***
27
***
In retrospect, then was probably not the best time for Mullins to give Mason a black eye. Mason stumbled back into the black corridor, surprised, tripping on the mess of the vine net and landing on his rump.
"What the hell was that for??!" Mason snarled over the sound of Slightly's hysterics, pressing the heel of his hand over his offended eye.
Mullins growled and snatched in the darkness for the carpenter's collar.
"For standing there like a bleedin' statue, that's what! For letting that KID take your sword and put it through Hook's chest!" Mullins struck at him again, satisfied that Mason's reflexes were too slow to stop it. Mason crossed his arms over his head in an X.
"He saved your worthless hide, didn't he?!" He snapped.
"Slightly shouldn't have been the one to do it! Did you think you'd ever find your way out again if Hook had won and killed the boys!?"
Mason brought a knee up into Mullins' stomach, forcing him back. Mason scrambled up to his feet and glared.
"You won without me, you idiot!" he scrubbed a knuckle at the bead of blood on his lip. Mullins slugged him again.
"Like hell! The captain's back was turned and you didn't take the opportunity, so the kid DID! You KNEW what he was going to do with that sword! And you LET HIM DO IT!"
"So?!"
He tried to hit him again, but Mason dodged it.
"BELAY THAT!" Billy shouted, sounded for a moment very much like Hook. Both men looked at him, startled.
"We have to get out of here." He said, more softly. "You can duke it out once we get outside, but we need to get out of here FIRST."
Mullins almost asked why, aware only a moment later of the great cooling bulk behind the boys, gravity draining the blood out through the hole in its chest. The puddle crept progressively closer to their knees. Slightly wouldn't raise his face up from Billy's shoulder, and despite the fact his sobbing had wound down into silent trembling his fists had not let go of Billy's vest, bleaching into white claws against the blue.
"Alright." Mullins said, his voice forcing itself down into a gravelly monotone. "Billy'll have to lead. Mason stays in front of me in the dark."
Billy nodded. Carefully, he pulled back a bit, Slightly's face turning up automatically at the sudden loss of support. His face and eyes were red and wet and he looked far younger than Billy had ever realized him to be. Billy brushed a few clinging strands of hair out of the tracks of Slightly's tears.
"We're gonna leave. You have to stand up now, alright?"
"But what about—" his head started to turn, but Billy snatched his face and forced him to look straight ahead. Slightly hiccoughed and protested faintly "We have to bury him…"
"He's already buried. We're under the ground. Up." He pulled Slightly under the ribs and the boy cooperated, stumbling up to a shaky stand leaning heavily on his friend.
"You said—" He sniffled "You said no pirate ever rested in an earth bound grave."
Billy had him moving towards the exit of the chamber. Mason moved out of the way, staring. Perhaps it was finally sinking in the difference between a sailing boy and a Lost Boy.
Getting no answer, Slightly, like a dumbfounded parrot, said again. "Billy, you said…"
"Hook didn't die a pirate." Mullins answered for him. Billy shot him a quick thankful look.
"…Didn't?"
"No. He died on land, he'll stay on land." Mullins said, vaguely trying to herd the addled boy towards the exit. "Nothing'll find him down here, that's as good as buried in my book." He paused, then added "We'll leave him the light."
The fire was already dying, but it seemed to satisfy Slightly, who let Billy pull him into the darker path out of the cavern. When he got out into the daylight the shock would probably wear off, Mullins thought. He'd been twice Slightly's age when he killed a man for the first time. And then it had been from the front, fighting.
He jerked his head towards Mason, and the carpenter took the hint and followed them. Mullins stayed one moment longer. Hook had created a red slick beneath himself on the ground, and in the rapidly sinking firelight his body had begun to look no longer like a man at all, as the dead are wont to do. The cutlass stood out like a banner from his back. He could use that cutlass. But for the kid's sake, he didn't take it. Instead he collected the dagger from the ground and fixed it in his belt.
He thought he ought to have some witty parting shot now that Hook was actually dead. It didn't feel much like victory, though. There was no longer a pirate crew to command, even if Cookson and the suspiciously absent Starkey weren't dead. There wasn't any fresh blood on his hands (other than his own.) All there was was a body in the dark, a dying fire, and a puddle changing colors as it congealed. Mullins snorted and turned his back.
The sparrow, abruptly realizing that they had forgotten it, and was alone, in a cave, with a corpse, fell from its hiding place and shot out after the pirates.
"Wait for meeeeeee!"
