reach the barnacled covered bottom, hoping Peter wouldn't be foolish enough to try and attack her with all the pirates' attention on him.
She resurfaced beside the ship and called to the pirates onboard, but whenever Pan got close, she ducked back under the waves.
It was a long time before any of them managed to get a rope down to her so they could try and hoist her aboard without Pan reaching her, but Emer held on as tightly as she could as she was lifted up out of the water.
She fell onto the deck, shivering and drenched.
A thick blanket was quickly wrapped around her shoulders and the crew seemed to keep their distance after that. She was aboard… but where was her father?
"Where's your captain?" She asked, standing up.
"Out looking for the Lost Girl." One said simply, all of them looking at her knowingly. "Who knows what he does when he can't find her though."
"He's looking for me?" She asked in surprise. "Is there any way you can get in touch with him from here?"
"No."
She looked back toward the beach before she saw Pan's shadow diving for her. She shed the blanket and leapt off the side of the boat again. She swam toward the shore.
"Captain Hook!" She called when she was just barely shallow enough to stand.
The shadow dove back down towards her, trying to pull her out of the water as she cried out again for the captain, for her father. But she ducked under again, and the shadow couldn't get her. No shadows underwater.
It let out an angered shriek and when Emer resurfaced she called out as loudly as she could for her father. And she heard him call back, running across the sand to the water where he saw the swarming shadow and a bobbing head.
Emer stopped calling, just evading the dark creature above her as Hook ran into the water.
He was close enough to see that it really was his little girl when she ducked into the water again to try and get away again.
Killian dove himself, grabbing her around the waist protectively when he was close enough.
She locked her arms around his neck, holding on tightly against the odds that he might let her go. When they got back onto the ship, they were almost safe. Until Pan's shadow dove and grabbed her, pulling her from Hook's arms with a scream from the Lost Girl.
"NO!" Killian cried, desperately rushing to try and catch the shadow, but it was gone. And it had taken Emer with it. She was gone. His little girl, literally torn from his arms for a second time.
She was dropped back on the beach, she tumbled right to Pan's feet.
"I'm so disappointed in you," he said, shaking his head. "Now it looks like you need to be punished, so you never try to run again."