This is the last part of our focus on the mermaid sniff. You shall indeed find out her fate...

Thanks to everyone who has read so far - please, PLEASE R&R this last part - I want to know what you think! big puppy dog eyes

With Pixie Dust and Happy Thoughts,

Little Sparrow.

"Help me!" whispered the mermaid, struggling with all her might so that the crocodile might see her predicament and bite through the ropes. However, it simply floated there, breathing raggedly.

"Help you?" rasped the beast, its teeth clipping together in fury. "Help you? Look at me, you foolish creature!"

The mermaid peered closer, and what she saw made her recoil with a stifled cry. The crocodile's right eye was gone completely, replaced by a mass of torn flesh and clotting blood. Dried blood spattered its dirt-streaked cheek.

"It seems the dear Captain got his revenge for the loss of his hand in the end," snarled the crocodile softly, "even if he didn't carry it out himself. Oh no - his little gang of rat-faced excuses for pirates did it. Twelve of them! Twelve of them to take my eye! Cowards! Cowards!" And the crocodile growled and spat in fury, whipping its thick tail through the water.

"I - I am sorry," whispered the mermaid, her voice breaking with true emotion. "Can't I - "

"Of course you can't!" snapped the crocodile. "My eye is lost, ruined. You messed up the plan entirely, and I was the one who paid dearly for it."

The mermaid began to panic. "But - but it wasn't my fault! I fainted or something - it was the light off the hook - I couldn't help -"

"Too much talk, little girl," breathed the half-blinded reptile. "Too many excuses. You understood the plan perfectly, didn't you?"

"Yes, but -" pleaded the mermaid. The crocodile cut her off with a roar of fury. It began to snarl again.

"You were going to prove your extraordinary talent to the pirates, get invited on board, then lure Hook into my clutches and, eventually, into my stomach. But no. You fainted, I kept to the plan, but instead of me being able to eat what I have long deserved, I was assailed by a group of drunken men!"

"But -"

"But nothing, Sister of the Sea. I was promised flesh, and flesh I shall have."

The mermaid began to shake with terror, moaning and wailing.

"You will soon be in the land where you can be whatever you want to be, my poor little half-human," crowed the crocodile, with a mock-tinged snicker. "I expect in Death, even you can grow wings. Goodbye, Daughter of the Lagoon."

The mermaid's wails grew louder and louder as the crocodile opened its cavernous mouth; rows of flesh-tearing, greying fangs were revealed, together with a bitten tongue. Saliva coated its teeth.

The mermaid screamed. Her scream brought Hook and several of the pirates bounding to the bowsprit. They looked over, clutching brightly burning yellow lamps.

In the half-light, they saw the mermaid writhing and flipping as the crocodile prepared to swallow its prey. And then, cutting through the air -

"NO!"

The mermaid's only human word.

Epilogue

As the night settles its black wings over Neverland, sometimes the ghostly outline of a white dove can be seen, flying low over the treetops, arcing and diving, as though elated with its ability to sail astride the clouds. Peter Pan, in all his childish folly, does not see it. The Lost Boys do not spot it. No one sees it - apart from the crocodile, who grimaces and thinks of dinner.

And, if one were to watch the invisible flight path, one would see that the dove flies

on towards the silent pirate ship and alights on the bowsprit.

Then something very peculiar happens. The dove ruffles its feathers, weeps one shimmering tear into the sea below, and in an instant becomes a young woman. Her eyes are grey and gentle, and her hair, long and silvery-blonde.

It seems as though the mermaid got her dearest wishes after all.