Set Your Sails...to Neverland || Peter Pan, OUAT

Chapter 22 - Alternatives

I hack my way through the bushes, keeping as covered as possible. I used to wear forearm cuffs to protect my skin from swords, when I used my bow and arrow and in hand-to-hand combat. Then I remember. Neverland runs on the magic of belief, on the power of will. So that's what I do. I will myself some protection — I remove my gloves, and imagine that they have leather cuffs extended from them, and when I open my eyes, there they are. I slide them on, tie the laces and then continue slightly more confidently through the dreamshade. Before moving on, I bend down, watching the black liquid drip from the vines. I find the vial I always keep on me, and fill it up with dreamshade, deciding that it would come in useful at some point. I reach the tree, craning my neck to see the top, and then begin my ascent. It's a long journey, but I get there. When I look out of the top, I can see the entire island — Pan's camp, the Jolly Roger, the cliff with the waterfall, the pool of water where I met Ariel, Emma's current camp, my boat wreckage, the clearing where I first met the Lost Boys, what must be Dark Hollow because it's the only place with a blood-red light to it, even the Echo Caves, and Skull Rock. I study the separate island. It's eerie. Far too secretive. There's a golden glow, but it's mixed with a shimmering darkness. It makes my skin crawl. It also makes me curious. I can just imagine Pan trying to fight me on this. I laugh. There's something about his sarcasm and arrogance that I enjoy. I know why — it's a challenge, and I like challenges, it keeps life interesting. Maybe that's why I ended up here in the first place. I'm not a Lost Girl, not in the sense that the rest of them are. For so long, I hadn't been challenged — I'd experienced and learned so much, as much as I could, and used that for God-knows-how-long which would mean that those lessons are no longer challenges. I'm not Lost because I have no one that loves me, I'm Lost because I still need to find the challenge of a lifetime to tackle. Maybe Pan is that challenge. Maybe that's why I'm here for the second time — a second chance to face this task.

I'm so lost in thought, that when I look up, I realise that I'm at the Caves. I look in. I shiver from the cold air that swirls through the entrance. I wrap my cloak around me and walk in. At first, it's just a long, cold and dark tunnel, but then it opens up. I walk out onto an outcrop of rock, which has a sheer drop into...nothingness. It's just...black. In the centre, there's a pillar, with a similar cage that I had sitting empty on its surface. Is Pan waiting for someone? Is it for me? So that maybe...I can't escape. But he would have done that before. He wouldn't have trusted me to leave in the first place. I sigh. It's all so confusing. That's another thing I need to add to my ever-growing list of negotiation — talk to Pan and find out what he really wants with me. I pat my cloak and feel the rolled-up map, something that has caused me so many issues. Back to the caves. How are you supposed to get to the pillar? Can't jump, there's no bridge...it's not going to be that easy. It's Neverland.

Come on, think Davina, think. Echo. Why Echo? Why would Pan want an 'echo'? What does Pan love? What does he pride himself in? What does he like to take from people, other than their family?

Secrets.

Secrets are something he lives off. Admitting secrets are something he loves even more. That's how this cave works. Probably not any secrets, but the deepest, darkest and most suppressed secrets that you hate to admit to yourself. That's how the bridge is formed.

I want to see if it works, but the secrets that I have that I've kept down for so long aren't worth testing my theory. But I need to see. There's one secret, that I can't admit, that I don't want to admit — or remember — because that would make the inevitable arrive sooner. I've known it for years. To others, it might seem pathetic compared to other secrets, but to me, it's...hell. It will only confirm the suspicion that's been threatening to bubble up and over the surface.

I take a deep breath, my eyes fixed on the edge of the outcrop and after years of suppression, I admit what I haven't been able to accept since I found out. It's the same age as the scar that trails from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine.