Be my death.

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A strong haze overran James’ senses in the moments before he woke up. Something was missing, and his body scrambled to figure out what it was.

Fingertips scraped idly over cloth covering his chest. He remembered— of course he remembered. The duel, the sword blade that moved too fast for comprehension…

The blood.

That should’ve hurt. Despite how long it had been, it should hurt like hell. He should feel every inch of his chest burning with a fury perfectly demonstrating that slash he’d taken.

And yet, there was nothing.

His eyes opened, and he pushed himself into a better position, tracing his bandaged torso once again now that he was a little more aware of what was going on. There was blood on the haphazard layings, but as he expected, it had long since dried in and turned the fabric a few shades darker. The almost brown, almost red that had stained the once perfect cloth disturbed him enough that he tried to push them as far from him as possible on first opportunity.

When he finally found the strength enough to unladen himself and really see what that demon had done to him, he discovered no blood, no real trace of an injury at all, just a long, pale scar delved deep into his chest.

He stared at it in awe. That looked years old, and yet he knew for a fact that it had been administered the last time he was conscious. He’d had no means of closing it, no serious medical attention he could give to it, and yet it had almost completely vanished overnight.

“What in the—“

His shoulder told the same story. Pan had caught it when he tried to stumble back, and that too had scarred with several years worth of healing overnight. The layers of cloth— bloody from the injuries his muscles remembered receiving but his skin refused to show— were discarded on the ground, all in anticipation of the worst injury he’d received that day.

He started to unwrap the shirt he’d hastened to shove on the end of his arm to compensate the blood loss from his brand new lack of hand.

Well, the vaguely relieving news was that he was still missing an appendage. At least that hadn’t grown back overnight, he supposed. Part of him thought he’d be more relieved to find it in tact, but he knew deep down that he would be far worse off if that was the case. But— thankfully— it too had healed over completely.

Stunned beyond words, and a little bit terrified, he staggered to his feet and tried to find purchase against the wall. He didn’t even vaguely understand what had happened to him, but he needed to find at least something that made sense.

As soon as he had his bearings— as soon as the world stopped shaking with the thought that maybe he’d pass out again— he made for the top deck. If there was anything he could be totally sure in, it was the view he’d first taken in from the crow’s nest. If even that had changed, he would be about ready to consider this some strange fever dream, but at least he could be assured that he was dreaming. This strange, uninjured fantasy was currently giving him nothing either way, and he needed answers…

Outside was exactly the same as he recalled. The ship was still docked outside of the cave, the blade was still lodged in the railing from the fight, and his blood still stained the deck.

So, he was awake.

How, then, had so much changed in such a short space of time? Night had fallen over the island, and had done nothing but make him draw the startling conclusion that all of this could’ve happened in a matter of hours.

All he could do was hope that wasn’t the case. In a desperate attempt to not think about the fact that he could well have healed fully in less than a quarter of a day, he rushed towards the railing and spent a number of minutes trying to pry the sword from the wood. It proved to be such a task that he ended up staggering back upon its release, having not been aware how hard he was trying.

He hit the deck and swore as his tail bone connected with the planks.

The sword felt wrong, imbalanced and poorly weighted. Still, he felt it better to protect himself with something crafted for use with a hand he no longer had than nothing at all.

Sure, there was no sign of Pan now, but his guard was all the way up, and he was ready in case it decided to show up again.

He stood once again, brushed himself off, and headed to stare out into the ocean. At least that would never change. No matter what happened to him, or what changed around him, he could always trust the ocean to remain the same.

Or at least, he would be able to trust it if the sudden memory of that godforsaken beast didn't strike him, filling him with an ever-darkening dread that continued to build the longer he stood idle. With an air of caution he had never before exerted, he peered out over the side and prayed that the beast had decided to deal in matters elsewhere. Far away, if he was lucky, though he knew how likely that was.

Not only was there no sign of the beast in the waters— which was a relief beyond what he could express in the moment— but there was no sign that it had ever been there either. He swore he'd heard it damage the hull in one way or another (the sound of splitting wood was, so he thought, one of the most recognisable sounds in the world), but there was nothing. Not a dent, nor a scratch on the painted surface. As far as he was aware, that was impossible, but he figured quickly enough that he had other things to worry about.

There was something on the water, small but glowing like a tiny star. He stared at it, trying to work out whether it was a slip of his consciousness, but then it started moving towards him and he could suddenly do nothing but stare. He'd rid himself of one hallucination, or so it seemed, but this one seemed insistent on staying. And he recalled it too, vaguely. He recalled seeing something dart towards Pan that he'd almost been tempted to write off as the stars in his vision playing tricks on him.

