***
24
***
"Wendy?"
The girl, a streak of pink and white in the proud tree trunks, glared wetly over her shoulder.
"Go away, Peter!" She fumed. Her face was red the whole way around and wet, like a washed apple. "You're horrible and I don't want to speak to you ever again!"
"Wendy!"
She spun around. "Don't you 'Wendy' me, Peter Pan! I heard what you said to Slightly! He needs our help and YOU go and act like an utter nincompoop and chase him off again!"
"Slightly didn't want our help!" Peter snapped back, irritated.
"Don't you know that when someone doesn't want help is when they need it the most?!"
"You always tell us not to help with the ladies chores, and you get mad if we do!"
"That's a different thing entirely and you know it! Stop being deliberately obtuse!"
Peter blinked. "Being what?"
"PETER!" Wendy stomped her foot in one of the closest things Peter had seen to an outright tantrum from the girl for some time. Peter was apparently going to be the receiving party of a long, red faced lecture, except that as Wendy opened her pink little mouth to start a body came barreling in after them, a little breathless from the sudden spurt. John nearly tripped on a tree root and scrabbled against the trunk to steady himself.
"Peter! There's a messenger from the fairy court!" He said, and Peter stared blankly at him. "He says it's about Billy Jukes! He needs to tell you in person!"
Peter, glad for an excuse to avoid his lecture, turned his back on Wendy and followed John towards where the other boys were. The girl took off her shoe and threw it at Peter's head. As she suspected, nothing was damaged by the impact. Peter rubbed the back of his head and frowned at her, and followed John.
***
Closer to the Heart of Neverland, Slightly was covering ground over the trees, flying so their topmost branches brushed the toes on his feet. The trees covered most of the ground and from up here, the shadows were only dark patches left where the branches blocked the light. Their imagined threat was nullified, and through this coverage, he could not see Hook. Still, he didn't want to land if he could help it.
Above the trees there wasn't much noise, but he still heard it when a shrill, avian voice screamed obscenities below. Some distance to the right of him there was a commotion in the trees, and Slightly hesitated a moment before creeping towards it. He heard twigs snapping and the sound of voices. There was a shriek. Slightly dropped down through the branches carefully and lighted on the only weight bearing branch he could find.
There was a merlin sitting in a nearby tree, cocking its head down at a tall white egret that was fuming at the base. The tree was a gnarly mess ringed with bramble, and the egret could get no better than a hop and a snap in its attempts to catch the merlin. The merlin kept shifting carefully one step higher than the egret could reach and shouted taunts down at him. It didn't look like a terribly dangerous situation, not when the merlin was a better flyer than the egret if worse came to worse. However, something else made this scene a little more frightening.
There were pirates nearby.
Eyes flashing angrily, Captain Hook was swearing at the birds and at Mason, who was the only man with him. Mason scowled and didn't reply. He was holding onto the absent Starkey's cape.
This was the moment he'd come for, Slightly supposed. All the witticisms and snappy insults he'd planned to throw at Hook slowly seeped out of his mind like water in a paper sack. He decided he was not going to think about anything Hook had done before this, and latched his mind onto an image of Billy as he had first seen him; beaten, shaking, and bleeding. Hook had been the one to break out Billy's teeth. Hook had been the one who would have killed his friend if Mullins hadn't intercepted. Those were the things he would need to remember.
Completely devoid of any clever things to say, Slightly jumped from the tree branch and landed on the Earth with a muffled thump of dead leaves. Mason was the one who saw him.
"Capt'n!"
"WHAT!" Hook snapped. He followed the carpenters eyes.
Slightly didn't wait around for anything else. The boy turned on his heels, and ran.
***
"Ha! Not so frightening now, are ya!" the oblivious Captain Popper shouted down. Aborigine had only given a few well-timed leaps at the bird before settling back on his feet and staring at him, calculatingly. Popper was feeling ridiculously smug. So smug, in fact, that he hopped down another branch to be that much closer to his adversary.
