The first rain drops began to fall from the sky and Peter knew in his bones that he hadn't anything to do with this for once. It was her, whether she did it on purpose or not, it was Mercy. Mercy who kept her feelings, be them positive or negative, bottled up until the cork popped and a storm broke. Peter feared the day she would channel all of her anger and sorrow and direct it all at him – a tsunami of unleashed emotions she had little to no control over would wash over Neverland and destroy everything in its wake.
That was the cost for breaking a girl's heart. He didn't know how he'd done it but he felt it. In the air, in the earth, in his chest.
"Here," Peter called to Felix who he sensed was looking for him. The thinking tree appeared to the Lost Boy. "I recall asking you to leave me alone today."
"The Shadow's got something for you," he informed Pan with a reverential nod.
"And why would you think I care? The Shadows brings a newcomer every so often and you never saw me rolling out the red carpet for a Lost Boy, now did you?" Peter dismissed Felix with a simple hand gesture but his second in command insisted.
"You'll want to see this, believe me," Felix told Pan, earning an annoyed eye roll before Pan jumped off his high branch.
Before Felix could process what he saw, Peter had him in the air, his back painfully pressed against the bark of a dead tree, a broken branch poking his side. Pan's hand was raised and fury lit up his eyes in a threatening manner – so much so that Felix barely managed to swallow. Or was it because Pan suddenly enclosed his invisible grip around his friend's throat? Felix fell to the ground in a loud thud and a puff of smoke before he could think this through.
"Whatever it is I'm sure it could have waited until tomorrow. I thought I made myself very clear – do not disturb me today. Or is it too much to ask of you? You shit-for-brains cannot handle a group of underage boys for a few hours?" Felix, who was still catching his breath on the ground, did not answer therefore Pan continued. "Perhaps I put too much responsibility on your shoulders. I remember a time when you seemed much more comfortable with your position, maybe you're not fit to stand by my side? Maybe I should find myself someone a bit more competent for the job?"
"Like Mercy you mean," Felix said daringly and regretted his words right away.
He didn't have time to think, let alone to confound in apologies and throw himself at Pan's feet to beg him to forgive him. His mouth ran faster ahead his brain sometimes; he had let his emotions speak and he won't do it again! But before he had a chance to say all this, he was once again thrown across the clearing and against a tree. The blow nearly knocked him out and he felt pain jolt through his body, from the bottom of his spine up to his neck and a sickening crack was the last thing he heard before he started screaming at Pan to let him go, to forgive him. The sound came from the tree behind him and not his bones crushing. His relief was short-lived though, because soon he was entirely swallowed by the tree whose trunk slowly opened up until Felix disappeared inside.
Peter Pan closed his fist and with it, the trunk closed on his second in command who was no longer in charge, still screaming his lungs out. It was all over in a slip second and silence came back, as if nothing happened at all.
"You never learned when to shut up my friend," Peter said even if he knew Felix couldn't hear him anymore. Perhaps a few days of complete and utter silence and stillness would teach him what Pan failed to all those years ago.
000
"Easy tiger!" Peter exclaimed as he jumped in front of Mercy, whose smirk of anticipation dropped the second he placed himself between she and her prey.
"What?!" She snapped and stood up straight. The noise made by Peter scared away the game. "Great, you made our dinner run away!" She reproached him.
Peter grabbed her by the elbow when she motioned to walk around him.
"Don't touch me," she said and ripped her arm out of his grasp. "I agreed to live with you, to let you teach me your ways and not cause trouble, but you won't lay a finger on me without my express permission, got it?!"
"Feeling feisty, are we? You should know I would never let a Lost Boy talk to me like you just did, so tell me, why exactly do you think yourself above them? I will touch you as I please, when I please – including when your reckless behavior pushes you to attack a mountain lion with nothing but a knife! Today, we're hunting rabbits. The big game is not for amateur hunters."
"I don't think myself above anyone; I'm hoping they'll find it inspiring to see someone defy you," Mercy fired back and stepped closer to Pan. She glared at him like she wanted to set him on fire with her eyes. "Don't be stupid, I wasn't going to dive head first in a hand-to-hand fight with a dangerous predator alone. I was counting on you to help me," she said with a dismissive shrug as she put her knife back in its leather stealth. "You seem hell-bent on keeping me here and alive, I figured you wouldn't let the dinner win."
"You relied on me to save you from this creature?" Pan scoffed and threw his hands in the air in a gesture of disbelief. "You've got to have the worst survival instinct I've ever seen."
"Why?" Mercy twisted her head around to look at him. "Tell me I was wrong."
Of course she was right, what did she want Pan to say to this? That he was going to let the mountain lion eat her? It would be lying to her face – Peter Pan lied like he breathed but this wouldn't bring him anything apart from demonstrating his bad faith.
"It was an awful strategy all the same – even if I wouldn't have let you die," he eventually told her before turning around to look away from her intense eyes. "You need to think smart, be patient and not overestimate your abilities – everything on this island could kill you," he warned her, only briefly meeting her gaze.
"How do you know that? I can defend myself!" She protested stubbornly.
"Because that's how I made it – deadly. And you know nothing, you would barely last a day out there without the boys and I."
Mercy's frown slowly morphed into a knowing smile and a semi-annoyed expression which Peter couldn't identify the cause of.
"What are you smiling for?"