He blinked, and it was still there, still advancing slowly. Sense told him to back off, but all he could manage was a half step back as his curiosity forced him to remain against the railing.

The light started to take form in front of him, and before he knew it, he ended up face-to-face with a pixie, who elected to sit neatly up against the railing. He breathed, almost as if he was in the company of something that deserved reverence.

He hadn’t known how much worse this could’ve gotten until she showed up. He didn’t know how much he had to force himself to believe, but this was beyond limits he’d thought he ever have to witness.

“What do you want from me?” He asked, drawing on every reason why he couldn’t trust this little lady of the light.

“I’ve been waiting for you to awake,” she mused in a voice like silver bells. He felt implored to listen, to garner some understanding that she had known of him and his situation for a long time.

“You knew about the fight?”

She nodded. He registered the motion as if she were his own size, plain as day. “I did. The shadow and I, we are… On mutual grounds.”

James faltered, his brows drawn. “You… And Pan… You’re in allegiance?” He backed off from the railing, attempting to seek out sturdier ground from which he could potentially start running. She flitted over before he could think to escape, and took a position on the main mast.

“Pan…” She contemplated this, and it took him until them to realise he had probably just given her the shadow’s name.

Well, better that than his own.

“Yes, I suppose that’s what you’d call it. An alliance is one way of putting it.”

“And what would you call it?”

“A mutual boon. We both get something out of it, it’s entirely beneficial. In return for my staying out of its domain, I get the rather solemn honour of knowing about everything on the island. That includes you, of course.”

“Of course,” he nodded, as if any part of that made sense. “What… What else do you know?”

The pixie fell silent for a moment, and he briefly wondered whether he had overstepped some kind of unspoken boundary. Then she inclined her head and turned towards the horizon. “Its intentions were never… Entirely correct. You are not the only person here, and I’m afraid you’re not the only person for whom I’ve had to intervene.”

“Wait, you did this to me?”

“If you’re talking about your injuries—“

“— What injuries?”

“… Of course. Your lack of injuries… Then yes.”

He froze, drawing in a pre-emptive breath. “Right…” As it stood, that was about all he could bring himself to say. She could well have saved his life, but there were other things on his mind, and he could barely focus on that as a fact. “And there’s someone else?”

“No. Not one. Several.”

“Several… And— forgive me for asking, but where are these others?” He felt right in the nerves that prickled down his back and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. If there were others, people who shared in his fate, then maybe he had right to be nervous.

“Through the forest. They set up their own encampment to use as refuge.”

James stared out at the rest of the island, and that thick mask of foliage that clouded his view from the other side. There were people in there, who also knew the weight of surviving Pan. Maybe they were smart for retreating back, for seeking out better ground away from where it seemed to flourish.

“You are an innocent.” Her voice rang out again, and before he could say anything on the matter, she continued to clarify. “I saw what happened. Please understand, my current workings benefit me greatly, but I do not wish to be allied with one such as this— such as Pan.”

“You’re serious?”

“Rarely am I anything but.”

Instinct had him mutter, “I could use all the alliance I could get around here,” before he could really think about it, but once he’d had the time to process, he added, “I don’t care about your deal with the demon, if it benefits you. I just— I could use a hand who knows a little about its plans.”

She smiled, then, and it made her glow just that little bit brighter. “That, I could help you with.”

“Capital. So we are agreed?”

“We are. I will be glad to share what I know with one such as you. But first…”

“The forest. Yes.” He shot to attention and ran down the gangplank towards the beach. The pixie led the way through a nearby grove of trees, and he drew his blade, both as a precaution and for use as a hopefully functional machete.

The undergrowth grew thicker with every inch he walked, and the canopy started blocking out the slivers of moonlight. He wandered in with perfect vision, and ended up relishing in the little gaps in the foliage, when he got them.

Somehow, despite the fact that he’d found the blade under the deck, and despite the fact that his own shortcomings had almost cleaved the railing, his sword held true and sharp. It was enough to clear his path through the loose foliage, in any case, and the pixie served as enough guiding light to compensate his not bringing one.

He couldn’t help but to think about the others. How many were there? What kind of situation was he setting himself up for? The longer the silence stretched out, the longer and harder he thought, and the more conclusions he drew. He thought about men like him, hopeless and washed up, who had been taken in by Pan’s wiles and succumbed. Perhaps, then, this was a haven for fallen seamen of some cursed variety.

