I like how this turned out (mostly). And it's light, nothing heavy and hopefully it will kick start my writing juices again. I love you all and appreciate the reviews.
This is inspired by Ruth B's Lost Boys song – Lyrics and link at the end.
I do not own the song nor do I own The 100, it is sad but it is true.
Lost Boy
The crowd began to gather as the sun started to slip below the horizon. It was the first night of the long 10 day celebration of the 40th anniversary of Unity Day and Bard was getting ready to tell his evening stories. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, gave her a quick peck on the cheek and let her hand slip from his as he walked up on the temporary stage that was set up near the center of town. The celebrations planned were many, dances and concerts, children's parties and events, but every night for 10 nights the main attraction, the highlight was The Troubadour, the storyteller. He would tell a new tale each night, a story about their history about what it was like to fall from the sky and to create a new world, a new life.
"Good evening everyone" Bard said as he sat on the lone chair that stood in the center of the stage. "I think tonight I'll tell a short tale about two friends getting to know each other and one helping the other to see things in a different light."
"The 100 hadn't been on the ground long, three weeks or maybe four, but in that time they had fought, they had killed, some had died but most lived and they began to strike a rhythm in their survival. Each day brought some new challenge a new struggle. But they were learning to fight together as a family. Together they found Octavia chained up in a grounders cave, together they found a way to contact the ARK, together they saved Finns life, together they braved a hurricane and together as a family they would survive."
...
For the first time in days the sun had come out and after 2 full days of rain and being stuck in tents or crammed into the dropship, the camp was once again bustling with life. The kids were all busy trying to dry out …well everything…. clothes, tents, firewood, their makeshift tools…everything. Miller is in charge of making repairs to the wall and is trying to get his gang back on schedule. While a small group of the older kids led by Bellamy left just after sun up to hunt and hopefully bag a kill that would fill not only their bellies but the smoke house as well, Clarke and Monty are out collecting herbs and plants for food and medicine. They were all picking up the pieces left by the hurricane.
And Jasper sits alone on a log outside the drop ship, his long slender fingers braiding long strips of thin grass together.
"Making rope uh?" Jasper looked up at Raven as she walks out of the makeshift medical center that the dropship had become.
"Yea" he says looking back down at his hands "Clarke asked me too. Wells was teaching me how before he died, so I'm stuck doing it while they all get to do something exciting like hunting or check out cool plant life." Jasper might have sounded like he was complaining but really the thought of going outside the wall still terrified him.
Raven crossed her arms over her chest "Do we have rope?"
"A little …but not much." Jasper replies.
"Do we need rope?" she said as she leaned in towards his face.
"Yea….sure"
"Then stop bitching and keep braiding." She says in her typical smartass tone as she sits down and picks up a long piece of grass and starts gently ripping it lengthwise to make strips for Jasper to braid into rope.
"Shouldn't you be in there taking care of Spacewalker?" Jasper asks. Finn, Ravens boyfriend had been stabbed only a few days ago and while it was touch and go during the storm, it now looks like he was going to be ok.
Raven shrugged "He's sleeping and Clarke said when she and Monty got back we could move him to our tent. So he's ok for now and I was getting bored just sitting there."
She takes a deep breath and looks around the camp, she's only been here for a week or so and she still doesn't know what to think of it all. Earth, the delinquents, Clarke and Bellamy... She bumps Jasper with her shoulder and says in a quiet voice "This shit is so not what I expected" and glancing over at Jasper, she notices the odd expression on his face "Earth, I mean." She says waving her hands around "This…everyone working together, not killing each other."
Jasper grunts and chuckles "Yea I know right!"
"I mean, come on, don't you think it's all just a little too "lord of the flies." She says as her nimble fingers make quick work of the strips of grasses.
Jasper stops his hands and looks at her "No…No… definitely not Lord of the flies, more like Neverland."
Raven throws her head back and laughs "Peter Pan? Are you serious?"
"You know that story?" He was genuinely surprised, there weren't that many books on the ARK and it was mostly the upper class stations that had access to them.
"Well sure ... Third star on the right…." She started….
And Jasper joined her "…. And straight on till morning" They said together.
"You're serious….Peter Pan?" she said as Jasper nodded "Ok so if this is Neverland who the hell is Peter Pan…you?"
Jasper looked out at the dozens of kids working around the camp rebuilding the wall, chopping wood, drying out their tents and doing all that was needed to survive and then he spotted Bellamy coming in through the gate with his crew and a deer hanging from a branch that rested on the shoulders of Miles and Derek….. Jasper smiled and nodded in their direction.
