Shahrazád's Ghosts
Chapter 10: Peter (Edward) Part IV
"Capture the wild things and bring them in line
And own what was never your right to confine
The lives and the loves and the songs are what matters
I'll tend to the flame, you can worship the ashes."
Ashes, The Longest Johns
ooooooooooooo
What the Lady of Neverland called "Court" was more of an exercise in exquisite vampire torture than one of subjects paying reverence to their sovereign. Each yearling vampire, while in possession of at least a minimal amount of control, lost it all once their sensitive noses were drowned in Tiger Lily's abundant charms. Bound and imprisoned, they were unable to either run towards their siren or flee as far as their supernaturally fast legs would take them. Instead they were forced to endure her tantalizing scent and watch her quiet, graceful movements without any escape or reprieve for sixty minutes which felt more like sixty years.
Each cocky, arrogant yearling entered the room red-eyed and fully satiated. Each departed with half-crazed onyx for eyes and a feverish, frenzied hunger in their souls. Peter wondered if they would ever truly consider themselves satisfied again. No, every ounce of contentment they were once capable of embodying, they now lay at the throne of their Princess as tribute.
Oh, how they howled and pleaded! How they wept and begged and threatened! No matter how they cried, they could not get any closer to their Princess and no matter how they wished for it, she came no closer to them. If, by chance, her dark brown eyes happened to meet with theirs, they exploded, like a spark on petrol. The yearlings would have sawed off their own arms to be close to her, if they were not so carefully bound. By the grooves and crevices marring parts of the thick, unbreakable glass, Peter knew at least one or two must have had a go of it, but they had been stopped before they could do more than scratch the surface of the barrier.
More often, Tiger Lily failed to respond to their cries or even noticed their existence and that was worse by far. Her apathy to their plight was almost as terrible a punishment as the knowledge that this most intimate form of torment was shared by all their kindred soldiers. The knowing camaraderie of the Braves and Lost Boys, once this particular rite of passage was completed, was akin to having one's skin peeled off of every muscle and then dunked in a bath of lemon juice. Their basest of impulses, their most incomprehensible of desires, their deepest of motivations, all were put on display for the entire army to gawk at. They were emotionally flayed for the entertainment of the rest of the army and the "benefit" of Neverland.
All work in Neverland ceased for that hour. Each seasoned Brave and Lost Boy paused in both a jealous reverence and pained remembrance of the experience of their companion, comparing it to what their own had once been. These times of reminiscing were even more poignant than the blurred haze of the initial experience. Not only did they endure the yearlings' harrowing initiation into their ranks, but their minds flooded with the collective memories of their own introduction to Tiger Lily's camp, compounding and layering their shared minds with multidimensional bittersweet nostalgia. Each individual's memories were compounded by the memories of those who observed them, forcing each man to watch himself through the eyes of those who saw him, wriggling and writhing like a worm on a hook.
This was all overshadowed again when Darling came, her face shrouded in a hooded cape, and a small golden tumbler of medicine in her hand. She brought the tumbler to the neophyte's lips, granting him his reward for what he endured and sealing his heart would forever belong to her. Their initial euphoria rippled through the collective mind and not a single pair of eyes stayed open as they all tasted that first drop of medicine with the yearling. All previous struggles were washed away and they would have gladly undergone worse, if only they would be assured of such a reward after.
Directly after their release, the neophytes were taken to a dark room where they were allowed to calm themselves. They were given their first official navy-blue woolen uniform. A solemn stillness hung over the barracks and halls of Neverland when the yearling returned to join the ranks of his companions. None spoke to him of what he experienced and he never mentioned it again either. But they could all see his thoughts, which now predictably shifted to revolve around one center and one alone. They were officially part of Tiger Lily's army and their days were filled with military drills and construction projects, but each spare moment and thought was overshadowed by their devotion to Tiger Lily and her wine.
The yearlings were not the only subjects who called upon Tiger Lily. Some of the Lost Boys and the occasional Brave also came to Court, but only on special occasions. These subjects came willingly. They did not fight against their bonds, but strapped themselves in without compulsion. They preferred to sit in quiet rapture, drinking in the sights and scents of their siren, meditating on the paroxysm of sensuality they were immersed in. While externally, they appeared calm and collected, internally each allowed the basest of imaginings to run wild. Their minds thought over all manner of things they would do to the woman, if only there was no barrier between them and her, and if only they were the king who could vanquish her fortress and take her as their prize.
They loved her. They hated her. They longed for her. They plotted her death while despairing the thought of her potential disappearance. They were torn between their desire to conquer her and their compulsion to wave their own white flags in surrender to her. No matter how they tried, they could not extricate themselves from the contradicting flood of emotions Tiger Lily upended in their chests and stirred in their gullets.
And Peter had to watch and listen to it all.
If it was torturous for the subjects who came to Court, the ritual was downright excruciating for Tiger Lily's Lieutenant. The former-Pirate-turned-Lost-Boy dreaded each and every moment he stood by as silent sentry. While he dared not disobey his Mistress and he genuinely delighted in his role as Tiger Lily's protector, his heart rose in revolt each time the door opened for Court to begin again.
