Shimmering flecks of golden light scattered, falling in chaos from Peta's fixed gaze. The feeble, candle-lit street lamps far below seemed to retreat like a startled swarm of fireflies. Peta kept her eyes fixed on the second star to the right, ignoring the twinkling Pixie dust and stupid, glinting tears that fell from her face as she flew. The rising sun's rays raced Peta to the stars as smaller star paths succumbed to the gravity of the sunshine. Peta was glad to have left her Shadow and Tink behind this time.

Tink. Shadow. John.

Hook.

Peta's conversation with Wendy had reopened wounds that were deeper than Peta would ever admit.

How could Peta ever confess, to Wendy or to anyone, the real reasons why she shoved her Shadow aside, why she felt indebted to Tink, why she and Hook fought each other so constantly, so bitterly?

Peta sighed as she soared up to the second silvery star path to the right, and began the long journey home. She let her mind wander back through time as her body flew forward automatically.

In the beginning, Peta had been alone with her Shadow. When the Big Shadow and The Moon birthed Peta and her Shadow, they were not infants, but two halves of a small child, barely able to toddle about their island. The Moon bade the tides to wash up succulent, leafy sea-plants for Peta to eat, and the Big Shadow told Peta bedtime stories each night in his slow, deep voice.

"Once upon a time, in a time before time" the Big Shadow would begin, telling Peta's favourite bedtime story on a particularly dreary or especially joyous evening, "all that existed was Darkness. I was the Darkness, and the Darkness was me."

"Until one time when you decided not to be," Peta's small voice would murmur back quickly.

Peta never told the Big Shadow that the part about the Darkness made her chest seize up tight, strangling her breath before it left her throat. She never told him about the hot, insidious tendrils of anxiety rooted deeper into the pit of her stomach with each telling of the story. Instead, Peta just forced herself to wait for the brighter parts of the story.

"Yes, child," the Big Shadow would reply in amusement, and The Moon would glow brighter for a moment, reaching its argent light down to caress Peta's soft cheeks. "As we all do, I looked into myself, and I saw that there was Darkness, but also a desire for light, for creation-"

"For love," Peta would yawn, often close to sleep.

"For love," the Big Shadow would agree. "And so, I decided I would make it myself. And the idea filled me with so much joy that I smiled, the very first smile, made from unfettered happiness and new hope. And to my surprise, my own smile burst from me and scattered, exploding into innumerable unique fractals of silver light."

"The star paths," Peta would say, "and the worlds that they connect."

"And The Moon," the Big Shadow would remind Peta. "She is my counterpart, as you are your Shadow's. She is the light to my darkness, my partner in creation. She reflects as I absorb. You and your Shadow will come to find a similar balance."

And so they did.

Peta and her Shadow, from birth, loved one another dearly. Peta quickly grew sensitive to her Shadow's presence, and could even feel a soft, whispering pressure as the sweet, bold lines of her Shadow's fingers traced patterns across her pale skin. During their long, adventurous days, Peta took care to place herself so that her Shadow rested or ran across warm sand, soft moss, or playful waves; she avoided jagged rocks and thorny brambles as much as possible, and her Shadow tenderly thanked her for it. In the calm, cool evenings, by the glow of the fire, Peta and her Shadow would rest against one another, the seams between their skin flickering in the firelight as they drifted together in that drowsy space between asleep and awake.

Over time, Peta realized that she could only hear the Big Shadow through her connection to her own Shadow, and so cherished that precious connection. Peta even found that she could communicate with her Shadow, by saying things aloud and feeling thrums of energy or emotion along the seams between her skin and her Shadow.

Peta left her small feet bare, despite the rough terrain of the island, to keep the physical connection to her Shadow open as they frolicked about Neverland together. The brilliant sun shone high in the sky most days, keeping Peta's Shadow on the ground, connected to Peta only through their footsteps. At night, Peta would always find a cave wall or large tree to lean against before lighting a small campfire, so Peta and her Shadow could sit side by side in the flickering light. So they could exchange soft caresses and low murmurs.

"Shadow," Peta asked one sunny day as she walked along a beach with her Shadow in tow, "we've been here for a long time."

A hum of bright energy vibrated the soles of Peta's feet. That meant Yes.

"We play each day and evening, and you grow with the light as the sun or the fire shifts."

Another hum, with an undertone of pride. Yes.

