Rani Alone

by hybridempress

Summary:

Rani's favorite thing in the whole world is to go on adventures with her very best friend Brother Dove, but when their adventuring leads them straight into the path of a hawk, Rani gets swept away and ends up all alone. In trying to find her way back to Brother Dove and to the Home Tree, Rani ends up making a new friend in an unexpected place.

Notes:

Do people even read Disney Fairies/Pixie Hollow fanfic??? Anyways, this is a little request for one of my very best friends and it is VERY catered to her tastes. If anyone else happens to stumble upon it, I hope you enjoy it. It's just a small story but I tried my best to capture the spirit of the old books.

If you liked this fic and are interested in requesting something of your own, I'd love to have your follows on my twitter @hybrid_empress or Instagram @hybridempresswriting

When Rani really thought about it, having her own wings had been nice, once upon a time, but she couldn’t say that she missed them too dearly—especially on days like today. Days where she had no responsibility, no chores, no errands, and no plans. Days where she could leave and wouldn’t be missed until dinnertime. Days where she could soar with the clouds, all but doing laps around the island mounted on Brother Dove’s back. Days where Neverland would give her a myriad of new things to discover. 

 

While some of the Never Fairies felt pity for her, thinking that her freedom had been taken away from her, Rani felt completely the opposite. She was freer than ever before thanks to Brother Dove. For one thing—and this was the biggest thing, really—she could swim. For another thing, she could fly even when she was wet. And she could fly much higher, much faster, and much farther than she used to be able to on her own, and she never had to worry about running out of dust. It was a pretty sweet deal as far as she was concerned, and Beck had never said anything to her about Brother Dove disliking the job, so she really didn’t have any reason to be unhappy with the situation. 

 

No, she and Brother Dove were quite close. In fact, Rani could say with the utmost certainty that Brother Dove was her best friend. He was always there for her, no matter what. Whenever she wanted to go for a fly, she never had to fly alone. She always had someone there to talk to, even if she still hadn’t one-hundred-percent figured out how to interpret what he tried to say back to her. And, best of all, Brother Dove was the only one who never made it a big deal when her emotions got the better of her. She knew that all of her other friends were just trying to make sure she was okay, but really, she cried all the time, and it was very overwhelming to have everyone asking if she was okay—or worse, treating her like she was being overdramatic—whenever her tears slipped out. Brother Dove just listened, and when she wanted to be left alone, he left her alone. 

 

“Now, where should we fly to today, my dear friend?” Rani asked, leaning over Brother Dove’s shoulder and peering down at the beautiful greenness below them. She wondered how long it would take her to discover every part of Neverland. She wondered if that was even possible. 

 

Brother Dove gave a soft trill in response and began to veer towards the lagoon. Rani laughed and smiled at how well Brother Dove knew her. But as much as she would love to play with the mermaids today, she really did want to explore something new. Besides, there was only so much of her that the mermaids would tolerate, and she was pretty sure she was about to surpass their limit for the month, or something like that. 

 

“Oh, not today, Brother Dove,” she said softly, hoping that he understood that she wasn’t disappointed in him or anything of the sort. “I do think the mermaids are about fed up with me right now. Let’s try somewhere else today.”

 

Brother Dove craned his neck towards her and tilted his head quizzically, giving her a questioning trill. “ Where? ” she could almost hear him say. 

 

Rani cupped her chin with her hand and gazed toward the sky, though she realized that was quite silly of her to do while trying to figure out where she wanted to go below. Eventually, she came up with an idea. “How about we just circle the island a few times, and if we see anything that looks mysterious or interesting, we’ll go check it out.”

 

Brother Dove cooed in approval, then began to soar a little higher so that they would have a better view of the entire island. Rani didn’t expect that it would take more than one circle for them to find something that caught their eye. Neverland was constantly changing—always turning into something new, always coming up with new adventures for its inhabitants, always inventing something new to explore or someway new to get into trouble. The island could probably sense that she was looking for something like that and was busy concocting some way to give it to her. 

