***
16
***
"Oh, have you seeeeeen, my La-a-dy, walking in, the ga-ar-den…"
Wendy wasn't looking at it. The diamond dove hopped a few inches closer and cocked its head, picking up the song again.
"Putting all the flo-wers to shame, for she is twice as fair…"
The girl was still not looking. Feeling a small fluff of irritation, the diamond dove hopped up onto her knee and tried to peer through the cracks in the fingers that covered her face.
"Wendy?"
"What?" she snipped sullenly.
"Is pouting in the corner really helping anything?"
Wendy parted her fingers and stared at it with wet eyes, amazed that it would be so brazen.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean your acting silly. Quite like a little girl, not really like a mother at all." It said. Wendy's mouth quivered and it looked like she would start crying again.
"I AM a little girl! I'm not a mother! Mothers always know what to do and I don't know!" she sniffled.
The dove puffed and hopped down her thigh to set against her ribs. As expected, her hand automatically dropped down to stroke its feathery back, a little heavier than the dove would like.
"Of course you know what to do." It said. "What do you WANT to do?"
She sniffed. "I want to go find Peter and tell him what an ass he's being." She said, then turned red with embarrassment at the comment. The dove chuckled.
"Then why don't you?"
"Because Peter isn't here! He told us not to try to follow him!"
"Don't you think this is rather more important than Peter's rules? This is Slightly we're talking about! He could very well be killed out there with the pirates! Do you want that on your conscience?"
Wendy's eyes widened. All the times Hook threatened to kill her boys, he never actually succeeded. But then, that was because Peter was always there to intervene…
"If you want to go tell Peter what an ass he's being, go out and do it. The boys will be okay until you get back."
She looked over her flock automatically. Peter had made them all go below in the Underground House, but as soon as he was gone, they'd sprung back up again. Toodles and the Twins were in the branches of a tree, talking to each other in low whispers. Nibs was being quiet while Curly spouted random, half hearted attempts at humor to lighten his mood, something which failed to surprise her somehow, and John was off filling the water bucket for the house, trailing Michael. Wendy picked the dove up from her lap and stood, carrying the bird in her hands like a ball.
"Nibs?"
The boy looked up at her, startled from his internal tirade.
"Keep an eye, would you? I'm going to go have a talk with Peter."
Nibs blinked at her and almost warned her against it, but his mouth snapped shut as he thought better. If there was anyone Peter wouldn't mind following him, it would be her. Maybe she could do some good. Nibs nodded and Wendy gave him a shaky smile, a little countered by the red rims of her eyes, and turned to go after where she thought Peter might be hiding. On her way she raised her arms and set the little dove on a tree branch, and patted its head. It smiled at her in the way birds do, and watched as she walked out of sight.
The moment she was out of sight the bird ruffled itself and scowled. Its feathers felt dirty. Ignoring the urge to preen for the moment, the dove took to the air to watch over the proceedings.
***
Elsewhere on the island, there was a flurry of movement by the bay surrounding Small Monday Island. The sky swirled with taught circles of seagulls and finches, sparrows, crows, and the blaring pink obscenity of flamingos. Though there was no wind the trees rustled with movement, and the call of birds was deafening and indecipherable. As they screeched, an answering flock of fairy lights, in greens and pinks and blues and whites, drifted up from Small Monday Island, and the noise grew louder. The fairies swarmed like bees, a fluid, dangerous mass bolting like an arrow into the sky and raining down towards the collected feathered bodies of the island.
"What's the news?!?!" bellowed an egret over the noise, a black ink branding on his left wing.
"King Oberon has decided!!!" a fat and balding fairy screeched back. His name was Councilman Tiddley. "He wants the ghoul taken back alive! The rest of them…" his voice was lost in the noise. The egret frowned and leaned in.
"What?!"
"I said, the rest of them you can do with what you will!!!" Tiddley bellowed.
The egret ruffled and turned, screeching a call out above the din. In one motion the flock of birds rose into the air, and bled like a bullet wound over the island.
***
"What's that noise?" Starkey asked warily, tilting his head to the sky. Mason frowned and listened.
"It's jus' a flock of birds."
"I know, but listen to it."
Mason did, and shrugged. "Sounds like birds."
"I know it sounds like birds! But it's not just one call, idiot! That's all sorts and they're coming closer, something must be wrong!"
"What do you mean?"
