Neverland Rules

“Linearly? Nine.”

“I definitely don’t feel or look nine.”

“Aiiiight, hold onto your slippery snails. Lemme check!” She tapped her bracelet. “Stats.”

I waited as her eyes flashed over the text invisible to me. “Sixteen.”

“Hum.”

“Approximately. Maybe. Give or take a year or so.” She squinted harder at the invisible readout. “The bracelet is doing a bunch of dots-dots-dots ‘calculating’ wiggle. M’ pretty sure that we’re sixteen though. Or like, between fifteen and sixteen. Somewhere in that general range.”

“Jeez, so we’ve been sailing the Cloud Sea for…”

“Around seven years.”

“Yeesh. It definitely doesn’t feel that long.” I mulled it over. “Has it really been that long?”

“Eh. Time flies when you’re having fun.” She stated with a ponderous look.

“Yeah,” I let out. “I guess. I feel like I don’t even remember all the crazy things we’ve done. Except for the general stuff I’ve written in my log book. Hrm.”

“Neverland gives and takes.” Shady shrugged. “It’s how it be.”

“Only three summers passed on Earth though.” I said.

“Yep.”

“I don’t feel sixteen either.” I considered.

“What is sixteen even supposed to feel like?”

“Not sure. Mom said when I am sixteen I can get a learner’s permit. I think that’s for cars tho?”

“Your soul is sixteen in Neverland. Your linear body on Earth is… nine.”

“Why?”

“Neverland rules?”

“Neverland rules are… very weird.”

“They’re… fluid, like jelly. And also clingy too… like sticky sap. I think that… whatever experience we gather in Neverland doesn’t want to leave Neverland. Most of it gets stuck here… glued to our fae circle or our lovely little ship.”

“So whenever we leave Neverland…”

“We lose most of the time we spent here… Plus many memories get simplified, blurred… dream-style, except for the most important parts.”

“Like what?”

“Like nicest bits… ‘Dat I’m holding onto really hard with mah hooks!” 

“Shady… How many times have we died?” I pushed the next question out of myself, feeling unnerved by her memory-skew revelations.

“Wow, such dark queries. You, no idea. Me…” She looked at the black bracelet again. “One hundred and thirteen times.”

“Holy shit,” I let out. 

“Uh-huh.” She smiled. “Got… one hundred and thirteen wriggly souls shards orbiting my main soul-core. Pretty neat, hum?”

I rubbed my face. 

“Chillax, First Mate,” Shady snorted. “You pilot a pirate boat that runs on cosmic-girl-sun-rays. Who cares about a passe learner’s permit out in the boring-ass flat land for a human-crafted car that can’t even fly?”

“Why is Neverland like this?”

“Different dimensions have different rules. Das’ how they roll. Some dungeons take your shoes or voice as payment for visiting them. Neverland keeps the experience and years.”

“Is Neverland… a dungeon then?”

“Mmmmmm… I don’t think so. From what my Prad Instructors taught me, dungeons have verrrrrry rude, stabby concept-aligned Sentinels that go outside of them and bring prey in to devour. Neverland doesn’t seem to be interested in eating our insides. It just… exists. Sunny brings us back to life when we die here. Brings everyone back who dies. She’s nice… I think, if a bit not entirely there. Like, what do you feel when you leave Neverland?”

“I feel… warm,” I said. “And also cold.”

“Wow such descriptiveness.”

“Warm because I always have you at my side, I think,” I said. “Cold… because I forget a bunch of stuff without even realising it?”

“Ah.”

“Is there a way to keep our memories and experience when we leave? Like, permanently?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Maaaaaybe when we get older we’ll be able to overcome the memory-stealing membrane or whatever is suckin’ up our XP. Honestly, does it matter? You’re spending more quality time with your amazing bestie than you could on Earth. Does it matter if you don’t remember it all with absolute clarity, once you leave?”

I pushed the needle through the flag fabric, considering. The Cloud Sea rolled beneath us in long pink-gold swells. Distant dragonettes called to each other across the horizon.

“Yeah,” I said finally. “It matters.”

Shady tilted her dark head toward me. “Why?”

“Because I want to remember all of it. Every island. Every dumb flag you made me draw and sew. The time you got stuck inside that honey-pear tree and I had to grease you out with caterpillar butter.”

“Do NOT bring up the honey-pear incident.”

“The time you tried to propose peace terms to the squid-dragons using a fork.”