"You don't frighten me." he said. "King Oberon sent the wrong bird to try to catch something wily as a new made ghoul. Prison's made you stupid this last year."
"It's only been a year?" Aborigine said with mock ignorance.
Popper laughed. In the split second his eye was shut Aborigine snapped his beak to the ground and flung up a pebble as large as Popper's head. It struck the merlin squarely in the chest and, with a startled yelp, he fell backwards off the branch. He flipped in the air and righted himself, but he hardly had the chance to spread his wings; Aborigine stretched his long neck and batted the merlin to the side, sending him sprawling in the dirt. He snapped a foot down over the Captain's chest.
Staring up between the egret's toes, Captain Popper had time to realize what a complete and total idiot he was.
He also had time to realize that, from this position, that beak was possibly the most enormous beak he'd ever seen. And the sharpest. And the scariest.
Captain Popper seriously considered wetting himself.
"You know, if you hadn't have been so determined to gloat, I probably couldn't have done that." Aborigine said, matter of factly. Popper swallowed.
The egret nudged Popper's head to the side, pushing the tip of his beak into the jawbone.
"You have very boring eyes." He said irritably, and Popper felt the beak move across the feathers of his neck. "They're dull as paper. Not bright, not shining. Not silver, not blue. Just eyes." He tapped him. "I suppose eyes are eyes, though. They work just the same, do they not? You can see me. The whole of your body is filled with light, because of your eyes. The humans got that right, at least."
Aborigine abruptly pressed down, crushing the breath from Popper's lungs. The merlin gave a squeak.
He thought this was surely the end of him, but Aborigine paused for a moment, and cocked his head. Popper couldn't breathe. He wriggled against Aborigine's foot but the claw held him tight, and his head couldn't quite reach to bite his toes. Aborigine wasn't paying attention to him.
"Oh, tell me that's not." The egret said, his voice dripping with amusement. "Surely that's not."
Popper could hear it now, the ground thumping with the feet of jackrabbits, the crash of the bramble as they ploughed through it. Squirming enough leeway for a quick, shallow breath, Popper arched his neck and stared in utter confusion as the undergrowth crashed open and not jackrabbits, but jackalopes, poured in through the opening. Aborigine stood there calmly, smirking, as the rabbits curled around him in a defensive crescent. In the middle, the male with the largest rack of antlers was carrying a passenger; a freckled, blue, bucktoothed potions store clerk.
"Let Captain Popper go!" Picadilly shouted, sounding suddenly like he had nerve.
Aborigine gave Popper a little squish, wringing an eep and bug eyes out of him.
"Oh, you mean THIS Captain Popper?"
Picadilly's glow flared nastily. "Aborigine, you let him go, or so help me you'll be trampled and the pups are gonna play kickball with your head!"
The egret seemed to think about that. "You know, that would be interesting. I somehow can't imagine my head rolls all that well. It's rather a funny shape, don't you think?"
Picadilly growled and tightened his fists on the prongs of the jackalope's antlers.
"I warned you, Aborigine!"
With a chattered command from their leader the jackalopes surged forward in a mass of fur and horn and Aborigine snatched Captain Popper in his beak and ran. Popper gasped his air and started to flail, but his wings hung out pointlessly on either side of Aborigine's beak and didn't affect him one bit.
Aldus Aborigine could run fast, but the jackalopes could run faster, and he hadn't made it very far before his rear end was met with the sharp points of a pair of antlers. Aborigine yelped and dropped the bird. A little female with only two nubs for her horns darted between his legs and snatched up Popper before the Captain could get to his feet, running off with him held precariously by the skin of his back.
"I AM NOT A BALL!" Captain Popper bellowed indignantly. Every living thing ignored him.
