Bloodied hands clawed at the nearest root, ragged breath heaving from lips that had cracked with desiccation. Time, duration, neither had little meaning anymore. There was only the single most terrifying truth – that there'd only be so many more times that Sabre could fall and be able to get up again.

Near crippled with weakness and fatigue and still a relative stranger to the island, there was not a shred of hope that the hunt of the Lost Boys could be evaded for much longer. Even if she'd been as strong as she longed to be, or truly known the scape of Neverland, it would have still been only a matter of time before she collapsed like an exhausted doe on the run from relentless wolves.

A worse mistake could not have been made. All she'd cultivated in her time there, she'd managed to wither to ash in a sweeping, unthinking decision that belonged to fool's wishful, and poor, excuse for a mind. Boys she'd ate with, trained with, slept alongside were now running her down. And so they should. A traitor deserves no less. The thoughts came disjointedly as Sabre bolted again, fighting against all the aches and pains tearing up and down her body, but stopping couldn't be an option, not least until she'd found a hiding place. Maybe she could take refuge with the Piccaninny tribe or, by some miracle, be rescued by Oberon's kindred. But they'll be able to track me, wherever I go. No one can help me.

But it'd take them a bit of time to catch up. Enough to at least breathe again.

It might have been wiser to seek the cliffs, and keep going.

Did any of Pan's victims ensure their own destruction? Did any of them manage to beat him to it?

Agency in their own deaths…

Knowing what she did – things she wasn't meant to – the strongest standing conclusion was that she was still needed alive; she'd have to be captured alive.

Only the living can feel pain. Only the living can be tortured…can endure fates worse than death.

Attempts at escape would have been useless and attempts at supplication would have been even worse. Knowing then, like she'd really known all along, that no one was heroically coming to rescue her, the contemplation that life may have been a payable price permeated her outlook dangerously quickly. And if it was by the hand of water, well, she wouldn't mind that.

A prickly vine slashed at her thigh, snatching out a high and hoarse cry. Her balance toppled over at the barrelling bite and, as she stumbled, the palm of Sabre's hand, already thickly coated with blood, sweat and dirt, scrapped against the callous bark of the tree she fell upright against, opening a new set of tiny cuts embedded with filthy splinters. Gulping and panting down air did nothing to relieve the crushing weight starving her lungs.

Water. I have to return to the water.

An arrow struck the tree trunk, inches away from her head, the wood giving a faint creak of protest. She could have sworn there was greater distance between her and her hunters, and didn't waste even a moment to look at the full length of the arrow. If she had, she would have discovered it did not belong to a Lost Boy.

With no time to thank whatever divinities that be, Sabre sprung off, groaning low, head ducked and teeth ground against the hurt of every motion.

The fire can't burn there.

Neverland was an island – she'd have to come to water sooner or later. But that implied she'd have enough strength to reach the coast. And she knew, deep down, that she didn't, and she made sure of her last request.

Still she needed to try.

The agony was drawn on to find anger, or something akin to it, in opposition and Sabre used whatever reserves that could be dug up to keep her legs moving and her mind awake. One mistake, that's all it's taken. One mistake. One that I could have stopped from ever happening. She knew, with an ever suffocating defeat, that the pain was becoming a far greater drain than supply of primordial energy to her limbs. If she couldn't reach the water, then maybe it would be the exhaustion that finished her off.

Barely a hundred yards from the arrow-struck tree, as Sabre's calves were passing each other in mid-motion, a weighted rope, hurled from a short distance, coiled around her lower limbs and she was tossed to the ground with the force of her own momentum. The rope cut into her flesh but the collision was enough to knock the air from her already wheezing lungs. It was the last fall she had left.

Nevertheless, Sabre clawed at the ground, kicking against the bonds, torn between thrashing with animalistic instinct and terror, and halting everything to think rationally and carefully. Her legs were bound – how were they bound? What could get her legs free in the smallest amount of time? Although it was hard to hear such comprehension over the wrangle of petrified nature that was built into her with roots that were far more innate. Through the internal outcry, Sabre heard a rough shout – a barking order. Spoken with a female's tongue.