 

So circle the island they did. They saw all of the usual goings-on: the mermaids were playing their usual game of trying to get the leader of the Lost Boys to go underwater with them (what was his name? Peter? That sounded right), the pirates were menacingly circling the sea, clearly plotting their next dastardly heist, and the Lost Boys were playing hide-and-seek across the expanse of the entire island. Rani imagined playing with the Lost Boys, knowing she would be the reigning champion for eons to come. But those were Tink’s boys, so Rani would stick with trying to win over the affections of the mermaids.

 

Yet on the way back around on their first circle, Rani did spot something out of place. She thought it might be nothing but a playful breeze, but a playful breeze probably wanted someone to play with. It zigged and zagged through the tall grass just south of the mountains, next to the river that flowed from the waterfall. Rani tapped Brother Dove’s shoulder and then pointed down towards it.

 

“Do you see that? Something’s cutting through the grass down there! I’ve never seen anything like it!” she exclaimed.

 

Brother Dove followed her line of sight until he too was able to see the mysterious movement on the surface. Taking that as his cue, Brother Dove began a descent towards the grass. Rani laughed and squealed in excitement. She felt like a fast-flying talent whenever Brother Dove took dives like this. The wind whipped against her skin so hard that it felt like tiny pinpricks all over her, but it was such a thrill. She wrapped her arms around Brother Dove’s neck and held tight.

 

With the wind whistling in her ears, she almost didn’t hear the shriek of the scavenger that was suddenly hot on their tail. The noise became louder and more separate from the wind at the same time that the bigger bird’s shadow overtook them. Eyes already wide, Rani turned to look above them and instantly felt like her breath had been knocked out of her.

 

“ Hawk! ” she cried, pulling on Brother Dove’s feathers to warn him. 

 

Brother Dove could feel the panic in Rani’s voice and he didn’t need to understand her words to sense what they were being chased by. He scolded himself internally for not being more careful. Hawks were about the hardest thing in the universe to out-fly, especially with a rather delicate pixie trying her hardest to stay secure on your back. He immediately changed course, hoping that slowing down and changing direction would confuse the hawk momentarily, but the mind of a hawk was as sharp as any Neverbird, and Brother Dove knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. 

 

He dove towards the forest, almost dive-bombing, ignoring how uncomfortable it was to have Rani’s arms so tight around his neck. She flattened herself against him and buried her body into his feathers, putting all of her trust in him and silently wishing for him to quickly find a hole or a log or something for them to hide in.

 

The hawk shrieked again as it momentarily lost sight of Brother Dove in the canopy of trees, but the leaves weren’t able to provide cover for long. The cacophony of Rani’s pounding heartbeat clashing with snapping leaves and branches as Brother Dove and the hawk zipped through the trees made Rani feel like her head was going to explode. She tried to sit up, wondering if getting a look at her surroundings would keep the headache away, but instead, she collided with a rather large branch and was sent flying off of Brother Dove’s back. 

 

Having no wings of her own to stop her descent, Rani fell, bouncing off of leaves and tumbling off of branches, trying to catch a grip on anything before she hit the ground, but she just couldn’t seem to do it. When she had finally made it past where the foliage was still able to catch her, she quickly pulled as much water as she could out of the ground below to make a little spout for her to land in. 

 

Finally on the ground, Rani wiped the remaining water off of herself and then sat on the ground, her tiny body pumping too much adrenaline for her to try to walk or find her way around. She looked up towards the tops of the trees and saw no more signs of the skirmish, or of any movement at all. “Brother Dove?” she called out, then waited a moment. When there was no answer, she cupped her hands around her mouth and tried again. “Brother Dove!” But there was no sign of Brother Dove, and there was also no sign of the hawk. 

 

She tried so, so hard to hold it in, but fairies are very bad at keeping their emotions in check—especially Rani. She only had enough room for one feeling inside of her, and right now it was terrible, terrible fear. She was all alone, and her whole body was scraped and bruised, and Brother Dove was gone, and he was out there being chased by a horrible hawk. The realization of it all hit her with one fell swoop, cutting through her like a pirate’s blade, and she burst into tears. 

 

She sat alone and cried for quite some time, and no one came for her. Not even the bugs or the squirrels or the birds paid her any mind. And why would they? They surely had their own things to be doing and their own places to be, and it wasn’t like Rani could talk to them anyway. Still, it did make her feel quite a lot worse.

