Tootles' ears were full of sweet song, and he felt as though he was floating in a warm bath. He let himself go limp, and didn't even concern himself with the question of how he could breathe if he was indeed submerged in water. He felt his arm lift lazily, and was surprised when it bumped against something smooth and hard. His eyes flew open, and all around him swirled a thick, yellow-green liquid, endlessly bubbling and distorting what little vision he had. His hand went forward again, feeling a smooth hard surface not two feet from him, and was startled further when he saw that the hand he had put forth was long and thin and the color of soot, with pointed nails. He managed to look down and saw his body beneath him, twisted and disfigured, and not just from the movement of the liquid around him. His chest stuck out, and a pair of pale pink objects that looked like little plants dangled there, just above where it stuck out the most. Further below, he saw his feet, tiny and dark-colored like they were clad in boots, with fins growing out of them, the same he had seen on Yulio. He tried to make the feet move, but try as he might, nothing happened.
Panic welled up inside him, threatening to burst out, and just as he was about to let loose a hysterical shout, he heard a small voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "Do not be afraid, Too-tles. You are being shown my story by being me. I am sorry if I frightened you, but this is the best way for me to tell you everything I know." Tootles swallowed the shout and mentally nodded. "It's okay, it just...takes getting used to." He carefully calmed himself, willing himself to remember now that the motions this body was making weren't controlled by him, though he could see just fine. It was like being shut in a box with peepholes; you can see out, but nothing on the surface is affected by you.
In the next few minutes that he floated there, little things began to come to him, as he shared the thoughts of Yulio in this place. He realized that the smooth, hard surface he had touched was glass, and that he was in some sort of tank; the word tank was unfamiliar to him; it had a harsh sort of sound that he rather didn't like. He squinted through the liquid and the glass and could just make out a strange room with blinking lights, moving machinery, and more yellowish blobs that might have been other tanks like the one he (or rather, Yulio) was suspended in.
As he hovered there among the liquid and bubbles, he became aware of a strange noise; the only noise that he was able to hear. It sounded like a hum at first, but as he felt Yulio testing her ears, it gradually became a voice. It was slow and gentle and quiet, and Tootles found himself thinking, if Peter could sound like this, he would be the best father in the whole world. THIS is what a father should sound like.
He then gradually made out words, but they seemed to trickle through his head like water, and he couldn't quite grasp their meaning:
"Mankind stands between the Heavens and the Earth
And there are those who strain to hear the voice of Heaven
In my case, though, I listen for the voices of the sea and the land……..
There are those who call me to task for hurting people
But if they suppose that I hurt people
They must see that I, too, have been hurt……….
That is natural. It is the nature of the power granted to men.
It is the essence of the beast.
It is intellect which cloaks it……."
He soon gave up trying to make sense of the entire thing, as it continued on and on, but he could feel Yulio's longing as she hung on to every word, taking in her first sound as though she were starving and this was the only way she could eat.
Days and weeks passed by in mere minutes as Tootles hung suspended in a body that was not his own, feeling emotions that were not his. Changes happened: his hands and feet grew darker, his chest more prominent, his ears tapered, and something that was hair and yet wasn't hair grew longer and hung in front and behind his ears. His eyes became sharper, and as the voice continued to drone on every minute of every day, he could feel a swelling emotion inside this body; it grew outward and filled his entire being, it throbbed and seemed to make the liquid around him warmer. He soon realized it was love. Yulio had come to love the voice, how it soothed and relaxed her and seemed to almost tease her as it talked of things she could not fully understand. She had the body of a full grown woman (so to speak), but her mind was like a small child's, where thoughts floated aimlessly around and bumped into each other without any kind of order. Yet she clung to every word, trying to answer questions that played again and again like a broken record: Who am I? What am I? Where am I? Who is that voice?