Halting in her struggle, which turned out to be a mistake as Sabre's starved lungs came to realise themselves, the girl searched frantically for the voice she was sure that she recognised. A moment later, Tiger Lily leapt down from her perch in the trees, pink in the cheeks and wild in the eyes.

Did Pan send you? Sabre could have asked but remained silent, asides from her rasping as she drag in any scrap of air possible to salvage.

The Piccaninny warrior was as beautiful and amorously cold as the day Sabre had first seen her, with her long, supple limbs, wild hair and fiery eyes.

There was plenty Sabre might have said, but nothing that sat behind the tongue would have been any use to her. Groaning through the gritted jaw, she let her own deadweight roll sideways. The muscles of her legs crippled achingly. Her ribs quaked with the need for air, clenching down on her lungs. The splinters buried in her hand bit down like the stings of wasps, as if they somehow, impossibly, intended to hurt her. Just like every other cut and slash and bruise, waiting to stain, did.

"More of our crops dead," Tiger Lily spoke, bold and loud, as if declaring a proclamation, "more of our animals – dead," she kept moving in those long, naturally elegant strides.

The leaves rustled behind the collapsed girl, and when Sabre craned her head in a waste of energy, she caught a glimpse of one of the boys that had been present at the drop-off, one who shared many features with Tiger Lily.

"More of our kin," she moved closer, hands empty but a dagger in clear sight, resting in a sheath on her belt, until she stood over the fallen body, "dead."

Two soundless voices answered concurrently.

Not my fucking problem.

I'm so sorry.

Sabre's lips remained tight, clenching as Tiger Lily rolled her flat on her back with a harsh kick of the foot.

"What are you running from?" the catlike female demanded.

"Hardly matters now, does it?" Sabre croaked out, sparing a moment's glance to the other's kin. Perhaps a brother or cousin. "And unless I murdered your family, I had nothing to do with it."

"You did murder them," a strong hand wrapped around her throat, squeezing. "With every day that passes and you thoughtlessly refuse to share your blood with the land, more death will come."

No amount of fury and antipathy could put the bristle in Sabre's bones. Her eyes and tone were left cold by it. "Why should I give a shit about what happens to you when I'm nothing but a vessel of blood in your eyes? People die. Get over it."

There was no remorse in the kick that went straight in the face, breaking her nose instantly. A flow of blood was released, trickling down the back of her throat more than through the gaps of her nostrils. Tiger Lily snapped something in her native tongue to her companion, who muttered something back to her before turning on his heels. Though not before glowering at Sabre and spitting on the ground. Sabre barely noticed, coughing on the blood that was going down her. She already regretted the crassness that had come to her, objectively.

Rolling onto her belly, Sabre curled her hands into the earth, hissing against the stings that clung on like leeches. "I'm not the one who made Neverland sick," she bit out, wheezing, "which means I'm not the one who brought death. None of this…is by my hand."

In a single movement, Tiger Lily drew the dagger from her belt and sliced the flesh of Sabre's dirt stained forearm, avoiding the veins but by no means withholding the pain. She waited for the girl's cries to desist into low groans and gasps. "But you can stop it. And you won't. Which means the lives lost are on your hands. The lives of my own blood."

The blade sunk into the soft part of Sabre's shoulder, and the scream went higher, lasted longer. The metal was only part of her for a moment and the air bit coldly, stealing the warmth from her blood as it pulsed from the wound, or feeling like it. She lashed out with her bleeding forearm, nails curled to claw, and latched to Tiger Lily's throat and clamped down. Hard. The other's move was quick to catch by the eye, but the next thing Sabre knew her head had been knocked down with a backhanded smack.

Shocked rebounded through her skull. And something woke up.

It wasn't much, and completely enough to leave her boneless and stunned.

She was again flat on her back, stone under her instead of earth, motionless from a blow to the back of the head. A marionette with all its strings cut. There were aches and pains in her body but they were situated differently, their origins elsewhere, and the clothes on her body were heavier, sturdier. Armour that was of no use to her then.

It was night, rather than day. Or at least, that was what she was sure of. Light was hard to find within vast rocky walls, only touched by light born from fire and moon that glimmered through the prism of a waterfall. It must have been night.

