I got cut off :)

I like your portrayal of the wooden soldier, and the recurring themes of wishes, disability/prejudice (not exactly, but I can't come up with the right word right now), etc. I think you did a really nice job with him, and he was a sympathetic character even though he didn't really do anything.

The Blue Fairy was a little less sympathetic, but I think you did a good job of painting her in a realistic light by the end. She became a bit more humanized, so it was easier to sympathize with her, even if she did go and mess things up. Maybe more like pity, if only because there's still a divide there.

I'm a little hazy on some of the stuff with the ring and goblin, but that might just be because I'm fandom-blind. It wasn't as jarring as it might have been, if only because the story has very much of a fairytale feel, and this sort of thing isn't uncommon in fairy tales.

Anyway, it was a nice story. Good job :)

Here from WA. I'm totally fandom-blind, so apologies in advance if I say anything silly. I'm just going to review as I read because I'm lazy, so please excuse the excessive abuse of the copy-paste function :)

First off, love the title. It has a nice ring to it and is rather intriguing.

/The Shadow races clouds across the sky, while bats and moths twist through the air, playing their games of life and death./

Ooh, pretty. Beautiful line. I have to wonder if the "Shadow" refers to something in particular and that's why it's capitalized, or if perhaps it's a pretty personification, but I suppose it's not too relevant to the story at this point. It's very nice though, and I love the bit about the bats and moths.

/Yet here I stay, rooted to the trunk of a tree that is as much a part of this island as the cliffs and the caves beneath.
I wish that I could fly./

Wood? The summary mentions a wooden soldier, so I assume we're in the beginning stages of that. It's a nice way of introducing the idea, and I quite like this wish to fly.

/Either way, I hold to my wishes. They're all I have./

How rather bleak. Love it.

/Ever since then, awareness has been a burden to me./

I kind of like this idea, how awareness makes you realize your situation and gives you the opportunity to wish but also to have those wishes thwarted. Painfully poignant.

/Alas, when she comes to the last soldier — that is, myself — her tired fingers slip, and my right arm breaks off at the shoulder./

Ooh, you are merciless. Be careful what you wish for, hm? I foresee problems with this, but I like the idea a lot.

/Neverland is changeless, they say, but they are wrong. Change is in the air./

Love this too, and I like the contrast between change and sameness, with the emphasis on the magic that makes it so.

/"The Black Fairy wants to take away your happy endings./

Ah, this sounds bad. It's usually not good once the happy ending argument comes out, and not just because I'm a skeptic of the "wave a wand and everything is magically fixed" HEA. Blue's plan sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

/"The Shadow and I have come to an agreement," says the Blue Fairy. Even as she speaks, a dark shape swoops down from the sky and seizes the Black Fairy from behind./

Oh hey, cool, question answered. Sounds like a horrible idea, but hey, what do I know. Great image there.
I have mixed feelings on your dialogue tags. On one hand, the simplicity of them lends itself to a sort of fairytale-esque quality, and there are some places where the repetition really works. On the other hand, I've just read about 10 instances of "says the Blue/Black Fairy" since this conversation started, and it's not that long. The action beats help break it up a little, but there are a few points where it starts to feel repetitive and over-simplistic. Not always, but on occasion. But whatever works for you. I still like the overall style and rhythm of it.

/The Shadow bends in a motion suggestive of a bow, a glint of cruel irony in its glowing eyes, then rockets upward, its path tearing the sky open. For an instant, I glimpse strange stars shining through./

Love this. Very nice image, and a pretty piece of prose. Vivid.

/It may be a portal, but rather than stepping through it, the magic takes us, ground and all, in a shower of sand and sparks, to the promised land./

I like all the clauses and the "shower of sand and sparks" is a nice image. I like how you refer to it as the "promised land" too.
But this sentence also comes off pretty clunky and halting because of how many commas and clauses you have. I like all those phrases, but maybe there's a way to rearrange them or break up the sentence to make it flow better? Just a thought.

/"This land needs our help, as you can see."
But does it want our help?/

I like that distinction between need and want, laid out so prettily. It also raises a valid point about this crusade. And this promised land business is starting to look even bleaker.

/The children scrunch up their faces, eyes tightly shut. Mostly. A few of them peek./

Okay, you got a surprised laugh. Definitely sounds like children. There's just a touch of humor in how you worded this, but it's also rather poignant because their fear is palpable.

/The Blue Fairy waves her wand. A silken bag the color of her dress appears in her hand./

Totally an unsolicited personal opinion so you can ignore this if you want, but I'd probably combine these two sentences. So many choppy, simple sentences in a row, even just including the description between the dialogue, kind of breaks up the flow of the story. There were a couple other places I think I might've combined a couple sentences because it got a bit choppy too, but it's also kind of a stylistic preference.

/"Do you believe in magic? Clap if you believe in magic!"/

I should hope so. How else do they think this whole mess got started? lol

/Trained in Neverland to believe, the children have a magic of their own, a magic that the Blue Fairy can draw upon./

Ooh, I like this too. That's a neat way of putting it.

/"But he can still be a good person, even with one arm," says the boy [...] "He doesn't have to fight anymore."/

Aw :/ Remarkable how a child's naiveté can make an already troublesome situation ten times more poignant.

/Cracked through. All my senses go numb as the truth of her words penetrates my thoughts. Flawed from the beginning. My wishes count for nothing, when my fate has always lain in the hands of others./

My heart, it hurts :( Love this paragraph. There's a gritty rawness in contrast to some of the mystical goodness going on in the story. (Well, it wavers back and forth between the gritty realism and magical idealism, which I quite like.)