***
At the border of the Heart of Neverland, Captain Popper was feeling more than a little smug. Aldus Aborigine was not moving, but the jackalopes were being quite productive, dragging in vine and strips of willowy bark. He may not have completed his mission, but there was no damned way he was going to let General Tory think of him as a useless sot. Instead, he would bring in Aborigine, who would be adding to his prison time a case of attempted murder.
Picadilly had ceased being useful not long after Popper had come upon this idea. He, being the only one among them with hands and opposing thumbs, would be necessary to tie together the sling they would carry Aborigine in. The leader of the herd had at first been resistant to helping them any more than he already had, but that little thing called Lavidia sat down in front of him and gave him begging doe eyes, and he relented. Popper figured she was either his daughter or his wife. However, despite being the one to convince him, Lavidia herself was being extraordinarily useless, wandering into the brush and packing back things like dandelion heads and bleeding hearts instead of vines. He was beginning to see why she and Picadilly got along so well.
"Will you put that down and come tie him up?! We're loosing the light!" Popper snapped. Picadilly, who had been sitting on the ground making puppets with snap dragon heads for Lavidia's amusement, frowned.
"You said to stay on this side of the ward."
"Yes, but he is not MOVING." Popper said slowly. "We must tie him up so we can carry him back to the island."
"What if he comes out of it?"
"Than you'll be the first thing he sees." Popper said smugly.
Picadilly rolled his eyes. "Your concern for my welfare is touching."
"Just get to it before I bite your wings off and stuff you down an ant hill."
"Haven't you used that threat before?" Picadilly said with a frown.
"PICADILLY!"
"I'm going I'm going." He grumbled. He set the snap dragon on Lavidia's head and tromped across the ward, snatching up the tail of an ivy vine as he went.
Aborigine's eye followed him closely as he dragged the vine over the top of his head. He got down on his knees to thread the cord under his beak, so as to bind it shut, but one of Aborigine's great stalkey legs twitched and began to slowly pull forward. Stealthy as it was, the motion went unnoticed until Lavidia let out a sharp warning bleat and jumped to her feet, the snap dragon tumbling off her forehead.
Things went quickly then: a dozen pairs of ears snapped to attention, including Picadilly's, but everyone instinctively looked towards Lavidia instead of Aborigine. The egret suddenly jerked on the ground like a startled serpent and his head reared up, flashing down again with an open maw and bright points of silver flashing in his beak. Picadilly squealed and powered his wings, and the beak snapped down only on a stitch of purple fabric, tearing an edge off his tunic as he shot away.
Aborigine was on his feet. He looked unsteady, nauseous, but he towered over all of them, his eyes only clear enough for limited thought.
The jackalopes pounded off into the Heart without prompting from their leader. Picadilly was missing somewhere in the brush behind Aborigine and Lavidia stood fast, her eyes searching for him.
Aborigine wobbled, and went for her. She shrieked, but the bird struck the ward and pitched forward into a feathery, unintelligent mess on the ground at Lavidia's feet. Deciding to be cautious, she hopped over to the other side of the ward again and sat down. Aborigine was apparently done with moving.
Captain Popper stuck his head out from the brush he'd disappeared into the moment Aborigine showed life. He puffed up to hide the fact he was shaking a little.
"Well done!"
She gave him a flat look. Slowly, the others began to filter back, looking very, very sheepish.
***
General Tory was fast asleep in the waning light when Peter and the boys came upon him. The night watch had yet to be summoned, and the tiny flammulated owl was snoring softly through his beak on a piece of driftwood, the beach mostly empty. The only other soul was a great grey owl sitting in the sand with her feathers puffed out, sniffing and blinking and looking generally miserable. She was, however, awake. She signaled the Lost Boys in the air as they approached.
"Cobby!" Peter said by way of greeting, ignoring her title of Colonel. He touched down on the sand and the rest of his lot followed suite. "We got a message."
Colonel Cobby sniffled. "My goodness, Peter Pan followed a royal order." She obviously had quite a cold. "Wake up General Tory. He knows where you're supposed to go."
The General did not want to be woken up. Peter poked the little owl in the chest and he just fluffed and ignored him. Peter tried again, then, feeling irritated, flicked the back of his head with his finger. Tory grumbled and opened one saucer eye slowly.
"Oh, bloody hell." The owl grumbled. He closed his eye again, and for a moment Peter thought he'd fallen back asleep, but Tory sighed and ruffled himself. "Right. Work. To it then." He looked at Peter, yawned enormously, and suddenly looked very much awake. "You got the message?"
"Yes, of course I got the message. I'm here, aren't I?"
Wendy, who was in current possession of the dove, asked politely "General sir, do you know why the Council wanted to see Peter?"
