1Peter watched Wendy wander up and down the yellow beach from his perch against a nearby tree. She was searching for something specific, but had yet no luck in finding it – and nor would she, because she was looking in the entirely wrong place for it.
Human children fall so easily for lies and tricks of the fey, and Wendy was no different.
She had gotten her hair brushed and perfumed by the mermaids the other day, as sunny and bright as this one, and they had told her about the golden seashells. Wendy's eyes had brightened immediately with interest, her face leaned towards the nearest mermaid – with no hint of fear of getting dragged below the surface of the still waters. Such a lamb among snakes.
"What are those? Where can they be found?" she had asked, and the mermaids had sniggered.
They told her that with every new dawn, the sun's first rays gilded any seashell that was stuck in the sand.
And Wendy, very much such a girl of her kind, loved pretty, shiny things. Not the gold of pirates and their jewels, but treasures nonetheless.
One might find it strange that Pan would not let it be known to the girl that she was in the wrong and that she had been fooled, but we must not forget that the fey has no obligation to anyone – and though the Pan might have been fully a real child once, he was now just a poor copy. A counterfeit shaped like a human boy, more fey and demon – fond of trickery and a memory as blank as a canvas.
So he played his flute and thought it very amusing to watch Wendy look and look and look without success.
But he stopped playing when she suddenly released a strange, choked breath and sat down swiftly on the sand. He held himself very still as her shoulders started to shake, her head bent down towards her chest – it was like watching a flower wilt, which but a moment ago had been in full bloom with no sign of dying so soon.
Peter studied the pipes in his hands with an odd feeling growing within him – and for a moment, he truly detested the instrument, nay, music altogether.
The Pan knew what tears was – what crying meant. It was a weak, common thing that human children did when upset. He never liked it, the sound of it annoyed him. He banished anyone who cried in his presence.
But seeing Wendy cry made him restless – and angry.
He couldn't remember seeing her do so before. He didn't know she even was capable of it – in his mind's eye, Wendy was always happy. Her eyes always almost too-bright, a spring in her step as she followed him blindly.
Tears that rolled down her cheeks now didn't suit her – the despair in her face, the hopeless sobs – he couldn't take it.
So he decided to appear from out of the trees to speak with her, to tell her to stop this nonsense at once. For whatever the Pan said was law, and even she must bend to them. He stood before her then on the hot sand, feeling, for the first time, out of place on his own land.
"Do not cry Wendy-bird. I forbid that you should cry." he said clearly, but Wendy didn't even look up at him or recognize that he was there, so busy was she with shedding tears. Her cheeks were pink and tearstained, her usually calm golden hair now in knots.
The Pan who had slain so many pirates, collected scalps with the indians and even done away with a lost boy or two – all that blood spilt with no mark left on his dark soul to show for it. But this – the weeping of a Wendy -
"You – you must stop it at once, you hear? I said I forbid it!" he said once more, his voice not as strong as it had been a moment ago. He stood proudly over her, but there was no pride left in him. The sound of her sobs was a painful sound. And he knew that he was part of the reason for it.
Pan hissed and kicked at the sand at his feet, lifting to the sky to go retrieve what it was she sought so badly.
The golden seashells could only be found in a hidden cave on the other side of the mountain, sparkling at the bottom of shallow pools. The mermaids had stolen them in turn from the pirates, who had once collected them before Pan intervened and saw to it that they never tried it again.
When Peter returned, Wendy had gone away from the beach and went to sleep in her tiny house – having made herself exhausted with crying so much. It was rare for her to go to bed without having something to eat – her usual portion of half a coconut lying untouched in the grass.
For no discernable reason, Peter was very quiet as he came upon her house that day. He watched her sleeping form through the window, saw the golden hair framing her face like a halo, the upset still creeping onto her face even in sleep. He bit his lip and his dark eyes left her face to stare at her hands, squeezing air next to her pillow.
It is not for the fey to grow attached to humans this way.
When Wendy awoke awhile later, there was a golden seashell resting in her lap.
