Disney's Tinker Bell in Storybrooke
A Disney Fairies / Once Upon A Time Crossover
Season 1, Episode 15, Chapter 7
PIXIE HOLLOW, NEVER LAND
"Who are you?" she asked of the snake.
"I am what will make you my dinner," it hissed back. At least that's what it sounded like.
"We can't understand you very well," Fawn told him.
He hissed something which didn't quite make sense. Fawn decided to proceed with her plan. "I'm going to teach you our language while I learn yours." The snake narrowed its eyes and watched as she floated to some leaves. Realizing that she had to be precise, Fawn took her hands and gently ran them down the outline of the leaf. "Leaf," she said slowly. "This is a leaf."
Fawn then rubbed her palm against its center and said. "Green. This color is green."
The snake said nothing, but watched her intently.
The little animal fairy patted her hand on a tree branch. "Branch." Then she rubbed her palms against it and spoke. "This color is Brown."
Finally the snake responded. "Brown?"
"Yes. Brown."
Then he spoke the word for brown in his own language. Fawn smiled. "It's a beautiful word."
~O~
For several hours Fawn carefully listened. The awful pounding in her head made it extra difficult. Night fell which helped somewhat, but without the bright daylight of the sun the glow from the pixie dust became especially intense. Fawn had to look away from it regularly to keep the pain in her temples from becoming totally unbearable.
Slowly the two exchanged words, phrases and complete sentences. She learned to speak his unique dialect while he fully grasped the language of the fairies. Fawn developed a working knowledge and used it to learn more about him and where he was from. She never once pressed the giant snake for any discomforting information. Though he regularly threatened to eat her, Fawn was making this fearsome creature her friend.
By mid-afternoon the next day Fawn was able to report her findings. "He's a Black Mamba," she told Queen Clarion, "a very poisonous and deadly snake from Africa."
"Africa?" The queen was shocked by the news. "How did it get here?"
Fawn relayed what she had learned. Humans trapped him, apparently to bring the specimen to England for a display. Possibly a zoo. The ship he was on was overrun by more humans, which Fawn assessed to be pirates. One of the pirates tried to make this snake its pet, but it killed him and several others before the poisonous creature was thrown overboard to sink and die.
As luck would have it, the cage opened upon impact with the water and the snake climbed onto some drifting wood, a remnant from the battle to repel the pirates. The flow of the ocean then brought him to Never Land. For several days the snake had moved silently about the island looking for food when it came across our tree.
"All it wants is to go home," Fawn told her queen.
Clarion nodded. Unfortunately, the fairies had no way of transporting the beast back to its own world. "Perhaps he will be comfortable living here."
"No, he won't," Fawn replied. "He admits to his own predatory instincts. Your Highness, I fear keeping him among us would be like inviting the hawk to do the same. It will begin to eat us, he cannot be anything other than what he is."
The queen sighed with a measure of disappointment. "Understood."
~O~
STORYBROOKE, MAINE
The next morning Jo woke still feeling depressed by what she had experienced the day before. It wasn't giving up the animals but finding a human heart in a box by the stream that gnawed at her. It seemed impossible that anyone could do anything so vicious. To murder a person, cut out there heart and place it inside of a box before hiding it by the water's edge.
She was still so struck by the moment that it never occurred to her why someone would place the heart in a box and hide out there. Chester had stayed the night with her, never leaving her side. Though they slept in the same bed overnight Chester did not take advantage of Jo in her weakened state. Instead he chose to stay close to her simply so she would have someone to offer her comfort and companionship during this trial.
Jo began to voice regret that she had rid herself of all the animals. Any critter healthy enough was released into the wild. Those still too ill or injured were taken to the animal shelter even though they didn't have enough room for all of them. They were like family to her and right now that is what she needed.
Despite this emptiness Jo never once sought to bring in new animals. Chester reasoned that forming new bonds would take time and Jo needed those emotional ties right now, not a few weeks or months from now. So Chester went to the shelter and offered to bring the overflow back to Jo's place. It was a small number. The ones she loved most were what he chose and the surprise of seeing those happy, fuzzy faces back in their cages lifted Jo's spirits immediately.
Jo changed her mind and decided it was okay for him stay, if he wanted. Their arrangement would stay the same, he would sleep in the guest room while she took the master. There was one thing that did change between them. The romantic relationship they had shared dissolved. Instead, they would live together as close friends sharing the house like roommates. At least until Jo could get over the shock and trauma she had experienced.
Chester, while disappointed, was more than willing to accept this. "I'll never leave you, Jo," he told her. "I'll always be here for you, no matter what."
