Shahrazád's Ghosts


Chapter 15: Peter (Edward) Part V


2400 A.D.


"Yes- love," he thought again quite clearly. "But not love which loves for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason, but the love which I- while dying- first experienced when I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel that bliss. To love one's neighbors, to love one's enemies, to love everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?...

"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did her."

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Oooo

Darling gave all of Neverland medicine that day. It was her tradition each time a Tiger Lily was put to rest. Slightly thought it was her way of mourning, her way of recognizing a loss. She had only ever developed one way of being important, preserving her life, and taking care of others. This was it. Peter thought it was because she didn't want to be bothered and this ensured none of her Braves or Lost Boys intruded on her solitude for the next day or so. Not that the Braves really knew what had happened. Their self-awareness and window of consciousness was so narrow that despite having bonded with the woman, they could not understand what it meant that she was now gone, or even really truly recognized her as gone, because she still existed in their pool of collective memories.

But Peter knew and there was nothing to rescue him from his troubled consciousness, nothing, at least, that he would allow himself to indulge in.

He closed his eyes until he felt the barrage of thoughts from the euphoric vampires around him suddenly cease. Darling entered Tiger Lily's camp where he stood motionless in one corner, his mind over full and his body over still in response. The partition wall was still open, though Tiger Lily's room had been cleaned and all of her furniture removed, save for the gilded chair.

"Is that better?" she asked. Darling placed one delicate hand on his shoulder and he just as quickly shook it off.

"That is better," he admitted. "I cannot abide them right now."

"I'm sorry," she said.

He snorted. "What? You are sorry I can't stand to watch my one friend torn apart by my former mentor or you are sorry an innocent life was needlessly lost for the gluttonous pleasure of another?"

"Both," she said.

He closed his eyes again. "Does your shield happen to work to shield myself from my own thoughts?"

"No."

"Pity."

She left then and he relapsed back into the silence her shield provided him, though his internal thoughts were still as tumultuous as they had been. When she returned, she carried a black bottle in her hand. She placed it on the nearest table beside him.

"Everyone else received some. It helps the others. Maybe it would help you," she said.

He opened one eye to see her, "Helps them?" he replied dubiously. "This helps them?"

"She loved to give them medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much," he quoted to himself, remembering the line from Darling's book. He opened the stopper and the scent of blood filled the room so strong that Darling covered her nose. Then in a sudden fit of temper, he threw it against a wall. The bottle shattered and left a splattering of scarlet over the whitewashed rock face and furniture nearby, the blood slowly dripping from the wall onto the floor.

"Do you know what this smells like to me?" he said, his voice lowered back into a furious whisper. "This is the scent of death - your death. The others, they sell their souls to murder you in their hearts. Again and again and again. How do you expect this to help me? Am I to delight in their delight in your death? Am I to wish to kill you myself - again and again and again? What kind of monster do you take me for, my Lady?"

"I am only trying to help," she said, her tone so quiet is was almost plaintive. She did not stand upright like a queen at this moment and she appeared smaller than he had ever seen her before. She did not argue for the justice of her cause or glare at him from remorseless eyes, but the very sorrow in her stance only fueled his anger more and he almost wished for a return of her defiant haughtiness.

"I believe I've had enough of your kind of help," he said and he stood up and left. He did not return into that room again.

Oooo

Peter lay in an undignified heap on the floor of his barren quarters in the Lost Boys' wing of Neverland. The rock walls stretched overhead and around him and he felt the cold sink into him from the rocks below him as if his limbs drank in the frigidity of the rocks. His extra uniforms lay in a pile against the wall, each in need of washing, but he didn't care. He had never bothered to retrieve any of his music from his former domicile. It stayed where he last left it. Other than his prostrate form and his clothes, the room was empty, hollow - the same as he felt. He had never bothered to furnish this room. He had always lived in Tiger Lily's camp and so never even considered this room his own. Now, he never left it.