“Oi! It was a regal trident!” Shady defended herself.

“It was a garden fork from the Vegetable Mermaids.”

Shady sat up abruptly, head twisting, one antler clipping the shell edge. She ignored the thunk and pointed an accusing claw at me. “The Vegetable Mermaids gave me that trident as a diplomatic gift and you KNOW it!”

“Three prongs. Wooden handle. Absolutely a garden fork.”

“Nu! A ceremonial trident.”

“Covered in dirt.”

“Ceremonial dirt!”

I laughed, pulling the thread taut. “See? That’s what I mean. If I forget stuff, who’s going to remember your dumb ceremonial dirt fork?”

She flopped back onto the deck with a dramatic whumph, tail flicking. For a minute she just stared up at the vibrant, semi-solid clouds drifting past us, feathery mane spread out like a black crown.

“I will remember,” she said quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeh. I… will remember many things which you will forget. Eventually. Not right away. S’ part of my awesomesauce Wendigo healing factor.”

I squinted at her and then sighed. “Lucky you.”

“It’s not THAT lucky to remember things your best friend forgot. It’s… awkward.”

Both of us fell into awkward silence at that.

“Ashy?” Shady deigned to break it.

“Hm?”

“If you could pick one memory to take back from Neverland… which one would it be?”

I paused mid-stitch.

The wind thrummed from the Cloud Sea. Left of us, a school of dragonettes leapt between vapor currents, flashing with rainbow-prism scales. The hole in our sail whistled faintly.

“Probably the first time Sunny brought you back,” I said. “When I thought you were dead and then you were just sitting there, making a ridiculous dress out of bark.”

“Why that?”

“Why not?”

“It’s sad. You could pick, like, the mermaid luau. Or the time we rode a giant moth. Or when we made the rainbow bridge. Or when we stole the prism ray-gun!”

“Those are the good ones. I want the scary one to remain though.”

Shady rotated her head very slowly, silver eyes narrowing. “Why on Sunny’s big dumb, blank face would you want me to preserve that scary memory?”

I tied off the thread, and bit it clean, then set the unfinished flag down on the bench and stabbed the needle into a side pillow. Yes, the entire bench was now covered in nice, comfy pillows made by me.

“Because if I only remember you being fine, I’d take you for granted. But if I remember almost losing you, and then finding you again, I’ll never…” I trailed off, feeling my face warming up. “Uh. And I’ll never be casual about it. About you. About… us.”

Silence.

A long… stretchy silence.

Shady pulled herself up onto her knees, both hands braced on the deck. The star-freckles on her dark cheeks were doing a slow pulse, undulating from red to violet. Her mane fluffed up twice its normal size.

“Say it again,” she said.

“Say what again?”

“The thing you just said.”

“I… don’t remember what I just said,” I lied.

“Ashyyyyy.”

“It wasn’t important.”

“Not important?! Ashy, I will lick your whole face!”

“Pfff. That’s not a threat, you do that every morning, you dog-bog creature.”

She glared at me threateningly. Her antlers flickered, shadow-phasing and solidifying. “Ima tell Mayor Rolls you were the one who kicked his favorite honey-pear tree!”

“What? You were the one who kicked the honey-pear tree!”

“He’ll believe me. I’m cute!”

“You’re a menace and everyone on Shadashia knows that.”

“A cute menace!”

I sighed and leaned back against the stern rail, arms crossed, trying to look more composed than I felt. The hot feeling in my face rushed down my neck.

“I said I don’t want to be casual about us.” I finally relented.

Her star-freckles did a full cascade, a wave of silver dancing from chin to cheeks to forehead to the tip of her antlers.

She crossed the deck on all fours like a stalking cat, until her forearms bracketed my knees and her skull-face was tilted up at me from the deck. Silver eyes, very large, very bright. 

Her antlers quivered slightly. “Ashy.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been… thinking.”

“Concerning.”

“Rude!” she huffed, “anyhow… I havee been… Uhm… combobulating important Princess business. Specifically… royal alliance treaties.”

“Royal… alliance treaties?”

“Yup. S’ veeeery important stuff.”

“Between whomst?”

“Between, like… a Princess. And her Champion. Hypothetically,” she mewled the last word out.

“Hypothetically?”

“Yeeeeees. Purely. Like… As a thought experiment.”

