Ella's Oneshots

[Ella]

Fandom: Peter Pan, of sorts
Summary: This fic is, sort of, a Peter Pan fanfiction, even though it is more of a long prologue to Peter Pan than an actual fanfic, and some of the stuff I write may not at all be compliant with the actual book. The title was taken from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
Words: 6464

Such stuff as dreams are made on

In a cold night like the one you are currently experiencing, little white snowflakes covering the rooftops, you would expect most people to be safely in their beds, the streets deserted except for an occasional cat retreating to the home front. Perhaps a coach of late night workers trying to get inside before the weather will turn its course and storm will wreak havoc in the silent neighbourhood. At least, that is what I imagine the streets of London would look like on this particularly winter night.
The same could be expected on a ship sailing through the dreary a darkness. The date is 28 January 1769, and almost every toe setting foot on the ship has been frozen at some point in the last couple of days. The Endeavour left the Bay of Good Success only a few days ago, but the crew could still feel the ice and the snow in their veins as they breathed, even if most of it was out of sight. It was colder than they could ever had imagined, and they had been taken by surprise by the death of two of their own a couple of days ago. The snow had done them in, and they had frozen to their deaths. The members of the crew had feared the same fate ever since their found their blueing bodies motionless on the deck, and the captain had to call on them three times before they had calmed down enough to give their fellow travellers a seaman’s grave. This makes it very likely that the crew, indeed, would remain on their posts inside, or perhaps try to find an inexistent warmth underneath their ragged blankets. It is likely, but what is likely is not always necessarily the truth. If you look very well - no, a little more to the left, my dear - you can just make out a small figure, a mere shadow in the grey winter. A young man is leaning over the railing, watching the waves without minding the cold.
James, because that is the name of the hero of this story, had longed for the sea since he was a little babe crying in his cot. His father had been a sailor, a trader, and even though he had died at the sea when James was only seven years old, the boy could not wait to follow his footsteps, all the way to the colonies. To him, the city was like a rope tightening around his neck, choking him to an early death. His mother had despaired, of course, frightened to lose another member of her beloved family, but in the end she had not wanted to hold her son back. The sea was in his blood, and she knew it would never leave him. There was a thrill his is disposition which could never be satisfied, not even if it would kill him. Besides, the boy was well-mannered. He had learned that at college, and from his father. He knew form. He would obey the law. She had nothing to worry about. Little did she know that it was exactly this notion of good form her cheeky little son wished to escape.
Of course, as may be expected, James’s reality wasn't exactly a dream come true. Life was hard on the ship, and even though James himself would defend his captain until his last dying breath, I will be frank with you: he was a vain and cruel man, who did not care in the least for his subordinates. It is a well-known phenomenon. Gentlemen may look gentlemen-like, if you will, yet when they leave their natural habitat and set off to exotic destinations, separated from rationalist society, they start to behave rather differently - especially when you give them a drink to hold. In short, James's time at sea had been rather miserable, even if he hadn't admitted this to himself yet. Little boys like to hold on to their dreams, until one day the last silver lining shatters. Then it’s usually too late.  
