Chapter 15 - Port Star
Wendy awoke to the scent of Earl Grey tea and the sounds of expensive fabric rustling over the body of James Hook. She opened one eye just enough to watch as an indigo shirt glided down his torso before he tucked it into somehow even darker blue breeches. Smee, ever at the ready to provide assistance, held up one side of a marvelous brocade coat for the captain to run his hooked arm through the sleeve.
"Do you think it might be a bit much, even for me?" Hook asked.
"Naw, Cap'n, never. You could never be too much," said Smee.
Hook glanced down at the dark blue velvet as he tugged his hand and arm through the other sleeve and wondered at how common it was to be this ornate, even for him. The waistcoat alone had more diamond colored threads and jewels tucked in than most ball gowns and the jacket was an embarrassment of embroidery the likes of which he had rarely witnessed. He shrugged into it. "I suppose it's worth it, then," he sighed.
Port Star was a simple village but a complicated place. One had to be prepared to seek what they needed and not much else, at least not in one day. The price of being a town in Neverland was a curious relationship with time.
"Did you secure the clothing for Wendy?" Hook asked.
"Yes, Cap'n," Smee nodded, dropping a bundle of mostly velvet and silk on the desk between them. "Do you reckon she's ready for Port Star, sir?"
Hook shrugged. The idea that anyone could have any idea how prepared someone else was for anything had always struck him as a bit silly. "I think so, he said." He buttoned his jacket and preened in front of the mirror a bit before smiling and saying "I think she'll let us know what she's ready for, won't you, my beauty?" He trained his eyes on Wendy where she pretended to sleep.
Wendy shut her eyes tight in an attempt to feign sleep, but also realized she had given herself away and opened them with a smile.
"Good morning, darling," Hook said. He smiled the kindest smile she'd ever seen on his face and it made her feel strange. He then picked up the bundle from his desk and placed it at the foot of the bed. "This is what you should wear today for our visit to the town."
"Oh," she said. "And good morning."
Smee bowed and made himself gracefully unperceived then left the cabin while Wendy watched Hook finish his routine. It wasn't much, but it was something. He checked his hair and his moustache and slight beard for any errant hairs or other things. He adjusted his shirt collar and the jewels on his hand; he sighed as he appraised himself, looking almost nervous. Wendy thought he looked gallant and charming but she appreciated him more for what looked like a bout of insecurity.
After Hook finished his dressing, he excused himself and gave Wendy the opportunity to bathe and dress herself in what she found was an almost as dark blue set of breeches, shirt, and jacket. She put on her little silk shoes and wandered onto the deck to find Hook standing there, resplendent in the morning light, his night-black curls swirling with the wind in the sunbeams. He turned his gaze to her and smiled with an outstretched arm. "Darling," he said.
She took his lead without question and stepped into his space. His hand slipped somehow through her hair, down her back, and around her waist where he tugged a little and used his hook arm to gently draw her face nearer to his.
"Wendy," he said, "Port Star is as magical and wonderful as all of Neverland, but it is also as strange and as dangerous."
"Alright."
"No, my beauty, it's not that simple. Do you see the rainbow?"
If she was being honest, Wendy hadn't paid as much attention to where they sailed to as where they sailed from. She'd watched the familiar harbor she knew shrink and never turned around to see the ship heading underneath the eternal Neverland rainbow. So when she did turn her attention toward their heading, her heart fell first into her stomach then leapt into her throat before finally settling back in her breast as she looked at the colored beams stretching up from the earth.
"Oh!" she gasped.
Hook only nodded and watched her. It had been so long since he'd witnessed someone take in the dawn of the rainbow even from a distance that he almost lost himself in her expression. The pirates were certainly used to it and although no one would deny its brilliance, it had passed out of the need to be remarked upon even if it was indeed remarkable in the truest sense of the word. He wasn't sure how long ago that had happened, but supposed decades at the very least. Hook felt soft fingers squeezing his own where they had lingered at her waist and realized she was speaking to him. "Hmm?" he asked.
"I said I've never seen anything more lovely in my whole life," she said with the twinkle of laughter in her voice and the light of every star in her eyes. She turned up her face to smile at him before leaning forward to rest her arms against the rail.
There it is, he thought. There's that feeling like seeing the start of a rainbow for the first time. "As you say," he said, his eyes perhaps one degree kinder than they had been in a hundred or more years as they continued to gaze at her. "Neither have I." Wendy did not see the forget me not eyes briefly warm; she was now fully entranced by the little town creeping ever closer as they sailed.
Port Star was a darling harbor town that sprawled along the seashore and up against pale cliffs that, in turn, had modest hills or meadows and even a few modest forests and glades. It had all of the coastal town paraphernalia one might expect: rocky piers, sandy shores, and a curved, welcoming coast one could trace their eyes along and up to the tall white lighthouse with a charming blue stripe perched on the highest cliff.
And then there was the start of a rainbow. Rainbows look flat when you gaze up at them from afar, but really it's more of a circle, or at least this one is at its beginning (who's to say what other rainbows do).
At the very center of Port Star stood a fountain that could be called modest except that it was made of crystal and the way light moved through it was almost inappropriate. The fountain was also where the rainbow centered itself and pushed up from the earth; the locals called it Prism Square for the obvious reason that to visit that fountain was a lot like what it must be to stand inside a diamond when light passed through it.
