At that agreement, Merida and Magnus both hopped on Angus, who had caught up to the two, and rode back to the castle, Merida holding onto the cake, but not too hard to ruin it. Since he had read the story, Magnus instinctively know things are going to go wrong and when they do, he swore to himself that he would be there for Merida until the end. The girl was hellbent on changing her fate that she's willing to risk everything just to get it. Finally, they reached the castle grounds and it was already pitch black outside. Reaching the stables once more, Merida jumped off and landed with a sort of dance before turning to Magnus as he was climbing down from the horse.

"Al'ight, so I'm goin' give me mum the cake, you can go to the celebration." She instructed Magnus.

"Wait, what?"

"You don' so much for me today, even if ah didn' want it." Merida reassured him. "Go celebrate with ev'ryone else and I'll join ya after."

Despite how he was feeling for her and what she was about to do, Magnus gave a half-hearted nod as they went to separate entrances to the castle. Moving at a trudging pace, a pair of sly eyes fell onto Magnus.

"Getting cozy wi' th' princess afore th' muckle day?" questioned an all too familiar stable boy.

Magnus sighed before answering, "Is 'cozy' the only word you know? The queen told me to go after her and now we're back."

"A'm juist saying ye'r missing yer ain pairtie. Or pure baith o' yers." Baltair teased.

"It's just a distraction. Not like the bachelor parties where I'm from." Magnus explained, rolling his eyes at the stable boy.

"Bach who?"

Magnus walks past at the confused Baltair and into the castle, hearing the faint sounds of singing and stomps grow louder as he traverses the corridors.

"Mor'du, Mor'du
Mor'du, Mor'du!
Now the time has come for
All of us tae slaughter you!"

He hears the beginnings of a very drunk song as he slowly enters the room, trying to avoid any potential wrath from the three lords. Just get a pint, and wait for the spell to start, he thought as he looked up the stairs that Merida and her mom would go to in a few minutes. Yet before he could do just that, he's whisked up by the shoulders of the younger MacGuffin and dropped to a seat with him, Young Macintosh, and Wee Dingwall.

"Aye, here's the lad of the hour!" Young Macintosh announced to the other two suitors at the table, before passing a wooden tankard of beer to Magnus. The half-English boy had expected the younger Macintosh to be slightly jealous of him, since it was for sure clear from his glances toward the princess hours ago that he would really looking forward to earning her hand in marriage.

"Uh, thanks?" Magnus responded weakly just to not offend them or sound picky in any way. He never was a drinker or even had a taste for alcoholic drinks, since they always tasted the same to him; having that sour and potent taste like paint thinner or nail polish. And as they gestured him over to sit him in the king's throne, Magnus decided it wouldn't hurt to have a tiny sip. Just as he thought as he nearly gagged.

"This is him, lads!" The king marched forward to present him to the other clans. "The man with the unmatched archery skills like no other!"

The clans roared with a cheer as they raised their drinks in appraisal to the lucky boy before them.

"Uh, thanks." Magnus meekly said.

"This is the one to marry mah daughter!" announced Fergus, receiving another collection of cheers and a standing ovation, although Magnus was left a bit perturbed. He's already grown to like Merida, perhaps even fallen for her. But she's already made it clear to everyone and him that she has no interest in marriage, especially to someone she barely knows or loves. It did hurt to think that she didn't reciprocate his feelings and it made him feel like he was wasting his time trying to get her to understand his love for her.

"What?"

"So tell us again, lad, about yer stories back where yer from." requested Young Macintosh.

"That's right!" agreed Lord Macintosh. "What other interestin' stuff do they do back in yer place?"

Well, for one thing, Magnus wasn't about to go back to the "Sean" subject again. It pains him to even think about it. And besides, he was sent in here by Merida to celebrate with them and she said she would be here eventually. Magnus could only hope that the cake she was planning to give her mother wasn't going to poison her. Oh, he prayed to God that that's not what was going to happen. She's already made things worse back at the games with her mother and Merida's not gonna want to be accused of murder and that would've made him an accesory to said crime. But he had to focus.