He was as aimless now as a ship without a rudder or sails. For months, he had locked himself into this room and did not try to leave. Milk deliveries came in regular intervals, though he never ordered them himself. For a time, Darling, Lost Boys, and even a handful of Pirates all came to check on him. He did not open the door or respond to their inquiries. He could hear their worry, through their thoughts, but he did not have the energy to care. He could not appease them and he did not wish to pretend he was well when he was not.

He had cast more than the body of Tiger Lily into Captain Hook's jaws that day. He had gained so much purpose and affirmation as Tiger Lily's guardian. He had believed he had an important role to fill and now it all felt meaningless. He questioned his past roles in Neverland and whether all his previous duties were as ignominious as his post in Tiger Lily's camp. The crocodile's ticking clock echoed through his mind, reminding him of the futility of it all.

He had woven so many dreams about not only Tiger Lily, but Darling. He could no longer lie to himself. Darling was not the paragon of virtue he had considered her to be. His mind kept reminding him of Darling's own words, long years past, when they spoke of Cinderella.

"Beauty is easily attained, but goodness is not. Beauty is more valued by most, and goodness is harder to find than fairy godmothers and glass slippers."

Now, he felt like the clock had struck midnight and he saw Darling, not in the enchanted visage of a princess but as the servant in rags. Beneath the apparition of beauty she embodied, she was as ruthless a fiend as Peter's own namesake ever had been and Peter had to grapple with which was the truest measure of the Mistress of Neverland.

He was angry. He raged. He wished to throw her tattered old book at her head and scream at her and then tear off her arms and feed them to the crocodile.

Yet, worst of all was the knowledge that beneath all his anger, he was bound to her still. The affection he once felt for her with joy and delight now felt like steel chains around his heart, like poisoned barbs in his soul, and he wished he could unshackle himself and feed his own heart to Captain Hook.

He doubted any could have roused him from his lethargy if Slightly hadn't forced him out. As angry as Peter was with everyone in Neverland, Slightly had enough sense to keep his distance… and send John out on a series of extended missions once the smug bastard woke. Without John's absence, Peter doubted whether he could have restrained himself or maintained his isolation. He nearly sought out his former mentor upon his waking in order to take John's head for what he had done.

John was following orders, Slightly had mentally whispered to Peter. Peter responded with such a flurry of barbed curses and threats that Slightly made sure he was mentally shielded for the next month. Peter rather wished to take Slightly's head after John's, but Slightly never gave him the opportunity. At least, not for a few months.

When the shield retracted next, Peter's mind was inundated with all the typical bustle and business of Neverland. He jumped in surprise at the cacophony of thoughts that assuaged him after such a period of silence, but then he settled into ignoring them again. He wondered why Darling had chosen to remove her shield from him, since he could clearly see, through Slightly's thoughts, that she remained in Neverland.

"My Lady, send Peter out with me," Slightly told her. He leaned against the wall of the Braves' barracks, his arms crossed, and his concern genuine.

"With you? Why?" Darling responded. She remained impassive and she held her head high. Her golden dress matched her eyes and its laced edges floated across the rock floor behind her. Her chestnut hair fell in wisps around her face from the bun on her head. Gold jewelry covered her wrists and neck and fingers, catching the dim lights of the hall against their reflective lines.

Peter tried to close his mental eyes and pull himself away from her intrusion into his mind, but Slightly continued to argue his case, a case which happened to involve Peter, and so he could not pull away completely.

"He hasn't left his room in months. He's barely eating. The one time he did emerge from his room, he started a fight with some of the young Braves. They were too afraid of him to rise to his bait, but he wanted them to fight him. He needs to get out of here, out of this place. The world outside would do him good and get his mind off of things here. He needs it."

Darling frowned. "Perhaps he just needs to be busy. Maybe I will let him train more Pirates. He used to enjoy that. Maybe he could try his hand at training the young Braves."

"My Lady, why not send him with me?" Slightly argued. He continued watching Darling closely, too closely for her to be comfortable and she dropped her eyes from his.

"I don't think it's a good idea," she answered.

Slightly would not permit her to evade his question. He came closer to her and asked again. "Why not?"

Slightly's thoughts filled with the questions he did not dare ask.

Why do you wish to keep him here when we both know he would be better outside Neverland? Why do you continue to watch Peter's movements through the video feed? Why do you walk the halls outside his room every day? What do you want from him?

She sighed. "Maybe I can send him out with Nibs or Thomas when they return."

"I see," Slightly said, a half-smile on his face. "It is not so much that you want him to remain in Neverland but that you do not want him to leave with me. What is it about my company that you are worried about?"

Darling opened and closed her mouth, the hesitant reply which failed to leave her tongue was more than eloquently communicated through her face.

"Oh, my Lady. It's me. You don't want me to introduce him to other women. Are you jealous? Is that what this is all about?... You are! Wait, you don't want him to be close to you and yet you don't want him to meet anybody else. You are a tyrant! Be honest, you like him, don't you?"

Slightly's amusement grew with Darling's flustered, stumbling response, and her vehement protest against his allegations. He shook his head and chuckled. He became serious again and returned to his objective. "My Lady, if you want him to have a chance of getting through this, you need to let him go. He needs it. I worry what will happen to him if he stays here like he is now."

"Fine," she said, though she obviously did not like the idea and regretted her answer as soon as she gave it.

Peter, can you hear me? Slightly called through his mind. Meet me at the western door, number five, in fifteen minutes. Don't even consider refusing or I will come and carry you out on my back. If you fight me on that, I will dismember you and reassemble you again when I have you outside of Neverland. You are coming with me. Now.

Peter sat up, looked at his pile of dirty uniforms, decided he didn't care, and left.

ooooo


The full moon cast long blue shadows of the rock formations around them and the banner of stars overhead was as fathomless as the mountains around where they ran. Slightly had not spoken a word since Peter joined him and even his thoughts stayed strangely silent. Peter was too grateful for the lack of mental intrusions to question it and instead he followed after the general's feet, both sprinting nearly as fast as they could.

Slightly led him up a rugged incline, leaping over rocks and crevices without making a sound. When they scaled the entire hillside, they could not freely see the blanket of shadows of the valleys around them on three sides and Peter didn't doubt it would be a spectacular view when the light finally broke through the night. Behind them, an overhanging of rocks provided a sheltered cove, which Slightly motioned for Peter to enter.

"Welcome to Ennedi, Peter. You can think freely here," Slightly said. "I will return in a week. Don't step into the sunlight or let yourself be seen."

Peter nodded. He was too tired to ask why Slightly had brought him here or what he was supposed to do on top of a mountain for a week. He only curled himself into the rocks, closed his eyes, and let his mind wander unhindered.

When the sun did break through, it bathed the unobstructed sky overhead and desert below in fierce gold and red ribbons of light. Peter watched, entirely entranced, as the lights shifted and fazed and crawled across the burnt orange rock arches and pyres protruding from the sands below.

His solitude was only interrupted by a fox, a snake, and a hawk, until the day a camel train wandered by below him. He could hear their thoughts from a distance and he listened to them until he could no longer hear them pass. The family's minds were busy with all the cares of everyday life.

When will we stop to prepare grass tea? How long will the millet flour and dates last before we must return to the market and how much will our goats sell for this time? Why is the newest camel calf favoring one leg? How long will our newly weaned son sleep on his mother's back? Will our cousins join us before the next rains?

The handful of people accompanying the camels were men and women, old and young, sickly and well. They carried grudges and complaints. They held dreams and hopes. They were full of their own cavernous cities of life and death and their own attempts to forge meaning together out of the places they were born into. They were as like Peter as they were unlike him and Peter finally understood why Slightly had insisted he stay away from Neverland for a time.

He needed the reminder that there was still a world away from Neverland, that life continued on, outside of Neverland, that more was possible than he would ever experience in Neverland.

