For a good three hours Tybalt hid under the breast of Marsh's shirt, trying to limit his glow by lying quiet and still and breathing slowly. The skin under him was cold and slick with sweat. Had it not been for the pained, noisy breath of the boy Tybalt might have thought him dead. Perhaps Peter wouldn't be the one to kill him after all.
When things had been quiet for what seemed a long enough time, Tybalt warily raised his head over the boy's collar. They were someplace dark and cool, a little damp from the smell of it, and bearing no light at all to see by. He took the chance of discovery and powered his wings to light the room himself. His glow was hardly sufficient, but like the vast structures of a monster's city the wet wooden walls appeared in shadow. The ceiling could not be seen, and neither could the far end of the enclosure. A quick exploratory flight revealed a wood frame and metal bars. A cell. A cage. The lock was a heavy iron mess that he could not loose with his hands. Though he himself could get free easily by slipping thru the bars, there was no way to open the cell for Marsh. Of course, once he thought about it, even that would be pointless since the boy was unconscious, and even if he wasn't he could not walk. Tybalt gave a puff of frustration and circled back to check over the prisoner. He was laying on the floor near the back wall, the trousers cut from his leg and said leg set on a folded blanket to keep it from the boards. The fairy snuck in close to examine the wounded limb but the lingering stench of charred flesh drove him back with a powerful wave of nausea.
At least he wouldn't die of it. That was some consolation as the fairy settled back on his shoulder. The pirates had cauterized the wound before the interior flesh began to die, and the only path open to infection now was if the flesh was reopened over the burn. But on a more realistic note, an infection wouldn't have to kill him. Barbecue might take care of that. Tybalt sighed and absently stroked the slick jaw of the wounded child. Marsh didn't deserve this fate. None of his boys did. And neither did the indian girl!
His thoughts turned to her in a sudden panic. He had to find her and make sure she was all right. Marsh would be fine until he got back, assuming no one interfered. He quickly kissed the boy's eyelids and willed him by fairy magic to sleep more deeply, then flew out of the cell and in search of Tiger Lilly.
In the meanwhile, Barbecue had taken on an aspect seen by no one before, or at least, no one who lived. The sunset, casting a bitter red tinge over his visage, lent a surreal glow to everything. Barbecue looked guardedly over his shoulder with wide eyes, and could see the wires and pulleys that rocked this ship. Had he reached out his hand he could have touched the painted silk backdrop of the sky and the sea. Below, he could sense the crew going about their business, filthy mannequins on rail tracks.
He remembered what someone had said to him, very long ago.
"Reality is subjective, John. You must learn to understand that. What one believes to be real is real, like a fakir's levitation or a seance's ghosts. It is only when one looks behind the curtain does one see the mirrors and wires."
The part his friend had left out is that once you've looked behind the curtain, it's never real again. You can fool yourself into thinking the ghosts are really there, but in the back of your mind you will always know they are not. Sometimes he wondered if there was another curtain behind the first, hiding what was REALLY there...hiding everything......
Barbecue groaned and covered his head, shutting his eyes against the falsehoods around him. Was nothing real? This dream, this heaven, this hell, this Never Land.....it was a mirror in front of a curtain, pulled back to reveal pale workings of mechanistic fantasy, a view of reality. But what if, behind that reality, there was another curtain....and the real world beyond here wasn't real either? Barbecue suddenly wanted to go below deck, take the gin, and poison his brain into submission. But he couldn't, not without loosing face to the crew. But what did it matter if a ship of dreams thought poorly of him? He couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't need forgetfulness, he needed something real. Something he knew without a doubt was the true reality.
And there was only one person on ship he could think of.
Tybalt flew, translucent wings clicking against the air, and drowning in an overwhelming sense of urgency. There were six cells in the brig, and with his humble size and meager glow it took two circles around the perimeter to discern whether the cell was inhabited or not. In the fourth cell something bright caught his glow and reflected back to him, and he circled down around it. The reflections had come from the glass beads sewn to the hem of Tiger Lilly's buckskins. She was curled on her side, asleep from the exhaustion of terror and fighting, with a hand lain carefully over her father's arm. The chief was laying on his back, the terrible sword thrust now a scorched swell of a most alarming color. His copper skin was greyish from the blood lost and he seemed infinitely more frail than he had before. But he was safe.