 

Rani knew she could cry for hours if she felt like it, but after she’d had some time to let her emotions out, she knew that would be very counter-productive. It was possible that Brother Dove would come back for her, but he may not have seen where she had been knocked to. Or he might not have remembered. Or he might not have even noticed she was missing until he was clear of the hawk. So, staying put and feeling sorry for herself felt like a pretty bad idea. She needed to make a plan to get back to Pixie Hollow on her own. 

 

There was no way she could climb up one of these trees on her own, and no way that she could get back down once she was up there. She needed to get out of the forest if she was going to have any hope of figuring out which direction to go in to get home. Even if she could just find the direction of the lagoon, she at least knew how to get home from there.

 

Or… if Brother Dove managed to get away from the hawk, and he didn’t know where Rani had gone to, it would make sense for him to go back to the tall grass and look for her there. He might have thought that she would go there and wait for him, since that’s where they had planned on exploring before all of this. Though, Rani didn’t exactly know how to get there, either. Her sense of direction was all jumbled up from the fall. But it couldn’t be too far away, and she had a much better chance of finding her way to the grass than she did of finding her way back home.

 

She supposed she would just keep walking until she found her way out of the forest. One way or the other, no matter which direction she walked in, she would quickly find out where exactly she was, and where exactly she wasn’t. So, she closed her eyes and spun around a little, then pointed in a direction, and when she opened her eyes, she decided that was the direction she would follow. 

 

After walking for a while, probably a few hours, she came to a clearing that she soon realized was actually a rather long pathway, probably one that had been cleared by the Lost Boys. The path was fenced in on either side by more trees and it stretched out in two directions. Rani tried to look down both of them, but they both seemed to go on for miles and miles. Though, if Rani paid very close attention, she could hear sounds of the ocean coming from one end of the path. The tall grass was near the river, not the ocean. So Rani began walking in the direction opposite of the ocean sounds. 

 

Rani couldn’t believe how tiring it was to walk everywhere. She couldn’t remember her wings ever being this sore when she would fly before. Though, she supposed the pixie dust did make fairies a lot lighter than they were normally. She wondered if carrying around some pixie dust with her—just a teeny tiny amount—might not be such a bad thing, after all. Just for situations like this. She would have to talk to Mother Dove about it when she got home.

 

Finally, just as her little legs felt like they were going to snap like a pair of twigs, she saw the end of the trail, and she saw the tall grass beyond it. Full of hope once more, Rani started running. She stopped just at the edge of the grass and looked up towards the sky. She couldn’t see Brother Dove, but she began jumping around and waving her arms, calling out for him. Still, it seemed that it was of no use. Brother Dove was still nowhere to be seen or heard. Perhaps he was looking through the grass already. Timidly, she stepped into the grass herself.

 

It was even harder to walk and search through the grass than it had been in the forest. There was absolutely no way to see where she was going and the only animals in sight were just bugs. It was also very hard to move any of the grass out of the way, and it was hardly a windy day, so Rani wondered what in Neverland could possibly have caught her eye from so far above the grass. 

 

As she traipsed further and further, she soon began to hear the sound of the rushing river that ran alongside the field. Losing herself in how soothing that sound was, she almost didn’t hear the slithering of a reptile approaching, pushing the grass aside and causing the insects to skitter away. It was only when Rani noticed a trail of ants suddenly changing course that she realized something was off, and when she turned to look behind her, she gasped at what she saw coming towards her.

 

A long, long snake was ripping through the grass. Its top side was green while its belly was a sort of brown-ish-red-ish color, and it was flicking its tongue in and out to sense the area ahead of itself. Rani could only imagine that its fangs were probably as long as her arm, and very sharp, and very venomous. And she had no way of getting off the ground and getting away from it. 

 

“Oh, Mother Dove…” Rani whispered to herself, then took off running. 

 

But she was already tired, and she couldn’t help from looking back at the snake as she was running, and it was getting uncomfortably close to her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to outrun it. She didn’t really think she could outsmart it, either, but she certainly had a better chance of it than running away. 

 

She managed to pull her attention away from the snake for long enough to start fervently searching her surroundings. After a minute, she saw a stray, overgrown tree root sticking up out of the ground in a little archway before going back into the dirt again. The opening looked small enough for her to get through, but she doubted it would be big enough for the snake. The snake could always slither around the other side, but maybe Rani would have enough time to hide before then. 

