Nᶒvᶒяlaᵰd

Chapter Eight

So. I'm back. I've written a bit ahead, which is good, so next time you won't have to wait too much. And even better, the end is in sight! Only a couple more chapters and we will be saying goodbye to Nᶒvᶒяlaᵰd, and I'll have to start thinking what I'll do next.

Disclaimer: In fifty years, this will be legitimate or something. Yeah, I dunno, I got nothing.

'He might have forgotten it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went out you found the body.' –J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

The Watcher deliberated. He had seen the footage. With a bit more practise and some experience, Wendy would be ready. Neverland would send her out into the world, to kill or be killed, a minion of the Nation, the very moment Peter grew bored of her. He had seen many children leave Neverland. Not many came back, and Wendy was small and weedy, not strong of body or mind. She would be gone in a couple of weeks, dead in an alley somewhere, tortured to death in the Clock's torture chambers. The Watcher could ignore the twinge in his chest, because once they left the sight of his screens he could pretend that they didn't exist anymore. But he was fond of Wendy. She had grown on him, like mould.

He watched his screens. Everybody in the building was moping or scared and skittish. Quite sensible really. Sometimes Peter liked to collect them in lots.

Yes, he was fond of Wendy and there was a lot of things he could do. He could delay her leaving, for example, or give her an opening in which to escape. He had done those things before, and children had returned home, heartless perhaps, but alive. But those escapes had not gone unnoticed and every hour of every day the eyes of Neverland weighed down on the back of his neck like a tonne of ice.

They were always watching, and one slip up, one mistake, one wayward glance and he would be gone and a new Watcher would be sitting in his chair, watching hawkeyed over the residents of the Living District, and watching with children flow through Neverland. The new Watcher would not be so soft hearted. For the new Watcher, their faces would all blend together until he wouldn't even notice the difference between them.

"What do you think?" asked Peter, swinging backwards and forwards on his chair, round and round in circles.

The Watcher thought that the entire endeavour was useless. He didn't say that though, not to Peter. Peter was worse than the ones who didn't care, because to him it was all a game. His entire team could die and he would think it was great fun and pretend to mourn, before forgetting about it and gathering a new team.

"You'll be clear on Thursday," he replied. His eyes never left his screens. He was afraid that if he looked at Peter, his carefully ordered façade would crumble like cheese.

There was a whoosh and then Peter had disappeared. The chair was still swinging around and around behind him.

Tootles peered down at Thimble, lying on the floor, unmoving. She was staring at the ceiling and her arms were wrapped around her as if she was cold, although it was actually very hot and stuffy and smoky too. Nibs had cigarettes, but didn't smoke them. He used them for trading material with the Natives. Their parents sometimes gave them interesting information, which they would swap with Nibs for a smoke. Nibs had ducked out on many things that way. It was why he was alive for so long.

Tootles sniffed again, trying to pinpoint the smell. It wasn't the chemical fumes of cigarettes or the electrical surplus of automobiles. It was a woody, smoke, like someone had developed a pyrokinetic Ability while he wasn't looking. Tootles wouldn't be surprised. It probably wasn't Thimble though; People tended not to develop two Abilities at once.

"Thimble," Tootles said, nudging her slightly with his foot, "Thimble, you need to get up."

Thimble rolled away from him so she was facing the wall. It didn't look like she was any closer to getting up and Tootles was getting slightly nervous. Thimble needed motivating. She needed serious motivating with a motivating motivator. He kneeled down next to her.

"Thimble," he hissed, "Peter Pan wants us."

The affect was immediate. Thimble sat bolt upright and muttered something that sounded like: 'My other.' Of course, it could have been: 'My mother,' or 'Why bother?' but he couldn't hear her very well. Maybe smoke muffled sound. Did smoke do that? It could probably do that. Thimble shook her head as if clearing the smoke, or maybe the last remnants of the lethargic un-motivation she was in. If she was, she was taking a long time about it, so Tootles grabbed her arm and started dragging her. Her feet moved heavily as if she were moving through honey or sand. If Tootles had been moving through honey, he would have eaten it, but maybe it would get dirty if you walked through it. Thimble was dirtying the honey.

