The Untold Past of Pan

The Potion of Immortality

I leaped out of the way at the last second, feeling the cold fingers of the shadow brushing past my skin. I summoned a sword and drew it, prepared to fight. I heard others around me doing the same thing. Emma and Charming had both drawn swords. Hook was wielding his pirate sword and hook. Snow had a bow drawn back. Pan and Rumple had readied their fists. Regina continued stirring the potion, Henry hid behind her. Neal was fiddling with some sphere

The fight was like a flash. It was hard to tell who was where, but I heard the sound of metal hitting shadowy skin multiple times. I got hit in my shoulder by an icy claw. The pain knocked me down for a second, giving the shadow an opportunity to kill me. But before it could, an arrow knocked the shadow backwards, averting its focus onto Snow as I felt strong hands lift me back up.

I shook off the pain in my shoulder and prepared to keep fighting, but Pan held me back. "You're hurt," He said. "I'll live," I retorted. I tried to run after the shadow again, but Pan had his arms locked around me, preventing me from going anywhere. I grunted in anger, trying to release myself.

"The others can handle it," He said in my ear. As much as I wanted to prove him otherwise, he was right. Everyone was fighting with incredible energy, never getting hit once by the figure flying around the skull. I watched as they fought the shadow, slashing and striking through it. As the shadow began to weaken, Emma shouted, "Neal, go!"

At those words, everyone fighting the shadow ran away from it, except Neal, who ran towards it. He placed the sphere on the ground and took half of it off, as though it were a lid. In the bottom half, there was a small wax candle that had been lit.

The shadow froze, ceasing fighting. It turned its attention to the candle, and slowly moved towards it, like a moth drawn to a light. When the shadow was close enough, it was sucked into the candle, and Neal quickly replaced the top of the sphere.

"Gotcha," Neal said. Pan finally let me go, and we joined the others in rejoicing. I noticed up close that the sphere had been a coconut, and it made me laugh out loud. "May I see the coconut?" I asked Neal, "I am going to banish the shadow to where it should have been a long time ago, the Underworld."

He nodded and gave me the coconut. I performed a quick spell that would vanish the coconut to Hades, and I added a little note saying he should join the two parts of the man's soul and send him to Tartarus, the depths of the Underworld in which resides the realm's biggest evils.

"Guys? The potion is green," Regina said. We ran to the cauldron to see that the potion was, in fact, a dark, opaque green. "Ok, Regina, Rumple, and Emma stand on opposite sides of the cauldron, forming a square," I said. They obliged, and I reached out to grab Emma and Regina's hands, closing the square. They did the same on the other side.

"Focus on the potion turning crystal blue. Feel your magic changing the color," I said, and they did. I envisioned the potion turning the color of the sky on a sunny day, I imagined Pan drinking it and becoming immortal, I imagined the life we could have together.

Suddenly, A bright white light flashed, and I opened my eyes to see the potion had turned the exact color as I had imagined. "We did it," Emma whispered, as though she hadn't thought it would work.

I summoned a small bottle, filled it with the potion, and handed it to Pan. "What are you going to do with the rest of it?" Hook asked. I vanished the cauldron to my vault on Olympus, a place I knew no one could get into. "Put it somewhere safe," I answered.

With a satisfied smile, we turned to Pan who, although he was getting what he had been trying to achieve for many years, did not look very excited. "Go on, take it!" Snow encouraged him.

He slowly looked at each of us, I could feel guilt coming from deep inside him. "I don't deserve this," He said, "After everything I've done to you all, I can't take this." Regina rolled her eyes, "We open two portals, walk halfway across this wretched island, and fight a shadow, just so you can turn down immortality."

Before Pan could answer though, Henry pushed himself to the front, and faced him. "If you feel guilt, that means you can also feel regret. Feeling guilt and regret means you can change, you can be good. Everyone deserves a second chance, even you," He said.

Rumple growled under his breath. I understood how he was feeling. His horrible parents, who both abandoned him, were now getting a happy ending. I wanted to apologize to him, but I didn't want to talk about our past in front of the others.

Henry had given Pan a hug, but I noticed him whisper something in Pan's ear. As he did, Pan's eyes shot to me and he smiled. He pulled away from Henry and after looking at each of us again, drank the Potion of Immortality.

~~~

"Whaaaa..."

I hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in days. I loved my child of course, but sometimes he could be a real pain. I rose from my bed in the room above the blacksmith and picked up my child from the bassinet Malcolm had bought.

I bounced him, trying to shush him before Malcolm woke up. I was too late though, because as my child began to fall back asleep, Malcolm was getting out of bed. He yawned and walked over to us, kissing us both on the forehead.

I had delayed telling him.

Every night I had dreams of Zues, King of the Gods, telling me to get back to my job on Olympus. Demeter's daughter Persephone had gone missing, and I was to help search for her. I knew as each day went on, Zues was getting closer and closer to punishing me for not answering. I wouldn't have been surprised if he smote down my family.

I laid my son back down on the bassinet. "You haven't been sleeping," Malcolm said, fixing himself a glass of water. "It's the baby," I said, which wasn't a lie. His cries kept me up a lot, but it wasn't like I wanted to sleep.

He set his glass down and hugged me. It was like he wanted to squeeze tiredness out of me. As I hugged him back, I looked over his shoulder and I saw, out the window, a figure surrounded in golden light watching us.

With a jolt of fear I put a sleeping spell on Malcolm, something I had never done because I hated using magic on people I care about. I kissed both Malcolm and my son, and ran for the door.

~~~

"You were entrusted with aiding Lady Demeter in searching for her daughter. Instead you decided you wanted to settle down and have a family. I hereby decree that if you try to go back to your family before Persephone is found, you will be stripped of your godliness and killed."

I nodded, tears streaming down my face. Zues was a great and terrible ruler. After the hearing, Demeter and Hera comforted me. "Trust me, love, I know the feeling of losing your child all too well," Demeter said.

"My husband thinks the rules don't apply to him. He'll sentence a poor goddess like you to death, then run off with some forest nymph and create more goddesses," Hera said, rolling her eyes.

I spent many days after that, trying to take my mind off my family by searching for Persephone. Eventually we found her, and I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I had left the only people I loved. I watched Malcolm and my son from the heavens above.

I couldn't bring myself to return to them. I thought they would hate me if I did. I watched as the years went by, Malcolm slowly becoming a drunk, losing his job at the blacksmith, abandoning our son.

I watched my son grow. He became known as the village coward, became the Dark One, and abandoned his son.

Part of me thought they were better off without me, but another part of me, deep down, knew it was my fault they turned out this way.