The more Peter watched and listened, the more his unease grew and the more he was convinced of the impropriety of it all. Tiger Lily was not the Mistress of Neverland, the Immortal Commander of a Vampire Army. She was a human bound to a cage, no matter how gilded or how many diamonds she wore. She was used as a live lure to capture the most vulnerable and powerful of vampire instincts and used to condition them into subservience to their true Queen, the one who ruled from the shadows. Peter knew, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, that it was not right, but he did not know what to do about it.
Oooooo
Peter dwelt now solely in Tiger Lily's camp and took both his meals and leisure there. Peter's days felt all the longer for his isolation in the usually empty Court. A live video feed showed him Tiger Lily's movements throughout the day and he was instructed to summon Darling in case anything was ever amiss. Then she constructed a shield around him. It was a nearly constant shield which enabled him to still hear those outside Tiger Lily's camp, but he could not be heard by the others. His mind was a one-way mirror where he could watch the affairs of the rest of Neverland without the others knowing he was there with them.
"I am keeping track of you," Darling warned him. "I do not want the rest to know your movements or have access to your post, but I will be watching to make sure our Princess is safe."
He didn't mind the temporary privacy this allotted him and he preferred Darling's eyes on his movements over the intrusion of the Lost Boys and Braves into his thoughts. He allowed his thoughts to wander more freely than he had up to this point, but he could still hear the thoughts of all the others in Neverland. This was as incomplete a solution to his niggling loneliness as Tiger Lily's constant presence across the barrier. He could hear their conversations, see their daily toils and enjoyment of their leisure, but he could not partake in it with them. He could join in with the Pirate songs from his post and this brought him some comfort, but the lack of interaction began to feel as heavy as the chains which hung from the ceiling.
To pass the time, Darling allowed him all the books he could read and she eventually relented and permitted him access to music. She brought him speakers and a small digital music library which contained tens of thousands of songs. This revolutionized his long hours of solitude and he began to fill the spaces of his days with songs and sounds and noises. He taught himself to play every instrument he could get his hands on and composed enough songs to fill his own library with music.
Once each week, though, the Mistress of Neverland sent him away and she took over guarding Tiger Lily herself.
"You want me to do what?" he asked in confusion, the first time she sent him away.
"Go away," she said. "Go do something else. This is your day to rest and my day to pay my respects to our Princess."
"I don't understand."
Darling rolled her eyes. "You can't live in here all the time. As you enjoy reminding me, everyone needs at least some companionship and freedom. You need to eat. You need to practice your skills so they do not weaken. Go run drills with the Braves. Visit the other Lost Boys. Run. Read a book. Most importantly, bathe and change your clothes. If you stay as you are, Tiger Lily herself will order you out of here before long."
She turned him around and pushed him out the door, ignoring his protests and stutters. Then she shut the door behind him.
He stood in a daze for so long that Darling barked out a command through the speakers in the hall.
"Go away, Peter," she said again. He listened this time, but he obeyed half-heartedly and wandered the tunnels of Neverland in an aimless, purposeless haze. When he returned to his post the next day, Tiger Lily's one room palace had been cleaned and organized, Tiger Lily's hair fell in a long braid down her back, and a bouquet of flowers bloomed over her small table.
Darling closed the rock wall between them when she left and Peter stayed in the compressed silence of the empty Court. While he did appreciate his short weekly reprieves, these did not fully satisfy him and he felt even more purposeless when he was away from Tiger Lily's camp then when he was there.
On one of his days off, he waited in the barracks for his weekly delivery. He had left the Braves training in Overland and meandered back to the room he knew would be unoccupied for the time being. When the delivery came, he was surprised to see it was not a drone but a cart driven by a Pirate that brought it.
"Smee?" Peter asked, not bothering to hide his joy at seeing his friend again.
Smee, or who Peter had once called the "New Smee," now had his own strands of silver woven through the red of his hair and his back hunched with the work of long years, but his smile was bright and as youthful as ever.
"Peter? That can't be you," he said and he came closer to investigate.
"It's me!" Peter said. He leapt to his feet and threw his arms around his former bunkmate. "I have never been so happy to see anyone in my life! How are things around the Jolly Roger?"
"Oh, fine, fine," Smee answered. "James created a new game using bottle caps which has robbed us all many hours of sleep. We have a new wing of Pirates, too. The work is growing and busy as ever, but I can't complain. Mullins even found a cookbook in that load of books and we aren't sure if that's a good thing or the worse thing that's happened since Chaz decided to add pepper to the tea."
Peter laughed, a genuine, full-bellied laugh that he hadn't experienced since he left the Jolly Roger. He drank in his friend's stories, even though he knew all of them already. It was not the same - listening to stories from afar versus hearing them told in person.
"And you? We heard you, uh, got promoted? To Lost Boy? Congratulations!" Smee said, scratching at the top of his head where the sheen of the skin was starting to peek through the thinning crown of hair.
"It's not much to speak of," Peter said. "If I could, I think I'd rather be demoted back to Pirate. But, oh, I have so many more instruments and the songs I could teach you! Our Lady gave me enough songs to fill all the hours in a year and still have some to spare!"