In the corner of her eye, a silhouette of a body laid out, very much like her own, but on an altar. She couldn't move, not even to turn her head and fathom the figure. But there was another, standing, rather than kneeling, over her. Tall and mighty, unmistakably masculine, the figure was clad in dark heavy armour, the weight of which would have crushed her into a cripple.

Helpless in whatever past moment that was, and helpless in the living moment.

Sabre was shocked back into her body by a further assault, this time a blow to the face that landed in the cheekbone. The next went to the soft part of her belly, unshielded by her ribs that – given a moment's thought – wouldn't have done much by way of protection anyway. Around her, the landscape spun, her eyes blurring and hot with thin tears. She couldn't feel a place that didn't hurt.

It needed to stop. She had to make the pain stop. I always have to make the pain stop. Do anything.

Anything to make it stop.

Suddenly on her feet, Tiger Lily's attacks turned to brutal kicks, hammering on soft flesh and hard bone alike, strategy lost to heartfelt inflamed grief. One look in those brown-black eyes and Sabre could almost take it from the warrior and into her own heart. A pain she knew, she couldn't blame it, and she couldn't find any movement to fight against it.

Bits of the girl were broken when the Piccaninny princess had exhausted her wrath; blood and sweat made her hands sticky, heat rolling down the toned contours of her shape, and she was unashamedly panting as she straightened and stepped away. It was hard to know if more blood had been unleashed beneath the barrier of skin and muscle. It was impossible to stop shaking. She knew now, Neverland was inescapable. Even if Hook did ever return, Pan would not allow either of them to leave, let alone let the pirate or his crew escape alive. Death might unlock the door to her freedom, but that would be it. The only way she could ever go forward was surrendering her blood, fulfilling her position as Fairest Soul and taking a place at Pan's side. And she wasn't going to pretend to deny what awakened each time she saw him, with mind or eye.

If that too was unbearable then death would catch her as she tipped into its arms, at peace.

You cannot know peace, because peace cannot know you. You are not a creature of peace.

Dignity and poise restored, Tiger Lily spat a curse, rough, but cold, in the back of her throat, and Sabre didn't see her walk away. The realisation that she was alone followed dully sometime after.

Slipping away, the pain was no longer acute, throbbing through her bones. A whimper of vain protest crawled out of her mouth, cracked as it reached through the blood stagnating in the back of her throat. She didn't even have the energy to swallow it down.

Red was turning black, and ivory to purple. How long before some creature caught her scent and decided it was high time for an easy meal? Was there any chance that the Lost Boys had been given orders that would mean they'd finished what Tiger Lily started?

Are you sure dying wouldn't be better? she wondered to herself. How much pain will you take for the sake of hope for something better?

A presence entered her scope of sense, the footfalls too weighted, all too human to be whom she feared.

Perhaps a little more.

"My, my," drawled Felix as he lazily swung his club behind his head to rest on the broadness of his thin shoulders, "what have we here?"

If she could have, Sabre would've beckoned him over, but was resigned to waiting for him to come to her. Even if it required the endurance of a smug soliloquy. Felix's long strides made the distance short; Sabre didn't like how tall he was standing over her.

"Hm, something got you good," he spoke, crouching down and reaching out to pull back Sabre's clothes where they were loose enough to peek at her injuries; he muttered a brief, half-hearted apology when she whined out at one particularly sore touch. Having looked at the clean slashes marked into her forearms and shoulder, he changed his verdict; "Or someone. You can't seem to stay out of trouble, can you?"

Sabre struggled to breathe deeply, in control, like Vasha had shown her to do, in a last grasp to bridge the distance between body and mind. She groaned, tight lipped, trying to clear the path down to her lungs, muscles contracting in forcing the blood to dislodge and go down another way.

The way Felix brushed away the rogue strands of hair, some stuck down with drying blood, was almost gentle. It counted for naught against the steely coldness of his flint eyes. "Pan very much wants to see you."

Sabre came close to choking, voice straining against the remnants of blood and the rigidity of her bruised, possibly cracked, jaw, and all that she could initially muster were little pitiful sounds.

Enough to get Felix's attention – he leaned down, setting the cumbersome club aside. "Hm? Speak up. Can't hear you." His head bowed low, the warmth of her flesh and blood brushing against his cold cheek. He had to listen hard to piece together her sounds into coherent words. "I see," he breathed, once everything fit together; "well, Pan will be pleased." With a mumbled, half honest apology, the tall boy closed his hands around her in order to lift the small body over his shoulder.