"Go, Lavidia!" Picadilly crowed happily as the little horned female pulled out ahead of the herd. Popper hung dangerously under her forefeet as she ran. The jackalopes split and poured around him like water, and now it was Aborigine's turn to chase, snarling and cursing and unable to get himself aloft with the underbrush pressing in on all sides. His long legs popped him over the ground in long one-two steps and the herd began to spread, becoming a wave in front of him. The fairy's glow, however, kept him all too well centered on his prey.
Picadilly's light abruptly shivered, and, infuriated as he was, Captain Popper did not comprehend the implications of this until he struck the ward and felt his pulse stutter helplessly as the muscles in his chest constricted. He missed his next step. His blood was electric before he struck the dirt; boiling, bursting, pushing lightning bolts of pain through his system as the little ball of magic tucked carelessly in his ribs reacted with the Heart's ward. Picadilly, suddenly realizing his pursuant was no longer there, called the herd to a stop and turned around, wary.
Aborigine was sprawled in the dirt, his wings splayed to the side and legs kicking spasmodically against the ground. His beak has spread open and dirt was working its way in around the lolling tongue. His pupils were hidden by the upper lid of his eye.
Lavidia put the Captain down, and he puffed indignantly.
"Popper! What's happening to him?" Picadilly called over his shoulder. Captain Popper waddled through the herd and stood there, staring for a moment with the rest of them. "It looks like he's having a seizure." The fairy said.
Popper frowned. "He's probably faking it to make us come closer."
"I don't think so." Picadilly winced. "He's not even shutting his eyes. Look."
Despite the fact his head was jammed down into the dirt, Aborigine's mouth and eyes were open, and bits of dirt were clinging to the white membrane that still showed. His tongue had pulled rotted bits of leaves and pine needles into his throat. He'd have choked if it wasn't seized shut.
"I think he's really dying." Picadilly said, with the hushed, awed tone you only use in a marvelous museum, or a haunted house. Aborigine gave a great choking sound and the dirt in his beak turned to a seeping, red mud. Popper cursed.
No. He definitely wasn't faking it.
24
***
"Wendy?"
The girl, a streak of pink and white in the proud tree trunks, glared wetly over her shoulder.
"Go away, Peter!" She fumed. Her face was red the whole way around and wet, like a washed apple. "You're horrible and I don't want to speak to you ever again!"
"Wendy!"
She spun around. "Don't you 'Wendy' me, Peter Pan! I heard what you said to Slightly! He needs our help and YOU go and act like an utter nincompoop and chase him off again!"
"Slightly didn't want our help!" Peter snapped back, irritated.
"Don't you know that when someone doesn't want help is when they need it the most?!"
"You always tell us not to help with the ladies chores, and you get mad if we do!"
"That's a different thing entirely and you know it! Stop being deliberately obtuse!"
Peter blinked. "Being what?"
"PETER!" Wendy stomped her foot in one of the closest things Peter had seen to an outright tantrum from the girl for some time. Peter was apparently going to be the receiving party of a long, red faced lecture, except that as Wendy opened her pink little mouth to start a body came barreling in after them, a little breathless from the sudden spurt. John nearly tripped on a tree root and scrabbled against the trunk to steady himself.
"Peter! There's a messenger from the fairy court!" He said, and Peter stared blankly at him. "He says it's about Billy Jukes! He needs to tell you in person!"
Peter, glad for an excuse to avoid his lecture, turned his back on Wendy and followed John towards where the other boys were. The girl took off her shoe and threw it at Peter's head. As she suspected, nothing was damaged by the impact. Peter rubbed the back of his head and frowned at her, and followed John.
***
Closer to the Heart of Neverland, Slightly was covering ground over the trees, flying so their topmost branches brushed the toes on his feet. The trees covered most of the ground and from up here, the shadows were only dark patches left where the branches blocked the light. Their imagined threat was nullified, and through this coverage, he could not see Hook. Still, he didn't want to land if he could help it.
