Chapter 81: Captain Hook (Part 1)
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Pirate Captain Vladstin dien Griscoeur watched the rolling seas below them. Far, far below. Almost 10,000 feet below them, in fact.
They are sailing across the skies, not the sea.
Beyond the clouds, they have now entered a land where mortals do not live. Only immortals. This is Neverland, or the Land of Eternal Night and Darkness as he liked to call it.
Oh, but Neverland is not dark in the literal sense. It was actually always a lovely summer here, with lots of palm trees and coconuts on the island. Even at night, the stars are bright and the moon is always full, and darkness can never pervade the festive atmosphere.
No, it is a Land of Eternal Night and Darkness because of the existence of Captain Vladstin himself, called by the Lost Ones as 'Captain Hook'.
His right hand had been cut off by his former closest friend, the sprite Leron Pan.
And Leron gave that hand to an unnamed leader of the Gigesdi tribe for safekeeping. All Vladstin knows is that this figure wears a crocodile hide and brings with him the annoying sound that is like that of a ticking clock.
He wanted to retrieve that hand. He is a wrestler and never liked fighting with swords, and though one might think that a hook is handier than a literal hand when it comes to combat, they would be wrong because they never experienced it themselves.
You might ask, "What use would a hand be if it had already been cut off?"
Well, the answer is that Captain Vladstin can reattach it and make it work as normally as before. Because the Land of Eternal Night and Darkness is special.
Everyone here is undead.
Leron Pan is undead, the tribe leader is undead, all the Lost Ones are. The mechanics of how the living operates is now strange here, and had become topsy-turvy. If you can get all your body parts together, you can 'live' again. Missing eyeball? Find it, then place it back on your eye socket. Squashed insides? Just stuff yourself with cotton and sew it up, and you'd be good as new.
"Raise the flag, Mr. Smee! We're landing straight to the Dead Man's Cave on the double!"
There was no answer, only the clacking of bones.
Captain Vladstin had literal skeletons as his crew. On the mortal world, beyond the Southern Seas, the Jolly Roger was once an established fleet for the royal family of Crescentia. But it was burned by Leron Pan, and everyone had their skins and flesh burned off until there is nothing left but skulls and bones.
Captain Vladstin, who was once the prince of Crescentia, had a fencing duel with Leron who was just a noble gentleman back then, and got pierced in the heart with his sword.
As he died, he thought everything was over, but he had awoken inside a dark cave. All his crew got reanimated but they could not speak for they have no tongues or throat. Jolly Roger had become a husk of its former self, yet can still function and can now float into the skies, like a ghost.
He traveled across Neverland in his ghost ship out of curiosity to get to know its residents. But the Lost Ones, that is, children who never aged, did not like him. They find him and his ghost ship scary, and aim rocks and harpoons at it, which just passed through.
The mermaids also swam back down the waters at the sight of him, the man-wolves howled and went wild even during the bright sunny day. Vladstin felt like he was the Night that had invaded this land that was eternally bright and happy like the Day, bringing fear and chaos into their peaceful lives.
Soon, he learned that his treacherous friend was also here. But he became a sprite that was declared the chosen hero of this land to save them from this menace.
Leron Pan can fly like the fairies and pixies, yet he is not as small as a bug like them. He had retained his former height from the land of the living and his mastery of the sword was just as splendid.
Upon meeting Captain Vladstin, he had stolen his flamboyantly large red feathered hat, and while the pirate is infuriated with his mischief, he had swiftly cut off the hand that reached out to strangle him with Vladstin's very own sword, giving it to the Gigesdi tribe as compensation for the Jolly Roger's terrorizing their land.
Or so the story goes.
Captain Vladstin 'Hook' dien Griscoeur just grinned whenever he heard it being told again and again by the Lost Ones at their dinner by a bonfire. A bard under the pen name 'Crimson Wolf' had written it, entitled 'The Ballad of Leron Pan', which consists of 96 stanzas all in iambic pentameter.
