I saw The Pirate Fairy and it was aawesoooooome. Especially Zarina, she's a cool character. She wasn't even out of character in this fic :) (Special thanks to Dragones for telling me this before I even watched the movie). Also, Fairy Gary had his largest role yet. The one thing I didn't like about the movie was that Periwinkle had such a small part. I'm thinking of making this take place after the pirate fairy, but that would contradict the stuff I said in previous chapters about this taking place before it.

Okay anyway, on to chapter 8.

It was still snowing heavily in the woods in Arendelle. Even though the sky was still completely hidden by clouds, it was significantly lighter than it had been earlier that morning, when Anna had first lost track of Elsa and stumbled across Tinker Bell. Anna didn't know how much time had passed since then, but she knew she was hungry, so she assumed that this was around the time she and Elsa would normally eat breakfast.

Anna's progress was slow as Anna trudged through the snow. It was rather remarkable that she was still going, because most five-year-olds didn't like walking and probably would have quit a while ago due to being tired. Even though Anna never seemed to run out of energy and was often up at random times during the night due to her bizarre lack of need for sleep, she was finding it hard to keep going.

Following a path somebody else had made didn't make walking through the woods an easy task. The ground wasn't flat by any means, and the path wound around trees. There were hills and valleys and countless things to trip over (and it was even worse when those things were hidden by the snow). Anna had already tripped twice, sprawling with her face in the snow and sending Tink sailing off her shoulder to land face-first in the snow a couple feet in front of her.

Tink had found it very hard to keep her temper in check when this happened. She knew, logically, that it would be unfair to Anna if she was yelled at by a fairy whenever she tripped. Also, it wasn't like Tink was the only one landing in the snow and getting a freezing face. Anna had to deal with that, too. Besides, even Tink couldn't deny that it would be ungrateful if she yelled at Anna- Anna was the one who had saved her from freezing to death, after all. Once Tink put things in perspective, she realized she really had no reason to complain. Doing two face-plants in the snow while wearing a ridiculous glove/coat thing was paradise compared to almost dying of hypothermia in a hailstorm.

Once Tink had changed her perspective on things, she tried to help the girl. She tried to spot places in the path where the snow was higher, indicating an obstacle of some sort that would best be avoided. This was no easy task. Although the eyesight of a fairy was much better than that of a human, the heavy snowfall made it hard such details.

Tink wondered if Peri was used to this sort of storm. As far as the tinker-fairy knew, it didn't snow this heavily in the Winter Woods. The more Tink thought about it, the more certain she became that storms like this didn't exist in Neverland. If they did, then Peri would know how to navigate them and she would have found Tink by now.

Tink was pulled from her thoughts as Anna's stomach gave a tremendous growl about a thousand times louder than a fairy's stomach would. Tink noticed that she was hungry, too. But what would they eat? Tink glanced at Anna and said "Wait here, and yell if you can't see me. Got it?" Anna nodded, and Tink made her repeat it, just to be safe. She wasn't used to random humans understanding her, and until now she still didn't entirely believe that Anna could. Yet at the same time, Anna didn't seem to qualify as a random human. Tink felt like she had met the girl before, but at the same time she was absolutely positive that she hadn't.

She fluttered off Anna's shoulder, using the small amount of flying-ability she had at the moment. Tink guessed she had about fifteen seconds until her wings quit again. She darted around for about three seconds, until she heard Anna yell "I can't see you!" Tink sighed and called back that it was fine because she could still see Anna. As long as one of them could see the other, they wouldn't get lost. Though it would help if Anna was yelling, because then Tink could find her based on sound, too. Tink took back her last statement and told Anna to just make noise.

Tink continued her frantic search for food as she felt her wings start to quit. Seeing nothing edible she returned to Anna's shoulder just before her wings gave out completely. She groaned, because it seemed that they would go hungry for a bit.

Anna had decided to take a break and had climbed on top of a large boulder. She lay down, staring at the sky and moaned "I'm hunnngryyyy!" Anna rubbed her stomach and then looked at Tink hopefully before asking "Do you have any food?" Tink was about to reply that no, she didn't have any when it struck her that she'd had food all along.