"I thought that I hadn't changed at all, but…"

Peta fell silent. She stared at the gently lapping waves until a flash of movement caught her eye. Her Shadow waved to her from their place atop the wet sand. They motioned for her to continue - Peta and her Shadow had begun developing a kind of sign language, to enhance the voiceless Shadow's ability to communicate with Peta.

"Well, I've noticed that my hands fit differently around the branches of the trees we climb," Peta confessed. "Differently than when we first got here, I mean. And when I get bored and count my steps, I realize that it takes me fewer and fewer steps to cross the beach. Am I… Shadow, am I growing?"

The Shadow shrugged, then motioned as if scratching their head. Not sure. Thinking.

Peta waited patiently, watching the glittering sunlight reflect across the clear, calm water.

Finally, another hum of bright energy vibrated along the edges of Peta's feet where they pressed gently into the damp sand. Yes.

Peta huffed, releasing the breath she had been holding.

That night, Peta asked the same question of The Moon, but she just gleamed cryptically above Peta in the night sky. The Big Shadow said nothing.

Peta slept fretfully from then on. The Big Shadow suddenly seldom had time for bedtime stories, and The Moon began to forget to deliver food to Peta from the sea. Peta spoke to them each night, but she may as well have been speaking to the sand on the beach, for they were just as responsive.

The Moon and the Big Shadow thought they were doing well to give Peta space to grow up. They had yet to realize that they would never speak to their daughter again.

Peta began to have nightmares of crushing blackness, and so focused on filling her days with as much fun or brazen activity as possible, to spite her fears. Peta drew further away from her Shadow and into herself, seeing Darkness even in the bright light of day.

As the years dragged on, Peta felt herself changing slowly. She realized with horror that she had developed a love for impish wickedness. Frightened, Peta attributed it to Darkness within her, festering quietly in the pit of her stomach, as her bedtime story fears had for so long. Peta wouldn't allow herself to believe that it was her own anxiety, and not the ethereal Darkness, that was poisoning her heart.

Peta hated the Darkness, and so began to believe that she hated herself.

Desperate, Peta slowly began to throw her hatred onto her innocent Shadow, in an ironic act of wickedness, for her Shadow had done nothing wrong. But Peta associated Darkness with the Big Shadow, and so punished her own Shadow. Between the festering hate and perpetual silence from her "parents," as she would later come to call them, Peta barely noticed herself growing older.

Why? Peta's Shadow began to ask.

Why won't you talk to me?

Why don't we play together anymore?

Until finally, the dejected Shadow asked, Why do you hate me?

But Peta was far beyond caring for anyone else at that point. Immeasurable, miserable years of stoic silence from the heavens had incited a bitterness in Peta, an unguided reaction to the trauma of such heavy abandonment. And soon, Peta thought about little else.

Even on that one fateful day, as she carved her screaming Shadow from the soles of her feet, Peta didn't notice that she had grown tall and lean, akin to a human child on the cusp of their preteen years. Indeed, instead of looking at herself, Peta took her Shadow in her hands, ignoring how they pleaded and writhed in pain, and flung the poor Shadow into that biggest, brightest star - the sun.

Peta had half hoped that the Sun would consume the Shadow, and with it her Darkness, and only half hoped that her Shadow would return with another companion. Someone, anyone.

A distraction.

As that one fateful day dragged on, Peta cared for the bloody gashes on her feet - the torn seams between herself and her Shadow - and suddenly felt the urge to cover her skin. She fashioned herself crude clothing, having no prior concept of it. Peta's goal was not modesty or safety, but to protect her feet, shoulders, torso, all of her skin, from reforming the familiar seams with her rejected Shadow.

On that one fateful day, thousands of new Shadows burst into life as the Big Shadow wept. Each world, all across their own timelines, lost countless nations to raging tsunamis as The Moon wailed. The Big Shadow and The Moon both knew that in carving her Shadow from her body, Peta had not only cut herself off from her "parents" completely, but also sealed her own fate.

Now, they knew, their precious Peta would someday die.

In fact, as Peta waited for her Shadow to return, she grew ill.

Feeling worse with each passing hour, Peta tried in vain to busy herself. On the second day without her Shadow, Peta fashioned herself a simple hammock at the edge of the forest, with a clear view of the horizon. On the third day, she stopped eating and simply laid in the hammock in agony.

Peta could bring herself to do little else than watch the sun obsessively for some sign of her Shadow's return.

