I seriously sat and wrote this in about an hour at three in the morning. I cried like an idiot at the end of it.
Hope you enjoy.
I don't own Brave or HTTYD.
Black Magic
"Do nothing without regard for the consequences."
-Aesop.
"Are ye sure ye know what ye're doin', lass?"
The parallels hurt, a steady reminder that she shouldn't have to be here again. That she should have learned her lesson the first time and known that magic was not the way to solve her issues, no matter the desperation that clawed in her chest.
"Of course," Merida murmured, eying the acidic brew. "I want a spell to change the heart of a man."
The crone's mouth moved in a way that could be grin or a grimace. She extended a bony hand and the raven chirped out an obnoxious laugh that made her nearly jerk.
"Payment up front, dear."
It started two weeks ago.
Merida was nearing twenty when the Viking envoy arrived from New Berk. At first, they had barred the gates—as the only rational thing to do—but the Chieftain had come with offerings of peace and a pitiful mouthful of Gaelic that had made her brothers laugh until they nearly choked.
But Merida had been in love in a single glance.
Broad and tall, probably nearly seven years older than she, he strut through with purpose while wearing a massive black wolf fur that dragged behind his animated false leg. He was braw in all the ways the boys of her youth could never hope to be, poised and polished and so intelligent it ached.
But there were always issues in the way of what Merida wanted. Always obstacles, always expectations she couldn't hope to meet. It wasn't fair, she wanted to shout, hearing that (of course) he had a wife and children waiting for him at home. And so she endeavored to have him just a single time, just once, so that she could bear a child worthy of her name and line.
'It'll be of no consequence,' she assured herself, luring him away into the woods. 'I'll marry McGuffin and all will be well.'
But the man did not want anything to do with Merida.
After nearly knocking her out by shoving her into a tree, he held a blade to her throat and spat in his heathen tongue.
"I am not the man you want me to be," he had snarled.
'That's fine,' she understood him. 'I'll make you.'
She was not unsurprised to find the cottage in the woods again, after so many years.
The same toothy grin.
The same cock-eyed raven.
The same warnings as before.
All the fears of her mother, nervous and all-knowing, went into the cauldron where a single green bottle was pulled from.
"Should he swallow even a mouthful," the crone told her, eyes glowing. "He will see no other."
Merida would like to say that she had doubts. That a single thought edged its way in her massive hair and pulled—begged that she would stop this, think before she acted, looked before she leapt just this once—
But she'd be lying.
Her handmaid and servant, a pretty blond creature, took the goblet of wine to the Viking hoard during dinner the next night. Merida's eyes watched the goblet cross the ballroom and land in the hands of the Chieftain, his beard glinting as he laughed at something his companion said. She winced when he gestured, sloshing some over the side, and nearly sprung from her chair when he polished off the entire cup in a few harsh pulls.
Sweat dripped between her shoulders at the sight of his throat working down the wine tainted by a magic she knew she should never have entertained once, let alone twice.
When he placed the goblet down, she could see the spell already at work.
His eyes found hers across the rowdy room, the shouts of her kinsmen and siblings, the mess of his people scattered around them bleeding into hazy nothingness.
His eyes, so sharp and powerful and green, looked like fire in the low lights.
She barely made it to a secret hallway before he caught her skirts in his hands and yanked.
Merida didn't have time to gasp his name before he crushed his mouth to hers.
It was just supposed to be a single time.
Just once, that's all she wanted.
But magic does not bow to whims and fantasies. It's cruel—Merida knew this. So when he hiked up her dress around her hips, she couldn't get him to stop even if she wanted him to. He was fueled with rage and nature, to the brim with a desire of chemical make, making him hard as iron and demanding in his touch.
"What have you done?" He rasped against her mouth, tongue sweeping across her teeth. "What have you done, you stupid child?"
"I've stolen you," she whispered back, hiding her shame in the crook of his neck while he took her maidenhead like a vicious Viking and she no better than a commoner.
'That's fine,' she relaxed into the ache, the soreness, the pain. 'I'll be his whore just for tonight.'
If only it were that simple.
This was no trifling potion of lust, it wasn't a spell for a single evening.
Hiccup couldn't stand to be parted from her. He laid her out across a table in the library, shoving her skirts between her teeth while his fingers reached depths inside her she'd never known. He rode out into the woods with her and took her against trees and between rocks, his knees and her back torn with scratches from wood and stone. He snuck into her bedroom at night and laid her bare, laying her open until the sun barely began to rise and he would sneak out again.
She was raw and sore and tired, exhausted. Hiccup's mind was no longer towards peace or building a place of refuge for his people, but on her. He suckled bruises across her thighs and dug nails into her backside, all the while pounding those fleshy spots within her and constantly emptying himself inside of her. He punished her actions, hatred evident in his face, in his eyes during the act. Even when she had her monthly bleed, he was not deterred in the slightest and made a terrible mess of her sheets and bedspread.
When the deal was struck with her father and the Clans, Hiccup did not leave.
"I will remain and begin preparations for the settlement," he told them, while everyone gaped and gawped at him.
His eyes were only for Merida.
(Are ye sure ye know what ye're doin', lass?)
No.
"Marry me," he demanded while he was as deep into her as he could possibly reach. "Marry me and never leave me."