With a heavy breath of relief Tybalt assessed the damages, and did the
same favor for them he had done for Marsh. Uneven breathing became
deep and regular, muscle twitches calmed and taught shoulders relaxed.
Confident they would be all right the fairy slipped out from the cell and
returned to his boy.
The pain of Smee's attentions had sent James immediately back into a calming void of unconsciousness. Annabell, her motions graceful and fluid, closed the white parlor door behind them and turned, suddenly coy.
"What did you bring me?" she asked, brushing a delicate hand against the package he held.
"Close your eyes, and I'll show you."
She obeyed. God, she was beautiful, standing like a doll with her face tilted up, perfect had he wished to steal a kiss. He wished it, but did not, instead untying the package and lifting it's treasure out carefully; a necklace of carved tortoise shell and gold, certainly not a gift even slightly adequate for so beautiful a lady, but the best even he could afford. He reached around her slender neck and fastened it at the back, trying not to touch her and succeeding. Her eyes opened when his hands drew away, and her chin tilted down to see the gift. She gasped (such a pleasing sound!) and flung her arms around James's neck.
"It's beautiful! Thank you!" she said, and his cheeks colored from her proximity.
"Er, you're quite welcome..." he fumbled, and backed out of her embrace nervously. She did not seem to notice his discomfort and sidled up next to him, pinning him between a couch and the side of her hips. He lost his balance and fell backwards onto the velvet cushions. Annabell sat on his sprawled legs and giggled at his now entirely red face.
"Aw, James, an Oxford education and you still don't know how to deal with a lady?"
He didn't say anything, and she leaned her corseted waist into him, pushing him even further down until his shoulders braced against the wall.
"Hrm, e-excuse me!" he said suddenly, and crawled out from under her, standing bolt upright and tugging the edges of his coat. Annabell laughed and lay down on the couch.
"Poor, educated man. You know so much and live so little. Why do you think that is?"
"Because I am a gentleman." was all he could think of in reply.
"I'm sure." she said, and what exactly she meant by that he didn't have the nerve to ask.
One of her hands trailed up to her hair, and withdrew the pins and combs keeping it in it's formal shape. "I hate hairpins." she murmured, and raised her head enough to shake her hair loose. It tumbled down in elegant black curls and rested at her throat, on the cushions, and a single curl that curved to her cheek so endearingly. James swallowed and made himself look at something less interesting, like the clock on the mantle. A slight brush at his waist made him jump, and he looked down to see Annabell slipping one of the black combs into his trouser pocket.
"So you don't forget me." she explained.
_That could never happen._
When the Lost Boys returned home, battle worn, irritable, and scratching at cuts, they found the small Nibs sprawled out in a most unseemly fashion right at the foot of the trees. The Lost Boys tried to step over him but the motion woke him anyway. His little pink hands rubbed his eyes and he propped himself up on an elbow.
"Marsh?" he asked, in his tiny, innocent voice.
The Lost Boys glanced around between them, and there was no Marsh to be found.
"Where is he?" Peter asked, looking over the boys. "Did we lose him? Or was he killed?"
"I didn't see him go down." one replied.
"Tybalt isn't here, either. Do you think they're both dead?" said another.
Nibs looked blank for a moment, then put a row of knuckles to his mouth and began to cry. One of the older boys elbowed the speaker for his carelessness with the matter. Peter himself took on a suddenly pale coloring at the mention of Tybalt. He hadn't thought one bit about the fairy after the poor fellow had stopped yelling directions at him. In all truth, if he hadn't been brought up now Peter might never have remembered him again.
"We have to go back to the beach." he said with sudden resolution. "If Marsh and Tybalt are among the dead, we won't think of them another minute. But if they're not, Barbecue has them."
"What will we do if he does?"