 

Rani kept herself from looking at the snake even though she could feel it practically snapping at her heels. She felt the pressure of not having her wings and not being able to fly away, but she was also glad that she didn’t have the extra body parts for the snake to snatch up. She took a quick turn towards the tree branch and hoped that the sudden change would throw the snake off of her, at least for a moment.

 

And it did. It took the snake a moment to readjust. Fairies were obviously not the type of prey it was used to hunting. But once it caught sight of her, it quickly chased after her once more, and Rani realized that it wasn’t going to stop short of the tree root. 

 

For a frightening moment, Rani wondered if she had miscalculated. Did the snake think it would be able to fit through the archway? Would it be able to fit through the archway? Was Rani about to be an afternoon snack?

Whatever the case, there was no turning back now. She’d made her choice, and she was going to have to follow through with it. When she was close enough, she practically dove through the opening, swimming through the air until she tumbled to the ground on the other side. She crawled away until she could get back on her feet and then tried to hide around the other side of the root. 

 

Her little heart was beating so fast that she felt it might explode. She nearly fainted when, to her horror, she saw the snake shoot through the archway. Or at least, it tried to. What really happened is that it got partway into the opening, but the ground on the other side was less dug out than the first side, and the snake got stuck between the root and the ground. Rani watched it flail and wriggle, trying to get out of the hole, but after a while, it simply gave up.

 

At first, Rani was relieved that she was not about to become snake food, but when the snake gave up, Rani just felt bad. It looked so pitiful with half of its head squished underneath the root. Rani couldn’t just leave it there. 

 

Timidly, Rani walked back around in front of the snake. When it saw her, it stuck its tongue out and started wriggling again, but its mouth was trapped shut. Rani pulled some dew from the grass close by and splashed the snake with it, glaring. 

 

“You know, you wouldn’t be stuck like this if you had been nicer to me!” she said indignantly. “You big scary animals really should find creatures your own size to pick on!”

 

Slowly, carefully, she walked forward to get closer to the snake. It seemed almost as scared as she was, though she couldn’t tell if it was afraid of her or afraid of the situation it had gotten itself into. It flicked its tongue as she approached it. She tried to avoid the tongue, but it was so fast that Rani could barely see it half the time. It brushed against her legs a few times, causing her to jump back, but eventually, she learned to ignore it and pushed through. 

 

Finally, she was standing right in front of the snake. She took a deep breath, held it, and then reached her hand out towards it. It tried slithering again, and Rani waited for it to calm down. When it stopped moving, she finally placed her hand on the top of its head and pet it softly. 

 

The snake seemed to be averse to her touch at first, but slowly, they calmed down together. Rani may not have been an animal-talent, but she did know that most animals could sense the way a fairy was feeling. Rani knew that the snake was scared, and the snake seemed to know that Rani was also scared. But Rani believed the snake could also tell that she was kind, and that she wanted to help.

 

“Hey… it’s okay, big guy,” Rani said soothingly. “I’ll get you out of this, okay? But you have to promise that you won’t eat me afterwards.”

 

Rani didn’t think the snake could understand her words, but she hoped that it could understand her in some other way. 

 

The problem was, though Rani wanted to help, she wasn’t exactly sure how to go about doing it. She wasn’t strong enough on her own to have any chance of pushing the snake out of the hole, and she certainly couldn’t pull it, either. If she had some help, or a tool, she might be able to dig the dirt out from underneath it to set it loose, but there was no way she could do it by herself. 

 

Well, unless… Maybe she couldn’t dig in the dirt by herself, but she might be able to erode it away if she could gather enough water on top of it. With all of this grass around, she was sure there was a lot of water right on the surface that she could just move from one spot to the other. If she could make the ground muddy enough, the snake would definitely be able to free itself.

 

“Okay, listen, I have an idea,” she said, even though she knew the snake could not, in fact, listen. “I’ll be right back. Don’t be scared, okay? I’ll come right back for you.”

