Gingerly, Nettle opened one eye. Her breath was shallow as if she'd run a marathon and her heart was beating fast. Her hand was still clasped tightly in the boy's and, as she looked up, he let go gently.

Wherever she was, she wasn't in her room. She looked around, her eyes taking in the large trees, and softly decomposing floor under her feet. It was suddenly very warm and humid, and she felt herself down shakily, trying to steady her frantically beating chest. She was crouching on the rotting leaf floor of a forest, surrounded by a ring of trees, their bark a rich brown and their leaves bright green and colourful, clearly intending to live their lives to the fullest extend and it made nettle smile to look at them. Ferns peeked around the large roots of the trees, and, as she looked, Nettle saw a brightly shining spark glittering with a light all of it's alone between the furry leaves.

She stood up carefully and looked at the boy again. The light was shining through his golden curls, making them look like a halo, and giving him a misleadingly angelic appearance – although this was deterred by the impression Nettle got that he was quite a way into his teens. As his feet touched slowly on the ground, she saw he was tall too.

            She laughed then, at the glint of mischief in his eye, as he sized her up, looking pleased with himself.

'Who are you?' she breathed in wonder. 'How… what… where are we?'

The boy smiled. 'What's your name, little weed?'

Nettle frowned haughtily. 'Weed?' exclaimed, indignantly. 'I'm not a weed.'

The boy smiled again, and there was a mystery in his large blue eyes that slightly unnerved her. 'What are you then if you aren't a weed? Tink said you were a weed. Is she not right?'

'No!' Nettle said crossly, not bothering to ask who on earth "Tink" was, 'I'm Nettle.'

The boy looked her up and down, the penetrating stare leaving her more naked than she would have been without her clothes.

'Nettle,' he mused thoughtfully. 'But a Nettle is a weed.'

Nettle opened her mouth to protest but then closed it, feeling rather annoyed.

'Yes,' she retorted finally, and, a little too late added, 'And I can sting like a nettle too!'

The boy smiled at her once more, those eyes suddenly so full of laughter and life that Nettle forgot his gentle teasing and laughed too.

'Of course you sting,' he said, 'Why else would you be here?'

'Where is here?' Nettle asked, ignoring his question, 'And what's your name?'

'Peter,' the boy pronounced proudly, thrusting out his chin proudly and making his hands fly in a wild gesture to rest on his hips, 'Pan.' He finished.

'Peter Pan.' Nettle smiled, rolling the name over her tongue like some rare food.

'Peter Pan,' she repeated, finding that the words meant so much to her and so little all at once. 'So where is here? Where are we?' she pressed him.

'Where?' Peter repeated, not quite mimicking her, but as if asking the question himself.

'We're at home.' He said after some thought, 'In Neverland. In the glade of the Lost Boys.'

'Lost...?'

'…Boys.' Peter finished. 'Tink said we ought to bring you here. She says you'll bring us Wendy. Is that so?'

Nettle frowned, before a phrase that even she had never heard before rolled out of her mouth. 'If you wish it.' She whispered, making Peter's eyes sparkle with delight and laugh out loud.

'That must be the Nettle!' he laughed, mouth curling at the corners.

'And you shall bring me my Wendy!' he crowed.

'Wendy?' Nettle enquired. 'What Wendy? And who is Tink?'

Peter gave her look that left her feeling ignorant and stupid.

'Sorry.' She mumbled.

Peter shrugged. 'You didn't know. How could you if you were in London all this time?'

Nettle shook her head in puzzlement, suddenly aware that her hair was still confined to the softly covered wire curlers and she blushed furiously, her fingers fumbling to get them out.

'Tink!' Peter called as Nettle released the last of her curls, so the fell down her back in long, silky ringlets the colour of chocolate.

Nettle looked around wildly, and, saw the glowing light that she had noticed out of the corner of her eye stir slowly in the ferns, then fly out: a bright little spark.

'A firefly?' Nettle asked curiously, eyeing the spark as it came to rest just above Peter's golden curled head. Then she gasped.

It was no firefly. Light emanated from her, certainly, giving off a bright, half-blinding glow that made nettle blink to look closer.

A tiny, slender figure, bright little blue dots for eyes, an angelic face that was pretty and sweet, lips pursed in a smile that bore all the mischievous light that glowed in Peter's smile. Her dress, made from Bay leaves and bound with a thong of very thin leather exaggerated her tiny frame, and her hair, twisted to the back of her head in a delicate manner showed off her high cheek bones. And of course, there were the wings. Great gossamer things of great beauty, the gold veins glittering in the light that came from her, so delicate and dainty, and beating rapidly in the air with no visible signs of effort.

Nettle tried to close her wide mouth, but couldn't… 'A…a… f….faery!' she spluttered, her eyes brimming with excitement.

'A real fairy! A real one! I didn't think they…' she stopped as Peter made a sudden movement, as if to cut off her flow of words with his hand.

'Did I say something wrong?' Nettle asked as Peter sighed at her having not finished her sentence.

'Yes.' He growled ominously – not unfriendly, but more in a warning sort of way.

'Everytime someone says that… says there's no such thing as… as…'

Nettle waited, and he sighed in exasperation and turned to Tink desperately.

Tinkerbelle took the hint and spelled F-A-E-R-I-E-S in the air, the glittering letters lingering for a moment before sliding away in one languid motion.

'Everytime someone says that a faery somewhere dies.'  

Nettle watched in wonder, put the words together in her head and made a mental note never to say them in the same sentence ever again. She nodded slowly so he understood that she knew, and he smiled weakly. 'Hook's been fouling the air with that ever since he gutted the crocodile. Tink's been lucky it hasn't hit her yet.'

