Wendy's Return

Chapter 8 ~The Ghost Of You*

The Shadow looked out at the town of Storybrooke, Maine from the cover of the clocktower. He had been lost in thought for several hours now, knowing he had to return to Neverland soon, but contemplating the risk of Pan reading his thoughts. He couldn't have him seeing the love of his life covered in blood, standing amongst flames.

Pan couldn't know Wendy was alive, but most of all, he couldn't know about her identity as Moira.

Together, Moira and Pan would set the world on fire. Together, they would rain down upon anyone and everyone who had ever hurt them. They would obliterate Storybrooke in minutes. The Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin would be nothing. The Shadow wouldn't stand a chance against them. Not like this. Not without preparation.

The Shadow remembered how fond he had been of Wendy Darling when she rescued Baelfire from him a lifetime ago. How he marveled at the power in her aura. How he stupidly put himself in front of her, lowered his guard, and acted like she was just a mere child.

What had The Shadow thought the power inside of her had looked like? Did he think of her as a tree sprite? A girl that could bloom to life a whole garden of flowers? Someone who had healing properties? Someone good and kind?

The Shadow did not know what he had made of her. He had certainly not expected the haunting red eyes. He did not expect Pan's Wendy Bird to spread her flames like that of a phoenix. All that power inside of her was not normal. Whoever she was before she found Pan in Neverland, whoever Moira was, she was a villain.

Moira had set fire to an entire island for merely being threatened. She had slayed Baelfire's wolf, drugging Pan in his sleep so he wouldn't stand in her way. While she was being poisoned by Ursula, she had placed cryptic nightmares in Tinkerbell's and Hook's thoughts. Dreams where she had the same red eyes and blood that she put in Regina's head. She used their fear as motivation. She manipulated them into finding her. When Ursula had forced her to stab Pan, she was able to push back against the Sea Witch's control over her. Moira had smiled when she had ripped her heart out, turning it into black sand.

A little girl like Wendy Darling could not change that drastically in only a year. The girl that survived Neverland did not change for worse, as Pan believed. Pan did not break her. The Shadow felt his guilt when he had been first let into his body. He believed he had blackened the feathers of his Wendy Bird, a pure white dove. But all Pan had truly done was reveal her true nature.

How many times had Wendy asked herself why she loved a monster?

How many times had she tried to ignore the attraction she felt for Neverland's King?

A boy who chased her, who tried to cage her, who selfishly declared her as only his?

Like calls to like. Two misunderstood villains.

A boy whose morals were twisted, who watched his life slip away into the bottom of an hourglass, desperate. A boy who would do anything for more time, found another misunderstood creature.

A girl who was no stranger to torture. A girl who could never trust anyone. A girl who enjoyed hurting the ones who proved disloyal to her.

The Shadow shivered at the thought of Pan and Moira, surrounded in flames, stalking towards him with murder in their eyes. The King and Queen of Neverland, wrecking havoc together.

They have to die, The Shadow realized. I have to kill them before they can kill me.

The Shadow cursed at the realization of what had to happen before. If he was to get anything he wanted, he had to have his heart. Henry had to die. Soon.