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Daring to Grow Up
Chapter 1: Barefoot in the Woods
⚠️: chase scene
word count: 1004
summary: Grown ups don’t get to stay lost boys, Peter won’t let them. So what happens when one grows up, but refuses to leave Neverland and won’t be killed for it?
Honey was running through the woods barefoot… again. Not that it was terribly uncomfortable, just that it left her with no place to keep her knife. There were very few things that she missed about living back in the city, so few in fact, that she often forgot there were any. At the present though she missed the density and utilitarianism of the clothing, as her current white slip dress left her without a place to conceal anything really.
Honey internally scorned herself for being so clumsy as she ran, lack of shoes equating to a lack of grace. It’s not at all like she was expecting trouble and this wouldn’t have happened if the island didn’t have a terribly nasty habit of twisting everything around for its own amusement. The normally quite familiar forest seemed to close in on Honey as she ran.
The island had jumbled up in such a way as to lead Honey directly to Hook, Smee, and Starkey. All she wanted to do was find the bow that Slightly had lost in the last round of hunting, but of course the island couldn’t just let her have this.
Honey looked behind her a moment to see Smee and Starkey gaining ground on her. ‘Must be the island playing favourites’ she thought, for she had seen Smee run and he was a rather out of shape kind of a fellow. At this moment Honey realised she hadn’t seen Hook behind her, not that she was really in a position to consider this fact for very long as she couldn’t just continue to run while looking back forever.
Looking ahead of her again, her green eyes flitted from branch to branch, only to find that the trees were quickly falling behind her. As she strained to see just a bit further into the distance, the cliff’s edge seemed to be looming both uncommonly and uncomfortably near.
Honey’s heart raced and seemed to have migrated from her chest to her ears as it was very nearly the only sound she could hear anymore. As her breathing began to come in shorter breaths, she had the impending feeling of being prey, not that Honey took time to dwell on this fleetingly brief thought as more adrenaline shot through her system.
As Honey drew nearer the edge she was left with no real choice but to halt all movement just a step shy of what must have been a 40 foot drop into the lagoon. Taking one last look into the water, Honey turned to face the pirates once more.
“We ‘ave ‘er now!” Came Smee’s Irish accent, echoing slightly for the openness of the space, and quite laboured for the exercise of the chase despite clearly having had the island’s favour for the time being.
Hook caught up to his lackeys with surprising ease and nonchalance for someone who had supposedly just run the same distance as the rest of them, in his usual overly polished high heeled shoes no less.
“Ah, good to see you again. Honey, was it?” Hook rolled the name off his tongue as though it were a coat he was trying on for the first time, and one that fit quite too tightly in the shoulders at that. Despite the oddity of her own name in his mouth, the countenance of his greeting was every inch, that of a gentleman.
Honey had to suppress a shudder at the way her name came out, feeling the fire run on high through her veins as the warped sound of her name in Hook’s voice rang in her ears again. She wanted to be able to scrub her mind clean of the sound and forget it forever if she could. A bitter taste rose in her throat at the thought of having to remember it.
“Would have been so much nicer if this meeting could have been an email though, don’t you think?” Honey taunted before letting out a blood curdling, deranged kind of a cackle, the kind that sent a shiver up even her spine when it hit her ears. Taking one more step back, she stepped over the ledge and continued laughing, the sound was an assault on the air of sorts as it rose in pitch.
As Honey fell, she mourned the fact that her line had been entirely lost here, while simultaneously regretting how lamely the line must have come off for its nonsensicality. She was left only a moment now to consider the consequences of her previous actions.
She hit the icy water with a splash that could be heard from above and a stinging sensation began to buzz over her skin. More pressingly to Honey, the impact had pushed all the air from her lungs and she could feel the chill rapidly seeping into her bones.
Just as Honey had begun to struggle towards where she was certain the shore was, a hand grasped her ankle. Honey screamed a watery sound that did her no service as it would never make it to be more than a gurgling in her own ears.
Back atop the cliff, Smee looked over the ledge just as bubbles began to rise through the surface of the water. “Oh dear me,” Smee muttered to himself solemnly, he took his hat from his head, clutching it to his chest as he continued to stare down into the water. Smee had a sort of guilt washing over him as he wished that the girl would resurface and swim away.
“Put your cap back on!” Hook hissed as he cuffed Smee solidly on the ear. Hook smoothed his coat and straightened his posture, seeming to simmer down in the act before turning away.
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” Smee said as he rushed to put his cap back on his head crookedly. Hook sighes and without another word he begins the long trek back to the Jolly Roger, Smee and Starkey following just behind him, something reminiscent of two dogs loyally following their master home.
Daring To Grow Up master list
Preface
Chapter 1: Barefoot in the Woods
Chapter 2: Waterlogged
Chapter 3:
Chapter 4:
