A short story that was inspired by the book where Wendy asks Peter what happened to Tinkerbell and he can not remember her. I never really liked Tinkerbell, but hearing that made me feel really bad for her.
In my story, there is no specific reason why she died, her time has just come. Fairies don't live long.
(I am sorry for the mistakes, please feel free to correct me. I feel unsure about the tenses I used)
Silent Bell
Tinkerbell had died. Peter had found her in the morning lying in her nest made out of soft flower petals next to his bed. She looked so different without her glow. So cold and frail. So grey and liveless in the midst of all these bright and colourful petals.
Quiet and immobile she lay there. No silver bell voice. No movement.
While she had been alive she had never seemed to stay still, always flitting here and there and back again. A small light dancing in the air. Now, maybe for the first time, Peter could really look at her tiny face surrounded by short wild locks of copper hair finer even than cobwebs. Her eyes were closed and her littel pink lips slightly parted.
One could have mistaken her for being simply asleep if it were not for the pale, waxen complexion of her skin which looked so strange and wrong without its usual permanent glow. And if it were not for her once tranclucent wings streched out behind her body that were now limp and slowly turning grey.
He knew that she could not stay there in her bed forever. Not now that she was dead. One had to bury the dead. Peter knew that. He had heard it somewhere. So he used both hands to lift her tiny body clad in a simpel dress made from white rose petals, her favourite flower, and stiched together by human hair. He had forgotten whose hair it was. Someone`s hair.
He was very careful, afraid he could break her little arms and legs that looked so terribly frail or tear her wings that already seemed to begin to crumble at their edges. She was very proud of her wings and would be horrified to see them like that. She was such a vain little creature.
Peter thought for a while about where he should bury her. It was important that it was a nice place because when you are dead you spend all of your time in that one place. It must be very boring to be dead, thought Peter and shuddered. He decided that he would never die.
Eventually, he brought her to her favourite place. A clearing hidden deep in the forrest. A flower meadow where a thousand diffrent flowers were growing.
Pale violet pansies. Blue hyacinth. Rosa sweet peas. Pink zinnias. White chrysanthemum. Red tulips. Yellow daffodils. Deep violet and white foxgloves. Dark red Amaryllis. Orange birds of paradise. White Jasmin. Lilys in all colours imaginable. Flowers in all forms and colours, big and small, with and without names. Flowers that existed everywhere, flowers that normaly only grew in swamps or on mountains, flowers that were extinct and flowers that never existed.
And of course white roses.
They all grew here together. Nowhere else could all these flowers be found in one place. Only here. In this meadow in Neverland.
Peter could not think of a more perfect place to bury Tink. He knew that one had to lay flowers on a grave, but here they were already growing on their own. And so many of them. Even Tink would not be able to complain.
With Tinkerbell in his cupped hands he went to the middle of the clearing and looked down. He thought for a moment then he looked at Tinkerbell in his hands and said to her:" You know Tink, I think it would be better when I just lay you here on this patch of moss on this stone instead of burying you. I imagine that it is very cold and uncomfortable to be buried. And you can`t even see the sky with all this earth covering you. Simply awful. Here on this stone you can see the sky, smell the flowers and feel the warmth of the sun. A good place to be dead"
He gently layed her down on the moss and stepped back. He looked at her and thought a bit.
"Tink, I think I will miss you very much now that you are dead. When you are finished with being dead, I think I would like it very much if you came back to me"
He cried a bit. Just a bit. Then he stopped.
He lightly jumped of the ground and flew high and higher into the sky where he let himself drift through the air with his back to the ground. He watched the clouds for some time. Taking in all their diffrent forms.
After a while, Peter got bored and decided to go and look for an adventure.
He had already forgotten why he had been sad or even that he had been sad at all. From time to time he still remembered that there had been someone with him in the past. A glow. A bell like voice. But even these shreds of memories where soon forgotten.
Peter had forgotten Tinkerbell.
If you had asked ihm now about Tinkerbell he would only have thrown you a questioning look and asked who you were talking about.
Peter did not forgett on purpose. It just happened. There are some things that a boy that never wants to grow up can not remember because there are things that you can not experience without growing up at least a little bit.
And death is one of these things.