"Get them back, obviously."
The Lost Boys looked at each other uncomfortably, and Nibs continued crying. Having just lost a battle with the pirates they were in no mood to go after them again, and were rather sore and uncomfortable with their aches and bruises. They would rather have slept and looked thru the bodies in the morning. No one dared voice that.
"Caps, Ledger, you stay here with Nibs. The rest of you, come with me."
A collective groan filled the underground house, but they all slid up
their trees obediently. Caps and Ledger watched them go. Their
eyes followed in unison to the small boy curled on the floor crying, to
each other, and to the bed. They collapsed onto the mattress without
a second thought.
Vague murmurs of the waking world pushed thru to James's addled mind, and slowly he was drawn back into it. His fingers stretched of their own accord across the floorboards.....but it was not floorboards they found. What they brushed was soft, dry, and yielding under his fingers. This unexpected discovery pulled him into awareness, and with some difficulty he opened his eyes. It wasn't brilliant morning (thank god) but there was light, soft illumination from a single lamp, giving enough light to see but not to pick out details. The lines and shadows that greeted him seemed vaguely familiar, like a place you passed once and never looked at again.
A desk. He saw the writing desk and suddenly he knew exactly where he was. Only one writing desk was on ship, and only one person had the knowledge to make good use of it. Barbecue. He was in the captain's quarters. James jerked back suddenly, ignoring brilliant protests of pain from his shoulder, and to his dismay found his suspicions were true. He was laying on his belly on the captain's bed. James slumped down against the mattress anyway, too tired to move himself, even across the room to the couch. Despite the fact he knew the crew to be wrong in their beliefs about him and the captain, the very rumor of it was enough to make him edgy, and being in the man's actual bed was infinitely worse than sleeping on his couch.
But then again, the mattress WAS very comfortable.....and the pillow was soft......the light was dim enough for sleep.....it wouldn't hurt to stay just a little while, would it? If he left he was awaited by unpleasant crew quarters and a hammock that couldn't possibly be used comfortably when one could not lay on the back. This bed had no such limitations. And he WAS tired still . . Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea. Barbecue was nowhere in sight, and he doubted the crew was up to find suspicion in his location. At ease now, he arranged the pillow under his head and stretched his legs out over the comforters......
. . . .
That certainly wasn't right.... His bare feet had come in contact with a splintery stick of wood. He nudged it experimentally and it did not move. Curious, he raised his head to look over his shoulder. The wood was connected to something, and that something was the end of Barbecue's stumped leg. The dusty man was sitting cross legged on the end of the bed, fingers steepled in front of his lips and watching silently. He must have been there the whole time. Why hadn't he said anything?
There was something quite strange with his eyes. They betrayed not really pain, since Barbecue did not experience pain in it's purest essence anymore, and something not really fear. They seemed almost pleading, but very withdrawn. He still did not speak as James sat up to face him. The tissues in his shoulder pulled different ways, and he flinched at the sensation.
It was silent for a moment. Barbecue's shoulders went slack and his gaze became less frightful.
"James, what are you?" Barbecue said, and his voice sounded hollow, dying on his lips and delivering only strange corpses to James's ears.
"I-I don't know." was all he could think of to say. He didn't really understand the question.
The captain sighed, as if the answer had satisfied him. Indeed it had. James looked at him in puzzlement, but the captain relaxed and seemed to dismiss the incident.
James did not. "Why did you ask that?"
Barbecue gave a sad sort of smile. "No real man knows who or what he is....no one." and he leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes, as if the answer had been sufficient.
"I don't understand." James said.
"Be glad for that."
"Why?"
"Because if you did....." Barbecue did not finish the sentence. He leaned forward again, and looked very intently at James. "Things aren't always what they seem to be. Mirrors can be windows, walls can be doors.....and dreams aren't always when you sleep......"
Perhaps in a more alert state of mind an explanation could have been useful, but in his present semi-awake state nothing could make him understand this abstract concept. Barbecue sensed that from his blank stare, and realized he must resign himself to be alone in his present misery. He forced a smile and said "Go back to sleep, James."