The sharp contorted whimpers of protest were to be expected, so highly pitched in comparison to what Felix was accustomed to hearing that he ground his jaw. Sabre was left hanging limply down the length of his back, and could only bear the vertigo for a moment before she whined out so loudly that she could feel the vibration on her lips, doubting Felix would like the contents of her stomach down his back, or that she would be able to suffer even a minute of the journey back in such distress. Although he didn't seem at all bothered by the sopping blood stains quickly forming in his clothes.

Tiny struggles pressed into Felix's frame. What she wanted wasn't difficult to work out. With an audible under-breath sigh, Felix hoisted her off his shoulder, still walking, and swept his other arm under the girl's knees, settling her in the cradle of his arms, so that she could lean her head into his collar. Gathering all her weight into the arm curled around her back, stretching it out to support the backs of her thighs, Felix reached to collect his club and slipped the smoothened handle between her legs, the globular head resting on her chest. He could feel the heat of fresh blood under the grip of his hands, and understood why a stream of small noises continuously slipped from the girl's lips, even as he quietly hoped she'd shut up. Usually such breakable ones wouldn't make it very far.

Sabre kept her eyes closed throughout the journey back, cheek pressed into the firmness of Felix's collar to keep as much of the spiralling at bay as possible. The club was heavier than expected and she didn't like it at all. It pressed on wounds, pushing the pain back down as it tried to radiate outwards.

The persistence of her weight in his arms didn't do much to deter his endurance, saved by centuries of hard survival. She was still a very slight thing, after all. With each glanced Felix spared her now and then, more dark colours had festered – drying blood, ripening bruises, all against the paleness of flesh that been spared. He lengthened his stride.

There was only a short distance left between the camp when Felix made a sudden diversion; Sabre felt it in the movements and it sent her head reeling. With a discontented groan, the girl cracked her eyes open, not fully recognising the surroundings. If they were not returning to the camp, then it could have been anywhere Felix was taking her. Several attempts concluded to Sabre that her eyes could only be opened for a few moments before having to retreat into darkness and keep her insides from wrenching.

Felix knew his way to the tiny hut – one of many tucked away in the island – like the back of his hand. He had to duck to get inside, and held the half conscious girl a little tighter. The hut, like its counterparts, contained little more than a bed, which was all that was truly needed. Some kept a chest – that were not to be looked in by unwitting eyes – and wash basin inside but that tended to be as far as the décor went.

His ears were sensitive to the high whimper as he put the girl down on the bed, and he fought the edge of the smirk at the thought of telling her what the bed was usually in use for.

Taking the club from its resting hold, he swung it back over his shoulder, already backing out of the hut. "Don't go anywhere."

A little whimper, calling out for him and the arms that'd held her, escaped Sabre's lips. The flimsy grasp of coherency she clung onto left her unable to move, or think beyond base instincts of fright. Her body pulled to have itself rolled over so she could curl up in a tiny ball and not come out of it, but the dead weight of her limbs left her stretched out. The drying and welling of more blood was an ugly sensation, hot and sticky, tugging at the skin as it coagulated and hardened, diluting with the sweat and grime. All the aches still throbbed without relief.

Like Lukas, Sabre was doomed as a cripple, and no one would spare a fragment of kindness to a fickle traitor. No one would pour water into her mouth or feed her while under the shackles of immobility. No one would dress her wounds or change her clothes. Depravity would finish her off before she revived the capability to have a chance of saving herself.

Faintly through the gateway of primordial subconscious that shuddered against the rawness of energy in alteration, Sabre became aware of a presence making itself known. Peeking timorously through hooded eyelids, a scrap of will allowed her to rotate her head a fraction, gaze falling in line with the thick umber belt clipped in the middle fastening.

"I didn't know red would suit you so well," the wild boy's voice was too sinister to be musing. "Perhaps I should dress you in it myself. Now," he crouched down, crushing her under a fierce gaze, "who did this to you?"

