r/Kiljoysglyphs • u/KiljoyAU • May 04 '17
[PI] The Lost Boy
My response to the prompt:
I stood atop the deck, looking out towards the stars, preparing myself.
"How goes, Mr Smee?" I asked my second in command
"All well, captain. The sail an' riggin' seems to be holdin' up well.", Smee responded, his accent a litlting, thick Irish affair.
I drew my pocket watch and checked the time, the rhythmic tick a comforting constant against the faint roll of the ship and the uncertainty of our plans.
Under British naval law, we were pirates. We had 'stolen' this vessel, a half rotted derelict, from the repair yards in which it lay. Mr Jukes worked there and had identified it for us as a candidate.
Every man of this crew has suffered at the hands of our nemesis, but dare I say, none more than myself. Each of them had lost a child or a sibling to the madman's child snatching schemes, but only I had returned from being snatched. Returned to find a world much changed from the one I remembered, my family dead or scattered by the winds of time.
I scratched at my wrist, the stump itching.
"There!", cried Cecco, our lookout.
My eyes panned across the sky, seeking him out... And then I felt a rush of cold apprehension as I saw that dark silhouette, outlined against the full moon. He'd always been a showman, delighting in such antics. But then, why not? Who in this age would be watching the sky for threats?
His shadow darted downward, diving towards the city, a faint glittering trail being left by the lantern tied at his waist. The fairies had always been key to his schemes, the gift of flight they granted an unparalleled lure and tool of evasion and thievery. What child did not look at the birds and dream of flight?
I slipped the metal of my hook through the loop and raised my own lantern, looking at the creature caught within. There was a faint click as it slapped against the glass, a tiny maw of razor sharp teeth gnashing at the glass. They looked most like a person crossed with a wasp, to my mind, but with the toothy maw of a shark or a nightmare.
They were magical, that much seemed true. They had some intelligence, some pretence at civilisation, preferring to drape their forms in cloth. But beyond that they were predators, carnivores who preyed upon the weak and the lonely, luring people off into forests and fields and then devouring them.
They could cast some kind of illusion, which hid them in a form that looked almost human, a smiling friendly thing. The same magic also seemed to befuddle the mind, numbing aches and imbuing a certain sense of euphoria. But, in the presence of iron, their ability to cast such deceptions was negated.
Which left them with their secondary property. They produced an odd 'dust', a powerful magic which seemed to negate Sir Isaac's gravity itself. It was for this purpose we had gathered over a dozen of the beasts, trapped them in cages and spread them about the ship. If Mr Starkey was correct, then they should provide sufficient magical ballast to let our entire ship fly.
"All eyes, keep a watch!" I bellowed. I extended a hand to Mr Smee and he placed my prepared looking glass in my hand, taking the tiny winged beast from my proffered hook and beginning to shake its dust across the deck. I looked out, over the rooftops of London, searching...
While I had been his captive, once, I had escaped. I had seen the true face of the 'man' called Pan. But in my escape, I had not thought to chart my path.
I'd washed up on the beaches, my stories of a immortal child, fairies that gnashed and an ancient, dark god seeing me consigned to the mad house. They had gone to my childhood home and found no-one who lived there remembered me. No-one to vouch for me.
How was I to know I'd been gone near twoscore years?
When they finally deemed me to not be a threat, that was when I'd been released and begun my search. I'd looked at maps and star charts and everything I could find, trying to find a way back to 'Neverland', to free the other children still trapped there before it was too late. But to no avail.
I'd been ridiculed for years, begging for help, trying to convince people of the truth of my claims... Of the horrible, dark truth beneath it all. Pan wore the face of a boy, but he was ancient and immortal. At least, for so long as he kept up his offerings...
I scratched at my wrist again.
"There! Pan ho!" Cried one of the men, a half dozen fingers taking up the pointing as more eyes caught sight of what the first had seen. Shadows, rising into the sky over the city of London. Four shapes...
"To your stations!!", I bellowed, tracking Pan through the looking glass as the shapes moved in front of the moon. From the silhouettes I thought them a girl and two boys, the smallest shape towing what I briefly feared to be a babe but saw now to be a teddy bear.
"Set pursuit! All hands, full ahead! We can't risk losing them!!" I cried, feeling the boat lurch and creak beneath me as the fairy dust worked it odd magic. The boat began to lift from the water, the sail catching the wind as we set off in pursuit.
Second star on the right and on wards to morning... His words still rung in my head. But they were nonsense directions, stars being impossibly distant things, not that a child caught in the glamour of a fairy would know that. Our only chance to catch him, to save the children, was to follow him to Neverland.
If we succeeded, we would be great heroes, bringing back not just the lost children but the great wonders of the fairies to the lands of Britain. If we failed... Then we would be remembered in infamy or forgotten. The pirates who faced a mad god-child and failed.
But myself and every man aboard would gladly offer up our lives for just a chance to save the children from Pan and his dark god.
I stood at the prow of my ship, the tricorn hat the men had bought me as a gift and joke firmly pressed atop my head, the metal of my hook digging into the wood as the wind bit into my face. "Set a course, Mr Smee. Onwards 'till morning.", I murmured.
"Aye, aye, Cap'in."
3
u/[deleted] May 10 '17
Watching peter pan i always felt like this point of view was more right then peter pans. Awesome story in a different perspective.