James shook his head, remembering where he was.
"Lie down. Now. That's an order from your captain."
The man hesitated a moment, then cautiously slid onto his stomach, head down on the pillow. Though he intended only to feign sleep, the attempt was futile. In less than a minute he was drowsing peacefully. At his feet Barbecue watched him, comfortable in the knowledge that in a ship of waking dreams there was one other person of reality. The candle was burning low now, and would put itself out soon. No need to worry about it. He closed his eyes against the world of footlights and paste board walls and silk backdrops, and listened only to the peaceful sound of James's breathing.
And all was calm.
Back on the shores of Neverland, Peter and his boys had reached the sight of the battle. Already the waves had cleansed the beach of blood, lapping at it incessantly in a cold vampiric thirst, foam crested tongue tugging the boots of those who fell too close to the edge. A wide moon gave eager illumination to the sands, admiring its own reflection in the milky depths of dead, staring eyes. The boys lingered in the air above. Battle was one thing, adrenaline and action and short lived consequences, but wandering the aftermath of said battle was an entirely different matter. Normally, waves or wolves or repulsed child dreamers rid the landscape of the dead long before Peter ventured back again. This time they hadn't had a chance to.
"Are we going down?" asked one of the boys nervously.
"In a minute." Peter replied, crossing his arms in his perfect cocky stance. He looked far more confident than he felt, which was the purpose. "We have to see if everyone is really gone."
They accepted this eagerly enough. None were too rushed to view the bodies up close. Unfortunately, stalling in this manner could not drag out indefinitely, and at some point Peter had to lead them downward. He nodded stiffly and took a deep breath.
"All right then. It looks clear. Come on."
He spiraled in descent, not wanting to give his nerves a chance to desert him. The boys followed some distance behind. As they approached, the sprawled bodies grew larger and larger against the moon-silvered sand, and the gaping mouths cut into the stomachs and chests glistened wetly and red. Small feet touched into the damp sand silently. Boys cringed and shrunk together as they became part of the landscape, and it could not be said poorly of them if they had simply flown off ; they were only boys, after all. Even Peter looked affected. He had landed next to a particularly nasty specimen, with two eyes that stared knowingly at him but with no face from which to stare out of. Bone and muscle structures lay exposed, with one row of perfect white teeth, under which a tongue dropped almost comically into the neck. Whatever jaw he'd had was quite absent now.
"S-start looking for Marsh and T-Tybalt." he ordered, teeth chattering, though he wasn't cold.
The other boys fanned out some, jumping nervously over bodies. It took an hour for them to scan the whole beach in their flighty and time consuming method, but when they met back in the middle to report, none had seen the boy or the fairy.
Now, in any normal adventure, would have been the time he would have puffed himself bravely and led the others on a glorious rescue mission. But this time he was (though he would never admit it) afraid. Mortality was not something he even considered usually, because though Tybalt sometimes recited long monologues on the briefness of life and the inevitable end of all living things (mostly when he had a point to prove to Peter) it had never seemed to apply to him. How could it? Here was he, a boy who had lived and seen a hundred summers and fatherless more ahead of him, who had wrestled death countless times and always emerged triumphant. Death occurred to other people and other things, not him.
But what if it did?
He closed his eyes a moment to try and banish the thought. He understood now why Tybalt always worried about him so when he went adventuring. Being a fairy, Tybalt must understand death quite well. Their lives were so short and so hurried. How did they live with the knowledge of their impending demise?
"Peter...?"
He looked up from his silent meditations into the frightened eyes of
his boys. They were waiting for him to take charge. For once,
he wished someone else would take the mantle.
Elsewhere, as the first stars began to disappear from the sky in anticipation of the sun, things were not all right. Tybalt sat with his knees curled to his chest in the sweaty hollow of Marsh's throat. Under long eyelashes, brown eyes flickered back and forth in a fevered dream, and Tybalt watched, strangely hypnotized and feeling altogether ill. The boy would be waking up soon enough, and what would happen when he did? Would he be lucid? From the burning of his skin and the patches of red and white it didn't seem likely. His fever was terrible.