In spite of everything, Pan watched the girl make a valiant effort to answer him but she barely got past splitting the thick layers of blood sealing her mouth, even as it trapped her jaw in a vice of agony. There was the potential he'd been so sure of…

Bringing his palm above her mouth, Pan sent a soft, rarely soothing, thrum of magic down, knitting the breaks together far enough to give her the ability to speak. Whether he healed her anything further depended on the quality of her next few answers. "There you go, pup," the rumbling timbre of his tone roused a shudder at the base of Sabre's spine, like vibrations reverberating along a plucked string. His cold eyes hardly blinked, demanding her answer.

Sabre's mouth opened by a fraction, anticipating the grinding of cracked bones, but it didn't come. "T-Tiger Lily," she breathed weakly, then wet her lips. "More of her people are dying."

"I see. And this brought you to an epiphany, did it? After all this time of refusing?" a slight tilt angled Pan's head, the golden-russet mop of his fringe swept across his forehead.

"Everyone refuses until they don't."

Pan tapped her broken nose with a ghosting grin, waited for the hoarse gasp to pass and her shoulders to ease back down. "There's a line between wit and impertinence, make sure you stay on the right side. But why should I believe your surrender is genuine? Just know that if you're lying and I don't kill you first, the ritual will."

Letting her head fall to neutral, eyes to the hut's rickety roof, Sabre swallowed, coughing once to displace a little more blood. "I want to survive," she confessed, feeling a thin veil of wetness as she blinked, "and if this is how then so be it."

This feels familiar, like I've done this before. Somewhere before I confessed. She prayed for nothing to wake. She didn't want to know what in her past had broken her far enough to make an exchange for her very survival. But one thing was certain.

She had.

And would again.

"I don't want people dying because of me."

Long fingers pinched her delicate chin, turning her head back to the side. "How very noble of you," the Boy-King muttered with a curled lip. "I think you might mean it, but humour me anyway. I say we continue our little game of secrets; tell me," his pause was genuine, the form of his features surprisingly pleasant in contemplation, however brief, "tell me your name. The name you were born with. Now that's something you've never quite forgotten, isn't it?"

It took more digging than Sabre would have liked but she told herself half-heartedly that it was the unexpectedness and the daze of exhausted pain. My name, the name my parents gave me…

"It's Sabryna," she found the word heavy on her tongue, yet inexplicably light in her chest. "I was born Sabryna Aurorae Sura, one of the families in Clan Stormblood." Except, I can't remember what any of it really means.

New warmth emanated from Pan's hand, caressing her face until all the filth and blood was cleansed, the wounds invisibly kissed away. "Good girl. I knew Killian had fetched me more than a sorry stray," he didn't hide his interest as he watched her, wondering. What she'd seen, what she'd done, or had done to her. It'd be such a shame if his hopes had been misplaced. "But that wasn't too difficult, though. How about we try something harder? Tell me something you really don't want to admit. Something you'd never like me to find out. Then I'll believe you." He grinned at the ripple of distress morphing on the girl's features.

He already believes me, she thought through a voice with a clenched jaw, he just wants to know what he can get out of me. It was apparent the value he placed on her was founded on three aspects.

How skilled she was.

How loyal she was.

And how interesting she was. That would be what made her useful to him, and that meant they were the three aspects she would have to master.

But what would satisfy him? There was no confession that she gave happily. Her name, her first word, the first terrible thing she might have done, she had given them and they were all his.

Then it struck her – the greatest secrets she had at her disposal were not her own. Four words; it would take four words, which spoke far beyond themselves, to prove her honesty, and thus, save her life.

"Her name was Syrinx."


What put Sabre nearly to the point of fear with bewilderment was how mild the Lost Boys were when she was returned to their camp and put to rest to sleep off the remainder of her injuries with ground up poppy seeds mixed with her water. All as though she'd never sprung off at the word 'pirate'. A few curses were even thrown to Tiger Lily's name when Pan passed the remark upon their return. Sabre supposed it was simple enough – she'd returned with their leader, lord and master, alive and, mostly, well. That was enough to purify her sins.