"Bellamy Blake? Are you fucking kidding me!? Peter pan was all sweet and cute." Pointing her nose at Bellamy "that man is not sweet… cute maybe, but not sweet."
"No no no you're looking at this all wrong." Jasper said "You think Peter Pan and you're remembering the cartoon movie they used to show on the ARK in the Children's Center. But that's not the real Peter Pan. The real Pan is from a book written a long time ago and it was much darker. Peter pan was this kid who never grew up. He did whatever the hell he wanted, whenever the hell he wanted and he was the leader of the lost boys. He rescued them and took care of them, but he wasn't perfect' because if they crossed him or if they grew up he off'ed them…..Well they disappeared anyway. Peter Pan didn't want to grow up he hated the thought of it, but he had the responsibility of the lost boys thrust on and even though he was a kid, he defended them and looked out for them and when he'd get tired of it he would sit outside of Wendy Darlings window and listen to the stories she would tell her brothers. Wendy wasn't a grown up either, at least not yet but she knew that growing up and becoming an adult was what was expected of her. She didn't want to do only what was expected of her, she didn't want to become her parents. So when she met Peter, even though she didn't trust him, she followed him to Neverland, to be a mother to the lost boys so she could tell them bedtime stories and take care of them."
"Holy Crap!... Clarke!" she said as she slapped Jasper on the arm.
Jasper pointed at Raven "Exxxxactly!" he said strongly "They are Peter and Wendy….Mom and Dad."
"Raven, I know Bellamy comes off as an asshat and maybe he was in the beginning, but we wouldn't have survived without him. In the short time we've been here he brought us together, he made us work together; he made us learn to hunt and taught us to survive, especially after Wells died. Bellamy took over and without him there'd be no wall or food. And once he and Clarke stopped fighting...…"
Raven snorted "Ha! That's them not fighting?"
Jasper smiled "….yea well at least they starting work together."
Raven laughed again "So Jasper…... does that make you a lost boy."
Jasper nodded "Ah hell, we're all lost boys. In one of the Peter Pan stories, the lost boys were babies who fell from their carriages and no one ever looked for them, well we fell from the sky and I'm pretty sure no one is going to come looking for us."
"Were you a lost boy on the ARK too?" Raven asked reaching for another piece of grass.
"Yea I guess. My dad died in the big flu epidemic about 10 years ago and mom died a few years later. I never did know how she died, some kind of an accident in the lab. Anyway I lived in the care center until I was about 12 and by then I was spending so much time with Monty's family it was like I lived there, but it never felt like home. I remember my mom reading the Peter Pan stories to me when I was little and when I was at the care center I would pretend that Peter Pan would come and take me to Neverland. I didn't have a lot of friends on the ARK, well really just Monty, I was more interested in reading and science stuff than finding places to play hide and seek and…. well… I was a little different."
Raven smirked and a low chuckle bubbled up in her chest "yea I hear ya."
Jasper nudged her with his shoulder and looked at her out of the corner of his eye "See you're a lost boy too." A grin grew slowly across his face and he looked down at her body "Only you're a girl… ya know not a boy….. oh you know what I mean."
"I know you need to keep your eyes up here lost boy." Ravens face grew serious.
"umm sorry" Jasper mumbled.
"So Blake is Pan and Clarke is Wendy, who's Hook? This Murphy guy they banished?"
"HA!" Jasper snorted "No, but he could be. Captain Hook…. he was Peter Pans greatest enemy. Hook was relentless, he never gave up and Peter had other… lesser enemies, rivals really, but he sent them packing pretty easily, like Bellamy did to Murphy, but not Hook, he was always trouble. So I'm thinking the grounders are Bellamy's Hook. Oh and can you guess who TinkerBell is?"
"Well that's easy it's Octavia" Raven smiled and waved her hands in the air "She's… all…. you know excited about everything, she flits around, hell she practically flies."
Raven thought about Jasper's thesis for a moment and she sighed "Ok So Clarke is Wendy, but in the movie she went home was it like that in the books too? Or did she stay with the lost boys?"
"Wendy knew that she had to grow up, that it was her destiny so yea in the books she went home. The guy that wrote the first book wrote some other "Peter and Wendy" stories and in some of those other stories, Peter finds Wendy again years later but she is a grown women with children of her own and in another, Wendy goes back to Neverland to find Peter, but he's mad at her for leaving. For leaving the lost boys and for leaving him but in the end they all live happily ever after."
"Holy shit Jasper" Raven exclaims "You don't believe in happy endings do you?"
He shakes his head "Not really, but I know with Bellamy and Clarke running things down here, we at least have a shot at surviving and right now just surviving is as close to a happy ending as any of us are going to get."