"Ah, that's good, that's good! See, you don't need our old ditties anymore. They are old news."
"No!" Peter responded quickly. "I would exchange them all for your songs, if I could."
"Why don't you come on down and join us sometime?" Smee asked. "Or is it against regulations for a Lost Boy like you to mingle with the likes of us Pirates?"
"It was against the rules…but that was before I got my post. You know, I will ask. I will. There's no reason why I shouldn't," Peter said, surer of himself as he spoke it out loud and nodding more vigorously as he considered it.
"Good, good. Well, here's your bottles, Peter. I'm glad to see you for myself. Now I can tell the others you are ok. We were worried, you know."
"I know. I can't tell you how much it meant to me to know you were worried."
"Of course. We never forget a Pirate."
"Well, I'm a Pirate at heart, to the end, Smee, even if I look like a Lost Boy now."
"Well, you are the best looking of all the Lost Boys, I'd wager, cause you are the only one who looks like a Pirate," Smee said and gave him a solemn nod and the salute only the Pirates shared. Peter listened to the rattle of the mechanized cart until he could no longer hear it, smile still on his face. He was so excited by the idea that he returned to Tiger Lily's camp earlier than he needed to.
The rock walls were in place, but he could see into Tiger Lily's quarters through the video feed. She wore a crimson velvet dress lined with ivory lace and she sat in front of the bed, her back leaning against Darling's legs, her eyes closed. Darling was perched on the bed, her hands running a brush through Tiger Lily's long hair, and genuine serenity glowed on her face. Darling's lips moved in a whisper, so quietly that the video feed could not pick up the sounds. When Tiger Lily's hair fell in freshly washed, shining tresses down onto the floor, Darling put the brush back in a basket by the bed, reached down, and embraced Tiger Lily for a long moment. Tiger Lily opened her eyes, smiled widely, and clasped Darling's hands in her own.
Peter froze in shock and stood transfixed. Of course, he had wondered about what exactly occurred on Darling's day with Tiger Lily, but this was not what he imagined.
When Darling left, Peter nearly forgot to move in time to hide the fact he had been watching. He remembered himself in time to run back to the door and feign having just arrived. He doubted Darling was convinced, but she didn't question him on it.
"Peter," she said with a slight nod. The peacefulness on her face had drained completely and was replaced by the cool indifference which she usually wore.
"Darling," he said.
"Until next week, then," she said and she was about to leave, but he stopped her before she could.
"Wait, I have a request," he said.
"What is it?" She asked. "You can't have run out of music already."
"No, no. Nothing like that. Actually, it's, uh, about my days when you are, uh, in here," he said. In his human days, he would have flushed with heat and embarrassment, but his new body did not have the same reactions. Unfortunately, not even his new body could save him from stammering like an idiot in front of Darling. Her burnished eyes grew impatient and she placed one hand on her hip.
"Tell me."
"Can I, uh, go back to the Jolly Roger and visit the other Pirates?" he spilled out, all in a jumbled rush. "I know before, when I was in training, it was not permitted, but I have completed training and I would like to visit my companions sometimes. Not every time, but sometimes, it would be nice and…can I? Please? I promise I won't eat them."
Darling's brows furrowed and she turned her head ever so slightly to one side. "You wish…to visit the Pirates?"
"Yes."
"Why? You have the Lost Boys and the Braves."
He inhaled an unnecessary breath and met her eyes, willing for her to understand. "I was raised as a Pirate. I will never be a Lost Boy or a Brave. I would be…I would enjoy it more if…I could do my job better if…," he paused to sigh and drop his eyes again. "We all need companionship. I would like to see my friends. I have more in common with them than the others and I miss them."
She barked a short, surprised laugh and shook her head. "Go visit the Pirates, Peter."
"Thank you, Darling!" he said, grinning ear to ear.
He nearly jumped on his toes in his excitement. Instead, he gave a mad dash across the room and kissed her on the cheek along the way. He picked up his lute from his pile of instruments, turned it in a flip, and began to pick out a tune while he sang:
"'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to, A-pirating we go,
And if we're parted by a shot, We're sure to meet below!
Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life, The flag o' skull and bones,
A merry hour, a hempen rope, And hey for Davy Jones.'"
Darling watched him incredulously for a moment before she burst into a peal of bell-like laughter.
"Oh, Peter. Peter Pan would be ashamed of you," she said, still chuckling.
"Why thank you, Darling. That's high praise, from one such as yourself," he said, with a wink and a bow of his head.
Oooooo
Exactly one week later, the Jolly Roger burst into such a raucous chorus of songs and ill-played instruments that John and Nibs had to stop what they were doing to investigate the source of the disturbance.
"Peter, what are you doing here?" John asked with a resigned sigh.
Peter clung to his flute and gave a wide, innocent smile. "Playing music. Would you like to join? We have an extra drum and a fiddle and I think that harp is called a kinde. Don't feel embarrassed if you don't know how. None of the rest of us do, either."
"That was perfectly obvious," John said. "You sound like a pile of dying cats in here."