James, however observant the boy was to the waves which were clashing against the prow, was not observant enough in his manner this night. What James didn’t see, and what many of you probably haven’t spotted yet either, is the tiny light flying towards the ship. It was very fast, even if it couldn’t be distinguished as such. You see, it was a small fairy. They belong to the fastest creatures on this earth, and perhaps also if you count otherworldly creatures, but they happen to be rather small, which makes their movements look much slower than they in reality are. This particular fairy went by the name Tamara, for no other reason than that she thought it very pretty. Peter thought so too – oh, I forgot to tell you. Tamara was one of the elves whose name was commonly associated with Peter Pan. Or, so did Peter think. Little did he know that he had befriended many of the fairies before her, and that many would follow, leaving the poor Tamara forgotten. For now, however, I can tell you to associate Tamara with Peter, and –
Oh, I forget, I haven’t introduced you to Peter yet! How silly of me, seeing Peter is a very important character in his story. Peter was a curious boy. First of all, he never aged a day. I have had many encounters with him in the past, and he always looks… well, twelvish is the best way in which I can describe it. Secondly, even though he has no constant companions, he is never alone. His company is always made up of one fairy and a band of boys, called the lost boys. His opponents are equally invariable. There are, of course, the redskins. Peter didn’t care too much about them, but the boys were obsessed with them, and every now and then a battle would take place. Nothing too serious, though – at most a few deaths –, as Peter’s primary goal was his everlasting battle against the pirates. The composition of their group, too, changed, albeit for a different reason than in Peter’s company. Peter hardly ever killed his companions, or as some would call them, ‘friends’, but did tend to forget them. It seems cruel, but it is the simple truth, and a reality of existence. Whether this caused the lost boys to die after all, I cannot tell you – every few weeks, boys just started to disappear. With the pirates, however, it was a different matter. As their game with the boys was a simple make-believe, hardly anyone ever died in their fights. For the grown men, the gentlemen of the sea and those who had accepted the finality of life, this was not enough. They wanted real action – true fights. So, every now and then, they would stage a mutiny. Just for the fun of it, you know. As you perhaps remember playing it with your friend or brothers or sisters of maybe pets when you were littler, these pirates played it in real life. I do not know whether at that point I am not allowed to call it ‘play’ anymore, for in some senses that was still what it was. It wasn’t that there was any real spite or animosity between the men, it was mostly just boredom. And just ask anyone about boredom – you know what that can do to people. But as I tried to tell you, the pirates staged a munity every couple of months. Their ancien régime would be replaced by a bourgeoisie, and the other way around, if pirates even kept track of such terms. The captain is invariably killed during the small riots which tend to take place, and usually takes a part of the crew members with him. This had been the course of events in Neverland – for that was the name of the island where all those curious characters reside – for many, many years.
Tonight, however, change was to come to the island. Change that would not be forgotten for a long time – even if Peter himself would forget fairly quickly.
Ah, turn your attention to the ship again, if you please. Our young friend has spotted the glowing creature, and is making attempts to converse with her. Luckily, Peter has joined their conversation, for the fairy language is not understandable or even faintly recognisable as language to the human ear. There is a look of unbelief on James’s face. Perhaps he thinks he’s dreaming. It wouldn’t strike me as surprising if he did indeed think that. He had been educated at a very important school, and had learned the difference between the imaginary and the real a long time ago. Even if he had wished to leave the rational world behind, if reason has been that deeply inbred into your soul, it can never truly leave you. For now, all that James remembered was that believing in magical creatures wasn’t good form.
As true as this all may be, Peter still found in the young James a boy who believed. He had his dreams about the sea, which were as real to him as the top left button on my overcoat.
How do you know I really have an overcoat, and if he top left button isn’t missing?
Well, you don’t, I guess. But I can tell you that every word I speak to you is the naked truth. If you choose not to believe that, that is your own choice, but you might as well stop reading. It’s not good form to have the audacity to question your Master narrator.
“There are pirates?” Disgust coated the boy’s voice, as if pirates were the worst people in the entire universe. To him, they were. The counterparts of everything his father had ever stood for, everything his life stood for. He was an adventurer, but he had no intention of becoming a plunderer. He had a free spirit, yet James did not intend to give up all decency.
Tamara nodded, her little face flushed. Even if she had known all of this for a long time, she still got excited about every single aspect of the island. It was her home.
“And mermaids. And Indians,” Peter added.
James let out a huff. “Pirates are lawless savages.”
“Tamara thought you were a pirate,” Peter said. The fairy was sitting on James’s arm and stared at him with genuine interest in her round eyes.
James shook his head in disdain. “I am a member of the Royal Navy,” he said, as proudly as a boy his age can usually muster. “I sail under the flag of the King.”
“What king?” Peter asked. “And what do you sail for then?”
“Why, King James of course!” There was shock on his face, for he truly failed to understand how any person could not be aware of who the king was. Even if James had been taught geography on his fancy school, he still lacked an awareness that Great-Britain wasn’t the centre of the universe to everyone. “We sail to discover new parts of the world.”
Neither Peter nor Tamara understood this. All sailors they knew were the pirates. Even though they had to admit that this boy looked nothing like them, Peter considered the notion of James not being a pirate a little hard to swallow. The unfamiliar usually is, isn’t it?
