Chapter 85 - Captain Hook (Part 5)

"Land ho!"

Vladstin happily rang the bell and swung on ropes as they docked on the shores of Polaris.

He landed with a spin in front of Sangfroid, who was eating his breakfast at a table.

"Good morning, my dearest Purple!" He tilted his head.

Sangfroid ignored him and abandoned his meal, directly getting down the Jolly Roger without a word.

Vladstin followed him along with the many skeletons as they began the hike to the mountains in search of the Hermit, humming and skipping happily.

There were no extra shadows in sight. All of the shadows match exactly with the number of people traveling.

When they reached the apex, they found a man with four thin wings and green eyes. His hair was long and floating as if it was underwater, with a headpiece of crowned jewels resting upon him.

Sangfroid approached him and asked. "Are you the Hermit?"

The man nodded. "Yes, what do you need from me, citizens of Neverland?"

Vladstin lifted an eyebrow. He felt like this man looked.... Strange. Like it wasn't the Hermit he was expecting.

"Are you really sure you are the Hermit?" Vladstin asked.

The Hermit chuckled. "As sure as I could ever be. I have always been the only Hermit here in Polaris."

"Huh. I expected you to be more.... Goat-y that dragonfly-ish." Vladstin muttered to himself.

Sangfroid blocked his face with his hand, showing a bit of annoyance in his inexpressive face. "Ignore him. He is not in his right mind. We have come here to ask for a way to make him mortal, and able to pass on to the afterlife."

"Mortal? Afterlife? Isn't Neverland already your afterlife?" The Hermit tilted its head to the side, the green gems on his head clinking.

"I want to die, Old Flyman!" Vladstin proclaimed. "Me and my crew! We want it so badly, so please end our suffering now!"

The Hermit chuckled. "Oh, I see. You want a miracle, something impossible to happen. Well....."

His pure green eyes that have no pupils or irises, just pure green sockets shimmered like sparks of firelight.

"You've come to the right person."

Vladstin puts a hand on his own chest. "Phew, I almost thought you would say it cannot be done! We'll get it on with, then!"

"Wait just a moment, wolf boy." The Hermit approached Sangfroid with his scepter, like he was limping a bit. "Do you agree to this? What is your involvement? Do you also wish to accompany this person in his suicide?"

"I.... No." Sangfroid shook his head. "I was just..... convinced to escort him, since I was the only one who knew the way. Nothing more."

The Hermit blinked. "Oh, I thought you two would like to escape the shackles of the immortality Neverland gave you together and be as one in death."

"Absolutely not." Sangfroid was really offended by just the idea of it. "I have no intention of dying, at least not together with this pirate. My life is only tied to the spirit of the wild, not this man."

The Hermit raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I see. You love another. I just thought you must be together because of the traces of each other on your lips."

Sangfroid was shocked by this, while Vladstin was intrigued. The former Captain Hook clapped his hand. "You can sense even that? You really are a powerful Hermit that can do the impossible!"

"But let's not wait around! How will you make me killable, please?" Vladstin's eyes beamed like a dog impatient for his meal and wagging his tail.

The Hermit give them a glance, and then nodded. "Hmm, I see what's going on now. I suppose you want this purple-eyed tribal man to be the one to kill you?"

"Yes! I want Sangfroid to rip out my heart or bash my skull or cut off my limbs or—"

"We get it, mad wolf." The Hermit held out a hand.

"And you must be this 'Sangfroid'. What say you to this? You also want to kill him?"

The stone-faced Gigesdi leader did not hesitate to nod.

"Well, then. Transforming an immortal to a mortal is really simple really." The Hermit limped someplace else, turning his back at them where they could see his hooded cloak bearing the symbol of a dragonfly.

He walked a few steps, bend down, and stood back up. When he turned back to face Sangfroid and Vladstin, he was holding something.

"All you need is a flower." He smiled sweetly at them, holding the four-petalled yellow flower in his hand.

"The Everflower." Vladstin's eyes brightened. "I knew it was real!"

