AN: Back to Merida and Dagur! It's going to be several chapters before we get back to Hiccup, so kiss him goodbye for awhile XD He's got some chiefly duties to take care of while Merida and Dagur shoulder the burden of establishing this fic's plot, heh.
Make sure to drop a review if you enjoy! They go a long ways towards helping me write!
Heart of a Scot, Soul of a Dragon
Chapter Three: The Villain in your Narrative
"You boys have gotten rusty while I was gone!" Dagur jeered as he swung the blade of his sword up to meet his opponent's overhead strike. The blow was hard enough that the other man flinched, hands stung by the sharp vibration of steel that echoed into his very bones, allowing the viking an opening to land a solid shoulder check in the center of his chest.
The guard landed on his rear in the dirt of the training yard, and went very still as Dagur leveled the tip of his sword at his throat, one of his too-wide smiles plastered across his scarred features. The guard swallowed anxiously as his gaze darted between the blade and the other man's face.
"Well come on, then, don't lay around in the dirt like a pig," Dagur chided him as he deftly sheathed his sword, then hauled the man back up to his feet and shoved him off the training grounds towards his fellows.
Merida watched her friend from where she sat on the stairs that lead up to the battlements and grinned. Dagur had only been back two days and he was already running her father's guards ragged with his training regime at Fergus' personal request. In the king's opinion, his men were going soft in these times of peace, and that was something he simply couldn't allow. After all, he trusted his allies among the clans, but that didn't mean there wasn't the possibility of threats from abroad.
"Grab a partner and line up here across the courtyard," Dagur bellowed, voice carrying impressively over the noise made by the men crowded nearby. "We're going to run drills until the lot of you learn how to do a proper overhand swing, got it?"
There was a general, reluctant sort of 'aye, sir' from the gathered masses that made Merida giggle. She glanced skyward and noted that if she didn't get back to helping her mother reorganize the records room soon, the Queen would likely come looking for her personally.
The princess sighed and pushed herself to her feet before starting off across the courtyard. She raised a hand in farewell to Dagur as she did, and he flashed her a brief smile before going back to shouting at the castle guards.
Before she even made it halfway, though, loud trumpets announcing the arrival of unknown visitors sounded loud in her ears, bringing her, and everyone else in the courtyard, up short. Her curious nature got the better of her, and the princess turned to race back up the stairs to the battlements.
She didn't notice until she came to a stop at a parapet overlooking the courtyard that opened out from the castle's main gate, but Dagur was hot on her heels. Below them, a band of some twenty lightly armed men stood at attention behind another man that appeared to be their leader. They carried no banner, and neither could make out just what it was the leader of this strange band was saying to the captain of the guard.
"Come on, I want a closer look!" Merida hissed to Dagur, and lead the way down one of the narrow side stairs tucked into the wall that let them out just inside the main door. He followed close behind, and peered out over the top of her wild curls when she poked her head around the doorframe to get a better look.
There was nothing particularly impressive about the man speaking to the Captain of the guard, but whatever he'd said had apparently convinced the other man to go in search of her father. The stranger had short cropped dark hair with a widow's peak, and deep set eyes. He stroked a carefully trimmed goatee absently as he waited. Most interesting to Merida, though, was the scar on the left side of his throat. Three, long gashes, as though he had been clawed by something and managed to live to tell the tale…
"Och, will you look at those scars?" she muttered to Dagur, then snickered and added "Do you reckon he gave them to himself with those spiked shoulder guards of his?"
When no reply was forthcoming, though, she looked around with a frown, only to realize her friend was nowhere to be found.
"Dagur?" she hissed, but quickly stifled herself when she saw the captain returning at a quick pace.
He approached the stranger once more and said "The King will see you in the throne room, but your men are to remain here."
"Not a problem," the stranger replied with an easy smile. Something about it set Merida's teeth on edge, though, and she decided in that moment that she did not like this man in the least. She watched as he sauntered past her hiding spot in the shadows behind the door, more at ease than he had any right to be in her opinion.
Whatever it was he wanted, she hoped her father sent him packing.