And they truly believed that the writer must be a man-wolf, or a translation of the name of someone from the Gigesdi tribe. Maybe even the tribal leader himself, who seems to favor Leron Pan very much.
Because who would believe that someone would write almost a hundred stanzas for the person who cut of their right hand, right?
Captain Vladstin snagged a bottle of rum using his hook hand and chugged it down. The Dead Man's Cave is his lair which is a skull-shaped cave with two ' eyes' that can serve as a vantage point to attack the main island of Neverland where Pan lives.
But he only ever used it for stargazing in his lonesome nights, drinking his rum and perhaps bringing in one or two of his skeleton crew who could only listen, nod, and shake their heads as he tries to have conversations with them.
Sometimes when he is bored, he writes more songs and poems, and he had been improving his writing craft every day. He wrote odes to lavenders, elegies to every member of the Jolly Roger besides himself, and soliloquies about missing his homeland Crescentia.
But sometimes..... he would have a visitor.
"Darling." He grinned when he felt a shadow behind him. "You came tonight. Any reports of development in our endeavors?"
"Nothing."
A man wearing dead autumn leaves for clothing, eyes blue and hollow, flew beside him. He has no wings, yet he can fly. He hung upside down with his dark locks falling towards Vladstin's face.
"Pfft." Vladstin swiped away the hair from his face. "Did you truly not find anything or you did not bear to try? Darling, you used to be one of the smartest in my mother's class because you are the most inquisitive, yet immortality had made you lazy now."
"Immortality is fun, Vladstin. I do not understand why you wanted to die so much."
"Because Mr. Leron Darling, this is not the way it should be. This is not the ending I asked for."
The sprite who was once known in the mortal land as Leron Darling the Eight, son of the ambassador from their friendly neighborhood kingdom called Ilvedia, pursed his lips. "This is always the most logically best ending for me, why can't you understand that? And besides, it's Leron Pan now. Leron Darling is dead, Captain Hook."
Pan tried to take the rum with his dainty, nimble fingers.
Vladstin swiped it away from his grasp before he could take it. "Leron Pan is a horrible name. And Captain Hook is simply uninspired and lazy. Why not Captain Sharpgrip or something like that? Ahh, the Lost Ones have no creative tact at all, it's to be expected of children who'll always have bad form."
"Everything is in bad form with you nowadays." Leron's shadow grabbed the rum while Vladstin was distracted, but the pirate flashed his lamp on it before it could steal his alcohol.
Leron gave up and sighed. Even with his magic and sentient shadow, he was no match for Vladstin's natural litheness. He opted to tease the pirate captain instead.
"Ever since you've written that epic poetry about me, you have become insufferable when it comes to forms and sensibilities."
"But did you or did you not make any attempt to at least find the Everflower? Or even clues about it?" Vladstin brought the conversation back on track as he take another swig, neither acknowledging nor denying Leron's statement.
"I've heard of a Hermit. The Gigesdi told me about him." Leron 'swam' in the air like a fish. "If you travel past the Southern Sea and beyond Neverland, you might be able to find him in the Mountain of Death."
"There is nothing beyond the Southern Sea beside the mortal lands. And we had traveled there so many times now that humans are beginning to make stories about our ship which they call the Flying Dutchman for some reason. Some even mistook it as a large whale flying in the sky, about to eat them all." Vladstin chuckled. "It is amusing, but I do not want to bring more trouble than its worth. I need definitive answers."
"I'm not talking about the mortal lands below. I'm talking about the opposite direction, towards the stars above." Leron pointed his finger upwards, and his shadow turned into the shape of a four-pointed star above it. "Polaris. The Gigesdi said no one has been there besides one person."
"Who?" Vladstin raised an eyebrow, very interested.
"The tribal leader himself. The one who has your right hand."
"Ah! Perfect!" Vladstin clapped his hand and his hook together. "That has been my writing hand, I've been struggling with making use of my left because of it! That way he can return it to me, and he can lead me to this Hermit who might know the Everflower! Two birds in one stone!"
"Yes, but there is a problem." Leron Pan said, and his shadow nodded in agreement.
"What?"