She slapped her forehead when she realized that she'd forgotten about Zarina's edible Pixie Dust. Tink had stopped noticing the pouch over her shoulder when she had put on her coat made from Anna's old glove. Grabbing the ring-finger slot of her coat, Tink slid her right arm out of the 'sleeve' and groped around for her satchel slung over her shoulder. She found it and tried to pull it over her head, only to remember that she had to take off her coat in order to get it off. She ended up getting tangled up in both her glove-coat and the satchel strap.

Once she finally got herself untangled, Tink's face had literally turned red with embarrassment, but Anna didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with getting all twisted up in clothing. Anna didn't say anything, and Tink was grateful for this because she would most likely have gotten mad and said something mean in response. Tink tended to have a hard time controlling what she said when she was angry. Tink was glad she hadn't gotten into a fight, because she (mostly) regretted what she said when mad at somebody. At any rate, she didn't want to upset Anna, who had become her method of transportation, acting as a steed much like Cheese the mouse. Except Anna was more intelligent.

Tink opened the satchel and looked inside. Why the Pixie Dust was just giving off a red glow was anyone's guess, because it was actually all the colors of the rainbow. Tink reached in and pulled out a single purple speck of Pixie Dust and held it between her thumb and pointer. She stared at curiously, wondering it it could really act as a meal- or at least part of it, Zarina had told her that it only took about five or ten specks to feel full, and there were hundreds in that satchel. Well, Tink thought Zarina already tried it, and nothing bad happened to her. So here goes nothing.

She popped the purple Pixie Dust speck in her mouth, and let it sit on her tongue for a moment. It tasted like a plum. Was it just a coincidence that it was also purple? Already, Tink's hunger was partially gone. Somehow, Zarina had managed to pack the equivalent of a portion of a meal into a single grain of Pixie Dust. Tink popped a red one in her mouth. That one tasted like cherries. This Pixie Dust didn't seem to hold as much flying-power as normal Pixie Dust, but Tink supposed that Zarina had to take a lot of it away in order to add all the nutritional stuff.

Realizing that it was cruel to be eating in front of Anna, who was also hungry, Tink pulled one out for the girl, but then hesitated. Could clumsies eat this, too? She hoped so, because she didn't know what Anna was going to eat otherwise. She didn't want Anna to get sick, or even poisoned- she had grown rather fond of the girl in the short time they'd known each other.

She offered it to Anna, but told her to spit it out if it made her feel like she was going to vomit or be sick or something. Anna nodded, but gave Tink a look that said I'm not dumb, you know. Tink then went on to explain that this was "fairy food" and she wasn't sure if humans could eat it (she avoided using the term Clumsy around her). After all, Tink doubted that Zarina had tested it on any humans.

Seeing as she couldn't fly, Tink asked Anna to lift her up so they were face-to-face. Anna did so, though not gently enough for Tink's liking. The girl had simply seized the fairy so everything below Tink's waist was in Anna's fist, which meant that half of Tink's body was being squeezed. It didn't really hurt, but Tink pretended that it did, just to make a point. She succeeded in making said point, because Anna instead held her palm up so the tinker-fairy could stand on it.

While Anna was catching snowflakes on her tongue, Tinker Bell hoped that Zarina had known what she was doing when she made this. After telling Anna not to blame her if something went wrong, Tink hesitantly dropped a brown speck of Pixie Dust on Anna's tongue.

Any worry Tink felt vanished when Anna closed her eyes blissfully and murmured "Chocolate!" It was great fun seeing what all of the flavors of Pixie Dust were. There was also mango, coconut, and apple (Neverland had pretty much every fruit or vegetable in existence somewhere on the island, so there were a ton of flavors to choose from when making edible Pixie Dust). They each ate about ten more specks- one of the magical things about Pixie Dust was that one's size and weight didn't matter when they used it, so humans only needed the same amount as fairies to fly (or in this case to fill their stomachs). Even the dust keeper talents didn't know why fairies needed the same amount as humans, despite the fact they were a lot smaller- this was another thing Zarina was trying to figure out.