Merida had prepared herself for a lengthy wait, but less than five minutes later, raised voices had the princess jumping to her feet and ducking out of sight just in time to witness her father throwing the smaller man bodily from the throne room by the scruff of his neck.
"If I ever see you here again I'll have you strung up and left for the bears, do you hear me?" Fergus bellowed as he advanced on the stranger, face contorted with fury.
The other man simply picked himself up and dusted himself off as he shot the king a disdainful look and said, "Very well, have it your way, your majesty." His smile was thin and unpleasant as he added, "But please, don't claim I never offered you an olive branch when all is said and done."
"OUT!" the king roared, and the other man turned on heel and strode away, seeming as unruffled now as when he had entered a few minutes before.
Merida ducked out from her hiding place, taken aback by the rare display of genuine anger from her father. She hadn't seen him this upset since he'd thought her mother had been killed by a bear.
"Dad," she said, voice smaller than she would have liked to admit. Fergus turned and looked at her then, and she flinched reflexively.
Her father softened fractionally, then, and said "I'm sorry lass. Do us a favor, go get your mother. We've affairs to discuss," in a grim tone.
For once, Merida didn't argue, but did as she was asked.
Fergus watched her go for a moment, then stepped back into the throne room, and closed the door behind him.
"Enjoy your meeting with Viggo Grimborn?"
The king had his sword out in a flash, but when he leveled it at Dagur, the viking seemed unbothered by the display. He simply stood along one wall, arms crossed over his broad chest as he watched the king with calm green eyes.
Fergus eyed the man for a moment, then slowly sheathed his sword and asked, "How did you know his name? Do you know him?"
"Know him?" Dagur repeated and scoffed. "I used to work with him." He could see the king's hand tighten reflexively on the hilt of his sword, then, and quickly raised a hand to calm him, "Relax, I haven't for a long time. We parted on less than pleasant terms." Dagur's chuckle turned into a high giggle at the end at the memory of the last time he had seen Viggo, making him sound more manic than he had for some time. "He's a dragon hunter," the viking said simply.
Fergus' eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then he laughed and slapped his knee with one broad, meaty hand. "You almost had me going for a moment there, lad," he said and sighed as he got himself under control, then plopped himself down in the chair at the head of the table. Some servant had been in the middle of preparing it for the royal family's dinner when Fergus had taken control of the room, leaving place settings and plates scattered across its weathered surface.
"I'm not trying to 'get you going', your majesty," Dagur insisted as he pushed himself off the wall and crossed the room to stand opposite the king. "This is serious. Deadly serious. I know you all think I'm mad, and maybe I am," he said, a pained expression crossing his features as he spoke. "But dammit, I know Viggo. Whatever he came in here asking you for, he will be back, and he will take it."
All mirth was gone from Fergus' face, now, and he pinched the bridge of his broad nose as he thought.
"Look," the king said at last. "I don't know how you knew his name, maybe you overheard it in the courtyard-"
"I know it because I know him!" Dagur objected, but the king silenced him with a gesture.
"We appreciate your skills in training the guards, and I know we all appreciate those tales of yours," Fergus said, words slow and measured, "But that's enough. That bloody fool just came in here and tried to buy my castle out from under me. I've had enough of silly games for the night."
Dagur grit his teeth, and knew there was nothing else he could say to convince the king that he and his people were all in immediate danger. Frustrated and afraid for those he had come to respect and care for, all the man could do was give Fergus a sharp bow before spinning on heel and pushing his way out the door.
His sudden exit brought Merida and Elinor up short in surprise. The princess in particular was taken aback by his unusually pale complexion, and the grim set of his face.
"Dagur?" she called worriedly after him, but he was already out of sight.
Three days passed, and Merida was becoming increasingly concerned for her friend. When he wasn't bellowing at the men and putting them through a particularly difficult training exercise, he was uncharacteristically quiet. He'd been staying in the barracks with the guards, and the ones she'd managed to get a word with had said he had been downright bleak since Viggo Grimborn had come to the castle. He didn't laugh, he didn't tell stories...he just paced the castle walls in his free time, or spent hours at the top of the highest tower on the lookout for who knew what.