I set the half-finished flag down on the couch-bench. Shady’s fluffy large ears had gone a funny shade of purple at the tips. She was definitely doing her best to project captainly indifference, but her tail betrayed her, coiling in on itself.

“Okay, your Highness. Lay it on me.”

“Riiiiight… Soooooo… hypothetically, there’s this Princess. Very cool Princess. Top-tier. And she’s got this Champion, right? And the Champion is… alright.”

“Only alright?” I smiled.

“Acceptable. Adequate. Not bad.”

“I feel incredibly appreciated right now.”

“Shush you, I’m getting to the… important biz proposition,” she cleared her throat with exaggerated dignity. “This Princess was thinking that maybe, in the interest of, uh, diplomatic relations, the Princess could maybe… smooch her Champion…”

I let a few tense seconds pass, watching her tail perform wild acrobatics behind her. 

“For… Treaty strengthening reasons! S’a real thing! Legates do it all the time!” She filled in the silence with more rapid-chatter.

“Do they really?”

“Yusserony. M’great-gramma Aconia smooches diplomats often,” Shady mused, looking away from my face. “Mmmm… no, that was a bad example, Empress Aconia also splices diplomats that annoy her. Scrap that. Pretend I didn’t say it. Focus on the other… thing…”

“Which thing?” I teased her, greatly enjoying how she seemed to steam herself more with each word into deeper embarrassment.

“I want to… strengthen our treaty!”

“Via… smooching?”

“What? S’ a legitimately recognized diplomatic procedure!”

“Recognized by whom?”

Shady’s mouth flapped fish-style. Her ears were fully purple now dancing with brilliant stars like sparklers on a birthday cake.

“Me,” she birthed the answer with tremendous conviction. “I recognize it. Official Princess decree. Just now. Retroactively. For, like, ages. It’s always been law.”

“You invented a smooching law two seconds ago and backdated it? Such monarchism.”

I put my chin in my hand and gazed at her the way Grandpa Archie gazed at the crossword when a three-letter clue refused to cooperate.

“So let me get this straight, Princess Smooch-bun.”

“Oi! Don’t you dare mangle my name.”

“You are proposing a series of diplomatic smooches under the pretense of… treaty maintenance?” I resumed.

“Smooches? As in multiple… uhm…” Shady bubbled and fell silent, feathers swaying back and forth, each igniting with eye-like violet spirals from within.

I suddenly moved my head down closer to her face. Shady immediately pulled back, antlers flashing like miniature fireworks.

“Let’s hear the proposal, Princess,” I went on the offensive. “Full treaty. Every clause. Read it out.”

“What?”

“You said it was a treaty. Treaties have clauses. I want to hear them all.”

“C-clauses? I didn’t…”

“Improvise!” I encouraged giddily. “Consider! Expand!”

“Ss-smooching c-clauses?”

“Tisk, tisk, tisk,” I shook my head. “A real Princess would be prepared for various clauses.”

Shady made a sound like a deflating balloon being sat on by a smaller, sadder balloon. 

“O-ookay,” she squeaked, ears tilted back. “Clause one. The… the Champion shall… provide smooches. On demand. To the Princess.”

“On demand?”

“Y-hyes! Reasonable demand!” She nodded far too vigorously.

“Define reasonable.”

“ASHYyyyyy.”

“What? Treaties need specificity. What if you demand smooches while I’m piloting? While I’m eating? While I’m showering? While I’m sleeping?”

“While sleeping… sounds nice,” she let out dreamily.

“That’s just kissing an unconscious person.” I shook my head critically.

“Wuh?! No! It’s… Like a wake-up smooch! Like in the… fairy tales!” She sounded slightly strangled.

“I’m not a Disney princess.”

“You could be! You totally got the fluffy hair for it!”

“Aight then. Let’s move onto Clause two,” I said firmly, ignoring the jab at my hair.

Shady fretted visibly now, looking left and right. “Clause two,” she ground out, “the… uhhh… the Princess reserves… hmmm… nu, wait, let me start over.”

“No take-backs. It’s in the treaty now”

“ASHY IT’S NOT A REAL TREATY!” She suddenly declared.

“You said it was!”

“I LIED! IT WAS A RUSE! A BAMBOOZLEMENT! I WAS TRYING TO BE SUAVE!”

I burst out laughing. “You were trying to be suave?”

“Nuuuu shamery.”

“My Princess, the great master of seduction.” I escalated. “Legendary wooer of the seventy two seas of Neverland.”