"The tribal leader highly dislikes you." He sat beside Vladstin, finally tired of flying. "Because of the little act we created, it is unlikely that anyone in Neverland would not dislike you besides me. Even I am starting to dislike you more and more whenever you remain adamant about not being immortal."
He placed a hand on Vladstin's shoulder. "Can't we just stay like this forever? We can travel back to the mortal world if you despise Neverland that much, and spend our days staying youthful. Make up for our past mistakes, experience everything the world has to offer without ever worrying of time taking it away from us."
His usually playful and laidback expression fade, as the true sorrow underneath, came through his blue eyes. "I will always regret burning the Jolly Roger, but I will never regret being with you here in Neverland where we can be ourselves forever and ever in each other's company."
Vladstin just gave him a sad smile. "I'm glad that I bring you happiness now, Darling, but it's not the same for me anymore. The pain is too much, I need rest."
There is an awkward silence between them and Leron Pan could not look him in the eye, only staring at his chest where knows there was a wound somewhere made by a sword that was healed. Yet the heart in there still remains damaged to pieces, never to be returned to normal.
"You should introduce me to the tribal chief tomorrow." Vladstin broke the silence and took his bottle and lamp back to his ship cabin where he would sleep, even when he doesn't need to. "Good night, Darling."
Leron did not say good night. Just a weak and faint plead, that Vladstin can no longer hear because he had walked far away.
"......Don't call me Darling anymore if I no longer mean anything to you."
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Pirate Captain Vladstin dien Griscoeur watched the rolling seas below them. Far, far below. Almost 10,000 feet below them, in fact.
They are sailing across the skies, not the sea.
Beyond the clouds, they have now entered a land where mortals do not live. Only immortals. This is Neverland, or the Land of Eternal Night and Darkness as he liked to call it.
Oh, but Neverland is not dark in the literal sense. It was actually always a lovely summer here, with lots of palm trees and coconuts on the island. Even at night, the stars are bright and the moon is always full, and darkness can never pervade the festive atmosphere.
No, it is a Land of Eternal Night and Darkness because of the existence of Captain Vladstin himself, called by the Lost Ones as 'Captain Hook'.
His right hand had been cut off by his former closest friend, the sprite Leron Pan.
And Leron gave that hand to an unnamed leader of the Gigesdi tribe for safekeeping. All Vladstin knows is that this figure wears a crocodile hide and brings with him the annoying sound that is like that of a ticking clock.
He wanted to retrieve that hand. He is a wrestler and never liked fighting with swords, and though one might think that a hook is handier than a literal hand when it comes to combat, they would be wrong because they never experienced it themselves.
You might ask, "What use would a hand be if it had already been cut off?"
Well, the answer is that Captain Vladstin can reattach it and make it work as normally as before. Because the Land of Eternal Night and Darkness is special.
Everyone here is undead.
Leron Pan is undead, the tribe leader is undead, all the Lost Ones are. The mechanics of how the living operates is now strange here, and had become topsy-turvy. If you can get all your body parts together, you can 'live' again. Missing eyeball? Find it, then place it back on your eye socket. Squashed insides? Just stuff yourself with cotton and sew it up, and you'd be good as new.
"Raise the flag, Mr. Smee! We're landing straight to the Dead Man's Cave on the double!"
There was no answer, only the clacking of bones.
Captain Vladstin had literal skeletons as his crew. On the mortal world, beyond the Southern Seas, the Jolly Roger was once an established fleet for the royal family of Crescentia. But it was burned by Leron Pan, and everyone had their skins and flesh burned off until there is nothing left but skulls and bones.
Captain Vladstin, who was once the prince of Crescentia, had a fencing duel with Leron who was just a noble gentleman back then, and got pierced in the heart with his sword.
As he died, he thought everything was over, but he had awoken inside a dark cave. All his crew got reanimated but they could not speak for they have no tongues or throat. Jolly Roger had become a husk of its former self, yet can still function and can now float into the skies, like a ghost.
