AN: Just to let you know, this chapter is a bit shorter than usual. It's main purpose is to get to know Selene a bit more while she waits for the action to come to her. And, as you know already, the action is on it's way...
Selene: One would think that after living the length of many lifetimes one would gain the virtue of patience. Clearly, Selene was the exception to the rule.
Feeling that she would be unable to be her normal put together self around the mixture of the few boys that knew of the current situation on her hands and the many that did not, she took her dinner alone in her room the night before. When she laid down to sleep, sleep would not come resulting in her staring over her small castle for several lonely hours watching as Guards switched posts, Sneakers did midnight training exercises and Guardians paced their room while intently making sure that the Jolly Roger did not move in a course other than that of the one they predicted.
At an hour when her sundial was useless, she heard a whimper from the room that was originally intended for meetings. She walked over and slowly opened the door wider than the cracked state that it was in and peered inside. There, laying in a small, child sized bed was the only person she had ever let herself love since she was taken from her homeland. Laying there was her only daughter, only love in her long life; the only one that she dared let in past her walls of pain and loss.
Seeing that the young girl was rolling around in the middle of a nigh terror, Selene stepped through the door and knelt down at her daughter's bedside. She reached out a hand to brush her girl's brow while whispering, "Ife, love, wake up. It's only a dream. Nothing is wrong, love. You're safe."
At last Ife awoke with a start, her chest heaving from the terror of her dream. She leaped into her mother's welcoming arms with hot tears streaming down her rosy cheeks. "Do you want to tell me what you saw, my dear, so I can tell you that it is not true?" Selene asked soothingly while running her fingers through the tangles that were present in the long, dark hair running down her daughter's back.
"Seelie, there were bad pirates in the castle and they were going through my room looking for my mirror and there was a really bad one who had a hook where he should have a hand who wanted to hurt me and take my mirror away!" the girl cried.
Selene was taken aback for a moment at her daughter's words because they were less of a childish delusion like most nightmares are and more of a memory of something that happened, but not in front of the girl. All she could think about is how Ife was one of the few people in the castle who was truly safe when the pirates had broken their defenses and how Selene had be the one, not her daughter, that had been threatened by the pirate with a hook for a hand, Captain Hook his crew had called him, and how this very same pirate that she had nightmares about was again sailing the seas of Neverland, slowly making his way to infiltrate their very home.
But, she could not tell her this. as She had never lied to her daughter and now was not the time to start. Even though the girl had lived in the land of never growing up as long as her mother had, her mind and body hadn't matured more than a few years in thousands. Even with all of the days she had faced, she could handle nothing more than any small child, smaller by far than any of her boys. She would not be able to return to slumber with the knowledge that the hook handed pirate that haunted her dreams was lurking in the very waters that she splashed in when it got especially warm on the island. She decided on giving the safe answer that was not a lie, not even an untruth, but a promise.
"I won't let the man with the hook anywhere near you or your mirror. Everyone in this castle will do everything in their power to make sure that this pirate stays far, far away from you, love." Selene spoke these words with all of the sincerity that she could. She would keep the pirate far away from her daughter. All of the boys would do everything, even lay down their own lives, to protect the most innocent one among them all.
As she said this, Ife buried her head farther into her mother's neck and let out a soft, "Thank you, Mommy," before she let go and sat back down on her bed. "Can you tell me a story, Seelie? To help me go back to sleep?" the young girl pleaded.
Not being able to deny her anything, Selene sighed while she tucked her back in and sat down on the edge of the bed, her fingers twirling her daughter's soft hair around her finger.
"Once upon a time," she began, already seeing the feeling of safety and secureness fall back into her daughter's eyes.
She was up earlier than she would have liked the next morning. Sleep had finally come to her once she was sure that her daughter was soundly asleep. For a moment, she was at peace with the world in only the way that the oblivion of waking up can make you. She felt calm and secure, the way she felt most mornings when she had woken up recently, until she remembered the nightmare that her daughter had had the night before. And she remembered the ship that was sailing ever closer and closer to the castle. And she heard a squawk from her bedside table.
Rolling over, Selene saw a hawk, Pig she remembered was the name given to it by one of the newer boys who had come from her land, perched on the top pillar of her sundial with a scroll tied firmly to its foot. She quickly swung her feet off of the bed and untied the scroll. She was desperate to know if the Sneaker crew she sent out the day before was safe, even though she knew that no real danger had come their way yet.
She quickly read through the note. No information was given besides that Bennet had the boys spread out around the beaches of the coast; eyes on the lookout for any ships that sailed their way. Selene sighed, longing for the next few days to pass quickly. Nothing, not even the ever lurking danger of what is to come, is worse than waiting. Nothing is going to get better with me just sitting here, she thought as she stood up and began to get ready for the day. She walked over to her desk and quickly scrawled a note in reply to Bennet telling him that she would send an update as to the Roger's location right after she made a visit to the Guardian's room.
She also wrote a quick note to tell Ife to go to the kitchens when she awoke. Selene was not going to wake her up to go to breakfast with the boys when she had been up at an unknowable hour with a nightmare.
She tied the small scroll for Bennet to Pig's foot, gave him one of the treats she keeps in her desk and sent him off. She proceeded to get dressed for the surely stressful day ahead and stuck Ife's note on her bed table on her way out.
