Author's Note: Many thanks to all who left reviews. You're very kind and I really appreciate the encouragement. I'll be posting new chapters at least once per day until I've finished.

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Wendy's first day as a Lost Boy was really quite busy. Peter insisted that she learn to sword fight as well as use a bow and arrow. Otherwise, he explained, she would almost certainly be eaten by wild beasts, killed by Indians, or captured by pirates. Wendy nodded obediently and followed Peter where he led.

Peter took her to a small meadow beside the large hollow tree in which they'd watched the fairies dancing. Wendy felt a pang at seeing it again, remembering Peter's face illuminated by the fairy glow, remembering how he had danced with her in mid-air with fairies all 'round them.

Wendy gulped and purposely looked away from the tree, but still made an effort to avoid looking directly at Peter lest he recognize her. It was a constant and exhausting worry.

This seemed not to be a problem, however, as Peter had shown absolutely no glimmer of recognition since she had arrived. Now he just tossed the swords to the ground and pushed a bow into her hands, showing her how to hold it. His body was near to hers as he showed her where to place her hands, and she blushed. This wasn't going to work at all if she couldn't control her blushing. Eventually it would make him suspicious.

So she simply stepped away from Peter a bit. "Perhaps you could show me how you shoot an arrow, and then I can try it myself?"

Peter shrugged obligingly and took up the other bow, deftly notching an arrow. He then grimly shot the arrow straight into the side of the fairies' tree. Wendy gasped. Peter glanced at her. "Now you try."

Wendy could not bring herself to shoot at the tree where she had been so very happy, and so she turned in a different direction. She notched her arrow, aimed, and shot a haphazardly spiralling arrow which plummeted clumsily to the ground. She grimaced in embarrassment. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at this."

"You just need practice," Peter assured her. "Next thing you know, you'll be shooting birds right out of the sky." Wendy glanced at him quickly, wondering if he was referring to when the Lost Boys had shot her, and she had been saved by his acorn kiss. Surely not. He seemed not even to remember. Perhaps indeed he had forgotten her, just as he had forgotten her brothers when first they arrived in Neverland. Yes, he had most likely completely forgotten her. How else could he have not recognized her face? She must stop reading into every little thing he said, for yes, indeed, he must surely have forgotten her entirely.

This thought left Wendy rather forlorn, but she did not have the luxury of indulging her emotions, since Peter was standing beside her with his arms crossed, impatiently waiting for her to try another arrow. She tried to do as he had shown her, but her arrow still wobbled to the ground in a most undignified fashion.

"Perhaps I can just watch you for a while, to see how you do it?" Wendy suggested. Peter shrugged obligingly and picked up another arrow. Wendy was relieved to see that he decided to aim at a different tree, turning his back on the hollow tree of the fairies.

She watched him with some curiosity, not truly seeing his archery technique but rather taking this rare chance to examine the man-boy himself. Wendy was puzzled by the changes in Peter, for it wasn't only that he had grown large and more muscular, not only that the planes of his face had shifted and grown less soft ... he also had a strange air about him, so much more serious than the boy she had known. She missed his impish smile and his merry laugh, and she hadn't seen him fly even once. Who was this tall young man with the sad eyes? He looked so very much like her Peter, and yet his manner was entirely unfamiliar.

Wendy was lost in thought when Peter abruptly lowered his bow and turned, walking forward silently and scanning the forest with suspicious eyes. He had walked several feet away from her when she was suddenly tripped, and she found herself gagged with her hands and feet tied before she had even time to struggle. Princess Tigerlily stood looking down at her with a smug grin, then turned toward Peter. Wendy tried to struggle, to make enough noise to warn him, but he did not hear her.

Princess Tigerlily was still the same young girl she had been when Wendy last saw her, leading Wendy to ponder how on earth this child thought she could best a foe so much larger than herself. But then she saw Tigerlily raise a bow. Wendy wiggled awkwardly across the grass in search of the swords, and quickly found them. Peter was still walking toward the place where he had initially heard a twig snap, cautiously examining the forest that surrounded the small meadow.