"So, uh, about what I said about the texting a while ago, right?" began Magnus, clearing his throat. "Allow me to put this in words that you may understand. To put it simple, it basically means you're able to send messages to each other from a far distance in less than a second."

Everyone seemed to look both awestruck and confused at the same time, giving each other shocked and surprised looks.

"I'd show you how to do it, but sadly, I seemed to have lost the item necessary for this….uh, activity, to be honest." Magnus continued. "Now where I come from, life is made easy. Everything most reliant on technology. It's that confusing to you, think of this way. Long ago, humanity has invented newer, efficient solutions to, uh…..well, I don't have the right vocabulary to describe it. To change the subject, why don't I show you how I shoot archery?"

"Profound idea!" Fergus immediately agreed, now suddenly interested to see the boy's skills.

"Hell yes!" cried the three lords.

Magnus hopped out of the throne and everyone cleared a path while the giant taxidermied bear statue was being carried over to the front to be used as a target. Carefully, they placed it onto Fergus's throne with the bear's face facing directly towards Fergus as if it were Mor'du himself ready for a fight to the death.

"That's good enough!" Fergus informed them with his own bow and arrows at the ready. "Now clear out of there, boys. I don't want ye spoilin' me shot."

All of the sudden, Magnus froze when he noticed Merida meandering over to the stairs with an arm around her mother, who looked like she was having a stomachache. This was not a good sign at all. Merida even noticed Magnus looking at her with a knowing look, to which she gave him a frown that read "Don't give me that look". In no time at all, Fergus and everyone else silenced to watch their queen being escorted over to the stairs by the princess. The lords immediately charged over, having already been bored of hearing the king's tales of the demon bear and desperate to hear from the queen of her decision on the marriage subject.

"My lady Queen!" Lord MacGuffin cried as soon as the trio were before Elinor. "We've been waiting patiently."

"M'lords, ah am out of sorts….at the moment…" Elinor winced out as if she had too much to drink and was ready to vomit, struggling to maintain her balance and her words as they left her mouth. "...but ye shall have yer answer."

BUUURRRPP!

That's when she let out a loud belch, catching the lords and everyone else off guard by this response. Magnus stayed silent, unsure of what to make of this, but what he did know was that this was definitely going to get worse. Elinor, on the other hand, was just downright embarrassed and shocked herself for having let out such a disgusting, rude and unladylike emission in front of the clans and her people. One would think that she almost felt like Merida at the moment.

"...presently." She continued, attempting to brush it off as she really needed to rest her head as she was beginning to feel lightheaded and even more so by the minute. "Now if ye'll e'cuse us."

Fergus naturally wasn't paying attention as he fired a shot at the bear's nose and everyone cheered once more.

"Elinor, look! It's Mor'du!" cackled the king before he finally noticed his wife's poor condition at the moment as his laughter died away to show a look of concern. "Elinor, are ye a'right, dear?"

"A'm fine! Go about avengin' yer leg!" Elinor called out to her husband, an action that only worsened the painful feeling in her stomach and all around her body. "Oh!"

"Ye heard her, lads!" Fergus announced, now brandishing an axe. "I dream about the perfect way to make this devil die!"

And with that, he launched the axe and it landed perfectly on top of the bear's head. Magnus immediately took advantage of this distraction to scuttle his way up the steps without being detected and made his way over to find Merida. Finally making it into the master bedroom, he found Merida tucking her poor mother into bed. Magnus, seeing Merida's plan in action, the boy stood by the bedroom's door, shaking his head at the mess she's going to cause.

"Jus' take all the time ye need to getting yerself right, mum." The princess gave a false comfort with a sneaky and anxious smile on her lips. "Then maybe, in a bit, ye might have somethin' new to say on the marriage."

"What was in that cake!?" The queen moaned once more while her daughter tries to deny.

