A/N: Goodness, that episode of Once Upon A Time was literally amazing. I'm shipping Hook with everybody now. The chemistry between him and Peter was insane and then that kiss with Emma - I legit was on the edge of my seat the entire episode. But then there was a reference to something I'd written into chapter nine and I was like 'DAMN YOU KITSIS AND HOROWITZ THAT WAS MY IDEA' and then I realised that I hadn't uploaded chapter nine yet and have some sort of seer ability because this story can continue on the straight and narrow without me having to change anything. No AU! *yays*

And I never have to set foot in my school ever again as a student after 11.30 tomorrow morning because my HSC (end of school/university entrance exam) is finished. I'm going to go frolicking out the gate in joy - just thought you all ought to know that.

So here's the next chapter!

xx

The Lies of a Writer

A thousand years ago…

"Merlin!"

A wild-eyed young woman stormed into Merlin's cavern, opening his door with a swift opening charm and standing in his doorway, dirtied by a day of fleeing across the country. On the shores of Avalon, she stood before Merlin, who looked up at her from a bowl of soup a little confused.

He pulled out a long sheet of paper from next to the table and glanced at it quickly, checking his destiny charts before saying with a mouth full, "I was never supposed to see you again. Says so right here on the charts."

"Then you read them wrong," Anabelle accused, walking swiftly across the room and grabbing the paper out of his hand. Merlin dropped his spoon into his soup and started to protest but Anabelle had already seen the blank nature of the sheet.

"What is this?" she asked forcefully, shaking it in his face.

"Look Your Highness, I really don't know why you're-"

"Not anymore."

"Excuse me?" Merlin enquired curiously.

"I…I gave up my throne."

"For the boy with the flute I'm assuming," Merlin replied with a nod.

"Don't mention him," she replied vehemently, her hand sitting upon the dagger at her belt. Merlin took a moment to look at her curiously. In the space of a few weeks, a calm girl who wanted to save her relationship with a minstrel had turned into a ticking time bomb.

"What are you doing here then, Anabelle?"

"I want to learn from you," she stated, looking at him firmly passing him back the destiny chart. "Show me how to read this Mage Merlin; teach me how to do magic."

Merlin simply looked at her and laughed. She didn't move as he chuckled himself into silence, "You're joking right?" he finally smiled, but upon seeing Anabelle's nonplussed face his own fell and he continued.

"Look, I haven't taught anyone since Camelot fell, and considering that was because I taught someone, I'm not too keen to repeat it."

"I'm not Nimue," Anabelle responded, referring to the woman who burned Camelot and expelled Merlin from Albion. "Besides, if you won't do it then I'll teach myself. I've turned from my country and I need to know how to fight the guards that come after me. I've already started – watch."

She raised her arms where Merlin's fire roared. From it, a single spark lit up in her hand, burning into a small fireball. She shaped it for a moment, but within a few seconds, sparks had begun to fly off onto Merlin's stone floor. They grew in their scope and Merlin waved his hand, extinguishing the fire with a light glow.

"You're going to be dangerous if you don't control that," Merlin mused, picking up the destiny chart once more. "Oh would you look at that?"

Anabelle looked at him as though he was an idiot, but his words afterwards made her smile.

"Looks like destiny wants me to take on a new apprentice."

Days turned into weeks in Avalon, and weeks turned into months. One night, Anabelle and Merlin sat out on the lake, watching it turn to glass as their magical imperviousness prevented them from freezing.

"How long has it been since Camelot fell Merlin?" Anabelle asked curiously.

"Oh…five hundred and forty-three years? Give or take a few months."

"And you're still here?" Anabelle frowned. How could Merlin still be alive? "Is that part of Nimue's punishment?"

"Oh no," Merlin smiled, "the nymph was a bitch but she didn't have that kind of power. I did this to myself."

"But…why?" Anabelle couldn't imagine living forever. Not aging would be nice, but Merlin was over five hundred years old. That was longer than Hainor had even existed.

"It's not a specific choice exactly," Merlin explained. "But once you reach a certain threshold of magic usage, your body comes to regard it as a sustaining source. Every time you use your magic, your body rejuvenates, rendering you essentially, eternally young. In that way, you can never die of old age."

"You can never die…" Anabelle looked out to sea, "That has to be lonely."

"Well," Merlin hesitated, "I can die. I mean, if someone stabs me with a sword that I don't disintegrate in time, or I get shot by an arrow that I don't see and I die before I can heal myself, I will die. In fact, it's almost certain that someday I will. You just stop using magic, and your body stops healing itself. You start ageing again – time starts passing – and you die."

"But why would you hide out here? For centuries – alone. Why wouldn't you let yourself age?"

"I'm waiting for someone," Merlin replied, looking out to sea.

"Arthur?" Anabelle whispered, looking up at Merlin.

"No," Merlin scoffed. "I mean, yeah, he'll come back someday. But I'm waiting for Nimue. I'm hoping that when she comes back this time she won't be so-"

"Evil?"

"Yeah," Merlin murmured. Their conversation faded into silence until Anabelle started up again, "Wait. What's the threshold of magic?"

Merlin refused to look at her for a few moments until he said, a little sheepishly, "You passed it two months ago."

Anabelle erupted, her eyes flashing red in anger.

