Hey,
Thanks for reading!
Because the previous chapter was short and not very good, I updated this one quicker and it is a lot longer and hopefully better too.
Anyway, Happy Halloween! I'm so excited for this weekend! 😈👹
Please vote and comment.
Enjoy,
Annabelle_the_reader
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My feet nestled into the ground, my toes curling as if to anchor myself into the ground. I swayed slightly, enjoying the feeling of security on the ground. I had never been so thankful to feel the earth beneath my feet.
Instead of returning to camp, I soared upwards, using the fairy dust I had acquired to carry me there. I went straight for the Shadow, knowing exactly where to find him. My heart hammered inside of my chest, wondering what he might say to me.
I landed with a thud, coughing slightly at the dust particles and my eyes scanned the room. The Shadow was nowhere to be seen, even in this dark complex. My feet travelled in tight circles, looking around me curiously.
'Shadow?' I called eagerly.
Suddenly, my eyes landed on an enormous hour glass in the corner of the room. I frowned, taking dainty steps towards it and narrowing my eyes. It seemed important, but also dangerous for the sand had nearly ran out, like a ticking time bomb about to explode.
'Yes.' The Shadow said behind me.
I spun around, my hair flicking around my shoulder with the strength of it. I looked the Shadow up and down, noticing the way he was expressionless, but very readable. 'Hello, Shadow. I wanted to ask you what the hour glass was for.'
'When Pan came to the island, he chose to become youthful again and stay here forever. As you have a heart born in Neverland, you can live here eternally. But Pan does not, however. Once all the sand in the hourglass timer runs out, Pan will lose his immortality and die.' The Shadow explained and I gasped, my eyes wide with shock.
I had never expected Peter's mortality would be threatened. He had always been so strong and ruthless, so to think of him as vulnerable and weak made me squirm. 'Is there not another way? Can we not save him or delay the timer at all?' I begged.
'It is impossible to be alive forever... Unless you are from Neverland like you and I.' The Shadow said simply and I shivered my heart breaking. Pan had loved me from the first time he saw me when he came to Neverland in a dream, until this point I had never thought of him gone. I couldn't imagine a world with life in it, but no Peter Pan in it.
'Are you sure?' I begged, tears rolling down my cheeks frantically. 'Is there nothing we can do?'
'There is only one way, as I'm sure you are aware,' The Shadow eventually said and my head snapped up, my ears pricking. 'You must find the owner of the Heart of the Truest Believer and he must give his heart to Pan.'
I thought for a moment, contemplating this. What would that entail for the Heart of the Truest Believer? Would they suffer? Would Pan hurt them? Part of me didn't care as much anymore, because I had found a way to save him at the expense of just a heart, which I assumed wouldn't harm the occupant or kill them.
'How do we find them?' I asked eagerly, taking a firm step closer towards the Shadow. My eyes shifted to the hourglass, realising it was a race against time. Time was chasing all of us to find the Heart of the Truest Believer. 'Do you know where they might be? Does Pan know?'
'Pan does not know who the heart belongs to, but he does have knowledge of it.' The Shadow said bluntly, his eyes never leaving me in curiousity. My eyes lifted and met his for a moment, biting my lip anxiously.
'So, if Pan doesn't know where it is, how will we ever find out?' I wondered, frowning up at the Shadow, who looked amused by this.
'There is no "we", Tiger Lily. You see, there are two variables that will save Pan.' He explained delicately, in a soothing manner. 'The Heart of the Truest Believer must be found by you, the person he loves the most and the person that loves him back the most. Only you can find out where the person is.'
'How?' I demanded impatiently, angry with myself.
'Magic.' The Shadow said gently and soared silently away from the skull rock, leaving me there confused and perplexed.
I hadn't practiced magic for months now, but magic wasn't something you could forget, so there was no reason for me to be worried about failure. But, sometimes, there are factors that affect my magic like: sadness, tiredness, mournfulness, spitefulness and, unfortunately, fear. Either way, I could use my fear to my advantage.
