Sorry for the long update time. I'd posted another version of this chapter earlier, but I deleted it because it was rather bad. So for the twenty-nine people who read the version of chapter 10 that was up on May 11 and up to 3ish on the 12th, please forget all about that first version and read this instead. The rest of you don't have to worry, because this version is the only one you need to know about. The earlier version didn't move the story forward at all, so I tried to move the story forward a bit in this version.
Thanks to each and every one of you who reviewed, favorited, followed or even just read this story. It always makes my day when I see an email from Fanfiction in my inbox telling me one of these things happened. (I used to respond to people individually with P.M.s but I couldn't think of anything to write except 'thanks', which is sort of lame, so I figured I wouldn't spam anyone's inbox with awkward messages).
I'm honestly surprised at how many views this story has gotten (3,523 and counting! :) The most of all my stories) because I was expecting less than 30, and I would've been happy if just one person liked this story. Thanks again for your support, I've gotten a confidence boost due to it. It makes me really happy that people are reading this.
By the way, if any of you have tips/suggestions on how I can improve my writing, I'd be glad to hear them... that is one of the points of Fanfiction, after all. Also another thing I'm not sure I've mentioned: So in this fic I've made a lot of references to Lizzy Griffiths/Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, which takes place in the 1900s in England. So for the sake of this story, just pretend that Arendelle is some kingdom that is hidden from the rest of the world, so Arendelle doesn't know about countries that actually exist (England- since I've mentioned London-, France, USA, etc.) and they don't know about Arendelle.
So last chapter, I decided to give Elsa/Anna/Tink/Peri a bit of a break, and I ended it with a relatively happy ending- I didn't want every chapter to end with them down in the dumps and/or in danger. There will be plenty of that to come. Also, I hope the whole ice-coat thing wasn't too unbelievable, especially the part about it actually keeping Tink warm... that's the part I'm most worried about.
It was a lot easier to see now that it was not snowing so hard. Elsa's accidental storm had lessened both because she wasn't as anxious and scared as before, and also because her magic had somewhat exhausted itself. One could now notice that there was a sun behind the clouds, though it didn't seem like the clouds would move and let sunlight reflect off the snow anytime soon. The day was still rather cloudy and gray.
Still holding hands, Anna and Elsa got up from where they had been sitting in the snow. Elsa felt much better now that she had eaten something aside from snow, and wasn't worried about getting hungry and not having anything to eat. Not to mention that she was with Anna again.
Peri was back to her usual bubbly self again, smiling and, for the first time that day, adopting a relaxed posture. She chatted with Tink, mainly asking her twin to fill her in on what had happened when they were separated, what Tink had gone through in order to find her twin. Peri seriously doubted that Tink had almost drowned trying to get a drink of water (which was really ironic anyway). Tink confirmed that this was a correct assumption; she had not almost drowned.
Tink had said, however, that she'd almost died of the cold, and Peri realized that, as a frost-fairy, she was rather lucky in that regard- the temperature could drop well below freezing and Peri wouldn't mind a bit. However, she shuddered at the thought of almost losing her sister. If Tink had died, Peri's life would have been torn apart, and it would've been worse because the last interaction they would've had would be when Peri had being flying away from Tink, telling her sister to leave her alone. Good thing Anna had come and saved Tink from the cold, Peri thought.
Peri than fluttered up so she hovered in front of Anna's face, pulling Tink up with her. Peri wasn't ready to let go of Tink just yet. It appeared Anna and Elsa had similar ideas, which made sense. Losing your sister was scary enough, but it was probably a lot worse for little kids. Not that Tink or Peri would actually know that, as they had never been kids. Fairies were born as young adults.
Looking at Anna straight in the eye, Peri whispered "Thanks for saving my sister, Anna." Anna then thanked Peri for helping Tink save Elsa. The slightly touching and slightly awkward moment was broken by Elsa inquiring "What'd she say? What'd she say?"
"She said 'Thanks for saving Tink'." Anna translated. Elsa nodded, and turned to Tink and started to say something, before stopping and asking "Wait... what happened?" At this point, Anna launched into another one of her confusing stories that was full of random tangents and remarks and bizarre words like "tickle-bump". The only reason Tink had any clue what the girl was talking about was because she had experienced the whole thing too. Even knowing what had happened didn't help much- it still gave Tink a headache, though not nearly close to the one she'd gotten when Anna had been explaining how she'd gotten lost in the woods.