But what could be done?
Feeling intolerably useless, Tybalt laid his chin against the coarse fiber material of his tiny vest. He couldn't help this boy, he couldn't get him free, he couldn't even comfort him properly when he woke up. But wait...he looked at the vest and an idea came to him, albeit a small one (after all, he had a small mind). The fairy quickly shucked the cloth and took up into the air, holding the vest. Maybe if he could find some water on board, and soak his vest, he could use it to cool the boy's skin a bit. It was worth a try, at any rate. He flitted thru the bars and dashed out into the main hold.
There were two barrels he could find. One had a sealed lid, and had a terrible stench about it he thought must be alcohol. The other had a small hole at the edge that the handle of a drinking ladle came from to rest on the side. That had to be water, if anything was. He landed carefully near the hole and pressed himself to the handle, latching his feet around it. As he slowly slipped down the worn metal, the wooden edge of the barrel lid met with his wings, shoving them up against the back of his head and refusing to let him pass. He went down head first next try, but the unfortunate result of this was dropping the vest, which he instinctively clutched for, and ended up falling down with a wet slap into the black water below.
"HAALP!"
Never in his life had Tybalt ever learned to swim, and it was good for him that there was no one around to hear his squeaking. Sputtering, he slung himself over the edge of the ladle and shivered. He was cold, wet, and had lost the vest, and to make matters worse, he could not get a firm grip on the handle to climb back up. His wings hung like wet paper at his back and he was almost afraid to move about, lest he tore them. His glow grew dimmer as he sat and shivered, dimmer, until it was barely there at all.
An image of Marsh flashed in front of his eyelids, and Tybalt jumped, creating a sudden spurt of light. He had to get out. Marsh was waiting, hurt, feverish, likely awake now. He needed to be there. Tybalt made himself stand of the slippery shallow curve inside the ladle and latched his hands around the handle again. The metal was slick as it was before, and no matter how tightly his wet fingers gripped it, he could not move upward. Maybe....yes, that might work. He tore the lower cuff off his trouser leg and squeezed out the water, and wrapped it around his hands. The coarse material made enough friction that he could climb, slowly, sliding down a bit every time he paused. When he reached the lid he grabbed onto that and hauled himself the rest of the way up.
All that, and he still didn't have anything to keep Marsh cool. And he was soaking wet to boot! He reached behind himself and grabbed the tips of his wings, pulling them out to look at them. The thin material between veins was damp and clingy, and they stuck together into two long sticks from his shoulders. THAT must be why he had never learned to swim. Grumbling to himself, he sat down on the lid and began the annoying task of putting them right.
Of course, since things tend to make a mess of themselves in Neverland, it was at this time that Peter and his boys found the ship. Noise above the boards brought men out from their bunk, and Tybalt cowered on the lid while they ran past, not seeing him. Amidst the chaos above he heard the crow of Peter. Peter! His chest lightened and he began to pump his wings, scattering water droplets and drying them quite effectively (though why he hadn't thought of this sooner we cannot know). He managed to lift slowly into the air and, becoming more sure of himself, aimed towards the stairs and the exit.
Just as he reached the border between deck and hold the wooden trap door was kicked shut, cracking against his forehead and knocking him down into the stair. He simply lay on the wood for a moment, dazed, before bringing a shaky palm up to his skull and feeling carefully. He would have a nasty bruise pretty soon but he didn't think he was hurt too badly. Tybalt slid down under the stairs in case anyone decided to come back down and listened to the sound of the fight, shaking for a reason he wasn't quite sure of. His glow flickered like a candle in a window while he sat there, and his eyelids fluttered several times while he struggled to catch them. He felt cold again. Oh, now this simply wasn't fair! How could all these terrible things be happening when all had been so pleasant before? He cursed the pirates, the redskins, and even his Lost Boys while his brain fogged over. In only a few moments he failed to catch his closing eyes, and lay sprawled backward on the boards.
The thin blue fairy glow went out.