More time passed, and finally, an air of expectancy seemed to come over the place full of tanks. Yulio's eyes were sharp enough now where Tootles could almost make out the occupants of the other tanks nearby. They all had the same body as Yulio, and they too seemed restless; tapping or even knocking on the glass in their tanks, others trying to swim and finding it difficult in such a small space. Yulio's body remained still, though Tootles could feel her shaking. He couldn't imagine what had happened to make them all so agitated, but at that moment, he realized that the voice had stopped; he couldn't hear it anymore.
It suddenly seemed so quiet, like someone had stuffed his ears full of cotton; it felt smothering, and he began to panic again. But then he saw a movement outside of the tank, and all eyes in the room were on a man who stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing calmly at the many tanks. Gentle blue eyes were smiling in a bed of wrinkles, and his expression was one of love. Pale hair hung limply, a few unruly bangs reaching out and touching thick glasses. He was dressed as one who lived in a warm climate; simple shorts and buttoned shirt. Every creature in that room suddenly came to the same realization; here at last was the voice that had been with them since the day they first knew consciousness. Like ripples that come after a stone is thrown into a pond, a single word seemed to ripple through the room, spurred on by the liquid. "Papa".
In that very instant, although the creatures in that room had never seen each other, or even cared that the others existed, as soon as they as one recognized their creator, invisible bonds seemed to form, like a spider web intertwining them all, making them aware of each other and highlighting their one common mental link; they adored this man, and would happily die just to please him. It was an emotion completely alien to Tootles, and it horrified him.
Time sped up for him, and the story continued to play out. He experienced the dizzying thrill of finally being freed from the tanks and the goo, and the first swim into the sea. He felt the salt water caress his skin and the first breath underwater was like he had never breathed properly before. He was part of a group of hundreds of creatures, collectively called either 'females' or 'Myoo-tee-oh'. They were to serve as part of an army of creatures, against the humans that remained on the land. They had been 'born' in a place called 'Stream-base', and now they were to go forth in a strange half-alive underwater ship, called both the Phantom Ship and the Ghost Ship by the humans. There were many hidden entrances into the ship that the females could use, and they all led to a huge pool of salt water deep inside the ship. There were holes at the bottom, where strange machines were stored, and at the top there was a small catwalk and platform that ended in the middle of the pool. As they swam up and surfaced, what wasn't obscured by steam was strange, bright and loud, unlike the cool tranquility of the sea. Their commander stood waiting for them; a frightening creature that looked part machine, part shark, part dog, and spoke with a dozen voices at once, all of them unpleasant. To Yulio's sensitive ears, it sounded like metal grating on metal, seagulls being tortured, and a land beast's scream of rage. The females only knew him as their commander, and the other beasts on board the ship called him boss. He was cruel and sadistic, sometimes snatching an unwary female and hurting them when he was in a fit of rage, but for the most part, he was a good commander, and the females soon learned their place and how to remain on his good side by following orders precisely.
The nooks at the bottom of their pool were for machines called 'coo-moes'; crab-like war devices that the females piloted in formations and were equipped with weapons that to Tootles were completely alien and horrifyingly destructive. As the females were trained, Tootles learned more and more about this future world.
Apparently there had been a massive flood, wiping out 10 billion humans and covering all of Earth's major cities in ocean. The angry humans had lashed out at the sea life, and as a result, the entire world was at war; Earth's remaining humans against the children of the sea and the man they knew as "Papa', whom the humans called Zorndyke. It was a frightening thought for Tootles, having most of humanity gone. So many mothers and fathers, and children just like him….all wiped out forever. War of this magnitude was new to him, and he was disturbed by all the hatred and anger on both sides. It made it difficult to determine which side was more in the right, if indeed there was such a difference.
He experienced many things that Yulio had, piloting a coo-moh by getting inside, immersing himself in a protective gel that helped absorb shock and sustain them, the same broadcast that had been playing inside their tanks now put forth through speakers on the coo-moes for the doomed humans to hear: "There are those who call me to task for hurting people. But if they suppose that I hurt people, they must see that I, too, have been hurt….." He saw cities falling in clouds of rubble and smoke, entire seas turning red as the females' large whale-like comrades, the 'Moo-see-kahs', were blown to bits by the humans in enormous water machines that resembled giant fish. The females rode inside the moo-see-kahs, both with and without their war machines, and they were fond of them, almost the way a small child adores their big brother. Tootles couldn't help but be grieved, as they reminded him so much of the baby whale he had rescued. He could feel the grief mirrored inside of Yulio as each one fell, and more and more died.