Sabre next woke to daylight, and to find Curly picking out the last few splinters in her palm. It stung nastily but he'd brought a bucket of cold water with him and dipped her hand down when the flinches and hisses became harder to contain, allowing the snips of pain to drown in a thin layer of numbness. She imagined it would have hurt considerably more if not shielded by the dozy effects of the poppy seeds. Having chosen to stay with her after binding her hand, Curly was chased off like a mouse when Rufio came close. The dark boy, propped her up more comfortably against the tree she rested on, making sure her legs were snuggly covered by the thick pelt that covered her to the lap. She found she took greater notice of the coldness in his touch.

He inspected her with a tilted head. "You're looking better. You'll need all the strength you can find for tonight."

"What happens tonight?"

"The ceremony, of course," Rufio grinned cuttingly, "and, depending on how that goes, the celebration."

"And if I fail?" Sabre could feel the very quiver in her throat, warping her words into small frightened sounds. "I know I die, but that doesn't tell me much. What happens to me?"

Flicking a short strand of hair away from Sabre's pale forehead, the boy's brow knitted together. "You're surprisingly keen. Most people prefer not knowing. But, then again, you're not most people."

You didn't answer my question, Sabre thought but wasn't confident enough to say, as her hands folded in her lap, fingers wringing together, and could feel the weight of irritation on her face.

Rufio noticed. "I can't speak for Pan but," he leaned his head to the side, "given that he's already begun preparations for having you stick around, I'm thinking he'd take it a bit harder than usual if things don't go well tonight. And that probably means he'd draw it out a bit; maybe over a few days. Get creative."

Exhaling shakily and looking anywhere that wasn't Rufio's baleful face and eyes that – usually were a hue shy of onyx – lit up like venomous bronzite, Sabre awkwardly scratched her face, purely to occupy her restless hands. If worst comes to worst, I'll have to destroy myself before they can. "Understood," her voice and lips thinned.

Rufio was ready to tell her that she didn't, couldn't, as she braved another look his way. Usually they never understood. They knew little or nothing. Yet suddenly he realised, not her. He'd seen it a hundred times on a hundred faces. Now on hers as well.

He rose to his feet. "I look forward to sharing a place at Pan's side with you. And I don't extend that kindness to just anyone."

Sabre's back straightened. "Is it even yours to extend?"

The initial response was a laugh, small and smooth, and he swung lazily on the points of his feet, shoulders slouched. "Pan enjoys seeing us quarrel, struggle to prove ourselves worthy of his favour. And while none of us would be here if he didn't want us, he is…let's say selective about who he wants the most. And that depends on us. Many have tried to usurp my place in the past, but I wouldn't be unhappy to see a third pedestal. Just for you," he winked with a grin to fit, voice lowered to a near whisper.

He has faith in me, she thought as he strolled away, real faith. It's as if, in his heart, he's already chosen to believe that it'll be me.

With all these signs, though, what sense would it make if it wasn't? It's gone too far.

She'd meant to ask him about what would happen to her in the ceremony. She had no idea what to expect of it.

It came down to her blood – more precisely, surrendering it – and it was too optimistic of her to hope its importance was purely metaphorical or symbolic.

Blood would have to be spilled.

Slumping back against the hard trunk, Sabre sighed out through the nose, relieving the pressure in her chest. Perhaps it might have been worth seeking out Vasha for a session. The weight of her limbs protested otherwise. Decision quickly made, she eased down and curled inwards, shuffling under the pelt that stretched from shoulder to knee.

Despite her tiredness, she couldn't find sleep again. Instead her head filled with ideas, questions, scenarios, all playing out into uncountable possibilities. The person of her history was a tragic stranger, still. Would everything she'd come to be in that short life of consciousness fade into nothingness, uncaptured by memory, as well? She feared the void that might be left to remain, or worse the dreadful things that might fill it in the savagery of Neverland. Would she begin to cry in the night for someone she would never know again, or would she be left too cold, a bloodless shell, to let anything through the cracks in the pane of glass she so often felt trapped behind?

Once Neverland claimed her, sealing herself away – although it was the very last thing she wanted – could offer the only path of survival.

The rest of the daylight hours were wiled away with dozing and wonderings.

At some point, she'd climbed out of her makeshift cot to slip into the woods to make water, all the time worrying that her shaky legs would collapse from under her. She'd flopped back down like a ragdoll, head spinning.

