Chapter Six: A Great Green Light

Smee the bo'sun wept over the body of his captain as though his tears would never cease to flow; he cried steadily, lost in his anguish. When he would open his eyes Hook would be lying there, eyes closed as if in slumber, his body cold and still. The silver hook lay useless, abandoned; his blood had dried to black stains on his linen shirt. The raven curls were damp with Smee's tears, as were his clothes and hands, but Captain Hook was gone. He would not reprimand Smee for his weakness, nor scold him for the wet splotches he left on the fine attire, nor hush his wailing. He was dead, and Smee, for all his lamenting, was alone.

Or so he thought, isolated in his own coffin of grief, where the light of reason would not penetrate, barred by thoughts of loss, chased away by his keening. Yet behind him, an awful sight to most, and to many their last sight, stood Yekin, his snakelike form iridescent in the sputtering lamplight, which was sucked up by obsidian eyes that looked down upon two humans, one living and one dead, with an emotion the creature had never before felt.

Even when his brothers and kindred had been banished by the Watchers, he had felt only a mild sense of regret, that he would be the last of his long and fortuitous legacy. He missed his brothers, however, but he could not rightfully claim that it had been sadness that infected his soul since their banishing. The regret remained, and perhaps he had succumbed to a certain amount of self-pity as he became acutely aware of his lack of solidarity, and yet never had he felt the sadness he was feeling now.

It was a strange emotion to experience, and stranger still that he might be feeling it for humans, the most pitiful and quarrelsome creatures in Neverland apart from the mermaids. He had fed on them with abandon, luring them cunningly, savouring the look upon their fleshy faces when they beheld the perpetrator of their sorcery. So many of their souls now resided inside of him, keeping him alive as was the necessity of his race, and it was as if the sight of pathetic Smee weeping over his waspish captain sent each soul into a cacophony of lament. They were a part of him now, and thus so was the sadness, and Yekin found that he did not like the feeling at all.

Remaining here is not worth the price, at any rate, he mused. Yekin in his long years has become soft, and yields to the lamentation of the humans upon which he feasts. Best to face the Watchers than remain a grim testimony to the remnant of my people.

Sighing Yekin went forth and put a long hand on Smee's twitching arm, gently pushing him aside.

"Move away, little Smee, and watch."

At first Smee was reluctant to leave his captain's deathbed, but Yekin's gentle prodding made him look up into the creature's eyes, and he saw smouldering there a very strange determination shining from the ebony depths. He could see his wet face reflected as though shown by some dark mirror. Awed, his grimy cheeks still glistening with tears, he stepped aside, and watched Yekin at the height of his power.

He knelt and lifted the captain's limp torso from the bed, bringing their faces together, each so white, one in death, the other in the simple glory of being. Yekin smiled a sad smile at the expressionless death-mask before him, and then placed his mouth over the blue eyes.

Smee made as if to shout; his mouth opened but no sound came out, and he left it hanging open as Yekin, instead of breathing in as when he fed, breathed out.

Immediately the dirty lighting of the oil lamp was overthrown, and instead a great green light filled the captain's quarters. It played over the face of Smee, whose still-wet tears shone yellow in its illumination. There was a great noise that issued forth from seemingly everywhere, like the crashing of a thunderous wave upon sea-sharpened rocks, as just when Smee though he could no longer stand its assault upon his brain the noise stopped, and the green light faded, and Yekin dropped his burden back down upon the bed.

Sme looked to his captain, awestruck, and what he saw made a high, thin scream flee from his aching throat.

Hook's eyes were open.