He felt like the enchanted Prince Rilian of Narnia who had been taken captive by a sorceress – she who was "of divine race, and knows neither age nor death." For so long, he had been trapped underground and forced to accept a version of the world which was not based on reality, but based on the spell work of his Lady. He was but a tool, a pawn, in the machinations of the Lady of the Green Kirtle, the Queen of the Deep Realm. He did not belong in Underland, but Overland. Now, the Silver Chair, which had kept him bound, had been cut in two. His eyes were opened to see his enchantress for who she was – a serpent – and recognize his true self as one kept captive under her spell.

Did he have any free will or choice in the matter? Was this bond entirely arbitrary or based on something other than chance? He was tied to a woman who would never reciprocate and would use his very bond as the hole into which to slip her bit and bridle. The bond did not care if the object of his affections cared for him or anyone else. She could be the incarnation of the devil himself and would the bond care? Could he not rise up and tell his internal desires "no"? Could he cut the bond and extricate himself from the rule of his tyrant queen?

Yet, as his opened eyes blinked into the light of the sun of Overland and peered through the layers of years obstructing his view, he could gain no more clarity of what it was he was supposed to do next. He allowed himself to wallow in his disorientation for some days, at least until Slightly returned. Slightly's thoughts remained so quiet that Peter did not even notice his approach. It was his footsteps that first gave him away.

"How do you do that?" Peter asked, foregoing any attempt at a greeting.

Slightly cocked his head to one side, making the feather in his hat dance, and he squinted his red eyes.

Do what? Slightly mentally responded.

"Not think."

Control, my friend. Years and years of control. I did not become general without becoming master of my own thoughts… a skill you must now perfect.

"I don't understand."

You need something to do to keep you from idleness and to get you out of Neverland. I need someone I can trust to hold his tongue and thoughts to do a job.

Peter grimaced and his mind wandered back over all the "jobs" that he had held in Neverland.

There is more going on here than you know. Darling has orchestrated a perfect firestorm, and if she does not keep a delicate balance, the flames are going to destroy her and everyone around her.

"What is going on?" Peter asked.

Slightly sat in the rocky crevice beside Peter and placed his hat on his knee.

We will only speak of this here. Never outside of here. You are to only think upon these matters here. No where else. Do you understand?

"Yes."

Are you going to return to Neverland or are you going to leave?

"Would I be allowed to leave?" Peter asked, surprised that this was even an option.

I would not force you to return, if you chose to leave.

Peter thought about it. He thought of all the places he once dreamed of visiting, all the places his books spoke about, and he was sorely tempted to go. But then he felt as if an anchor kept him rooted to Neverland, calling him to return again, and he cursed that chain which he could not disentangle from his heart. He knew Slightly could see all he thought and so he did not bother pretending he felt otherwise.

"Is this my punishment? To be bound to someone such as her?"

Slightly shrugged. Is the mating bond a punishment or a gift? I don't know. It depends, I guess. In your case, well, there's still hope.

"Hope of what? I am one of hundreds of disposable, meaningless reproductions of a man Darling once hated. She can take off my head and replace me tomorrow. Even if she doesn't, what hope is there to find happiness with such a heartless woman?"

Would you be happier if she were dead?

Peter started at that and the very thought of Darling dead made him feel like he had taken a drink of petrol and then swallowed a match.

"No. I'd be happier if she weren't trying to destroy everyone she knows out of some twisted sense of vengeance."

Fair enough. Fair enough. I'm not gonna sugar coat it. Darling is a basket case and you might have been better off bonding with Tiger Lily. I mean, then at least you could hold onto your ideal, imagined picture of the woman. But Tiger Lily is gone, same with the ones before, and none of us got the chance to know her. You, on the other hand, still have a chance. You can still try. You can actually learn to love the woman and hope to have something in future.

"But why would I want to?"

Why wouldn't you? No, really. Darling is scared to death of actually believing anyone could possibly care about her because everyone she's ever known has treated her abominably. Not that that excuses her terrible decisions, but maybe, somewhere inside her, is the possibility of something different. You never know.

"So, could you just as easily become Darling's mate? Are we interchangeable like that?"

Slightly shrugged. I dunno. Life goes on for us after our mates are gone. It has to. It's never the same. We are forever crippled in some way, but life must go on and we find ways to cope, ways to keep going, ways to heal and mend. No life is permanent and all carry the risk of death and everything that has a beginning must have an end. It is the way of things. Some are granted longer times with their mates than others. Would we rather never experience the joy of the mating bond than never experience the destruction of its loss? I am not sure. I do not think anyone who has once experienced that bond would ever wish to have unexperienced it, no matter how it burns to lose it.

Peter considered Slightly more carefully at this. His typical show of arrogance and self-confidence had been replaced by uncharacteristic solemness and his eyes finally showed the scores of decades he had lived. Slightly was not sharing from what he had heard second-hand, but from his own experiences. Peter was sure of it.

"Who was she?" Peter finally asked.

I was the sentry for Tiger Lily the Third, the one before this one. It was my third post and I was with her from the first day she opened her eyes until the day she closed them for the last time. Each day, she was mine and I was hers, but there was really only one way for that to end. Each day brought her closer to death and Darling forbid any of us to change her. Then, one day, she died in her sleep, an old woman with white hair, but as beautiful as the day I first laid eyes on her. Now, I have to live out the rest of my eternity longing for what I never really had and is now lost from me forever.

"She was human?"

Of course. Do you think Darling would allow two queens in Neverland? No, she was human, from beginning to end.

"Could you speak to her?"

No. It was as you experienced it, well, before. We were kept physically apart. I used to plot how to bring myself nearer to her, but in the end, I preferred to keep her safe. I did not trust my control enough to let myself nearer.

"But you couldn't bond with the new one? The one I guarded?"

Could you?

"I suppose not. Maybe? I don't know."

I do not understand how it works. I suspect it is like gunpowder and flame. Gunpowder always has the inherent capacity to catch fire and flame always has the capacity to burn. You feel the warmth and the potential, each time a version of Tiger Lily… or Darling… is placed near one of us. We feel the draw, the magnetism, but it isn't until the fuse is lit and the explosion occurs that it becomes immutable. Each of us has the capacity to mate with any of them, but once we mate, we cannot undo it or transfer it to another.

"But we still feel the draw, after?"

Yes. We are still biologically compatible as mates, so we will always feel the draw, but I do not think our capacity to mate is refillable or something that can happen again and again. But, perhaps, I am wrong. Perhaps, we can and I have been too stubborn to even try, out of some false fidelity to the one I loved.

"But you pursue other women?" Peter asked, mulling over how different his impressions of Slightly had been up until this day.

Slightly's characteristic smirk returned. Of course. I am not opposed to …. other means… of distracting myself. How else can I break the tedium around here? John would rather just drink himself into oblivion or lose himself in a book. Nibs loves the hunt and the powerplays he does when he goes fishing for guests. He loses himself in his chase and the chance to win and conquer. We all have our hobbies. I suppose we could call them our ways of coping. Maybe I am still a romantic at heart and I do love to woo a beautiful woman. But I know I am only capable of giving what is left of me, the parts that Tiger Lily never had. If I had ever been able to consummate the mating bond with Tiger Lily, I do not think I could be so quick to pursue another woman. I am not sure. It is too late to know for sure. Could I fully bond with Darling or one like her now? I have never had the opportunity… or the desire… to try. We all feel the pull when human, but is it as ossified as after we are changed? I do not know. Did you feel different-about Darling- after the change?

"I suppose so. I always felt drawn to her, but after, well, after it was so much stronger."

See. That's what John said.

"Was John mated with Tiger Lily?"

No, poor devil. He was unfortunate enough to be raised by Darling, initially. We were short-handed, at the time, and so Darling raised him, like she did with most of the Pirates, but he was always meant to be a Lost Boy. He was one of the reasons she stuck only to Pirates, after that. He bonded with her so strongly that she nearly avoided him completely after that. He's never quite forgiven her for refusing him and it torments him, terribly.

