Taking Fantasia : A Disney Fanfiction

Chapter 112: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Chapter 112: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

Peter felt the sunlight. The warmth nudged him awake. But before realizing he was alive, Peter thought of Wendy. Body hurt and brittle, he shifted. He felt Wendy beneath him, tied between his arms. He turned his head. Sand scraped like glass between their cheeks. Mouth against her skin Peter said Wendy's name. When she did not respond, he opened his eyes. The effort was extraordinary.

Wendy. Her head rest against a tombstone, her back slung across the edge. Peter felt the stone against his own ribs. The spot hurt when he breathed, but the impact against the tombstone must have saved them from the whirlpool. And the magical portal.

Dawn stretched wider. Strange, silvery-gold colors gilded the stone. Something caught Peter's eye. It shown very bright, intensity fluttering back and forth like a butterfly wing. Annoyed, Peter glared at the tiny object as it snatched and stabbed the sunlight.

It was Wendy's thimble. Slipped from Captain Hook's hand and ground against the tombstone. Somehow, whether it was luck, fate, or a fantastic concoction, Wendy's magical thimble had survived.

Peter sighed. Painfully. Resting his cheek against Wendy's he stared at the thimble, content. For now he'd wait. He would wait and hold Wendy, keeping her safe until she woke up.

"Over here! Two more! What is his name? Does anyone know his name? Boy? Boy?"

Peter's ears pricked. His senses lit like matches as two hands rubbed his shoulders. A hushed voice was speaking.

"Boy? Wake up. Come now. Wake up. Let her go." The hands worked gently under his arms, trying to pry him from Wendy. "Come, come now...you must let her go."

Peter shouted. His cry was strident and incoherent, but the intention was clear. Protracting his shoulders and clenching his fists, Peter hugged Wendy. He would not let her go. "No!"

The hands tightened. The force increased, pulling against his chest. Peter felt his elbows giving, eeking apart. Slowly, his fingers slipped across Wendy's back.

"No!"

"Come. Come. You must, Boy. It's all right. It is. But you must let her go. We must help her if she is alive."

Peter's eyes snapped open. Wildly he looked at Wendy. Sunlight glimmered over her like pixie dust. But still she was pale. Deathly pale.

"No!" Peter wrenched downwards. Desperately, he held Wendy, locking his neck against hers. "No!" he yelled again. "No! I saved her! I saved her!"

"Yes. You did." Gently as he could, Powhatan lifted Peter into his arms. He felt the wounds crossing the boy's back. "You all did. You saved us all."

"No!" Peter reared in pain. His back pinched against the cuts left by Captain Hook. Still, he rolled in Powhatan's arms, looking for Wendy. "No! No! No!"

"Shhh." Powhatan soothed. "Steady, Boy. Steady. It will hurt less."

"No..." Peter's head lagged. Sweating, he strained as Lady Elinor gathered Wendy. Brushing ash from Wendy's nose, Lady Elinor rose. Then, she stopped. Tugging upwards she tried to stand. But Wendy would not budge. It was as if the girl were tethered to the earth with invisible strings.

Lady Elinor looked to Powhatan, perplexed. Powhatan frowned, but it was Peter that rasped. "Shadow! Shadow!"

Powhatan hissed. Lady Elinor gasped. And Peter slid into unconsciousness as his shadow slowly uncurled itself from Wendy's. Her shadow no longer clung to Peter's, Wendy was carried by Lady Elinor across the shore. Peter's shadow drifted solemnly behind.

"Peter. Wendy." Mulan turned, hand on Rapunzel's head. Her fingers probed Rapunzel's hair, hacked short by Flynn. Unwilling to leave, she watched Lady Elinor and Powhatan approach.

The last standing, Mulan had assumed responsibility for her classmates. The parents and professors had assembled about her, holding unconscious students and firing questions.

But Mulan was not overwhelmed. Unwavering, she identified each student and answered each question, sometimes before they were asked. And when Powhatan and Lady Elinor came near, Mulan spoke swiftly.

"Peter saved Elsa. Flew into the enemy and back. He found the snow queen. But those cuts on his back – must have been Captain Hook."

Peter winced. Powhatan adjusted his arms. They smeared with Peter's blood.

After a sympathetic glance, Mulan nodded at Lady Elinor. "And Wendy. She held back the demons. I don't know how she did it – without her thimble. But she did. Without her....we'd..."

Mulan swallowed. Wiping blood from her forehead, she gazed at Rapunzel. Rapunzel's hair was hacked short. Mulan winced. During the battle, Mother Gothel had seized her daughter's hair like a rope, trying to escape the whirlpool. The force would have decapitated the Rapunzel had Flynn not sliced off her magical hair.

Gingerly, Mulan stroked Rapunzel's locks. They were soft and brown. The sparkling gold was gone – along, Mulan suspected, with the healing magic.

"Captain Fa. Captain Fa. Captain Fa!"

"Mulan..." Fa Zhou touched Mulan's head. "My daughter. They are speaking to you."

Mulan turned. Astonished she gazed into her father's beaming face. Fa Zhou nodded. Then stepping proudly aside, he gestured to the parents of West, East, North, South, and Center-Point Sectors. All waiting for Mulan's order.

Mulan's heart swelled. She only let a tear fall when Shang met her eyes and respectfully bowed his head.

Squeezing Rapunzel's hand, Mulan lifted on one knee. "Fantasia is taken." she announced, voice rising with the dawn. Shouldering Rapunzel, Mulan faced Petrified Forest. The castle gleamed in the distance. "Now we start to heal. Now..."

Mulan stopped. Behind her, the parents stopped.

For at the crux of the battlefield, where Petrified Forest kissed the shore, was a boy. A boy so small and still, he had gone unnoticed. A boy that knelt beneath the Wishing Star as it faded into the blue sky. A boy whose forehead was bent over Headmaster Mickey and pressed against a magical sword.

"Can it be?" Lord Fergus whispered.

"Could it possibly?" Sultan gasped.

"The sword?" Dr. Doppler awed. "The sword in the stone?"

"The sword....of the king?"

Mulan stared. Sunlight reflected from the ocean and danced over the magical sword. The white blade gleamed like diamonds, even across the blackened tip, gouged into the burned earth.

"Wart." Mulan breathed. "Wart. He...stabbed the Black Cauldron. Stopped the demons...pulled the sword from the stone..."

Silence. Wart was still. Still as a statue in the silvery-gold dawn.

Wind breathed over the shore. Grandmother Willow's hymn rustled with the leaves twirling in the air.

"Twinkle, twinkle little star,

Guard Fantasia from afar.

Save shadow, sea, skies, and sand,

Choose the king with inept hands.

Twinkle, twinkle little light,

Hurt and heal, with wish of might."

A tear glistened down Wart cheek. It fell, beading on Headmaster Mickey's eyelash.

"I wish..." Wart whispered, clutching the sword and holding Mickey to his heart. "I wish you were alive."

The Wishing Star was ever so dim in delicate dawn. But, as Wart wished for a second time, it throbbed brilliantly in the bright blue sky.

And when Mickey's eyes fluttered open, Mulan released the cry. "Admiral! Come! Come! You...you won't believe...!"