Periwinkle was staring at Anna with her mouth hanging open, looking like she was shocked and about to burst out laughing at the same time. She looked at Tink for some sort of explanation, and Tink mouthed "I'll tell you later." (Tink had breezed over the details when she'd told Peri earlier, so Peri still wasn't entirely sure what had happened).
Perhaps it was because she'd been listening to Anna for the last few years, but Elsa seemed to have no problem making sense of her little sister's confusing explanations. She nodded as Anna rambled on, and finally cut her sister off and pointed out that they should be heading home.
"How?" Anna asked. There was an awkward silence after that. For one thing, they had no clue where they were. This was mostly because half the time they'd been running from the Duke's guards it had been snowing so hard that they hadn't been able to see much of anything (which was why they'd lost each other in the first place), so they couldn't really look for familiar landmarks. Finally Elsa admitted "I don't know how."
Tink and Peri watched this exchange, and then looked at each other, realizing they were in the same situation. Now that the fairy twins were reunited, there was no reason for them to continue roaming the woods. In fact, they realized, they should probably head back to the fairy-camp. All the other fairies were probably worried about them. Of course, that was assuming that the other fairies were still at the fairy-camp. It seemed less and less likely that they would be, the more Tink thought about it. After all, there had been a huge blizzard, which was very dangerous for the warm-fairies. But they wouldn't know if the other fairies had left the fairy-camp until they checked.
However, Peri and Tink were in the same situation as Elsa and Anna- they were utterly lost. They could always fly away and look for the camp in the air, but then they'd have to just abandon the girls in the woods. It would be rather ungrateful, considering Anna had saved Tink's life.
It would be nice, Tink thought, if they had enough Pixie Dust to fly Anna and Elsa home (wherever it was- Anna had said it was a castle, but Tink still didn't believe it) and be able to fly back to the fairy-camp or Neverland. However, their bag of spare Pixie Dust had been almost completely used getting Elsa out of the hole, as it hadn't held much Pixie Dust at all. They supposed that if the dumped all of Zarina's edible Pixie Dust on the girls, they could fly for a little bit- the edible Pixie Dust didn't have much flying-power at all, but the fairies needed to save it for food in case they were stuck on the Mainland for a while.
So it looked like they were going to stick around with Anna and Elsa for a bit more, until they managed to find their way back on foot (or, rather, the two fairies would fly while the girls walked, but they'd fly alongside the girls instead of leaving them behind- or they'd ride on the girls' shoulders).
Meanwhile, Periwinkle was thinking about her frost-talent problems, a subject which kept coming back to her, especially since she had found out the reason for them. So, apparently she only got to use them when Elsa wasn't, which wasn't exactly fair. But she was worried, most of all because over the years, her powers had grown weaker (though it wasn't like they were pathetically weak or anything, though she suspected that if this kept happening eventually they would be) and she felt it was safe to assume that Elsa's had been getting stronger. Peri sighed. That meant that eventually Elsa would have full control of the powers and she would be left without her frost-talent- and that would totally stink. What Peri wanted, more than anything, was to be able to make snow when Elsa did, and to have her own 'set' of powers instead of having to share with Elsa (and get the worse part of the deal).
As Peri was thinking, while holding Tink's hand and sitting on Elsa's and Anna's clasped hands, Anna and Elsa were trying to make progress with getting home. They trudged through the woods, though it wasn't a tired sort of trudging, because they had plenty of energy due to the edible Pixie Dust. They were looking for some sort of clue for how to get home, because they needed some. If only they could find the path they had followed before, the one that had been made by someone moving snow out away from them as they walked.
But they didn't see any sign of it, because Anna and Tink had abandoned it when they'd heard Elsa and Peri calling for help. Maybe, thought Elsa, if the kept wandering around, they'd get lucky and stumble across it, or some other recognizable thing. After wandering around for a bit, they came across yet another small hill, which seemed vaguely promising. After all, they had climbed and descended many hills that day.
