Emma shoved her fingers inside her pocket and pulled out the three pearls, offering them to Tiger Lily. They sat cross-legged in front of each other on a rug inside the masked princess's large teepee. Emma could only see Tiger Lily's deep brown eyes and thick, long lashes. They were beautiful and the only unblemished part of her face according to Great Big Little Panther. The chief said nothing specific as to what Pan did to Tiger Lily's face. All Emma knew was that the monster probably disfigured her, and now Pan and the Piccaninny tribe were enemies who stayed the hell out of each other's way.
Tiger Lily accepted the pearls and put them in a ceramic bowl with the rest before sliding a whicker box in Emma's direction.
"Thank you," Emma said, pulling out the pair of specially-made, thick-soled moccasins. She slipped them on her bare feet and relished the interior warmth of soft rabbit fur enveloping her roughened skin. The prickly island grounds hardly hurt her feet anymore, but having shoes made her feel more like a human and less like an animal. The boots she wore when arriving to Neverland never made it past the third week of her stay.
Emma stayed at the Piccaninny's reservation for dinner, feasting on wild boar, pineapple, and drinking coconut milk. Afterwards, she thanked them for their hospitality and willingness to trade with her and before leaving their camp, they handed her a thick, dark brown wedge. She brought it to her nose and sniffed, saliva flooding her mouth instantly. "Is this chocolate?"
There was no sugar cane on the island, so the slab of chocolate was sweetened with honey and textured with pine nuts. It tasted divine, and she hurriedly scarfed it down before exiting the reservation. She wasn't going to chance having one of the Lost Boys take this from her.
Early the next morning, before sunrise, Emma hiked the way to Marooner's Rock and waited until the sun reached the lagoon to catch her breakfast. She kicked off her moccasins, trekked into the shallow parts of the water and drew her bow, taking aim at a solider fish.
"I wouldn't recommend eating that."
Emma whipped her head around and saw Baelfire standing rigid on the coastline, in his hands a coconut. She tossed him a glare and said, "You should be more careful. What if I decided to shoot you instead?"
"That would've hurt."
She rolled her eyes, snorting. "Probably." She lowered her bow and saw the boy eyeing her shoes on the sand.
"You've been to the reservation," he said, surprise in his tone.
"I trade with them."
Baelfire's eyes widened. "It took my captain ages to negotiate with the tribe."
Emma treaded towards the beach, eyebrow arched. "I've been here for three months avoiding Lost Boys and your crew. You're pirates. No one wants to strike deals with you. No one wants to help you."
She didn't want to slip her muddy feet into her shoes right away, so she picked them up and held them to her chest. "You shouldn't be so close to the water. The mermaids smell boy easier than seaweed. They're probably swimming on their way now, hoping for some pubescent breakfast."
Baelfire shook his head, chuckling. "The way you speak is strange."
"You're the strange one, Baelfire. Only a moron would willingly come to Mermaid's Lagoon."
"You're here."
"They don't bother me the same way they'll bother you. I can take being insulted, but I doubt I'd survive a drowning." She marched away from him and towards the trail, throwing a bemused glance behind her when he hurried after her.
"You never told me your name," he said.
"Emma."
"Where are you going, Emma?"
"Since you disapproved of my breakfast, I'll have to find something else."
"Roasted pigeons aren't bad. There is a flock of them around southern part of the island."
"I don't eat the birds."
"Because you can talk to them."
Emma stopped and looked at Baelfire, frowning. He blushed and coughed uncomfortably, and she asked, "Do you have somewhere else you should be? You have a ship. You should go back to it."
"I have to meet Tinker Bell soon. She's helping me with something."
"Tinker Bell," Emma repeated. She had wondered but had yet to see the pixie on the island in her three month stay. She glanced back at him and eyed the coconut cradled against his middle. "What's with the coconut, anyway?"
Baelfire smiled. "I don't know yet, but I'll let you know when I do."
Emma stopped a ways from Crocodile Creek and pulled a pineapple out of the ground. Baelfire watched as she rinsed the fruit in the water and skinned it with a peculiar looking knife. She then carved out a juicy piece and handed it to him, and he accepted with a half-grin.
"I thought you said no one would help a pirate."
"I'm not," Emma said. "You are fully capable of taking care of yourself. I'm being kind. There's a difference. You had three miles worth of opportunities to literally stab me in the back, and you didn't. It's a thanks."
"My captain would say it's bad form to attack a lady from behind."