It was the very same sun, in fact, against whom Peta raced each time she went to Earth to see Wendy. The sun held such glowing, yellow light because the dust of trillions of small, fluttering Pixies, across the streams of time and space, outshone the natural, silvery light of its star path. Echoes of Pixie magic even burst out onto Earth sometimes, creating things like the breath of life or an ice age or what Earth humans called a "solar flare."

Not that Peta knew any of that at the time.

At the time, Peta focused only on her Shadow's return. At last, when they brought back a Pixie whose light burned too bright, Peta was not only healed but overjoyed. The poor Shadow collapsed, wavering against the prickling brambles at Peta's feet, the edges of their form quivering with exhaustion. Peta, however, was only too eager to ignore her Shadow's nearly palpable pain.

Peta's Shadow crawled across the debris of the forest floor, seeking out their connection with Peta, and found Peta's familiar feet ensconced in some foreign fabric. The Shadow recoiled. They looked slowly up at Peta, taking in the crude pants and oversized tunic, made haphazardly from leaves. There was no patch of skin free except for Peta's face, neck, and arms. The sun was high in the sky, keeping the Shadow firmly on the harsh ground.

Peta was ready, with a sharp thorn and a thin but strong string of fiber from some leaf in her hands. She took advantage of her Shadow's inability to move, and sewed their feet to her boots, ignoring the muted cries of pain and assuring Tink that it didn't hurt the Shadow at all.

And they deserve it, Peta thought. The Darkness deserves to be punished, to be pushed aside. One day, I'll find a way to live without my Shadow forever.

Or die trying.

"So," Peta started casually as she mutilated her Shadow anew, "you got a name?"

"Tinker Bell," came the tinkling reply.

"Tinker Bell," Peta repeated. "I'm gonna call you 'Tink.'"

"Tink," the small Pixie smiled. "I quite like it. I've never had a nickname before."

"Well, what do your friends call you?"

"I've never quite had friends before."

"Oh," Peta said, uncomfortable. "Well, I'll be your friend, for now."

"And what can I call you?"

"I'm Peta. Peta Pan."

"It's lovely to meet you, Peta," Tink sparkled, clearly happy with her new friend.

Immediately, Peta threw herself into the golden glow of the small Pixie. They frolicked about the island, free of care. Peta dragged her wounded Shadow along as Tink explored Neverland, without consideration for rocks or thorns. On her very first night in Neverland, Tink picked a big tree and claimed it as her and Peta's own special tree. The following days slipped by in excitement as Peta and Tink slowly made a small home for themselves in the big tree. Tink taught Peta better ways to make things, to tinker, and even a few words in the tongue of Pixies.

Eventually, Peta and Tink had carved out a wide room for themselves, complete with a small apartment for Tink, in the heart of their tree.

Peta's Shadow began to grow jealous, trying time and again to reattach themselves to the skin of Peta's feet whenever they were bare: when Peta changed, swam, or darned her boots with Tink's more effective methods. Peta waved her Shadow off each time, unwilling to recommit herself to what she viewed as an extension of the darkest parts of herself. Peta had made a point to work with Tink and fashion herself sturdier boots, thick leggings, a tunic, and even a belt, to block most of her skin off from her Shadow.

"Peta," Tink said one night, as a storm raged against the trunk of their tree, "I think… I think I want to try something… with you."

Peta, sprawled comfortably across the floor of their home inside the big tree, looked up from her task of carving the small legs of a chair that would soon be Tink's. Her pointed ears twitched slightly, giving away her intrigue. Tink laughed.

"Well," Peta asked, sitting up and abandoning her task, "what is it?"

Tink hesitated. Peta scooted closer, bringing herself to sit cross-legged in front of Tink's tiny apartment, their noses level with each other's.

"I… do you trust me, Peta?" Tink asked, shyly.

"Of course I do," Peta said easily.

"All right then. Hold still."

Tink took flight, soaring deliberately above Peta's head. Tink made wide, spiraling circles as she climbed higher in the air. Tink focused on the memories of running around Neverland with Peta, of making their home, of making jokes and laughing together. It was the happiest she had ever been. Tink allowed that happiness to fill her tiny body and burst outward.

Visible flecks of brilliant gold showered over Peta's expectant form.

"Now," Tink cried, her minute cheeks flushed with joy and exertion, "think of a happy thought."

"Any happy thought?" Peta asked, stalling as she wracked her brain for a happy memory that didn't cary a sting of abandonment behind it.