Needless to say, he was a little surprised by what he ended up seeing. Following about an hour of wandering, he stumbled upon the camp in question, and found it to be completely empty. A fire pit had been very recently extinguished in the middle of a gathering of benches, so much so that smoke was still pouring from the little ditch.

James advanced, step by cautious step, watching the ground for well laid traps. After having to sidestep something that would’ve snared him in a mess of hastily laid rope, he managed to make it in.

Just as he was pondering to himself the logic that surely a sailor would be able to tie a better line, he heard the sound of some manner of horn blowing a long and foreboding warning chorus. He gripped the hilt of his sword a little tighter in readiness, but then an army of two dozen children came running from bushes and the boughs of trees, and he briefly had to consider his own stance.

He sheathed his sword slowly.

Horrified, he looked to the pixie, hoping for an explanation. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“I don’t know what you mean…”

“These are children.”

“They’re survivors.”

James’ heart sank into his stomach. His eyes darted between every single one of the children— a ragtag group though they were, with a good half decade between the youngest and the oldest— and he slowly processed that this was it. No joke, no extra group of people, just… Children.

“My god…”

His muttered remark was, thankfully, not caught. The oldest of the children brandished a pointed stone dagger, that, upon closer inspection, may well have just been a sharp rock wrapped in bandage at the bottom.

Its hefty looking front was not enough to distract from the fact that the kid holding it looked positively terrified. His eyes were wide, and his leading hand shook like the leaves that quivered around them. He tried to square his shoulders and look James in the eye, which James aided in greatly.

“W-who are ya? Where’d ya come from?”

James levelled himself and sighed. “My name is James. I was shipwrecked here… Yesterday, I think?”

“You think?”

“I don’t know for sure. Time… Hasn’t been kind to me.”

One of the kids in the back tilted his head. “We en’t never seen a grownup here.”

“What, ever?”

“Never ever.”

“Surely your lot grow up eventually… How long have you been here?”

“Time doesn’t work for us neither, mister,” came a voice from the middle of the group. “We just know none of us ever got older.”

With that declaration, and the subsequent nods of agreement that followed, James’ heart ceased to exist. Clearly, none of them remembered how long they’d been there, but the fact that they didn’t age was a cause for concern. He looked to the boy with the knife, and asked, “So, there’s nobody older than you?”

The boy shook his head. “Well, there was once… I remember a boy. Peter. Said he was gunna leave Neverland forever an’ never come back.” He lowered the knife, tucking it away as an excuse to break the eye contact. “An’ he did, nearly. Made it all the way to the beach.”

“What happened to him?”

“The shadow caught him,” someone else answered, hanging her head. “Isaac said he saw him workin’ with it. I think it got him to stay. But none of us have really seen him.”

James imagined that red headed boy that Pan had inhabited when they fought. He distinctly remembered the strange look in his eyes, like he’d been pulled back from beyond.

He hoped to god that he was wrong.

He hoped against hope itself that he hadn’t come face to face with the boy they saw try and escape this hell they called Neverland.

“That shadow… Does it know you’re here?”

“Don’t think so. We haven’t hadta move yet, anyways.”

James nodded slowly. That was something, at least. So far, Pan hadn’t blended itself among the trees yet, either because it hadn’t yet found the reason to infiltrate, or because it hadn’t found them. Either way, it was relieving to know.

“Think you can keep it that way? I know how late it is, especially to re-string the outbound trap, but I can help you with that to keep the shadow out.”

“So… You’re not with it?” Asked a quiet voice from right at the back of the group. Kids cleared back to present this one, a little girl no older than seven or eight. She looked up at James with wide, almost fearful eyes.

He shook his head, crouching to one knee to look the girl right in the eye. “No. I promise you, I’ll never be on the same side as it. You can trust me, if that’s what you want.”

The kids blinked, then slowly turned away from him in a little gathering. He pulled himself to his feet and took a few steps back to clear the space. He spared an absent glance down to the haphazard rope trap, and pondered to himself just how he was going to help them fix it.

The whispers were loud and very obvious, but he tried in all earnest not to pay them any mind. Still, he heard every word spoken, and found himself answering all of their questions absently, sparing no detail on what he could hear. Yes, he had come out of nowhere. Yes, he did look hurt, didn’t he?

Eventually, they all turned back to him, and he looked on expectantly.

“You’re really not with the shadow?”

“No.”

“And you won’t tell it where we are?”

“I promise.”