The characters here are property of Disney Pixar, Dreamworks, and Cressida Cowell, not me.
"Just wait," he said before she even had a chance to ask.
Merida sat on her hands. She knew that she should appreciate any chance she had to spend time with him—they never had enough time, between her lessons and his duties. That was why they should make the most of it, not just spend it sitting at the edge of the woods in the blue near-dark. Then she scolded herself. No time with him was ever misspent; even if she'd rather be engaging in more physical pursuits, riding or shooting or teasing him by running her fingers through his hair or from the back of his neck and down his arm, she was happy to have him sitting beside her, still and quiet as he stared away from the trees. Whatever he'd brought her out here to see would be worth her while, whenever it appeared. Until then it couldn't hurt to give him a wee kiss, just to pass the time, could it?
Don't you dare, she told herself firmly, looking sideways at Hiccup. He was so patient, willing to wait when it was necessary. She almost hated him for it sometimes, and she might have done, if she hadn't also seen him act nearly as rashly as she did in pursuit of a goal. If he could sit still, she could, too.
At the edge of her vision there was a tiny flash of gold, and she whipped her head toward it, eyes searching among the tree trunks. The flash appeared again, nowhere near where the first one had been, and she gasped as it fluttered through the air before disappearing again. These weren't like the wisps; these little lights were almost drunken in their weaving through the air. With one hand she clutched at the dagger on her hip, rubbing her thumb over the metal of the pommel. Lucky Hiccup was never without his iron. There was no chance he'd be taken, no matter how much fairies loved handsome lads.
Soon the one light became two, and then three, and then dozens dancing in midair. It was like no enchantment she had ever seen before, but she felt bewitched nonetheless. She wanted to join the little lights, to dance among them, but she knew instinctively that rushing forward would end the spell, so she dug her toes into the soft earth to keep them from carrying her off.
More than ever now she believed that the boy beside her had to be a charmer, a wonder-worker, a master of all wild creatures. He'd said more than once that anyone could have trained the dragons the way he did if they'd allowed themselves to be patient and calm, to have open eyes and an open mind, to be gentle and strong at the same time. She wondered if he knew that his skills worked on girls as well as beasts—that with a word or a look or a touch he could command her attention, cause her mind to still or her heart to race. She minded less than she would have thought, though it didn't mean that she would be content as a pet, hooded like a hawk or kept fat on scraps. She was a wild thing, hadn't her mother lamented time and again; but wild things could love and still be free.
They sat in silence and watched the lights together until it was fully dark. At about this time the Queen would begin watching out the windows for their return, and both of them knew that it was time for the spell to break. She sighed quietly, not wanting to go back to the castle, to leave this place or him. She turned to face him in order to thank him, though her mother's pretty, polite phrases would never do justice to the wonder he inspired. She never got the chance to use them, though, because his lips brushed against hers instead. When she closed her eyes and leaned into the kiss, she still saw the dancing lights.