Jasper looked out at the kids in camp "Look, if you think about it, we're all lost boys, every one of us. We were incarcerated and locked away and most of us would have been floated once we turned 18. Maybe we had family on the ARK, maybe we didn't, but I never felt any love from the ARK. Did you?"
Raven just shrugged and shook her head.
Jasper tapped her arm as he pointed to the evening sky beginning to darken "bet ya never saw colors like that on the ARK" together they watched as the sun began to set, as the sky slowly changed from yellows and oranges to pinks and lavenders and as the night sky grew darker and twinkling lights could be seen high above, Jasper pointed to the biggest and brightest "We are pretty sure that's the Ark. Up there we might not have had any family but down here we do."
Jasper stood up and reached his hand down for Raven to grasp "Looks like dinners about done, let's get some before it's all gone" Raven took his hand and he pulled her up. They walked over to the fire where Bellamy was barking out orders and Clarke stood scowling with her arms akimbo and the others waited impatiently for their share of today's kill, she turned to Jasper, linked her arm in his causing him to grin like a Cheshire cat and said "Looks like mom and dad have our dinner ready."
Jasper chuckled and said "Home Sweet Home."
Bard looked out at the faces of the people who listened so intently. "Raven made a friend for life that day. She'd never really had any friends, except Finn the boy who lived next door. And Jasper…. well he had a few friends but their relationship was special. It was Jasper that saved her when she was trying to fight the effects of ALLIE and it was Jasper that gave her away when she married Wicks. While we were all family in a sense, some of us were closer and Jasper always said he loved having a big sister."
He smiled to the crowd "Tomorrow I think a tale of two Knights, of a friendship built on trust and a love that still survives" Bard stood up and bowed slightly as they applauded. In the past his stories were mostly about the wars and battles, about destruction and rebuilding. About Skaikru as a people, but for this, this special occasion, he was asked to tell about the kids, those who came first, their personal tales and stories. This was proving to be much more difficult, to speak of them without all his emotions bleeding through, to tell the stories objectively, as if he'd only been a fly the wall, for him it was heart wrenching...but it had to be done, it needed to be done. Because after he is gone who would be left to tell their stories.
Bard walked off the stage and smiled as he walked into the hug she had waiting for him "I had forgotten that" she whispered into his ear. "I don't know how you remember so many stories." They turned and walked arm in arm into the dark night "I remember everything, I remember it all."
…
The first time I heard this song I heard Jasper's voice in the words. I honestly did…And we really don't know anything about him, about his story.
I started this a while ago and it was turning into more of a thesis than a story. So I pulled it back and made it a bit lighter…having said that I kept the earlier notes and drafts, if I ever go back to college my Thesis will be "The 100…. A Tale of Neverland." I've read where others have compared The 100 to Lord of the flies and that never really resonated with me.
I see much more of Peter Pan in the story; although I'm pretty sure the writers and developers of the story were seriously into Disney's Tangled when they were coming up with the Clarke and Bellamy story line…Am I right? I hope you enjoyed it and please leave reviews they sustain me, they fuel my writers flame.
Also the lyrics are below as is the link to the video – If you haven't heard this song you are in for a treat. Ruth B has an amazing voice and this song is a brilliant bit of work. Check her out and show her some love too.
~ ce
to hear the song Please google the following
Ruth B - Lost Boy (Official Video)
Lost Boys by Ruth B
There was a time when I was alone
Nowhere to go and no place to call home
My only friend was the man in the moon
And even sometimes he would go away, too
Then one night, as I closed my eyes,
I saw a shadow flying high
He came to me with the sweetest smile
Told me he wanted to talk for a while
He said, "Peter Pan. That's what they call me.
I promise that you'll never be lonely."
And ever since that day...
I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we're bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook
"Run, run, lost boy," they say to me,
"Away from all of reality."
Neverland is home to lost boys like me
And lost boys like me are free
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe
Believe in him and believe in me
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green
To your beautiful destiny
As we soared above the town that never loved me
I realized I finally had a family
Soon enough we reached Neverland
Peacefully my feet hit the sand
And ever since that day...
I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we're bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook
"Run, run, lost boy," they say to me,
"Away from all of reality."
Neverland is home to lost boys like me
And lost boys like me are free
Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Wendy Darling,
Even Captain Hook.
You are my perfect story book
Neverland, I love you so,
You are now my home sweet home
Forever a lost boy at last
And for always I will say...
I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we're bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook
"Run, run, lost boy," they say to me,
"Away from all of reality."
Neverland is home to lost boys like me
And lost boys like me are free