Follow the Lady
Chapter 4: The Game
For the past fourteen years, I improved my magic skills, explored new realms, and dodged Mab's inquisitive glances that asked when we would return for the boy. She never asked me why I didn't want to take Bae that night, even though I've pressed her to share her past with me countless number of times. I never realized how invasive I've been of her privacy until she exercised restraint in consideration of mine. Her patience has allowed me to avoid facing my greatest regret and accept the time remaining in the hourglass, but that would soon change.
Blowing into the pipes, I close my eyes and let the hollow notes soothe my mind. Mab gave them to me to ease my loneliness whenever she is away, telling me they are enchanted to allow the lost to forget their troubles. The sound of a whirling breeze interrupts my song and I open my eyes to see a dark cloud appear before me.
"Damn!" Mab curses after her signature black smoke fades away. "Damn, damn, damn!" She kicks a nearby tree stump, causing it to magically burst into flame.
Rarely have I ever seen her angry. Putting the pipes away, I tentatively ask, "What's wrong?"
"That bastard Rumplestiltskin became The Dark One and ended my war!" She fumes. I swallow nervously at the sound of my son's name. "Fifteen years wasted all because that fool wanted to keep his son from being recruited!"
My palms sweat as the conversation I had avoided for so long begins. I nervously shift my weight, scrambling in my head for words to calm her down before I tell her that I didn't want the heart of the Truest Believer anymore.
"This is going to make it more difficult to get the boy too," she sighs with irritation. She leans back against a tree trunk watching the flames of the burning stump die down for a moment before she realizes that I have been silent since she shared her news. "What's the matter with you?"
"Nothing," I respond defensively, "I just…" I trail off, unsure how to tell Mab that I want to break off the deal we made when we first met and effectively ruin any future opportunities she has to overthrow the Fairy Guild.
"Come on, spit it out."
It's going to come out sooner or later, so I might as well get it over with. I take a deep breath. "I don't want the Heart of the Truest Believer anymore. I just want to enjoy my remaining years and be done with it," I say as quickly as possible, hoping that by some miracle, she will accept my decision.
She stares at me for a few seconds as disbelief slowly creeps into her eyes. "Why not?"
I look down at the now burnt stump between us, doing my best to avoid the intensity of her gaze. "Rumple… He's my son." I finally confess, feeling a burden lift from my shoulders only to be replaced by a dread sinking into my chest. "I— I don't want to take away his only family."
I look back up to see Mab's eyes widen as the revelation sinks in. "He— You—" She sputters, unsure of what to say. Finally, she exclaims, "We had a deal!"
"I know," I run my hand through my hair nervously, "I'm sorry."
"We had a deal!" She says more angrily, stepping forwards and shoving me. "I came to Neverland because I thought you would help me!" She continues to shove me and hit at me with resentment like an angry child. Growing irritated with her tantrum, I grab her wrists and force her to stop.
"I've already abandoned him once; I can't take away the only person he loves as well!" I assert, holding tightly to the girl now struggling against my grip.
"I've been planning this for a hundred years, I won't give up now!" She shouts, stomping on my foot. I let out a yelp and release her, grabbing at my aching foot. I've never taken to abuse well, and her following insults elevate my irritation to anger. "You're a coward and a cheat! I should never have trusted you!"
"Then leave!" I yell back at her. "No one's going to miss you if you do!"
Mab is taken aback by my sudden outburst. Having no words to respond with and no further purpose to stay, she disappears in a cloud of smoke.
My anger subsides the next morning. I wake up, our fight forgotten with the calm of slumber. I look up, expecting to see her arms and legs hanging off a hammock in the tall branches like usual, but she isn't there. I spend the day manipulating the island and practicing my magic before going back to sleep. The next day, she still has not returned. For the following several weeks, I pass the time similarly, playing the pan-pipes whenever I feel lonely. Alarmingly, I find that its music makes me forget the things I care for. First, the guilt of abandoning Rumple abated, which I found comforting. Next, the desire to achieve immortality returned and I felt excited there was no longer an emotional distress holding me back. Finally, my memory of Mab started to fade, creating a void in my chest. I stopped playing the pan-pipes when I couldn't remember what we fought about anymore.