Starkey sighed. "What does it mean when all the rats come running up on deck? There's a leak in the hold and they're running from the water. So what does it mean when all the birds on the island go flying in the same direction at once? There's something they're running from!!!"
The sound, which had been growing steadily louder, was now underlined by the beating of wings like a thousand panicked hearts. Even Hook paused and turned as the frontal bar of the flood became visible through the branches of the trees above them. Eagles, crows, hawks, flamingos, seagulls, and a dozen others shadowed the sun and rattled their ears with their passing.
Then came the sparrows.
A rolling mass came pushing through the trees, a thousand darting, beating, flitting bodies dodging trunks and bramble. Mason grabbed Starkey by the collar of his cape and hauled him down to the ground with him as the birds struck. The sharp scrapes of wingtips and clawed little feet caught at their clothing and their hands as they covered their heads against the assault. Over the noise they heard Hook, several meters ahead in the trees, shout and swear at the darting shadows.
As quickly as they came they washed on, and the sound of pounding wings drifted away.
"What in the name of Neptune's Whiskers was THAT?" Starkey asked, stumbling to his feet and brushing the dust off his knees. Mason's hat, which had been dropped at the flood, began to squirm and promptly expelled a ruffled, wide eyed Captain Popper.
"Good Lord, was that a search party?" he asked dumbly, looking after them. "We haven't organized one of those since, well, ever!"
"A what?"
Captain Hook crashed through the brush ahead of them and assessed the condition of his men with a glance. Both were unharmed, though Mason was bleeding a trickle at his knuckle where a bird had nipped in passing. With Hook came, of course, Picadilly, who looked perhaps even more incensed than the Captain.
"What in the blazes was that?!?" Hook shouted, though at who, they couldn't tell.
It was Picadilly who answered him anyway, his fists on his hips. "I'll tell you what that was! That was a wave search of the island; only Oberon can permit one of those! They have to be looking for the ghoul!"
"A wave search?" Mason said a little dumbly.
"Nonsense." Captain Popper said, shifting as he tried to resettle his feathers. "Why would he send a wave search after the ghoul? General Tory already sent US to find him, remember?"
"And obviously didn't think we'd succeed! General Tory was just trying to get rid of us, you big stupid feather duster! He never expected us to find anything at all!"
Popper blinked.
"So what will happen when they find him?" Hook asked coldly.
Picadilly sniffed. "Depends on what they were ordered. One part might stay while the other goes back to tell King Shorty where they are. Or they might peck him to death. How should I know?!"
Captain Popper, who had stopped listening, fell back onto his feathered rump and stared into the space past Starkey's boots.
"Tory…was just trying to get rid of me?" he asked softly.
Nobody heard him.
***
Peter wasn't in the first place Wendy expected him to be. He wasn't even in the last place; he was somewhere in the middle, and the poor tree he was working at had a pock mark in its trunk the size of a rugby ball, and Peter kept hacking at it with his knife. When Wendy spotted him she paused at the edge of his vision and folded her hands prettily behind her back. It took nearly a minute before Peter stabbed the knife into the pit of the sticky dimple and looked back over his shoulder at her. His face looked damp.
"What are you doing here?" He asked. The words were void of any malice, and Wendy felt heartened by that.
"I wanted to talk to you, Peter. About Slightly."
Peter growled "I don't want to hear anything about that traitor! Just leave me alone, Wendy!"
"But Peter, he's your friend! You can't leave him to the mercy of the pirates!"
"HE'S NOT MY FRIEND!" Peter spun on her, the dagger still in his hand, but Wendy didn't flinch. "Slightly betrayed the Lost Boys by helping the pirates! If Captain Codfish wants to kill him that's none of my business anymore!"
"Peter!" Wendy admonished. "I can't believe you'd talk about Slightly that way! You know he'd never betray the Lost Boys, and you know that he loves you the same as any of us! If he's helping Billy and Robert Mullins I'm sure there's a very good reason for it. You didn't even let him explain!"
"What is there to explain!? He admitted he was friends with Billy Jukes!"
"And what of it?" Wendy put her hands on her hips. "Just because he was friends with a pirate doesn't mean he was going to become one! You're the one who taught him to stand by his friends no matter what, are you going to punish him now for doing just that?"
"Jukes is a PIRATE, Wendy!" Peter said with obvious exasperation. "Lost Boys stand by Lost Boys no matter what!"