They hiked up it, Anna grabbing onto things like tree branches as she went so she wouldn't slip on any ice that might be there. She was glad that she did use handholds, because she felt her feet slide out from under her a couple times, and Elsa had to help her sister regain her footing. Elsa herself hadn't slipped on her ice since she was very young- she vaguely remembered it happening once when she was playing tag with her father.
Once they'd reached the top of the mini-hill, Anna surveyed the landscape, trying to see if she recognized any of it. She thought she'd seen a certain tree earlier- one which split halfway up so it looked like it was two trees sharing a trunk, Hopefully she did, because they were apparently going in the right direction. Tink had noticed that Peri and Elsa had been to their right when they'd arrived, so they'd left with the hole-in-the-ice-on-the-stream to their left.
Anna and Elsa slid down the hill the fun way, again to Tink's slight annoyance though Peri was laughing. They got up, and promptly realized that they still had no idea where they were and didn't recognize anything in the woods around them.
Maybe we made a wrong turn Peri thought. She was almost positive that they hadn't been in this section of the woods before. Peri had experience with navigating wintery woods (after all she lived in a place called the Winter Woods), but it was a lot harder now because she wasn't familiar with the woods surrounding Arendelle.
Considering that they hadn't made any progress so far and had just gotten lost in another part of the woods that none of them recognized, Tink suggested that they reevaluate their strategy for finding their way out of the woods.
On foot, they were making no progress whatsoever. But maybe they'd do better in the air, though Tink grudgingly remembered that they couldn't all fly (because they'd have to use the edible Pixie Dust and then they wouldn't have any food), and she and Peri weren't about to ditch Anna and Elsa in the woods (she'd come to that decision earlier, and she knew, without needing to ask, that Peri would agree about the sticking-with-Elsa-and-Anna part).
So, Anna and Elsa would have to go on foot. That left either Tink or Peri for flying. Peri had suggested that one of them fly up for reconnaissance/surveying above the trees, where they'd hopefully have a better view for how to get out of there, and then rejoin the group knowing which direction to go. Tink thought this was brilliant, seeing as all the fairies had picked a spot for the fairy-camp from an aerial view, so maybe they'd recognize it from an aerial view. And they could figure out which direction they could go in order to get Elsa and Anna home. Now that it wasn't snowing as hard and they could see this idea could actually work.
Elsa asked Anna (who had become her fairy-translator) what they were saying, and Anna had replied "they're going to do re-con-see-ance". Being unfamiliar with the word reconnaissance, Anna had mispronounced it in the cute way that little kids do. The fairies had than explained it in a kid-friendly way, saying that they'd fly up, look around, and (hopefully) have a better idea of where to go. The fairies specifically avoided making promises of success when they explained it, in case they failed- so the little girls would be disappointed or angry at them.
The one flaw they saw in that idea was that it was quite possible the fairy who was doing reconnaissance/surveying wouldn't be able to find the group again and would get lost. This was to be avoided at all costs, for obvious reasons. The thought of this happening almost made them give up on the idea, but Tink pointed out that sometimes you had to take a risk in order to accomplish something. The others were still unsure, and thought about how to make sure the surveying fairy didn't get lost.
Elsa had suggested that they tie a string to whichever fairy was going to fly, so they could reel them in. However, only Anna had string, which was in her coat pocket, and it was only about six inches long; in other words, it was useless in that situation.
The fairies could leave a trail of Pixie Dust if they wanted to, but they didn't want to waste any of it. However, that suggestion had made Peri pause, thinking, and murmur "snow...". Using her frost-talent, Peri shot a large, distinctive snowflake in the air. However, it didn't float to the ground, it stayed hovering in midair.
This was a common frost-fairy trick, and it ignored natural laws (much like water-talent fairies shaping water into balls or light-talent fairies carrying beams of light or rainbows). It was also the solution to their problem.
Peri became the designated scout, since she could make a trail of hovering snowflakes as she flew up. After surveying the woods from above the trees, she'd follow it back while getting rid of the hovering snowflakes behind her. By following the trail back, she'd be able to find the others, who stayed in the same spot while she was gone.
This method was better than wandering around because they knew they were going in the right direction, but it didn't take any less time.