I closed my eyes, switching off the outside world to concentrate fully on my magic. I hadn't used this deep, difficult magic in a long time, not since I left Neverland, and so I was a little nervous and convinced of failure.
Breathing in deeply to relax myself, I gathered my energy, watching the way it moved and what colour it was. I imagined it floating to my eyes, until I had drained every part of me of my doubts and potential energy. Then I required more, so I stole fear and love and anger and sadness, of which I had a lot.
My eyes rose until I stared deep into the eyes of the only person before me, a person I didn't even know was there, the person that needed me to do this. With confusion at his sudden appearence, I glared at Peter for a moment. I thought he was brave, courageous and noble, but in fact he was a fox by nature, in perjury and falsehood.
Then I realised my magic had drained. I had lost my power.
Panicking, I gathered it quickly before it dissipated. Pan looked at me with confusion, tilting his head slightly, but in a way that I realised he knew what I was doing. I was finding the Heart of the Truest Believer; I was finding his immortality.
Times and times over I tried to force the nebulous image of the owner of the Heart of the Truest Believer to clear, with only faint, sporadic success. It felt like I was wrestling with an invisible rubber band that would change from concrete tangibility into insubstantial smoke at any random moment.
'Is my presence here distracting you from finding the Heart of the Truest Believer?' Pan asked and my eyes briefly opened, to realise he had been there for the other thirty-seven attempts at visualising the owner of the Heart of the Truest Believer. He smirked at me, chuckling slightly with arrogance.
'Just a little bit,' I winced, closing my eyes again, trying to concentrate.
Pan sighed and took a large step closer towards me. I continued to feel his gaze settling over me, which just distracted me even more.
'What if l were to, say, offer you some assistance with that?' He suggested. I considered this for a long moment. One the one hand, my magic wasn't working and Pan could help me with that, but on the other hand there was something very forceful about the way he spoke, like he was enjoying the superiority he had in the field of magic over me. It made me very uneasy.
'Ok...' I mumbled, opening my eyes together and blinking a few times at the enormous change in light intensity.
Pan smiled mischievously, the way he would when he had accomplished something, but was planning something bigger. 'Good, now tell me what your most afraid of.' He commanded, raising an eyebrow at me. I thought for a moment, the proposition was a little too strange for me to handle. I hadn't expected this.
'Ok.... Spiders?'
'You're afraid of spiders?' He mused, his smirk widening at this. He hadn't expected a tiger- for Tiger Lily was my name- to be afraid of something so small and harmless.
'Everyone's afraid of something.' I snapped back and he chuckled even more.
'Not me, I'm above emotion.' He said and took a step closer towards me, lowering his eyes to look directly at me, as if I was so insignificantly important to him. I rolled my eyes, he had fears of mortality, ageing and losing people, people like me. 'And even if I was afraid of something, it wouldn't be of something smaller than me.'
'Yeah? Smaller than me? So is a grenade!' I reminded him and he laughed harder.
'Then you best watch out, Princess. Because everyone's a grenade and one day we will all blow and hurt everyone around us. I may be above emotion, but you might not be.' Peter Pan laughed again, as if he knew there was something deeper, a reason why my magic wasn't working.
For the first time, I began to doubt whether immortality would be the best thing for him, but then the alternative was death and I would never let him face that. 'Think harder, Tiger Lily. There's something deeper.'
'The natives.' I said hotly, the anger in my tone more evident than ever before. But Peter Pan wasn't convinced and stood, rather amused, watching me carefully.
'No, Tiger Lily, no. Your not getting it. I have already considered that, but your biggest fear is buried deeper beneath the surface, something even you won't allow yourself to access. A memory? A dream? A recurring nightmare? A fear that connects all other fears you hold? You see I you won't let yourself see it because you don't know it truly, you're too scared to think of it. You have to feel it in your heart.'
