***
31
***
For once, it wasn't General Tory who was holding up matters; it was his wife. General Tory had fallen asleep an hour before dawn, an hour before the merlin Captain, the potions clerk, the Councilman, and an unconscious, levitating egret showed up. Colonel Cobby had long since gone back home to sleep it off, and the only creatures present to meet then were a snoring General and an irritated little puff of feathers who looked like a shorter, paler Tory. She acted like it, too.
"Shoo! Go away!" she hissed, snapping her wings irritably. She had a voice too high for her body. It made her sound like a dormouse. "The general is sleeping. You'll have to come back later!"
"Lady, this bird's gotta go to prison!" Picadilly growled, putting his fists on his hips. "Just move off and let us through!"
She cuffed him with her primaries.
"Don't sass me!" she snapped. "My husband's been working since last sundown! If he can't come home because of the likes of you tromping around the island, the least you can do is let him get some sleep!"
Captain Popper, laying the charm on as thick as his affected accent would allow, tried his turn. "My dear lady, we have no desire to wake your husband out of his well deserved rest. We simply need to take this egret in to be held in jail until the King can review his sentence."
Mrs. Tory cuffed him too. "I'm not your lady and I hate kiss ups! Now get yourselves off this island before I make girls out of the lot of you!"
Councilman Tiddly was not helping their case. He was just standing there by Aborigine's foot, arms crossed, watching his guppy nose around the sand with a bland expression. Picadilly glared at him.
"Tiddly, you outrank her husband. Get us past!" he hissed.
Tiddly gave him a bland look. "Why?"
"Because Lynada's Liquid Romance has an eight year shelf life." He said slyly. "And not even you would be dumb enough to throw away an expensive potion like that. You've got another four doses in that bottle. Who wants to bet you've got it tucked up in your medicine chest?"
Tiddly went a little pale.
"Possession plus a quick detecting spell of your mother's potion intake." Picadilly clicked his tongue. "And I could prove it all before you could get your sorry butt home and dump the potion."
Tiddly glowered at him. Picadilly just smirked.
"I could have you killed for this." Tiddly muttered under his breath as he plastered on his most diplomatic smile and approached the General's wife. Picadilly tongued his buck teeth at him.
***
"Peter? Peter, are you listening?" Thombelse asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
Peter blinked at her. "What?"
Councilwoman Thombelse gave Marvella a dark look "You didn't happen to change anything else around while you were in there, did you?"
"No, of course not!" Marvella said quickly. "He's just a little disoriented. It might take awhile to relearn the lines in his head. Just keep going." She waved a hand dismissively.
The flea woman brushed a strand of hair from her face and eyed Peter critically.
"Peter, tell me what happened with Tybalt. When did you first learn he was to be tried for murder?"
"Spring." He said. "After the snow melt. A messenger came and told me."
"And what did he tell you about it?"
Peter frowned. "He said Tybalt was caught burning bodies. You could smell it all over the island."
Curly and Nibs were staring at Peter with wide, shocked expressions; they had never been told what had happened.
"And whose bodies were they?" Thombelse asked carefully.
The Councilman next to her hissed "Thom, is this really necessary? Why not just ask what we want to know?"
"Because if he doesn't remember everything else correctly, we won't know he's remembering the spell correctly. Tybalt was such a hopeless academic he probably dug up the exact spell that old biddy used on Peter, and I don't even want to think what would happen if we flubbed up HER kind of magic." Thombelse turned back to Peter. "Peter? The bodies? Who were they?"
The boy was looking a little glassy. "I…I think…Lost Boys. And a fairy."
"Which Lost Boys, Peter?"
"Caps and Ledger."
Curly's mouth dropped open, fishlike, and an elbow in the ribs made him snap it shut again.
"And why was he burning the bodies, Peter? What did he say to the fairies that caught him?"
"He...he said…he…"
"He what, Peter?"
"He said he killed them. All of them. He said he was sick of people bothering him when he was reading." Peter blurted. Wendy made a little horrified sound and caught his hand
"Oh Peter! That's terrible!"
"What happened to him?" Thombelse asked.
"He went to trial. He didn't try to deny anything. He wasn't even afraid when Oberon sentenced him."
"And what was the sentence?"
"Death by disbelief."
Peter was rattling off the replies now, his eyes not focused. The knot that was his mind was throwing an absolute tantrum trying to shake Marvella's coil loose, with no result.
"When was he executed?"
"Two days later." Peter said.
"Did you go visit him in those two days?"
"…yes."
"What did he say to you?"
Peter's mind protested, twisting the coil as best it could but unable to cut if off.
"Peter? What did he say?"
The boy was not listening. Wendy nervously leaned forward to look at his eyes, which had unfocused, twitching back and forth as his mind tried to connect.
"Peter?" she asked, squeezing his hand.
Peter pulled back abruptly, clapping both his hands over his mouth and staring at the council with an abject, lonesome horror. His stomach felt weak.
He stammered "Caps and Ledger…Tybalt didn't….he didn't…."
"Tybalt didn't what, Peter?" Thombelse asked, leaning forward ever so slightly.
Peter faltered and shut his eyes.
"Nothing." He said shakily, heat spreading through his ribs, and he almost thought he was aging. "Nothing..."
***
Small Monday Island, five years previous. Spring.
Peter didn't need the fairy escort to find the cell where Tybalt was jailed. Fairies weren't held, as a rule, and they'd had to hire a pair of badgers to pull the iron jail-cage out from the cellars. The cage had been hung on a silver hook off the side of the palace's clock tower, and had been perfectly wrought to hold a canary, or a finch, or a fairy.
The clock tower only went up to Peter's brow, when he landed by it. On the roof of the tower was a stout little guard in a helmet and a sterling chest plate, giving him a bland look. Peter pushed his nose up to the bar of the cage and frowned at it. Tybalt was sprawled out haphazardly on the floor, his wings pinned together with a pearled straight pin and his garnet glasses cracked in his vest pocket. The little fairy did not look up.
"Tybalt?" Peter asked, tapping the bars and making the whole cage sway. The fairy opened one bleary eye and appraised him.
"Peter?" Tybalt hauled himself up to a slumped position and blinking against the sun. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you." he said. "The messenger said you confessed to killing some people. Who did you kill, Tybalt?"
The fairy gave a hoarse laugh and fell back, flopping an arm over his forehead. The iron was sapping his strength. "You don't even remember, do you, Peter?"
"Remember what?"
"Your boys." Tybalt fell into a smile Peter didn't know how to interpret. "Your two eldest boys; Caps and Ledger. They've been dead since the fall."
Confused, Peter shook his head. "I never had any boys called Caps and Ledger."
Tybalt chuckled. "I know you haven't. Don't worry yourself about it, Peter."
"Oh, I wasn't worrying." Peter said brightly. "How did you ever get the nerve to kill anyone though, Tybalt? You're a coward. All you ever do is read books and ramble at me about them. You always fly up out of the way whenever there's danger, how did you ever manage to kill three people?"
Tybalt stared at him, eyes wet and amused. As an afterthought, Peter added "Not even Nibs has killed three people."
Tybalt outright laughed. "I suppose I finally found my cause for violence."
The boy beamed at him, though he obviously had no idea what he was talking about, and Tybalt felt a sudden jab of pain behind his heart. He wished he could say that he'd miss Peter.
"So how are you breaking out?" Peter asked in a conspiratal whisper. "Do you want me to distract the guard while you pick the lock?"
Tybalt's heart faltered, and the ache stuttered with it. A few moments later it was back, burningly bright. Peter was smiling mischievously.
"Peter, I'm not going to escape!" He said, amazed. Peter's smile flickered.
"Of course you're going to escape! The messenger said there's going to be an execution. You don't want to be around when they try that, do you?"
"Not really, Peter." Tybalt said mournfully, all too aware how pathetic his voice sounded. "But I'm going to stay."
Peter blinked. "They'll kill you!" he blurted.
Tybalt nodded. "I know."
The boy was staring at him with horror and dawning comprehension. Tybalt thought he would rather be asked to skin himself alive than to see his Peter look like that anymore.
"I have to do it." He said pleadingly. "Peter, please believe me. I have to do it!"
"WHY?" The boy was backing away from the cage. Suddenly afraid to have said his last words, Tybalt thrust his arm out through the bars, the iron stinging him.
"Peter, come back. Peter." He hissed desperately. "Peter, PLEASE!"
Peter faltered. Tybalt motioned him back, careful, like he was trying to keep a deer from bolting. The boy crept back towards the cage warily.
"Peter," Tybalt pleaded, putting his head against the burning bars. "I don't want to leave you, you must know that. You do know that, don't you? I wouldn't leave you if there were any other choice."
Peter shook his head, determinedly obstinate.
"Oh Peter." Tybalt sighed. He stretched in the air for something to touch, and Peter dropped his head forward, hiding his eyes and letting the fairy stroke his hair into order.
"I don't want to leave you." he assured, burying his hands in the warmth and the scent of Peter Pan. "You and your boys are the only things that ever made me want to stay. And I want to stay. But Peter," He tugged the boy's hair, and Peter looked up, his eyes too wet. "Sometimes you have to do things because they need to be done, not because you want to do them. This thing has to happen. Do you understand that, Peter?"
The boy gave no response.
Tybalt fell to outright begging. "I need you to understand, Peter! Even if you don't know why I'm doing this or why it has to happen, just trust me that it's for a good reason. Can you do that, if nothing else?"
Peter's voice sounded small. "I don't want you to die, Tybalt."
Tybalt faltered. "I-I know, Peter…" He reached his hand out again, and Peter obediently bowed his head. He wanted to miss that hair. He wanted to miss that boy.
"Peter, do you want to hear a story?" he asked softly. Peter stared at him.
"It's a very secret story. Something no one else is supposed to know. Can you keep that secret?" he asked. Peter nodded. Peter always collected secrets, but he always forgot them, or worse, told them. Tybalt knew that.
Peter nodded anyway, and the guard on the top of the tower leaned in on his elbows, eavesdropping. Tybalt ignored him.
"Not so long ago, in a place not so very far away," Tybalt began, consciously slipping into storyteller mode. "there was a king who ruled six subject. And his subjects loved him dearly, enough to do anything for him, even kill. Did you ever love anyone that much, Peter?"
The boy shook his head adamantly. Tybalt smiled.
"I know you haven't. But it IS possible to love someone that much. You must know that, at least."
Peter said nothing.
"This king was a good king. But this king had a secret, a secret so secret not even the king knew about it. His blood, you see, wasn't good blood. Not all of it. There was enough bad blood in him that it sometimes outweighed the good, and when it did, it made him do terrible things. Everyone knew he didn't mean to, but sometimes, what the blood made him do was unpardonable, even for a king, even for a king who didn't mean to. So his council was going to have to punish him."
"What did he do?"
Tybalt smiled. "Nothing he meant to. It was the blood that made him do it, and his subjects knew this. If they didn't do something, the king was going to be punished for a crime he never meant to commit, so one of the subjects did the only thing he could do."
Tybalt's face wavered a moment.
"When the council demanded to know who had broken their laws, who had committed the king's crimes, his subject stepped forward…He took the blame."
Peter stared at him. "Why would he do that?"
Tybalt was quiet for a moment. Whether it was because he didn't know the answer, or because he was too ashamed to say it, he wasn't sure.
"H-he knew great magics, you know." Tybalt said, taking the long way around. "The subject, that is. And for everything he knew there was only one magic that could get the king out of trouble, only one great, secret, wonderful spell, which he would take with him to the grave."
"What spell?"
