Chapter 3: Kidnapped.
Lahona's POV
There is endless darkness shrouded in cold and despair. Just as how I am feeling. This world is a lonely one where no happiness shines its brilliant light onto me, but watches from afar. 'You will be married,' whispers my father amidst the darkness. A man who is barely at home, a man I rarely see, giving me lifelong decisions that I have no choice in. I must take on the responsibility as the Elder's daughter. It sickens me to marry someone I do not know. Someone I am not in love with. But what is love? I have not felt it from a mother – since she passed when I was born- and my father; who was always doing his duty to spend any time with me.
A numbness takes over my fingers as I glide them along my upper arms. I feel so alone. So abandoned and betrayed. In the distance, I hear the faintest, sweet sound. An airy lullaby playing in the darkness. I look around but the shadow is endless before me. Taking a few soft steps in this and that direction, I can only hope that the noise will get louder. With my hearing, I can hear for miles, so it could take me forever to find where this gentle lullaby is coming from. My ears twitch and like a radar, picks up the sound from my right. I follow until the smooth tone grows louder and louder. The closer I come, the brighter a light starts to spark. My heart beats fast. I am almost there; so I start to run and run as fast as I can but before I can reach it, I awake…
When my eyes open, the scenery is immediately unfamiliar. The wood of the ceiling is lighter than that of my bedroom and the surface under me isn't the soft silks made of the fine giant spider webs my people sew themselves. I go to turn my head but it starts to throb; most likely from all the crying. More slowly than before, I lean up and the surface beneath me crunches causing me to glance where I have been sleeping. It is no bed but a large stump covered in leaves.
My ears lower in slight disgust. I can sleep on leaves, but in a room I have never seen before? Where am I? I glance around but it is too dark to familiarize what the blurred objects are and the only light that can guide me is coming from a badly carved window the size of a man near the right of the stump. The sound of the melody from my dream starts to play. Now that I am awake, I am also more attuned to everything around me. I am able to pinpoint what the sound is. It's a pan flute, often played by the fae creatures. The sound flows from outside of the window. Whoever it is, is close by.
I roll off the side of the stump, my fists at my side as I stand straight, ready to charge at whoever it may be who captured me. Gingerly, I follow the sound to the window and before I can reach the gap in the wall, I can see the vast ocean off in the distance outside the window. Where ever I am, I am high up. And I have come to realize, I must not be anywhere close to home. My village isn't anywhere near the ocean. Coming to the edge of the window, I notice a thick branches sticks out from underneath the window which someone can easily walk onto. The sound is very close. I pop my head out the window and to my left is a young human boy playing the flute.
"A human!" I hiss, stumbling backwards into the room.
The sound of the flute stops just as I speak, the boy having slipped off the branches before I stumble away. My hand smacks against my chest to calm my beating heart. There is no way that boy would have survived that fall. A brief moment passes, I use it to calm my breathing, but just as it passes, the same boy comes floating into the room with a large smile on his face.
He's flying.
I back up until I hit something hard behind me. Humans cannot fly. I look him over; his features are strong yet innocent, rounded in some areas, and on his head is a mop of curly dirty blonde hair. His garment is made of leaves that only partially covers his chest, showing off his mildly defined features. The leaves thicken around his waist and lower region but leave his legs to be shown. At his hip there is both a cutlass and a knife. From where I am, even with the darkness, I can see he is dirty, marked with dirt in random locations all over his body, but I can't tell what color eyes he has.
His smile falters the slightest and he comes to land in the middle of the room. He ties the flute to his waist using a thin vine.
"You're human?" It was more of a question than an accusation.
"Yeah." His voice is smooth and youthful.
"Then how can you fly?"
His smile returns, "by thinking happy thoughts."
"I only know of a few creatures that can fly, and a human is not one of them, happy thoughts or not."
"I am different." He lifts his head and sticks out his chest proudly.
"Where am I? Who are you and why am I here?"
