[A/N: So, like I said this was supposed to be a long chapter, but it didn't turn out as long as I thought it would. I did watch Brave again before writing this chapter, but it doesn't follow the movie word for word which explain why it isn't as long. The next chapter will be along these same lines as well. One last thing about the mystery woman in this chapter she will appear again, but not in this story I suspect. I have two more stories planned out for these characters and she'll appear again in the third story. Reviews are appreciated. Enjoy the chapter!]

The world was dark and rainy the complete opposite of how Agrabah had been. Juliet pulled out the map trying her best to shield it from the rain. "It looks like we're in the Bear Kingdom. That's odd I thought we were on our way to the Kingdom of the Sun. Maybe we took a wrong turn. Oh, well we're here now."

It looked like Clementine was enjoying the rain and had her arms out spread. "This feels great almost like being back in Atlantica." She heard a faint snuffling and put her arms back to her sides. "Did you guys hear that?"

Juliet summoned her Keyblade just to be on the safe side and slowly walked over to the source of the snuffling. She found a crudely built shelter, but what caught her attention was the mess of curly red hair that was under the shelter. "Is someone hiding in there?" Her response was to get an arrow thrust in her face.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The speaker was the person with the curly red hair, but what was beside her was what had caught their attention.

Akio was looking over Juliet's shoulder. "Is that a bear?"

"Yeah, looks like it. I guess that's why they call this place the Bear Kingdom." Juliet looked back at the red haired girl and lowered her Keyblade. "I think we're scaring her."

"I'm not scared I just want to know who you are and what you're doing here."

"I'm Juliet and these are my friends Akio and Clementine. And you are?"

It looked like the girl was calming down a bit. "Merida of clan Dunbroch."

"Ok, Merida and who's the bear?"

Before Merida was able to say anything the bear crawled out from beneath the shelter on its hind legs. The bear said something, but none of them were able to make it out.

"This is my Mother."

Clementine looked up at the bear then back at Merida. "Your Mom is a bear?"

"Well she isn't really a bear. I kinda accidently changed her into a bear. And I was looking for the witch to change her back, but she's gone now."

Juliet crouched down so she could get a better look at the bear. "So, this was an accident? I think maybe we could help."

There was a hopeful look on Merida's face.

"Clementine, you must know something about changing spells right?"

"No, actually I don't."

"You don't?"

"Nope, sorry."

Merida hung her head. "The witch said something about mending the bond, but I don't know what she means by that. I'll think more about it in the morning. You're welcome to come into our shelter if you want to get out of the rain."

The day morning Juliet found herself alone in the shelter while Akio and Clementine were outside with Merida and the Queen who was attempting to eat berries with a knife and fork. "What's going on?"

Akio looked back at her. "I think the Queen has forgotten that she's a bear."

Merida was watching the Queen eat the berries. "Are those good?"

There was a grunt of approval.

"Those are nightshade berries…they're poisonous."

Imminently the Queen spat the berries out and took a drink of water from a pitcher on the table.

Merida picked up another container of water. "Where did you find this water? It's full of worms."

Again the Queen spat the water out looking completely horrified.

Juliet was trying hard not to laugh at the Queen's misfortune. "I don't know much about bears, but I think that they like fish and there's a river just over there." She pointed over at the sound of rushing water.

Merida and the Queen wandered over to the river closely followed by Clementine who imminently jumped into the water. Merida shrieked when she saw Clementine's tail. "You're a mermaid?"

Clementine stuck her head out of the water with a smile on her lips. "I most certainly am, Princess and if you're wondering Akio is a computer program. Juliet is the only one of us who's human."

"Computer?" Merida looked over at her Mother who shrugged. "I don't understand. What's a computer?"

Juliet walked past and jumped onto a rock that was above the water. "Don't worry about it it's hard to explain anyway."

The Queen was busy trying to catch fish, but wasn't having any luck.

Now that Juliet had a good look at Merida she noticed there was black vapor coming off her. That's strange. I wonder why that black stuff would be coming off her? It almost reminds me of the wraiths, but we haven't seen wraiths in a while so it couldn't be them. This is really strange Merida doesn't seem evil or anything. She noticed that Merida was staring and quickly looked away.

"Do I have something on my face?"