She licked the pineapple juices from her fingers, catching Baelfire's stare. He blushed again and found something fascinating on his boots. Emma inwardly grinned, supposing the kid hadn't seen a real girl in a long time.
"How old are you, Baelfire?" she asked.
He stood up straight and tilted back his chin, making himself grow another half-inch. "I'm older than I look."
From his height, the squeak in his voice, his smooth baby skin, and the complete lack of body hair, Emma assumed he was a late-blooming fourteen year old. "Okay. How long have you been here?"
"Over a century."
Emma's heart sunk into her belly, and she whispered, "Oh." She stuffed some pineapple into her mouth and wondered when she was going to let Pan's boys gut her because she was not going to be hoofing it around the island for a hundred years.
Baelfire sensed her sudden change in mood and tried to change the subject. "How old are you?"
"I guess it doesn't matter, does it?" She smiled bitterly and handed him the rest of the pineapple. She wasn't hungry anymore. "Keep it. I'm gonna take off."
Emma sprinted away before he could get in another word. She followed the creek north until she reached the island's north spring. Finding a smooth, flat rock in the water and a tree trunk, she sat and sharpened her knife. Ten minutes later, she heard some rustling from the trees above her. She looked up and nearly screamed when seeing Pan drop from the branches. Recovering quickly, she scrambled to her feet and knocked him to the ground, sitting on his stomach and putting her blade to his throat.
His eyes danced with amusement. "It's been a while. I nearly forgot that fire you have, but I suggest you tread lightly, Emma. There are ten arrows pointing at you."
Keeping her eyes on his face, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise to attention. His words rang true. They were not alone, and the odds being alive in the next ten minutes were not in her favor.
"Maybe I'll just take you with me," she said.
"Is this about Ian?"
Emma pressed the flat side of the blade further into his Adam's apple. "Tell me, Emma. How long did it take to wash his blood out of your hair? It certainly didn't come out of your clothes."
Blind hatred consumed her and she buried the blade of her knife into his chest. A second later, a sharp pain pierced her shoulder and she fell to the side. She looked down and saw a fletching sticking out of her body. Pan sat up and pulled the knife out from his chest and discarded it like a used tissue. "I don't understand your vengeance, Emma. He wasn't your brother. He was just a lad you sort of knew for a few weeks."
Emma clenched her teeth to keep from crying out in pain. Tears blurred her vision, and she could feel her shirt dampen with blood. God, it hurt!
"Just kill me," she spat. What was he waiting for? This was what he's been wanting since she got here.
"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Pan knelt beside her and rolled the fletching between his thumb and forefinger, making Emma cry out in agony. "No, Emma, you're going to live. Soon, an opportunity to leave Neverland will present itself, and you're going to take it. You're going to leave, Emma Swan, and go back to the Land Without Magic."
Black spots dotted Emma's vision, and she rested her head against the cold, damp earth. She barely heard what he was saying.
Pan gently touched the blonde strands covering face, tucking them away behind her ear. "Baelfire's a bright, young lad, isn't he? He's not so adept at hiding his new, blossoming feelings as I'm sure you noticed. But, Bae… he's, like family. I trust you won't break his heart. Emma's eyes fluttered shut but snapped open when Pan gripped the arrow's fletching and yanked it out of her shoulder. "Now let's get this love story started, shall we?"
Emma stirred awake from a thick, cottony haze and shivered. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, and she slit her eyes open. She closed them immediately when feeling a splitting headache make its ugly presence known. Her damp brow furrowed as she she remembered clashing with Pan and being hit with an arrow. The pain had been unbearable, and she must've blacked out when he pulled it out.
Her eyes fluttered open again and knew she should be laying at the base of tree on a mossy, leafy patch of ground but wasn't. She was on a sheeted mattress in a dark place unable to make out anything but a few details. She breathed in deeply and sat up, a flare of protest erupting from her shoulder. She looked down and saw her arm snuggly wrapped and harnessed bellowed her breasts in a well-crafted, makeshift sling with a reddish-pink, circular stain at the shoulder.
Another shiver wracked her body, and she pressed her free hand to the back of her sweaty forehead. She had slight fever, like it had just broken not too long ago, and her body was rushing to cool down by ridding itself of all her fluids. She needed some water and soon before she got too dehydrated.
A faint streak of light peeking through a small circular opening caught Emma's attention. She lowered her bare feet off the thin, worn mattress and onto a cold, wooden floor. She stumbled over to the small window and saw the dawn flirting with a watery horizon.
