Snowflake (Peter Pan OUAT x Reader)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next morning you awake to a hiss. You get up, slightly groggy, only to find Rumplestiltskin's greenish crackled skin in your face. Not the kind of thing you want to wake up to. You feel something rise beneath you and you turn to see what it is. Who it is. You blush slightly, remembering how you had begged him to stay with you last night. He was still sleeping peacefully, his long lashes very visible now that he had no green glowing orbs to grab your attention.

"Dearie," Rumplestiltskin hissed softly at you. So now he had added waking you from your peaceful slumber to his long list of annoyances. How pleasant.

"What?" you groaned softly.

"It's here, ready, whenever you are."

"What?" you asked again, you recently awakened brain being unable to comprehend what he meant.

"Your shadow is here, waiting for a chance to talk to you when you're alone, or, at least, not with him." He gestured at Peter, obvious scorn and hatred on his face. And, I mean, it was understandable considering that he probably blamed Peter for his death, since Peter was the one who had told you to and given you the means to kill his physical body. Now the only semblance he had was in the Darkness inside you, and the form he was able to take when said Darkness needed to speak to you.

"My shadow...is here?!" You looked at him with surprise. How had your shadow managed to get it, to find it so fast? It had only been a few days. You thought it would take at least a week. Then again, you had no idea how fast shadows were really able to travel.

"Shhhhh," he held his finger, with that long, thick, cracked fingernail, to his lips. Did being a Dark One mean you weren't allowed to clip your nails or something? Or did that happen naturally? You quickly checked your own nails just in case. They appeared to be normal.

Stella, focus! you scolded yourself. You had not gotten enough sleep last night, and, as such, were very scatterbrained. Or was it something else that was keeping you from focusing. After all, if your shadow was back so soon, it meant it must have found something. Did you really want to know what that something was? You were supposedly cursed, but were a few forgotten memories worth the likely throwing away of everything, of your happy life on Neverland, with Peter? Yes, it was worth it. How could you be truly happy if you didn't know the truth, if you were living a lie, if you weren't free?

You quickly, albeit silently, stood up and made your way softly across the wooden floor of your tree house. You looked back once as you reached the latter, at Peter's, Pan's, sleeping form. Then you steeled yourself and turned your face away. It was time to find out what was really going on.

You quickly climbed down your rope ladder. Then you waited for your shadow to appear. Then you facepalmed at your idiocy. Yes, it was definitely a good idea for your shadow to come to a place where Pan was just a few steps, and a few dreams, from you.

You thought over the island, thinking of the best place to go. It would have to be well-hidden, but not so well-hidden or so likely that Pan would assume you were going there if you had anything to hide. But then again, he could sense wherever you were, so you should probably stop wasting your time trying to find a hidden spot.

"How about the Echo Cave, dearie? Pan would never set foot in them, and I would love to hear you vocalize your darkest secret." Rumplestiltskin grinned.

You snorted. "Yeah, for sure. I'd rather put myself in the mermaids' slimy hands." But what was your darkest secret? Not something that was necessary right now...and something you were not sure you actually wanted to know. "Alright, we'll just head to the pixie woods. Pan will know to find us there easily, just as he would know to find us anywhere almost as easily, but no lost boys ever come near there, so it's our best bet. We'll just need to hurry."

You started walking but then Rumplestiltskin cleared his throat. You looked back at him and he made a familiar motion with his hand. "Oh, right. Walking is overrated anyway." With a simple wave of your hand you were in the pixie woods, the thick bark of the tall trees in every direction. And then, your shadow was there. You felt its presence before you saw it—it felt as if a missing part of you had finally returned. You hadn't realized until this moment that you missed the shadow's presence, but you did. And now it was finally back with you. But you couldn't help but dread the tidings it was bringing.

It didn't speak, but you could hear its voice in your head. It sounded like a version of your own voice, but so gravelly and deep only those who knew you best would be able to distinguish it as such. "Your dagger is well-hidden, just as you commanded. And, I believe I have found you are looking for."

It held out a book towards you and you took it, slightly surprised, as you had been expecting that it would tell you, or at most hand you a handwritten scroll. The book was big, with a think brown cover and the title written in a fancy gold scrawl, 'Once Upon a Time.' You opened it up only to see that it held many pictures. It wasn't a spellbook as you had been expecting. This was a storybook! "Shadow, I didn't send you to find a book for my bookshelves. Although, that would be something helpful for you to get..."

Its gravelly voice startled you. "Maybe if I explain a bit more to my master she will understand why I believe it to be what she wants."

"I'm listening," you said. What could a storybook possibly have to do with anything?! And yet...the weirdest part was that this storybook somehow seemed familiar.

"I found that book in a small town in Maine called Storybrooke. It was a strange place, evidently magic, as I passed through some sort of barrier before I could sense that it was there. I received a lead to this place from the Enchanted Forest, were word is that the Evil Queen cast a curse, a dark curse that removed most of the people from the Enchanted Forest and brought them to a land without magic.

"As soon as I found it, I stayed out of sight, watching the people. I soon found this book. All the characters in it, well, most of the characters in it, live in that town. And the stories in it are their stories. Can't you feel the sense of magic in its pages?" You could, it felt strange, like it was something that wanted to be used for good, but could just as easily be used for evil. "This book was written by the author. Every word in its pages is true."

You opened the book and started flipping through it when some force turned its pages so that they landed on a picture of the Evil Queen and Rumplestiltskin. Your Rumplestiltskin, the one you had killed. You weren't sure if it was your shadow or the Darkness or something else that had turned the pages, but you were soon distracted from that question by the story.

The Dark One was offering the Evil Queen something called the Dark Curse. Something that would take all of her enemies and everyone she wanted to a new place in a land without magic, a place that would be concealed from the world, a place where time was frozen. Everyone except her would be given new memories, a new name, a new life. She would be in charge of and control everyone with the power she would hold in this town, and the memories she would give to its people. It was a dangerous, powerful curse, and as such required something potent to enact it: the heart of the one (and it had to be a person) she loved most. She eventually decided to cast it, bringing everyone to a place where she ruled in power, where she was the only one who knew what had happened, the only one who knew who everyone really was (well, except for one crazy person whom she let keep his memories as a cruel punishment).

As you read about this curse, discovered what it did, you were sure of one thing. And it wasn't that your name was Stella White. You were certain that Peter Pan had cast this Dark Curse on all of you. The Darkness in you confirmed it, leaping within you in a desire to be free. Peter Pan had cursed you.