Hiraeth: Return to Neverland #1 (a darlinghook fanfic)

6 | arrival

There was something different on the island, and all the major players could feel it. Something had changed.

Peter noticed it as he sat in his little house in the trees playing his pan flute. He put the instrument down and looked out his window, immediately alert. It felt like the arrival of a Lost Boy, and yet... not. Tink had noticed his movement and flitted in from her small home on a nearby branch.

She asked Peter what was wrong in her strange bell-like language.

"I don't know, Tink. It's like someone has arrived from the mainland, but not a Lost Boy."

"Who else could it be?"

He shrugged. "If it's not a Lost Boy, it's not really my problem." He went back to playing his pan flute without a care in the world.

"What if it's another pirate?"

He stopped playing and looked at Tink. "I'll go ask the mermaids." And with that, he flew out his window to consult those mysterious creatures that lived in the sea.

Tiger Lily, now the chief of the Piccaninny Tribe, sensed Wendy's arrival almost immediately while she helped smoke-dry meat brought back from the hunt. Although she was the chief, she did help the other women in the village with the everyday chores.

She stood up, stepping away from the heat of the fire and wiping her brow. Hausis and Kimi looked up, but Tiger Lily gestured to them to continue. She walked over to Machk, one of the strongest of the braves, who was sitting by another fire, sharpening his fishing spear. "Machk," she said and he turned towards her.

"Chief Tiger Lily," he replied respectfully. Tiger Lily's chest swelled a little with pride. When her father had died, she wasn't sure if her tribe would respect a female chief, but they had known her all her life and were happy to have her as their leader.

"There has been an arrival on the island," she said. "and it's different than usual, not just another one of those boys."

Machk nodded and put down his spear and knife. "I'll take two braves and scout out the island to see who it is."

Tiger Lily shook her head. "I'm coming too, go get Kitchi."

Not too much longer, the three disappeared almost silently into the trees.

Captain Hook was lounging in his cabin on the Jolly Roger when he felt it. At first, he thought it was the winds changing, but there was no movement in the ship or sound of the sails. Still, it felt so much like the winds had changed, like something in their course had changed.

Putting on his hat and strapping on his sword, he went out on deck. Everything seemed normal and the crew didn't seem bothered about anything, a few of them playing cards at the far end of the deck.

And yet...

He looked out to the island, not too far away, searching for anything different, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He thought he saw some movement in the trees and quickly took out his spyglass. There, barely visible, was Tiger Lily and two of her strongest braves.

They moved quickly through the trees and were soon invisible again. Putting his spy-glass away, Hook stroked his chin with his namesake on his right arm. If Tiger Lily was on the move with her two strongest braves, then something was up. Perhaps she had felt the same thing he had.

Maybe the winds hadn't changed, but something else definitely had.

Wendy almost cried in relief when she felt the solid rocks underneath her feet. She was quite sure she had never swum so far in her life before, she thought as she collapsed onto the rocky shore. Her arms and legs were so wobbly that she could barely crawl up the rocks.

After she caught her breath, Wendy worked her way up to a sitting position, facing the water and thought about what to do next. Her plan hadn't really gone much farther than getting to Neverland, she had not thought about where she would live, and what she would eat, only about getting to Neverland and then everything would be okay.

But Wendy had always been very practical, even in her quest to get back to Neverland, and she soon had a plan. Before she had really come to Neverland, she had visited it numerous times in her imagination, and in that imaginary Neverland she had not lived in the Home under the Ground with the Lost Boys. In that Neverland, she had lived in a house of leaves deftly sewn together with her pet wolf that had been forsaken by its parents. And all personal Neverlands were really one Neverland, so she would find her house and her wolf and work from there.

She had matches (and dry ones at that), a hunting knife, a spyglass, a rain coat, a sweater, and a roll of bandages, all in a canvas backpack that was basically unbreakable.

She would survive and she would have adventures. Wendy smiled and slowly got up, pulling on her boots. She was going to be fine.