"Mer!" Magnus calls out to her in frustration. "You're mum really isn't looking good."

Just as he was about to lecture her further, the queen rolled out of her bed and onto the floor as if she were about to vomit. The two look at where the queen once laid with Merida showing slight concern while simultaneously hoping the spell worked the she hoped.

"Mum?" Merida's question showed her nerves before switching back somewhat to her goal, "So ah'll just tell them the wedding's off, then?"

The two teens look at each other nervously as the queen groans deepened into almost a growl.

"Mum?"

"Your Highness?" called Magnus along with the redhead while whispering desperately under his breath, "Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead."

The two asked as they slowly approached the side of the bed the queen had fallen from. The blankets covering the queen's body ruffled around as the groaning noise slowly came to a stop... The blanket rose with an enormous body shape underneath, slowly standing upright as the blankets began to fall revealing the back of a large, black bear.

Merida and Magnus watch in horror as the bear reveals herself, and the princess falls backwards, crawling toward the dresser as if trying to escape from the bear, screaming frightfully as she tried to process it all. Still standing, Magnus knew the story and was more weirded out by the transition before realizing the bear was trying to wobble her way to the frightened Merida. Magnus, seeing that she's about to scream even louder, rushes over to the princess, covering her mouth as she was trying to scream "BEAR!"

The bear, now seeing Magnus holding Merida close and covering her mouth, runs at him before tackling the boy to the ground! The bear opened her mouth growling and sounding as though she was trying to yell at the boy for what she believed he was trying to do with Merida. Magnus, now officially scared of the bear, exclaimed "I SWEAR! IT'S NOT WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE!"

"MAGNUS!" Merida screamed as she watched as the bear was over top of him, scared for his safety.

The bear turned to Merida, wondering what she's still screaming at before taking a look at her paws and feeling the shape of her face, before scrambling for the dresser finding a small mirror as she gazed at her horrific reflection, backing onto the bed flailing around as she damaged it and many more accidental wreckage, destroying much of the room in the process.

Merida soon got up, along with Magnus, as the princess began to realize the bear was her mother.

"You-You're a BEAR!" Merida said in shock and anger. "Why a bear? Oh, that scaffy witch gave me a gammy spell!"

"I told you this was a bad idea." The knowing Magnus mumbled in her direction.

At this remark, Merida turned her head to retort his smugness before realizing angrily, "Did ye know this would happen? Ye did know her, didn't ye?!"

"I did encounter her before." admitted Magnus flatly.

"Why didn't ye tell me it wasn't going to work!?" Merida complained.

"I didn't know she was an actual witch! Besides, I already did warn you this would've gone bad!"

"Oh yeah, good job for stopping me." The princess said sarcastically, turning her back to him with crossed arms.

"You made your bed, you have to lay in it. As if drugging your mum was at all a good idea!"

Before the two teens could continue arguing Elinor let out an accidental roar as if trying to tell them both to shut up and listen. The two look at the bear queen, as she glared at the both of them.

"It's not mah fault. Ah didn't ask her t' change ye into a bear. Ah just wanted her t' change…you." Merida tells her mom as the princess slowly realized what she was actually doing. Apparently, she should've been more specific when she asked the witch to change her fate by having her mother change her mind about the wedding and it was at this moment that she knew she fucked up.

As if by instinct, Magnus covered his ears once the bear queen's expression changed confusion to extreme fury, glaring dangerously as she burned her still-human eyes towards her reckless daughter as she opened wide her jaw to release a loud roar of anger into Merida's face with her hair blowing back as she stood her ground, wincing from the bear's breath blowing into her face full blast, though Merida was basically expecting this kind of reaction. From Magnus's perspective, if Elinor was human right now, she would possibly be screaming Merida's name with rage. But Magnus remembered the king and the other clansmen downstairs, fearing they would overhear the commotion.

