Elinor had enlisted Merida to help clean the boys' room and they'd stripped the linens from the beds, turned the heavy mattresses, scrubbed the windows and walls and floors. It only reinforced her belief that her brothers were disgusting creatures. Surely Hiccup had never been this bad, she thought, fishing out a shoe from beneath Hamish's bed. When she'd asked why the boys were not helping, as it was their room, Elinor had said, "I would like it to be cleaner when it's finished than it is now."

A thought came to her as she watched her mum fold clothes. This was the boys' room; her room was down the corridor; her parents' room was between them. There was the room where Hiccup had stayed, and other rooms for guests, but none of them seemed suitable for them to live in. Together.

"Mum? Where will we live once we're married?"

She kept folding, neatly separating the items into piles. "I expect your husband's father will provide you a place. Either a home of your own, or rooms in his house."

At moments like this she was never sure if her mother was willfully ignoring her plans or if she was just forgetting and answering the way things would be traditionally. She tried to be patient. "Yes, but what if I decide to marry the one whose home is hundreds of miles away? We'll need somewhere to stay while we're here." She had the vague feeling that a newly-married couple should not sleep in one half's childhood bedroom, though she didn't want to voice that aloud to anyone, especially not her mother.

"The bride leaves her home for her husband's house," Elinor answered, still preoccupied.

Her husband's house? "Can he have a house here? I mean, can we?" She hadn't thought of it before, them having a house of their own; she'd always lived in the castle and hadn't expected to live anywhere else. But now that the idea was planted, it was growing more attractive by the moment. A house of their own—a home for them. A place where her brothers wouldn't be underfoot all the time, where he could feel like himself, not the stranger from afar and the rescuer of the princess (a title she tried to discourage, as she'd rescued herself, thank you very much), a place where Toothless could sleep in safety, a place where they could be alone together.

"You'll have to ask your father, dear."

She excused herself then—Elinor would hardly notice she'd gone—and went to find her father. He was working with the pups, teaching them simple commands. At the moment they all sat, watching him intently.

"Dad?"

"Yes, my dear?" He tossed a bit of meat to each of them in turn.

Maybe she ought to have waited for his undivided attention, or asked if she could interrupt the training, but she was too excited about the idea her mum had given her to wait. "I know normally a bride goes home to the place her new husband has prepared for them, but in my case that might not happen. So where will we go?"

"Will he not be taking you back to Berk?"

"I don't know." It was one of the many things they hadn't had the chance to discuss. "I think he's giving up a lot to come back here, maybe everything. I want him to feel at home in DunBroch, even if it's only for a time."

"I don't suppose you'd be going anywhere very soon after the wedding anyway. It's quite a distance to cover."

That'd be no kind of honeymoon. "So will we stay here, in the castle?"

"There are plenty of rooms we're not using. Some of them could be cleared out." He tilted his head to look at her. "Unless you don't want to stay here."

She did, but she didn't. Above all, she didn't to upset her dad. "This is my home, and I love it. But would you want to spend your honeymoon in the same building as your parents and your brothers? Your three troublemaking younger brothers?"

Though he blanched at the mention of a honeymoon, he had to agree. "You've got a point. Leave it with me," he said. "I'll think of something."

There was a farm not far from the castle whose owner, an old man whose only living relative had been a married daughter, had just died. She didn't want the place and didn't object to the king buying it. "It can be part of your dowry," Fergus said as they stood together in front of the house. Merida looked over it: it was on the large side, a proper farmhouse, not just a cottage; there was a kitchen, a sitting room, and a good-sized bedroom, with a garden and a byre out the back that Angus could stay in. The old man hadn't been able to take good care of the house, so there were leaks in the roof and other problems. It needed new paint and new furniture to fill it, but it would make a good home. She imagined a fire roaring in the hearth with a pot of stew above it and Toothless sprawled in front of it, her bows and quivers on hooks near the door, a vase of wildflowers atop one of the blasted tablecloths she'd yet to finish hemming with his sketchbook lying nearby, a couch by the fire covered with blankets and furs where they could cuddle on rainy nights. They could fill it with all the things they loved. But even if it was empty and cold, it would be her home as long as he was there.