66 ~ Fire on water

                                    

                                          
I've been absolutely torn about how I was going to finish this story, and over the seven years it has taken me to write it, the endings I've imagined have immensely varied. 
But to honor the fifteen-year-old me who embarked us all on this wonderful journey, I've chosen to end it the way she initially planned to. I hope it lives up to your expectations <3



<<<Day 275>>>

The stillness was oppressing. Overbearing silence hung over the island like a shroud, the ashen thunderclouds muting the world. Nothing moved, nothing breathed in the eerie calm that heralded the storm.
Peter Pan stood atop the cliffs, motionless, as mist curled at his feet. A somber sight had turned his features to stone; he observed the specks of black slowly growing larger as they crossed the ocean, their sails the color of the blood they had come to see spilled. The pirates had come for him.
Below Pan, on the beach, his army had prepared and gathered. The second in command had done a formidable job coordinating them; clear lines of spears, swords and archers were drawn out on the sand. Each boy was steadfast, determined and composed as they faced down the destiny they had been brought up to meet. The ships dragged closer, braving the restless and temperamental waves.
Thunder rumbled far away.
The King of Neverland was mute, eyes narrowed, attempting to understand the reasoning behind the attack. The wards had been renewed days ago; the pirates were too late. They had to be aware of it. They would be unable to step foot onto his island with magic, and without such protection, they would fall from his attacks in seconds. Logic would announce that the captain had lost his mind and all remaining grip on sanity, yet Pan would not be so reckless as to believe it so easily. If nothing else, after the decades of training his lost boys had carried out, they deserved this bloodshed as their fitting reward.
The first of the ships kissed Neverland's shores and even the island held its breath as the dark-clad figures disembarked. There could be no mistaking their purpose for anything other than a declaration of war.
Pirates amassed in lines that followed the curves of the waves, knee-deep in the salt water that they knew to be the only protection from immediate, merciless death. Pan scanned the mass of bodies yet could not distinguish the one he was most anxious to meet; surely his nemesis was cowering deep in the bellies of one of his crafts, unconcerned for the men laying their lives down for him. It did not matter much. Pan would have the pleasure of dealing with him once he had rid his lands of the pestilence advancing upon it with salt-stained boots.
There was no point in delaying the bloodshed for any longer.
As the first men breached the invisible line that marked the ground as Neverland's, swords heavy and glinting in their hands, a cry called out from the lost boys' side. A volley of arrows flew out to meet the invaders, felling pirates left and right with screams of pain and rage. The enemy needed no more incentive as they too let loose a war cry and broke out into a run, breaching the waves to meet the fight on firm ground.
Pan waited a few breaths, until most of the pirates had left the sanctuary of the ocean, before he sent out his magic to greet them. No amusement would be found if he killed them all instantly, but he would allow himself to take down a few, just enough to keep the events interesting. Yet, as his magic crossed the distance and snared around the throat of the first pirate it came into contact with, it was met with a wall.
Pan's interest was piqued. So, Hook had managed to convince the faeries into betraying their vows of neutrality to assist him, though it did not explain how they had managed to breach the wards. He scoured the battlefield; he singled out Indians among the overwhelming majority of pirates and was not surprised in the least, yet no fey lay concealed among them.