"Merida! Doon't you dare loose another arrow!" A woman stomps. Her hair is pulled neatly into braids, a crown on top of her head. In front of her, Merida stands with her arms in ready position. Her dress has been torn and she stands in the midst of a crowd.
Hiccup watches intently, examining the scene before him with a confused expression. His skin is clouded and next to him is a buff man leaning forward in his chair with his jaw dropped. Four flags stand off to the side, each with a different symbol on it. Three boys, each with a different colored kilt, stand next to people of the like, watching in awe at the audacity of Merida.
Hiccup turns his attention back to her as she takes a deep breathe and releases. The arrow flows gracefully off the bow and straight into a bullseye, splitting the arrow already there in half. The crowd lets out a huge gasp and before he knows it, Merida has turned to face the woman. Suddenly the scene shifts and he is floating towards a large castle.
"Wait, no!" Hiccup says as he flies through a wall, "What the?"
Against his own will, Hiccup is brought through the castle and is transported into a room. Again Merida stands with the woman in what he perceives to be her room.
"You're always telling me what to do, and what not to do!" Merida shouts. Hiccup watches the exchange in bewilderment. Eventually, Merida's anger takes over and using a sword, she slices a family tapestry in half. The woman's horrified face is filled with grief and sadness and Hiccup can't help but remember his own father's face when he found out he had been making friends with the dragons. Hiccup stands back, letting the scene unfold, knowing full well by this point that he has no choice.
"Merida, you are a princess, and I expect you to act like one!" The woman fires back.
"Mum, no!" Merida shouts as Merida's mother tosses Merida's bow into the fire. Tears stream down Merida's face and she storms out of the room. Hiccup desperately wants to go after her, but instead he watches as her mother (who has finally realized what she has done) frantically tries to remove the bow from the fire. Unfortunately, it is too late and her mother sits on her heels, crying.
"Merida," Hiccup whispers.
"Merida," Hiccup says rasply. Merida peers curiously at the young man. He had been talking non sense all night and she was starting to think he was worse off than her. Merida had been awake since early morning. She has gotten used to the nightmares she seems to have regularly, but neither the dragon nor Hiccup had flinched when she popped up in a panicked scream.
It is the same dream. Walking on water in the moonlight, with the wisps. Voices and screams constantly running through her head. It was a disturbing dream, and Merida is now hoping that she doesn't see any wisps in the waking world. It was starting to concern her. Before the invasion, she had had the dream a few times. Afterwards, it had been pretty much every day, but each night a different voice, a different piece to a puzzle, a different memory.
Currently, Merida sits in front of a fire, having gone fishing early this morning. Her arms were sore and she was again running low on arrows. To her pleasure, the dragon has been fast asleep since Hiccup had tamed him yesterday. Shortly after they had eaten, Hiccup had fallen asleep. As he slept, she had silently studied him, running a finger over his cheeks and arms. She determined that he must have lost a lot of muscle mass. Listening to his heart beat, it had been steady, but weak. He was malnutritioned and he had scars on the sides of his face and burn marks on the backs of his hands. Seeing as he deals with dragons, she was not surprised.
Merida takes the last fish off the fire, setting it down on a large leaf she had found. Hiccup screams and finally Merida has had it. Obviously he is not as good as she is with waking up from nightmares. She rushes to his side and shakes him awake.
"Hiccup!" Merida shouts and he bolts awake. He pops up so fast that he is inches from her face. Merida can feel herself blushing, but Hiccup was in too much of a panic to notice.
"What happened?" Hiccup says, trying to catch his breathe.
"Calm down," Merida says, "Ye jus had a bad dream is all. You've been mumbling all mornin'." Merida says hiding her face before he notices the red in her cheeks.
"I was? I'm sorry, did I wake you?" Hiccup said rubbing the back of his neck.
"Lucky for you, no. I've been awake fer hours." Merida shrugs, not feeling like explaining her dreams, "How are you feeling?"
"A little drained," Hiccup shrugs trying to stand to his feet. Merida looks down at the artificial leg on his foot.
"Sit down," Merida instructs. Hiccup raises his eyebrow skeptically, "I notice you're missing a foot. You're also malnutritioned and weak."
"Weak? I'll have you know I'm chief of—" Hiccup trails off, "Or was chief. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I'll be fine. I've been through worse."
"You've been through worse than having your village overthrown?" Merida says without thinking. The second she says it she covers her mouth.
"How do you know that?" Hiccup cocks his head to the side. Suddenly he gets a fire in his eyes that almost pierces her soul, "Are you working with Astrid?"
"No! I doon't even know who that is! Look, I think we need to talk." Merida says.
"I agree," Hiccup nods but neither one of them makes a move to speak. Behind them, ChiChi sleeps peacefully still. Merida sighs and hands Hiccup another fish. Hiccup flinches, wishing he could have seen anything else but another fish. Merida, on the other hand, is quite enjoying herself. It was nice to taste a saltwater fish versus a freshwater fish. The taste difference was subtle, but it was bareable.
"Okay who starts?" Hiccup says taking a bite of his fish.
"You washed up on my land and yer dragon pretty much destroyed half my kin—I mean village. So I serppose you have ta start." Merida says matter-of-factly.
"Valid point," Hiccup says, "Well I guess it all started a few years ago when I found my mother after years without her. My dad had died and when I brought her back, everything was going well. I had revolutionized dragon riding and making dragons our friends instead of our enemies."
Merida studies him intently, wondering how a guy like him made friends with a dragon.
"But one day I was out charting different Islands when I stumbled upon a particular one that looked unreal. I had already suspected that with all the different dragons out there, there must be some that were close to legendary. But what I found on this Island blew all of my expectations. I ran into a dragon that could turn itself invisible, one that could teleport, and the most special one of all, the golden dragon. It was a dragon made of pure gold."
"Pure gold?" Merida marveled, "That dragon would be worth a fortune."
"Yeah," Hiccup says sullenly. "Well this dragon was more than gold. It could control the minds of all dragons in it's radius, but this particular dragon prefered to bunk with the special ones. It was such a pure hearted dragon, and it can't be controlled. It would let me get near it, but I could never ride it. None of my tricks worked. This dragon was resilient to it all. My fiancé wanted to show people, and without thinking, I brought half my village to come see these legendary dragons. But my mother and my fiancé, Astrid, they stopped getting along after a while. It was weird to see them turn against each other so suddenly. They had started making more frequent trips to the island and one day, Astrid stumbled upon the golden dragon's eggs."
"It was a female?" Merida raises her eyebrow.
"Turns out. Eventually I discovered that the eggs were releasing a powerful energy that shows our true hearts and can control the minds of dragons. It kept happening to my dragon, Toothless, and I finally found a way to bring dragon's back from the mind control. After further study, I discovered that whomever touches the golden egg directs the mind control waves. I guess the baby dragons are very trusting. Usually the mother is on top of them so only positive energy escapes, but in the wrong hands—"
"It can be a lethal weapon," Merida gasps.
"Exactly. My mom was head of all trading since she had met more people than anyone I had ever known, but somehow she got involved with people she called pirates. She ended up selling four of those eggs to them, angering the golden dragon. My fiancé Astrid was livid. Turns out, she was planning on stealing them herself for her uncle to whom she had been conspiring against me with for months."
"Yer trying to tell me that both yer mum and yer fiancé were working behind yer back, you were the chief, and ye still let them get away with it?" Merida scoffs, "Doesn't sound like yer too bright."
"Would you really accuse your closest family of evil doing?" Hiccup glares, "What happened to believing the best in everybody."
"Sure, ye can believe the best in everybody until given a reason not to. I live with three trouble making boys, a Dad that's gone to war more times than I can count, and a mum who used to be a shady control freak. I've also encountered crazy old witches and seen the deception amongst peers." Merida shrugs, "So I guess, yes. Yes I would accuse my family of evil doing if given an opportunity."
Hiccup shakes his head, wiping his hands on the sand as he tosses the fish bones into the fire.
"So how'd you end up here?" Merida asks.
"Well, when my mother took the eggs, the pirates didn't believe they had them all so they stormed Berk looking for them. After a few hours we finally chased the pirates away with our dragons, but then Astrid turned against me and finished what the pirates had started. She destroyed everything and killed nearly everyone. She tried to kill me, took all my dragons and left. I escaped on my dragon Toothless to the island to hideout, but when I got there, Astrid and her uncle had killed the golden dragon and were escaping with the last golden egg. With the egg, they had toothless shoot me through the air and I really can't remember what happened after that." Hiccup says relaying the painful memory.
"You must've had some angel looking after you," Merida says rising to sit next to him, "So all those words you were calling out to ChiChi—"
"Yeah it's what I use to bring them back from the mind control. Ardus really made a mess of things."
"Ardus? That's the name of the man that took over DunBroch!" Merida exclaims.
"DunBroch? Where the heck am I?" Hiccup asks.
"DunBroch is a clan in Scotland. There are three other neighboring clans but you have to travel by the straight to get to em."
"I guess that means it's your turn to speak," Hiccup smiles, glad to have finally talked to someone about all his perils.