Tink wanted to rest a bit longer on the boulder, but Anna was barely sitting still. Tink sighed. Why did Zarina have to give this Pixie Dust the equivalent of a sugar high? So the fairy returned to Anna's shoulder as the girl skipped, hopped, jumped and full out ran along the path, her pigtails bouncing behind her. Tink told her to slow down as she held on to Anna so she wouldn't be thrown off the hyperactive five-year-old's shoulder. Thankfully, Anna listened, and switched to a walking pace. Tink, for one, was relieved. The last thing anyone wanted was for Anna to be so hyper that she'd pointlessly exercise herself to exhaustion and then crash.

Tink spoke up to break the silence and get the answer to a question that had been nagging her. Turning to Anna, she asked "Why are you in the woods, anyway? Surely you don't live here..." She stopped, realizing that it wasn't that odd to be living in the woods. After all, the Lost Boys did, so who was to say that Anna couldn't, too. However, Anna laughed and said "Nope! I live in a castle!" Tink nodded, smiling disbelievingly, and said "Sure you do." The sarcasm flew right over Anna's head, and the girl replied, rather unenthusiastically "I'm a princess."

Now, the only Clumsy girl Tink knew well was Lizzy, but that didn't mean that Tink was totally ignorant about humans. For example, she had figured out that pretty much every little girl in existence wanted to be a princess (Lizzy had pretended to be one when Tink was at her house on the mainland. She had also seen various other girls dressed in ridiculous frilly pink dresses and crowns during her other trips to the mainland, though she'd just seen them from above as she flew over them). Although she didn't believe Anna when she'd said she was a princess, Tink thought it was odd that there had been a hint of bitterness in her voice when she said it.

"Well," Tink said, "going back to the question... How did you end up here anyway?" At this point Anna rushed into a long story filled with random little side comments and thoughts that were totally unrelated to what she had just said. Tink had a hard time following it, but from what she understood Anna and that-Elsa-who-could-apparently-make-snow had gone into the village early in the morning. The story hadn't been too confusing up to that point, but then Anna had started talking about a snowman named Olaf, and the next thing Anna had said was that she'd gotten separated from Elsa in the woods. There were a lot of gaping holes in her account of her day- for example, what had happened in between the snowman and getting lost in the woods- and why had she talked about a snowman anyway? Tink still wasn't sure who Elsa was. Anna had talked about her sister and Elsa interchangeably, so maybe Elsa was her sister...? But that didn't make sense. Anna had again mentioned Elsa's snow powers, but only frost fairies could make snow, and it was impossible for Anna's sister to be a fairy. Tink was beginning to get a headache trying to understand this incomprehensible girl.

After Anna had told her rather confusing story, Tink had explained how she was looking for her sister, Periwinkle. Anna had seemed excited about the fact that they were both looking for their sisters, and it was only then that Tink knew for sure that Elsa was Anna's sister. But the frost powers still didn't make sense, and Anna's description of Elsa sounded remarkably like Peri: white hair, blue clothes, and blue eyes- what Clumsy girl had white hair, anyway. Tink thought that only happened to old Clumsies.

The path they were following went down a hill, so Anna decided to go down the fun way, sliding down it like she did on the snow banks Elsa sometimes made if they got up early enough for the large banks of snow to melt before their parents woke up (so they mostly did that in the summer, so it would melt quickly). Tink didn't think this was quite as much fun, mostly because she didn't have much to grab on to as Anna went down, so it was incredibly hard not to fall off her. Tink did enjoy sledding in the Winter Woods, but it was more fun on a nice toboggan with a handle bar.

As Anna came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, laughing gleefully, Tink inevitably lost her grip on the girl. She went sailing in front of Anna and landed in the snow, again. Annoyed, she looked up, really tempted to lecture the girl a bit, but when she saw Anna, she stopped. Why was the girl rubbing her eyes? Even though she'd only known Anna for about an hour, at most, the girl was the oddest, most baffling person Tink knew.

