A Neverland Tale - HOOKED (eng)

Chapter 7.6 - Peter Pan

A cold night wind had displaced the day's warmth at a late hour and elicited a chill from every poor soul not sufficiently warmly wrapped up here. Only the cozy dwellings of the lost, the pointed tepees and structures of the Indians, the huts and houses of the seaside townsfolk, and the lower decks of the ships now offered protection from the cold of the night. In Neverland, you could never be quite sure what weather would put you to bed and greet you the next morning. Some days, rays of sunshine would tickle the boys awake, only for snowflakes to settle on their reddened noses like a sweet goodnight kiss.

It had also happened that an ever-thickening layer of ice covered the Neverseas within more extended winter periods. Then the Jolly Roger and all the other ships were trapped on the ocean and easier prey for the Lost - and anyone else who wanted to attack them.

Oh, Peter had many fond memories of winter, as well as summer, autumn, and spring. It all blurred into one another, the bag of marbles from which one fell out daily as new ones pushed their way in. And Peter let it happen, didn't try to grasp frantically at what was slipping away... perhaps he took just this liberated lightness that set him apart from so many others?

His disposition was always sunny; he could always joke - even if his blood ran down his chin or he could barely stand up straight. Peter was an optimist, kissed by happiness, and never really moped. Fun and games were his scepter and orb... laughter was his crown. What real king in the kingdom of fools wore a crown? Oh yes, the prodigal could laugh magnificently at himself; he was not particularly vindictive, and jokes at his expense he also understood (if they were good). But it could taste just as bitter when his scorn was directed at one of the boys who was particularly clumsy or clumsy. Whether he didn't care or didn't notice, he deliberately didn't spare the weak among the young men - because later, that very weakness would be the undoing of either them or someone else. 

In trying to defend one's own life, failure meant paying the price one had set oneself - a price no one else could bring for one. But boys who threw themselves before the slashing blade for weaker ones... they paid with their lives for someone else's guilt. As harsh as it sounded, if you ensured everyone worked on their weaknesses from the start, you had less trouble later on. Peter knew this and made sure the boys understood in his own way.

His watchful gaze roamed through the undergrowth as Peter moved fluidly from shadow to shadow, pausing briefly at some trunks and immediately taking cover behind a large bush or tree at suspicious noises. You never knew what was prowling in the woods, what hungry beasts were hiding behind the next rock, just waiting to taste a careless prey. 

Ah, Peter had seen them before... bodies covered in shiny black or rusty brown fur, sometimes even white. Firm muscles stretching under the shimmering softness, extended claws whose tips clicked softly on stone or rustled in the foliage. Rounded ears, completely torn from old battles, peppered with rosy bulging scars... at least as many as the deadly sharp fangs had inflicted on their victims.

Time and again, it happened that a lost one did not return from his forays, and at some point, his rotting conches were found near the mountain or the hunting grounds of those beasts. Peter did not want to share this fate, so he soon climbed up one of the nearby trees. Branch by branch, the strong arms pulled themselves higher, sinewy muscles played fluidly into each other under tanned skin - testimony to days of wandering through forests, adventurous battles against pirates and Indians, the friendly courtship between the boys or simply a round of swimming at the foot of the plateau below Iceland.