"No, I was just trying to get a better look at you." That didn't sound weird at all.

It didn't seem like this bothered Merida who began to show her Mother how to catch fish.

After the Queen had eaten her fill she walked out of the river and began to walk away.

"Mom, Mom wait where are you going?"

The Queen ignored her and continued to plod on.

Clementine was following behind Merida with Juliet and Akio following her. "I don't think she heard you, Merida. You might want to speak up."

Merida went to put her hand on her Mother when the bear turned around snarling. "Mom?"

The Queen began to advance on Merida still snarling; her eyes black. It took her a minute, but she remembered herself and backed away growling apologies.

"Come on Mom we need to get back to the castle."

As Juliet watched Merida she noticed that the vapor dissipated ever so slightly. There's got to be a connection between Merida and the wraiths. I don't think she's helping them. At least not on purpose. "Merida, you haven't seen any monsters that have black smoke coming off them with gold eyes have you? Sometimes they can look like parrots, or dogs, or elephants."

Merida looked back at Juliet while she thought about this. "Yes, I have when I was out on Angus, but I shot an arrow at them and they ran away."

"So wraiths are here too are they? How about this Merida: the three of us will be your body guard on your way back to the castle? We've had dealings with these monsters before and can get rid of them if they attack you."

"All right if you like."

"So, why do you have to get back to the castle so badly? Wouldn't you want to find the witch instead?"

"She's at some festival and won't be back until spring and we've only got until second sun rise."

They travelled in silence for some while until Merida looked back at Juliet again. "Where are you from exactly? I've never seen anyone like the three of you in Dunbroch before."

"I guess it couldn't hurt to tell you. I'm from a world called Traverse Town, Akio is from The Grid, and Clementine is from Atlantica."

Merida's eyes widened. She'd always been interested in seeing other places and had traveled all around the kingdom on Angus, but a horse could only get you so far. "In Atlantic are there other mermaids?"

Clementine nodded. "It's full of mermaids. Out leader is King Triton and his wife's name is Queen Athena and they have seven daughters."

"Seven, wow. I've got three younger brothers…..wee devils more like. Anyway the reason we have to get back to the castle is the mend the bond."

Akio blinked in confusion. "Bond?"

"There's this tapestry that my Mom was making and I ripped it so I think if I fixed it then that would turn my Mother back into a woman."

"Well, lead on."

After they'd walked a little further a little blue light was shining up ahead.

The Queen was the first to see it and dashed after it trying to catch it in her paws. She looked between her paws to see that it had disappeared.

There was another light behind her prompting the Queen to go after it again.

"Mom stop it that isn't how you catch whisps."

There was a trail of whisps leading away from the circle of giant stone slabs that they'd entered.

Merida who'd already had dealings with whisps began to follow them with the Queen lumbering behind her. "I'm sure the whisps can lead us back to the castle."

Instead of going back to the castle Merida was looking for they came to the ruins of a different castle. Merida wasn't paying attention to where her feet were going and ended up crashing through an elevated part of the castle and fell deeper into the castle.

The Queen peered through the hole and growled down at Merida to see if she was all right.

Juliet was looking around the Queen into the hole. "Are you ok, Merida?"

"Yeah, I'm fine I landed my bottom so there's no serious damage."

Juliet looked back at Akio and Clementine. "You two stay up here I'm going to go check on Merida." She hopped down into the hole to see Merida examining a broken stone tablet. "Did you find something?"

"I think this the castle in the story my Mom told me about."

"What story?"

"There were these four brothers who lived here years and years ago. One of the brothers got power hungry and tried to wanted something to change his fate."

"What happened to him?"

Merida shrugged. "The story doesn't tell you."

There was growling behind them and in the darkness there were two pairs of eyes looking at them. One of the sources of the growling came out of the darkness revealing itself to be an anger dog, but this one seemed different. Instead of blind anger in its eyes there was a spark of intelligence. It wasn't paying any attention to Merida and instead lunged at Juliet biting her arm.

Juliet managed to kick the wraith off and smacked it in the nose with the Keyblade. "Merida, we need to get out of here the wraiths are here first."

"I'm not worried about that."

"Then what are you worried about?"

Merida was pointing up at the other beast which had now made itself known. "Mor'du is what I'm worried about."