“So you wouldn’t want to meet some pirates?” he said. It was in Peter’s mind to test the boy, and see if he wasn’t really a pirate. If he was one of them, he would see it immediately in the way in which he behaved in front of the others. Peter thought this a very clever plan of his.
James thought about this for a while, considering all the options he had, and sweeping the deck with his inquisitive eyes and ears. It would not do if there were crewmembers listening in. “It would be quite an adventure, I reckon.”
Peter screeched. “Come on then!”
James looked at the other boy with wonder. “But how do we get to this Neverland you have told me about?”
“We’ll fly,” Peter said, as if this was the most natural thing in the world – which for him it was. He jumped up into the air, and, to James’s surprise, remained there, floating in the dark night. “See, it’s easy!”
James also jumped up, but found that the air didn’t carry him as heartily. He fell down and frowned. What was he doing wrong? He wasn’t used to making mistakes, as he tended to make as few of them as possible.
He was astounded when the other boy laughed at him. He seemed to find James’s incompetence the funniest thing on the world, and James couldn’t help but feels a little angry with his new companion’s bad form.
The fairy was kinder than Peter (in this particular moment at least, since the tempers of fairies shift easily) and showed James how it was done – fairy dust!
Up they flew, deep, deep into the night. James couldn’t see where they were going – that is how dark it was – but at that moment he found that, for once, he didn’t really care. It was all very exciting, and after the dreary days on the ship, he loved a good adventure. That was exactly what he had hoped for at sea, but what had not come during his time with the company.
“Do you see that star there?” Peter screamed, and his eyes lit up as if they were the only spectres of light in the whole wide universe. As if they were the whole arrangement of stars themselves.
James nodded.
“That’s where Neverland is! Follow that star, and then turn right when it loses your sight.”
“Are you sure about that?” James thought that was a strange way to give directions.
“Of course I’m sure!” the boy cried, a certain arrogance bloating his features. He had that way of talking and looking, as if he was almost offended when you doubted him.
They flew for hours and hours, maybe even days. James didn’t understand how his body kept going the way it did, without any food or drink getting inside it, but going he did, until, finally, there was a glimpse of the island on the horizon.
“It’s beautiful,” James breathed.
“Yeah, it’s quite all right,” said Peter in his nonchalant manner.
It was striking to James. This boy was so much unlike anyone he had ever met. He was not like the other boys at school. His behaviour and manners were entirely strange to him, and for a moment he wondered if he made the right decision. That thought was replaced with excitement within the matter of seconds, as his eye caught the ship sailing around the island. “Pirates!” he yelled.
“Oh, yes,” Peter said, and as soon as he spoke those words, a cannon fired at them.
We will now take a look at the pirates. Not for long, but it’s important that you meet them before I continue my story. The crew is made up of very different men. Some of them are English, but most of them are from the Spanish mainland. Unlike in the stories, all of those pirates still have their legs, hands and eyes. Pirates are not as careless as the world is eager to make them look, nor are they as brutish and as dangerous. Not yet, at least. For now, they are perfect gentlemen of the sea. Of course, they steal, every now and then – but that doesn’t change their manners. They all have perfect form, and most of all their current captain, Blackbeard.
It is most curious, though, that they were sailing around the island. You see, there were no big ships to rob, no other captains to clash with, no Royal Navy to pester. There were just the boys – and perhaps that was why they stayed around the harbour of Neverland for so long. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t beat those small kids. It annoyed them to a great extent, as you might well understand. The brutish little brats kept bothering them. That’s why they didn’t leave – they simply couldn’t leave until they had taught them a little respect. Good form.
Now look again at the cloud behind which our hero hides. The pirates are still firing at him and Peter, but do they show fear? Don’t be silly! James had been well warned that his journey could encompass such dangers, and he was more than ready to kick a little pirate ass, if you will excuse my language.   
“Will we fight them, Peter?” he asked in a small, eager voice.
Peter shook his head. “Not now. Later. I promise. We can’t beat them on our own, especially not the gruesome captain Blackbeard. I want you to come and meet the boys.”
“The boys?” James asked.
“Yes. The lost boys.” He didn’t explain.