"Uh-huh!" Tink affirmed. "Just think of the happiest things."

Peta squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard. She decided to piece together several memories, flitting from one to another as soon as the weight of loneliness or anger threatened to dampen the moment.

Suddenly, Peta felt her entire body lift upward, like every cell in her body inhaled in unison. Even the reproachful energy that her Shadow had taken to exuding fell away gently. Peta opened her eyes, and found herself suspended in the air, hovering shakily, still cross-legged. She looked down, shocked to find her Shadow painlessly disconnected from her. As Peta had slowly lifted off the ground, she had left her Shadow on the wooden floor below.

Peta and Tink burst into simultaneous whoops of joy. Peta straightened out her body, flailing her gangly limbs for balance, laughing all the while. Tink flew circles around Peta, Pixie Dust bursting from within her in glittering tufts. Peta copied her form, and it was immediately clear that Peta had a natural talent for flying. Within minutes, she was soaring effortlessly through the small room and dancing easily around Tink.

"It's the same as having wings!" Peta exclaimed.

Tink laughed again.

"Wow," Peta breathed, coming to a short halt, "thanks, Tink!"

"Of course, Peta," Tink beamed. "Everyone deserves the chance to fly!"

Peta and Tink grinned at one another, a pregnant moment of elation sparkling between them. Peta whooped again, throwing herself into a backflip, to Tink's amusement. Peta's Shadow, despite their best efforts to mirror Peta's movements thus far, spun out wildly at that, dangling dizzily from the crude sill of their small window.

Peta and Tink exchanged amused glances at the Shadow's mishaps, and Peta let out a cold laugh.

Enraptured by the pure, unbridled joy of flight, and the apparent loophole in her connection to her dark Shadow, Peta shot herself through the air, out the wooden door of their home, and into the raging storm.

"Peta, no!" Tink cried from the doorway. "I can't follow you, I can't get my wings wet!"

"Aw, I don't need wings," Peta called back.

Peta relished the moment, indulging her deliciously impish desires. She had spent so much time pushing the biggest parts of herself down, but in that moment, with the weightless joy of flight and the soft caress of warm rain against her soft skin, Peta felt her very soul humming with peaceful contentment.

Then, the wind picked up again, whipping Peta against a small tree with so much force that it cracked.

Peta vaguely registered Tink's small cries and the feeling of her Shadow reaching out to her from a distance, but the stormy forest swayed before her and faded quickly to blackness.

Darkness.

The strength of the memory overtook Peta's mind so completely that she wobbled in her flight. She shook herself, focusing on the present.

She was headed home to Neverland, after just having left a grown-up Wendy and a painful conversation behind.

Peta wobbled again.

Okay, happy thoughts, Peta reminded herself, come on!

The memory of her first real flight, that one calm moment among an unforgiving storm, was still the memory that Peta used to fly. It always had been, and always would be. She focused on the feeling of flying itself, on the freedom from her Shadow, on the soft drops of rain that she could almost imagine were small kisses from above-

Peta wobbled again, but burst finally from the star path and across the sparkling sea that surrounded her island. She was home.

Peta landed hard on the sandy beach, tripping over herself and sprawling out in the sand. She had intended to sneak back into her home in the big tree before anyone noticed her absence, but her Shadow and a disgruntled Tink were waiting for her at the treeline where the beach melded unevenly with the dirt of the forest.

"Peta," Tink said, intending a chastising tone but in fact whining at her friend, "you've been gone all night."

"I have," Peta said nonchalantly, climbing nimbly to her feet.

"But where have you been?" Tink persisted.

Peta sighed, brushing past Tink and into the forest. She had been home for a grand total of fifteen seconds and already the incessant darkness of her Shadow had attached themself automatically to the soles of her boots, and Tink had begun to nag.

"I went to see Wendy," Peta sighed, starting to feel the exhaustion that often came with staying out all night.

"Without us?!" Tink exclaimed, flying level with Peta's left ear.

"Tink, I don't exactly need your permission," Peta said shortly.

"No, Peta, you don't," Tink shot back, stopping herself short in midair.

Peta pressed on through the forest.

"But we're your friends," Tink continued, addressing the back of Peta's head. "Running off without us, and without telling us where you're going, it's not right. It… it's-"

"Bad form," came another, deep voice from the shadows to their right, stopping Peta in her tracks.