"Well what about me?! I'M not a Lost Boy, Peter. Are you going to turn on me in MY time of need, too?"
Peter stared at her "That's not the same thing!"
"How is it not the same thing?"
"It just isn't!"
The knife went into the tree again, and Wendy could have sworn she heard it whimper.
"Peter Pan, you're a two faced, hypocritical, selfish brat!" She shouted, crossing her arms.
"What?"
"You heard me! Just because Slightly isn't living his life the way you want him to live it you turn your back on him! He said Billy Jukes was in trouble and he said Captain Hook was after them. Slightly is standing by his friend when his friend needs him, and you can't extend him the same courtesy! Slightly needs us and you act like a spoiled brat! I'm ashamed of you, Peter Pan!"
Peter stared at her a moment, shocked, before his face melted down into an angry snarl. "I don't need you for a conscience, Wendy!" He gouged at the tree again, and this time Wendy definitely heard it whine. "Slightly isn't our friend anymore."
"Peter, you're the stubbornest boy I've ever met!" Wendy huffed.
Face red and fists at her sides, Wendy Darling turned away from Peter Pan and stomped back towards the Underground House. Peter stared after her, then groaned and tugged his knife out of the sticky wound he'd created.
"Wendy!"
She didn't turn.
"Wendy, wait!"
The girl spun around, a bright spot of pink and red in a darkened forest. Behind her, the sound of birds was growing steadily.
Peter sighed and let his shoulders slump.
"Don't be mad over this, Wendy. Slightly...you don't know everything about it, alright?"
Wendy crossed her arms.
"Then TELL me."
The sound of birds grew louder. Wendy turned her head distractedly as the sounds of beating wings bled towards them, growing heavier, like hearts overtaxed.
"P-Peter?"
The wave search broke through the trees and Wendy shrieked, falling to her knees as their sharp bodies snipped by her, claws and wingtips snatching at her hair as they passed. Peter threw up his arms and braced himself like a stone in the current, the birds breaking around him and washing past…
Except….
The sparrows sloshed back like a wave on the shore, and Wendy heard Peter scream. She pulled her hands away from her face to see Peter stumble onto the ground, his arms thrown desperately over his eyes as the birds swarmed like wrathful hornets.
"PETER!"
16
***
"Oh, have you seeeeeen, my La-a-dy, walking in, the ga-ar-den…"
Wendy wasn't looking at it. The diamond dove hopped a few inches closer and cocked its head, picking up the song again.
"Putting all the flo-wers to shame, for she is twice as fair…"
The girl was still not looking. Feeling a small fluff of irritation, the diamond dove hopped up onto her knee and tried to peer through the cracks in the fingers that covered her face.
"Wendy?"
"What?" she snipped sullenly.
"Is pouting in the corner really helping anything?"
Wendy parted her fingers and stared at it with wet eyes, amazed that it would be so brazen.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean your acting silly. Quite like a little girl, not really like a mother at all." It said. Wendy's mouth quivered and it looked like she would start crying again.
"I AM a little girl! I'm not a mother! Mothers always know what to do and I don't know!" she sniffled.
The dove puffed and hopped down her thigh to set against her ribs. As expected, her hand automatically dropped down to stroke its feathery back, a little heavier than the dove would like.
"Of course you know what to do." It said. "What do you WANT to do?"
She sniffed. "I want to go find Peter and tell him what an ass he's being." She said, then turned red with embarrassment at the comment. The dove chuckled.
"Then why don't you?"
"Because Peter isn't here! He told us not to try to follow him!"
"Don't you think this is rather more important than Peter's rules? This is Slightly we're talking about! He could very well be killed out there with the pirates! Do you want that on your conscience?"
Wendy's eyes widened. All the times Hook threatened to kill her boys, he never actually succeeded. But then, that was because Peter was always there to intervene…
"If you want to go tell Peter what an ass he's being, go out and do it. The boys will be okay until you get back."
She looked over her flock automatically. Peter had made them all go below in the Underground House, but as soon as he was gone, they'd sprung back up again. Toodles and the Twins were in the branches of a tree, talking to each other in low whispers. Nibs was being quiet while Curly spouted random, half hearted attempts at humor to lighten his mood, something which failed to surprise her somehow, and John was off filling the water bucket for the house, trailing Michael. Wendy picked the dove up from her lap and stood, carrying the bird in her hands like a ball.
"Nibs?"
The boy looked up at her, startled from his internal tirade.