"Control," Merlin reminded her. She took a few breaths and let the rage go – a soft breeze across the lake.

"Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"I thought I could train you to train the one who comes after me."

"Stop speaking in riddles Merlin," Anabelle said impatiently, pulling him to his feet as they made their way back inside.

"The thing about power," Merlin began, "Is that it continues long after we die. In some cases, most definitely mine, it moves on to another person, often ancestral based, and becomes theirs. My power was not always mine. An ancestor of mine, only two hundred years old, passed on magic to me when he died, and I built upon it. Now I know that when I die, some poor child will be burdened with magic. And I want them to have a teacher."

"You want me to teach your descendant magic," Anabelle repeated as they walked. "Who knows how many centuries that could be?"

"It shouldn't be too long," Merlin answered as they entered the cavern. He pulled out the destiny charts and handed them to her. With the months of training now at her fingertips and the magic swirling through her body, she now found it no problem to see the letters fashioning themselves into words on the page. And there she saw Merlin's demise – by winter's end.

"Merlin," she muttered looking up at him pitifully. "I'm so sorry."

He winced, "It's soon isn't it."

Anabelle realised as she looked back at the page, that nothing there said her name. She could only see the destinies of others, and only then if she was trying really hard. And if the same applied for Merlin…he hadn't known he was going to die.

"But you're waiting for Nimue," Anabelle whispered.

"She'll find someone else," Merlin replied with a small shrug, but she could see the loneliness in his eyes. "She's strong and beautiful – it won't be hard for her to find someone else."

And Anabelle looked at the pain in his eyes, the kind that never left, and wondered if that was really true. Would it be possible to find someone else who wasn't Peter?

She honestly wasn't sure if she wanted to.

Present Day

She had found some matches hidden in Pan's desk drawer. And whilst being tempted to burn down the tree house, she had merely lit several candles to give her a little light as the sun went down. Now back in her own clothes, she felt much more comfortable exploring Pan's belongings, feeling as though her plan was back on track…somewhat.

Pan's bookshelves were lined with books from across the centuries. The oldest volumes dated back to the times of the Middle Ages and the newest, to the present day. It was as though the shadow, when it wasn't off doing Pan's bidding, simply collected books for him to read. She was surprised by the scope of them, finding some that seemed incredibly familiar.

But before she could go any further, a head popped its way into the tree house. Felix made the room seem tiny as he swept across it. He saw the marks upon her skin and went to heal them silently but she stopped him with a light push of his hand. His facial expression made no change however, and he took a few steps back before turning and walking across the room, swinging his rocky mace as he went.

She couldn't help but recognise something about Felix. A spark; something about his magic that seemed…old. His power didn't come from Pan as he had lied to her days ago. No, this was something far more powerful…

Indigo put it out of her mind for the moment and returned to the books. She ran her fingers over Pride and Prejudice, Dracula, even a copy of Grimm's fairy tales. And behind all of them, a large illustrated book entitled Peter Pan and Wendy. She let out a laugh as she skimmed through the book. Personally, she'd never read it. She'd expected tales of gore and horror, but this heavily romanticised version of Pan was pure fiction. A boy who was best friends with Tinkerbell, flying through the skies having adventures with Wendy and the Lost Boys? Battling Hook because he fed his hand to a crocodile?

She snapped the book closed and put it back where she found it, almost insulted by the incredulity of it all. But as she did, she spotted another book. It was old, the pages turning yellow, and the leather binding of it was worn, as though it had been read one too many times. The binding was fragile, but she treated the book delicately, knowing it had been decades since she last held it in her hands. Opening the front page, she saw her own handwriting staring back at her, "A present far less than your new love, on your wedding day. All my love, Indigo."

It wasn't her best writing. Merely a tale of a mermaid she'd once befriended, but the newlyweds had adored it. She felt almost threatened when she realised it was here. She hadn't seen them in years – she dearly prayed they were alright.

She looked up suddenly when she heard approaching footsteps, and Pan's face appeared through the floor followed by the rest of his body. He cocked his head when he saw the book open in her hands. His eyes quickly met hers, his face a mask of utmost malice.

"You lied to me," he said, stalking forward like an animal, as he realised that the Indigo who wrote the book was the Indigo who stood before him. And he would know the mermaid in the book. Ariel was the only one who ever turned into a human on this very island. She left it open on the desk, afraid that any sudden movements might destroy it.

He pulled her across the room, tightly holding her arms in a painful twist. But as soon as Indigo saw that he was taking her back to the chains, she twisted herself out of his grip and leapt out of his reach. She was not going back to being a prisoner – not in those chains which inhibited her magic.

Pan reached for her once again, but she ducked, using her surroundings as an obstacle course between them. A few minutes later Pan, still angry, but also having some kind of twisted fun, stopped trying to chase her and merely used magic to pull him towards her from across the room.

Or at least, he tried. Indigo was quick to swipe away the attempt, going on the offense to push Pan back onto his own bed, keeping him there with a layer of magic. Only, he pulled the layer off like it was some sort of bad adhesive. She supposed they were fairly evenly matched then, the two of them. Pan realised it too as the glowing in both of their hands subsided and he pulled her down to the bed with him.

Neither of them slept much that night.