James was puzzled. He didn’t want to meet more boys – especially if they were as cryptic as the one he was currently trying to hold up a sensible conversation with. He wanted to meet the pirates. He had heard so much about them on his journey, and he wanted to know if they were indeed as cruel as he was told. He wanted to know those people, and he wanted to defeat them. He finally wanted to do something of use – something to make his parents proud. He wanted to show them good form, and wanted to beat the pirates’ bad form. As for the boys, he wasn’t sure about their form yet. Peter had some show of good form, but his manners were so… careless. He wasn’t sure if he were to envy him or to scorn him, and neither was he entirely sure if he’d ever make up his mind on the matter. That bothered James to a great extent, and it continued them during the entire flight to the mainland, while he glanced back at the adventure Peter had forced him to leave behind.
Time on Neverland passed, as on such islands it is not loath to do, quicker than the human brain can truly grasp. As far as we know, days or even months might have passed. It didn’t take James long to get used to life in Neverland, and you can now observe him sitting in the corner of Peter’s home in the hollow tree, reading a book – one of the few that is left on the island, for the little boys do not enjoy reading as much as James always has. He was sure this should all be frightfully exciting, but most of his interest had long ebbed away. The boys Peter introduced him to were no more than boys, and didn’t share even a small sniff of the hint of good form that James could distinguish in their leader. But the thing that most bothered him was that he hadn’t seen a glimpse of the pirates yet.
“Peter?” he said, a question in the sweet tones of his voice.  
Peter took a few minutes to acknowledge him.
“When will we fight the pirates?”
“Oh,” Peter said. “Someday, undoubtedly.”
James shook his head. What kind of answer was that? “I’m sorry, that’s not good enough.”
Peter frowned, and the other boys had started to listen in. “What do you mean?”
“I came here for the pirates, and you promised we’d go to see them, but I haven’t seen a single pirate yet. I’m going to them myself.” It was a brave façade he put on, our little James, but I believe that at that moment he truly meant his words.
“Fine,” Peter said. “Whatever you want.” He was obviously slightly upset at James’s behaviour. As you can well imagine, Peter had always been the type of boy who wasn’t used to hearing the word ‘no’, in whatever form it came to him. He had lived on his own for too long, and couldn’t remember the parents that once might have raised him, or any other people that once may have refused his orders, his bossiness and arrogance. “But don’t come to me when they… well…”
“When they what?” There was almost a threat in James’s voice, as if he was ready to fight his former friend on the matter, as you all may have been expecting he will, someday. Of course, I expect my listeners or readers to know the story I am telling at this moment by heart, or the outcome, anyway. You are familiar with this story, and you know what will come of our hero. But I sometimes fear you may have forgotten. You may have been distracted by the sweet little young boy you see. The adventurer, and the hater of pirates. Have you been fooled?
“When they make you walk the plank… or cut off a limb. You can go,” Peter said, emitting any emotion from his voice. “But you can’t come back.”
“You are so childish!” James screamed. If there was anything he hated, it was childishness. “Grow up!”
This put Peter in a rage neither of the boys had expected. “Is that what you want to do?” His eyes were like fire, and even Tamara seemed slightly scared. And she was never scared of Peter, for she knew she was the one person he would never willingly hurt. “Growing up.” He sounded scornful, and I can tell you with all certainty that he felt that scorn in his old heart. “I don’t want to grow up. If that’s what you want, I wish you the best of luck.”
James was angry too now. He was a good boy, but his temper had already been tried over and over and over during his stay on the island, and now he could no longer bear it. “Fine,” he said, and he slammed the door behind him.
“Fine!” Peter turned up his chin. This was the end of the conversation.
I will now show you our hero, only a couple of hours later, or whatever counts as hours in this forsaken place.
James had to fight against the tears. Even though he thought he had been on the island for days, he was hopelessly lost. He was sitting against one of the larger trees in the forest, mellow rain cluttering down on his head and spreading the cold through his entire body. He felt so very alone. Not that he hadn’t been alone before, but he was now overwhelmed by physical loneliness. There was no one to talk to, there was no one to scream at him… He had that melodramatic idea children have – that he was alone on the world, and that he would be alone forever.