He rush up to grab it, but the Hermit raised it up far from his reach. Vladstin is not a short person, but the Hermit's stature is just gigantic, and he was twice Sangfroid's size.

"There is something you must know about the Everflower before you consume it." The Hermit said. "First, you do notice the four petals?"

"Uh-huh. So?" Vladstin still tried to grab it, even clawing at the Hermit's torso like it was just a statue or a boulder to climb.

"Two added with two brings four. Two means a pair. The four-petaled flowers represent this, a balance." The Hermit twirled the Everflower in his hand.

Vladstin watched it daze like a child, while Sangfroid crossed his arms distrustfully.

He continued. "Everything has a pair. Night and day. White and black. Love and hate. Forever and never."

"And so, the Everflower must be taken in pairs also, not just by one." The Hermit said. "So I'm afraid you must first look for a suicide partner, someone willing to abandon their immortality with you."

"And what if there's none?"

The Hermit sighed. "Then it just simply wouldn't work. Believe me, I tried many times."

Sangfroid rubbed his chin, then said. "Then why don't you two do it?"

Vladstin chuckled. "Haha! Oh, Great Purple Eye, didn't you hear what he just said?"

Sangfroid scrunched up his eyebrows. "What do you mean? He was just explaining how the Everflower must be taken in pairs."

"Yes, but not just any pairs." Vladstin said.

The Hermit nodded. "Yes, not just any will do. Night and day, Forever and never. Can't you see?"

The two had identical smiles, both crazed and unhinged. They said at exactly the same time:

"It must be opposites, and we're the same."

Sangfroid was baffled by their synchronicity, yet this just proves the point they wanted to get across. Now that he thinks about it, Vladstin and the Hermit's demeanor are very similar, they are like twins from separate wombs.

Always up to mischief, always up to no good.

They were the same breed of people that he despise a lot.

"So who should it be, then?" Sangfroid scowled. "Like I said, it cannot be me. Is there someone in Neverland that you knew that is completely opposite of you, that balances you off?"

"Haha, that's the thing..... I don't know anyone else in Neverland! And even so, who would be dumb enough to agree to do this with me?" Vladstin sighed. "Oh, I should have guessed that even my pursuit of death will be unfortunate, just like how my life has been from the start."

Somewhere in the back of Vladstin's head, a voice said: "That's not exactly true."

It was his own voice, the remaining fragments of his sanity, his voice of reason. "There's still Leron."

He snapped back at the voice. "Be quiet! There's no one else, because why would I get myself paired with Darling?"

Inside his head, Leron's voice also rang out. "Why not? You know that I'd be willing, and that may also be your way to separate Sangfroid from me. Isn't pain and betrayal what you're after? Well, here I am."

A younger version of his voice joined in. "Let's be playmates again, Vladstin. In heaven."

An older, more ragged version like someone who had just been swimming for hours and hours added: "Or maybe hell, where we could hurt each other all we like forever."

Vladstin shook his head. "No, no. I shall not be tempted by the easy route. I have a bigger fish to catch, and this one just takes patience. Give me just a moment, and I will have Sangfroid convinced."

Once he got out of his headspace, the Hermit and the Gigesdi Chief were looking at him like he grew another eye or something.

"What?" He just asked innocently while tilting his head like a dog who broke a vase but acted like it did nothing wrong.

"Who are you talking to?" Sangfroid narrowed his eyes. "What are you saying?"

"Oh, I was talking to myself, of course!" Vladstin laughed, hitting Sangfroid's are lightly and coquettishly. "Isn't it obvious?"

Sangfroid just let out a groan and shook his hand away. "I should have expected so. I just didn't know you have gone insane to that extent."

"Oh, I have really gone insane, so very mad! Madly in love with you and death!" Vladstin took the Everflower from the Hermit while he is distracted and quickly offer it to Sangfroid, bending one knee.

"Sangfroid, there is no one else that completes me besides you. You are my light, I am your darkness. You hate me with all your heart, and I love you with all my heart. Please give me the end that I yearn for, my end with you."