"Keep an eye, would you? I'm going to go have a talk with Peter."
Nibs blinked at her and almost warned her against it, but his mouth snapped shut as he thought better. If there was anyone Peter wouldn't mind following him, it would be her. Maybe she could do some good. Nibs nodded and Wendy gave him a shaky smile, a little countered by the red rims of her eyes, and turned to go after where she thought Peter might be hiding. On her way she raised her arms and set the little dove on a tree branch, and patted its head. It smiled at her in the way birds do, and watched as she walked out of sight.
The moment she was out of sight the bird ruffled itself and scowled. Its feathers felt dirty. Ignoring the urge to preen for the moment, the dove took to the air to watch over the proceedings.
***
Elsewhere on the island, there was a flurry of movement by the bay surrounding Small Monday Island. The sky swirled with taught circles of seagulls and finches, sparrows, crows, and the blaring pink obscenity of flamingos. Though there was no wind the trees rustled with movement, and the call of birds was deafening and indecipherable. As they screeched, an answering flock of fairy lights, in greens and pinks and blues and whites, drifted up from Small Monday Island, and the noise grew louder. The fairies swarmed like bees, a fluid, dangerous mass bolting like an arrow into the sky and raining down towards the collected feathered bodies of the island.
"What's the news?!?!" bellowed an egret over the noise, a black ink branding on his left wing.
"King Oberon has decided!!!" a fat and balding fairy screeched back. His name was Councilman Tiddley. "He wants the ghoul taken back alive! The rest of them…" his voice was lost in the noise. The egret frowned and leaned in.
"What?!"
"I said, the rest of them you can do with what you will!!!" Tiddley bellowed.
The egret ruffled and turned, screeching a call out above the din. In one motion the flock of birds rose into the air, and bled like a bullet wound over the island.
***
"What's that noise?" Starkey asked warily, tilting his head to the sky. Mason frowned and listened.
"It's jus' a flock of birds."
"I know, but listen to it."
Mason did, and shrugged. "Sounds like birds."
"I know it sounds like birds! But it's not just one call, idiot! That's all sorts and they're coming closer, something must be wrong!"
"What do you mean?"
Starkey sighed. "What does it mean when all the rats come running up on deck? There's a leak in the hold and they're running from the water. So what does it mean when all the birds on the island go flying in the same direction at once? There's something they're running from!!!"
The sound, which had been growing steadily louder, was now underlined by the beating of wings like a thousand panicked hearts. Even Hook paused and turned as the frontal bar of the flood became visible through the branches of the trees above them. Eagles, crows, hawks, flamingos, seagulls, and a dozen others shadowed the sun and rattled their ears with their passing.
Then came the sparrows.
A rolling mass came pushing through the trees, a thousand darting, beating, flitting bodies dodging trunks and bramble. Mason grabbed Starkey by the collar of his cape and hauled him down to the ground with him as the birds struck. The sharp scrapes of wingtips and clawed little feet caught at their clothing and their hands as they covered their heads against the assault. Over the noise they heard Hook, several meters ahead in the trees, shout and swear at the darting shadows.
As quickly as they came they washed on, and the sound of pounding wings drifted away.
"What in the name of Neptune's Whiskers was THAT?" Starkey asked, stumbling to his feet and brushing the dust off his knees. Mason's hat, which had been dropped at the flood, began to squirm and promptly expelled a ruffled, wide eyed Captain Popper.
"Good Lord, was that a search party?" he asked dumbly, looking after them. "We haven't organized one of those since, well, ever!"
"A what?"
Captain Hook crashed through the brush ahead of them and assessed the condition of his men with a glance. Both were unharmed, though Mason was bleeding a trickle at his knuckle where a bird had nipped in passing. With Hook came, of course, Picadilly, who looked perhaps even more incensed than the Captain.
"What in the blazes was that?!?" Hook shouted, though at who, they couldn't tell.
It was Picadilly who answered him anyway, his fists on his hips. "I'll tell you what that was! That was a wave search of the island; only Oberon can permit one of those! They have to be looking for the ghoul!"
"A wave search?" Mason said a little dumbly.
"Nonsense." Captain Popper said, shifting as he tried to resettle his feathers. "Why would he send a wave search after the ghoul? General Tory already sent US to find him, remember?"
"And obviously didn't think we'd succeed! General Tory was just trying to get rid of us, you big stupid feather duster! He never expected us to find anything at all!"