There were some complicated parts, such as when some obstacle such as the river or a mini-cliff prevented them from going in a straight path. They had to work their way along these things, which was annoying because Peri would leave every couple minutes to check where they were going, leaving the rest to have to wait for a bit as she did so. Sometimes she'd leave the path of hovering snowflakes so Tink could go up after her so they could get a second opinion. All that waiting time added up, coupled with the fact that little kids didn't walk that quickly meant that their progress was pretty slow.
As they were walking, Elsa heard a congested-sounding sniffling. She looked over at Anna, who looked rather cold.
Meanwhile, Tink's teeth were chattering. Peri glanced at her twin and noticed this. "Maybe we should build a fire," Peri suggested. Tink pulled at her bangs and said "I'm fine." in a somewhat annoyed voice because they were making really slow progress already. However, Tink's nose also began to run after a couple minutes- despite the fact both Tink and Anna were wearing coats, the cold weather was still affecting them, whereas their sisters were immune to the cold, and even thrived in it.
However, Anna had been listening to them, and had said she thought a fire was a good idea- after all the fire would be for her, too. Of course, Elsa sided with Anna and Peri, so it was everybody against Tink. Elsa and Anna had seen plenty of fires made in the castle, so they knew how to do it, though their parents had wisely never let them do it before. It was simple really. Get a bunch of sticks, rub two of them together until you got a spark, and then burn the whole pile. .
The group began looking for sticks. There were an abundant number of sticks that had broken off of trees due to the weight of the snow Elsa had made, though it took about ten minutes to find enough because a lot of them were buried in the snow. They dumped them in a pile in a well concealed spot (Tink's suggestion- one could never be too cautious), and Elsa took two and started to rub them together (there was now way she'd let Anna do it, and the sticks were about twice as tall as Tink or Peri, so she was really the only one who could). However, the snow had made the sticks wet, and as hard as Elsa tried to make a spark, nothing would happen.
"You need to wait for the sticks to dry." Tink said in a slightly curt voice. Anna passed this information on to Elsa, who stared at the sticks glumly, as if they would dry themselves in order to make her happy. However, considering that they were still lying in the snow, they didn't get any dryer. But as long as they could use two to produce a spark, that hopefully wouldn't matter much.
Elsa clutched the two "spark sticks" to herself, so they would stay out of the snow. The group ended up sitting there not doing anything as they waited. Anna and Tink were both shivering and sniffling while Elsa and Peri were feeling sorry for them.
Finally the sticks dried enough and Elsa managed to get a spark, and she set the pile of sticks ablaze. Soon, a nice little fire was roaring and Anna and Tink basked in its warmth. However, Tink was wishing that they'd made better progress, and she flopped on her back and stared at the sky. On the other hand, there was something to be said for relaxing- especially considering that she was getting warmer.
Peri approached Tink and sat down next to her twin. After seeing that Elsa and Anna were engaged in their own conversation, Peri figured it would be a good time to have her own conversation with Tink without Anna listening in. After a bit of hesitation, Peri stated, while glancing meaningfully at Elsa "Well, we've found out the reason for my talent-problem."
Tink felt she knew where this was going, and she said gently "So now you want it to be fixed more than ever, huh?" Peri nodded, but she said "But how would we do that? I don't want Elsa to lose her powers. I wish we could use them by ourselves and not have our powers be connected." She than added sadly "But that's just an impossible wish that will never happen."
"Don't say that yet." Tink said "There might be a way. I'm pretty sure someone's done it before... I'll think about it." Tink said that she was pretty sure she remembered some fairy mentioning, in passing, that they'd made someone complete. Though for the life of her Tink couldn't remember any more than that.
Peri didn't want to get her hopes up, but it was really hard not to. She sat and simply thought until they were ready to move out again, after eventually putting the fire out. Once she was back to surveying the woods, Peri gladly stopped worrying about her talent-problems, because her mind was on other things. Things went smoothly for about twenty minutes before they went through yet another catastrophe.
When she was conferring with Tink on how to get back at one point, Anna pointed up and gleefully said "Look! A bird!" Both fairies looked up uneasily, and their uneasiness instantly turned to dread and terror when they saw a hawk. Even worse, it had obviously seen them and was staring at them with a hungry expression.
