***
3
***
They heard the rush and pull of the ocean before they saw it, and they saw the dozing bulk of the crocodile sprawled out on the beach before they heard it. In the moonlight, she was enormous; a warm dune of glittering green flesh and armor, with her sharp teeth glistening lethally between her lips. The ocean waves rushed up to float then tug her tail, specks of foam dripping down her scales like white spiders under the stars. Billy grabbed Slightly's elbow and dragged him back into the underbrush before those yellow eyes could open.
"The crocodile's blocking the fastest route." Billy growled.
"Why don't we just fly over?"
"Because I can't fly, cully, and you can't carry me.
The Lost Boy for a moment, and prodded the makeshift fairy lantern. "Fairy?" he asked.
"Leave me alone!" the fairy sniffled. He sounded like he was pouting.
Jukes poked the bandana, making the light flicker and the fairy squeal. "If you help us, I'll let you go instead of pulling your wings and tossing you to Davy Jones."
The fairy cursed at him.
"Can you make it so the crocodile won't wake up when we go past her?" Slightly asked.
The fairy snorted "Why would you need to do that? She's full today, she doesn't even have the energy to snap at a fly. You could walk right over her and she wouldn't look at you twice!"
"How do you know?"
"All of Neverland knows! She got one of the pirates today. She dragged the bloody body all around the island to show it off."
Billy looked a little paler and shook the bandanna. "Which one did she get?" he demanded.
"How should I know?! You humans all look alike to me! Captain Popper got the poor fellows glasses away from the crocodile identification, you could go ask him, but he doesn't wake up till the morning." The bandanna jerked on its own. "Now let me out of this thing!" The fairy whined. "My boss is gonna chew my tail off if I don't show up for work tomorrow!"
"Shut your trap, fairy."
Slightly frowned, his brows meeting with a confused look. "His glasses? Only Smee had glasses. But I thought Smee was already—"
"He was." Billy muttered. "Hook must have given his body to the crocodile."
Slightly blinked. "I slightly thought Smee was his loyal man."
"He was."
"…Then why would he—"
"No pirate ever rested in an earth-bound grave, cully." Jukes said softly. "That's just the way it is. Here. Take the bloody fairy. You fly over the crocodile and I'll sneak around her backside and swim the rest of the way."
Slightly nodded and took the proffered bundle. Once Billy's back was turned to him he allowed his feet to leave the ground, drifting as a lazy arrow into the night sky. Below, the crocodile became a sleeping newt, and Billy a slick black beetle slipping around her tail cautiously in fear of her waking. When Billy's feet hit the surf Slightly saw the claws of her hind leg twitch into the sand. He nearly yelled a warning, but the pirate boy had already slid beneath the water and was gone when her yellow eyes creaked open. She rolled them lazily in the moonlight and scanned the empty beach. There was no one to be seen.
Softly the crocodile fell back into dreams, her belly weighted by the second-hand remains of a discarded pirate, and dreaming sickly dreams of the day she clamped her teeth around the squirming middle of the Captain she pursued so doggedly. By the time Billy Jukes surfaced for air she was long past caring what he was.
Swimming was slower that Slightly's flight. The journey to the island was a short one, for a Lost Boy, but the slow and careful drift left too much time in which there was nothing, not even Billy, for the boy swum beneath the waves save the moments he surfaced like an alien mermaid and checked his position against the fairy light.
"Boy!" hissed a small voice from below him. Slightly startled and looked down at the bandanna that swung pendulously from his right hand.
"Huh?"
"How far up are we? Can the black boy hear us?"
"No."
The fairy let out a relieved puff. "Thank Grendel's toenails for that. Listen, I want to make a deal with you."
"What kind of deal?"
"You let me out of this sweat rag and protect me from that lunatic, and I'll help you out with whatever you two are doing."
"How do you know we aren't up to something slightly terrible?"
The fairy paused "ARE you up to something slightly terrible?"
"No."
"Well there you go then." He answered easily. "You help me, and I'll help you, alright? I mean, you can't exactly go running through the fairy village on your own and I can't get out of this goddamned RAG on my own!"
"I thought fairies had magic to do things like that."
