35. The fork in the path

Metal railings, dashes of moonglow, slivers of salt and frozen water.

Sand, dark and glossy under the ever-persistent lapse of the river.

Peter Lake's eyes roamed the sky. Beverly dipped herself in the glittering dust they mirrored, a city killed by the weather.

She glew on Willa's window until the child's eyes squeezed away from the shine and then lazily opened.

Good morning, sweet girl.

She descended in a leap of the chilling breeze. Blew through the governess's grey tresses as she mumbled in decaying dreams. Thoughts of a happier life. A crumb of lost happiness.

I must find a way to help you, as well.

The sun was beginning to rise and the heavens looked scorched and bruised, a purple ocean. Was the sky a battlefield, too? An eternal combat for light and darkness? Open eyes shining down upon those who rested in the depths.

Cecil's shoes creaked as they sank along the sand. Beverly sent the water, tides of crystal, softened the shores of this cruel, cold city. Made his step softer.

She was the long exhale of a ferryman, as he closed his eyes toward the sky. She was the uneasy horses woken up by a dash of white upon glass and tin.

She was the glint in the demon's eyes, as they watched, scurried away into the shadows.

Wake up.

She was morning.

Beverly Penn, a scream.

Wake up. Someone's here.

She trotted at Cecil's side as he reached Peter Lake on the shore. She billowed furiously, raced for the shadows, the murals upon which the bridge was built. She sent a cloud of dark sand that exploded in a flurry of glittery thunder.

A cough. A grunt.

Look at me.

Beverly was their breath.

Peter's black eyes rolled lazily toward her and the clouds she'd just formed.

Look at me. See me like I see you.

Cecil's face became grey, the white shone in his eyes. He quickened his pace, frowned, yelled.

"Hey!"

The demon, a shadow, soft on the edges, blurred by the sandy storm Beverly had summoned in the half-light. They were running.

A dark hat cloaked their face in what remained of the night. Their breathing was panicked.

Stars watched as a veil of sunshine camouflaged their glares.

Magpie, they'd murmur.

Magpie.

Their pianos were quiet, expectant. Bells, keys. A new tune had to be distributed. A show had yet to be performed. Dawn was breaking, fire catching.

Perhaps they were so used to prim handwriting that Peter Lake's partiture struck them as unreadable.

What would his music sheet look like? When it was properly handed to her, Beverly meant?

When his road was sharper in detail and she was properly allowed to guide him…

What I see is horrible. I see literally nothing.

His sheet would be worn, the paper hardened by water and ash, the ink runny, a dozen notes struck out and replaced. Beverly liked to think of it that way.

Change it, then.

When the time came, she'd play it, thoroughly, as long as it took, and her fellow stars would stop being so judgemental and uppity. Their fiery faces would cool down, their light become thinner, kinder.

Write your own melody. Create your own crickets.

Beverly knew the frustration of death. She'd been killed slowly over the years, then, in one night, all at once.

But she would not be uppity or rigid. She'd learned to be surprised.

What pride to I protect?

After all, again, she was dead. She housed a haven for those she loved. She had no room for prejudice or rancor, it would only weigh her star of fabric down.

Not mine.

What of the others? Her father, her sister?

What would their music sheets be like?

Not mine…

She allowed the wind to fill her, the dying moonlight to bathe the color of her skin, her hair, her clothes.

Beverly emerged from her curtain of death and allowed the crushing gravity to wrap around her, dragging her down to this city Peter Lake was still so very anchored to. Her earring trembled, she felt it caress her cheek.

Cecil looked at her. His eyes shone, alarmed, from the shadows cast by the bunnet.

Change it. Change nothingness. Think of solutions.

Embraces of stars. Constellations. What made them shine.

What slowed down hearts of fire and gave death new life.

"Carried again," Peter Lake breathed. "Always carried."

His voice was raspy. His black eyes twinkled with a hint of amusement.

Let it seep in, drop by drop.

Beverly felt the pulsating muscles behind his flesh. A clawing pain. A mouthful of salt and ice.

Feel me as I feel you.

Peter's clothes were heavy with water and cold to the touch.

He was heavy, so very heavy. Even now that there was no great gravity binding her to the ground, now that her wings were back upon her back, she could sense his familiarity to the sand, the water, the bridge.

She'd died in her own bed, and so had he. A child born of the sea.

Water was heavier than air.

All light reflects equally on water.

Beverly had been a candle blown away. Peter had been an ice patch, molten.

You're water. You're a good man.

Water could evaporate, in the proper conditions.

But winter was still here, brooding, clutching. And Peter Lake was stuck in his current form. A man of ice, dead, alive, on his feet, on the ground.

"Peter," she spoke, at last, "the earring…"

"It's in my pocket," he said.

No it isn't.

He palmed his chest, the wet cloth. He slithered a hand into his jacket. His brow furrowed slightly. Drops of icy water slithered down the curve of his ears, his nose, his hair.

Nothing happens that isn't supposed to.

"Peter…"

"Oh."

That's all he said of the matter. His black eyes found her sheepishly.

A breeze teased them from the water and for a mere second they all seemed to become the color of the sand and the rocks and the waves. Dark, and grey, and cold.


Author's Note: To whoever is here today, thank you for reading.