"Shhhhh!" Magnus rushed over to the transformed Queen and clamped her snout shut, silencing her roar as he whispered warningly to her. "Shut up! They'll hear you!"

But Elinor just grunted in annoyance as she rose to her feet, brushing him aside as she went to scold her daughter for her foolishness. Merida simply sat at the foot of the bed, arms crossed and looking quite irate for it wasn't coherent words coming out of her mother's mouth right now, but by some intuition, it was kind of obvious.

"There's no point havin' a go at me. The witch is to blame." Merida deflects her mother's scolding in an unrepentant manner. "Goggly old hag."

"And who was the one seeking the witch, princess?" Magnus confronts her as the boy sneaks to the door to check and see if anyone was approaching.

Soon after the queen's animal-filtered rant, she calmed down enough to pick up her crown, probably wanting some order and trying to figure out how she could get her dress on.

"I'll get her to fix this." Merida mumbles with hesitant assurance to her mother and Magnus that everything was going to get sorted out eventually, though deep down, she knew this wasn't going to be easy as she lets on. "Why do ah always get blamed for ev'rythin'? It's jus' not fair."

"You. Should. Not. Have. Done that." Magnus flatly tells her before they realize that Elinor was about to leave in a bed sheet.

"Shit!" Magnus exclaimed as the two teens followed the Bear Queen out the door.

"Mum, ye can't go out there!" Merida tries to stop her stubborn mother.

Of course, the Bear Queen just didn't listen as the two teens called for her to stop. Merida, in front of the nearest entrance, blocks her mother's way.

"What are ye doin'?" Merida questioned. "Dad. The Bear King? If he so much as sees ye, ye're dead."

As she said that, the men from the clans were coming up the stairs as well, most likely wanting to search for the bear.

Magnus finally catches up to Merida and the Queen as he explains a plan, "Okay, I'll see if I can keep them busy. Try to get your mum outta here."

"Jus' don't let me dad strike ye down." Merida gave her sarcastic, almost teasing pseuo-warning before attempting to direct her mother down an opposite direction away from the chagrin crowd of hardened warriors, each and every one of them eager for a good battle with a ferocious creature. Magnus decided that talking them out of it wouldn't do much help, so he had to locate Merida's brothers to take care of things, aware of their skills when it came to pulling practical jokes while praying that it's good enough to prevent the king from unknowingly murdering his own wife.

Ducking down some corridors as the stampeding men began their search, Magnus, out of dumb luck, mangaged to locate the despicable trio attempting to remove a deer head from the wall, for what reason Magnus didn't know or had time to even care.

"You three!" bellowed Magnus to get the trio's attention, forcing them to face him. "I know we've had our differences, but I need to ask a favor."

Hamish, Hubert and Harris gave each other looks as if telepathically conversing amongst themselves before they gave him a shared look that seemed to say "go on".

"This is gonna sound crazy coming from me, but Merida got your mother turned into a bear. Now I don't care if you believe me or not, but I could use your help leading your father and those men away while we get her out of here. Can you please help us?"

The three adolescents didn't look all that convinced and all crossed their arms, like they're expecting some kind of benefit, that Magnus correctly guessed.

"If you do this for us, you can have all the dessert you want. I won't care what your parents say." Magnus desperately offered.

Finally, the boys agreed to his terms and while Magnus rushed to locate Merida and her bear mother, the tricky trio fashioned a horn used to create a loud roar and used some sort of puppet to create the shadow of a bear to fool the horde of sword-wielding Scotsmen into believing the beast they were after was elsewhere in the castle. Thankfully, their jest was believable enough as wherever the "bear" went, they went, until they were lured all the way to the top of the castle and locked outside.

Meanwhile, Magnus rejoined Merida and Elinor outside, having managed to sneak their way out without getting spotted, with the exception of Maudie, who was extremely paranoid and tends to panic easily, thought it's safe to say that they were safe from the others for now for by the time they realize they've been tricked and try to get back inside, it'll already be too late.