Immediately, both fairies made a beeline to get inside Anna's coat, where they would (hopefully) be protected. This would be a really good time to have an scouting-talent with us, Tink thought as she ducked down into Anna's coat, with Peri right beside her or maybe an animal-talent, so they could get this stupid bird to go away.
Fawn, who was an animal-talent fairy, had once told Tink that staying still in the face of a predator was sometimes the best thing to do, but Tink was pretty sure that didn't apply in her current situation. If they had just stayed there, the hawk would've dive-bombed them and snatched them up in its talons before carrying them off and later eating them. To be honest, though, Tink was pretty sure Fawn had been talking about bears when she'd said to stay still, but Tink had only been half-listening then because she'd been tinkering with some Lost Things at the time.
Not that the hawk wasn't trying to grab them now. It had plunged towards Anna, because the fairies were hiding in her coat. Anna had shrieked, annoyed at the stupid bird that was thrashing around in her face. She tried to shoo the hawk away by hitting it as it slashed at the outer layer of her coat with its beak and talons. Fortunately, her coat was apparently hard for it to rip, since it only managed to get a bit of stuffing to poke out in a couple places. It was also fortunate for Peri and Tink because they hadn't gotten snatched by it yet.
Inside the darkness of Anna's coat, Tink and Peri exchanged terrified looks as they heard the hawk trying to get them. Both fairies tried to flatten themselves as much as possible against Anna, hoping it would make it harder for the hawk to succeed in snatching them. The fabric was constantly going at them and had brushed up against them numerous times, the hawk's claw undoubtedly behind it, groping around for the fairies. This just wasn't their day, both the fairies thought. Actually, that was an understatement- this was the second life-threatening experience both of them had experienced in that day, and it wasn't even noon (in the last hour or so, Peri had almost drowned and was trying to avoid being eaten by a hawk). Finally, the hawk stopped trying to rip it's way through Anna's coat. Peri was about to sigh with relief when Anna shrieked angrily, only to be drowned out by the fairies' screams.
The hawk had stuck its curved beak down Anna's coat collar, and was snapping away for the fairies, who tried to descend further down inside Anna's coat. To their horror, they found they could not, and the hawk's beak was barely missing them. Tink accidentally made the mistake of trying to slap the beak away, only to have the hawk grab her arm.
"Let go of me you stupid bird!" Tink yelled out as the hawk began to pull its beak out of Anna's coat, pulling Tink along with it Peri gasped and grabbed Tink around the waist, but all that accomplished was Tink's arm getting painfully tugged (and Peri was being pulled up too). After that, somehow, the hawk had managed to get Tink's entire torso in its beak, with Peri dangling below, refusing to let go of her twin sister in the unlikely hope that somehow the hawk would let go.
The hawk's beak emerged from Anna's coat, carting the two fairies with it. When Anna saw her friends in the hawk's clutches, she redoubled her efforts at hitting the hawk with her fists. The hawk made odd noises every time Anna's fist made contact with it, though it still held on to Tink, and Peri also kept her hold on Tink. Elsa, after unsuccessfully trying to scare the hawk away with ice, had rushed forward and seized the bird's legs, preventing it from flying away. The hawk flapped its wings angrily but didn't rise in the air.
Tink was struggling as she attempted to force the hawk's beak open so she could get her torso out of it. It was really ironic that earlier that morning when Tink was freezing to death she would have welcomed being in this proximity with a hawk. Peri, meanwhile, was almost horizontal as she tried to pull her sister out of the hawk's beak- Peri's feet were rested on the front of the bottom part of its beak, and she was pushing off of that point as she pulled at Tink. The hawk, meanwhile was doing all it could to not lose its prey.
Elsa struggled to keep her grip on the hawk's legs, and she accidentally caused ice to form on its legs. She got the bird out of Anna's face by crouching on the ground and trying to pin it down there. This proved to be harder than she thought it would be, and she was worried that the hawk would break free any moment and fly off with her new friends.
Anna stopped pounding the hawk with her fists and instead launched herself on top of the hawk before she resumed pummeling it, shouting "Let go! Let go!" When Anna had landed on the hawk's back, the wind had been knocked out of it and it furiously coughed out the fairies before laboriously regaining its breath.
