Disney's Tinker Bell in Storybrooke
A Disney Fairies / Once Upon A Time Crossover
Season 1, Episode 10, Chapter 13

THE MAINLAND (The Late Victorian Era)

Trapped inside the attic of a pub Gliss, Periwinkle, Spike and Slush waited. The Peregrine Falcon which had invaded the London airspace had not yet yielded. It displayed great patience, sitting atop a perch watching for a wayward fairy to pick off.

Gliss talked almost nonstop, blathering on about everything and nothing. Spike paced relentlessly in midair frustrated with the situation and having no way of resolving it. Meanwhile Slush maintained his calm while sitting cross-legged and chanting repeatedly.

"Ommmh… Ommmh," he droned on.

"Oh would you stop, already," Spike admonished. Ironically his chanting, which was intended to help Slush center himself, was driving her mad.

"Why don't you join me?" he asked her. Spike glared at him.

Periwinkle, on the other hand, spent the time constructively by practicing her frost shapes. "I can do this," she encouraged herself. She tried to form a complex shape in delicate ice crystals. It would come together nicely, but then would fall apart at the very last second.

"Oh…, I can't do this!"

"Don't harsh your mellow, man" Slush advised. "Stay calm and keep trying."

Periwinkle took in a deep breath or two and began anew. As before it fell apart just as it was coming together. Slush, seeing the despair in her face, sat next to her. He made a sculpture of Peri from ice showing how frustrated she looked. Unfortunately, this backfired. Instead of teaching her to maintain her calm it made Periwinkle more upset. Slush had mastered this amazing ability, so why couldn't she?

"Get a detailed image in your mind, then make the frost take the shape that you see," Slush advised.

Working from that suggestions she tried to form an image and then recreate it in frost. She still failed to hold the frost together. At first she couldn't understand what the difficulty was. After many more failed attempts, though, it dawned on her. Every complex image in her mind was not fully formed. If she couldn't see the shape in its entirety it wouldn't hold together. She confided in Slush what she had learned.

"Now that you know the problem," Slush explained, "the solution will present itself."

"But that is the problem," she answered him. "I can't put all the details together in my head. I'm always missing something. I can never see every single detail."

"What are you thinking about?"

"What I've seen in the Winter Woods," she replied. "Or here on the mainland. No, that's not entirely true. I'm thinking about what I'm missing by being a winter fairy. I want to know what it's like in the warm season. I want to see those beautiful colors. I don't want to feel like a prisoner anymore."

"You must first accept who you are," Slush told her.

"But I don't want to accept who I am, I want to be something else," Periwinkle answered. "I know that sounds awful."

He shook his head. "We all want to know what lies beyond."

"You do? All of you?"

"Yeah, Peri," Gliss told her.

Even Spike admitted that she was initially frustrated with being confined to the winter season. "Learning to appreciate who we are grounds us."

"Right, man," Slush continued. "How can you grow beyond yourself if you don't what 'yourself' is?"

Periwinkle smiled. That actually made sense. But how could she do that when she forever longed to be what she wasn't? The smile faded from her lips. Periwinkle drifted to the air vent in the tall, pointed gable. She noticed that the blue sky was turning a deep crimson. It was evening now. More than ever she felt depressed. She was lost, not able to live comfortably in her own world and denied entry into the world just across the border. What was she to do?

As she pondered her fate, Periwinkle heard something from the street below. It was singing. The very same singing she heard the previous night. The children were nearby, caroling.

Silent night. Holy night.

Oh that song, those voices, it made her feel at peace. She listened intently. Her mind began to drift away. She pictured her winter world. For years she felt only anger, frustration and despair when looking at her own realm. But as the children sang and the song wended its way into her mind and soul, Periwinkle didn't see everything she hated. For the first time, she could find what was good about her season.

Snowflakes. Each was unique and distinct. No two were ever alike. And they each looked beautiful.

The bison. Huge and powerful creatures. Yet graceful in their strides through the snow.

Snowy Owls. Enormous predatory birds that helped the fairies. They were utterly majestic in flight.

Ferns. Plants with the most bizarre flat leaves that looked like dozens of green icicles sticking out from each stem.

Pine trees. Towering trees with needles for leaves and which the humans used for their holiday.

Periwinkle then thought of the pond where she and her friends gathered every year after returning from bringing winter to ice skate and have snowball fights. The nearby slopes allowed them to experience the freefall sensation while sledding. Periwinkle always shouted with such glee whenever she went sledding with her friends.

Her friends. Oh her friends. Where would she be without them? They accepted her, helped to teach the skill behind her talent. They gave her a shoulder to cry on, a hug to lift her spirits and a smile while sharing in her hobbies.

"I know who I am now," Periwinkle murmured to herself confidently. "I am a frost talent and my home is the Winter Woods." Peri realized she could yearn for the warm seasons without divorcing herself from her own world. She closed her eyes and in her mind's eye imagined what she intended to form out of frost. She put all of her effort into the tiniest details. Then she set about pulling moisture from the air around her. She froze it into ice crystals one upon the other. Soon what she beheld in her mind was now a fully formed construct made entirely of frost.