He paused. "I'm a clerk. At a potions store. I couldn't do magic to save my own blue ass."
"Oh."
"Right. Look, I'm not going to go running off or anything, alright? You do this for me and I owe you a favor. I don't welch out on favors. You save me from that psychotic Negroid and I'll give you a hand, okay?"
Fingers fumbling, Slightly untied the little bundle in his hands, and as the cloth fell straight and limp a blue dash of light shot out and an mad circles around Slightly's head. After a seemingly endless minute he paused his frenetic patterns and settled to hover carefully in front of Slightly's face.
"So what exactly is it you two are doing, anyway? You need to break a spell? Get revenge on someone? Or are you looking for a looooove potion." He snickered.
Slightly shook his head. "No. We slightly need someone to help us get rid of a demon."
"A demon?"
"In Billy."
"Are you sure it's really a demon?"
The boy paused. "Last night he killed one of his shipmates in his sleep and ate him. I'm slightly sure it's a demon."
"….oh for the love of Pete, couldn't you have just had warts or something?" The fairy whined.
"Nope."
"Bloody hell. Bloody, crispy, flaming, screaming hell!"
Slightly nodded. "Pretty much."
***
Slightly wasn't aware they'd reached Small Monday Island until something sharp, brown, and moon-faced shot past his ear and circled back, dragging a long, lazy oval around them.
"You're at the border waters of Small Monday Island!" announced the little barn owl. "Entrance to the island is not permitted at night. You'll have to go back!"
"It's okay, Binkly!" Picadilly said cheerfully. "They're with me. They're just coming by to pick something up from the shop."
The owl eyes them suspiciously in his round-about flight. "Why can't they just pick it up at normal hours? When the shop is open? YOU'RE not exactly allowed to return to the island after midnight EITHER, Picadilly. General Tory doesn't want any funny stuff going on on his watch, and you don't exactly have the best track record."
"Oh, come on! So I smuggled a jackalope in ONCE. The palace looks better without that wall!"
Amid the bickering Slightly squinted against the shivering skin of the ocean and tried to pick out Billy. He was a bobbing spot of darkness amid the waves and, though they were still a good thirty meters from the island, something large, grey, and heavy was slowly circling him like a vulture on a carcass.
"Look, just let me talk to Cobby, alright? She'll give me the okay to go on through."
"Cobby isn't on tonight." The barn owl replied. "She's got a cold. Tory is in charge of the whole island."
"You mean I got to deal with mister stick-up-the—"
"Yes, you do." It interrupted. "If you can give a case to Tory, even I'll be impressed."
Picadilly let go a long string of swearing that couldn't hold a candle to Hook's rants, and tugged a strand of Slightly's hair rather viciously. "Come one. We gotta go talk to Mr. Cranky."
"I have to escort you." The owl said quickly. "Don't try to pull anything tonight, alright Picadilly? We're almost through with the shift and I don't want to have to clean up after you if you knock down another wall."
"That was three years ago!" he protested.
Binkly let a quick series of clicks and screeches, and the shady owl below them peeled off. Billy turned his bobbing face up to the stars.
"Billy!" Slightly shouted down. "They slightly won't let us through unless we go talk to General Tory!"
Whatever Billy shouted back at them couldn't be understood over the water. Binkly trailed a corkscrew down to him and shouted "Follow me closely, boys, we're going to see the general! Step lively!"
"Step lively? " Slightly asked blankly.
"Never try to figure out the Night Watch." Picadilly muttered. "You'd have an easier time contemplating cheese."
Which, of course, made even less sense then Step Lively. Slipping lower to keep on track with the barn owl, Slightly had the feeling that that was probably going to be the most sensible thing he'd hear all day.
That worried him.
As far out over the water as they were, Slightly didn't hear the harsh echo of Peter Pan's crow across the island as he rallied the Lost Boy's together in the dark. That small mercy, I think, we can afford him; Slightly has trouble enough of his own to worry about, especially as Billy Jukes pulls himself sputtering and dripping from the brine and the Lost Boy's feet touch the sand, finding themselves to be surrounded by dozens of silent, glowing, unblinking eyes. Binkly landed in the sand at their feet.
"Stand up straight and salute the general!"