He traveled across Neverland in his ghost ship out of curiosity to get to know its residents. But the Lost Ones, that is, children who never aged, did not like him. They find him and his ghost ship scary, and aim rocks and harpoons at it, which just passed through.
The mermaids also swam back down the waters at the sight of him, the man-wolves howled and went wild even during the bright sunny day. Vladstin felt like he was the Night that had invaded this land that was eternally bright and happy like the Day, bringing fear and chaos into their peaceful lives.
Soon, he learned that his treacherous friend was also here. But he became a sprite that was declared the chosen hero of this land to save them from this menace.
Leron Pan can fly like the fairies and pixies, yet he is not as small as a bug like them. He had retained his former height from the land of the living and his mastery of the sword was just as splendid.
Upon meeting Captain Vladstin, he had stolen his flamboyantly large red feathered hat, and while the pirate is infuriated with his mischief, he had swiftly cut off the hand that reached out to strangle him with Vladstin's very own sword, giving it to the Gigesdi tribe as compensation for the Jolly Roger's terrorizing their land.
Or so the story goes.
Captain Vladstin 'Hook' dien Griscoeur just grinned whenever he heard it being told again and again by the Lost Ones at their dinner by a bonfire. A bard under the pen name 'Crimson Wolf' had written it, entitled 'The Ballad of Leron Pan', which consists of 96 stanzas all in iambic pentameter.
And they truly believed that the writer must be a man-wolf, or a translation of the name of someone from the Gigesdi tribe. Maybe even the tribal leader himself, who seems to favor Leron Pan very much.
Because who would believe that someone would write almost a hundred stanzas for the person who cut of their right hand, right?
Captain Vladstin snagged a bottle of rum using his hook hand and chugged it down. The Dead Man's Cave is his lair which is a skull-shaped cave with two ' eyes' that can serve as a vantage point to attack the main island of Neverland where Pan lives.
But he only ever used it for stargazing in his lonesome nights, drinking his rum and perhaps bringing in one or two of his skeleton crew who could only listen, nod, and shake their heads as he tries to have conversations with them.
Sometimes when he is bored, he writes more songs and poems, and he had been improving his writing craft every day. He wrote odes to lavenders, elegies to every member of the Jolly Roger besides himself, and soliloquies about missing his homeland Crescentia.
But sometimes..... he would have a visitor.
"Darling." He grinned when he felt a shadow behind him. "You came tonight. Any reports of development in our endeavors?"
"Nothing."
A man wearing dead autumn leaves for clothing, eyes blue and hollow, flew beside him. He has no wings, yet he can fly. He hung upside down with his dark locks falling towards Vladstin's face.
"Pfft." Vladstin swiped away the hair from his face. "Did you truly not find anything or you did not bear to try? Darling, you used to be one of the smartest in my mother's class because you are the most inquisitive, yet immortality had made you lazy now."
"Immortality is fun, Vladstin. I do not understand why you wanted to die so much."
"Because Mr. Leron Darling, this is not the way it should be. This is not the ending I asked for."
The sprite who was once known in the mortal land as Leron Darling the Eight, son of the ambassador from their friendly neighborhood kingdom called Ilvedia, pursed his lips. "This is always the most logically best ending for me, why can't you understand that? And besides, it's Leron Pan now. Leron Darling is dead, Captain Hook."
Pan tried to take the rum with his dainty, nimble fingers.
Vladstin swiped it away from his grasp before he could take it. "Leron Pan is a horrible name. And Captain Hook is simply uninspired and lazy. Why not Captain Sharpgrip or something like that? Ahh, the Lost Ones have no creative tact at all, it's to be expected of children who'll always have bad form."
"Everything is in bad form with you nowadays." Leron's shadow grabbed the rum while Vladstin was distracted, but the pirate flashed his lamp on it before it could steal his alcohol.
Leron gave up and sighed. Even with his magic and sentient shadow, he was no match for Vladstin's natural litheness. He opted to tease the pirate captain instead.
"Ever since you've written that epic poetry about me, you have become insufferable when it comes to forms and sensibilities."