 

She gave the snake another quick pat on the head, then darted off towards the grass again. She felt around where the blades first started to stick out of the ground and started to slowly pull water up from the dirt. She felt bad for taking the water away from the grass, but she knew that grass was resilient, and it would probably rain again soon anyways. She gathered more and more water and held it in a bubble until she physically could not hold any more. Then, she brought it back to the helpless snake. 

 

“Okay—it’s about to get wet here for a second, but I promise it’s going to help,” Rani said, and she hoped she wouldn’t be making a promise she couldn’t keep. 

 

She lowered the bubble until it was just above the ground, positioning it as close as she could to the snake’s underside. Then, she released it, and it splashed everywhere. It soaked the ground until it formed a puddle. It frightened the snake, who began wriggling and writhing once again, trying to escape the trap. At first, it looked like the water had done virtually nothing to make the ground soft enough for the snake to get out of, but after a couple of tries, it finally broke free. 

 

It zipped past Rani in a flash, quick as a bolt of lightning. Rani gasped and turned around to see where it had gone. It was happily slithering through the grass once again, enjoying its freedom and no doubt stretching its body and trying to get rid of any cramps in its head. Rani wondered if she should run away before it regained its senses and tried to come after her again. However, she didn’t have the chance to follow through with her thoughts before the snake came back to her and quickly wrapped its tail around her whole body. 

 

“Oh—oh!” Rani exclaimed, unable to process what was happening until the snake had covered everything beneath the tops of her shoulders. “Oh, please put me down, snake! How could you be so cruel to someone who just saved your life?”   

 

The snake did not put Rani down, but it didn’t crush her either. Or bite her, or throw her, or do anything that could be considered even remotely harmful in any way. In fact, the longer the snake held her, the more it felt like the snake was giving her a warm hug. It may have been risky, but Rani decided to lean into the theory, so she stopped struggling and just let the snake hold her. Soon after she calmed down, the snake let go of her. 

 

As Rani’s feet touched the ground once more and she regained the use of her arms and legs (not to mention the full capacity of her lungs), she laughed. Partially from the relief that, for the second time today, she had narrowly escaped a gruesome end, and partially because a hug was the last thing she expected to receive from a creature like this snake. She wondered how exactly she had earned so much luck, and she hoped she had enough of it left to get home somehow. 

 

Rani walked around the snake to approach its head and slowly reached her hand out towards it. The snake stared at her for a moment, flicking its tongue, then moved its head towards her hand and allowed her to touch it. Rani laughed again and pet the top of its head. “Aw, you’re not such a bad guy, are you?” she asked “Realized I wasn’t a tasty treat after all, huh?”

 

She gave a soft sigh, then cast her gaze towards the sky. “I wish I could say the same for that stupid hawk. I still haven’t seen any sign of Brother Dove.”

 

Rani began to sniffle again. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand and tried to blink back the big tears that were puddling up in her eyes once more. She had done more than enough crying already, and even though she knew that the snake could most certainly not understand why there were droplets of water streaming down her face, she felt stupid for crying in front of the snake—for crying in front of her new friend. 

 

“Oh, what am I going to do, snake? I’ve lost my dear friend and I have no idea where he could have gone to or how I’ll ever find him. I don’t even know my way back home! I’m going to be stuck out here all alone, probably forever!”

 

Just when Rani knew she wouldn’t be able to hold her tears back any longer, the snake pushed its head against hers in what felt like an attempt to nuzzle her. Rani couldn’t help but laugh again, even though she was still sniffling. She nuzzled the snake right back. 

 

“Well, I suppose I’m not all alone,” she said, then sighed again. “But as much as I would love to stay here and play with you, I can’t stay here forever. We’d probably get pretty tired of each other without being able to understand each other at all. You’re probably already getting tired of hearing me try to talk to you, aren’t you?”

 

The snake almost seemed to tilt its head in confusion. Rani only sighed again and shook her head. “Well, it certainly has been fun, but I suppose I’ll be on my way. Fly with you later, snake!” she said, then began to walk away.

 

She was only able to walk a few steps before the snake began to follow her. Rani turned her head to look at it, but she didn’t stop walking. “There’s no need to follow me, snake! You must be a very busy little snake, and I don’t have any time to play, either,” she said, waving her hand to shoo the snake away. But it kept following her, and Rani knew she couldn’t do anything to discourage it. So, with another heavy sigh, Rani kept walking with the snake by her side.