Tink and Peri landed in the snow away from the hawk, surprised. Not that they were complaining, they were glad to not be in that hawk's grasp any longer. However, they were uneasy, because if it got loose, it could still get them. They flew towards Anna, though instead of going inside her coat, they went in one of the pockets, and Anna closed it above them. So the hawk would have a really hard time getting them out of that pocket. On the downside, it was really stuffy inside Anna's coat pocket, and they shared the cramped space with a bit of string, a couple acorn buttons and a tiny baby-doll that probably went with a dollhouse.
Anna and Elsa looked at each other, unsure of what to do next. The fairies were safe for now, but as soon as they let the hawk go, it would most likely start attacking again. But they couldn't just sit there and hold the dumb bird forever. They swapped places, and Anna held the bird down as Elsa shot ice at it. The hawk got really dizzy as it was repeatedly thwacked on the head with ice (inside Anna's pocket, Peri felt her talent leave), and the hawk eventually passed out (though it wasn't seriously hurt).
From inside Anna's coat pocket came a muffled "Is it gone?" from the fairies. Anna replied "It's sleeping", not quite getting the concept of something being knocked unconscious. Elsa elaborated and explained it was knocked out as Anna opened her coat pocket.
Peri and Tink rocketed upwards, glad to be out of the stuffy pocket and no longer in danger of being snatched by a hawk. They returned to Anna's pocket after a bit just in case another hawk appeared (after all, they didn't want to have to go through all that again, and it would be stupid of them to not be cautious about the possibility of there being other hawks). However they had their heads and arms sticking out of the pocket so they could breathe and use their hands, but still be able to hide inside it quickly.
However, they were back to where they had started, seeing as they were trying to find their way on the ground again. After half an hour, without any other hawks showing up, Peri eventually returned to scouting. Only now Tink went up with her to keep her eyes out for hawks.
After about an hour and a half of the walking-and-stopping-to-survey routine, in which only forty-five of those minutes had actually been spent walking, and the rest had been spent surveying and debating/arguing about which direction to go, Peri finally spotted the spot where the fairy-camp had been.
Sadly, Peri and Tink had been right when they guessed that all the fairies went back to Neverland once the storm started. Peri this out to Tink, who groaned. Sure they'd guessed this would happen, but it was still annoying. Now they were unsure of what to do. They still should get Anna and Elsa home, but they really wanted to go back to Neverland. Peri now scanned the sky for stars, simply because she wanted the comfort of knowing the portal to her home was near.
Once she reached the skies, she glanced around. Fairies couldn't see the stars in the daylight, but they could feel their presence and knew where they were. Only, one of the stars felt dormant. Peri was tempted to scream in frustration when she realized it was the one star that mattered: the second star to the right, the portal to Neverland.
Tink groaned when she realized they had no way to get to Neverland. How long were they going to be stuck in Arendelle?
So, now the fairies know they're stuck there (though you guys already knew that). So that sort of moves the story forward- in a couple chapters it'll move forward a lot and hopefully be really exciting.
I wanted to liven things up a bit, and I figured a hawk attack is exciting (though I doubt the fairies would think so)- er, that part could have had incorrect information about hawks, but I figured if I'm writing about fairies and magic nobody will care if hawks are supposed to migrate or whatever- not to mention, it would've ruined that part if all the hawks had migrated (do hawks even migrate anyway? I tried looking it up but it was all about specific types of hawks and it wasn't helpful). I've been really undecided about whether the hawk attack part is a good idea... it seems kind of random, but the chapter was boring without it.
I was going to have a part about the Duke's guards in this chapter, but this is long enough, so they might be in next chapter, or I might just skip it...
Next chapter is going to include a bit about the fairies in Neverland trying to get the second star to the right to let people in again by forcing it open... Um, if any of you have any ideas for how they'd do that, I'd really appreciate them, because I'm kinda stumped. (*Awkward pause and crickets chirping*)
So some comments/suggestions on how I can improve my writing would be nice :)
Things will pick up soon and it will be more of an adventure, but I can't just jump forward to when things get more exciting because there's some things the characters have to decide first. Hang in there!