Innocence (OUAT/Peter Pan)

Chapter 2: New Land, New Prisoner

One moment she was flying over a vast forest that seemed to shimmer faintly with magic. The Enchanted Forest. Her first long look from somewhere other than the tower, and they were traveling far too fast for her to see anything more detailed than dark green shapes of trees.

            Then her vision was filled with a bright green, and then the strange shadow of a boy was flying her over a glittering, dark expanse of water. She’d read about this, it was an ocean. She gasped in delight, it was so different from the tower and she was so utterly free. She could smell the water’s salty tang, and feel the coolness that hovered on its surface. The Shadow slowed down a bit to let her have a longer look, for which she smiled brightly at him in thanks. So distracted by the ocean, she let her fingers slacken and slip from the Shadow’s hand.

            She felt the air: pushing her dress against her stomach and chest, screaming in her ears, catching and throwing her hair above her head, and snatching the yelp from her throat. The Shadow tried to grab her but only succeeded in tilting her, so she hit the water feet first. The shocking cold made her gasp and inhale water, and it would have been pleasant being underwater, but her hair and dress pulled her down and she didn’t know how to swim. As her lungs began to burn, she felt thin but strong arms wrap around her waist to pull her in some direction, but it looked like down. No, her head broke the surface moments later, he had pulled her up. She had just been too disoriented and it was too dark a night to find light. He held her for a moment to let her cough up all the water and replace it with air again, vaguely wondering in the back of her mind how a shadow was able to carry a full person. Finally, he pulled them completely out of the water and flew, faster than before, to the island in the distance.

            Flying over trees before rising above a small clearing, the Shadow then dropped her into the middle of a campsite on the forest floor. She didn’t even notice the boys stop their dance to stare at her and the Shadow. There was warm, moist dirt under her feet and hands, she could feel the chill of the night air competing with the warmth of the fire on her skin and through her still-damp dress, her hair now had leaves and twigs ensnared in its wet tangles and was caked with dirt, and she could taste the moist air and the healthy dirt and the trees. It was all so new, so rich, and so, so fresh. Her eyes roamed over it slowly: the leaves both stiff and soft scattered across the dirt, the layers of bark on the trees, branches, rocks, little bugs flitting in and out of sight. She was startled out of her observations on the ground by a clipped, lightly accented voice.

            “What is this?” it demanded. The Shadow stepped slightly in front of her, so she couldn’t see who the voice belonged to. It was silent for a few moments, the Shadow occasionally shifting or leaning. Whenever she tried, to look around him, he moved to stand in front of her. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was to prevent her from seeing whoever was speaking, or the other way around.

            The voice hummed, considering. Were they having a conversation? “Felix, we have a prisoner it seems. Surprises daily, boys,” the voice announced, laced with sarcasm but also consideration. Suddenly, she didn’t feel so free anymore. She was being judged, her fate was in someone else’s hands in a whole land she didn’t know-not that she knew her own much better anyway.

            A tall, thin boy with blonde hair stepped towards her, his thin face hidden in shadows, and gripped her wrists, not gently. She bit back a gasp of pain as he yanked her backward across the forest floor, causing her to stumble and crash her back into a tree. A small sound did escape her, though, when her head hit the solid trunk, and she closed her eyes against the pain and dizziness.

            “Careful, she’s valuable. And, she is a princess, I suppose,” the voice’s tone gave up nothing. No concern, no reprimand, not even the sarcasm it held before. Still, it seemed a bit disconnected, still in thought. The blonde, Felix, pulled her arms back with more care and tied her hands with rope. He leaned over her to reach, and her breath caught in her throat. Not only was this the closest she had ever been to another person in over ten years-let alone a boy-but she caught sight of the long scar across half of his face. He realized she saw it, and smirked darkly. He check that the rope held her without biting too much, then gathered her hair and pooled it beside her so no one tripped over it. At Felix’s nod, the boys turned away and, at the sound of a pipe, began dancing again.

            She never saw who the voice had belonged to, and the Shadow had disappeared. The boys seemed to dance all night to the pipe, as if the song spurred them on. To her, it just sounded comforting. She wasn’t sure when she had slipped from watching through strands of her hair to sleeping. The boys thought she slept far too peacefully and far too deeply for someone who was captive in a foreign world.

So I know I voted for my own story and that probably sounds rather conceited. Believe it or not, that was an accident...my phone and I have a love-hate relationship. Anyway I know I said every two weeks and I am going to stick mostly with that, I'm just so excited!! Plus this was pretty short anyway, the next few chapters I;m working on are longer. Thanks so much for reading!

PS I listen to music usually while I write, and this song came on when I was doing this chapter and it-plus the scenes in the actual movie Spirit-made me think of how excited/awed she is to be somewhere, despite her situation.