Above the trees there wasn't much noise, but he still heard it when a shrill, avian voice screamed obscenities below. Some distance to the right of him there was a commotion in the trees, and Slightly hesitated a moment before creeping towards it. He heard twigs snapping and the sound of voices. There was a shriek. Slightly dropped down through the branches carefully and lighted on the only weight bearing branch he could find.
There was a merlin sitting in a nearby tree, cocking its head down at a tall white egret that was fuming at the base. The tree was a gnarly mess ringed with bramble, and the egret could get no better than a hop and a snap in its attempts to catch the merlin. The merlin kept shifting carefully one step higher than the egret could reach and shouted taunts down at him. It didn't look like a terribly dangerous situation, not when the merlin was a better flyer than the egret if worse came to worse. However, something else made this scene a little more frightening.
There were pirates nearby.
Eyes flashing angrily, Captain Hook was swearing at the birds and at Mason, who was the only man with him. Mason scowled and didn't reply. He was holding onto the absent Starkey's cape.
This was the moment he'd come for, Slightly supposed. All the witticisms and snappy insults he'd planned to throw at Hook slowly seeped out of his mind like water in a paper sack. He decided he was not going to think about anything Hook had done before this, and latched his mind onto an image of Billy as he had first seen him; beaten, shaking, and bleeding. Hook had been the one to break out Billy's teeth. Hook had been the one who would have killed his friend if Mullins hadn't intercepted. Those were the things he would need to remember.
Completely devoid of any clever things to say, Slightly jumped from the tree branch and landed on the Earth with a muffled thump of dead leaves. Mason was the one who saw him.
"Capt'n!"
"WHAT!" Hook snapped. He followed the carpenters eyes.
Slightly didn't wait around for anything else. The boy turned on his heels, and ran.
***
"Ha! Not so frightening now, are ya!" the oblivious Captain Popper shouted down. Aborigine had only given a few well-timed leaps at the bird before settling back on his feet and staring at him, calculatingly. Popper was feeling ridiculously smug. So smug, in fact, that he hopped down another branch to be that much closer to his adversary.
"You don't frighten me." he said. "King Oberon sent the wrong bird to try to catch something wily as a new made ghoul. Prison's made you stupid this last year."
"It's only been a year?" Aborigine said with mock ignorance.
Popper laughed. In the split second his eye was shut Aborigine snapped his beak to the ground and flung up a pebble as large as Popper's head. It struck the merlin squarely in the chest and, with a startled yelp, he fell backwards off the branch. He flipped in the air and righted himself, but he hardly had the chance to spread his wings; Aborigine stretched his long neck and batted the merlin to the side, sending him sprawling in the dirt. He snapped a foot down over the Captain's chest.
Staring up between the egret's toes, Captain Popper had time to realize what a complete and total idiot he was.
He also had time to realize that, from this position, that beak was possibly the most enormous beak he'd ever seen. And the sharpest. And the scariest.
Captain Popper seriously considered wetting himself.
"You know, if you hadn't have been so determined to gloat, I probably couldn't have done that." Aborigine said, matter of factly. Popper swallowed.
The egret nudged Popper's head to the side, pushing the tip of his beak into the jawbone.
"You have very boring eyes." He said irritably, and Popper felt the beak move across the feathers of his neck. "They're dull as paper. Not bright, not shining. Not silver, not blue. Just eyes." He tapped him. "I suppose eyes are eyes, though. They work just the same, do they not? You can see me. The whole of your body is filled with light, because of your eyes. The humans got that right, at least."
Aborigine abruptly pressed down, crushing the breath from Popper's lungs. The merlin gave a squeak.
He thought this was surely the end of him, but Aborigine paused for a moment, and cocked his head. Popper couldn't breathe. He wriggled against Aborigine's foot but the claw held him tight, and his head couldn't quite reach to bite his toes. Aborigine wasn't paying attention to him.
"Oh, tell me that's not." The egret said, his voice dripping with amusement. "Surely that's not."