"Or me?" the dove piped.
Cobby snorted. General Tory gave her a withering look. "I believe the Council will tell you that. I've been ordered to get you there. You're all too big for the palace, so if you will please follow me?"
The owl hopped down from the piece of driftwood and began his slow trek across the sand, leaving chicken scratch markings behind him.
"Colonel Cobby! You have the Night Watch tonight!" He shouted back.
"Yeah yeah." She grumbled. "Some sick day this has been."
And went to sleep for a five minute wink before the watch changed.
***
The Neverland light had gone a deep, holy red when they saw it. The sun filtered in through trees and the mouth of the cave and streaked them all in bloody patches as they emerged, like men being born up out of the earth, or more likely, climbing out of the grave. The moment the light touched him, Slightly let go of Billy Jukes, and for a moment he looked open as a new wound. Then something behind his face slammed the shutters, and Slightly didn't look like anything at all.
Outside the lip of the cave they all came to a mindless halt and stared at the light as though they'd never seen such a thing. The sparrow, who had taken up in the brim of Mullins' hat, gave a quick chirrup and listened for replies. There were none. Billy stretched.
"So it's over then?" Mason asked. Mullins smacked the back of his head. Of course it wasn't over. It felt like it ought to be, though. After this enormous, terrible day, they ought to be able to go to sleep and wake up to a clean new world without the muck of yesterday dripping in.
Billy shook his head. "Someone has to stay up with me tonight. You can't let me fall asleep."
"I'll do it." Slightly said quickly.
"No ye won't." Mullins said. "Mason and I'll take shifts, four hours each, like any other duty."
"But if I do it we can take slightly shorter shifts."
"You're sleeping." Mullins ordered in his most authoritative tone. After a moment's thought he added "You can take third shift. If you want it."
Slightly nodded.
Dragging up the mountain side in search of a secure place to sleep, Billy drifted back to where Slightly was trailing behind them. The light was a diffused glow on the horizon, turning the world red around the edges as one star faded in, the final warning of the coming night. Slightly did not look up at him.
"…Billy?"
"Yeah cully?"
"…It's not really going to be okay, is it."
Billy watched the ground where they walked and sighed, the question bringing up a new weariness he didn't even know he had in him.
"I don't know, cully. I really don't."
27
***
In retrospect, then was probably not the best time for Mullins to give Mason a black eye. Mason stumbled back into the black corridor, surprised, tripping on the mess of the vine net and landing on his rump.
"What the hell was that for??!" Mason snarled over the sound of Slightly's hysterics, pressing the heel of his hand over his offended eye.
Mullins growled and snatched in the darkness for the carpenter's collar.
"For standing there like a bleedin' statue, that's what! For letting that KID take your sword and put it through Hook's chest!" Mullins struck at him again, satisfied that Mason's reflexes were too slow to stop it. Mason crossed his arms over his head in an X.
"He saved your worthless hide, didn't he?!" He snapped.
"Slightly shouldn't have been the one to do it! Did you think you'd ever find your way out again if Hook had won and killed the boys!?"
Mason brought a knee up into Mullins' stomach, forcing him back. Mason scrambled up to his feet and glared.
"You won without me, you idiot!" he scrubbed a knuckle at the bead of blood on his lip. Mullins slugged him again.
"Like hell! The captain's back was turned and you didn't take the opportunity, so the kid DID! You KNEW what he was going to do with that sword! And you LET HIM DO IT!"
"So?!"
He tried to hit him again, but Mason dodged it.
"BELAY THAT!" Billy shouted, sounded for a moment very much like Hook. Both men looked at him, startled.
"We have to get out of here." He said, more softly. "You can duke it out once we get outside, but we need to get out of here FIRST."
Mullins almost asked why, aware only a moment later of the great cooling bulk behind the boys, gravity draining the blood out through the hole in its chest. The puddle crept progressively closer to their knees. Slightly wouldn't raise his face up from Billy's shoulder, and despite the fact his sobbing had wound down into silent trembling his fists had not let go of Billy's vest, bleaching into white claws against the blue.
"Alright." Mullins said, his voice forcing itself down into a gravelly monotone. "Billy'll have to lead. Mason stays in front of me in the dark."
Billy nodded. Carefully, he pulled back a bit, Slightly's face turning up automatically at the sudden loss of support. His face and eyes were red and wet and he looked far younger than Billy had ever realized him to be. Billy brushed a few clinging strands of hair out of the tracks of Slightly's tears.
"We're gonna leave. You have to stand up now, alright?"