"Good grief," Merida says, knowing full well that she doesn't want to tell him that she is a Princess, "Well my story is much shorter than yours. Most of my problems seem to be on the account of you and your ol' pals."
"How so?" Hiccup inquires.
"Well a few weeks ago yer ol' friend Ardus stormed through DunBroch. Before him, ChiChi had come out of nowhere and destroyed all our shipments from the other clans and all of the towns resources. We had plenty of extras in the DunBroch castle, but not nearly enough to feed all the villages and restore all the houses that had burned. I lost everything. My home, my family."
"Ardus killed your family?" Hiccup frowns.
"I can't imagine what he's done to em. My family is strong, they always have been. I pray they're alive. I was the only one to escape before they overthrew the village. Some blonde chick sent out a bunch of men to find me and they ended up chasing me back here where I've been hiding out for weeks." Merida says putting her hands over her knees.
"Why do they want to find you so bad?" Hiccup ponders out loud.
Merida contemplates her answer very carefully, "Let's just say I know my way around the four clans and I'm a bit on the headstrong side."
"You seem like it," Hiccup smiles, "I had a dream about you last night."
Merida looks at him in surprise. She has been trying to figure this guy out since she had met him, considering she had been having dreams and visions of him. Now that he is in front of her, all of those dreams and visions feel like memories. Even if they are not her own. But to hear him say he has been having dreams about her… now that's a different story.
"Since we're being totally honest, I have been having dreams about you," Merida nods.
"You have?" Hiccup meets her eyes.
"Yea. When you were tellin' yer story, I could see it all happening. It's been a reoccurring dream lately. Her standing before you scowling, telling you how your love was your biggest weakness. It was almost as if I was you. I could feel yer pain, yer heartache. You almost wished she could kill you and get it over with." Merida sympathizes with him.
"I don't even know how that's possible," Hiccup shakes his head, "That's exactly what happened. Then that means that my dreams are true to. You're a princess aren't you?"
Merida winces, this guy having uncovered the one thing she was hoping to hide. She still didn't fully trust him yet, but right now it would seem they were connected somehow.
"Yes. DunBroch is my kingdom and Ardus has my parents and my three younger brothers." Merida nods, "I couldn't help them. I had to flee."
Hiccup watches as tears well up in Merida's eyes. He puts his hand around her back to comfort her, but it only makes her cry harder. She leans towards him a bit and eventually, he ends up pulling her to him until she rests her head on his chest. Hiccup feels the pain she does. They were both leaders who had lost everything.
"This is all my fault," Hiccup shakes his head. Merida looks up in between her tears and gazes at him, "You're right. I should've known something was up. I should've seen the greed in their eyes. If it weren't for me, you'd still have your kingdom and your family. I'm just as useless as I was growing up."
"Shut up," Merida says, taking him by surprise and wiping her tears, "If you've had any glance into my life, then you'd know that I know a thing or two about being a screw up. I turned my mother into a bear to get out of an arranged marriage!"
"What?" Hiccup exclaims, "I don't think I've gotten that far yet."
"Oh, then just ignore what I said for a moment," Merida laughs nervously, "Look, the point is that we all make mistakes, and sometimes things happen that aren't our fault. You can't control your fiancé and yer mother's actions, and I can't control that yer buddy decided to seek revenge on my Dad. So all we need to do is figure out how to fix it."
"Can we even fix it?" Hiccup shakes his head, "I've gone up against dragons thirteen thousand times my size. Twice. The first one I lost my leg, the second one cost me my dad's life. What's it going to cost me this time?"
"You'll never know until you find out," Merida smiles, "We don't have a lot of time to figure this out, but I've gotta make sure your strength is back. We're going to have to chill out here for a couple days. I'll get working on trying to build a hut so we aren't so exposed. What are you going to do with that dragon?"
"I guess I need to wake her up and get back to training. She's going to need to be ready to go if you're ever going to ride her." Hiccup says stumbling to rise to his feet.
"Wait WHAT?" Merida exclaims, "Yer not getting me on tha' thing! It's huge and tried to kill me!"
"The only way we have any chance of taking back your kingdom is if we can find that golden egg. My guess is that they aren't going to have it lying around. Plus you said there were three other clans right?"
"You think Ardus went after the other clans," Merida nods, "I guess that would make sense. Take out the allies. It would be easier to help them out before saving DunBroch."
"Exactly," Hiccup smiles, "So are we in this together?"
Merida looks into Hiccup's eyes and smiles, "In this together."