/"Your majesty, forgive."/

I'm not sure if there's a typo and a "me" was left off after "forgive" or not. "Forgive me" sounds more natural, but I want to say that I've occasionally heard characters talk like this in formal situations. I don't know. If it's not a typo then you can ignore me.

/Water swallows me up at the end of my fall, and an underground stream carries me into utter darkness. Before I ever reach light again, a current drags me spinning into the bottom./

Oh hey, nod to the original tin soldier. I like it.
(Was there, like, a goblin toy or something in the original story? Maybe I'm misremembering and just thought of it because of the goblin.)

/In the dark and the cold, even my dreams blur and fade. There is nothing left for me but to meditate on the futility of wishes./

Ouch. Love this. Really nice prose there.

/ I catch one brief glimpse of light before my journey ends in the jaws of a monstrous catfish./

I see what you did there lol

/I am buried in a stinking mass of discarded animal parts and rotting vegetables. I can't say that this is much of an improvement./

Lol, love that last line. The occasional hints of snark are what I live for.

/"It's not their house," whispers the goblin."Naughty, naughty/

Looks like your program ate the space between the period and the next bit of dialogue. Not a big deal, but in case you want to fix it XD

/unlike me, these were not carved as soldiers. These were born to be laborers, with no wealth or leisure to train as a warrior./

This might be nitpicky, but I feel as if it would sound more natural to make "warrior" plural so that it matches with "laborers" and, more distally, "soldiers".
I do like that acknowledgement though, of the differences between the soldiers and these people.

/Equality for those born of wood. That is the essence of her speech. That they are not less for being what they are./

Ah, reminds me of our pet soldier's plight. Sounds like it would apply very neatly to him.

/They and their own retinue of archers and spear men surround the manor./

In 99 cases out of 100, I see it as "spearmen" rather than "spear men", although I'm not sure if the latter has become an accepted variant.

/The rebels are destroyed not by swords, but by fire./

Oh man, that's cold. (...I just realized how bad that sounded.) I guess not entirely unexpected, since there wasn't going to be a legitimate fight. But still.
...Wasn't the original tin man destroyed by fire? Ooh boy, time to rip someone's heart out.

/And he flings me right into the hottest flames./

D: Wow, he's a real keeper. Damn.

/As smoke, I rise into the sky./

Hey, hey, he's flying! Kind of. I mean, he got burned up, but he's, uh, sort of flying? x.x

/I cannot help but pity the Blue Fairy, whose dreams of a perfect empire have gone up in smoke./

Hahaha, I see what you did there.
...Not that it's really funny. Clever though.

/She had forgotten the oldest rule of Neverland: a dream is always a nightmare when looked at from the other side./

Ooh, I like that. Very nice line.

/Yet it is all that I have ever desired — endless flight on the upper winds, drifting across the world until the last of the magic dissipates and I am finally undone.
It is enough./

Aw. Some strange mix of sweet and bitter. Luckily, I've always been extraordinarily partial to bittersweet endings. I think this makes for a very nice ending, actually.

Okay, final thoughts:
So, you've got some really nice prose in here, and there are a few lines I'd lift and run off with if I was a lesser woman XD For the most part, the rhythm and pacing is nice. There are a few places where the fondness for short, choppy sentences all in a row breaks up the narrative a little, and a couple points where the simplistic and unvaried dialogue tags become a little dull, but for the most part you really made it work. You also handled present tense really well, and it's refreshing to read something in present tense every once in a while. (It probably helps that I finished writing something in present just a couple hours ago, so I'm still in the mindset for it XD)

I like your portrayal of the wooden soldier, and the recurring themes of wishe

Hiya. I'm over from the WA alternate format challenge. I'm not entirely fandom-blind for Once Upon a Time, but I've only seen the first series, so I'm not entirely sure how this links in (is the goblin Rumplestiltskin?). Not that it matters, because this is really and truly a wonderful story. Beautifully done, with the dark razor-sharp edge that every fairy tale should have. In particular I liked the bit about the first rule of Neverland: how every dream is really a nightmare views from the other side.

The opening - those first three paragraphs - are particularly gorgeous. The descriptions of all the different creatures and other things that can fly, and then the narrator's longing for something they can't have. And just as in a fairy tale he gets it, but only by being burnt up in a fire. Just a perfect, perfect ending, which circles back to the beginning in a way that is masterfully done.

I can't offer much concrit, because there's literally nothing I can find to suggest changing. Beautifully done and I wish you all the best in the challenge.

Oh my, this was utterly charming. What I loved the most was how completely inconsequential the one-armed wooden soldier was on the grand scale of things, yet still managed to retain my attention as the focus of the story.

There were certain sentences that caught my eye: 'The resonance suggests that we are now in some large, hard-walled chamber.' and '"Well, well, well. Taste that?"'
Your use of all five senses really enrich the storytelling and add a depth of immersion so rarely found.

The entire story filled me with a sense of old nostalgia.

It was the introduction of the ring through water, it leaving the wooden soldier's presence through fire and it also having that slight touch of pride and self-assurance that couldn't help but remind me of Tolkien's One Ring. Mirroring Isildur's death and the One Ring being lost in the Anduin and it's final departure from the story in the cracks of .

I would keep going, but I fear I would end up writing several more paragraphs on a near full in depth literary analysis and I really can't afford to keep my next patient waiting any longer!

Good luck with the challenge!

Wow, actually a great choice of fairy tale for this challenge. Even more interesting was incorporating it into the inter-world travel of Once Upon a Time. Nicely done! I'm not sure I follow all the other references you make in your author's notes, but still, looks like a lot of good stuff to put all together into this. Good luck on the challenge!

Best,
Zad
Critics United

Wow. I don't know much about the fandom but this is decent work here.