"You should go after her," says Tink, floating in the air before me. The strange green fairy first appeared a few days after Mab announced that the war was lost. Her mission was to capture the "fairy traitor" to be eliminated according to the Guild laws but realized it was impossible if her target cannot be found. Her visits became frequent over the last few weeks initially in hopes that Mab would return, but the objective was gradually forgotten as the pipes took their effect on her.
"Why does it have to be me?" I huff indignantly. "I'm always the one apologizing."
The miniature woman lands on a tree branch and shakes her head. "That's why she needs you. She's been alone for so long that she's forgotten what it's like to be part of a family. You are her family, Peter," she explains, motioning to the empty hammock hanging in the branches, "and that is why she made Neverland her home."
I grumble as the tiny woman flies into the skies and disappears. Knowing that I will give in eventually, I call the shadow with my will and tell him to bring Mab back.
"That is impossible," it replies, floating in the same spot Tink previously drifted.
I frown, not expecting such an unfavorable response. "Why not?"
"Ican only bring those to Neverland who come willingly," the dark figure reveals, "if you want her to return, you will have to retrieve her yourself."
I furrow my brows at this revelation. I have never needed to bring anyone to Neverland before, so I assumed my shadow was capable of everything I am. "All right, where is she?"
It reveals that she has taken to a realm called Wonderland where everything is nonsensical, even without magic. I take off towards the realm, the image of Mab entering an odd looking room with a black and white checkered floor in my mind.
"A very merry unbirthday to me," her singing voice reaches my ears as I open the door leading to a mysterious room. To my shock, she is standing on the ceiling, casually pouring tea from an upside down teapot into a similarly oriented cup that doesn't spill. Sitting at the table, also in the incorrect orientation, is a disheveled gray hare wearing striped pants and a ragged overcoat.
"A very merry unbirthday to you," the hare joins in her bizarre song.
I shake my head, focusing on the reason I came and brushing aside the insanity around me. I step onto a white tile into the room. Suddenly, my head starts feeling heavy and my feet feel like they can't stay on the ground. Before I realize it, the twisted law of gravity causes me to fall upward and sprawl onto the ceiling, acclimating me to the ordinance of the room.
"No room! No room!" The hare starts crying loudly. I groan, pushing myself up, or down, I'm really not sure at this point, to standing position. The hare's shrieks ring in my ears and I'm sure I'll go deaf if he doesn't stop. He grabs a nearby teacup and throws it at me. I duck my head before hearing the porcelain smash to pieces behind me.
"What the hell?" I exclaim, continuing to dodge dishware aimed at my head.
"He's upset because you aren't invited to our tea party," Mab responds with a nonchalant tone.
"Make him stop!"
The hare hops on the table with his seat raised above his head, chanting, "Tick tock! Tick tock! All you had to do was KNOCK!" He hurls the wooden chair at me. I only have enough time to duck and cover my head before it crashes into me.
"That's enough, my dear March Hare," Mab says sweetly, "have a crumpet. It's your unbirthday too!" I vaguely hear the placing of a dish on the table in my doubled-over position, the legs of the chair having caught my right hip in the collision.
"You're right!" He proclaims excitedly and resumes singing. "A very merry unbirthday to ME!"
I clench my teeth, trying to focus my magic on my side to soothe the pain. The ache is too great for me to concentrate and my attempts fail without effect. Squeezing my eyes shut, I focus all my power into the hand covering my hip. I open my eyes in surprise when a gentle hand lays on top of mine, magic flowing through it and relieving the pang in my side. Mab doesn't look directly at me while she channels her energy, letting me know that she is still upset at me and her nonchalance is an act.