~O~
PIXIE HOLLOW, NEVER LAND
Fawn wracked her already throbbing head for an idea. She had wanted to help the snake, which she had dubbed "Sir Hiss," to find his way back to Africa. One idea, which tinkers Clank and Bobble suggested, was that a large cage could be built and he would be flown by doves to a ship heading to Africa.
While the idea seemed sound on paper, there was no guarantee he would survive the trip back to his home in Africa. Many of the other captured animals who joined him on the journey to England didn't survive the trip because they were far too stressed from suddenly being captured and placed in small cages. Hiss didn't think he could survive another long voyage.
"I'll go with you," Fawn offered. "It will give us a chance to get to know each other even better."
The snake thanked Fawn for the offer, but he declined. "I cannot ask you do such a thing," he said. "No, I am without a home."
"Maybe not," Fawn told him. "Maybe you can't live among the fairies, but Never Land is a large island. I'm sure you can find a place here to call home."
Sir Hiss liked the idea somewhat. He decided to go with Fawn and search for a comfortable and isolated location where he could reside. In doing so he relinquished his control of the Pixie Dust Tree, much to the delight of the fairies who desperately needed its magic dust.
It took several days, but Fawn and Sir Hiss eventually found a nice, out of the way place where he could live in peace. Hiss would be alone, but Fawn promised to visit him regularly.
"Thank you, dear fairy," he said to her. "None have been so kind to me."
"I'm glad to have you as my friend," she told him. "See you tomorrow."
~O~
STORYBROOKE, MAINE
That evening Sheriff Emma Swan received the DNA report on the heart. She had taken it to the hospital lab and asked them to put a rush on it. Knowing that this was part of an important ongoing investigation, the lab complied.
She found David and Mary Margaret together at his place of employment, Storybrooke's animal shelter. The two were waiting and consoling each other in the lobby of the shelter when Emma walked in and announced the findings.
"The heart belonged to Kathryn," she told them.
Those words hit them both like a Mack Truck. Mary Margaret began to sob and David squeezed her hand as he thought about his now dead wife. Realizing that he must have been the culprit, having murdered here while in a sleepwalking state David prepared to turn himself in.
"There were also fingerprints in the box," she told them. "But they're not yours, David."
"Then who?" he asked
"Mary Margaret." Her fingerprints were found on the box, thus implicating the schoolteacher as the murderer. Sheriff Emma Swan immediately put her under arrest, read Ms. Blanchard her Miranda rights and took the shocked woman to the jail house to be booked and processed.
~O~
PIXIE HOLLOW, NEVER LAND
"How are you feeling, Fawn?" Rosetta asked.
"Much better now," she replied to her garden fairy friend. "Wow, I can't believe all the crazy things I did when I wasn't myself."
"You had us all worried, shoog. So what are you going to do now?"
"I need to deal with that mean squirrel," Fawn said. "Is he still hold up in the tree?"
"No, he's gone," Rosetta told her. "I couldn't wait forever so I had some of the other animal fairies talk to him. He kept throwing nuts at everyone until there were none left. With nothing left to eat he abandoned the tree in a huff."
"Huh! I wonder where he is now."
~O~
Somewhere in a remote part of Never Land Island a squirrel bounded through the underbrush. He had been run out of Pixie Hollow by the others of his kind. This squirrel only wanted to take what belonged to others. He had no desire to collect his own nuts and find his own place to live. Why bother when it was easier to just sit back, let the others to the hard work and then take it from them.
But those naughty fairies wouldn't let him live his way. So now here he was on his own, looking for an occupied squirrel home to claim by force. He found a nice place which was filled with nuts and ripe for the taking. All he had to do was evict the current owner and it would be his new home.
What he had not counted on was that the owner was not the sweet or timid sort. The squirrel that lived here was used to living without the benefit of the fairies of Pixie Hollow. He was very capable and didn't rely on the kindness of others to defend his home.
It was a short conflagration with the invader being ejected most unceremoniously onto the forest floor. The squirrel chittered and chattered many unkind things at the other squirrel. He tried again, and again he was repelled by the knothole's current resident. Hoping the third time would bring him luck he tried once more.
This time he was bopped in the head with nut and fell to the ground with a thud. The noise rousted a new resident. A snake with an inky black mouth. A Black Mamba snake named Sir Hiss. Hiss offered a warning to the squirrel, "Go away or I will make you my meal."
The angry squirrel was not impressed by the snake's display of its large, black mouth and sharp fangs. He screamed and chattered at the snake. Then he took the same nut that had been used against him and flung it at Sir Hiss.
Hungry and angered, Hiss reared up and struck, following through on his threat.
Okay, this brings to a close episode 15. Thank you for reading.
If anyone is still reading.