Tootles liked it better when the fighting was at a respite, and the females were free to wander the oceans, hunting, frolicking with the fish, and conversing among themselves in their strange whale-cat tongue. He learned that the whole group of them looked to each other as sisters, and although they were so much like each other, each was their own person, with likes, dislikes, separate thoughts, and the occasional different color. A small group of them, Yulio included, liked to hunt and play together, and discuss things that they thought would get them in trouble if the commander overheard them. They decided, in private, to give each other new names, still calling themselves Muteo, but using another that would symbolize their sentience. Yulio had made hers purposefully sound like the original; she had always loved the name, knowing that it was the name Papa had given them, and it seemed wrong to completely abandon it.
Tootles loved it when they just swam for the sheer joy of it; he felt the power behind the seemingly fragile limbs, loved the feel of the salty water as it streamed past him and blew fins and hair back like wind. He marveled at how fast he could swim, far faster than Peter could fly, and as the females swam around each other in graceful and complicated practice formations, Tootles couldn't help but think, the mermaids can only hope to be this graceful. He loved racing with the schools that moved like living curtains, reaching out and patting a huge and deadly shark like it was a beloved pet dog, and slipping in and out of forests of anemones and coral the colors of a million rainbows. He saw many things that humans would never see, and although it disturbed him to live in a time of war, it showed him that despite all of the turmoil, peace still existed somewhere in the world, even if it was at the bottom of the sea.
But for all the wonders that were free to be experienced by the children of the sea, war was a constant factor. Every joy came with ten sorrows, and one after the other Tootles saw and despaired at, as both Yulio and himself. The time he narrowly escaped a primitive trap set by vengeful humans and could only watch helplessly as two of his sisters were pulled up and mercilessly left out of the water to die. The time the commander went into a fit of rage after a lost battle and Yulio was one of the unlucky few who returned to their pool with darkening bruises and cuts that seeped blood into the water. The time he saw the grisly result of a critical blow to a coo-moh that had reached the sensitive inner chamber. The time he saw so many of Yulio's sisters fall, and nothing could be done but to let them drift down to the sea bed, unmourned and unburied. Though Yulio felt little pity or sadness for the humans that fell, Tootles was deeply saddened by the losses on both sides. This was a future without hope, without even the simple belief in something extraordinary and magical, like faeries and Neverland. In this world, despite all of it's advancement and new fantastic things, faerie tales were dead.
Then, the time came for Yulio's last memories of a familiar place. She had been out with at least a half-dozen of her sisters, frolicking like happy dolphins in the rising waves of an oncoming storm, when one of them had cried out and pointed just below them. One of the humans' metal sea-ships, the 'subs', was slowly swimming beneath them, barely perceptible even to them. Tootles felt the anger and hate well up inside of Yulio and course through her blood like hot poison, and the angry sounds her sisters made showed that their thoughts were similar. They all resolved to swim closer to the ship and wreak what havoc they could on it.
They approached the sub and got alongside it without any indication that the humans knew they were there, They swam toward the back and saw the holes where the torpedoes were launched. At once, one of Yulio's sisters plunged into one of the holes as far in as she could and there were a lot of scratching and tearing sounds. She emerged with a toothy smile and a fistful of metal bits and metal peelings. Yulio instantly dove at the torpedo hole beneath the first and proceeded to mangle the insides as far as she could reach. Soon each sister had a hole that they were disturbing and pulling bits out of.