Tybalt faltered again, and then swallowed, and gestured Peter closer to the cage. The boy turned his ear to the bars, and still separated by the sharp iron Tybalt leaned against the shell of his ear and knotted a lock of dark hair in his hand. "Th..the magic…" he paused and swallowed against his protesting brain, too well trained to admit anything directly. "The magic…was to love him enough…to love him so much…to be able to say goodbye…"
Peter pulled back, and stared at the fairy in confusion. Tybalt's face had gone blotchy and he turned his back on Peter, sniffing and pressing a knuckle to his forehead. When he turned back around he looked alright.
"Why is that story a secret?" Peter asked, looking utterly baffled.
It hadn't sunk in. Tybalt had known it probably wouldn't. That was the only reason he'd been able to say it, even so cryptically. "It just is." He told Peter. "Don't tell anyone what I said. And…and don't tell anyone the spell. The spell is just for you to know, Peter."
Tybalt looked self conscious. Peter nodded anyway.
"You're going to go now, Peter." Tybalt said. His voice was a little wavery.
Peter stared. "I'll…I'll see you again, won't I?"
"No, you won't." Tybalt whispered.
"W-what about…when you're dead?" Peter asked. "Sometimes they let me take little dead children half way to heaven. Maybe they'll let me take you, too."
It sounded so hopeful, Tybalt's jaw wouldn't work for a moment. His throat hurt to say it. "Peter…fairies…fairies don't…" He managed a breath, straightening himself and trying to look composed. "Fairies don't have souls, Peter. You know that. You won't be able to take me to heaven...we only get one goodbye."
Peter's face split open and that horrified look came back, the look Tybalt never wanted to see, but it was ever so much worse this time. Peter looked betrayed. Tybalt almost wished he'd been selfish and not told Peter, letting him find out after he was dead so he wouldn't have to see that look. But he couldn't do that to the boy. He just couldn't.
Peter was backing away again. Tybalt couldn't make himself cry out to him; the boy turned and shot away into the sky, disappearing over the trees like a bird. Tybalt stared after him for a long time.
The next day, as the sun went down, Peter Pan returned to Small Monday Island for the execution. He was a behemoth among the fairies, a vast presence in their city too large to ignore, and far too large not to. Attended by a crowd of nearly a thousand, Tybalt's cage was lowered into the square, and two heavily gloved guardsmen unlocked the door and let the prisoner go. Tybalt couldn't fly and he didn't put up any fuss as they bound his wrists in front of his stomach with iron wire. Peter half-hid behind the clock tower, waiting for Tybalt to show he was lying and make a break for it, but not really expecting him to.
The fairy kept his dignity beautifully. He walked, unescorted, to the center of the square, and kneeled gracefully on the appointed place.
Peter also waited for Tybalt to look up at him. It didn't happen.
From a wide door in the side of the palace, the stunted king stepped from the shadows, flanked by six royal guards in full armament. Tybalt waited silently while King Oberon paced the distance to his duty. He stood and stared at the waiting fairy for a moment, then carefully reached around behind him and pulled the pearled straight pin out from Tybalt's wings, letting the thin, damaged appendages fall mindlessly to their respective sides. Oberon leaned down and put his lips to Tybalt's ear, and now, finally, as the lethal words of disbelief were formed, Tybalt's eyes darted up frantically to catch Peter's face, burning the image into his retinas as he faded.
Tybalt died quietly.
Peter left the same way.
***
Thombelse almost didn't hear him as Peter murmured "There is no spell."
"What was that?" she asked automatically.
Peter swallowed. He was shaking. "There is no spell."
"Nonsense!" she snapped. "The guard clearly heard Tybalt say—"
"Your guard is a fool!" Peter shouted. The council stared at him in shock. "There is no spell! There never was! Tybalt is dead and there WAS NO SPELL!"
His voice split into the high register of hysterics, and Wendy tried to hold him there but he'd already disappeared. Peter Pan flew away from the fairy council, his eyes burning and his throat seized shut, thinking of straight pins and spectacles and Ledger's shrill, disbelieving scream.