 

While they walked (and slithered) along the path together, Rani couldn’t help but pick up conversation. She knew the snake couldn’t understand her or talk back to her, but she had to fill the silence somehow. So she talked and talked and talked. She talked about Brother Dove, and how she’d gotten herself into this mess, and about her friends, and her home, and how worried they all must be, and how much she hoped she could get back to them soon.

 

And when Rani got tired and found it hard to keep walking, the snake noticed, and wanted to help. It scooped Rani up in its tail and held her as it continued to slither around Neverland, following her lead at every fork in the road. By the time the sun had gone down, it felt like Rani had traveled the whole island with her new friend, and it had been such wonderful fun.

 

But finally, finally, when the sun was gone and the moon was high in the sky, surrounded by beautiful stars, Rani caught sight of the Home Tree. With the daylight gone, she could have recognized the glow of the Home tree from anywhere on Neverland. She gasped when she spotted it and pointed excitedly in its direction. 

 

“Oh, why didn’t I think of this before!?” she exclaimed. “Of course I’d be able to spot the tree at night! That way, snake! There’s my home!”

 

The snake slithered with Rani all the way to the Home Tree. Well, almost all the way. Somewhere along the path, they ran into a group of Rani’s friends who had already set out to look for her. Tink, Prilla, Fira, and Fawn were all calling out Rani’s name, leaving no stone unturned as they searched. Rani began to wave her hands in the air to get their attention.

 

“Guys!! Guys!! I’m over here!” she shouted. 

 

All of the fairies’ heads turned in her direction, followed by a chorus of gasps—a mixture of relief and total fear.

 

“Fawn! That big snake’s got her!! You’ve gotta help her!!” Tink shouted. 

 

“I’ve got it!” Fawn shouted back, then quickly flittered in front of the snake. “Hey, hey, hey, hey! Slow down, big guy!” she said, putting her hands up in front of it, but keeping a safe distance from it. Her talents didn’t work with hawks, and she didn’t know if it would work with the snake. If it didn’t, she would need another plan. 

 

But to her surprise, the snake stopped slithering just short of her and gave her a rather non-menacing hiss. Fawn crossed her arms and looked at the snake seriously. “That’s my friend you’ve got there, big guy. I’m gonna need you to put her down for me, okay?”

 

The snake almost seemed to hiss an argument at Fawn, but it did as it was told and set Rani down. Fawn’s eyes widened a little, her mind burning with a question from the snake’s words to her, but she needed to care for her friend first. She grabbed Rani’s arm and pulled Rani closer to her.

 

“Oh, Rani, thank goodness you’re okay! We’ve been so worried about you. Are you hurt anywhere?” she asked. 

 

Rani shook her head. “No, just tired.” Then, she frowned. “What about Brother Dove? Did he make it back here? Is he alright?”

 

“He got into a nasty fight with that hawk, but he’ll be fine. He just couldn’t come out to look for you with us,” Fawn explained. She looked at the snake, then looked at Rani again. “Did… did this snake help you find us? He said you’re his friend, too.” 

 

“Oh,” Rani said with a chuckle. She smiled at the snake. “Yes, we’ve spent a lot of time together today. He started following me after I got separated from Brother Dove, and he got me here safe and sound!” She looked back at Fawn again. “Will you tell him thank you for me?” 

 

Fawn laughed. “Sure,” she replied, and she told the snake “thank you.” 

 

“Well, now that we’ve found you, we’d better let Brother Dove and the other fairies know! Everyone will be so happy to know you’re safe! So let’s get going!” Prilla called out, waving for Rani to follow her.

 

Rani nodded and walked towards the other fairies, but turned around to look at the snake again. “Fly with you later, snake!! I’m sure we’ll meet again sometime soon. Thank you for all your help!”

 

Fawn translated again for the snake. It flicked its tongue again, hissing happily. “He says he can’t wait!” Fawn said to Rani.

 

Beaming, Rani waved goodbye to the snake. The snake flicked its tongue once more, then turned around and slithered away. Rani watched the grass wave in its path until it disappeared, and with her heart full of the new friendship she’d made, she followed the others back to Pixie Hollow. She couldn’t wait to tell everyone about what an adventure she’d had.