Popper blinked.
"So what will happen when they find him?" Hook asked coldly.
Picadilly sniffed. "Depends on what they were ordered. One part might stay while the other goes back to tell King Shorty where they are. Or they might peck him to death. How should I know?!"
Captain Popper, who had stopped listening, fell back onto his feathered rump and stared into the space past Starkey's boots.
"Tory…was just trying to get rid of me?" he asked softly.
Nobody heard him.
***
Peter wasn't in the first place Wendy expected him to be. He wasn't even in the last place; he was somewhere in the middle, and the poor tree he was working at had a pock mark in its trunk the size of a rugby ball, and Peter kept hacking at it with his knife. When Wendy spotted him she paused at the edge of his vision and folded her hands prettily behind her back. It took nearly a minute before Peter stabbed the knife into the pit of the sticky dimple and looked back over his shoulder at her. His face looked damp.
"What are you doing here?" He asked. The words were void of any malice, and Wendy felt heartened by that.
"I wanted to talk to you, Peter. About Slightly."
Peter growled "I don't want to hear anything about that traitor! Just leave me alone, Wendy!"
"But Peter, he's your friend! You can't leave him to the mercy of the pirates!"
"HE'S NOT MY FRIEND!" Peter spun on her, the dagger still in his hand, but Wendy didn't flinch. "Slightly betrayed the Lost Boys by helping the pirates! If Captain Codfish wants to kill him that's none of my business anymore!"
"Peter!" Wendy admonished. "I can't believe you'd talk about Slightly that way! You know he'd never betray the Lost Boys, and you know that he loves you the same as any of us! If he's helping Billy and Robert Mullins I'm sure there's a very good reason for it. You didn't even let him explain!"
"What is there to explain!? He admitted he was friends with Billy Jukes!"
"And what of it?" Wendy put her hands on her hips. "Just because he was friends with a pirate doesn't mean he was going to become one! You're the one who taught him to stand by his friends no matter what, are you going to punish him now for doing just that?"
"Jukes is a PIRATE, Wendy!" Peter said with obvious exasperation. "Lost Boys stand by Lost Boys no matter what!"
"Well what about me?! I'M not a Lost Boy, Peter. Are you going to turn on me in MY time of need, too?"
Peter stared at her "That's not the same thing!"
"How is it not the same thing?"
"It just isn't!"
The knife went into the tree again, and Wendy could have sworn she heard it whimper.
"Peter Pan, you're a two faced, hypocritical, selfish brat!" She shouted, crossing her arms.
"What?"
"You heard me! Just because Slightly isn't living his life the way you want him to live it you turn your back on him! He said Billy Jukes was in trouble and he said Captain Hook was after them. Slightly is standing by his friend when his friend needs him, and you can't extend him the same courtesy! Slightly needs us and you act like a spoiled brat! I'm ashamed of you, Peter Pan!"
Peter stared at her a moment, shocked, before his face melted down into an angry snarl. "I don't need you for a conscience, Wendy!" He gouged at the tree again, and this time Wendy definitely heard it whine. "Slightly isn't our friend anymore."
"Peter, you're the stubbornest boy I've ever met!" Wendy huffed.
Face red and fists at her sides, Wendy Darling turned away from Peter Pan and stomped back towards the Underground House. Peter stared after her, then groaned and tugged his knife out of the sticky wound he'd created.
"Wendy!"
She didn't turn.
"Wendy, wait!"
The girl spun around, a bright spot of pink and red in a darkened forest. Behind her, the sound of birds was growing steadily.
Peter sighed and let his shoulders slump.
"Don't be mad over this, Wendy. Slightly...you don't know everything about it, alright?"
Wendy crossed her arms.
"Then TELL me."
The sound of birds grew louder. Wendy turned her head distractedly as the sounds of beating wings bled towards them, growing heavier, like hearts overtaxed.
"P-Peter?"
The wave search broke through the trees and Wendy shrieked, falling to her knees as their sharp bodies snipped by her, claws and wingtips snatching at her hair as they passed. Peter threw up his arms and braced himself like a stone in the current, the birds breaking around him and washing past…
Except….
The sparrows sloshed back like a wave on the shore, and Wendy heard Peter scream. She pulled her hands away from her face to see Peter stumble onto the ground, his arms thrown desperately over his eyes as the birds swarmed like wrathful hornets.
"PETER!"