3
***
They heard the rush and pull of the ocean before they saw it, and they saw the dozing bulk of the crocodile sprawled out on the beach before they heard it. In the moonlight, she was enormous; a warm dune of glittering green flesh and armor, with her sharp teeth glistening lethally between her lips. The ocean waves rushed up to float then tug her tail, specks of foam dripping down her scales like white spiders under the stars. Billy grabbed Slightly's elbow and dragged him back into the underbrush before those yellow eyes could open.
"The crocodile's blocking the fastest route." Billy growled.
"Why don't we just fly over?"
"Because I can't fly, cully, and you can't carry me.
The Lost Boy for a moment, and prodded the makeshift fairy lantern. "Fairy?" he asked.
"Leave me alone!" the fairy sniffled. He sounded like he was pouting.
Jukes poked the bandana, making the light flicker and the fairy squeal. "If you help us, I'll let you go instead of pulling your wings and tossing you to Davy Jones."
The fairy cursed at him.
"Can you make it so the crocodile won't wake up when we go past her?" Slightly asked.
The fairy snorted "Why would you need to do that? She's full today, she doesn't even have the energy to snap at a fly. You could walk right over her and she wouldn't look at you twice!"
"How do you know?"
"All of Neverland knows! She got one of the pirates today. She dragged the bloody body all around the island to show it off."
Billy looked a little paler and shook the bandanna. "Which one did she get?" he demanded.
"How should I know?! You humans all look alike to me! Captain Popper got the poor fellows glasses away from the crocodile identification, you could go ask him, but he doesn't wake up till the morning." The bandanna jerked on its own. "Now let me out of this thing!" The fairy whined. "My boss is gonna chew my tail off if I don't show up for work tomorrow!"
"Shut your trap, fairy."
Slightly frowned, his brows meeting with a confused look. "His glasses? Only Smee had glasses. But I thought Smee was already—"
"He was." Billy muttered. "Hook must have given his body to the crocodile."
Slightly blinked. "I slightly thought Smee was his loyal man."
"He was."
"…Then why would he—"
"No pirate ever rested in an earth-bound grave, cully." Jukes said softly. "That's just the way it is. Here. Take the bloody fairy. You fly over the crocodile and I'll sneak around her backside and swim the rest of the way."
Slightly nodded and took the proffered bundle. Once Billy's back was turned to him he allowed his feet to leave the ground, drifting as a lazy arrow into the night sky. Below, the crocodile became a sleeping newt, and Billy a slick black beetle slipping around her tail cautiously in fear of her waking. When Billy's feet hit the surf Slightly saw the claws of her hind leg twitch into the sand. He nearly yelled a warning, but the pirate boy had already slid beneath the water and was gone when her yellow eyes creaked open. She rolled them lazily in the moonlight and scanned the empty beach. There was no one to be seen.
Softly the crocodile fell back into dreams, her belly weighted by the second-hand remains of a discarded pirate, and dreaming sickly dreams of the day she clamped her teeth around the squirming middle of the Captain she pursued so doggedly. By the time Billy Jukes surfaced for air she was long past caring what he was.
Swimming was slower that Slightly's flight. The journey to the island was a short one, for a Lost Boy, but the slow and careful drift left too much time in which there was nothing, not even Billy, for the boy swum beneath the waves save the moments he surfaced like an alien mermaid and checked his position against the fairy light.
"Boy!" hissed a small voice from below him. Slightly startled and looked down at the bandanna that swung pendulously from his right hand.
"Huh?"
"How far up are we? Can the black boy hear us?"
"No."
The fairy let out a relieved puff. "Thank Grendel's toenails for that. Listen, I want to make a deal with you."
"What kind of deal?"
"You let me out of this sweat rag and protect me from that lunatic, and I'll help you out with whatever you two are doing."
"How do you know we aren't up to something slightly terrible?"
The fairy paused "ARE you up to something slightly terrible?"
"No."
"Well there you go then." He answered easily. "You help me, and I'll help you, alright? I mean, you can't exactly go running through the fairy village on your own and I can't get out of this goddamned RAG on my own!"
"I thought fairies had magic to do things like that."
