Hiccup would have been content to let Toothless rest another day, but the dragon apparently wasn't. Hiccup woke to the bundle of saddle and harnesses dropping next to his head. Toothless snorted down at him, and Merida laughed nearby. "Okay, I get it. We'll go," he said, stretching.
Though Toothless seemed to be walking fine, there was no question of flying. The longer they walked, the harder it was for Merida to keep pace with them, and no wonder; it might have been months since she'd been home. A day and a half after they'd started again she suddenly stopped, staring hard at some perfectly ordinary trees. The others stared as well, but Hiccup couldn't see anything that set the trees apart from the others around them, and Toothless shook his head. She turned back to them, grinning, and then beckoned for them to hurry before bounding ahead.
Merida grew more and more excited as they moved, dashing ahead of the others in her impatience. When they reached a glade with a circle of great standing stones in its midst she cried out and raced to embrace the nearest one, laying her cheek against the rough surface. Toothless gave a little shrug that echoed Hiccup's sentiments. The stones stretched high and dark into the mist; there were whorls and spirals carved near their tops, and Hiccup stepped forward to get a better look, but Merida grabbed his hand and shook her head solemnly. She whispered a word of warning, and though her tone was reverent her face shone with awe and joy.
"Come," she said after a moment, tugging him away. Their pace was even quicker now, though she didn't drop his hand. He figured he should consider himself lucky: when she'd arrived at his home she had been totally lost, scared, and alone; though he felt lost, he wasn't alone, and it made him admire her strength even more. It would all be fine, he told himself, if he just didn't think of the return journey.
She suddenly sprinted ahead, ripping her hand from his, and he stumbled forward, trying to keep up, Toothless trotting after. She stopped at the edge of the forest and turned quickly as they approached, hands raised.
"Stop!" she hissed. They froze, and then she walked them backward, deeper into the trees. She pointed the way they'd just come. "DunBroch." She'd never looked happier, eyes dancing as she explained that she would go and something about Fergus stabbing Toothless with a spear. He could only assume she was going to try to prevent that from happening.
"Stay," she concluded gleefully, pointing; then, without waiting for a response, she took off, leaving Hiccup to sink onto a log, muttering, "Yeah. Staying."
Toothless heard them first, lifting his head in sudden alertness, earflaps swiveling forward. Then Hiccup heard the thump of hoofbeats, heavy and rhythmic, and stood, fists clenched at his sides. The hoofbeats stopped beyond the trees, though Hiccup's heart kept pounding. It seemed like hours passed before Merida called their names. He took a ragged breath and looked at Toothless, who nodded and stood; together they walked out to face whatever waited.
Merida sat on a huge black-and-white beast. Next to her, on a smaller mount, was a slim woman with long dark hair. It was Elinor, he realized, Merida's mother, the queen. Her expression was justifiably wary as they emerged, and she gasped quietly at the sight of Toothless. Merida giggled at the reaction, and Hiccup smiled, his mood buoyed by the sound.
He dropped the sacks on the ground and bowed to the queen, hopefully more elegantly than he had all the times he'd done it to tease Merida; out of the corner of his eye he saw Toothless glance at him and then bow too, sliding his chest toward the earth and lowering his head. When he looked up Merida was grinning and Elinor looked quietly impressed.
"Elinor, Hiccup, Toothless," Merida said, gesturing to each in turn. Her mount whickered and shook his head, and she laughed. "Angus," she added indulgently, patting his neck.
Then she held out her hand to Hiccup. "Come." She seemed to want him to climb on Angus' back and ride with her, but he wasn't sure about that, especially as Toothless looked offended at the idea. He lay down and Hiccup slung the sacks over his back before climbing on. This was probably better anyway; a dragon with a rider was less threatening than one without. The three animals walked together, Merida and Angus between her mother and Hiccup. She chattered away, and Elinor reached over and grabbed her hand as they rode.
The towers of DunBroch faded into the mist above it, the stone nearly the color of the sky. Before them was a bridge, and after that a great gate in the wall. The castle was the biggest building Hiccup had ever seen, and he'd be lying if he said it wasn't intimidating. "Oh, boy," he couldn't help muttering. Merida looked down at him, her eyes kind, and put her hand over her heart.
If he'd thought the castle itself was intimidating, the people that came rushing out of it were even more so. The crowd alternated between cheering for the return of the princess and recoiling in terror at the dragon in the courtyard. Three boys raced through the crowd toward them, all with wild red curls and all identical; one of them climbed onto Angus' back, another started a staring contest with Toothless, and a third ran away, only to reappear within seconds carrying a plate full of cakes and pursued by a large-bosomed woman, who fainted when she caught sight of Toothless. Sure, Merida had drawn three boys, but he hadn't realized they were triplets, or the DunBroch equivalent of the Thorston twins. The triplet with the cakes tossed one each to Merida and his brothers, shoving one in his own mouth as their mother scolded them. Merida laughed, freely, joyfully, and dismounted from Angus to hug the boys and anyone else close by.
From outside the gate came more shouts and the clatter of hooves, and another giant horse ran into the courtyard, ridden by Fergus, the one-legged king. "Merida!" he bellowed, leaping down and swinging his daughter into the air. The resemblance between their fathers was eerie: same reddish hair, same massive size, same loud voice. Merida peeked over Fergus' shoulder at Hiccup and mouthed "Big," giggling.