"But did you or did you not make any attempt to at least find the Everflower? Or even clues about it?" Vladstin brought the conversation back on track as he take another swig, neither acknowledging nor denying Leron's statement.
"I've heard of a Hermit. The Gigesdi told me about him." Leron 'swam' in the air like a fish. "If you travel past the Southern Sea and beyond Neverland, you might be able to find him in the Mountain of Death."
"There is nothing beyond the Southern Sea beside the mortal lands. And we had traveled there so many times now that humans are beginning to make stories about our ship which they call the Flying Dutchman for some reason. Some even mistook it as a large whale flying in the sky, about to eat them all." Vladstin chuckled. "It is amusing, but I do not want to bring more trouble than its worth. I need definitive answers."
"I'm not talking about the mortal lands below. I'm talking about the opposite direction, towards the stars above." Leron pointed his finger upwards, and his shadow turned into the shape of a four-pointed star above it. "Polaris. The Gigesdi said no one has been there besides one person."
"Who?" Vladstin raised an eyebrow, very interested.
"The tribal leader himself. The one who has your right hand."
"Ah! Perfect!" Vladstin clapped his hand and his hook together. "That has been my writing hand, I've been struggling with making use of my left because of it! That way he can return it to me, and he can lead me to this Hermit who might know the Everflower! Two birds in one stone!"
"Yes, but there is a problem." Leron Pan said, and his shadow nodded in agreement.
"What?"
"The tribal leader highly dislikes you." He sat beside Vladstin, finally tired of flying. "Because of the little act we created, it is unlikely that anyone in Neverland would not dislike you besides me. Even I am starting to dislike you more and more whenever you remain adamant about not being immortal."
He placed a hand on Vladstin's shoulder. "Can't we just stay like this forever? We can travel back to the mortal world if you despise Neverland that much, and spend our days staying youthful. Make up for our past mistakes, experience everything the world has to offer without ever worrying of time taking it away from us."
His usually playful and laidback expression fade, as the true sorrow underneath, came through his blue eyes. "I will always regret burning the Jolly Roger, but I will never regret being with you here in Neverland where we can be ourselves forever and ever in each other's company."
Vladstin just gave him a sad smile. "I'm glad that I bring you happiness now, Darling, but it's not the same for me anymore. The pain is too much, I need rest."
There is an awkward silence between them and Leron Pan could not look him in the eye, only staring at his chest where knows there was a wound somewhere made by a sword that was healed. Yet the heart in there still remains damaged to pieces, never to be returned to normal.
"You should introduce me to the tribal chief tomorrow." Vladstin broke the silence and took his bottle and lamp back to his ship cabin where he would sleep, even when he doesn't need to. "Good night, Darling."
Leron did not say good night. Just a weak and faint plead, that Vladstin can no longer hear because he had walked far away.
"......Don't call me Darling anymore if I no longer mean anything to you."
