The Piper's Song ~OUAT Peter Pan fanfiction (Book 1)

Squid Ink (part 1)

"Mom? Dad?" Anne asked looking inside the shadowy cage. Making out the weakened and resting pair, she noticed they resting against one another. She crept closer. "Mom?" she asked, halting. Anne's heart racing. One of the figures with the dark hair looked up. Anne gasped and nearly collapsed inside the cage. "It is you!" she cried, tears falling from her eyes once more. Holding the weakened figures like she'd never let them go, she felt them breath against her. They barely placed arms on her, for they were too worn down, but from what?
        "Oh Anna," moaned the mother, relieved to finally see her daughter again. The father was crying some with his arms only resting on his little girl. "I'm so sorry," the mother continued. Anne shushed them gently then slowly began helping them out the cage. They were bony like they had been starved some and Anne smelt the awful stench coming from their bodies but she couldn't care less. It was weird. Anne didn't feel strange holding her parents when she brought them out into the light, but much rather relieved, almost like everything was all over.
        "What's going on?" Snapped Regina. Everyone else stood in their place hesitant. Pan then urged quietly the lost boys to let go of Felix. They did and he stumbled towards his family and held all of them. 
        "You're both so beautiful," cried the mother some more. Regina snapped at the scene again but Baelfire shushed her.
        "Those are your parents?" Emma asked. Anne's head came up from holding her parents, tears of joy in her eyes, a smile on her face.
        "Yes," Anne breathed then her head came back into the group. Finally, they separated once more. Anne finally just looked at her parents and that's when it all got strange. Her once stocky blonde tall father definitely looked aged. Her hair faded into a whiter blonde and her had wrinkles in her pale rough skin. His stockiness had certainly shrank. He seemed shorter too. His icy blue eyes, gray like a thunder storm. His face desperately needing a shave and he hunched over like an old man. He looked sick and weak, maybe even beaten. 

The way he dressed, you might've thought he was a grown up lost boy. He wore a saggy brown threadbare sweater over a dirty gray shirt. His pants being covered in blotches of dirt and his shoes being bent out of shape leather boots under his pants. His cheeks sunk in some, black circles under his tired and old-like eyes. As for the mother...her once vibrant, medium-length, and wavy mouse brown hair had grown and faded into a dieing brown. It reached halfway down her arms. And it was messy, dirty with some leaves and such in it. Her light brown eyes being bloodshot to the iris. They were shiny.

Her skin being white like her husband's, and her cheeks being sunken as well. She was dirty in the face too, no doubt. She certainly looked sick and definitely tired. Wearing a tattered navy blue shirt with a round and stretched, low neckline revealing her bony chest, she had on over it a gray sweater being the kind you had to button like her husband's, it was also threadbare and dirty. She had on tight jeans that were also dirt covered and with only worn down black flats on her tiny feet. Dark circles resting under her aged eyes as well.

She might've just been beaten too. Anne felt sick now. Witnessing the aftermath of her once lively, beautiful, healthy parents, much blackness welled inside her heart for Pan. He had done this to them. Nothing but hope was left in her parents eyes. Maybe even regret, knowing they could've spent their lives with their children, together and happy. Knowing they could've seen their two children grow up to be beautiful and strong. But something had taken that from them, that reason that pushed them to leave. "We've missed you so," spoke the mother once more.

Anne didn't respond. She could only feel her sickness grow. She didn't know how to feel for her parents. She didn't know why they left. "Honey," the mother choked, tears spilling from her eyes as she went in for a hug but Pan interrupted. Everyone looked at him. 
        "Alright," he raised his voice. "Boys." he looked towards his lost boys then with the motion of his hand, they began towards Anne and Felix's parents. Anne was instantly pinched with defense and she stepped in front of her parents, cutting them off. Pan lifted his hand to stop his lost boys a moment. 
        "What do you think you're doing?" She asked Pan. "You are not putting them back in that cage, not on my watch."
        "Anna, darling, it's alright," tried the mother.
        "No!" Anne protested. "He is not putting you guys back in that cage!"
        "Not on your watch...huh," Pan tested with a sly smile. "Just how much are you willing to give up for their freedom?" Pan continued.