Hello, yes, I was gone for a month once again. I spent a lot of time with friends and family while I was away, though, so I'm not sorry :3 In fact I'm happier now, writing this Author's Note, than I was when I wrote the Note for the previous chapter. I tend to go through mood swings like these a lot, I'm sorry, my life is very erratic, as you've discovered if you've read all my Author's Notes XD Which, if you have... you brave soldier, you :o

But I have Chapter 36 almost ready to post, cause with this chapter I feel like I just built myself a steady bridge to connect the previous section of my story with the next.

It's often tricky, to write "bridge" chapters, as I've mentioned before, if I remember correctly, but bridges are important. They offer immense relief upon completion. Like everything's clearer. And given how twisty and weird my additions to the already-weird worldbuilding of "Winter's Tale" are, I need quite a couple of bridge chapters to get my mind straight, and to get your mind straight. Sorry XD

Basically, yeah, I foreshadowed it in my Author's Note in Chapter 26, that Beverly and Peter's decision to split Beverly's harness (the green earrings I gave her, which allow her to open the paths to the light and travel through it, as well as the wind) between them would result in something like this. Peter loses his earring and now he's stuck, unable to return to the vessel he shares with Beverly, in New York City, searching for his lost miracle, while Beverly is still free to travel through light and watch over the multiple people she wishes to save. I am so so excited to delve into the dilemmas of both of them following this little problem. Cause, as I said in my summary for this story, they won't be separated. They'll just be in different forms in the same place. Cause, throughout the movie, from what we see, Beverly isn't visible after her death, but she is present. She is with Peter till the end.

Yep. This was always the way I planned for Peter's 100 years without aging in the movie to make sense in my version.

In my version, he's not resurrected, he's just a dead man without a given star (he is bound to Beverly's, and she protects him, which also sorta happens in the film, as I've already stated, even till the end, when Peter finally rides Athansor to the stars and gets his own vessel, next to Beverly's... yes, I plan to have my ending play that way as well, but so far the ending of my version feels so far away given how much I'm twisting everything XD In a good way, by the way), meandering the city in search of someone to help him rest. So. Abby. Ta-da!

I've made sure to point out why Beverly can't fly with Peter, but she can fly on her own. But I'll explain it here too just in case, cause I sometimes feel very good about the additions I make to the worldbuilding but upon discussing them, I feel like I'm being way too complicated XD I'm mostly happy with it all but... yeah, I made this already-weird journey a whole lot weirder, which is fine by me cause that means I get to linger on writing each chapter way more! I love writing about this movie and making up my own lore for this movie so much, I swear, I like having a version of it that completely belongs to me :3

Anyhoo. Explanation.

Why can't Beverly carry Peter. This is because 1) her harness is split in half, she has half of a road of light to travel through (I'll explain this better next chapter, I already have it all written down), and therefore it's more limited, and she already had a hard time carrying Peter to her star when he died, and 2) like I made Cecil point out in the previous chapters, Peter isn't "light," he's heavy with regrets and there are very few stars who are offering him help because he has yet to fully convince them that he's not one of Pearly's magpies, so he is fated to be stuck in New York as a wandering ghost no matter what.

I am very happy with this headcanon of mine, especially, cause I think that it makes too much sense - Peter receives help from 3 star-folk in the movie: Cecil, Athansor, and Beverly, but that's it; also, the gems in Pearly's tray, which are beacons of light, and (at least, again, in my version) what unites stars to these roads of light and their own safe havens, were most likely all stolen by Peter in his darker days, so I want him to steal them back in his 100-year stay, being stuck in New York searching for the little redheaded girl). Beverly, in the film, seems to be much more welcomed by the stars from the get-go, even before her death. She was a kind, ill woman who already had her path lain out - her death just martyred her, so of course she gets a star.

With Peter though, writing from his and Beverly's perspective as they're both spirits, I prefer to imagine that the reason why his journey is way longer than his girlfriend's is not only due to the fact that Abby wasn't fated to be born for a while when he died in 1917, but also because stars had a hard time welcoming him in. That's my theory, of course, as is most of the stuff I write about in my versions of this movie.

Which is why, I noticed how in the film, unlike Beverly, he isn't given wings of his own, even after saving Abby. He was carried till the end by Athansor and is returned to the woman who saved him, who protected him all this time and who guided him to his destiny, being given a place in the sky right next to hers, and that, in my opinion, is all that Peter Lake ever wanted and needed. To be loved. To not be alone.

Perhaps I may even keep my idea of a shared vessel between them. Cause I do so love the idea of Peter and Beverly sharing a star... but it wouldn't be fair to Peter, he needs his own light.

And it's definitely what I plan to do with him here.

But until then... Well. I'll give you Chapter 36 very soon, I promise.

Thank you for your patience and for taking interest in my stories, since I put a lot of love and effort into them. I appreciate that people like what I write, and that through their enjoyment they may even take an interest in watching "Winter's Tale" and treating it with the kindness it always deserved.

I have already said plenty about how much this movie means to me, throughout these last 2 years it's become a constant beacon in my life, since I've been put through some of the toughest and saddest moments I've ever lived through. "Winter's Tale" taught me endurance and optimism, so it hurts me to see it be mistreated and laughed-off and eventually forgotten for so long... but hey. I love it. And I suppose you love it, at least you like what I'm doing with it, hence why you're here, I hope :3

And that's all that matters, really. It's comforting to know that at least one person in this world loves you: it's something this movie taught me. That there is always light somewhere.

Here is your hug, *hug, I'll see you again soon. Thanks again.