Then I realised, this wasn't figuring out how to help me see the owner of the Heart of the Truest Believer, this was helping Pan. 'How exactly is this helping me?' I demanded
'You'll see when you do it.' Pan replied exasperated with my impertinence.
'It's harder than it seems!' I whined and Pan just rolled his eyes at me. Stamping my foot and putting my hands on my waist, I demanded loudly, 'Then what do you fear?'
'I can fear anything, I just don't feel it because I can easily overpower it.' He replied simply, raising an eyebrow, daring me to challenge him. Instead, I stood in awe because I had so many fears.
'You must be the bravest man alive.' I breathed.
'You don't know much about bravery, do you?' Pan mused, but his mind was some place else, like this was helping him figure something out somehow. 'Bravery isn't having no fear, it's being terrified and doing it anyway.'
'You haven't answered my question.' I reminded him and Pan nodded again, but didn't say anything. He wasn't going to tell me until I told him my biggest fear, which currently I couldn't do.
'Alright, just go back to the image. Gather everything you feel: what you love the most; what you hate the most; what you grieve the most; what you are the most angry about and what you fear the most.' I winced at this, recalling all the memories I used to have. He sensed this and whispered softly, 'It's alright, don't get upset, remember what makes you happy.' He said sternly and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to do what he said.
He placed in my hands a parchment and pen. 'Then, when you have all of these feelings, channel them into your eyes. See who it is, unlock your distant inability to see him. And then, draw what you see.' He commanded.
Doing exactly what he said, I felt the tingling sensation in my hands, then began to drive them up my body. The power engulfed my body, sending shivers down my spine. Slowly, but surely, the heat began to encase my body and my temperature rose until the magic increased to feel like flames erupting from my body.
And then, it vanished.
'What happened?' I asked, a little annoyed at my situation.
'No, you did fine, are you sure that you're in love with me?' Peter Pan whispered, his eyes meeting my own and for the first time in forever, his eyes looked empty and childlike. 'No matter how hard you try, it won't work if you don't love me.'
'No, it will because I do love you, you sick creep.' I declared, almost angry with myself. 'Your sick inside, but I love you. It disgusts me. It makes me want to leave you forever. But I can't. Because I love you.'
'I-I...' Pan cut himself off.
There was a long pause and my eyes met Peter's, 'So that can't be the problem, because I know I love you to the bottom of my heart. But you, Peter Pan, can't love me because you are incapable of such things.'
'I am not!' Peter objected sharply and I raised an eyebrow. 'I am capable of love and you know it, because we both know what I hate saying, but know I need to say-'
'Say it.' I interrupted sharply. 'But...'
'But what?' he asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
I whispered my answer, sounding more vulnerable than I had for many months, 'But only if you are sure it is the truth, Pan. Only if you know it is me and no one else, don't make my heart hurt if you need to let me go and-'
Pan shut me up sharply, catching me completely off guard by pressing his lips to my own. Fundamentally, his kiss was loving and caring, but I also knew that it was just a way to silence my rant or insecurity.
'Tiger, I love you,' he said.
The power began to work. Grinning, I pulled my magic towards my closed eyes, waiting until the power of my magic was at its optimum, my eyes shot open.
The smoke cleared to reveal a young boy and my heart melted for him, to know that he would have to endure much fear before he could give Pan his heart and leave the island. My pen scrawled across the page, drawing whatever came to mind until a full picture was drawn. It began to fade and I lost it, but there was enough to know who it was.
The power was overwhelming, but it didn't wipe me. Sighing heavily, I swayed slightly until I was caught by Pan's safe and secure grasp. I rested my head against Pan's torso and breathed heavily. My eyes were still closed, but I added every detail of the boy's face into a perfect drawing.
'It's a good picture.' He mumbled in my ear, sending excited shivers down my spine, because lying against him, doing absolutely nothing, meant absolutely everything to me when Peter Pan was next to me. It was like nothing else mattered.
Just before I felt the image slip away, I discovered one final detail. To the bottom of the drawing, as if it was signed by him, I wrote: Henry.