The Old King ~OUAT Panfiction (Book 3)

Stalked & Cornered

            Anne was mindlessly trailing through the forest, having no sole purpose other than the one that was taking a while to put in place. Pan was nowhere, there were no boys and by the looks of the position of the sun, Anne judged that it was noon. "Come on, you bastard," she mumbled to herself in frustration, staring through the array of sunlight bursting through trees. Emerging upon a tail of hoof tracks in the mud, she didn't think much of them and headed over to a rock, sinking down as a long sigh passed her lips. It had felt like hours since she ran off and by this point, she was fed up. "Just be patient, Anne," she told herself, "just be patient. Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, patience is a -- " Startled by the rustling of some leaves from nearby bushes, she stood up expectantly. "Well it's about time."

Upon her mounting hope, she was sadly disappointed to find that it was just a wild pig. He sniffed the air, glancing toward Anne's defeated countenance, at which, he didn't acknowledge. Anne found herself becoming hungrier than she noticed before, having been dreading Pan's haunting eyes of unfamiliarity to think about anything else. Until now. At the shift of her foot when she crouched down to grab her knife, the hog darted. Anne fled after it, mud splashing against her clothes when more pigs frantically bolted from the way the other one came, bustling passed her so fast she lost the first pig. They were in a flurry of squeals and grunts, almost so abruptly that it seemingly wasn't just from Anne. She was knocked aside when a larger one scuttled through, startling her by their louder squeals and grunts of interruption. She practically launched herself toward it, only to fall into the thick muck that was probably more than mud by this point. A shriek was pulled out of her when she crashed.

She was saturated in the warm muck, the smell of it nauseating her. Fortunately, she had saved her face, watching some baby hogs seemingly teasing her when they scurried around her. She watched them follow the others, though one managed to look back and whether or not it was some bizarre hallucination by the steaming, toxic-like fetor in the mud, Anne could've sworn she saw it wink. Not only extremely vexed by the fact that Anne was practically laying in mud and shit, she felt her frustrations shoot through the roof at this little piglet, causing her to aggressively scramble to her feet. "You're lucky you're cute!" She yelled after the baby, before she began muttering curse words as she stalked off to the nearest river.

"First, you decide to pick me up in the middle of night -- without giving me the time to prepare, then you harass me with your stupid lost boys that would eventually throw me in a cage -- at which, I had to break out of nearly busting my a--" she cut herself off when she found herself rambling to nothing. Though, despite that, she kept going. She was too enraged to let it go. "And I'm willing to bet you scared those pigs to get me to fall down into their feces!" She peered around, rotating her body with her eyes, pacing backwards. She felt a bitter curl in her lips. "I bet you wouldn't miss a moment of it either, well," she stopped, "you might as well come out now!"

"I really hope you don't talk to yourself like that often," came a voice, connecting with the blond headed figure that came from around a curve in her trail. "Otherwise, I would have to presume you're mad, and have to take the necessary precautions to avoid you," he teased, a funny smirk tugging at his lips. It was Chester, though this time, he was alone.

Anne panicked at the sight of him, overwhelmed with grief that it wasn't Pan at all that was there, and alone. "You."

The attractive blond raised his brows, taking steady steps in her direction, hands up as if to surrender. "I haven't come to bring you back, Pan doesn't know I've been following you."

"Yeah, right," she retorted, masking her sudden apprehension in the boy's words. "He knows where everyone goes, even some sleazy lost boy like you," she attempted to insult while intimidating all at once.