“What’s the matter, lad?” A large man was towering over him, offering him a rough hand.
James looked up at him in wonder.  
“Come into my carriage,” he said. “You gettin’ all wet here.”
Grad he was not entirely lost and alone in this strange land, James followed the yet unidentified man into his carriage. It immediately drove away. James settled himself in the comfortable seat. Only now he had the time to observe his saviour a little closer. He looked like a gentleman, like the men he had encountered in the streets of London the times he went to visit his uncle there. Even though the man wasn’t exactly wearing a three-piece suit, he wasn’t dressed like a native either. He dressed flamboyantly, but James thought there was a certain style to it. The man seemed no older than thirty-eight. He didn’t look like a kind man, but James always found that men of a certain age didn’t look kind anymore. Not the men he met, anyway. Perhaps it wasn’t good form, or else they had simply lost their touch.
The man asked him some questions: what his name was, where he came from, how old he was… He also told some things about himself. His name was Edward Teach and he came from Bristol.
“Do you happen to know Peter Pan?” Teach asked somewhere in their conversation.
This struck a chord in James. He knew he had to be on his guard, but at the same time, he couldn’t care less about Peter and the boys anymore. Peter had broken his promise, and now he would break the one promise he made to Peter. Peter had made him promise one thing: never to tell anyone about his hiding place.
“Yes, I’ve been with him for the last couple of days.” Had it been days, though? He was still unable to tell. “I think.”
“Oh, have you, my boy?” The man looked satisfied. “Why did you leave?”
James decided not to tell him about the pirates. “He broke a promise.”
“Ah, what a horrid thing to do, isn’t it?”
James nodded.
“Bad form,” Teach added. “Say, boy… do you happen to know where they have their hide?”
“Why do you want to know?” Of course, he was going to tell him – this man was kind to him, after all, while Peter had betrayed him and he owed him no loyalty anymore – but he did want to know. For the first time since he had met him, the thought struck him that if this man was not an Indian, nor a boy, he could be a pirate!
“Pan and I have some… unsettled business,” the man said. “And you don’t owe him anything, now do you?”
James shook his head. “I don’t. I’ll show you his hide.”
“Good boy,” the man said, slapping his back. “Good boy.”
And so it happened that James gave Edward Teach the directions to Peter’s home. You must have thought he wouldn’t, at first, didn’t you? You thought well of our little James, and thought he wouldn’t betray his former friend. But he did. Anger is a curious thing, and revenge can consume even the purest soul. And perhaps our hero didn’t have a pure soul to being with. And of course, you must also know something about this Teach, a man whose intentions you have obviously doubted, if you are sound of mind. As it turned out, the man was not quite as alone as James thought he was. “You’re a pirate,” he gasped, as he saw the crew gather around them.
“Aye,” the man admitted. “Perhaps I should have told you… but I was afraid…” he said. “I was afraid that you wouldn’t help me if I told you I am a pirate.” He pondered on this for a moment. “Would you have?”
“I might have,” James said. He didn’t know. Hypothetical questions were always tricky, for you could never know what the correct answer was, for the event had not actually occurred. It was too much like maths, and he had always enjoyed literature more. Shakespeare had struck a chord in him, while numbers had never really done the trick, unless money was concerned. He liked to count the coins in his mother’s cabinet. “I thought you were bad, but you have better manners than all of the boys together,” he decided.
“That’s right, James… All too right.”
“You won’t hurt them, will you?” There was no real fear in his voice, for he trusted this man, even if he had been wary at first. Was that a stupid decision? Is that even for us to decide, and is that not merely James’s business? He is his mistakes, and we are not to amend them. Nor will I leave them out of the story, just because the little boy might have done something stupid. All little boys do, because that is what they are boys for.
The man smirked. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” 
Satisfied with this answer, James pointed the crew to the exact spot where they needed to enter. He had his own tree, and as he was rather large, being the eldest of the company, his tree could fit a couple of the smaller grown men. A pirate named Bill entered the tree, and James could hear the shouts from where he was standing. He distinguished Sneezer’s voice, and then Blinky’s, and then he thought he heard Peter shout.