"Come home," I blurt out, sitting up when the pain disappears. She removes her hand from mine and begins to turn away from me, but I grab her wrist and make her face me. "I'm sorry about everything. I don't want to live in Neverland without you."
Her eyes finally meet mine and she roughly pulls her wrist out of my grip. Standing up and brushing the dust off her, she states dryly, "You told me to leave."
I stand with her and confess, "I was angry. I didn't mean it." I look down at her feet, watching them turn from me and walk away. "I need you."
She whirls around and scoffs, "Changed your mind, have you? Want the heart of the Truest Believer after all?"
I gulp, embarrassed that she is in fact correct. I have changed my mind, but it is not the primary reason I came. "Because you're the only family I have; the only family I need and will ever want."
A brief stillness fills the room after my confession. I wonder what Mab is thinking and finally dare to glance at her when the hare begins squealing again.
"Family? FAMILY!" He cries, bouncing from his seat to the ceiling. "No one thinks to care about the mad March Hare!" Now standing upside down, he pulls a handkerchief from an inside pocket and blows his nose.
"Shut up," I snap at him, annoyed at his outbursts.
"Play nice, Peter," Mab warns, "He may be mad, but he knows this realm and all its tricks better than I do." She approaches me with slow, uncertain steps. "Do you mean it? You want me to go home with you?"
I smile down at the fairy now before me, "It's not home without you."
Her eyes search mine briefly before smiling when she sees that I am telling the truth. It is a genuine smile that expresses true happiness that I have never seen on her face before, "All right." The joy in her grin reveals to me that she didn't leave because her war ended or because I decided not to pursue Baelfire. She left because she thought I didn't want her anymore. I take her hand, ready to fly home.
"No!" The shrill sound fills the room and we cover our ears. The hare jumps down from the ceiling and slams a deck of cards onto the table. "No! No! You will never leave this land until you gain the upper hand!"
"But we—"
A slamming of the door interrupts our protests. I look back at the upside down door to see it locked shut. The ragged animal insists, "A game! A game!"
"Fine," Mab replies, "but we choose the game."
"Yes!" The vermin hops up and down gleefully. "A game!"
Mab leans slightly forward towards me and whispers, "Follow the lady."
I nod, understanding her meaning. Removing the Queen of Spades from the deck along with two jesters, I secretly slip a third jester into my sleeve. I proceed with the game, explaining the objective and shuffling them, covertly replacing the queen with the jester.
"Which one is the lady?" I ask, leaning against the table smugly.
The hare ponders for a moment before picking the left-most card. I flip it over.
Perhaps Wonderland is the hare's version of Neverland, or maybe nonsense is truth here. Whatever the reason, the card I flip over is the Queen of Spades. The hare laughs hysterically as Mab and I scramble to flip over the remaining cards, all revealing Queens of Spades. The last card I look at is the one in my sleeve, exposing a jester.
"Don't you know? Cheaters never win." He chants, hopping around the room excitedly before stopping before me. "Now, let the real fun begin!" He plunges a shedding paw into my chest and pulls out a glowing red organ. I collapse in pain, the sudden removal of my heart paralyzing me to the ground.
"Give that back!" Mab exclaims, trying to snatch the organ from him. He throws it into the air out of her reach and it falls towards the table into a gold-rimmed, white porcelain cup.
The laughter escalates and the hare doubles over, "And now he'll give affection except in your direction!"
I watch Mab pull the heart from the cup, now vaguely pulsing with short flashes of light, before my eyes squeeze tight as I try to suppress the pain in my chest.
"What do you mean? What did you do to it?" She demands. I hear shuffling on the ground grow fainter, probably her magic lifting him from the ground while she interrogates him.
I hear him struggle and grunt under her torture before voicing another rhyme, "His greatest love that will be missed was stolen by the cup you kissed."