He paused. "I'm a clerk. At a potions store. I couldn't do magic to save my own blue ass."
"Oh."
"Right. Look, I'm not going to go running off or anything, alright? You do this for me and I owe you a favor. I don't welch out on favors. You save me from that psychotic Negroid and I'll give you a hand, okay?"
Fingers fumbling, Slightly untied the little bundle in his hands, and as the cloth fell straight and limp a blue dash of light shot out and an mad circles around Slightly's head. After a seemingly endless minute he paused his frenetic patterns and settled to hover carefully in front of Slightly's face.
"So what exactly is it you two are doing, anyway? You need to break a spell? Get revenge on someone? Or are you looking for a looooove potion." He snickered.
Slightly shook his head. "No. We slightly need someone to help us get rid of a demon."
"A demon?"
"In Billy."
"Are you sure it's really a demon?"
The boy paused. "Last night he killed one of his shipmates in his sleep and ate him. I'm slightly sure it's a demon."
"….oh for the love of Pete, couldn't you have just had warts or something?" The fairy whined.
"Nope."
"Bloody hell. Bloody, crispy, flaming, screaming hell!"
Slightly nodded. "Pretty much."
***
Slightly wasn't aware they'd reached Small Monday Island until something sharp, brown, and moon-faced shot past his ear and circled back, dragging a long, lazy oval around them.
"You're at the border waters of Small Monday Island!" announced the little barn owl. "Entrance to the island is not permitted at night. You'll have to go back!"
"It's okay, Binkly!" Picadilly said cheerfully. "They're with me. They're just coming by to pick something up from the shop."
The owl eyes them suspiciously in his round-about flight. "Why can't they just pick it up at normal hours? When the shop is open? YOU'RE not exactly allowed to return to the island after midnight EITHER, Picadilly. General Tory doesn't want any funny stuff going on on his watch, and you don't exactly have the best track record."
"Oh, come on! So I smuggled a jackalope in ONCE. The palace looks better without that wall!"
Amid the bickering Slightly squinted against the shivering skin of the ocean and tried to pick out Billy. He was a bobbing spot of darkness amid the waves and, though they were still a good thirty meters from the island, something large, grey, and heavy was slowly circling him like a vulture on a carcass.
"Look, just let me talk to Cobby, alright? She'll give me the okay to go on through."
"Cobby isn't on tonight." The barn owl replied. "She's got a cold. Tory is in charge of the whole island."
"You mean I got to deal with mister stick-up-the—"
"Yes, you do." It interrupted. "If you can give a case to Tory, even I'll be impressed."
Picadilly let go a long string of swearing that couldn't hold a candle to Hook's rants, and tugged a strand of Slightly's hair rather viciously. "Come one. We gotta go talk to Mr. Cranky."
"I have to escort you." The owl said quickly. "Don't try to pull anything tonight, alright Picadilly? We're almost through with the shift and I don't want to have to clean up after you if you knock down another wall."
"That was three years ago!" he protested.
Binkly let a quick series of clicks and screeches, and the shady owl below them peeled off. Billy turned his bobbing face up to the stars.
"Billy!" Slightly shouted down. "They slightly won't let us through unless we go talk to General Tory!"
Whatever Billy shouted back at them couldn't be understood over the water. Binkly trailed a corkscrew down to him and shouted "Follow me closely, boys, we're going to see the general! Step lively!"
"Step lively? " Slightly asked blankly.
"Never try to figure out the Night Watch." Picadilly muttered. "You'd have an easier time contemplating cheese."
Which, of course, made even less sense then Step Lively. Slipping lower to keep on track with the barn owl, Slightly had the feeling that that was probably going to be the most sensible thing he'd hear all day.
That worried him.
As far out over the water as they were, Slightly didn't hear the harsh echo of Peter Pan's crow across the island as he rallied the Lost Boy's together in the dark. That small mercy, I think, we can afford him; Slightly has trouble enough of his own to worry about, especially as Billy Jukes pulls himself sputtering and dripping from the brine and the Lost Boy's feet touch the sand, finding themselves to be surrounded by dozens of silent, glowing, unblinking eyes. Binkly landed in the sand at their feet.
"Stand up straight and salute the general!"