31
***
For once, it wasn't General Tory who was holding up matters; it was his wife. General Tory had fallen asleep an hour before dawn, an hour before the merlin Captain, the potions clerk, the Councilman, and an unconscious, levitating egret showed up. Colonel Cobby had long since gone back home to sleep it off, and the only creatures present to meet then were a snoring General and an irritated little puff of feathers who looked like a shorter, paler Tory. She acted like it, too.
"Shoo! Go away!" she hissed, snapping her wings irritably. She had a voice too high for her body. It made her sound like a dormouse. "The general is sleeping. You'll have to come back later!"
"Lady, this bird's gotta go to prison!" Picadilly growled, putting his fists on his hips. "Just move off and let us through!"
She cuffed him with her primaries.
"Don't sass me!" she snapped. "My husband's been working since last sundown! If he can't come home because of the likes of you tromping around the island, the least you can do is let him get some sleep!"
Captain Popper, laying the charm on as thick as his affected accent would allow, tried his turn. "My dear lady, we have no desire to wake your husband out of his well deserved rest. We simply need to take this egret in to be held in jail until the King can review his sentence."
Mrs. Tory cuffed him too. "I'm not your lady and I hate kiss ups! Now get yourselves off this island before I make girls out of the lot of you!"
Councilman Tiddly was not helping their case. He was just standing there by Aborigine's foot, arms crossed, watching his guppy nose around the sand with a bland expression. Picadilly glared at him.
"Tiddly, you outrank her husband. Get us past!" he hissed.
Tiddly gave him a bland look. "Why?"
"Because Lynada's Liquid Romance has an eight year shelf life." He said slyly. "And not even you would be dumb enough to throw away an expensive potion like that. You've got another four doses in that bottle. Who wants to bet you've got it tucked up in your medicine chest?"
Tiddly went a little pale.
"Possession plus a quick detecting spell of your mother's potion intake." Picadilly clicked his tongue. "And I could prove it all before you could get your sorry butt home and dump the potion."
Tiddly glowered at him. Picadilly just smirked.
"I could have you killed for this." Tiddly muttered under his breath as he plastered on his most diplomatic smile and approached the General's wife. Picadilly tongued his buck teeth at him.
***
"Peter? Peter, are you listening?" Thombelse asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
Peter blinked at her. "What?"
Councilwoman Thombelse gave Marvella a dark look "You didn't happen to change anything else around while you were in there, did you?"
"No, of course not!" Marvella said quickly. "He's just a little disoriented. It might take awhile to relearn the lines in his head. Just keep going." She waved a hand dismissively.
The flea woman brushed a strand of hair from her face and eyed Peter critically.
"Peter, tell me what happened with Tybalt. When did you first learn he was to be tried for murder?"
"Spring." He said. "After the snow melt. A messenger came and told me."
"And what did he tell you about it?"
Peter frowned. "He said Tybalt was caught burning bodies. You could smell it all over the island."
Curly and Nibs were staring at Peter with wide, shocked expressions; they had never been told what had happened.
"And whose bodies were they?" Thombelse asked carefully.
The Councilman next to her hissed "Thom, is this really necessary? Why not just ask what we want to know?"
"Because if he doesn't remember everything else correctly, we won't know he's remembering the spell correctly. Tybalt was such a hopeless academic he probably dug up the exact spell that old biddy used on Peter, and I don't even want to think what would happen if we flubbed up HER kind of magic." Thombelse turned back to Peter. "Peter? The bodies? Who were they?"
The boy was looking a little glassy. "I…I think…Lost Boys. And a fairy."
"Which Lost Boys, Peter?"
"Caps and Ledger."
Curly's mouth dropped open, fishlike, and an elbow in the ribs made him snap it shut again.
"And why was he burning the bodies, Peter? What did he say to the fairies that caught him?"
"He...he said…he…"
"He what, Peter?"
"He said he killed them. All of them. He said he was sick of people bothering him when he was reading." Peter blurted. Wendy made a little horrified sound and caught his hand
"Oh Peter! That's terrible!"