Mab lets out a frustrated huff. My greatest love? I slowly move into a crouching position, not comprehending what is happening. Besides the pain I'm in, I don't feel any different from usual. The ache has begins to subside, so I open my eyes to see the hare crashing into the wall. The March Hare shakes his head and hops up, pulling down a rolled-up banner with an invisible string. The banner shows a grassy maze with an archway at the exit. He impossibly jumps in, becoming part of the image and begins hopping over the hedges towards the opening.
"No! Get back here!" Mab feels the banner with her hands, trying to get into the image only to find it is a piece of fabric to her. She angrily slams a fist onto the hare's portrait, "You damn rodent!"
He continues hopping over the hedges until he reaches the archway, taunting Mab until he is out of sight. "Love and war play the same game. You've lost both. Oh, what a shame!"
The disappearance of his image prompts the door to unlock. The pain now gone, I stand and stare at the fairy before me. I don't feel any different. I still want to go home; I still want her to come with me. "He's gone. Let's just go home."
Still facing the maze, Mab lowers her head. A quiet, irrational laughter emerges and her body shakes with its sound, "How clever of him! I was playing the game all wrong!" She turns to me, a mad gleam in her eyes. "I thought I could have both, but here I am with neither. Here, catch!" She tosses my heart back to me.
"Careful!" I express anxiously, catching the organ with both my hands. I inspect it carefully, noting the glow has significantly dimmed and only shows in brief intervals every few seconds. I return it to my chest, not feeling any difference from before it was taken out. "That hare didn't do anything, I feel the same."
Mab walks over to the table and picks up the gold-rimmed cup. "Is that so?" She whispers, her eyes brimming with tears. She shrinks the cup into a tiny charm and produces kitchen twine from a cabinet on the wall. She strings the twine through the tiny handle and ties it around her neck.
"Yes, I'm fine," I say impatiently. I head towards the door and jump up to reach its opening. "Hurry, or I'll leave without you!"
She looks over at me now standing at the door upside down from her. Brushing away her tears, she flashes the mischievous smile I've become so familiar with, although it seems a bit more absurd than usual.
"It's time to start playing a new game."
A/N: This is the beginning of the sinister Peter Pan we all love! Including the March Hare was honestly a spur of the moment idea while writing this chapter, but I saw an opportunity to make his appearance vital to this fanfic. I loosely base this character on the one in the Tim Burton "Alice in Wonderland" movie. His madness and the nonsensical nature of Wonderland is the perfect excuse for him to do reckless things with extreme consequences. So many of the ideas I have for the future chapters are now improved and take different directions because of his appearance in this chapter. And I'm sure you've noticed I make him speak in mostly rhymes. Since Lewis Carroll has written quite a number of nonsensical poems, I wanted to incorporate that element with Wonderland.
I started this story with the intention that Mab and Peter have a purely family/friend type of relationship, but as I continued brainstorm their attachment formed over the years, it really has become a fine line between family and romance since they are so emotionally reliant on each other. The definition of their relationship is entirely up to you, the reader.
I also really like some of the things Peter says in the show, like "Don't you know? Cheaters never win." It seemed like it was a lesson he learned the hard way, considering he never learned from his previous profession of cheating people out of their money. I'm going to try to incorporate origins for some of those notable sayings in future chapters too.
I really wanted to introduce Tinkerbell and show how she gained Peter's trust. It didn't make sense that she would willingly go to Neverland if she felt threatened by Peter's power from the beginning, so she must have befriended him when he was in a more pleasant state. I also recall she was familiar with Bae, who was there a hundred years before Henry was born, but Regina had met Tinkerbell ten, maybe fifteen years before the curse took place. In terms of time, it just didn't make sense unless Bae and Tink met while she still had her wings, so this is my explanation of that.
I wondered why the shadow had to hold out its hand when it took Bae away. I figured it's because they have to go with it willingly, but at the same time, Greg and Tamara were able to grab Henry and go. I just wanted to have that cleared up by stating the limits of the shadow's powers.