"But what about—" his head started to turn, but Billy snatched his face and forced him to look straight ahead. Slightly hiccoughed and protested faintly "We have to bury him…"
"He's already buried. We're under the ground. Up." He pulled Slightly under the ribs and the boy cooperated, stumbling up to a shaky stand leaning heavily on his friend.
"You said—" He sniffled "You said no pirate ever rested in an earth bound grave."
Billy had him moving towards the exit of the chamber. Mason moved out of the way, staring. Perhaps it was finally sinking in the difference between a sailing boy and a Lost Boy.
Getting no answer, Slightly, like a dumbfounded parrot, said again. "Billy, you said…"
"Hook didn't die a pirate." Mullins answered for him. Billy shot him a quick thankful look.
"…Didn't?"
"No. He died on land, he'll stay on land." Mullins said, vaguely trying to herd the addled boy towards the exit. "Nothing'll find him down here, that's as good as buried in my book." He paused, then added "We'll leave him the light."
The fire was already dying, but it seemed to satisfy Slightly, who let Billy pull him into the darker path out of the cavern. When he got out into the daylight the shock would probably wear off, Mullins thought. He'd been twice Slightly's age when he killed a man for the first time. And then it had been from the front, fighting.
He jerked his head towards Mason, and the carpenter took the hint and followed them. Mullins stayed one moment longer. Hook had created a red slick beneath himself on the ground, and in the rapidly sinking firelight his body had begun to look no longer like a man at all, as the dead are wont to do. The cutlass stood out like a banner from his back. He could use that cutlass. But for the kid's sake, he didn't take it. Instead he collected the dagger from the ground and fixed it in his belt.
He thought he ought to have some witty parting shot now that Hook was actually dead. It didn't feel much like victory, though. There was no longer a pirate crew to command, even if Cookson and the suspiciously absent Starkey weren't dead. There wasn't any fresh blood on his hands (other than his own.) All there was was a body in the dark, a dying fire, and a puddle changing colors as it congealed. Mullins snorted and turned his back.
The sparrow, abruptly realizing that they had forgotten it, and was alone, in a cave, with a corpse, fell from its hiding place and shot out after the pirates.
"Wait for meeeeeee!"
***
At the border of the Heart of Neverland, Captain Popper was feeling more than a little smug. Aldus Aborigine was not moving, but the jackalopes were being quite productive, dragging in vine and strips of willowy bark. He may not have completed his mission, but there was no damned way he was going to let General Tory think of him as a useless sot. Instead, he would bring in Aborigine, who would be adding to his prison time a case of attempted murder.
Picadilly had ceased being useful not long after Popper had come upon this idea. He, being the only one among them with hands and opposing thumbs, would be necessary to tie together the sling they would carry Aborigine in. The leader of the herd had at first been resistant to helping them any more than he already had, but that little thing called Lavidia sat down in front of him and gave him begging doe eyes, and he relented. Popper figured she was either his daughter or his wife. However, despite being the one to convince him, Lavidia herself was being extraordinarily useless, wandering into the brush and packing back things like dandelion heads and bleeding hearts instead of vines. He was beginning to see why she and Picadilly got along so well.
"Will you put that down and come tie him up?! We're loosing the light!" Popper snapped. Picadilly, who had been sitting on the ground making puppets with snap dragon heads for Lavidia's amusement, frowned.
"You said to stay on this side of the ward."
"Yes, but he is not MOVING." Popper said slowly. "We must tie him up so we can carry him back to the island."
"What if he comes out of it?"
"Than you'll be the first thing he sees." Popper said smugly.
Picadilly rolled his eyes. "Your concern for my welfare is touching."
"Just get to it before I bite your wings off and stuff you down an ant hill."
"Haven't you used that threat before?" Picadilly said with a frown.
"PICADILLY!"
"I'm going I'm going." He grumbled. He set the snap dragon on Lavidia's head and tromped across the ward, snatching up the tail of an ivy vine as he went.
Aborigine's eye followed him closely as he dragged the vine over the top of his head. He got down on his knees to thread the cord under his beak, so as to bind it shut, but one of Aborigine's great stalkey legs twitched and began to slowly pull forward. Stealthy as it was, the motion went unnoticed until Lavidia let out a sharp warning bleat and jumped to her feet, the snap dragon tumbling off her forehead.
Things went quickly then: a dozen pairs of ears snapped to attention, including Picadilly's, but everyone instinctively looked towards Lavidia instead of Aborigine. The egret suddenly jerked on the ground like a startled serpent and his head reared up, flashing down again with an open maw and bright points of silver flashing in his beak. Picadilly squealed and powered his wings, and the beak snapped down only on a stitch of purple fabric, tearing an edge off his tunic as he shot away.