A bellowing of laughter fills the throne room. King Fergus is tied to a post in chains, blood plastered on his face, his eye swollen, and cuts on his arms. On the opposite end of the room, his wife watches helplessly with her hands tied behind her back, and two of Ardus's men holding either arm. Ardus takes another swing and hits Fergus in the stomach. His followers fill the large room watching the event. Astrid leans against a wall, sharpening her axe.
"Tell me where she is!" Ardus demands. Astrid rolls her eyes as once again, King Fergus keeps his head low.
"Stop it! None of us know where she is!" Queen Elinor shouts. One of the guards slaps her and she falls to the ground, tears streaming down her face.
"Elinor!" King Fergus calls to her. Elinor looks up at him with a sad face, but neither of them can answer. Even if they wanted the pain to stop, they couldn't. Merida has always been a free spirit, traveling where she pleases. They did not have a safe haven like most families because Merida has always been itching to discover something new. She rarely visited the same place twice, and they had already torn through the old witch's cottage without any luck.
"Well if you don't know where she is, maybe you can point us to where she could have gone," Ardus coaxes.
"I bloody can't tell ye anything you big bloat! My daughter is smarter than anyone in this room and Lord knows where she could be!" King Fergus huffs.
"Why you—" Ardus swings back his arm, ready to punch.
"Ardus!" Astrid finally calls, "He didn't talk the times you've punched him, he didn't talk when you took one of the triplets, he didn't talk when you threatened Elinor, and he won't talk now. I actually think he's telling the truth and doesn't know where she could be."
"Then what do you suppose we do?" Ardus lowers his arm and glares at her.
"Wait." Astrid says simply, "Do you really think Merida would leave her family and her entire Kingdom to go start a new life somewhere? If she's anything like we've heard, she'll be back. And we need to make preparations for when she does."
Ardus looks between Fergus and Astrid and then nods.
"Take them back to the dungeons," Ardus orders, walking back to the throne.
"Leave us!" Astrid demands, the crowd of men exiting along with the guards. When the room is empty and they can hear no chatter, Astrid turns back to Ardus to speak, "Uncle, the egg. Where is it?"
"You have no business knowing," Ardus says sitting in the throne and closing his eyes.
"None of my business? You wouldn't even have that dumb egg if it wasn't for me! I have the right to know where it is." Astrid crosses her arms.
"Why?" Ardus looks down at Astrid.
"Why what?" Astrid asks, clearly annoyed.
"Why do you have to know where the egg is. What peace would it give you?" Ardus questions.
Astrid doesn't say anything but stutter to herself. Ardus laughs a bit, leaning back in his chair.
"You ask for things and have no answer as to why. I'll tell you why I won't tell you where it is. You may have seen the errors of your past, but all those years you've grown up with Hiccup under his father's rule, that teaching is still in you. You want to know why I won't tell you where the egg is? I'll tell you. Rebound." Ardus snarles, "As long as those memories nag at you in the back of your mind, all the good you've done so far since joining me will diminish. Those past memories will make you feel guilty, weak, conflicted. You'll doubt everything we've done to restore things to the way they should be."
Astrid still says nothing but turns her gaze from him with a saddened expression on her face. Ardus sighs and smiles gently at her.
"Come here, pet," Ardus says, calling her by the nickname he used to call her as a small child. Astrid comes up the steps slowly stopping in front of him. He grabs her hand and looks into her eyes.
"I'm only doing what's best for you. This is what your parents would have wanted." Ardus says. Astrid nods at him and gives him a faint smile. "Go on and help with preparations."
"Yes Uncle," Astrid turns walking away. The second she turns a scowl appears on her face. She storms through the corridors towards the room she had chosen as her own. The second she reaches her room, the chambermaid glances up at her.
"Get out!" Astrid yells, and they lady scampers away in fear. Astrid slams the door behind her, her blood boiling. Ardus had promised that the two of them would lead together but now she feels as if she is being used. She had gotten rid of one problem—Hiccup. And now it looks like she was going to have to try to get rid of another. She never once said she would help Ardus rise to power, but help him get revenge. Secretly, she was expecting to be the leader.
Astrid looks out the window at the dragon patrol and a small smile plays on her face. She laughs out loud, knowing full well that she more than likely sounded like a mad scientist. Astrid suddenly realized that Ardus has no power. He has relied on her to set up their entire system. She knows everyone in the ranks, their strength, their weaknesses. She knows how to control and ride the dragons, having learned all the good tricks from Hiccup. Without her, Ardus knew nothing. He was expendable. It would be a cinch to overthrow Ardus.
Astrid snickers as she watches the sunset on another day, "All good things, to those who wait."