"What happened to him?" Thombelse asked.
"He went to trial. He didn't try to deny anything. He wasn't even afraid when Oberon sentenced him."
"And what was the sentence?"
"Death by disbelief."
Peter was rattling off the replies now, his eyes not focused. The knot that was his mind was throwing an absolute tantrum trying to shake Marvella's coil loose, with no result.
"When was he executed?"
"Two days later." Peter said.
"Did you go visit him in those two days?"
"…yes."
"What did he say to you?"
Peter's mind protested, twisting the coil as best it could but unable to cut if off.
"Peter? What did he say?"
The boy was not listening. Wendy nervously leaned forward to look at his eyes, which had unfocused, twitching back and forth as his mind tried to connect.
"Peter?" she asked, squeezing his hand.
Peter pulled back abruptly, clapping both his hands over his mouth and staring at the council with an abject, lonesome horror. His stomach felt weak.
He stammered "Caps and Ledger…Tybalt didn't….he didn't…."
"Tybalt didn't what, Peter?" Thombelse asked, leaning forward ever so slightly.
Peter faltered and shut his eyes.
"Nothing." He said shakily, heat spreading through his ribs, and he almost thought he was aging. "Nothing..."
***
Small Monday Island, five years previous. Spring.
Peter didn't need the fairy escort to find the cell where Tybalt was jailed. Fairies weren't held, as a rule, and they'd had to hire a pair of badgers to pull the iron jail-cage out from the cellars. The cage had been hung on a silver hook off the side of the palace's clock tower, and had been perfectly wrought to hold a canary, or a finch, or a fairy.
The clock tower only went up to Peter's brow, when he landed by it. On the roof of the tower was a stout little guard in a helmet and a sterling chest plate, giving him a bland look. Peter pushed his nose up to the bar of the cage and frowned at it. Tybalt was sprawled out haphazardly on the floor, his wings pinned together with a pearled straight pin and his garnet glasses cracked in his vest pocket. The little fairy did not look up.
"Tybalt?" Peter asked, tapping the bars and making the whole cage sway. The fairy opened one bleary eye and appraised him.
"Peter?" Tybalt hauled himself up to a slumped position and blinking against the sun. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you." he said. "The messenger said you confessed to killing some people. Who did you kill, Tybalt?"
The fairy gave a hoarse laugh and fell back, flopping an arm over his forehead. The iron was sapping his strength. "You don't even remember, do you, Peter?"
"Remember what?"
"Your boys." Tybalt fell into a smile Peter didn't know how to interpret. "Your two eldest boys; Caps and Ledger. They've been dead since the fall."
Confused, Peter shook his head. "I never had any boys called Caps and Ledger."
Tybalt chuckled. "I know you haven't. Don't worry yourself about it, Peter."
"Oh, I wasn't worrying." Peter said brightly. "How did you ever get the nerve to kill anyone though, Tybalt? You're a coward. All you ever do is read books and ramble at me about them. You always fly up out of the way whenever there's danger, how did you ever manage to kill three people?"
Tybalt stared at him, eyes wet and amused. As an afterthought, Peter added "Not even Nibs has killed three people."
Tybalt outright laughed. "I suppose I finally found my cause for violence."
The boy beamed at him, though he obviously had no idea what he was talking about, and Tybalt felt a sudden jab of pain behind his heart. He wished he could say that he'd miss Peter.
"So how are you breaking out?" Peter asked in a conspiratal whisper. "Do you want me to distract the guard while you pick the lock?"
Tybalt's heart faltered, and the ache stuttered with it. A few moments later it was back, burningly bright. Peter was smiling mischievously.
"Peter, I'm not going to escape!" He said, amazed. Peter's smile flickered.
"Of course you're going to escape! The messenger said there's going to be an execution. You don't want to be around when they try that, do you?"
"Not really, Peter." Tybalt said mournfully, all too aware how pathetic his voice sounded. "But I'm going to stay."