Popper could hear it now, the ground thumping with the feet of jackrabbits, the crash of the bramble as they ploughed through it. Squirming enough leeway for a quick, shallow breath, Popper arched his neck and stared in utter confusion as the undergrowth crashed open and not jackrabbits, but jackalopes, poured in through the opening. Aborigine stood there calmly, smirking, as the rabbits curled around him in a defensive crescent. In the middle, the male with the largest rack of antlers was carrying a passenger; a freckled, blue, bucktoothed potions store clerk.
"Let Captain Popper go!" Picadilly shouted, sounding suddenly like he had nerve.
Aborigine gave Popper a little squish, wringing an eep and bug eyes out of him.
"Oh, you mean THIS Captain Popper?"
Picadilly's glow flared nastily. "Aborigine, you let him go, or so help me you'll be trampled and the pups are gonna play kickball with your head!"
The egret seemed to think about that. "You know, that would be interesting. I somehow can't imagine my head rolls all that well. It's rather a funny shape, don't you think?"
Picadilly growled and tightened his fists on the prongs of the jackalope's antlers.
"I warned you, Aborigine!"
With a chattered command from their leader the jackalopes surged forward in a mass of fur and horn and Aborigine snatched Captain Popper in his beak and ran. Popper gasped his air and started to flail, but his wings hung out pointlessly on either side of Aborigine's beak and didn't affect him one bit.
Aldus Aborigine could run fast, but the jackalopes could run faster, and he hadn't made it very far before his rear end was met with the sharp points of a pair of antlers. Aborigine yelped and dropped the bird. A little female with only two nubs for her horns darted between his legs and snatched up Popper before the Captain could get to his feet, running off with him held precariously by the skin of his back.
"I AM NOT A BALL!" Captain Popper bellowed indignantly. Every living thing ignored him.
"Go, Lavidia!" Picadilly crowed happily as the little horned female pulled out ahead of the herd. Popper hung dangerously under her forefeet as she ran. The jackalopes split and poured around him like water, and now it was Aborigine's turn to chase, snarling and cursing and unable to get himself aloft with the underbrush pressing in on all sides. His long legs popped him over the ground in long one-two steps and the herd began to spread, becoming a wave in front of him. The fairy's glow, however, kept him all too well centered on his prey.
Picadilly's light abruptly shivered, and, infuriated as he was, Captain Popper did not comprehend the implications of this until he struck the ward and felt his pulse stutter helplessly as the muscles in his chest constricted. He missed his next step. His blood was electric before he struck the dirt; boiling, bursting, pushing lightning bolts of pain through his system as the little ball of magic tucked carelessly in his ribs reacted with the Heart's ward. Picadilly, suddenly realizing his pursuant was no longer there, called the herd to a stop and turned around, wary.
Aborigine was sprawled in the dirt, his wings splayed to the side and legs kicking spasmodically against the ground. His beak has spread open and dirt was working its way in around the lolling tongue. His pupils were hidden by the upper lid of his eye.
Lavidia put the Captain down, and he puffed indignantly.
"Popper! What's happening to him?" Picadilly called over his shoulder. Captain Popper waddled through the herd and stood there, staring for a moment with the rest of them. "It looks like he's having a seizure." The fairy said.
Popper frowned. "He's probably faking it to make us come closer."
"I don't think so." Picadilly winced. "He's not even shutting his eyes. Look."
Despite the fact his head was jammed down into the dirt, Aborigine's mouth and eyes were open, and bits of dirt were clinging to the white membrane that still showed. His tongue had pulled rotted bits of leaves and pine needles into his throat. He'd have choked if it wasn't seized shut.
"I think he's really dying." Picadilly said, with the hushed, awed tone you only use in a marvelous museum, or a haunted house. Aborigine gave a great choking sound and the dirt in his beak turned to a seeping, red mud. Popper cursed.
No. He definitely wasn't faking it.