"Oh, but someday, we will sound like a symphony!" Peter answered back. He placed the flute back to his lips and began to play.
The rest of the merry Pirates had frozen when they saw John enter and now they gawked with wide eyes. Nibs shrugged to John and pulled him from the doorway.
"I told her he'd be better off if she'd give him medicine. She won't listen to reason, that woman," John muttered to Nibs in a tone only Peter could hear. Peter played his flute even louder in response, intentionally poorly and in a key he knew would irritate their sensitive ears. Both Lost Boys grimaced and left.
When Peter returned to Tiger Lily's camp the next day, he fairly danced through the tunnels and his singing didn't cease, not even when he entered through the final door to Court.
"Why, there's my darling, there's my darling, there's my darling, lovely gal," he sang out with all his heart when he entered. He placed his box of instruments onto the floor with a thud. When Darling emerged from Tiger Lily's room, she was surrounded by Peter tapping his feet in a dance in a circle around her. Then he clasped her hands in his, pulling her towards him to join him in a jubilant jaunt across the room. She acquiesced, more out of surprise than willingness to join, and so he released her once they reached the opposite edge of the room.
"I see you enjoyed your day," Darling observed, back from where she stood in the shadows, watching him in half-amusement, half-condescension.
He grinned. "You should spend a day with the Pirates someday, Darling. They know how to enjoy life and they would give you a whole lot more to smile at than the rest of this lot." At the incongruent image of Darling surrounded by all the rowdy Pirates, Peter fell into a round of chuckles.
Darling rolled her eyes, but then she grew serious and her tone was subdued in warning. "Don't get too attached, Peter. They are human. They will not last long."
He quirked his head to one side. "Neither will we."
"Our kind can live for thousands of years," she said. "Surely you know that."
"Maybe you can," Peter said, giving a light shrug. "But we won't."
"What do you mean?"
"Who is the oldest now? Slightly, correct? What happened to the others?"
She nodded in understanding. "The Lost Boys…most likely will not live thousands of years."
"And the Braves are part of an army. I know I am woefully ignorant, but if my assumption is correct, the purpose of an army is to prepare for an offensive or defensive conflict. In such conflicts, there is a very real danger of many of the Braves not surviving."
She nodded again.
"As I said. You may live for thousands of years…you may have already lived for thousands of years. But I do not think the lifespan of the Pirates is so vastly different from those of the rest of us. If I choose not to get attached to them purely because they may age a bit before they die and are a bit easier to end than myself, than I will have a very miserable existence."
"You do not believe you will outlast the other Braves and Lost Boys?" she asked, her face now open and filled with curiosity.
"Why would I? I am one of many and we are all interchangeable and disposable. I know I have today, but I do not put much faith in having tomorrow."
"And that doesn't bother you?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I would be a liar if I said it didn't. Everyone wants to be special and irreplaceable, but I know I am not. I'm one of out of how many Peters?"
"Oh, the fifth," she answered, when the pause grew long and she realized he was waiting for the answer.
"See, already there has been five of me and there will be a dozen more after me. Maybe a hundred more. I am more bothered by the thought of being one of many than I am by the thought of having my life cut shorter than it could be. But do you know what I fear more than an early death?"
"What?"
"A death where no one is sad to see me gone and no one is there to sing for me after I am gone," he answered. "I'd rather stand by the grave sides of a score of friends who I must grieve early than avoid the sting of death completely by staying away from friendships, no matter how temporary. When days are short, they should be valued all the more, and I prefer to live mine well."
She shook her head. "Well, you are unusual, then."
"Hmm, an unusual Peter, you say?" he answered, "You mean I am not exactly like the five before me?"
"Peter, I can honestly say no other Peter has been quite like you," she said in a tone which belied if she meant it as an insult or a compliment.
"As it should be!" he said, deciding to take it as a compliment and letting himself glow with the knowledge that he wasn't completely lost in the crowd.
Oooooo
With weekly visits to the Jolly Roger, Peter's isolation lightened like ice turned into steam. He had something to look forward to and breathe life into the silent monotony of his days. In light of his newfound joy, he could honestly recognize how depressed he had grown during the previous months of isolation. Now, he no longer felt alone, but a niggling guilt crept into his mind at that revelation every time he caught sight of his Princess on the video feed.
How her isolation must press on her and suffocate her! What was the nature of her relationship with Darling? Did Darling treat her as a friend or an object? Had she ever known any friend or been appreciated for anything other than her role in Neverland? He hoped she enjoyed her days with Darling as much as he enjoyed his days with the Pirates, but that was only one day. They were both stuck here in isolation together, serving their ambivalent roles in Neverland. Why shouldn't they find their own sort of companionship and joy during their quiet moments and between their appointed roles? Why shouldn't they forge some sort of community between them?
The more he mulled over this, the more he was convinced of its rightness. He was stumped by the "how" of it and spent days investigating the various vents and chutes and cracks of his post before he realized he was overthinking things. He nearly laughed out loud when he realized how simple the solution really was. The communication pad, which displayed live video feed on the wall, was just that – a communication device. It could just as easily transmit data as receive it. During his days in the Storage Room, Peter had dissected and reprogrammed more of those devices than he could count in order to make them work the way he needed them to. He could make this one transmit sounds into Tiger Lily's room and talk to her when no one was around.