Knowing that she again wouldn't be able to casually chat with the boys over a meal, she stopped by the kitchens and grabbed a pear on her way to the Guardian room. She knew that if she flew through the halls she would only get to her destination faster, resulting in her having more time to stress out over the lack of information, so she decided to walk all of the way across the castle. Why the Guardian room was set all of the way across the castle from where her room was she had no idea, but it did give her time to think about the situation far too much just like her had the night before when she should have been sleeping.
Not knowing was the only think that every made Selene mad. She could handle any number of diplomatic situations without outwardly showing any impatience, or emotion at all for that matter. She could stand over the graves of ones she cared about without shedding a single tear. But not knowing something; that would be her downfall.
In her time on the island, she had listened to every story that every boy had ever wanted to tell her and wrote it down in multiple volumes that took up nearly an entire bookshelf. She knew everything that a boy would tell her of their native realm, right down to the aspects that only their life had. She could name every star in the Neverland sky and name every creature by the sound they made to attract a mate. Not knowing who was on the Jolly Roger and what they wanted was going to drive her insane.
She made it to the Guardian room and burst through the doors without announcement. A few of the boys jumped at the noise her shoes made when she stalked over to the small island in the center of the room. She had been told by a few different people that none of the Guardians ever talked much to each other when they were working, so when she came in to visit their ears had to take a minute to adjust to the volume. Before she got there, though, Artie grabbed her arm.
"The Roger has been keeping the course we predicted for it. She sailed for most of the night-"
"You've been here all night!" Selene exclaimed. Suddenly, she didn't care about anything else besides Artie's wellbeing. Just one of the consequences of knowing someone for a few thousand years.
"Calm down, m'lady. I'm fine. And, if you don't mind me asking, did you get any sleep last night yourself?" Artie asked with concern on his face.
"I got enough. You, on the other hand, were here all night working. You need to get some rest. I'm sure you'll be needed much more when the pirates land," she begged. She could see the dark circles that were beginning to form under his green eyes.
"I have a class to teach in," he walked over to the sundial next to the door behind her, requiring him to drop her arm that she had forgotten that he was holding. "An hour and a half," he returned to say; taking his place back in front of her. "I'll retire after that."
"No. You have two choices. You can either cancel your class or let someone else teach it. You are going to sleep, at least for a few hours. That is an order." She really hated to use her status against Artie, who had become more of a friend to her than anyone else she had ever met, but she couldn't let him go about without sleeping.
"I'm fine, your majesty. Trust me. Over the years, I've needed less and less sleep to feel well rested. I'll be able to survive going one night without any. I don't need you to look after me."
Him calling her "your majesty" instead of his usual "m'lady" hurt her more than anything else that he said. He had always used his own name for her, even after he had been instructed over and over again to stop. She had always allowed it and eventually everybody let it go. She wished that boys could be more casual when talking to her, but it simply was against protocol. Artie being able to defy the rules was one of the things that made him special.
"Artie, I just don't want one of our best Guardians sluggish when I have boys out there in the woods that are going to be following these pirates and leading them towards the castle. I just want what's best for you as well as the rest of the kingdom." She tried to put as much genuine understanding into her words, especially the part about wanting what was best for him. She cared about all of her boys, but the fact that Artie had arrived on the island just days after she had, still completely lost as to how she was supposed to act and say, gave him a special place in her heart.
"Fine, m'lady. You win this one. Vince, can you take over my class today?" he quietly shouted across the room. When he got a positive reply he turned back to Selene. "At least let me be the one to fill you in and inform you as to the course and timetable that we expect the Jolly Roger to take."
"Start talking then," she replied as they began walking over to the island in the center of the room.
"We are still backing the idea that the ship will make land in two days. What time during the day depends on how long they are going to sail each day. We saw last night that they are definitely not afraid to sail at night. They will most likely be here the morning after next, tomorrow night at the earliest. But keep in mind, they may choose to land on the Southwest coast for a shorter trek to the castle," Artie explained.
"Shit! Do you really think that they may not land on the Northwest coast? I'm going to have to tell Bennet not to get to comfortable where he's stationed. What do you think the pirates are going to do?" she demanded. She hated being wrong, especially with something so small, but important like where a pirate ship was going to make land.
"We don't know. By tonight we should know if they are going to continue sailing South or if they will start sailing East, but I would keep sailing if I were them. It would be much quicker." He said all of this while pointing at possible places the ship could go and waving his arms this way and that to emphasize his point. Artie really loved being a Guardian. He had taken up almost every occupation in the kingdom over his many years, but being a Guardian had always been what he wanted to do. Maps were one of his passions before Neverland and a map that changed with the island was a dream come true for him.
"Great. I guess I'll tell Bennet to be ready to move. Thank you for filling me in, but it looks like it's past your bedtime," she teased as an honest grin spread across his face.
"It was a pleasure speaking with you, m'lady," Artie bowed as he started towards the door. It only took her a split second to start after him.
"I'll walk with you," she quipped, slipping her arm around his. "I might as well as you have just told me everything that the ship is going to do for the rest of the day."
He smiled at her as they exited the Guardian room and down the hall. It was moments like these that she relished, because it wasn't often that she got to be a friend first and princess second.
I don't know if you guys have seen all of the pictures from 3X01 yet, but dang. My heart is probably going to explode before the 29th! Ugh, my babies are perfect. :)
Anyways, thanks for reading, following and reviewing! In the next chapter you will get Emma trying to avoid Killian, but it not working because honestly, who can stay away from someone as perfectly imperfect as him forever? And maybe another heart to heart?