“I will throw you overboard and let dragonettes eat you.”

“Shall I compose a ballad with various clause suggestions?”

“…”

“I shall call it ‘The Hypothetical Treatise of Kissing, as Argued Before the Court by Her Imperial Flailing Highness, Princess Aquillianne Frumblebum the First.’”

I tried to grab her antlers. Shady made a noise of a goose being stepped on. Before I caught her, she leapt away like a cat that encountered a cucumber, spidered up the giant shell and buried her entire face in the bottom end of the sail, antlers tangling immediately in the rigging.

“MMMMFFFFGGGHHH.”

“What was that?” I chortled, standing up.

“MMFFGH MMFH GH.”

“I can’t hear your smooching terms through the sail.”

Her tail whipped out blindly and sliced the air beside me, missing me by inches. I caught it mid-swing and held onto it like a leash.

“Hey.”

“Rrrrrr! Let go of my tail!”

“Nope. You’re trying to escape from a conversation topic.”

“It’s a… a strategic retreat! Further t-topic consideration is needed!”

“Uh-huh. A retreat into a piece of canvas?”

“S’a fortified position.”

“Come down here.”

“NO. I have the high ground!”

“Shady.” I wound the tip of her tail around my arm. It clung onto me tightly.

“Noppers. This treaty meeting is over. M’becomin’ one with the sail. This is my new life. Sail-Princess. Forever. Nomen clatura, Shady McSailface. Goodbye.”

I gave her tail a gentle pull. She let out a squeak and her feet scrabbled uselessly against the slippery pearlescent shell, legs kicking.

“I’m gonna keep pulling.”

“You better freakin’ not!”

I pulled hard. She slid from under the sail, slipped across the shell on her butt and smashed into me with a thwack, knocking both of us down onto the couch-bench.

Her skull-face pressed against my face in an awkward, accidental kiss. Her silver eyes were enormous and wet and visibly embarrassed beyond all reckoning.

She pulled away, blinking rapidly.

“Was that a… treaty sample?”

“No! I’ve said too much already! My mouth is cancelled, my mouth has been fired, a new mouth is being shipped in from corporate, please have patience with me during this transition,” she stammered out.

I wheezed beneath her, unable to breathe properly. Every time I tried to compose myself, her face blushed more furiously with colorful stars.

“STOOOOOP laughinggggg, damn it!”

“No, you’re hilarious.”

“I SAID STAAAWPPP!” She swatted me far too softly.

“You know, I would’ve swooned. You had me in the palm of your hand, Shady. You had me, and you blew it with a HYPOTHETICAL TREATISE ON SMOOCHES.” I broke down into bubbling laughter. “Three summers together. Over seven years of whacky adventures on a claimed skiff. And my Princess is too embarrassed to… ask for a kiss.”

Silence.

Then, in the smallest voice I had ever heard her use, even smaller than the one she used under the Clifford library blanket fort during a thunderstorm: “I… kiss. Want. Give… kissu.”

“Was that so hard?”

“ye-s”

“Say please.”

“What?! The human Kobold is making his Princess BEG for kisses?!” She momentarily regained her bossiness.

“Guess you don’t want it that much.” I shrugged.

Her eye twitched, antlers flickering. A silver star-spark somehow escaped from her left cheek and popped in the air like a small firework of regal indignation. She opened her mouth to argue, thought better of it, closed it and finally, finally, with the dignity of a monarch being forced to eat her own crown, said: “…please.”

“Please what?”

“I will seriously throw you overboard.” She wiggled furiously on my lap, tail lashing wildly.

“You can’t overboard me, I’m your valued smooch subject.”

She made bothered noises. Then, through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut, fists balled at her sides:

“Pleeeease… may I… have… a kiss… from my… Ch-ha-mpion.”

“From your what?”

“FROM MY ASHY!”

“Ehhh, two out of ten. Try being a piiiiitch clearer. I got too much fairy wax in my ears.”

“From my best friend! Please Ashyyyyyy! I am freaking begging over here! This is the lowest moment in the Frontenachii bloodline. Great-granny Aconny is spinning in her Citadel! Freaking kiss me before I dissolve into a puddle, Wicked Witch style, you ‘effing dastardly human butt!”

I smiled, having decided that I tormented my Princess enough today, reached out towards her face and pulled her head towards me. She didn’t bother escaping this time, entire body trembling as her lips…