"Please don't do that again." Anna told Tink. Funny, that was exactly what Tink wanted to say to her. "Do what?" Tinker Bell asked, totally nonplussed. "Don't light up and flash like that. It hurt my eyes." Anna informed her. Light up and...? Tink thought, Wait a minute!

Her wings! Could it be her wings?! Could Peri be near? Please please please please let Peri be near Tink begged in her head to nobody in particular. Almost to afraid to check, for fear that she'd be wrong, Tink slowly turned around to check her wings. It was a lot harder than it should have been, due to the ludicrous 'coat' she was wearing. Eventually she dared to look, and was depressed when nothing happened.

However, once she returned to her spot on Anna's shoulder, she caught a glimpse of a flash out of the corner of her eye. She turned around, and saw that the tips of her wings were beginning to sparkle. However, the sparkling died down as Anna followed the path as it went right.

"No! No, wait! Go left!" Tink cried. Anna looked at her and said "The path goes that way!" Tink was in no mood to argue with a five-year-old while her sister could be getting far enough away that her wings would no longer be any use for locating her. "We have to go left! That's where my sister is! Look, I'll explain to you on the way." Tink paused, and then added some motivation "I'll make you a deal- once we find my sister, I'll do everything possible to help you find Elsa, okay?" Anna thought about it, and finally agreed "Deal."

They continued to follow the glows from Tink's wings, turning it into the warmer-colder game where warmer meant they were getting closer and colder meant they were getting farther away. Tink watched ecstatically as the glow in her wings grew, slowly but surely, which meant that Peri was getting near.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It took a lot less time for Peri and Elsa to stuff themselves full of snow than most people would have taken. This was because they were both immune to the cold, so no matter how quickly they ate it, the coldness of the snow didn't give them a brain freeze. Neither of them knew what it was like to eat something so cold that someone would simply stop thinking about anything else for a bit.

Once they had finished their temporary meal (it was only supposed to fill their empty stomachs, not give them any energy or calories), Elsa resumed walking while Peri flew beside her to exercise her wings. Not wanting to lose track of each other, Peri wrapped her hand around Elsa's pointer finger. Both felt a lot better when they were in contact- just like how Peri felt with Tink- which made Peri suspect all the more that Elsa was her laugh. Elsa was also feeling better. In fact, her slight joy lessened the storm a small amount, so it was a little bit easier to see.

Elsa enjoyed being with Periwinkle. For starters, Periwinkle was a fairy, and Elsa really didn't have to clarify about how cool that was. But fairies also reminded Elsa of her bedtime stories, and those reminded her of both Anna and home- the two things she was missing at the moment. She smiled at the memories of snuggling up next to Anna in one of their beds as a warm fire roared, Elsa holding the Anna doll and Anna holding the Elsa doll. Elsa would then read a fairy tale out loud to Anna as her little sister's head rested on her shoulder. Her parents would try to spare time to listen as Elsa practiced her reading, but they were often too busy- the king and queen did have to work hard to sucessfully rule Arendelle, and it was a full time job. Sometimes Elsa would even try to help Anna learn to read, but Anna had just started learning and didn't have enough patience to really try reading yet. She didn't mind listening, though. After their stories, because they always tried to get as many stories as they could, they'd fall asleep, often not even bothering to get in separate beds. She assumed their parents moved them, because they almost always woke up in their own beds.

Elsa smiled sadly at the memories, wishing that her sister was with her. She was still angry at herself for not holding on to Elsa's hand, but she felt a bit better knowing Peri was in the same situation. At least she wasn't the only one who'd lost her sister. To Elsa, this observation didn't seem mean, though some people might be ashamed to think something like that.

Periwinkle started chatting, forgetting that Elsa had no idea what she was saying. Even if Peri had remembered, it would have been absurdly hard to pantomime it, and it would be rather pointless as it was just small talk. Elsa was simply content to listen to the pretty fairy bells as she walked- somehow it made the walking less tedious.