It didn’t take long before all the men were lined up before Teach, who was eyeing them in satisfaction. He had James’s shoulder in a strong grasp. James saw the betrayal in Peter’s eyes, but at this point, he had become immune to it. He recognised Pan as a boy who did not care about him even a bit, so he had decided to return the favour. It was different with the boys though. They pleaded where Pan was silent, and he felt sorry for them. They just followed Pan, and they didn’t know any better. They didn’t seem to know what world there was out there, and what different ways there were to live – how grown-ups lived their lives – while Pan seemed to have some knowledge on the matter, but chose to ignore it. He kept the boys naïve and stupid and ignorant, and in some sense it made James’s breath stick in his lungs. He suddenly remembered a line from the prayers at school. Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.  
“I want silence!” Teach shouted, and the coldness in his voice shocked James. “Pan,” he challenged his enemy antagonistically, pinching his cheek like all annoying adults do at some point.
“Blackbeard,” Pan spat back, and James started. He hadn’t realised that this man…
“Leave him alone!” Blinky shouted, as Teach pulled his knife and pressed it to Pan’s throat. With one simple movement Blackbeard fired his gun at the boy, and he lay motionless on the ground.
Tears sprang into James’s eyes. “You said you wouldn’t hurt any of them,” he said accusingly to Teach – the man he had thought to be his friend.
“Wrong,” the man answered. “I never said such a thing. I told you I wouldn’t dream of it – and I didn’t. I never did. I don’t dream up my life, little boy. I create it. I don’t need dreams to create my reality.”
The older man brought his face close to that of the younger boy.
“You need to stop dreaming, lad.”
At those words, James twisted the gun out of Blackbeard’s hand. Before the pirate could react, he was holding the gun up to Teach’s head, threatening to fire. He was not going to let this man kill his friends. That was not who he was, and that was not who he wanted to be.
“Go on then,” the pirate said, gruffly, a smile tugging at his lips. He didn’t believe for one second that the boy would shoot him. “Shoot me. Show a little gut.” He spit his words, and his eyes were gleaming threateningly in the darkness of the trees.
What do you believe?
“I don’t want to shoot you,” James said.
The pirate only laughed. “You’re a coward.”
“Do it!” Pan hissed.
“No!” Tears were threatening to spill and roll over James’s cheeks. “I don’t want to.”
“You do,” Pan said softly. “Of course you do. You wanted to fight the pirates, didn’t you?”
“I was curious – I don’t want to hurt anyone.” He didn’t notice he was really crying now. His father would have commented on his bad form.  
“You wanted to grow up, didn’t you?” Pan was mocking him. “This is growing up, as far as I know. Making decisions… owing up to your threats…” He pointed at the gun. “Being a man.”
“This is not a gentlemen’s life.” The pride that is left in our little hero. Astounding, isn’t it?
“Gentlemen don’t exist,” Pan said. “Not on Neverland – not anywhere. Good form, bad form – it’s all a lie, don’t you see? And if there is, you would be the worst of all. You betrayed your people, then you betrayed me, and now you will betray him.” Pan gestured at Blackbeard. “It’s simple… it was your dream to fight the pirates, wasn’t it? Then this is your chance.”
James pulled the trigger, hardly even realising he as doing it. He gasped audibly when the bullet hit Blackbeard’s chest, and the man fell to the ground. James kneeled next to him, trying to stem the bleeding, but the man stopped him. He put his bloodied hand to James’s chest, and whispered: “You will make a good pirate.” He blinked one more time, before his complexion became rigid.
Pan and the boys were shouting and cheering behind him. The other pirates had turned on their heels. Their captain was dead, and they were a disorganised bunch without him.
“You did it,” Pan said, remarkably laudatory to his standards. “You defeated the pirates!”
James remained silent.
“Come on.” Pan tried to drag him back to the house. “It’s over now; we’ll have a marvellous party, one like you’ve never seen.”
“No,” James said.
Pan frowned. “No?” He didn’t seem to understand, as he had never truly done.
“It’s a word grown-ups use.” James turned away, and he wasn’t to return.
They didn’t see each other for a long time after that, James and Pan. Years flew by, and of course, when they did meet, it didn’t go as smoothly as either of them expected. Peter Pan had always known somewhere in his the back of his mind that they would one day meet again, and James had planned to. Even though he forgot some things about Peter too, the hate in his heart festered and only grew over time.