He gave a self-satisfied cheer for his own brilliance and began to fiddle with the device on the wall.
oooo
"What are you doing?" Darling said. Her voice behind him startled him, so focused had he been on getting the voice of Captain Hook just right. He looked up from his book and saw her fiercely determined steps bringing her right to him. The pale violet of her dress did not match the fire in her eyes. She stopped right before him and towered over where he sat on the rocky floor.
"Reading," he answered. He held up his book and waved it around for her to see.
"You are reading."
"Yes."
"To Tiger Lily?"
"She likes it," Peter answered. He glanced over to the video feed where Tiger Lily sat on her bed, her eyes fixed on the source of sound over her head.
"She doesn't understand."
"She doesn't need to. She still enjoys it. I liked listening to you before I knew what you were saying."
"Stop it! You can't. No more. I forbid it!" Darling hissed back. She took the book from his hands and threw it on the floor and her eyes flashed with incomprehensible anger.
"You...forbid me to read to her?" he asked, completely dumbfounded.
"Yes."
"Why? I used to read to you all the time."
"That is irrelevant. Just…don't read to her again."
"Fine," Peter answered with a purposefully exaggerated sigh.
"Why are you even speaking to her? I thought I told you not to try to contact her."
"You said not to try to get into her cage…and not to eat her. I have done as I was told, like a good little soldier," he answered. "Also, technically, I am not contacting her. I am reading out loud to myself. If she happens to be able to hear me through the speaker, that's, uh, collateral literacy."
Darling let out an irritated groan and clenched her fists at her sides.
"Just stop," she said.
ooooo
She returned two days later, just as furious, though her bright orange dressed more appropriately matched her emotion than her previously violet one had done.
"What are you doing?" she hissed. Peter, who had been listening for her footsteps and watched her enter, allowed a smirk on his face and raised an eyebrow in challenge.
"Not reading," he said. He held up his hands to show they were empty. No book was within six feet of where he sat.
"I can see that. But you were telling her a story."
"Oh, technically I was telling myself a story. Is that also forbidden?"
She clenched her teeth together and closed her eyes for a moment before she opened them and glared steaming coals at him.
"Turn off the link to her speaker," she demanded. "Do not talk to her. Do not speak to her. She should not know you are here."
Peter's own anger grew. He stood up and faced Darling, staring down at her from where he stood. "Why? What possible harm could come out of me reading to the woman? She can't see me. She can't respond to me. I can't touch her or steal her out of her cage with my voice."
"There are ways to be cruel using only words," she responded, ice in her tone and daggers in her eyes.
"Darling, I don't want to hurt her. She is my responsibility and I take that very seriously. I will protect her with my own life, if I need to. I only wish to give her a little joy, add a little goodness and happiness to her days, the same as I would wish another to do for me if I was in her situation."
"Thinking that you could bring her any ounce of happiness is the first of your many mistakes," Darling spat back. "You can bring her nothing but heartache."
Peter slammed his hand against the wall in frustration and only grew angrier when he saw Darling's grim satisfaction in his loss of temper.
"Fine. I won't talk to her," he shouted.
"Good," Darling said. She nodded in a grim satisfaction and left.
No, Peter would not talk to her...but he would try singing next…and if that failed, he would wire in his speakers to play through hers so she could at least listen to music.
Oooooo
The posse of Pirates only grew in musical adeptness the more time past. Each week, full days were spent together filling all Neverland with their songs until John could no longer declare they sounded like "dying cats" and the thoughts of the Lost Boys begrudgingly admitted to enjoying their weekly concerts. Peter brought his songs back to his post with him and filled the walls of his cavernous space with them, allowing them to spill over into Tiger Lily's cage and daring his Mistress to come and rebuke him for it.
She never did.
Watching Tiger Lily's delighted expressions, whenever he began to play his instruments or sent his favorite songs through the barrier between them, became one of his chief delights. It gave him a sense of purpose and importance he had not felt since he received his "promotion" and was cut off from his work with the young Pirates. He no longer felt as trapped or bound as we once did. In his heart, he felt the truth of the old poem:
"Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty."
Peter now looked forward to his days in Tiger Lily's camp and he felt like what he had once looked at as a prison had been robbed of some of its bars and chains.
One day, during his day away from Tiger Lily, Peter was prevented from joining the other Pirates by the grim and clouded face of Slightly, the top general of the Lost Boys. Slightly rarely spent time within Neverland but spent most of his days in Overland, performing errands and tasks that their Lady entrusted him with. He was so good with hiding his thoughts that he rarely slipped and the times he did, it was intentional. Darling didn't know this, of course, and she kept his thoughts shielded most of the time. On the rare times she released him, he took full advantage by stirring up trouble amongst the Braves, more out of a mulish desire to irritate Darling and out of a low-simmering sense of boredom.