So absorbed were they that the humans' retaliation took them entirely by surprise. The sister on Yulio's left never knew what had killed her; one minute she was pulling out more shavings and wires, the next, she caught a Grampus' missle right in the side that actually propelled her a small ways away from the sub before exploding and leaving little remaining of the living creature it had obliterated. Yulio and the rest of her sisters scattered in fright; Tootles caught a glimpse of a strange machine not unlike the coo-mohs pursuing them and firing more missiles. Two more were wiped out before the rest even began swimming for the surface. They swam to the top, not noticing that the entire submarine was surfacing along with them, ready to engage them in battle when they reached the surface. The entire lot of them broke out of the water and into the midst of an oceanic tantrum. Lightning lashed the sky with its white-hot fury, thunder boomed down like a proclamation of doom, waves as tall as trees rose up and pummeled anything unlucky enough to be caught in their troughs, and wind was blowing spray off of the waves and causing drops of rain to pound with the force of pebbles. Before even the females could get their bearings, a roar filled their ears and they only had time to look up before the gigantic waterspout was upon them. Tootles felt Yulio's body lifting effortlessly, and it spun around and flailed and was hit by various objects that passed in and out of vision too quickly to be identified. He heard the females scream as they whipped past, and the roar of the waterspout filled his ears, he could see nothing but water and wind, and before oblivion closed in, a flash of faded yellow that might have been a piece of the humans' Grampus, and Yulio's last conscious thought was that at least one human was going to their deaths along with them.
Tootles' eyes flew open. He was immersed in a golden light, and looking up, he saw Yulio's anxious eyes peering down at him like two orange lanterns. The horrors he had witnessed were still fresh in his mind, and he began to thrash. Alarmed, Yulio broke the connection between her fins, thus breaking the bubble of living flesh that Tootles had been sheltered in. The cold seawater shocked him, and before he knew it, strong hands gripped his arm, and he was pulled to the surface, coughing and sputtering. He saw that they were heading back toward the island, Yulio pulling him along. He wrenched his arm out of her grasp and she turned to look at him, surprised. Tootles flailed a little, then managed to barely stay afloat on his own as he looked at Yulio with a strange expression on his face. "Are you alright?" Yulio's raspy tone was laced with concern. "I was afraid that it might prove too much for one so young. I am sorry." Tootles flushed angrily and swallowed a mouthful of water before he spoke. "Sorry?! How can you be sorry? You hate humans; you've fought with them, killed them, been happy about it. I know you can't control an entire war, but you could've…." Tootles' voice trailed off, then he muttered darkly, "And just because I'm so young doesn't mean I can't take it like you. If I was really so young, you shouldn't have shown me all of that. Not sure you should've shown me anyway."
Yulio looked at him with her head cocked to the side, then she carefully swam up to Tootles and after several gentle taps with the tips of her fingers, she put her arms around him in a sort of awkward hug. When he didn't push her away, she leaned her head toward his and spoke softly in his ear, her voice more like whale song than cat. "Yes I did hate the humans, and I won't pretend that I don't any longer. We never were told why the war was happening; we just knew that it was, and that we were to fight in it. Everyone thinks their side is the right side, and every side in a war does horrible things to come out on top, making themselves believe that the enemy they fight deserves it all. Our friends the Moo-see-kah talked to my sisters and I about it many times, trying to guess the reason. Had I ever seen Papa again, I would have asked him, but for all I know he is as far away to me as the enemy, and as far as I have seen, I have no enemies here on your island. I still wish to be friends with you, if you still desire the same."
Tootles listened quietly, his body slowly relaxing. Finally, he sighed and returned the embrace, a tear trickling down his face and dropping to join the vast ocean of salt. "I suppose you can't help it, being born in a war and all. I just couldn't stand the despair and anger. I'm glad such things don't exist in Neverland."
Yulio smiled. "So am I."
Tootles lifted his head and returned Yulio's toothy grin, but suddenly his gaze ventured behind Yulio's head, and his smile fled from his face and replaced it with a look of horror. Yulio swiftly turned her head and was hit full in the face by a thick net, draping in the water and tangling them both like a pair of silly fish that had wandered too close to the fisherman's boat. But it was not the boat of a fisherman that loomed in front of them, nor was it the voice of a fisherman that yelled out, "Lookee, Cap'n! Wee caught beeeeg fishie! An' Lost Boy too!"