Nettle chewed her lip, not knowing what to say. She had no idea what the significance of the word 'Hook' meant to her… it meant nothing as a word, but when spoken it sent a cold dark shiver down her spine.

Peter had lapsed into silence, taking out a strange set of pipes, made of hollowed bamboo and bound in a line of seven. He blew each, so that a different note was expelled each time, and Nettle smiled. The sound was somehow familiar and comforting.

'Who… who is this Wendy then?' she asked, curiously. 'Is she another faery?'

Peter smiled sadly, drawing his pursed lips away from the pipe. He seemed to be considering what to tell her… perhaps how much to tell her, and Tink with him. She could not speak for lack of the right sized lungs and mouth, but a faint utter of tinkling bells that Peter could evidently understand issued from her.

Peter nodded to her and Tink came to stand on his shoulder, still making the faint tinkling sounds.

'Wendy is a girl.' Peter said finally, but Nettle could tell that she was much more than that just by the way he spoke her name.

'And…?' she prompted helpfully.

'And,' Peter sighed heavily, 'She is the girl I am in love with.'

Nettle was going to frown and laugh and say that it wasn't possible for him to be in love because boys his age weren't ready to… but she didn't.

She didn't because there was no denying that he did. He was in love with this girl, whoever she was and there was no questioning about whether it was true or not.

'Go on,' she said, smiling encouragingly.

'I fell in love with her the moment I saw her on that windowsill.' – at this his voice became misty and dreamy, his eyes focused, not on anything that was before him, but on that image of her framed in the window, her long wavy hair falling over her face, blue eyes dancing with his, mouth creased in an effort to smile.

'She could tell stories. She could fight. Fly. Laugh, love. But I could not. I was… incomplete.' His eyes blurred as he remembered.

'Ungallant and deficient.' He whispered.

Nettle suddenly hear those very words echo around her head, except they were not spoken by Peter, they were spoken by a girl, a girl in whose voice she heard elements of her own and smiled.

'Have you heard of hidden kisses?' Peter asked suddenly, and his eyes darkened in frustration when she shook her head.

'I suppose I'll have to show you then.' He said, and glanced at Tink on his shoulder, who giggled and rose above them, dancing about in the air to leaving a glittering trail behind her. Unlike the words she had traced earlier, the trail stayed where it was: a large oval shape that lowered and shimmered as the light caught it.

Nettle watched, bemused.

Peter put a hand to his shoulder where his costume of vines wound, and plucked from it an acorn.

Nettle watched as he through it at the oval, and, where it should have gone through, it instead landed in the dead centre and remained there, sending ripples through the shape, so that instead of showing the trees behind, it blurred, and a cloud began seep, swirling outward from the acorn and enveloping the inside of the oval. It shuddered, and then became a flat screen.

Dark shapes began to flow across, and slowly they became clearer and Nettle found herself looking at Peter once more, and she cocked her head, looking on. He was sitting at the foot of a richly polished mahogany bed, with elegant designs swirling across the bedstead. In front of Peter, sat a girl, small and very pretty, with bright blue eyes that were lost to an ocean, long flowing brown hair, naturally wavy, unlike Nettle's, which had to be confined to curlers to produce there merest kink. She was smiling, strangely as she passed a needle through Peter's foot which was clasped in her hand, and Nettle winced, wondering what she could be doing until the boy stood up and flipped something – Nettle realised his shadow onto the wall and made it copy him….

And so the story of Peter Pan came before Nettle. John, Michael, Neverland, The Lost Boys, the mermaids, Tigerlily and the Indians, Hook, The Jolly Roger and its crew, the faeries, Tinkerbelle's act of courageousness, and her jealousy of Wendy slowly into one of loving acceptance.

Peter and Hook fighting… Hook flying… Peter… dying. Was he defeated? She watched with her hands to her mouth. Watched as Wendy saved his life… and as the hidden kiss left her and was imposed on him. Nettle watched as the boy who never grew up fell, torturously in love, watched as Wendy stood at her own window and watched the boy her heart belonged to left her…

The next few years passed in a blur, Peter watching often at her window, and finding that… somehow as Wendy grew so did he, because of their kiss. Their own kiss that was shared between them bonded them.

Nettle watched, a shadow shrinking around her heart suddenly a horrible pain in her chest. The oval spluttered and faded, the acorn dropped and Peter went to pick it up, his head drooped.

'Oh Peter.' Nettle whispered sadly. 'I'm so sorry… I…'

'She's getting married.' Peter whispered dully, his eyes suddenly dead and hard, mouth set in a straight line.

'Married?' Nettle cried, in indignation, but not knowing why her feelings were so.

'How old is she?'

Peter frowned. He did not know clearly.

'Time passes strangely in the Neverland, and I do not know time as well as you. Only that night gives way to new days.'

Nettle smiled.

'You'll help then?' Peter asked in a soft, sad voice.

Suddenly a great power resounded in Nettle, making her want to yell, leap and cry. She did not know why, but it became apparent to her, after seeing the sad story, that she could not, would not let it happen. Wendy, whoever she was, would not marry – not if she could help it!

Nettle jutted her jaw forward and drew herself up. 'Married? Huh! Over my dead body! Don't worry, Peter Pan, Wendy Darling is NOT getting married, mark my words!'

Peter grinned.

….So there you are. Will Nettle succeed in winning Wendy over? You'll just have to wait to find out!!

Wild Blood Rose X