Peter had few interactions with the general. Slightly barked out orders during special trainings and was the chief instructor on Overland etiquette and survival, but he did not bother to interact with many of the inhabitants of Neverland, even when he had returned from his travels. Slightly resembled John so exactly that at first, during his Pirate days, Peter had mistaken one for the other more than once. Their short hair, build, youthful faces, and even the expressions on those faces were so similar they could have easily been one individual who managed to be in more than one place at a time. With his vampire eyes, there were differences that he could see, but even those were minimal. For one, Slightly had a sliver of a scar under his left eye. For another, the bicep on his right arm was built up more than his left. It was the blue felt hat with the pointed tip and long grey plume that set him apart from a distance.
When Slightly stopped him in the tunnel leading from the Home Under the Ground to the Jolly Roger, Peter was surprised.
"Peter, I need your help," Slightly said in a hushed voice, so low no human ear could have overheard it. Peter nodded. He stashed his box of instruments into a storage closet and followed, listening closely to Slightly's thoughts, but Slightly did not betray a single clue. Slightly led him back the way he had come until they reached the Home Under the Ground where the Lost Boys stayed. Slightly opened the fourth door on the right, the room belonging to John, and motioned for Peter to enter.
Within, John lay prone on the floor, as if his bones were made of jelly rather than anything solid. His half-shuttered eyes stared at nothing and no one and a low gurgle bubbled from his mouth. Around him, shining black bottles littered the floor and were smashed into shards against a table.
"What is the matter with him?" Peter asked. He had never seen any of the vampires like this and it unsettled him to think there were illnesses or indispositions they could suffer from that he knew nothing about.
"Darling made our medicine deliveries early today, while the others were out tracking down an escaped guest in one of the new tunnels. John came back from Romania before the rest returned. He broke into our rooms and stole them all. Every last bottle. I found him when I got back from a supply run. We need to move fast, before the others return and find out."
"Will he recover?" Peter asked. He knelt down on the floor and felt John's forehead. John did not stir.
Slightly scoffed. "It depends. If our Lady gets wind of this, it will be his head on a pike. She does not tolerate medicine snatching and she knows the more we've had, the quicker our minds will go batty. If he survives her, he still has to survive the rest of us, and we will be half-tempted to pull him to pieces ourselves to see if Captain Hook would eat him. Finally, he may hate himself when he wakes and realizes this little stunt has made him develop a tolerance to anything but a three month's supply. I won't sugarcoat it. He will come to, but there will be consequences, and none of them easy."
"What do you need me to do?" Peter asked.
"Well, first off, will you swear to secrecy to spare John's life?"
"Of course."
"I thought you would. You also have more control than the others and our Lady shields you most of the time. That's why I came for you. You need stay with him and keep him hidden till I get back. I will need to decide how to cover this up. It will take some pretty pleading and outright bribery to get the other Lost Boys not to take his head for this themselves. John will have his fair share of fights to look forward to went he wakes up."
"But you still wish to cover up for him?"
Slightly sighed and rubbed his hand under the brim of his hat and along his forehead. The action made him look older and somehow wearied, a bit more like Darling's tattered book than one fresh from a library shelf. "Peter, there's not a one of us who haven't dreamt of doing the same thing, if given the opportunity. You can't understand, not yet at least, but someday you will."
Peter looked down at John again and he imagined it was himself there, prone on the floor, entirely vulnerable and out-of-control of himself, at the mercy of the rest of Neverland. "I think I'd rather not understand," Peter answered.
"To each his own," Slightly answered. "Will you do it?"
Peter nodded in assent, so Slightly he piled all the empty bottles and fragments of glass into a box and disappeared down the hall.
Peter stood guard over the closed door and kept watch over John. For hours, Peter could overhear the furious arguments between Slightly and the trickling stream of returning Lost Boys. He could watch their imagined retributions play out in their minds, and Slightly's attempts to both bribe them and coerce them into calming themselves. He promised away more than a few months' rations of medicine from both John's future supply and his own, if they would cooperate and keep the affair a secret. They eventually complied, after they had raged and cursed and threw punches at Slightly, who took their anger as the proxy villain standing in for the unreachable John.
John never once moved or woke.
Slightly returned, when all was settled, and told Peter to leave.
"You had better not keep our Lady waiting," he said. "I will take over from here and Nibs will take over after me."
Peter gaped. He had already spent nearly twenty hours at the man's motionless side. "How long will he be like this?" he asked.
"With as much as he just took in compared to what his usual ration is? Maybe a week."
"A WEEK!" Peter shouted. "This can't be good for him or for any of you!"
Slightly shrugged. "He knows and he'll rebuke himself when he wakes, but he'll do it all over again as soon as he gets the chance."
Oooooo
Peter could hear it when John finally began to stir and wake and Slightly was right. John was as low as a deflated balloon when he woke and he spent another day in confinement before he could face his companions and the yawning chasm of days ahead of him. Peter determined to visit his old teacher to check on him, so his next free day, he went straight to John's room where John still had not emerged.
"Oh, it's you," John said, without any real enthusiasm. "Come to lord it over me and parade around your superior self-control and fine, moral judgement?"
"No. I've come to visit an old friend and see if you are well."