"No." Sangfroid answered plainly.

"Consider it. Even if you take the Everflower with me, that doesn't mean you would die right away. After all, you were born immortal, with no wounds that will be fatal to you once you lost that immortality."

"All you need is to be careful, but someone as strong as you wouldn't have to worry about that. Besides, who would harm you? No one!"

He took Sangfroid's hand and kissed it. "So what do you say? Isn't this a win for the both of us? I die like I've always wanted and there's no one that serves as a threat to you and Leron. He is all yours."

Sangfroid was silent for a moment, face dark as a moonless night. But then, he slowly nodded.

"As long as..... You wouldn't bother us anymore." He took a look at the golden four-petalled flower. "Then I'll do it."

"Well, hehe. The dead cannot bother you." Vladstin grinned from ear to ear and stood up.

The Hermit seemed also delighted in this. "Now that it is settled, I guess what is left is to extract the flower's essence and create an anti-immortality potion."

Sangfroid nodded. "Right. How long will that take—"

Just as he was about to ask, the Hermit had already transformed the flower into a two vials of green liquid just in front of them with a few hand gestures.

"Here you go." The Hermit handed it to them, the vial reflecting his strange face. "Take it at the same time with your arms locked with each other, and you will turn into a mortal."

Vladstin locked his arms with Sangfroid's tanned and muscular ones. "Here it is. Thank you. Truly, thank you very much. To a Neverland without Captain Hook?"

Sangfroid took the vial and pulled open the cork. "To a Vladstin who is free from Neverland."

Just as the two were about to drink at the same time—

A very fast silhouette came to snatch the vial from Sangfroid!

"Ooff!" The Gigesdi leader was pushed away by an invisible force.

They say that the fastest fairies were not actually pixies like Tinkerbell, but sprites.

Leron Pan quickly locked arms with Vladstin and pushed the contents of his vial into the pirate captain's mouth, and drank the other one.

"I will not let you die without me." He said with a smile, as both he and Vladstin lost grip of the now-empty vials of Everflower essence.

They fell to the ground with a crash. Both the vials and the drinkers.

Vladstin held his bleeding chest, eyes wide and deeply scared. "Darling..... Why.....?"

Leron held his bleeding stomach as well, caressing Vladstin's face. "Because I love you, and I'm selfish. I can't let you go."

"No! Why do you still love me!?" Vladstin yelled. "I already told you many times that I can't love you again! I...."

Sangfroid immediately wrapped his arms around Leron, tears falling in his eyes. "No! Pan.... Come on, I've got to take you to a healer—"

"It's alright, Sangfroid. I know it's hypocritical of me, because I also don't know how to give up but...." He gave him a wide smile. "Please let me go."

A swarm of voices came to Vladstin once again. This time, more rational and painful ones, something he was not accustomed to since losing his life for the first time. And now at the second time, they overpower him.

"What have you done?"

"Leron!"

"I don't want him to die!"

"You should have seen this coming!"

"Sangfroid will be devastated, look at what you've done! Are you satisfied now!?"

"How do I change it!?"

There's so much noise, both inside and outside his head. His heart beating like a drum from dying, Leron's heavy breathing, Sangfroid's sobs, the Hermit's laughter....

All of it, chaotically mixing like paint in the canvas of a crazed artist that does not care about anything anymore. Just making art for art's sake, ruins and destruction.

But as he thought this, another voice came in. It doesn't seem like a voice, but a memory. It was his own.

"The only solution is to wake up."

That's what he said before being engulfed in green flames.

Vladstin blinked, as if being splashed by cold water for the first time. Yes. Yes!

This isn't real, this is a dream after all.

And the only way to escape it is to wake up.

The dragonfly man stopped laughing just right after Captain Vladstin dien Griscouer lost consciousness, and to return once more as the Vampire Lord Vladstin. He said in a cold and defeated tone:

"Congratulations.. You passed my test."