Fire-Wielder (Peter Pan X Female!Reader X Wendy) OUAT

Echo Cave

We followed some tracks that someone had left; Snow White leading the way. Tink had returned to her house for now, and Regina had gone to find the Dark One - who had apparently travelled to Neverland with the group, but departed from them for a reason I wasn't aware of.

"The tracks lead directly into that cave. This must be where Pan is keeping Neal," Snow explained. Cicadas chirped around us as we pushed through the green foliage.

"If this is some sort of prison, then why aren't there guards posted to stop us?" Charming asked, holding his broadsword at the ready.

"This prison doesn't require guards." Killian replied. "This is Echo Cave."

"I've never been here before." I said. I had been on this island for 28 years - then again, I'd only recently met Tinkerbell.

"No, you won't have. I lost half my crew there long before you were born... The only way to rescue someone from inside is to reveal a dark secret. Echo Cave is derived from an old saying; 'the deeper the lie, the more truth in its echo'. The Cave demands that you reveal a secret you would never admit to anyone."

"How do we know this'll work?" Emma asked, skepticism clear in her harsh voice.

"Because it's what Pan wants: he wants us to rescue him." Killian responded. I could see how much he wanted Emma to believe him; to be on his side.

"Why?" Charming asked.

"So that we reveal our secrets," I began. "He believes it will destroy us. And then we'll never get to Henry." That brought them to reality. I thought they'd know by now that getting to my nephew would be impossible without following Pan's rules - it was his island, after all.
We walked into the cave with sweat on our brows and lumps of anxiety in our throats.

~

The cave was a large space, with little for us to stand on but a platform of dry, crumbled rock. Any light here was from outside; dim and blue and cold. The temperature was also cold, in spite of the lack of wind; as if the whole cave was threatening to freeze us alive lest we did its sadistic bidding. I ignited my fire sword with an orange flame and swirled it; intending its flame to surround and light the cave. Probably thanks to Pan's magic, the flames around the ceiling were extinguished but stayed long enough to expose a tower of rocks far away from our platform with a bamboo cage atop it. There must have been a 200ft drop in front of us, so we couldn't simply walk - and it was much too far to jump. Neal's face poked out from between the bars, and when he saw us, he shouted - though I'm not sure what.

"Consider this the moment of truth," my father began, "now who wants to kick things off?" The group muttered amongst themselves about the 'ifs' and 'buts'. My father sighed. "I kissed Emma."

"You did what?" Emma's father exclaimed. He looked ready to attack him.

"David, now is not the time," his wife warned. I would have laughed had the situation not been so serious.

"I already told Mary Margaret, so technically it's not a secret." Emma stated. Why did she call her mother by her first name? I thought. I knew what my father was thinking; probably something along the lines of 'she told her mother about our kiss, that means something'.

"It's what the kiss exposed," he continued, "I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of Rizon's mother, Milah. Until I met you." We almost fell over as the cave rumbled and a rocky pathway was created in front of Neal's prison. But it stopped. It wasn't enough. We had to keep talking.

"The curse broke," Snow began, "and our daughter is all grown up. And we missed it all," she looked into the expectant blue eyes of her true love. "I want another baby." Such simple words but so much passion. The pathway grew a little closer.

David shook his head, filling his wife's eyes with morbid disappointment. "When Hook and I went to search for the sextant, he was really taking me to find a cure... for Dreamshade. And this cure comes at a price, I can't leave Neverland or I'll die." The pathway grew even more. But it wasn't enough.

I looked up at my father. "I'm..."

"It's all right, take a breath, starfish."

I sheathed my sword. "I'm also affected by Dreamshade. Pan forced my best friend to poison me with it so Henry could see him save me with the water..." my eyes stung with tears as Killian pulled me into a tight embrace. "And I'm... still in love with Pan. But I don't know how and I don't know why because I hate him and he's horrible but I just..." I didn't think what I'd said was enough, somehow. "I'm in love with a girl, too. Wendy Moira Angela Darling: the beautiful girl who kept me company when we were in cages. The truth is, I want to rescue her too. And I want her to come back with us to Storybrooke." The path formed all the way and Emma took one last look at us before she drew her sword and walked carefully to my brother.