"It's like he expects an army to come marching up the path any moment," Elinor commented when she joined her daughter at the window one afternoon in the library. Reorganizing the tomes was slow going, and was not made any faster by the princess' distraction.
"Do you think he actually does?" she asked her mother, frowning thoughtfully. She was still baffled by the very fact that Viggo had attempted to buy the castle and the lands around it for mere gold. Who had ever heard of such a thing? Any clan would die before giving up their ancestral home.
The queen hummed thoughtfully and replied, "It seems that way. Even if that awful man does return with an army, it'll take more than mere men to drive us out. There must always be a Dunbroch in the castle."
Merida turned and looked at her mother quizzically. "What?"
"Oh, it's just something your father's mother always used to say before she passed," the queen remarked as she turned away from the window and went back to sorting through books. "She always insisted that there must always be a Dunbroch in the castle. As if they'd ever leave."
"Huh," the princess mused, then gave herself a shake and went back to the task at hand.
Later that evening, Merida went in search of her friend. She knew he had been avoiding her, but she was fed up with his new reclusive habits, and it was the work of a few minutes to corner him in one of the smaller side courtyards.
"Have you been eating?" She asked without so much as a hello.
"What?" he asked, wrong-footed by the question.
"Food, you numpty. Have you been eating when you're prowling about the place looking menacing? Or are you just subsisting on the terror you're inflicting on the guards during practice?"
Her words startled a laugh from him, and something in his face softened as he looked at her standing there, hands on hips and a foreboding scowl on her face.
"Yeah," he answered finally. "You know Maudie's fond of me. She stuffs me with buns every chance she gets," Dagur said with one of his cheekier grins, making Merida laugh.
It was true, Maudie really was fond of the viking. It was a fact that never ceased to amuse the princess, and she could only attribute it to the fact that the head woman had been the one that discovered Dagur half dead on the beach all those years ago.
"Beggar," Merida said and smiled, swatting his arm with the back of a hand. They were both quiet for a moment before she finally broke down and asked, "You're worried, aren't you? About Viggo?"
Dagur's expression went dark again, and he nodded, "Yeah."
"Is he...really the one from your stories?" she asked hesitantly. While she had always wanted Dagur's stories to be true, for dragons and the vikings who rode them to be the stuff of reality rather than fairy tail, she'd never truly been able to believe.
"Yes!" the viking said emphatically, hands going to his head, fingers twining through his red hair in frustration. He looked at her, eyes pleading as he asked, "You believe me, don't you, Mer?"
Though she didn't say anything right away, he must have read the hesitation in her eyes as Dagur's expression crumpled, and his shoulders slumped.
"I can't really blame you," he said quietly. "Sometimes I don't even believe me," he added. Dagur's breath caught in his throat as he admitted, "Sometimes I wonder if any of it was even real. Maybe I am mad."
"Oh Dagur," Merida murmured as she placed one of her slight hands on his forearm, unsure of what else to say. She worried at her bottom lip with her teeth, but before she could say anything else, Dagur continued.
"It can't be fake, though, it just can't," he insisted, more to himself than to her, though he covered her hand with his own. Dagur looked at her, green eyes huge and said, "If I made it all up, that means my sister, Heather..."
Watching her normally confident friend falling to pieces right in front of her wounded Merida deeply. After three years of never doubting himself in the face of so many naysayers, the appearance of one man who shared a name and face with someone from his stories had apparently shaken him in a way nothing else had.
Coming to a decision, Merida pulled her hand from his and gave the man a good shake. "Stop that right this instant, you hear me?" she said sharply. "Dagur, you believe whatever it is you need to believe. We've none of us the right to question you, so don't you dare let anyone, not even me, make you doubt yourself. The Dagur I know would never give up like this, right?"
Dagur stared at her for a moment, then slowly broke into a smile. "Right. No, you're right, Princess. Thank you," he said. The viking seemed to give himself a mental shake, and when he looked at her again, his shoulders were straight once more.
AN: Thanks for reading! Please drop a review if you enjoyed ;W; Updates every Tuesday for as long as I can manage!