The sea was strangely calm that night.
The Jolly Roger drifted under a sky smeared with molten silver, the moon watching like an unblinking eye. Peter leaned against the ship's rail, restless. The crew was quiet — too quiet. Hook stood near the bow, staring out at the horizon, his face unreadable. Tinker Bell sat on the mast's beam, legs swinging, fingers weaving a faint golden thread of light between them as if to keep herself busy.
Peter's shadow twitched on the deck. It shouldn't have. There was no wind, no movement. Yet it stretched and recoiled like a living thing. He blinked, unsettled, but said nothing.
"We are close," Tink finally said, hopping down from the beam. She held out her palm, and a glowing orb bloomed to life — a perfect sphere of light. The air shifted, warm and electric. Hook's good eye narrowed. "Are you sure about this, fairy?"
"Positive," she replied, her voice steadier than her heartbeat. "This is the only way we'll reach Nagini's hunting grounds before Selene rises in full."
The orb pulsed, then exploded in a silent flare. The sea buckled. The Jolly Roger tilted violently as though the ocean itself had been swallowed. Peter grabbed the rail, Hook dug his hook into the deck for balance, and the crew shouted. The ship lurched forward, dragged into a tunnel of gold.
And then — silence.
When the light cleared, the world was not water. It was sand.
The Jolly Roger now floated on a sea of dunes, its hull half-buried but somehow still buoyant. The air shimmered with heat. The moon was nowhere to be seen — only a glaring, sunless sky casting an eerie half-light.
"Where in seven hells are we?" Hook muttered, lowering his cutlass and scanning the horizon.
"The Everflame Canopy's outskirts," Tink said, brushing sand off her hands. "Beyond this desert lies Nagini's lair."
Hook blinked, then spat over the side. "Deserts. I hate deserts."
Peter smirked. "You're welcome to walk."
Hook glared at him.
But the humor was short-lived.
A strange hush fell over the dunes. No wind, no rustle — just the sound of the ship creaking on the still sea of sand.
Then Tinker Bell gasped. "Look—"
The sand was moving.
Not from wind. From something else.
Before Peter could reply, the sand moved again.
Tiny ridges rippled outward like rings on a pond. Then, one by one, pale lights blinked open across the dunes. Dozens. Hundreds.
Eyes.
The desert floor was watching them.
Hook drew his pistol, but Peter's hand shot out, catching his wrist before he could fire. "Don't," Tink said softly.
"Why not?" Hook growled.
"Because this isn't an attack," Tink murmured. Her golden wings glowed faintly as her shadow stretched across the deck. "It's a test."
The sand ahead swirled, rising into a towering figure — faceless save for a single vertical slit that glowed like a pale star.
Its voice coiled through the night air: "Trespassers… speak your worth or be unmade."
The glowing slit widened.
At first, it was just a ripple. Then it swelled into waves, circling the ship. A hiss echoed in the stillness. The sand beneath Hook and Tink gave way like a trapdoor — they fell with a shout. When the dust cleared, Peter saw them still there, but something was wrong.
They couldn't see him.
"Tink!" Peter called, waving. No response. Hook's head snapped left and right like a predator searching prey.
"They can't hear you," a whisper slithered across the dunes — no mouth, no face, just sound.
Hook raised his cutlass, slashing at shadows. Tink's hands lit with blazing golden fire as she blasted raw magic at the moving sand. Both of them were attacking blindly, and Peter realized with a chill that if he got too close, one of those strikes could kill him.
The sand surged upward, forming hollow shapes, like faces screaming — then sank again.
"I am born when the sun weeps and the moon hides. I cannot live in endless dark, nor endless light. My touch brings both comfort and dread. Without me, you are blind to danger. Without me… you will question your very existence. Who am I?""
"Answer… or they are lost."
A voice. The desert itself. And then the riddle rose from the ground, etched in glowing script:
"Without me, you are blind to danger. Without me, you question your existence. I cannot survive in blazing light nor in utter dark. What am I?"
Peter's mouth went dry. The sand rose higher around Hook and Tink, threatening to swallow them. He forced his mind to focus.
"Fear!" he shouted.
The sand stilled — then hissed, mocking. Wrong.
"Instinct!" he tried again.
A deep rumble. Wrong again. The ground cracked. Hook staggered in his invisible prison, slashing at nothing. Tink was spinning, desperate, her magic sizzling as the walls of sand closed in.
Peter's chest tightened. If he failed again, he might lose them forever.
Then, something inside him stirred.
His shadow stretched long across the dunes, darker than the dim light around them. It coiled around his legs, crawled up his arms. A sudden rush — like a second heartbeat — thundered in his chest. The word came to him, unbidden, as if whispered by something older and darker within.
"Shadow," he breathed.
The desert screamed.
The sand exploded outward. Hook and Tink reappeared, thrown to the ground, gasping as though coming up from deep water. The glowing script shattered into sparks and vanished.
Peter stood very still. His shadow was still wrong — longer, sharper, more alive than it should have been. Tink stared at him, wide-eyed. She had seen it too.
"Peter," she whispered, cautious, "what was that?"
He swallowed hard. "I… don't know." But he did. Somewhere deep down, he did.
Hook pushed himself up, brushing sand off with a scowl. "Whatever it was, boy, you just saved our skins. But next time, solve the damned riddle faster."
Peter forced a grin, but his heart was still pounding. That hadn't been a guess. That had been instinct — and power.
Above them, the desert was silent again. Too silent. And far away, watching from a dune, a small figure slipped away into the shimmering heat.
Beneath the Canopy
Far away, under the Everflame canopy, Elder Muniya stood alone.
Khansuki, Selene's white owl, perched on a low branch, its moon-pale eyes unblinking.
"They've survived the first trial," Muniya whispered.
The owl's head turned slowly, its feathers shivering with cold light."Then the second will claim them," it replied.
Muniya's face was unreadable as she turned back toward the campfire where the Nocti women slept.Tomorrow, she would smile at them as though nothing had passed.But tonight, she had given Selene exactly what she wanted.
Far across the dunes, Nagini's laughter rippled through the sand — soft and deadly as a serpent's hiss.