“You don't know what you want,” Lasiandra told her. It was true, Gwen knew, but irrelevant. “You never know what you want. I've never understood that about you.” Lasiandra threw a gestured to herself and to the sky. “I know what you want. The stars know what you want. How can you not see what sits in your own heart?”
“I would never sacrifice Neverland!” she yelled.
“No—of course not,” Lasiandra agreed. “Who could expect you to pay a price for a desire you didn't even understand? That's why I'm here. I love you, Gwen, and I will do what it takes to give you what you want.
She felt violated. How could someone else purport to know her when she didn't even know herself? But that was Lasiandra's point. If Gwen couldn't make sense of herself from the inside, someone else—maybe anyone else—would have the perspective needed to understand and decipher the mechanics of her soul.
“I'm sorry it comes at such a cost,” Lasiandra apologized, “but this is what has to happen if we're to realize our desires and finally get to our happily ever after. If the adventure never ends, it's not a fairytale, it's just a nightmare, Gwen. You'll thank me for this someday, when you're less confused.”
Lasiandra, so new to humanity, did not yet know that getting what she wanted and being happy were two separate—sometimes unbelievably different—things. Did she not understand that Gwen had been happy, even in her confusion? Apparently not—mermaid's desires ran as deep as the ocean itself. For Lasiandra, desire must have been happiness, identity, and more.
“You've betrayed Neverland!” Gwen howled. “I'll never forgive you for this!”
Lasiandra flashed her a sad smile, as if watching the irrelevant tantrum of a small-minded child. “No, you will. The stars have spoken it, Gwen. We will be great friends, in the end. So I have come to end it.”
She had the stars on her side, of course Lasiandra felt confident she had the moral high ground. She knew how everything would end and just how to push the universe to meet her ends. So rooted in her conviction, she didn't seem to comprehend the depth of Gwen's immediate pain. She couldn't expect, either, how hard Gwen would fight to protect her life in Neverland even when she knew she was going against the stars.
Gwen charged Lasiandra and knocked her to the ground. It wasn't hard to take Lasiandra down—balance was a skill she had only begun to learn. She tried to bat her back, but Gwen trapped her against the sand.
“Get off me!” Lasiandra roared. “I am trying to help you!”
They struggled on the ground, kicking up sand as they wrestled each other. Gwen didn't let her get up. She couldn't. Lasiandra meant to do horrible things, and she had to stop her.
“Don't you know you deserve more than this?” Lasiandra shouted. “You are a real person with so much more potential, with so many greater things than the illusions of this island! You deserve to grow. Everyone does, that's why everyone leaves! You don't want to be trapped here anymore than I do. You gave me everything I needed to escape it, everything I wanted… now let me give you the same!”
Envy was the most insidious of vices, and sometimes the most undetectable. It could pass as respect or flattery, or even vicarious happiness. Gwen had never seen it in Lasiandra's eyes—or else she had never named it as such, even when she knew dark desires dwelled in the mermaid's spirit.
Why else would have Lasiandra come again and again to listen about Gwen's high school, her crush, her life? Gwen couldn't have believed this was all just amiable patter. It interested Lasiandra, and the passionate mermaid couldn't help but covet it. Land represented so many opportunities. Had Gwen thought her friend would be content to see it all second-hand? But not even, because Gwen, despite how much she mused and swooned over everything back home, had still elect to abandon it.
To Lasiandra, reality represented a lost kingdom. The walking world lay beyond her reach, and she was forced to watch it sacrificed for the sake of Peter, Rosemary, and a few other little fools. She felt she could make this right though, no matter how hard Gwen tried to blind herself to the tragedy. She would restore Gwen to that glittering, almost mythical world she called reality.
Lasiandra reached up and slapped Gwen. Forcing the girl's weight off her, Lasiandra flipped them over and pinned Gwen to the ground. “All children grow up,” Lasiandra told her. “The same way all mermaids eventually turn to sea foam and die without a trace in the dark, cold ocean. The difference is growing up is growing. Growing up is making a life, and making memories, and making a mark. We're both going to have that chance now.”
Gwen tried to hit Lasiandra back, but all she managed to do was miss her target as she squirmed under Lasiandra. The traitor whacked her head and as Gwen's hands sprung to hold her throbbing head, Lasiandra got up.
“You don't have to help me, Gwen,” Lasiandra told her, walking away. “But you can't stop me, either.”
Such a threat held little water against a heart as resolved as Gwen's. She would protect Neverland. She was a big sister; that meant she was a protector, and sometimes that meant she was a fighter.
Leaping to her feet, Gwen ran at Lasiandra. The once-mermaid heard her feet on the squishy sand and whirled around to defend herself. Lasiandra didn't have much experience with legs, but Gwen had even less experience with fighting. Grabbing Gwen's arm, she used the girl's momentum against her and toppled her down. Gwen hit her head against a rock as she crashed to the shore, screaming with the pain. On the ground again, she put a hand to her head and tried to will the painful pounding away. She didn't bleed, but her dizziness and pain overwhelmed her. She couldn't fight back when Lasiandra