Aborigine was on his feet. He looked unsteady, nauseous, but he towered over all of them, his eyes only clear enough for limited thought.
The jackalopes pounded off into the Heart without prompting from their leader. Picadilly was missing somewhere in the brush behind Aborigine and Lavidia stood fast, her eyes searching for him.
Aborigine wobbled, and went for her. She shrieked, but the bird struck the ward and pitched forward into a feathery, unintelligent mess on the ground at Lavidia's feet. Deciding to be cautious, she hopped over to the other side of the ward again and sat down. Aborigine was apparently done with moving.
Captain Popper stuck his head out from the brush he'd disappeared into the moment Aborigine showed life. He puffed up to hide the fact he was shaking a little.
"Well done!"
She gave him a flat look. Slowly, the others began to filter back, looking very, very sheepish.
***
General Tory was fast asleep in the waning light when Peter and the boys came upon him. The night watch had yet to be summoned, and the tiny flammulated owl was snoring softly through his beak on a piece of driftwood, the beach mostly empty. The only other soul was a great grey owl sitting in the sand with her feathers puffed out, sniffing and blinking and looking generally miserable. She was, however, awake. She signaled the Lost Boys in the air as they approached.
"Cobby!" Peter said by way of greeting, ignoring her title of Colonel. He touched down on the sand and the rest of his lot followed suite. "We got a message."
Colonel Cobby sniffled. "My goodness, Peter Pan followed a royal order." She obviously had quite a cold. "Wake up General Tory. He knows where you're supposed to go."
The General did not want to be woken up. Peter poked the little owl in the chest and he just fluffed and ignored him. Peter tried again, then, feeling irritated, flicked the back of his head with his finger. Tory grumbled and opened one saucer eye slowly.
"Oh, bloody hell." The owl grumbled. He closed his eye again, and for a moment Peter thought he'd fallen back asleep, but Tory sighed and ruffled himself. "Right. Work. To it then." He looked at Peter, yawned enormously, and suddenly looked very much awake. "You got the message?"
"Yes, of course I got the message. I'm here, aren't I?"
Wendy, who was in current possession of the dove, asked politely "General sir, do you know why the Council wanted to see Peter?"
"Or me?" the dove piped.
Cobby snorted. General Tory gave her a withering look. "I believe the Council will tell you that. I've been ordered to get you there. You're all too big for the palace, so if you will please follow me?"
The owl hopped down from the piece of driftwood and began his slow trek across the sand, leaving chicken scratch markings behind him.
"Colonel Cobby! You have the Night Watch tonight!" He shouted back.
"Yeah yeah." She grumbled. "Some sick day this has been."
And went to sleep for a five minute wink before the watch changed.
***
The Neverland light had gone a deep, holy red when they saw it. The sun filtered in through trees and the mouth of the cave and streaked them all in bloody patches as they emerged, like men being born up out of the earth, or more likely, climbing out of the grave. The moment the light touched him, Slightly let go of Billy Jukes, and for a moment he looked open as a new wound. Then something behind his face slammed the shutters, and Slightly didn't look like anything at all.
Outside the lip of the cave they all came to a mindless halt and stared at the light as though they'd never seen such a thing. The sparrow, who had taken up in the brim of Mullins' hat, gave a quick chirrup and listened for replies. There were none. Billy stretched.
"So it's over then?" Mason asked. Mullins smacked the back of his head. Of course it wasn't over. It felt like it ought to be, though. After this enormous, terrible day, they ought to be able to go to sleep and wake up to a clean new world without the muck of yesterday dripping in.
Billy shook his head. "Someone has to stay up with me tonight. You can't let me fall asleep."
"I'll do it." Slightly said quickly.
"No ye won't." Mullins said. "Mason and I'll take shifts, four hours each, like any other duty."
"But if I do it we can take slightly shorter shifts."
"You're sleeping." Mullins ordered in his most authoritative tone. After a moment's thought he added "You can take third shift. If you want it."
Slightly nodded.
Dragging up the mountain side in search of a secure place to sleep, Billy drifted back to where Slightly was trailing behind them. The light was a diffused glow on the horizon, turning the world red around the edges as one star faded in, the final warning of the coming night. Slightly did not look up at him.
"…Billy?"
"Yeah cully?"
"…It's not really going to be okay, is it."
Billy watched the ground where they walked and sighed, the question bringing up a new weariness he didn't even know he had in him.
"I don't know, cully. I really don't."