Wendy was devastated at finding out she was not beautiful. All little girls hope to grow up to become beautiful, as it seemed the proper thing for a girl to be, but Wendy did not do the normal growing up all the other girls did.
No one had told her before that she was plain, and it seemed an awful trick. How cruel to tell a little girl that someday she would grow up to be beautiful, so that others could finally see value in her, when no miracle could make it so?
She stared hard at herself in the mirror. It was her fifteenth birthday, and had to finally concede to the fact that the effect was permanent. Her features would never be rare enough to impress anybody. Her hair was a boring mousy brown, and not blonde and striking. Her cheeks did not dimple charmingly, and in fact were too round to be considered pleasant. Her eyes, again brown, boring, dirty brown, frowned at their reflection. If only mama had giver her height and gracefulness, she might sweep captivatingly around a room, but Wendy had stopped growing up long ago, and had started growing the wrong way, from side to side instead.
She'd make the perfect wet nurse, or scullery maid. Ugly, unrefined, boring. She was a leaf among the flowers, save for Millie, who's glasses and freckles would always mar her beauty.
The only person who had ever thought her beautiful had been Peter. Regardless if her mouth was boring and her cupid's bow too sharp for fashion, Peter had seen her hidden kiss, and made quick work of claiming it.
And how had she repaid him? By leaving him, and he had taken her kiss with him. Wendy sighed sadly as she toyed with the acorn which hang from the chain. She'd stuck it in a little glass bauble, as his kiss was just an acorn, and began to turn to powder being exposed to the elements.
Nothing would sprout from it, now. It was only a memory fading fast around her precious neck. Doors opened downstairs as guests filled the Darling home to celebrate Wendy's first outing into society. A venture sure to fail, seeing as she was so ugly, but mama had insisted. Wit was just as attractive at a tit, she had said. Like the bird, Wendy thought she meant, but the saying had seemed vile anyways.
With steeling resolve, she stood from the over-decorated vanity, which rudely contrasted the comeliness of her face day in and day out, to greet guests in the practiced manner which had been instilled into her from birth.
The party was overwhelming. So many new faces and voices made her head spin. Everyone seemed to look over her head, as if expecting her to be so much taller like her mama, and when finally strangers beheld her, Wendy did not miss the small look of astonishment, and their eyes pass by her as if they had simply seen one more hedge in the hedgerows. She tried to smile to gain some interaction, but she was much too sad for it to look genuine, and it only gained her looks of pity.
Gathering as many rare treats from the buffet as she could, Wendy sat firmly in a chair in the corner and chewed away the blossoming tears in her eyes.
The door was wide open, and in the middle of winter, the fireplace did little to warm the room. Guests were so frequently entering and leaving that there was little point of closing it. Screams and shouts issued from the entrance, and Wendy thought perhaps someone had spilled their glass of eggnog on someone else, but this was a shout much too shrill for that of cry of surprise.
"Where is Wendy?" Snarled a voice. Wendy's head snapped up, watching the crowd of people in the room part to reveal her hiding place in the corner. A pirate stood, sword drawn, and mouth spitting at the front door. A gentleman in the room tried to pull a hidden pistol from his coat, but the pirate was clever, and drew his own pistol first, firing a shot that blew the gentleman's tallhat right off of his dome.
"It will be your head next." Threatened the pirate. He had a strange accent for a pirate, almost Irish.
Wendy took the opportunity of distraction to slip from the corner of the room to scamper up the stairs. Why did he want her? Why was here even here? They were no where near a port, and he was dressed for the Caribbean! Not the frigid winds of London. An astonished gasp left the crowd, and Wendy dared not turn to see why they gasped. She turned the corner of the staircase to bump into the middle of someone's chest. It was the pirate, and he smelled like sea and sweat, but how had he gotten there so quickly? His hand wrapped around the pretty, long coiffure mama had done, to pull her head possessively back towards his chest.
She hadn't smelled a smell like that since Neverland, and although her scalp stung, the memory of Neverland stung harder.
"Stay back, and no one gets a hole between their eyes!" Threatened the pirate. Her ear was against his chest and she heard the threat clearly, as well as his breath coming in and out of his lungs. There was fear, trepidation in those breaths.
Wendy should have been scared as well, but instead was thoroughly annoyed. Perhaps her ordeal in Neverland had made her far too brave.
"They've already got holes between their eyes." She said, tugging at his fingers to release her hair with one hand, the other grasping at his garb to find a weapon to steal. "They've got noses, haven't they?"
The pirate chuckled with amusement, but then shouted when in one swift motion, Wendy cut her hair from his hands with the small blade she'd managed to take.
He stared at her with sharp, black eyes, and his mouth opened in an 'o'.
"You nearly cut my hand off!" He complained.
"Only the more to look like your captain." She replied.
"Hook?" He said, laughing. "Hook is long gone. We've got a new captain now, and he's requesting your company."
Wendy tried to run, her hair now short and harder to grab, but her billowing skirts left her little room to be lithe in an escape, and he grabbed the strings of her bodice to pull her back to him. It sent the breath from her, and the Pirate made quick to escape out the door, pointing his pistol at the nose of anyone who dared stop him.