Now, rainbows are wayward companions, and they don't often stay in a single place for very long, but this one had anchored itself at the crystal fountain for at least 209 years, which was as far back as anyone could remember. Most rainbows arrived, were admired and left, but this particular one had rooted itself in the heart of Port Star and remained for reasons unknown to anyone who was not the rainbow.
The result of this residency was that the townspeople organized themselves according to the stripe that most fitted them, from the very first scarlet den of flesh (a respectable trade) to the rope makers and the artists and the tillers of the earth. This rainbow stayed, and it lighted them and shone brilliantly across the whole of Neverland while doing it. In turn, the townspeople fed the rainbow with adoration and congratulations for its brilliance and they left tokens at the base of the fountain where the water shimmered and foamed around the rainbow's roots. (It seemed partial to beads, flower petals, bits of string and nice rocks, but had at least once reacted pleasantly to a hat dropped by accident.)
When you hear about it, it seems like it must be wonderful to live at the start of a rainbow, but the truth is that it's quite a bit of work to deal with the upkeep. Even without a sentient rainbow, organized society means people doing things to manage resources and themselves, which means governing and a lot of chin wagging about what to do and what is the right way to do it. Nevertheless, Port Star managed to be a relatively peaceful and pleasant place filled with happy people (even the local mermaids were reasonable and only occasionally drowned people for sport.)
It was with these thoughts in mind that Hook eyed Wendy's joyful observance of the not too distant port and joined her in leaning on the railing. He pressed his right forearm into hers and turned his head to find her face at last turned away from the rainbow town and toward his; he smiled. "As I was saying, darling," he very nearly purred, "Port Star is a beauty but it is not without danger. It is still part of Neverland which means it is still subject to its own recalcitrant relationship with time and the whims of a forever boy, although much less so than the bit of forest and lagoon with which you are familiar."
Wendy squinted a bit and nodded, dropping her gaze briefly to the water slapping against the side of the ship and raising it again to his eyes with a surprising intensity. "Why is it less so, sir? Is it the rainbow's doing or something else?"
Hook shrugged and fiddled with the hem of his shirtsleeve. "If I knew why Pan did anything, then I would know everything. If I had to guess, things are a bit too practical here, just enough mundane to put him off from interest."
"But surely the rainbow is an exception!"
"Why should it be? Pan has no interest in a rainbow doing anything other than doing what he believes a rainbow does. Where it begins or ends matters as little to him as what happens to the Lost Boys who begin to grow up and escape him before kills them, or the day before yesterday, or the day after tomorrow…" He sighed again and allowed the very briefest amount of concern to darken his face. "Or the girl he forgets to collect for too many springs."
If Wendy is hurt by this mention, she doesn't show it. "Then what is the direct danger?"
Hook pulled his face into a mock grimace and answered, "The excruciating duties of political life, I'm afraid. You are no doubt familiar with governance and the many opportunities for danger in politics, so I shall skip to the point and say that this town is a trade center not only for Neverland but for a few strange islands to the northeast and the occasional mundane world ships that make it in and out. This along with organizing resources means there must be some amount of social structure, and I'm afraid to tell you, my dear, that you are standing next to the elected Seafarer Representative."
"Do you mean to tell me that Captain James Hook, the only man the Sea Cook feared, is a civil servant?"
"How do you know that's not why the Sea Cook feared me?"
Wendy's laughter was sweet and joyful, polite and happy. It was utterly different from the laughter of Pan or his Lost Boys or the laughter that Hook knew as his own for so, so long. Her finely clad arms shook gently with her giggles as she leaned on the railing and on his arm to steady herself. She laughed without shame or concern for dignity, and in that moment he felt more envy than he'd imagined possible. But the light in her face pushed that away and he allowed himself amusement. She leaned against him as her giggles subsided, letting out a big sigh of contentment.
"Are you quite recovered, my lady?"
She giggled again. "Yes, Captain. What else must I know before our adventure? Why these lovely clothes?"
"Indigo is the color of civil service as you so quaintly put it. We wear what we do, here. At least, we do when it's official business, and that is what we are to start with."
"We?"
"Given that you will be accompanying me ashore and privy to more than a few conversations, I expect, it's best to have you clothed as a close confidant. Only you and I will travel through that social miasma."
"Not Smee? Surely he is a confidant for such things."
"Quite so, but he is much more useful outfitted to talk with the rope makers and agriculture guilds than the politicians. A job for every pirate." Hook pointed at Smee across the deck, his usual red cap replaced by a yellow and bright blue striped knit hat and a mix of the same colors along his body.
"Oh."
"Yellow is ropemakers. Blue is agriculture. He'll spend his time gossiping with both groups about whatever, but he'll bring back new ropes and the best produce, cheeses, seeds, and foodstuffs we need and at a bargain."
"Ought I to be Red Handed Jill in these interactions you seek?"
"Why?"
"It was my pirate name."
"Wendy, you must call yourself and answer to whatever name suits you first and foremost. That is not up to me. Are you Red Handed Jill?"
She thought about that name, about how it had been a play thing she'd kept secret for a while and only ever revealed to Hook those 10 years ago because it could be a weapon against Peter when he'd hurt her feelings. "No," she said. "I am Wendy. Wendy Darling."
"Yes, you are."