Peter blinked. "They'll kill you!" he blurted.
Tybalt nodded. "I know."
The boy was staring at him with horror and dawning comprehension. Tybalt thought he would rather be asked to skin himself alive than to see his Peter look like that anymore.
"I have to do it." He said pleadingly. "Peter, please believe me. I have to do it!"
"WHY?" The boy was backing away from the cage. Suddenly afraid to have said his last words, Tybalt thrust his arm out through the bars, the iron stinging him.
"Peter, come back. Peter." He hissed desperately. "Peter, PLEASE!"
Peter faltered. Tybalt motioned him back, careful, like he was trying to keep a deer from bolting. The boy crept back towards the cage warily.
"Peter," Tybalt pleaded, putting his head against the burning bars. "I don't want to leave you, you must know that. You do know that, don't you? I wouldn't leave you if there were any other choice."
Peter shook his head, determinedly obstinate.
"Oh Peter." Tybalt sighed. He stretched in the air for something to touch, and Peter dropped his head forward, hiding his eyes and letting the fairy stroke his hair into order.
"I don't want to leave you." he assured, burying his hands in the warmth and the scent of Peter Pan. "You and your boys are the only things that ever made me want to stay. And I want to stay. But Peter," He tugged the boy's hair, and Peter looked up, his eyes too wet. "Sometimes you have to do things because they need to be done, not because you want to do them. This thing has to happen. Do you understand that, Peter?"
The boy gave no response.
Tybalt fell to outright begging. "I need you to understand, Peter! Even if you don't know why I'm doing this or why it has to happen, just trust me that it's for a good reason. Can you do that, if nothing else?"
Peter's voice sounded small. "I don't want you to die, Tybalt."
Tybalt faltered. "I-I know, Peter…" He reached his hand out again, and Peter obediently bowed his head. He wanted to miss that hair. He wanted to miss that boy.
"Peter, do you want to hear a story?" he asked softly. Peter stared at him.
"It's a very secret story. Something no one else is supposed to know. Can you keep that secret?" he asked. Peter nodded. Peter always collected secrets, but he always forgot them, or worse, told them. Tybalt knew that.
Peter nodded anyway, and the guard on the top of the tower leaned in on his elbows, eavesdropping. Tybalt ignored him.
"Not so long ago, in a place not so very far away," Tybalt began, consciously slipping into storyteller mode. "there was a king who ruled six subject. And his subjects loved him dearly, enough to do anything for him, even kill. Did you ever love anyone that much, Peter?"
The boy shook his head adamantly. Tybalt smiled.
"I know you haven't. But it IS possible to love someone that much. You must know that, at least."
Peter said nothing.
"This king was a good king. But this king had a secret, a secret so secret not even the king knew about it. His blood, you see, wasn't good blood. Not all of it. There was enough bad blood in him that it sometimes outweighed the good, and when it did, it made him do terrible things. Everyone knew he didn't mean to, but sometimes, what the blood made him do was unpardonable, even for a king, even for a king who didn't mean to. So his council was going to have to punish him."
"What did he do?"
Tybalt smiled. "Nothing he meant to. It was the blood that made him do it, and his subjects knew this. If they didn't do something, the king was going to be punished for a crime he never meant to commit, so one of the subjects did the only thing he could do."
Tybalt's face wavered a moment.
"When the council demanded to know who had broken their laws, who had committed the king's crimes, his subject stepped forward…He took the blame."
Peter stared at him. "Why would he do that?"
Tybalt was quiet for a moment. Whether it was because he didn't know the answer, or because he was too ashamed to say it, he wasn't sure.
"H-he knew great magics, you know." Tybalt said, taking the long way around. "The subject, that is. And for everything he knew there was only one magic that could get the king out of trouble, only one great, secret, wonderful spell, which he would take with him to the grave."
"What spell?"