Pan had learned from his encounter. He had finally realised that growing up wasn’t only a silly thing, but also a very dangerous thing. It had shifted their world from dream, from make-believe, to reality. It was what had made Blackbeard gruesome, and what would make James worse. He had never allowed any of the boys to grow up again. Not after James. James was his mistake, and sometimes even Peter wished to amend his mistakes.
James had learned too. But he had not learned for the better. He had taken Blackbeard’s crew, and soon found out he fitted in much better with them than with Pan. They taught him how to be ruthless, hard and cruel, while holding on to the correct poise and manners. It was a curious mix of brutality and civilisation, but James bore it well, as you might have suspected.
He had planned for Peter Pan’s death right from the beginning, of course, but he never seemed to get to it. Then again, what’s the fun in a story in which the bad guy wins? Because that is what our hero has become, hasn’t he? Is he truly the bad guy? He certainly doesn’t think so. Come on, you are allowed to disagree. You are allowed to dislike Peter, or even dislike the boys. As long as you don’t dislike any of the fairies. They haven’t done anything wrong, and if they have, it’s because of their limited capability to possess and express emotions. But that isn’t their fault, it’s who they are.
One night, on a night as cold as the one during which they first met, their shadows crossed. They didn’t speak, but their shades seemed to say enough.
You made me, James’s shadow seemed to whisper.
Pan’s merely laughed.
James wasn’t entirely wrong, of course. I think you might sympathise a little, even if I really want to make sure that James has strayed from the path that his parents set out for him when they raised him from a babe to a young man. He had some right to blame Peter for the person he turned out to be. Peter had taken him to Neverland, had then neglected him and left him to be found by the likes of Blackbeard, forcing him to grow up before his time.
But on the other hand, one can wonder if this adulthood hadn’t been James’s dream from the start, even if he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into when he stepped onto the ship that fatal night of 26 August 1786. In some ways, like Blackbeard, he had made himself as much as Pan had made him, and would make him in the future.
And make him Pan would. We will take one last glimpse at our two lost heroes, before I have to go. This is not their first new encounter, nor will it be their last.
James was holding one of the boys at the point of his sword, and Peter was watching him, his eyes mere splits. An angry boy look. “You won’t hurt him.”
James smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He raised his sword to render the boy in two, but Peter’s young body was faster. As you can see, Captain James has truly grown up to be a man, while Peter never considered such a thing. With one quick blow, Peter struck off the captain’s hand. Our hero was so angry at Peter that he forgot the pain, forgot the blood oozing out of the wound, dripping onto the deck and into the water.
“You insolent little boy!” he said in a posh accent. It is not an accent one can easily scream in.
Peter laughed. “You insolent little man!” He dangled the hand over the railing of the ship, dropping it into the ocean. Little did he know that under the waves a crocodile had been waiting for one of the ship’s current inhabitants to walk the plank. The crocodile was very slow – slower than all his friends – and found that in this way he could fill his appetite with a limited amount of effort. This crocodile exposed his sharp teeth and gormandised the hand at once. Now, if James didn’t know of this crocodile, he would soon, as the beast liked his taste and would not rest until he got the rest of the poor old captain.
This, perhaps, had been the captain’s undoing. In some ways, Peter Pan had always been his undoing. But then you have to consider the captain’s own choices, for which he now has to pay so dearly – look at the crocodile circling around the ship. Did he not just do what he had found so abhorrent all those years ago? Did he not keep the little boy at the tip of his sword with the intention to kill him? I know it is not a very satisfying story when I tell it like this, I understand that. Some of you might have turned your eyes away as I told you about James, James, who was only a pure and innocent child what seems like mere seconds ago. But he isn’t. not anymore. Over time, his good form turned to bad form, even if he may not have perceived it as such, and even if he still not does. Our hero, our captain, has lost himself, and lost himself irreversibly when he, in his heart, accepted that it was the right thing to attempt to skewer an innocent boy. It was what he had killed Blackbeard for, and what, in due time and with a little help of our green friend, will result in Captain Hook’s end as well.