Unhappily Never After (Neverland Archives II) (ON HOLD)

Chapter 14 | Faerie Dust

When I wake, there's light. And food.

I sit up, bleary from the dregs of a nightmare I can't quite remember, and rub at my eyes. When they're clear, I blink and rub at them again.

In front of me is an absolutely breathtaking sight.

It's a series of small waterfalls in a massive river, rushing downstream over smooth rocks. Patches of moss and algae in a rainbow of colors are displayed beneath the crystal clear water, tugged this way and that by the current. I'm at the beginning of the falls, about twenty feet from where the riverbank drops sharply over a small cliff and changes from soft grass to rounded stones.

When I follow the falls with my eyes, I can trace them to the serpentine river beneath and all the way to the ocean, a huge turquoise expanse in the distance. The light--too bright, but brilliantly beautiful in this setting--reflects off the water and the rocks and forms a kaleidoscope of sights that I almost can't focus on clearly.

It's amazing.

"Good, you're awake."

Peter's voice from behind me, and I jump, then turn to see him haloed in the light, shirtless. I catch my breath and look away quickly, to the object he's holding out to me.

A shirt?

Black. A white circle that could be a logo.

My shirt.

My face flames as I feel the warm air on my bare skin for the first time, and quickly cover my chest with my arm. It's not like I'm ashamed of my Aladdin bra, it's just that having an almost-stranger--especially a guy as handsome as Peter--see you in your underwear isn't the most comfortable thing.

And oh stars, he can hear what I'm thinking.

He's not looking at me, at least he wasn't before, and I think he still isn't, but I can't quite tell because I'm not looking at him.

"W-w-wh-" I stutter and splutter before stopping, breathing, and trying again. "W-why do you have m-my shirt?" I struggle to keep my voice calm.

"I was washing it," he says, in that neutral tone I'm already so familiar with.

"Why?"

"Trying to get the blood out." He says this far too casually and it takes me a moment to process. "Are you going to take it or not?"

Forget not looking at him. My head snaps up and I'm blinking, not sure if I want to glare or frown--maybe I'm doing both or neither. Maybe I look like a spastic idiot. I snatch my shirt.

"Trying to do what?"

"You sleep like the dead," he says, arms folded across a chest that I can't help but notice is very tan and very muscled. He has scars, too. Lots of them. Curious.

Apparently uncomfortable with my looking and my thinking, Peter stalks past me to the riverbank, further upstream from the falls. His shirt, I see when I follow him with my gaze, is hanging from a scraggly bush. He quickly yanks it on, and I follow suit with my own shirt--slightly damp, but the air is warm enough that it's comfortable--as I stand.

"I what?" I have no idea what's going on and I really, really don't like that.

He turns back to me and crosses his arms again. "I thought you were dead," he says, just barely loud enough for me to hear. I stomp toward him.

"What on Earth are you talking about, Peter?"

"You dying."

I scowl at him. The last thing I remember is him offering to carry me through the Thorn Cliffs, and I have a vague recollection of something unfinished... unanswered. I don't remember any blood or dying.

Of course, we already know how faulty my memory is when this place is involved.

I bite my lip, anger and confusion giving way to fear. "What happened?"

"The griffins didn't like you either," he says, and shrugs. The shrugging. It's very annoying, I think.

"Were you hurt?" I ask, surprised to find that that's my biggest concern. I already know I wasn't hurt. In fact, I feel a lot better. I'd almost say I feel energetic.

Peter looks at me and I can't tell whether his expression is hard or just closed. "Not outwardly."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing." He turns away from me to pick something up from the base of the bush. It almost looks like a knapsack.

"I don't understand," I say, feeling helpless. If he doesn't want to talk about it that's one thing, but this is my fault and if he's hurt, it's my responsibility to help.

Peter shrugs again and doesn't respond to either my words or my thoughts. "We should get going now that you're awake. It's half a day's walk to the woods."

"I thought we were flying?" I'm glad of the change of topic, really. Even though that hardness remains in his impossibly green eyes.

"We are," he says, slinging the sack over one shoulder. "Half a day's walk will take us about twenty minutes, and then it's three days to the Keep."

If we're flying, I don't see why he mentioned walking in the first place. My feet twinge at just the thought of more trudging. Instead of rubbing them like I want to, I nod, hugging my arms to myself again. What I'm trying to keep away, I have no idea.

"Did you kill the griffins?" I hear myself ask, and I'm not sure where the question comes from. Peter's expression remains closed to me, hard and unyielding.

"Three lives lost," he says, and there's nothing in his tone. "Let's go."

He didn't say which lives, if it was the griffins or something else. His tone and the look in his eyes keep me from asking despite how much I want to.

I nod again and he walks closer. I frown at him. "You don't have to keep carrying me. Can't I fly on my own?"

An arched brow, and I'm sure it's condescending. "Sure, if you can catch a faerie. Have fun with that."

"They aren't friendly?" I guess, thinking of Tinkerbell and wondering if she's one of those things that never existed, or doesn't anymore.

Peter snorts. "Not when you're trying to kill them, no."

"I'd never kill a faerie!" I protest, hands falling to my hips, brows drawn together. Peter looks at me and his expression isn't kind.

"That's what you'd do if you wanted to fly. Faeries are like butterflies, they can't fly if they lose too much dust. A downed faerie is a dead faerie." He glances away, toward the sea, and his lips twist into something that could either be a grimace or a grim smile. "Good riddance, I say."

"You don't like faeries?" I ask, tentatively. Another lie, I guess. I catch myself eying his pointed ears and wondering if he's a faerie.

Peter snorts again, holding one hand out to me. "I don't have an opinion on them," he tells me, and his tone is an ending.

I take his hand and don't ask any more questions as he leaps into the sky, taking us high above the glittering crystal falls and the rolling green hills of Neverland.