Tybalt faltered again, and then swallowed, and gestured Peter closer to the cage. The boy turned his ear to the bars, and still separated by the sharp iron Tybalt leaned against the shell of his ear and knotted a lock of dark hair in his hand. "Th..the magic…" he paused and swallowed against his protesting brain, too well trained to admit anything directly. "The magic…was to love him enough…to love him so much…to be able to say goodbye…"
Peter pulled back, and stared at the fairy in confusion. Tybalt's face had gone blotchy and he turned his back on Peter, sniffing and pressing a knuckle to his forehead. When he turned back around he looked alright.
"Why is that story a secret?" Peter asked, looking utterly baffled.
It hadn't sunk in. Tybalt had known it probably wouldn't. That was the only reason he'd been able to say it, even so cryptically. "It just is." He told Peter. "Don't tell anyone what I said. And…and don't tell anyone the spell. The spell is just for you to know, Peter."
Tybalt looked self conscious. Peter nodded anyway.
"You're going to go now, Peter." Tybalt said. His voice was a little wavery.
Peter stared. "I'll…I'll see you again, won't I?"
"No, you won't." Tybalt whispered.
"W-what about…when you're dead?" Peter asked. "Sometimes they let me take little dead children half way to heaven. Maybe they'll let me take you, too."
It sounded so hopeful, Tybalt's jaw wouldn't work for a moment. His throat hurt to say it. "Peter…fairies…fairies don't…" He managed a breath, straightening himself and trying to look composed. "Fairies don't have souls, Peter. You know that. You won't be able to take me to heaven...we only get one goodbye."
Peter's face split open and that horrified look came back, the look Tybalt never wanted to see, but it was ever so much worse this time. Peter looked betrayed. Tybalt almost wished he'd been selfish and not told Peter, letting him find out after he was dead so he wouldn't have to see that look. But he couldn't do that to the boy. He just couldn't.
Peter was backing away again. Tybalt couldn't make himself cry out to him; the boy turned and shot away into the sky, disappearing over the trees like a bird. Tybalt stared after him for a long time.
The next day, as the sun went down, Peter Pan returned to Small Monday Island for the execution. He was a behemoth among the fairies, a vast presence in their city too large to ignore, and far too large not to. Attended by a crowd of nearly a thousand, Tybalt's cage was lowered into the square, and two heavily gloved guardsmen unlocked the door and let the prisoner go. Tybalt couldn't fly and he didn't put up any fuss as they bound his wrists in front of his stomach with iron wire. Peter half-hid behind the clock tower, waiting for Tybalt to show he was lying and make a break for it, but not really expecting him to.
The fairy kept his dignity beautifully. He walked, unescorted, to the center of the square, and kneeled gracefully on the appointed place.
Peter also waited for Tybalt to look up at him. It didn't happen.
From a wide door in the side of the palace, the stunted king stepped from the shadows, flanked by six royal guards in full armament. Tybalt waited silently while King Oberon paced the distance to his duty. He stood and stared at the waiting fairy for a moment, then carefully reached around behind him and pulled the pearled straight pin out from Tybalt's wings, letting the thin, damaged appendages fall mindlessly to their respective sides. Oberon leaned down and put his lips to Tybalt's ear, and now, finally, as the lethal words of disbelief were formed, Tybalt's eyes darted up frantically to catch Peter's face, burning the image into his retinas as he faded.
Tybalt died quietly.
Peter left the same way.
***
Thombelse almost didn't hear him as Peter murmured "There is no spell."
"What was that?" she asked automatically.
Peter swallowed. He was shaking. "There is no spell."
"Nonsense!" she snapped. "The guard clearly heard Tybalt say—"
"Your guard is a fool!" Peter shouted. The council stared at him in shock. "There is no spell! There never was! Tybalt is dead and there WAS NO SPELL!"
His voice split into the high register of hysterics, and Wendy tried to hold him there but he'd already disappeared. Peter Pan flew away from the fairy council, his eyes burning and his throat seized shut, thinking of straight pins and spectacles and Ledger's shrill, disbelieving scream.