#pre-sb

That bloody singing.  He’d thought, perhaps, he could resist the call of it.  The pull of it.  The force of it.  In the end, all he’d felt was a peace he hadn’t known since before...since before.  A peace he didn’t want, didn’t deserve.  A peace that died on the sharp edge of a long sword.  At first, he despised the very sound of it (when it stopped and he regained his wits, that was), wanted it gone, wanted to rid himself of it.  Slowly, however, the rage over its sound abated into something far less angry and something slightly more, well, he wouldn’t call it hopeful exactly.  But damned close.

He had to find her, had to find the owner of that voice.  There would never come a moment when he willingly admitted to anyone that his desperation to find her was simply because he needed what her voice gave him, if only for a few moments.  No, he’d never say those words to anyone.  Even a blind man, however, could have seen exactly why he did what he did.  Why he combed every inch of that damnable island.  Why he visited every body of water, puddles included, that he could find.

Unfortunately, when he did find a woman on the island, she was nothing like what he searched for.  Just the redheaded wench who looked after Pan’s insufferable bunch of whelps.  Oh, he’d caught sight of her a time or two.  Never up close, however.  He did have to admit it was an impressive sight.