"Look! I did it!" Periwinkle announced. Slush, Gliss and Spike all looked at her. Spike and Gliss stood eyes as wide as saucers. Slush smiled and nodded his approval. They were looking at a perfect recreation of a winter bison. Every detail from its horns to its individual strands of hair was rendered in delicate ice crystals.

The three companions were floored. Even the normally placid Slush let out a "whoa!" when he first glimpsed Periwinkle's construct.

Peri smiled. A moment ago she found her place in the world. Now she felt as if she had fully been accepted among her peers. The conflict within her heart was gone. The desire she had to visit the other side of the border was no longer a distraction. It was now a healthy dream. Something grand to which she could aspire.

~O~

A few minutes later the all clear was sounded. The falcon had abandoned its roost. Quickly the fairies regrouped outdoors. It was getting very late. The falcon had held them hostage for the entire day. They wouldn't have time to sleep before returning to their overnight duties. Snowflake, the Minister of Winter, was working with the talent guild overseers to get around that. Exhaustion would be an issue. Most of the winter fairies were too nervous to sleep comfortably and were visibly drained.

No sooner had all the fairies checked in did the falcon emerge from its hiding place. The peregrine had flown away, but had not given up on the hunt. Instead, it let the fairies exit on the pretense that it was safe. Now they were out in the open again. Exposed to its high speed hunting dive.

The peregrine falcon rocketed down from the darkening sky and careened toward a group of fairies among whom were Gliss, Spike, Slush and Periwinkle.

"Back inside, back inside," Spike yelled. She and her friends tried to duck and cover, all except Periwinkle who just stayed put. Spike reasoned she was petrified with fear again. Peri was the youngest of the group and had little experience with predators. She reached out to grab her friend and pull her away from the diving raptor. Peri, however, did not yield.

Instead, Periwinkle ascended to meet the diving falcon. She closed her eyes and began to concentrate. The falcon was almost upon her. Only one or two seconds remained before she became its meal.

"Peri! Fly!" Gliss shouted. She did not comply. In what seemed to be a moment of sheer madness Periwinkle lifted her arms to the sky. In a burst of fairy dust Periwinkle grasped the moisture from the air and crafted a giant bird made entirely of frost. It was a gigantic Snowy Owl with wings fully spread and appearing as menacing as she could make it.

The very site of this massive predator appearing out of nowhere frightened the Peregrine Falcon. It pulled out of its dive and veered away from the giant frost bird, flying away as fast as its wings could carry it.

Spike was left slack jawed. Gliss grabbed Periwinkle and hugged her with great delight. "That! Was! AMAZING!" she crowed. "How did you do that?"

Slush put a hand on Periwinkle's shoulder and nodded his approval. "Way to go, man," he told her.

Snowflake, the Minister of Winter, approached Periwinkle with eyes as big as saucers. "Did you create that form? That… that… thing?"

"Uh…, yes, Minister," Periwinkle answered, almost reluctantly.

"That was foolish, reckless and dangerous," Snowflake berated. "It was also bold, heroic and astounding. You have saved us from that creature without causing it harm. A true mark of a fairy in tune with nature. Well done, young one. Well done."

~O~

STORYBROOKE, MAINE

"Whoa! That was intense!" Penny remarked. She, Tina and Vidia were sitting in front a laptop watching the video recorded during the downhill excursion. They had just viewed the part where Vidia barely missed impacting the vehicle that emerged from the intersection.

"You were so close," Tina gasped. "How did you do it? How did you not hit it?"

"Yeah!" Penny joined in, "how?"

"Sorry, girls," Vidia replied smugly, "it's an ancient talent guild secret."

"Awe!"

"What?"

"Boo!"

"Tell us!"

"Yeah, we want to know."

"Okay, okay. It was simple. I leaned over," she answered. "It made the racer turn harder."

Both girls just stared at each other, mouths agape. "Did you put that in there?" Tina asked Penny.

"No. Did you?" Penny asked Tina.

"No."

The girls stared at Vidia and exclaimed, "Awesome!"

"Yeah, we didn't engineer that in," Tina told her.

"How did you know?" Penny asked.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," she told them with a wry grin. In truth, Vidia simply got lucky, but she wasn't about to tell them that. She preferred to maintain the mystery of her success. Perhaps the most satisfying thing for Vidia is that for the next few days both girls followed her around like she was a god, pestering her for this elusive information.

She enjoyed it thoroughly.

~O~

THE WINTER WOODS (The Late Victorian Era)

Flush with her success Periwinkle returned home and proceeded to form some of the most amazing frost shapes the winter fairies had ever seen. She committed to memory the tiniest details of the plants and animals of her realm and replicated them with exquisite accuracy in frost. In her hands, frost became as much a medium of sculpture as ice was to a glacier talent. Above all her creativity was now unleashed and she astonished everyone with her vivid and ingenious imagination.

Lord Milori, who typically maintained a serious and dour countenance, was himself surprised when his own lips cracked a smile. He was pleased for the young one. She had arrived with great potential but never seemed able to live up to it. Now she had finally unlocked her talent to its fullest and their appeared to be no ceiling to what she could accomplish.

Thanks for reading. Up next, Episode 11, the Superbowl and a hint at a major shake up for our favorite fairies.