Pirate Captain Vladstin dien Griscoeur watched the rolling seas below them. Far, far below. Almost 10,000 feet below them, in fact.They are sailing across the skies, not the sea.Beyond the clouds, they have now entered a land where mortals do not live. Only immortals. This is Neverland, or the Land of Eternal Night and Darkness as he liked to call it.Oh, but Neverland is not dark in the literal sense. It was actually always a lovely summer here, with lots of palm trees and coconuts on the island. Even at night, the stars are bright and the moon is always full, and darkness can never pervade the festive atmosphere.No, it is a Land of Eternal Night and Darkness because of the existence of Captain Vladstin himself, called by the Lost Ones as 'Captain Hook'.His right hand had been cut off by his former closest friend, the sprite Leron Pan.And Leron gave that hand to an unnamed leader of the Gigesdi tribe for safekeeping. All Vladstin knows is that this figure wears a crocodile hide and brings with him the annoying sound that is like that of a ticking clock.He wanted to retrieve that hand. He is a wrestler and never liked fighting with swords, and though one might think that a hook is handier than a literal hand when it comes to combat, they would be wrong because they never experienced it themselves.You might ask, "What use would a hand be if it had already been cut off?"Well, the answer is that Captain Vladstin can reattach it and make it work as normally as before. Because the Land of Eternal Night and Darkness is special.Everyone here is undead.Leron Pan is undead, the tribe leader is undead, all the Lost Ones are. The mechanics of how the living operates is now strange here, and had become topsy-turvy. If you can get all your body parts together, you can 'live' again. Missing eyeball? Find it, then place it back on your eye socket. Squashed insides? Just stuff yourself with cotton and sew it up, and you'd be good as new."Raise the flag, Mr. Smee! We're landing straight to the Dead Man's Cave on the double!"There was no answer, only the clacking of bones.Captain Vladstin had literal skeletons as his crew. On the mortal world, beyond the Southern Seas, the Jolly Roger was once an established fleet for the royal family of Crescentia. But it was burned by Leron Pan, and everyone had their skins and flesh burned off until there is nothing left but skulls and bones.Captain Vladstin, who was once the prince of Crescentia, had a fencing duel with Leron who was just a noble gentleman back then, and got pierced in the heart with his sword.As he died, he thought everything was over, but he had awoken inside a dark cave. All his crew got reanimated but they could not speak for they have no tongues or throat. Jolly Roger had become a husk of its former self, yet can still function and can now float into the skies, like a ghost.He traveled across Neverland in his ghost ship out of curiosity to get to know its residents. But the Lost Ones, that is, children who never aged, did not like him. They find him and his ghost ship scary, and aim rocks and harpoons at it, which just passed through.The mermaids also swam back down the waters at the sight of him, the man-wolves howled and went wild even during the bright sunny day. Vladstin felt like he was the Night that had invaded this land that was eternally bright and happy like the Day, bringing fear and chaos into their peaceful lives.Soon, he learned that his treacherous friend was also here. But he became a sprite that was declared the chosen hero of this land to save them from this menace.Leron Pan can fly like the fairies and pixies, yet he is not as small as a bug like them. He had retained his former height from the land of the living and his mastery of the sword was just as splendid.Upon meeting Captain Vladstin, he had stolen his flamboyantly large red feathered hat, and while the pirate is infuriated with his mischief, he had swiftly cut off the hand that reached out to strangle him with Vladstin's very own sword, giving it to the Gigesdi tribe as compensation for the Jolly Roger's terrorizing their land.Or so the story goes.Captain Vladstin 'Hook' dien Griscoeur just grinned whenever he heard it being told again and again by the Lost Ones at their dinner by a bonfire. A bard under the pen name 'Crimson Wolf' had written it, entitled 'The Ballad of Leron Pan', which consists of 96 stanzas all in iambic pentameter.And they truly believed that the writer must be a man-wolf, or a translation of the name of someone from the Gigesdi tribe. Maybe even the tribal leader himself, who seems to favor Leron Pan very much.Because who would believe that someone would write almost a hundred stanzas for the person who cut of their right hand, right?Captain Vladstin snagged a bottle of rum using his hook hand and chugged it down. The Dead Man's Cave is his lair which is a skull-shaped cave with two ' eyes' that can serve as a vantage point to attack the main island of Neverland where Pan lives.But he only ever used it for stargazing in his lonesome nights, drinking his rum and perhaps bringing in one or two of his skeleton crew who could only listen, nod, and shake their heads as he tries to have conversations with them.Sometimes when he is bored, he writes more songs and poems, and he had been improving his writing craft every day. He wrote odes to lavenders, elegies to every member of the