"Ye're already married—!" Merida sucked in a gasp when his fingers found that precious bud at the apex of her womanhood, all of her clenching.
Damn the man and the witch. Merida thinks the magic made him a better lover, or better suited to her. There wasn't a time when he didn't sate her at least four times, often more. She tried to pretend that it didn't bother her that he was never sated, but it was a pitiful lie that often left her feeling as empty as he did.
"I'll divorce her." he laid himself across her, raising her legs to hook around his hips and press up. "I don't think of her anymore."
Or our children.
"Oh, God, Hiccup—! I'm—!" Because of course she was. She never stopped, when he was touching her. And he never stopped touching her.
"Good." He grabbed her by the throat and squeezed, prolonging her suffering and his. "That's it—that's it—! Give me a good one, princess—!"
She shattered, as she always did with him.
"Okay," she murmured, hands in his hair. "I'll marry ye."
As she always would with him.
'Once—there was an ancient kingdom—!"
"Are ye out of yer minds?!"
"—Ruled by a fair and just king who was much beloved—!"
"What madness are ye speakin' of, lad? Ye're married yerself!"
"—And, when he grew old, he divided his kingdom equally amongst his four sons—!"
"Merida, ye are the crowned princess!"
"—But the eldest brother wanted to rule the kingdom for himself—!"
"D'ye have any idea what this might do to our alliances, our treaties, our peace?!"
'—he followed his own path—!"
"This is not to be born!"
"—And the kingdom fell—!"
"Merida, tell me ye're not entertaining this?!"
"—Into war—!"
"The Lairds will revolt!"
"—And chaos—!"
"I won't have my child wedded to a dirty Viking—!"
"—And ruin—!"
"I'm pregnant."
Heavy and swollen, Merida toddled into the cottage of the witch many moons later.
"Sit, dearie, please, sit—!" The crone snapped her fingers and a chair materialized under Merida's falling legs. "My—do'nae ye look tired!"
It was an understatement. The magic did not wear off or thin, over the months. Hiccup was still insatiable, barely leaving their chambers to eat, constantly having his mouth on her body, drinking the milk meant for their child, burying his cock in her even when she cried out that he not, that he wait, that she was tired. She had barely managed to escape him tonight after drugging him to sleep.
The man she had once loved so much was no longer in the frazzled creature that was left, nothing but want and greed and need.
"Give me a spell to reverse what I've done," Merida begged, crying. She felt she did it all the time now—such a foreign thing at one point now so common. "Please, I'll give ye anythin' ye seek. A castle of yer very own, lands, titles—!"
"Now, now," the witch cooed. "Ye ken what I want, don't ye?"
Merida blinked red eyes. "Nay—?"
The witch hummed and glanced at her belly.
Merida vomited across her floors and her shoes.
"Ye ken it would be better," the witch had laughed in tune with her familiar. "Yel never know just what might come with the spring."
"Hiccup, get off—!" Merida struck him across the head, uncaring now. "I'm feeding her, ye brute—!"
He scowled. "That's all you do. Feed and take care of the baby."
"Yes, that's what parents are expected to do."
"Maybe," his eyes glimmered with magic, a sickly sheen that made her nervous, the sweat across her shoulders appearing even now in the height of winter. "Maybe I'll just have to get rid of it…"
Merida knew in that moment that she had no choice in her actions.
She liked to say she hesitated.
That she was unsure.
That her bloody hands shook.
But when that blade slid through his chest while she rode atop him, his eyes snapped open and she saw him—
Hiccup.
As he was, before she gave him the spell that cursed them both.
"Thank you," he gasped, mouth a bloody curve.
"I'm sorry." The blade twisted and he jerked, their parting just as their joining.
Bloody.
Cruel.
Unavoidable.
When the spring came, the Vikings returned with a blonde Chieftess in tow, two little hands wrapped firmly in hers.
She sought a man that abandoned them. She sought a man that divorced her in a letter and disowned their children through runes. She sought a Chief that forsook his people and his land for that of another, bewitched and ensnared by a princess of blood and dragon fire. She sought a man cursed by magics unknown to men, forced to want a woman he could not ever love.
She sought a husband buried in an unmarked grave at the edge of the clearing of a caim.
When she declared war, Merida did not raise her head.
She knew what she had done.
Merida would like to say that her people held out, that they defended her and her family, that their bonds could be salvaged and there was hope for her lands.
She wanted to say that they succeeded against the Vikings for a second time and pushed them back to their longboats, to their northern shores, never to set foot again on the green of Scotland.
She would like to say that she was still treated with respect and worthy of her position.
But that was not the case.
'He followed his own path.'
A broken castle, walls crumbling, flags broken and burning in the wind as if set ablaze by dragon flame.
'And the kingdom fell—!'
A bleeding King and his murdered sons, laying in a dark puddle on the battlefield.
'Into war—!'
A Queen sprawled across a table, a blade in her back, skirts rumpled and shoes missing, knowing nothing but fear and pain in her final moments.
'And chaos—!'
A bloody Viking in armor once designed by the man she loved, the blue flaked and decaying with the leather that barely fit her anymore, standing over another body.
'And ruin—!'
"I'm sorry."
Once there was an ancient kingdom…
