The Lagoon's Embrace

The trek to the Mermaid Lagoon was slow. Wendy was weak, stumbling over roots that had only just begun to heal. I ended up carrying her for the last leg of the journey, her frail body weightless in my arms, lighter even than Tinkerbell had been in the cave.

We emerged from the jungle onto the white sand beach. The moon was high now, casting a silver path across the water. The lagoon, once famous for its deadly beauty, was calm. The oily sickness that had coated it was gone, leaving the water crystal clear and shimmering with restored magic.

I set Wendy down on a flat, sun-warmed rock near the water's edge. She shivered, hugging her knees, looking at the dark water with deep-seated trauma. "They're waiting," she whispered, her eyes darting to the ripples. "The mermaids... they pull you down. They laugh while you can't breathe."

"They won't touch you," I said, my voice cutting through her panic. "Not while I'm here."

Tinkerbell strutted past us, kicking off her boots. She looked at the water not with fear, but with excitement. She was eager to show off. "Watch," she commanded Wendy.

Tink unbuckled the belt of her stolen pirate shirt. She shrugged it off, letting it fall to the sand. She stood naked in the moonlight, her skin glowing, her curves lush and healthy, her wings shimmering behind her. She looked like a goddess of the island compared to the pale, withered girl on the rock. Tink waded into the water. She gasped at the chill, then dove in. She surfaced a moment later, splashing water, shaking her hair like a wet dog.

"It's good!" she called out, laughing. "It washes the sticky away! Come on, Master!"

I turned to Wendy. "Your turn."

Wendy looked at Tink, then down at her own rags. She was ashamed. She was dirty, skeletal, and smelled of the underground. "I... I can't," she stammered. "I'm hideous. Look at her. And look at me."

"You are broken," I said, kneeling to unlace my boots. "But things that are broken can be fixed. It starts with getting clean."

I stood up and stripped. Wendy averted her eyes instantly, burying her face in her knees, her ears turning bright red. "Oh my," she squeaked.

I walked into the water, the cool liquid lapping at my waist. I waded over to Tink, who immediately latched onto me, wrapping her wet arms around my neck and kissing my chest. "You came in," she purred, rubbing her wet body against mine.

"Focus, Tink. We're helping her."

I turned back to the shore. "Wendy. Into the water. Now."

The command was absolute. Wendy flinched, but the authority in my voice compelled her. She shakily stood up. Her trembling fingers worked the buttons of her tattered nightgown. It fell to the sand. She was painfully thin. Her ribs showed through her pale skin. Her hips were sharp angles. But beneath the emaciation, there was a beauty waiting to be recovered, a classic, soft elegance that was the opposite of Tink's fiery energy.

She covered herself with her arms and stepped into the lagoon. She waded toward us, the water rising to her chest. She stopped a few feet away, shivering violently.

"Come here," I said, extending a hand.

She took it. I pulled her into the circle of my protection. "Tink," I said. "Show her how it's done."

Tink grabbed a sea sponge from a nearby rock - nature's washcloth. She swam over to Wendy. Usually, Tink would have been jealous. She would have hated another woman near me. But looking at Wendy, this tall, starved girl who had been locked in a box by the boy Tink used to love, she felt a strange surge of sisterhood. Or perhaps, ownership. Wendy was a stray they had picked up.

"You have to scrub hard," Tink instructed, her voice bossy but not unkind. "Master likes it clean."

Tink began to scrub Wendy’s back. Wendy gasped at the rough texture, but she didn't pull away. "It hurts," Wendy whispered.

"Dirt holds on tight," Tink said sagely. "You have to scrape it off."

I took another sponge. I moved to Wendy’s front. She stiffened as I touched her shoulders, her eyes squeezing shut. "Peter never..." she breathed.

"I am not Peter."

I washed her. I was gentle but thorough. I washed the grime from her neck, her collarbones, her thin arms. I washed the soot from her small but firm, pale breasts. As the dirt fell away, clouding the water around us, Wendy began to relax. The warmth of the water and the friction of the sponges were bringing blood back to her skin. She stopped shivering.

"I feel..." she murmured, opening her eyes, looking at me with a dazed expression. "Lighter."

"Deeper," Tink suggested, pointing down.

I moved my hand down to Wendy's stomach, then lower. Wendy grabbed my wrist, panic flaring. "No! That's... that's private! Mothers don't..."

"You aren't a Mother," I corrected her, removing her hand from my wrist effortlessly. "We leave that pretending behind. Now, you are a woman under my care. And in my care, there are no secrets. And no dirt."

I washed her between her legs. She let out a sound that was half-sob, half-sigh. Her legs went weak in the water, and she had to grab my shoulders to stay upright. "Sir..." she whimpered.

"Good girl," I murmured.

When she was clean, scrubbing the last of the 'Timeout' from her skin, she looked like a different person. Her wet hair slicked back, her skin pink from the scrub, her blue eyes bright and wide.

Tink swam around us, creating a current. "She cleans up okay," Tink admitted, floating on her back, her nipples breaking the surface of the water. "She needs to eat a lot more fish, though. She's pointy."

Wendy looked at Tink, then at me. She saw the way I held Tink earlier. She saw the bite mark on Tink's neck. She looked at me, her hands resting on my wet chest, feeling the muscle beneath.

"You saved me," she whispered. "You let me out of the box. You washed me."

She hesitated, then leaned forward. It was a clumsy, tentative movement. She pressed her lips to my jaw, not a kiss of passion, but a kiss of submission. "I don't want to go back to London," she said softly. "I want to stay in your light."

Suddenly, the water around us began to bubble. Heads broke the surface. Mermaids. Three of them. They had returned with the clean water. They had dark, glistening eyes and sharp teeth hidden behind playful smiles. They circled us, their tails flicking the water.

One of them, a redhead with emerald scales, swam close. She looked at Wendy, then at me. She didn't try to drown Wendy. She looked at the Keyblade summoning mark on my hand, then bowed her head low in the water.

"The Lord of the Tree," the mermaid sang, her voice like a siren's call. "You cleared the poison."

"I did," I said, keeping one arm around Wendy and one around Tink.

"Then the Lagoon is yours," the mermaid giggled, splashing water at us with her tail. "Swim with us, Lord. We play much better games than the flying boy."

Tink hissed, splashing water back at the mermaid. "Back off, Fish-Face! He's busy!"

I laughed, the sound echoing across the bay. I had a Fairy Queen, a rescued damsel, and a lagoon full of mermaids pledging fealty. Neverland was no longer a playground. It was a Kingdom.