Tootles realised he had taken the metaphor a tad far. Thimble probably wasn't imagining herself walking through honey. She was walking with the slightly dragging feet of someone with a heavy load, or half-asleep. She was waking up quickly through, her head flitting backwards and forwards like a bird. Like a bird would flick its head, of course, not how a bird flits, although that also would be an apt metaphor. At this thought Tootles cut the metaphor off, lest it become too convoluted.

"Where," said Thimble, "are we going?"

She hadn't spoken for a couple days, since she tried to go back out the window and Tootles wondered if he should congratulate her or something. Of course, if he brought attention to her speaking, he could scare her away from speaking, but if he didn't say anything, she might not think he cared. They probably made her torture someone and could be suffering trauma. What was the cure for trauma? Could you cure trauma?

Tootles couldn't think of anything and realised when Thimble began raising her eyebrows at him, that he hadn't answered her yet. Oh.

"A room," he answered helpfully, than elaborated, "A meeting room, for dinner with Peter Pan."

"And where is this room?" asked Wendy, "Upstairs, downstairs, behind the broom closet, underneath the Fair Folks dorms? In some mystical island, same level as the lobby, top of the tower, bottom of the basement?"

There was no map of Neverland, or perhaps he hadn't seen one yet. Some of the instructors knew the entire place from top to bottom, but from the corridor they were in, Tootles couldn't tell where the entrance or anywhere else was. He knew how to get to some places (mostly by following the person in front of him) but he didn't really know where they were in relation to everywhere else.

"Sorry," he said, in the most apologetic manner he could manage.

Thimble opened her mouth to say something and then shut it quickly. He wondered if he had scared her off speaking again (somehow) and she wouldn't ever speak again. Then Tootles wondered if she had begun to tell him to get lost but realised that she probably didn't want to say that. Tootles was glad. He didn't want her to say that either, it would be ages until he was found again. He would probably end up in the middle of the ocean or something ridiculous.

He stopped and felt skin scrape under shoe as Thimble ran into him and winced. He liked his skin to stay where it belonged, thank you very much. Tootles started to walk backwards, counting the doorhandles backwards from the hexagonal bronze one. That one was Peter Pan's office and as unlikely as it was that Peter would be in there, Tootles didn't feel much like going in.

He stopped and Thimble once again scraped his calf. He winced again. Tootles wondered if that the wind changed his face would remain in a wince forever and hurriedly smoothed his face back into it's normal position.

Thimble peered around him.

"Are you sure this is it?" she asked doubtfully.

"I hope so," said Curly, who had appeared behind them, puffing and panting. Curly had probably ran the entire time there. Curly was always late for things, and got lost even more easily than Tootles did. If Thimble told Curly to get lost they would never see him again. Shame really, Curly was nicer than most.

Curly opened the door, the same time Slightly did on the other side. Slightly was agile enough to jump out of the way of Curly's tumble and gave them all a scathing look.

"NO LOITERING AT THE DOOR!" shouted a voice from inside the room, "ALL MEN FRONT AND CENTRE!"

Peter Pan was enjoying himself (even if nobody else was). He was a commander and the Lost Boys were his soldiers. They were an army and nothing could stand in their way. He gave another swith of his sword and waited until his soldiers had calmed down.

"MEN!" he shouted in his best army general voice, "WE COME HERE TONIGHT TO PLAN OUR INVASION!"

Beside him, Tink rolled her eyes and Peter ignored her. There were incredulous murmurings among his troops.

"WE WILL TAKE THE CLOCK! WE WILL TAKE THEIR MEN AND WE WILL TAKE THEIR WOMEN AND ANYBODY ELSE LINGERING AROUND!"

"What?" said Thimble. Beside her Tootles had covered his ears with his hands and Curly was looking terrified. Everyone was looking terrified actually, mostly because their prospects were looking quite black. To be sent out to eradicate an entire rebellion group would kill half of them and cripple the other half; Peter was the only one likely to survive in one piece. What they didn't know was that Neverland rarely sent an entire training group out, because that defeated the purpose of a training group. So even Peter was unlikely to survive, although he could take down thirteen men in a fair fight and thirty-five in an unfair one, the Clock had garnered over more than one thousand members and had over a million supporters. They would overtake anything thrown at them with sheer numbers.

What Neverland and indeed the Nation were hoping for was to take out the main cell. Although endowed with great quantities of men and women to fight by their side, the Clock, by virtue of being a rebellion in a highly controlled country, was rather chaotic. The only ones keeping it organised were the people in charge (of which there was a reduced number). To assassinate them would be alike to firing all the librarians in a library or the lifeguards in a pool- bedlam would occur, the kids running around breaking things, getting into places they are not supposed to and people stealing the books and such. Neverland was hoping that the Clock was collapse under its own weight.

All they needed to know was where the main cell was. Neverland kept close tabs on the Nation, but with the multitude of information that was always flowing, it was quite hard to pinpoint where exactly the Clock was. It could be anywhere.

But Neverland had done it. The Clock ran under the river, in a network of old sewerage pipes. The Thames it had used to be called, but now people just hurried past the brown waters with nary a glance. The river had always been there, so the Clock just moved in. The Watcher that had found the rebel group had sniggered at his own cleverness for finding it.

But enough of that for now- continues on the meeting.

"What's the Clock?" she asked.

"IT'S PARTLY A LARGE REBEL GROUP BUT MOSTLY NONE OF YOUR BUISNESS," yelled Peter, back at her, "THEY'LL BE BUSY KILLING YOU TWO THURSDAYS FROM NOW."

"Less school yard bully, more army general," suggested Tink, "And keep the noise levels down a bit, the rest of us are trying to think."

Peter grinned mischievously at her and crowed. It was perhaps a fraction softer than it could have been.

He returned his attention to his troops, only to find Thimble had joined them in looking absolutely terrified.

"STOP LOOKING SO AFRAID, YOU MUST TO BRAVE TO THE CORE!"

"Thimble," said Tinker Bell, who much like Tootles had her hands over her ears, "Kindly ask Peter to not say a word for five minutes."

"Peter," said Thimble, really looking as if she wished to punch Tinker Bell in the face, and keep on punching, until she was dead perhaps, "Don't say anything for five minutes."

Peter sent her a heart-broken betrayed look (beside him Tink bristled) and sulked, poking at Thimble with his sword.

"That's basically it," Tink told them.

"That's all?" said Slightly, who was not prone to playing along. Peter often had to rap him on the knuckles, and so they were red and chapped.

"Yeah, I would have told you all in the morning, but Peter insisted on giving you a briefing."

Besides Tink, Peter was straightening his back and trying to look important.

"And what about dinner?" asked Slightly. His fingers twitched an inch.

"Dinner? Then I would suggest the canteen," said Tink. She pulled out her EPulse and pointed it at them, "Now get out before I start shooting, I'm quite sick of the lot of you, and I have a headache from all that shouting."

They scattered reluctantly.

Five minutes passed with all the time of a broken slinky and Peter rubbed his sore throat. He thought it was from trying to speak under Wendy's Ability but really it was from yelling all the time. Peter didn't cast blame upon himself, he was too cocky for that.

"Why did you make them leave?" he complained, "They missed dinner!"

"I don't think they would be in the mood for dinner. They looked quite mutinous. People being told their time is up tend to do that."

"They would never betray their fellow soldier, their general, their perfect leader!" said Peter, warming up again.

"Yes they would," said Tink, "Even through all that work I've done on them, they probably don't want to die."

Peter shrugged. He wouldn't know about that, he had never died before.

Wendy tried to stem the flow of blood from her arm, where Peter had poked her arm. The sword had pierced the jumpsuit and she had only her hands to try to stop the bleeding. She didn't mind the crusting blood on her hands- she didn't feel much like eating anyway.

"Want my bread?" asked Tootles, waving a stale slice in front of her face.

"No," said Wendy, "I d-don't want anything. Nothing. Not one slice of b-bread. Not ev-ev-even something nice. Like c-cake. I-I don't want it, whatever it is."

She was shivering, although it was hot and humid in the canteen. She felt like her insides had turned to gas and had evaporated out of her. Wendy felt like she would fold over at any moment.

"Oh," said Tootles, "No, that's good, it's unlikely Peter would have given us anything for dinner anyway."

Slightly walked past and tugged the bread out of Tootles hand, giving it a scathing glance before shoving it in his face and walking away.

"Well," said Thimble.

"Well," said Tootles.

Neither said anything, because there wasn't anything to say.

I don't even know what I'm writing anymore…