"You want me to stay," she stated with a humorless chuckle. "Ever since you let me out of this cage you won't allow me out of your sight, and you casually drop hints that I need you to survive," she kept laughing bitterly – she felt herself losing her wits on this doomed island, maybe she was going crazy? "I'm beginning to think it's the other way around."
Peter shut her up with a stern glare and he grabbed her arm, roughly leading her away from the path and into the dark parts of the forest.
"From now on you'll have to learn when to shut up or you might get on my bad side," he growled when he saw that she was still smiling – now she was just doing it on purpose, to provoke him. "Trust me, you don't want that to happen."
"Oh the mighty King of Neverland is in a mood, aren't ya?" She giggled. "I'm so scared," Mercy laughed and ripped her arm out of his grasp yet again. "I remember telling you not to touch me like five minutes ago. Do you have memory problems? This is the last time I tell you – don't put your dirty hands on me."
This time Mercy's voice didn't hold any trace of humor, or sarcasm. Even a complete idiot would notice that she was dead serious. But it was Peter Pan she was talking to and no one could tell him what to do – he was the only authority figure and obeyed no one.
"This sounds an awful lot like an order," he suddenly said, menacingly stepped toward Mercy, so much so that he stood right in front of her, blocking her view of the forest and forcing her to twist her neck upward to meet his angry eyes. "Might want to rephrase that sentence or I'll send you right back where you come from."
"Please do, I'd like nothing more than to go back to the Enchanted Forest," she spat back, squinting her eyes.
She opened and closed her hands a few times in anger and nervousness. Torn between hitting him and running away, Mercy merely dug her heels in the muddy ground and tried to hide any trace of fear when she glare his way. He did the last thing she expected him to: he smirked.
"I meant the cage," he snickered. "There's a rabbit hole this way and another one here," Pan turned around and changed the subject – stopping the argument as quickly as it started. "You go get dinner or you won't eat at all. I'll be watching you."
Mercy felt her body heat rise and she would have sworn steam was coming out of her ears when she stomped past Pan and shot furious glares toward him when she did so. He was toying with her and she couldn't do anything about it, she was powerless. In a way he was right, she did need him in order to survive. If someone knew this island's secrets it must be him and no one else. A plan began to take form in her mind, a plan that required her learning when to shut up and take mental notes of every piece of information Pan would deem her worthy of knowing. He wanted to teach her how to be a Lost Girl? How to fight, hunt, defend herself, identify poisonous plants and find her way even in the deepest part of the woods? Fair enough, she would become a model student.
And one day, Mercy vowed, the student would surpass the master.
000
Mercy watched the rain fall from under a tent. The fire was shielded from the wind and rain and the girls took care of roasting the meat for dinner. It rained all day without interruption – the island was aching. Mercy felt in her bones that something was wrong, off. Something was missing and she hated not to know what. Her eyes were darted on the rabbits and fox they managed to catch this morning, watching the flames lick their bodies.
The stomach of the girl sitting next to her growled and she covered it with both hands in embarrassment. Mercy smiled to herself and pulled out a knife from her boot. If she had nothing to do she might as well sharpen her knives.
Rain, as peaceful as it made the world seem, had one huge downside: it prevented her from doing any kind of activity. Mercy stayed in her shack, forced to think, forced to face things she would rather leave behind. Her mind jumped back to Pan a lot lately – why? She had no idea. But the rain definitely did that. That small, withering part of herself that still cared... it wondered, quietly in the back of her head, what could possibly have happened to Pan? What kind of sorrow caused this downpour?
Most importantly, how was he doing? Without her? Did he still look the same? Of course he did, the rational part of her brain knew that – she'd been here long enough to know he didn't age and to have witnessed it. But still, the little girl he picked up that night in the Enchanted Forest had a hard time processing that someone she hasn't seen in... how long? Time didn't exist here, but in her heart it felt like centuries... how can someone she hasn't seen in such a long time still look exactly the same way he did the last time?
Magic.
"It's ready!" Sybil shouted over the rain.
The girls began to gather around the fire while Sybil and one of the younger girls filled the plates. Mercy sat there and watched her girls, the smiles of content on their faces as they were handed their dinner and she thought back to the numerous days she spent without eating anything at all. She never approved of Pan's teaching methods but so far it was proven efficient, for lack of a better word.
Mercy was the best hunter, none of the girls could challenge her in this field – and maybe Pan starving her until she caught her own dinner did have something to do with it, maybe not. Maybe she was also the best fighter because he didn't back away whenever she groaned in pain during their sword training sessions, maybe he was harsh with her because he wanted her to be the best. Mercy had skills that a lot of Lost Boys envied her at the time Pan was training her and she harbored plenty of scars that testified of Pan's rough methods.
Dorothy, sweet Dorothy. She almost killed herself during a hunt one day, a long time ago, a lifetime ago. She didn't cry – Mercy vividly remembered the girl bleeding on the ground and looking at her with a glimmer of embarrassment in her eyes, like she was ashamed of her poor performance. Mercy had healed her wounds without hesitation, even if she dreaded using magic. Dorothy was back on her feet and the very first thing she asked was, "why not heal yourself?"
Mercy had looked down at her palms, marbled with small white scars, but the girl's eyes were fixed on Mercy's face. A bumpy scar bared her otherwise smooth and delicate face, from her left ear to the bridge of her nose. To this day Mercy still remembered what she told Dorothy word for word.
"It would require a kind of magic I don't have."