The boy's expression turns, as if he had just realized something himself. He gracefully bows before me, but his eyes never leave their gaze from mine. He stands straight just as a bright ball of light flies from the window and around his head. The bright ball chimes like a small bell and I quickly notice that it is a tiny faerie…but with a human? None of this is making sense.
"I brought you here. I took you away from your father so you don't have to be married." He says with confidence.
"H-how…" I look around me for answers but find nothing. "How do you know I am to be wed?" Surely no one else had heard the conversation between my father and I.
"I was listening from the window." He shrugs. He rests his hands on his hips. He couldn't be any older than fifteen.
"You listened? Why would you be listening from my window? How did you get past the guards?" I feel horrified that a human can so easily get access to my bedroom. What did he see, hear, what did he do? My face scrunches up from the very idea of such thoughts. He's just a boy, I remind myself.
All signs of happiness melts from his face, leaving nothing behind but disappointment. "Aren't you happy you won't have to do adult things?"
Ignoring his statement, I bite down on my lip. "You kidnapped me." I place my hands on my hips now, challenging his words. He steps closer, now revealing the dirt that dusts his cheeks. My hands drop in defeat. Surely, this place can be better than marrying someone I don't know. I think. But I was still taken from my room in the guise of night without my consent regardless of his heroic reasoning.
Sighing, my shoulders slump. "What is your name?'
His face brightens up instantly and a strange grin crosses his lips. "I am Peter, Peter Pan." The little ball of light flutters at Peter's right shoulder, chiming away as she speaks in her faerie language. To my surprise Peter nods his head to her like he understands what she's saying. "This is Tinkerbell, she's my friend."
Humans don't know the language of the faeries. This is becoming more odd the longer I stay.
"You must be of great importance to know their language."
"Yeah, I am pretty great." His grin grows and a light, cheerful air vibes off him.
"So, you are a human that can fly and talk to faeries. Where do you come from?"
"Neverland." He says.
Neverland? I haven't heard of such a place.
"You can fly too, if you want." He chips in.
I glance to the faerie next to him. Faerie dust. That's how he's doing it. "You fly because of faerie dust?"
"I can fly with or without faerie dust." His smile falters.
"I am good with not flying." My feet like to stick to stable ground. The fear of falling has always been big for me, even as I walk across rope bridges and live high up in the trees.
"Do you normally go around to every window you see and listen in a person's personal conversation?" I ask, pulling away from the hard surface I was leaning on. My fingers touch the walls and few stumps here and there. Mostly knives and carved wooden figures fill the tops of stumps.
"No, just yours." He shrugs. "You should come meet the boys! I've told them so much about you."
My ears fall. "There are more of you?"
He walks up to me, and as he does, I notice he's a few inches taller than me. "Nope, they are normal. I am unique."
"How long have you been watching me?"
"For a few months now. I saw you in your city when I followed an elven boy after saving him. I came back to learn about you, but when I heard you sing, I couldn't stop coming back."
My cheeks heat up at his compliment. He takes a hold of my hands softly, his hands a little callous. I let him take them, not fighting back or pulling away. Something about his touch sends vibrations through me.
"My singing?"
He leads me to a door that looks like the bark of a tree ripped straight off its trunk and to a ladder that had been crudely hammered into the trunk of the tree. The ladder goes down to a larger room.
He turns to me fully and nods, "I never heard someone sing like you. I fell asleep every night listening to you. I told the boys that you are the one, the one that'd tell us stories and sing to us when we can't sleep."
I swipe my hands away from his. "You were planning on taking me even without my father forcing me into an arranged marriage." I try to read his eyes, but he flashes an innocent look with his big blue gaze, and his pouty lips slightly open.
"No!" He shouts, but then he continues to give the innocent look. "Well, maybe. I just never thought out when and then I heard your father telling you that you were to be married and I saw how much it hurt you. I wanted to take you away so you wouldn't have to feel that pain anymore."
I sigh and wave a hand to clear the air. "Alright, fine. You win, take me to your boys."