Mor'du was right behind the anger dog before he reared up on his hind legs and roared.

Merida took off running scrambling up slab of stone reaching for her Mother's paw. Her arm wasn't long enough to reach so she was forced to jump with Mor'du on her heels.

Juliet had changed her Keyblade into the glider and flown out of the hole they'd fallen into. "That is a big bear, but what was with that wraith? It seemed different than the others."

Mor'du roared again before looking down at the anger dog. The trouble was though that the anger dog had vanished.

In its place was a short pale faced woman with long black hair and cunning grey eyes with a gold earring hanging off her right ear. She rested her hand on Mor'du's flank while the bear heaved and snarled; a slight smirk on her lips. "So, that's the Keyblade bearer…..interesting." The woman patted Mor'du on the side and disappeared into a dark portal.

By the time they got to the outskirts of the castle the Queen easily wrenched the gates off the lower section of the castle so they could sneak in.

Juliet was hanging towards the back of the group still thinking about the wraith and its oddly intelligent eyes. If I didn't know any better I'd say that wraith wasn't a mindless killing machine. It looked like it was trying to figure me out. She didn't realize that she'd been left behind and felt Akio pulling on her arm.

"Merida has already gone in. What are you thinking about anyway? You look like you're not with us."

"When I was down in the castle with Merida there was this anger dog down there with Mor'du, but this one seemed different."

"What was different about it?"

"It just seemed different. It got real close to me when it bit my arm and-"

"It bit you? Why didn't you tell Clementine she could have healed you easily."

"You're not listening, Akio. This wraith was intelligent you could see it in its eyes."

"You think this wraith was different? I thought they were all killers how could one of them be intelligent?"

"I don't know it just seemed different. It's hard to explain. If I could find it again I would show it to you."

"Well then we'll have to look for it again."

Before Juliet was able to respond a large group of men ran out of the front gates of the castle the Queen burst out followed by men on horseback with baying hounds leading the pack. "What's going on?"

Clementine was following behind the group red in the face and out of breath. "The King saw the Queen and apparently he really doesn't like bears."

"Where's Merida?"

"She's locked in her room, but I think her brothers have that covered. The funny thing is that they're little bear cubs now and they're so adorable."

Juliet summoned her glider and jumped on. "Let's see if we can head off the King he obviously doesn't know the bear he's hunting is his wife."

They were flying high above the fray and following behind them was Merida on Angus with her brothers. They landed in time to see Merida fighting off the King while the Queen lay tied down on the ground.

Merida had her bow aimed at her Father. "I won't let you hurt my Mother."

There was growling coming up behind them. This time Mor'du was alone save for the faint pinpricks of gold eyes off in the distance. Mor'du reared up on his hind legs and let out a savage snarl before knocking the King out of the way and going for Merida.

The Queen was able to throw off her captors and threw herself at Mor'du.

Thinking it wouldn't be a good idea to try and tangle with two bears one a savage beast the other a literal Mother bear Juliet, Akio, and Clementine stayed off to the side. Juliet and Clementine were shooting at Mor'du with their magic while Akio threw his disk.

Finally the Queen bite down on Mor'du's neck and was able to get him under her.

Mor'du thrashed and tried to throw her off, but eventually grew still. There was a little blue whisp that was next to him that took the shape of a man. The man looked at Merida and nodded before disappearing.

The gold eyes blinked in the darkness and vanished.

The Queen got off Mor'du's body and collapsed beside Merida.

The sun was starting to rise and Merida quickly flung the tapestry she'd been carrying over her Mother's shoulders. As the sun rose into the sky there was no change in the Queen's body. Merida buried her face in her Mother's face and began to sob.

Not a paw, but a hand came up to stroke Merida's hand. The Queen looked down at her daughter with tears in her eyes and embraced her in what could only be described as a bear hug.

Three naked little boys with red hair like Merida rushed up to the Queen as well while the King followed along behind.

Juliet was starting to back up thinking it was time for them to go. "I think its time we go. They should be left alone."

Merida looked up from her Mother in time to see Juliet get onto the glider. "Wait, Juliet where are you going?"

"Its time for us to go Merida."

"Are you going to ever come back?"

"Yes, we'll come back eventually don't worry."