Hiccup slid from Toothless' back and stood with one hand on his shoulder. One of the boys looked him up and down with the uncritical candor of childhood and asked him something. Hiccup froze, staring at the boy and unsure what to do, until Merida called down from her father's arms. All he understood was "Toothless."
Fergus set her down and turned, apparently noticing them for the first time. Merida moved to stand between Fergus and Hiccup, cleared her throat and made a short speech, loud enough for the whole crowd to hear. He understood his name, Toothless', and his father's, and the name of the village, but not much else. Elinor had dismounted and joined her husband, looking proudly at Merida as she spoke. The crowd cheered when she finished, though the king seemed skeptical.
Merida then turned to Hiccup and Toothless. "Fergus," she said, and then, when one of the boys poked her, added, "Hamish, Hubert, Harris." The boys waved as she said their names, though there was no way he'd ever be able to keep them apart.
Hiccup bowed to the king, and Toothless again imitated him. When he glanced up, he saw the king's eyes on his leg. Toothless noticed too and swung his tail in the air, waving his replacement fin. Fergus looked from the tail to Hiccup's eyes, and nodded slightly.
Then the family started to walk toward the castle, Fergus and Elinor's arms around Merida's shoulders and the boys cavorting around them. Someone led the horses away, and the people started to drift away, returning to their work. Hiccup and Toothless stood together in the emptying courtyard. Halfway to the door Merida paused and twisted in her parents' arms. "Hiccup, Toothless," she called, holding out her hand to them. "Come!"
They followed the family through massive wooden doors into a room like the great hall in Berk. Directly opposite the doors were a set of wooden chairs—thrones, for the king, the queen, the princess, and the three princes. There were long tables at the sides of the room and, along one wall, a stone staircase leading up to a second storey. As they entered servants were rushing around, carrying one of the tables into the center of the room and arranging chairs around it as Fergus called out orders. More servants bustled in from another room carrying jugs and trays and plates and cups, setting them on the table. Fergus escorted his wife to a chair at one end of the table and Merida to one on a long side before taking his own seat; the triplets scampered to their seats opposite Merida. Again Hiccup stood, assuming that the chair next to Merida was for him, but not wanting to step wrong. And again Merida turned and called his name, this time rolling her eyes.
Toothless left his side and padded to lie down by the hearth. All of the eyes of those seated at the table followed his progress, except for Merida's; she smiled at him all the way to her side.
When they were all seated, the king asked him a question gruffly. Hiccup's eyes slid to Merida, who answered, obviously explaining that Hiccup couldn't understand and that asking him questions would be a waste of time. His plan to appear competent and responsible was not going to turn out well if he kept responding to questions with slack-jawed silence and Merida excusing him as an idiot.
The queen passed him a basket of bread, still warm from the oven, smelling fresh and yeasty, and it took quite a bit of restraint not to tip the whole basket onto his plate. Fergus started asking questions, scarcely giving Merida time to answer one before the next came. Elinor spread her hands and made a mild suggestion, at which the men settled down and listened as Merida spoke. It was the story of all that had happened to her, and Hiccup paid close attention, telling himself that maybe he could learn more words. When she caught him watching her intently she blushed, and then began to put more gestures into the story to help him follow along. She was a natural storyteller with a rapt audience: the boys hardly fidgeted at all, though they kept a steady stream of food from table to mouths as she talked; her father leaned forward, fists clenched as he heard about her kidnapping, every emotion obvious on his face; and though her mother maintained a neutral countenance, Hiccup saw her knuckles tighten on the edge of the table more than once.
Hiccup wondered all the more what she was saying when she got to the part where she woke up in Berk. She acted out stumbling over Toothless in the dark and meeting Hiccup, and all eyes turned to him. Then she described his father, chuckling, and he felt a pang of sadness. What was Stoick doing right now? Had the raiders come back? He wished he had some way to know. Fergus stroked his beard, seemingly intrigued by the idea of another leader so like himself so far away, and Elinor interrupted with a word he recognized. Before Merida could answer he shook his head. The queen looked at him sadly for a moment before Merida barreled on, talking about finding the raiders and fighting over her staying behind and learning new words on the end of the dock. Then she moved on to the sea voyage, the skipping over the water in the coracle, which her brothers clearly approved of and wanted to try as soon as possible, the mess he'd made of her hair and how he'd fixed it. Elinor gave him an appraising glance at that bit; he wasn't sure if she was impressed, or if she thought he was an idiot.
She asked a question, leaning near Merida's ear, and the girl immediately turned crimson. "Màthair!" she howled, pointedly not meeting Hiccup's eye. Fergus was scowling at him, though, and Hiccup suddenly hoped Merida's parents hadn't been having the same thought Stoick had before they left. Hiccup looked at the king, wide-eyed, and shook his head emphatically. Fergus didn't look convinced and now Merida, too, was glaring at Hiccup.
"What?" he asked, unable to help himself. His reaction seemed to amuse the king, who started laughing.
Merida did a perfect imitation of how he'd felt slogging cross-country, and then skipped to the fight with the bear. Mother and daughter exchanged looks as Merida described the bear trying to defend her cubs, while Fergus seemed impressed that Toothless had more or less defeated the beast. That brought them to the present day, and the end of Merida's story—or, he thought glumly, the end of their story together. Elinor turned to Hiccup, struggling to find something he would understand. She settled for taking hold of his hand and smiling, tears in her eyes. He gave a half smile and squeezed her hand in response.