I think that's one of the reasons he has lost himself in his thirst. Darling thinks that we forget her because we drink her wine. Sometimes, perhaps, it works that way. But there are others of us who drink her wine in order to forget her. She was so wounded in her past, she now thinks we have no hearts, and that makes her behave as the one without a heart. Yet, you and I both know we still have full capacity to love, no matter what she thinks or believes.

"What a miserable existence."

Oh, it's not so bad. We aren't the only poor souls forcing our way through lives after our mates are gone. There's Marcus, one of the Volturi. His own brother-in-law killed his mate and now keeps Marcus artificially bound and chained to use him for his gift. His mate was stolen away to make him more useful. That's a miserable existence.

Then there's Augustine, the patron beneficiary of Neverland. All he has ever really wanted was to resurrect his mate. She was killed in a conflict with the Volturi almost a thousand years ago. When he gained wind of the idea that Darling's sire was cloning people and literally resurrecting people from the dead, he gained a fantastical hope that his mate could be resurrected. Unfortunately, without access to samples of their human DNA, vampires can't be resurrected. Now he has come up with new goals and aspirations, for which Darling is useful.

We, on the other hand, can go where we please and do as we wish. The unrequited mate bond is not the worst thing in the world and we can manage. I'm not going to lie and pretend it's pleasant, but we do not need to throw ourselves off a cliff, unless we are John, but he's an overdramatic wretch at the best of times. I can't be too hard on him. It's been worse lately because of the competition. If I had to watch my mate falling for another man, I probably would have been just as dejected. It's the jealousy that's really been driving him crazy.

"Jealousy?" Peter asked, his heart falling at the sudden idea that Darling had another admirer he did not know about.

Slightly chuckled. He's jealous of you, you idiot.

At Peter's sudden gasp of surprise Slightly only laughed harder. You must know it. You have to have noticed it. Darling is drawn to you, though she won't admit it to anyone, least of all herself. She tries so hard to keep herself away, but she's not immune. And she's always had a soft spot for the Pirates and especially for you.

"Why me?"

Hell if I know. Do I look like someone who would understand that? You aren't my type.

"I thought I was like all the others."

I suppose you are, but you aren't. Just like the rest of us. Why Tiger Lily and not Darling for me? Why Darling and not Tiger Lily for John? Is there sense to any of this? Darling has been playing with fire and forces she can't understand or control. Our mating bond, like our draw to certain types of blood, are only supposed to occur once. What happens when we mess with such forces and multiply what should have only occurred once? It's like controlling a hurricane and replicating it over and over again to feel its wind, but all the while not wanting it to damage one's house. It's a force we were never meant to wield or control and, in the end, it destroys us. Darling has tried to keep herself exempt from her own vulnerability, while still wielding its power. It was an impossible goal to begin with, and she could not possibly control it forever.

"Did Darling have a mate? Before?"

I am not sure. There's always the possibility. How else could she keep us all at arm's length so long? However, it's also possible that it was not a completed bond. If it remains unrequited and unconsummated, can it be transferred? I do not know.

"So, do you believe she has formed an…attachment… on me?"

I don't know for sure. I know she is …preferential of you…and fiercely jealous… and she stalks you through the video feed like a vampire on the hunt, but I cannot read her mind or heart, any more than you can. Maybe its just a fascination with novelty or the lure of the unattainable? Maybe she will toss you to the storage rooms of Neverland again once she doesn't want you around and you can moon around like John does all day, but I still thought you have a right to know.

"Why are you telling me this?"

Because you need to know that, if it is true, and she has bonded with you, then you have just become a greater vulnerability to all Neverland than Tiger Lily ever was.


Author's notes:

We are going to be a little angsty for a while because Peter has some very necessary soul-searching to work through. I also had to break this chapter in half cause it got real long, real fast.

Peter quotes from The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis and J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.