Everything happened so quickly, Wendy could not have told afterward the exact sequence of events. She saw Tigerlily notch an arrow to her bow with a sly smile at Peter's back, and then suddenly Wendy herself was free, having sliced her bonds on the swords in the grass and frantically removed her gag.

Wendy leapt to her feet wielding a sword and shouted, "Princess Tigerlily!" at which exclamation both Tigerlily and Peter turned to gaze at her in surprise, even as Peter quickly drew his knife. "You take the coward's path in attacking Peter from the back. Turn and face me like a true warrior!" At this, Wendy brandished her sword and stood firmly on her two feet as Peter had once taught her, her left hand curved and extended gracefully for balance, her chin high.

Princess Tigerlily responded with a stream of language that Wendy could not understand, followed by a regal lift of her head. Wendy glanced questioningly in Peter's direction, still keeping her sword ready for an attack, particularly since Tigerlily was now wielding her bone knife in a rather menacing manner. "What did she say?" Wendy asked.

"I don't know," Peter responded. "I don't understand their language, either."

This caused Wendy to glance at him again in shock. He had communicated freely with the Indians when last she was here. What on earth had happened to change even this?

Wendy turned cautiously back toward Princess Tigerlily, who was still watching her with a rather haughty expression. Then, suddenly, the Indian princess's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she gazed in amazement at Wendy's face. Frightened that Tigerlily had recognized her when Peter had not, Wendy quickly spoke. "If you leave us in peace, you may depart this meadow without trouble. But if you attempt to harm either of us again, I can promise you here and now that I shall do my utmost to run you through until you are quite quite dead."

Princess Tigerlily gazed at Wendy for a few moments longer, as if she were considering what to say or do, and then nodded her head briefly before walking warily from the clearing to disappear among the trees.

Wendy sagged with relief. She had not realized that she remembered so much about using a sword, since she had not handled a weapon in more than four years. But she had dreamt of adventures often in enough that her dreams had kept her swordsmanship always at the ready.

"I'm impressed!" laughed Peter. "Can you use that thing as well as you brandish it?" He was grinning at her now, and it was that same mischievous smile she had missed so very much. It brought a broad smile to her own lips in response.

"I suppose you shall find out the answer to that question, won't you, Peter Pan?" And her smile spread even wider with the pure joy of having fun with him again.

But in that moment something odd happened. Peter's smile suddenly faltered and his eyes narrowed, focusing even more closely on her face. He murmured suspiciously, "You know ... it's the strangest thing, but ... you remind me of someone..." and the confusion that shone clearly in his eyes reassured Wendy that he had not yet placed her face, though it seemed a wise time to distract him.

"Why do you not speak the Indians' language? I thought ... I mean ... I mean, Tinkerbell told me that you once communicated with them quite easily."

Peter frowned. "Tink talks too much." He sheathed his knife once more and walked back toward where Wendy stood with her sword now lowered to the ground. "Yes, it's true that in the past I was friendly with the Indian tribe, but that has changed. I don't know why, but I just ... I stopped being able to understand them. I don't know if they changed their language or not, but ... I just can't understand them now." Peter kicked some dead leaves with frustration before adding reluctantly, "The mermaids don't come when I call anymore, either. And I can only understand the fairies when they wish it so, which is rare."

Peter stared off into the distance with a melancholy expression. "I was once as young as you, younger even. That was before Wendy came. Wendy ruined everything. After she left, even the leaves and the trees seemed to welcome me no more, as they now appear to change their locations so that I sometimes ... I sometimes..." Peter swallowed heavily, then said very quietly, "I sometimes get lost." He lifted his head to gaze angrily at the sky and branches above them. "Do you understand how wrong it is for Pan to become lost in Neverland? Do you?"

Wendy watched Peter with growing horror, shaking her head in refusal to believe that what he said was true, but Peter interpreted the shaking of her head to indicate lack of understanding. He turned to face her, so close they might have touched, and said sadly, "Neverland is rejecting me because I am growing up."