John gave a dark chuckle. "Yes, that sounds better, if only it were true. I wonder, am I well?" John responded, half in question to Peter and half in question to himself. He still lay on the floor, hardly moved from where Peter had last seen him a week before, and still in the exact same clothes. Peter tried not to think over the state he had last seen John in or the flood of fear and disgust his state had aroused in him.
John saw it anyway, but tried not to dwell on it. Instead, he began to consider what all the possible meanings and interpretations of "well" could be and which applied to himself.
"Ah, Petey, can I ever truly be well? That is the question. I have sentenced myself to my own sure death. The only question is how long before I am reduced to ash." John's eyes closed and a weight of something Peter would not define sank all of John's features into a somber resignation.
"We swore to secrecy," Peter said.
"I'm sure you did. I've covered up for Nibs and Slightly enough times. They owe me. No, I will be my own executioner. Our Lady will be the death of me as surely as she will of you."
"You still think she will find out and kill you?"
"Oh, can't you see it, Peter? She doesn't need to! That's the beauty and the horror of it all! She leads us on with her tantalizing strings, knowing very well we will always want more until we roll the rope for our own noose and hang it on the hangman's tree ourselves. No, Petey, one thimbleful is never enough to fill you, but more than enough to drown you. I could drink an entire ocean and still thirst, but once I have exchanged my thimble for a barrel, how can I ever go back? My wineskin is burst and I've only brought myself that much closer to my own end. It is that constant thirst and the growing awareness that it cannot ever be filled, despite how it grows, that will drive us all to madness in the end."
Peter waited, mulling over what to say, how he could be of use or bring something good into this, but he could not think of anything.
"I hear your smugness, Petey," John said with a snort. He covered his eyes with one arm and frowned. "You think your teetotalling has made you exempt, but you are just as bound to our Lady's wine as the rest of us. We are the same, you and I, and you should never, ever forget it."
"We are similar, but not the same," Peter responded, struggling and unwilling to comprehend John's argument.
"Tell me, was that one kiss enough for you? That one hour by her side? That single glance of her lashed eyes? You could drink your fill of her sensual delights for a year and your appetite would not be filled. The more she gives to you, the more you crave, and the more you would sell all your morals and your treasured 'sense of rightness' to have more, even though you know, as well as I do, that it will never be enough. How long have you kept quiet at Tiger Lily's feet, though you know, as well as the rest of us, that she should be freed? You won't free her. You will keep quiet, the subservient lapdog. You sold your soul right along with the rest of us. In the end, our fate is the same. It is she who will consume us, without so much as a backward glance when she throws the final match onto her alter.
"No, Peter, your supposed 'love' is no different from mine. You do not love the woman. You love her intoxication of your senses, the feelings she produces in you, the draw you feel towards her, and the way every cell of your body was created to belong to her and only her. But she will only duplicate her bottles of wine and throw them at you, keeping herself as far from you as if she were locked away in a vault, right beside Tiger Lily, oblivious to your gaze, your longing, your desperation, your desire. She will look right back at you and see nothing. To her you have never been anything but a ghost, a man already dead."
"It is not the same!" Peter cried out, both to John and to himself. "All creatures have natural desires which support life and have needs which must be replenished. All must eat and drink. It is not the need and the craving to fulfill it that is questionable, but the object that one craves and for what reason. This thirst you have is as unfillable as the appetite of death itself."
"Oh, Petey. All of us have our passions and pet sins. Some of us choose to restrain them, fight them, and actively work against them. Others choose to dive in headlong and enjoy drowning. Take it from me, you would enjoy life more if you stopped pretending you weren't just as weak and addicted as the rest of us. We all have 'repining restlessness' and are in possession of everything but rest."
Ooooo
John's words destabilized Peter so much he could think of little else for weeks. It was the bitter truths which stung the most and the knowledge that he had silenced his own conscience in favor of doing his Lady's will. Now, his misgivings burned within his conscience like a smith's forge and he knew he would need to talk to Darling.
A day came when Darling entered Tiger Lily's camp with her arms full of a large box. She opened a series of chutes with a keypad and sent the contents of the box into the room where Tiger Lily dwelt. Picture books, a doll, a diamond necklace, and a dark red dress inlaid with rubies all fluttered onto the floor of the room. These were eagerly snatched up by Tiger Lily who began to investigate them, delighted in any new novelty that interrupted the monotony of her days.
"Neverland has received more admirers," Darling said in answer to Peter's unspoken question. "They always come bearing gifts. She deserves them more than I do. She is the true Queen here and the one they should reward."
Darling watched Tiger Lily hold the dress up to herself, her long hair flowing behind her as she did. Darling's expression could almost be called warm, or perhaps, if not quite "warm" then a few degrees over "cold" at least. Peter decided that now was his opportunity. He swallowed once before he drew together every once of courage he could summon, from the tips of his fingers to the crown of his head.
"May I speak my mind, my Lady?" Peter asked. Darling turned away from the glass and arched an eyebrow in his direction, daring him to continue, and nodded. "You already know I do not believe your utilization of Tiger Lily in this manner is ethical, but I have to mention your army. I do not believe your treatment of your army is any better. Your use of medicine to influence and control them is dangerous at best, and downright immoral at most. It is not a reward and it is not to their benefit or yours. You cannot hear their thoughts, but I can, my Lady. I can assure you, the effects of that medicine on them is as powerful as it is terrible. It binds their hearts and minds as surely as those chains bind their bodies. They would serve you better without it."