Jolly Roger besides himself, and soliloquies about missing his homeland Crescentia.But sometimes..... he would have a visitor."Darling." He grinned when he felt a shadow behind him. "You came tonight. Any reports of development in our endeavors?""Nothing."A man wearing dead autumn leaves for clothing, eyes blue and hollow, flew beside him. He has no wings, yet he can fly. He hung upside down with his dark locks falling towards Vladstin's face."Pfft." Vladstin swiped away the hair from his face. "Did you truly not find anything or you did not bear to try? Darling, you used to be one of the smartest in my mother's class because you are the most inquisitive, yet immortality had made you lazy now.""Immortality is fun, Vladstin. I do not understand why you wanted to die so much.""Because Mr. Leron Darling, this is not the way it should be. This is not the ending I asked for."The sprite who was once known in the mortal land as Leron Darling the Eight, son of the ambassador from their friendly neighborhood kingdom called Ilvedia, pursed his lips. "This is always the most logically best ending for me, why can't you understand that? And besides, it's Leron Pan now. Leron Darling is dead, Captain Hook."Pan tried to take the rum with his dainty, nimble fingers.Vladstin swiped it away from his grasp before he could take it. "Leron Pan is a horrible name. And Captain Hook is simply uninspired and lazy. Why not Captain Sharpgrip or something like that? Ahh, the Lost Ones have no creative tact at all, it's to be expected of children who'll always have bad form.""Everything is in bad form with you nowadays." Leron's shadow grabbed the rum while Vladstin was distracted, but the pirate flashed his lamp on it before it could steal his alcohol.Leron gave up and sighed. Even with his magic and sentient shadow, he was no match for Vladstin's natural litheness. He opted to tease the pirate captain instead."Ever since you've written that epic poetry about me, you have become insufferable when it comes to forms and sensibilities.""But did you or did you not make any attempt to at least find the Everflower? Or even clues about it?" Vladstin brought the conversation back on track as he take another swig, neither acknowledging nor denying Leron's statement."I've heard of a Hermit. The Gigesdi told me about him." Leron 'swam' in the air like a fish. "If you travel past the Southern Sea and beyond Neverland, you might be able to find him in the Mountain of Death.""There is nothing beyond the Southern Sea beside the mortal lands. And we had traveled there so many times now that humans are beginning to make stories about our ship which they call the Flying Dutchman for some reason. Some even mistook it as a large whale flying in the sky, about to eat them all." Vladstin chuckled. "It is amusing, but I do not want to bring more trouble than its worth. I need definitive answers.""I'm not talking about the mortal lands below. I'm talking about the opposite direction, towards the stars above." Leron pointed his finger upwards, and his shadow turned into the shape of a four-pointed star above it. "Polaris. The Gigesdi said no one has been there besides one person.""Who?" Vladstin raised an eyebrow, very interested."The tribal leader himself. The one who has your right hand.""Ah! Perfect!" Vladstin clapped his hand and his hook together. "That has been my writing hand, I've been struggling with making use of my left because of it! That way he can return it to me, and he can lead me to this Hermit who might know the Everflower! Two birds in one stone!""Yes, but there is a problem." Leron Pan said, and his shadow nodded in agreement."What?""The tribal leader highly dislikes you." He sat beside Vladstin, finally tired of flying. "Because of the little act we created, it is unlikely that anyone in Neverland would not dislike you besides me. Even I am starting to dislike you more and more whenever you remain adamant about not being immortal."He placed a hand on Vladstin's shoulder. "Can't we just stay like this forever? We can travel back to the mortal world if you despise Neverland that much, and spend our days staying youthful. Make up for our past mistakes, experience everything the world has to offer without ever worrying of time taking it away from us."His usually playful and laidback expression fade, as the true sorrow underneath, came through his blue eyes. "I will always regret burning the Jolly Roger, but I will never regret being with you here in Neverland where we can be ourselves forever and ever in each other's company."Vladstin just gave him a sad smile. "I'm glad that I bring you happiness now, Darling, but it's not the same for me anymore. The pain is too much, I need rest."There is an awkward silence between them and Leron Pan could not look him in the eye, only staring at his chest where knows there was a wound somewhere made by a sword that was healed. Yet the heart in there still remains damaged to pieces, never to be returned to normal."You should introduce me to the tribal chief tomorrow." Vladstin broke the silence and took his bottle and lamp back to his ship cabin where he would sleep, even when he doesn't need to. "Good night, Darling."Leron did not say good night. Just a weak and faint plead, that Vladstin can no longer hear because he had walked far away."......Don't call me Darling anymore if I no longer mean anything to you."