Sabre rolled over to face the rest of the camp once her senses had settled, and got to watch the Lost Boys as though she were not really there at all. Tootles and Hayes laid the fire-pit, laying down more logs, more kindling – more of everything. When it was finished it stood close to the height of their shoulders, ready to cradle flames that would engulf a far greater span. She watched the boys eat and whisper among themselves. There was no playing, she noted. Not tonight.

She wasn't fond of the rising count of glances, usually followed by little mutters, directed at her with so much secrecy that she couldn't make out the words accompanying on their lips. Traitor or salvation.

When the first sketches of dusk etched into the corners of the sky, Slightly came near while Sabre had slipped back into a light doze, putting down the food and water to gently rouse her. Alertness struck her like a slap in the face and she flinched with a slight grunt, but calmed just as quickly.

"You spoil me," she looked over what Slightly had brought for her. The plate held more than the typical portion; a slab of meat, another of fish, a red fruit the size of her fist, and two bits of bread lathered in honey. "I'm not hungry."

It was obvious the boy couldn't care less. He shrugged, "You'll regret it if you don't. And I'd hurry up or you'll be fighting half the company for that bread."

Sabre sat up fully as he spoke, running a hand through her hair and scratching the back of her head, felt the dent again. "Why are you all being like this?" she asked point-blank.

"Like what?"

A scoff came out. "Like nothing happened." The guilt coursed through her deeply, not because she had run, but because if someone could offer her a way out she'd still take it. It wasn't in her to believe that she truly belonged in Neverland. To Neverland, or its master. But it was the only way forward – that was enough. Wishing and dreaming were all well and good but, under Pan's iron fist, they were worth nothing to reality.

"Because, if you are the one Pan needs, then nothing will have happened," Slightly said evenly, meaning it. "Want me to keep you company?"

Sabre offered a half smile, one too brief to reach her eyes, and mild shrug. "If you like." The acceptance was quickly regretted as she was unable to salvage the energy to fill any of the silence. Even though her tongue was often idle, there felt a greater pressure to open her mouth and just say anything. She hoped Slightly wouldn't try and coax her into conversation.

To occupy her restless hands, more than anything else, Sabre picked at the food on plate, starting with the honey soaked bread, holding it by the edges to keep her fingers from getting sticky. It tasted good, she'd give it that. Far better than good.

Dusky colours continued to crawl across the sky, the first shades of dark on the horizon. Sabre hadn't been able to sit completely still. The great fire had been lit, requiring a long time to be nurtured and was still far from its full majesty, meanwhile the air was heavy and full of mutterings. Rufio was at the far end of the clearing, and Sabre watched Pips and Lance bringing brown tatty sacks, rimmed with dark soil, to him. The dark Lost One had assembled something of a low table – a collapsible surface that fit together like puzzle pieces to be put away neatly. It looked roughed up, well worn. Used again and again.

Sabre watched him pull out a mushroom from one of the sacks, big as his fist. "Get me water," he barked with a line of irritation, and Pips brought him the main water pail, perhaps for fear of keeping Pan's right hand waiting, before picking up another bucket to fill at the nearest river.

What Rufio could have done to culminate such fear over the years, Sabre could barely begin to imagine. She found distraction in watching him wash the mushrooms with surprisingly careful hands, like it was just as meditative for him to complete the task as it was for her to watch it. More and more items were fetched for him: cauldrons, tripods, clothes, mugs that were shaped more like tankards; Lance even assembled and lit a small fire-pit for him.

At some point Nibs stopped by, a bundle of kindling over his shoulder. "You're starting early," he commented to his long-held companion.

Rufio grinned, wild, as he looked up. "It's gonna be a good night tonight."

Perhaps Nibs murmured something back, or maybe he just grinned back, before depositing the kindling into the rising fire, leaving Rufio to his work, and Sabre cursing worriedly in her head. Her hand probed for more food but found the plate regrettably empty. Never mind, then, she lowered the plate down, dropping it the last few inches. Could they just hurry up with it already? I don't think I can stand this much longer. Cold and clammy, her hands fidgeted, twisting and wringing together, pinching the fabric of her skin-fitting trousers.

Calm down, you can do this. You can do this. You must.

I have to survive. I must.


Hope you enjoyed. Anything thoughts/theories on the mini-flashback or the motif of water? Feel free to share!