"Are you so certain?" she asked, her lips tight and no hint of a smile to soften the severity of her now frigid expression. "You are a fool if you believe they would serve me without it, without her. You know nothing."
He tried to pull himself up taller, as if the action alone could help bolster his argument and help Darling see his point. He could feel the rightness of his words with as much assurance as he knew himself to be alive and himself and so he continued. He nodded towards where Tiger Lily now sat on the floor and paged through the book.
"You use our own natures against us. You know our weaknesses and exploit them to make us subservient to you. We are forced to become your prisoners as surely as she is. You must be able to see it and acknowledge that it is not right."
"What does rightness have to do with anything? I know what you most desire and grant it. Why do you look at me as if I do some atrocious evil?" she answered.
"You must know in your heart that this is wrong!" he cried.
"Tiger Lily's army serves her because they love her. She is not harmed and she is treated better than I, or any like me, ever were. Ask the Braves and Lost Boys if they would prefer not to have tasted their medicine. None would and, if given the opportunity, they would beg me to have it all over again. I limit their rations to keep them from destroying themselves and to protect their minds. They are treated humanely and they harm no humans because they have all they need here. Tell me, where is the wrong in this?"
"Are you so sure of that none are harmed?" he asked. "Can you read their thoughts to know what they do outside of Neverland? Can you see into their minds to know how their thirst torments them? That cursed medicine does not make it better, but worse, always worse."
"You are one to stand over me in judgement, Peter," she spat back, her eyes melting from ice to fire in the sudden bubbling of anger.
"I am not standing in judgement. I am speaking my mind and hoping to appeal to your better judgement."
"You have no ground to tell me what is right or wrong or how I should treat my army. You did no better when you ruled Neverland. You had your chance. You can lie to yourself and pretend you are different, but you aren't. I know you, Peter! I know you! You are the same! You would kill me as soon as kiss me and never remember my name after you consumed me. No, you would take and take and take from me until nothing but my corpse remains and you would not mourn me once you had drunk your fill. I saw what remained of your army, after you tortured them and never gave them a chance at life, let alone any joy or happiness." Darling's face morphed into a mask of rage and her delicate fingers spoke their own verdicts of accusation at him for sins he could not comprehend.
Peter's mouth fell open and he took two steps back from her and he felt like she were the taller of the two with how her presence overshadowed him and made him shrink away from her. He grasped the cold rock of the wall behind him to ground himself and compel his to stand firm before her.
"What in all the Halls of Neverland are you talking about, Darling? Have you gone mad?"
"You are the one prone to madness! How many of my sisters did you pretend were her? How many days did you tell yourself you were making love, only to drink the life away of the one in your arms? What kind of love delights in death? No, I will not hear you speak to me of 'rightness' or 'morality' or 'goodness.' You know nothing."
"Darling, what is this about?" he cried, involuntarily moving closer and stretching out his hand to clasp her arm. He stopped himself before he did and pulled his hand back to the relative safety of his side. "Tell me so I can disabuse you of whatever this is. Who are these sisters? I know of none, unless you consider Tiger Lily your sister, and I swear, my only desire is to see her live. Who wishes your death? I do not. If there is someone who wishes to harm you, tell me and I will do all in my power to protect you."
Her eyes flashed. "Tell me, can you protect me from yourself? You are more dangerous than all of Volterra put together."
She turned with a flourish and vanished, leaving Peter frozen in place and feeling like the whole cavern had fallen on his head to trap him in place.
Oooooooo
Author's Notes: I love, love, love all your profound insights into the characters and this story. You are giving me great ideas and perspective! I will be responding to reviews soon. This story keeps wanting to be written and get out of my head so I keep writing instead of answering reviews. :) I've found I had better get stuff on paper when its in my head before it runs away and I can't find it again. That just means I have weeks where I fall into a writing frenzy and am writing all the time, followed by weeks where I stare at a blank page, nothing happens, and I go to bed. But, this story wants to come out, so here it is. It's turning out longer and more complicated than the original (still think it will be under 17 chapters, total), but that seems to happen a lot.
Hey, good news, though. We are taking a break from Peter next chapter! (I know, it's about time we changed perspectives and got out of Peter's head.) You ready for this? Darling will be next. . And Darling, oh Darling, how she loves to confound my expectations and do what I least expect. She's reinvented herself like four times already and I haven't even finalized her chapters yet. We'll see what happens.
So, it's a little hard coming up with culturally appropriate metaphors for Pirates living under the ground. I gave up and decided that since Peter has read a lot of books, he can pick up metaphors from books. I'm probably cheating, but the alternative of using nothing but rocks and tunnels for metaphors was far worse.
Pirate song: you guessed it, Peter Pan again.
Peter quotes from: To Althea, from Prison, BY RICHARD LOVELACE
John very vaguely references The Pulley, BY GEORGE HERBERT