Elsa would occasionally put a word in, though she wasn't nearly as talkative as the frost fairy. One of the things she had said was that she hoped the "big scary man guards" weren't the ones that had made this path. It would be a nasty surprise if she and Periwinkle ran into them instead of Anna. Maybe they would even find Peri's sister, too. Except Peri would be the only one who could find her, because Elsa had no idea what Peri's sister looked like. The fairy had tried drawing a picture of her sister in the snow, but it was really hard to draw a detailed picture. Actually, it was hard to draw anything besides indistinguishable stick figures.

Because Elsa kept worrying that they'd run into the Duke's guards, they decided to leave the path (Elsa had figured out that asking Peri yes/no questions was a good way to communicate because all the fairy had to do was nod or shake her head). However, if Anna was the one who made the path, then they may not come across her. Though the path still seemed too wide for Anna to have made it, and Elsa decided it would be better to play it safe.

As they walked, Elsa began to grow thirsty. She tried eating snow, even tried letting it melt in her mouth, but it took forever and barely changed how thirsty she was. She looked around for water- surely there had to be a stream or something. However she discovered that she had accidentally frozen them over with her magic. "Why'd I have to freeze the streams?" She moaned out loud, her throat feeling incredibly dry.

Peri chimed something (specifically she was wondering what Elsa meant by that. It almost sounded like she was a frost fairy, but that was ridiculous. Surely Elsa couldn't freeze things.) but Elsa ignored it because, really, how was she supposed to respond to what simply sounded like bells to her?

Elsa tried to ignore her dry throat, but it was really hard. All she could focus on was how much she wanted water. She decided that if she could break through the ice over the stream, she'd get to water, and then she could drink it. Nobody had ever told her that this was a horrible idea. She hadn't heard of people falling in frozen streams and being trapped under the ice and drowning. So she walked onto the ice without worrying. Besides, even if she had known of ice breaking under people, wouldn't she be able to make another layer with her powers before she sunk?

She stepped into the center of the stream and stomped her foot, trying to break the ice. Peri was chiming frantically, trying to get Elsa to understand that this was a horrible idea. She tugged on the girl's braid and flew in her face, but Elsa was too focused on getting water. When Elsa stomped on the ice, more ice formed under her feet. Elsa sighed. This wasn't helping.

She wandered back over to the edge of the stream and picked up the largest rock she could find. She went back to the center of the stream, and held it out in front of her. Peri was freaking out, begging her not to do this, but Elsa ignored her again because she didn't know what she was saying.

Once Elsa dropped the rock, the ice cracked rapidly. Elsa tumbled in the water and also freaked out. She tried pulling herself back out. Although her magic reinforced the ice around so it didn't break, (though inconveniently it hadn't done this when she dropped the rock) she couldn't actually pull herself out. She struggled, but to no avail. Ice formed under her feet, but that didn't help much, either.

Elsa was crying, begging for help. She wouldn't have cared if the Duke's guards found her like this, as long as they saved her. Periwinkle was trying to pull her out, but really she wasn't making much difference. Peri frowned, wishing Elsa would stop splashing around. She tried to dodge the water droplets, but they hit her wings anyway. Eventually she fell into the frigid water, and her wings immediately became waterlogged. Periwinkle felt her wings pulling her down, under the water's surface. She struggled, chiming at Elsa for help, though Elsa was also calling for help.

Once Elsa noticed that the fairy was under the water, she unconsciously scooped her up in one of her hands. Although this was good because Periwinkle was no longer actively drowning, it was a bad idea because now Elsa was only clinging to the edge with one hand, and she was slowly losing her grip. If they didn't get out soon, Elsa would eventually let go and they'd both drown.

Peri briefly felt her talent leave her, though she didn't know why. She slumped in Elsa's hand, because she'd almost passed out when drowning. Elsa cried for help, and just as she felt like she was losing her grip, she saw a figure heading towards her.

Okay, I'm pretty sure the last part went way too quickly, but for some reason I had a hard time making that part long... I don't know why. I may go back and make the second part longer, though I'm not really sure how I'd do that...again I had a hard time with that part. Also, I may be really busy over the next couple weeks, so my next chapter may not be up for a while. The worst case scenario is it won't be up until mid-May, but I seriously doubt I'll be that busy.

Hope you enjoyed this, and I hope to update before the worst case scenario would imply.