Shit!
Her heart leapt into her throat, and she gasped. She was on the pirate ship.
In what must've been a small cabin, Emma searched the unlit room for her bow, quiver, and knife. Her hands found something flat and grainy and assumed it to be a desk. She skimmed the surface and touched an object of rounded metal and glass. An old lantern. Nice. If only she knew how to light one.
Emma pulled out the rickety drawers of the desk and found most of them empty, save for a few sheets of yellowed, flimsy parchment paper and a rectangular wooden box. She abandoned the desk and bumped around the room, searching for anything that could be improvised as a weapon beside the lantern on the desk. This was a pirate ship. There should be swords and cutlasses and daggers all over the place. She sighed in aggravation and went back to the desk, resting against it. Honestly, she contemplated getting back in the bed because even though the mattress was thin and well-used, it was still softer than the futon-rug thing back in her cave that cost her six pearls and a kiss to Flying Squawk Eye's cheek.
The door to the cabin creaked open, and Emma couldn't even summon enough energy to be terrified when Captain Hook entered the room, a brightly lit lantern hanging from his silver appendage. His gaze landed on the bed and then on her by the desk.
"What am I doing here?" she croaked, her throat and mouth dry. Oh, yes, she needed water badly. She sounded pitiful and weak.
Hook walked up to the desk and set the lantern down next to the unlit one. "You should lay down. You lost a great deal of blood, Miss Emma."
She shook her head. "I want to leave."
"And return to the island where Pan can finish you?"
"Like I'm so much safer here."
He invaded her space, their middles only inches away from each other. "I'm giving you sanctuary, Miss Emma. You will not be harmed on my ship. My crew has been briefed, and it will be their folly and funeral if they disobey."
"I don't need your help, pirate," she hissed and stuck out her chin.
His eyes hardened, and he leaned close to her, the light of the lantern shining directly on his face. In Dreamshade Cove, the spring between them gave her a distant view of his features. With his face so close to hers and catching the light of flames, she saw that his eyes were blue and his lashes were long, pronounced by a dusky rimming of…eyeliner? His features were symmetrical and scruffy, and he smelt of sweetened alcohol and ocean. He wore necklaces that hung in the deep V-shape of his vest, and he had an earing in his right ear. It was the same ear she clipped when shooting at him in the cove, and she saw a thin, healing cut on his helix.
The man reached a hand towards her, and she pressed her back against the wall of the cabin and turned her face to the side. He pinched a stray lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear before gently sliding a curled finger underneath her chin, trying to get her to look at him again.
"And you're not as threatening without your bow and quiver, lass." When he replaced his fingers with his hook, she flinched and stared at him, eyes wide. He tapped the outer curve of the metal against her chin three times and said, "Perhaps I wasn't clear. I'm giving you sanctuary. Pirates are mostly known for taking but when they give, Miss Emma, the gifts will be received. You are not to leave this ship unless I give you permission to do so."
"So you're just going to keep me against my will?" she asked, glaring.
"Aye." Hook smiled, eyebrows arched. "For reasons that I'd rather not bore you with, I'm indebted to my cabin boy. When he requests favors, I oblige. It was he who found you at the north spring, and it was he who asked for your stay on my ship, but it was I who carried you here."
"Baelfire saved me?" Something warm and fluttery erupted in her chest, and it was embarrassing. He was a kid, for God's sake. She had, like, three years and two inches on him.
He found her and must've run all the way back to the beach, rowed a boat to the ship, and got his captain to comply with his wishes. That couldn't have been easy.
Hook sighed, closing his eyes and looking down between them like he was annoyed. "It was an effort on both our parts, Miss Emma. You weren't magically out of the woods when we made ship. Starkey and I had to craft a bandage and sling for you while Bae and Smee tended to you. You contracted an infection. You've been unconscious for two days."
"Baelfire took care of me?"
Hook lifted his head and glowered at her. "It's bad form to not give credit where credit is due, Miss Emma. I carried you."
"I've dropped, like, ten pounds since I've been here. I doubt I was heavy."
Licking his teeth, which were surprisingly white and straight, Hook said, "I've carried rum barrels lighter than you."
"No, you haven't. God, you're really not going to shove off until I thank you, huh? Fine! Thank you, Hook, for not letting me die and forcing me to stay on your boat!"
""Killian."
""What?"
"Call me Killian, lass."
