3. The Way to the Nightmare King
The Queen found the cottage, and the witch suffered her to enter. The cottage was filled to the brim once more with carvings of bears in all shapes and sizes and manners. "I know the Quest ye're set on," the witch told her as she entered, "and it'll take more than a promise of a warm meal and a bowl of mead to gain my help."
"I understand," Queen Merida replied. "I am prepared to bargain." She held her head high, but her voice was mild, because she feared to think what would happen if she could not retrieve her husband. She needed the help of the witch. "Ye may have," the Queen began, "your pick of the wood in this forest, for your carving, for as long as I live, the entire breadth and length of my land."
And the witch laughed. "I already have that; how d'ye guess I get this wood? I have a tie to the land far older than your'n, or your family. Offer me something else."
Queen Merida wiped her brow. She reached into her belt and drew from her hand five acorns and five linden seeds. "These are seeds I had planned on sowing around my castle. These acorns were collected from the holy isle of Lindasfarne; these linden seeds come from the sunlit land of Greece. When they grow, they'll be fine trees, perfect for carving. To one as long-lived as yerself, that'll seem like minutes, I'm sure. Ye can have them for telling me how to enter the Nightmare King's lair."
"I dinnae want them," the witch said, waving her hand. "Do I look like a gardener? Tend the seeds yourself – ye've more than just those ten. Might I suggest?"
The Queen nodded, now very pale. The witch pointed a bony hand at the bow slung over Merida's shoulder. "That bow was taken from a rowan tree I was very fond of. I'll take the bow, and see if I can't coax it to put down roots again."
Merida took down her bow, and she held it tight for a minute – it was very dear to her, but she remembered her husband's smile, and his searching green eyes, and she handed the bow over to the witch.
Very pleased, the witch made them a cup of tea, to strengthen up the Queen before she took her journey. "The Nightmare King is a tricksy one," she told him. "Your husband will be kept in his bondage, his clever mind turned to crafting new nightmares. In the Nightmare King's realm, nothing will be as it seems - not forms, not time, not space. Don't be fooled by the glamours, or you'll be bewitched just like yer husband, and left to serve Pitch's whim until the end of your days. Are ye ready?"
The witch led Merida out of her cottage and snapped her fingers. When she opened her cottage door again, it was an empty room with a wooden bedframe. The bedframe had no mattress, no straw tick, no coverings at all. And underneath it yawned a hole.
"Tha's the way to the Grey King's lair," the witch said, pointing. "Are ye sure? Ye can turn back and find a way to carry on, and none would think less of ye."
"I am sure," said Merida. "Who do ye think I am?" Lifting her skirts above her knee, she stepped through the slats of the bedframe, and fell through into the hole.
4. The Nightmare King's Lair.
She fell for a mighty long time, but landed softly on a bed of what felt like sand. She got to her feet at once, and the Grey King was standing over her, his golden eyes a-gleam.
"I've come for me husband," she demanded of him.
"Welcome to my realm, fire-headed queen," said the Nightmare King. "It is nice to get a willing visitor."
"I've come for me husband. Ye've stolen him," she said.
"Perhaps we can come to a deal," he replied, smooth as a shadow under water.
"I've come for me husband, and I dinnae bargain with thieves," she said, and the realm echoed with the anger in her voice.
For a time the Nightmare King was silent, and she feared she'd awakened his wrath. But he rattled his closed hand and opened it, to show a pair of die. "How about a wager, then?" He asked.
"Name the terms. I'll see if they're to me liking."
"Your husband is at large within my kingdom. You can search for him all you like, but you won't find him in his human form. And if you did, he would never recognize you." the Grey King began. As he spoke, Merida could see the realm around her more clearly - 'twas a black realm, with light from an inscrutable sun, casting long shadows from fine-wrought cages of iron and ebony.
There were creatures moving within the cages. She shivered.
The King went on, "Find him in the shape that I have given to him - choose him right, or else he'll be lost. Then, track him in the shape that I give to him - never lose sight, or else he'll be lost. Then, bridle him with this -" he dropped a black bridle of rough leatherwork into her hands - "and hold him fast, or else he'll be lost. Fulfill these tasks, and your husband is restored to you. Do we have a deal?"
The queen lifted her chin. "I accept the terms."
"Very well," the Nightmare King lifted one hand. "The game is afoot." He snapped his fingers, and vanished. At once Merida found herself on a little pedestal, lifted ten feet above the ground, with treacherous footing. All around her was black, with a stark light overhead. Then, there was a great rumbling and roaring, and bears came bounding in from every direction, to scratch at the pedestal, reaching up their claws to get her, roaring fit to terrify a statue.
Merida was afraid, but bears were commonplace in her kingdom, and she kept her wits about her. She looked past the roaring maws and reaching claws, and spotted a bear that held back from the attack towards her, that maybe had a fleck more green in its eyes than deep brown. Merida waited until she was sure, then she pointed to the bear.
"This one," she said out loud. "This is my husband."
The pedestal fell away; the bears vanished. Now where the green-eyed bear had been there was a dragon, a Night Fury, which looked at her once and then took off, dashing into the sky faster than lightning.
The Queen, however, was an expert hunter, patient as stone when it came to following a quarry. She kept her eyes on the starless sky of the Nightmare King's realm, and dashed her way over rock and boulder, splashed her way through rivers, twisted between gnarled trees, and nearly sank in stinking quagmire. Still she pursued, for she dared not think how long, until her feet were bleeding and her eyes sore with strain. Only then did the Night Fury drop to the ground, weary of the chase.
When it did, its shape changed again. Now it was one of the Nightmare King's sky horses, black, with a pelt like sand and bones like lightning. It stomped and bucked and thrashed, and Merida, exhausted and angry, wanted the chase to be over.
All this time, she had never let fall the black bridle that the Nightmare King had given her. She approached the night-mare without fear, only with anger, wanting her husband to be returned to her. But when she had almost slipped the bridle over the horse's head, her sense told her to halt.
She fell back, out of the way of the horse's kicking hooves. What little magic she had, to help her perceive true things in a fey world, told her that if she closed the bridle over the horse's head, then her husband would be truly imprisoned. For it was a bridle of the Nightmare King's making, meant to bind his thralls.
At least, that's what she felt.
Merida squeezed her eyes shut, terrified that she was making the wrong choice, and then tossed the bridle to the ground and stomped her foot upon it. The bridle collapsed into sand.
The field around them vanished. Now Merida saw true where she was. She had never left the first chamber of the Nightmare King's realm; he had only made it seem so. She was in a cage of ivory, but the door was not latched, only closed. Near her, slouching in a cage of ebony, was her husband. She gave a cry and reached her hands through the bars to clasp his. He seemed as heartsore as she was, but he did not look at her, nor hear her, nor give any sign she was there. He simply stared ahead, blankness in his eyes.
This struck Merida worse than anything she had weathered so far, but the door of her cage was yet open. She climbed out of it and went to Hiccup's cage. The door was locked fast, and though she shook and yelled, he did not see her.
Now her fear was at its greatest. She had but one idea left.
"Hiccup, come with me," she said, her voice trembling and small. "I call ye, Dragon-Friend, Smithy-Leg, Mind-Tester, Husband-of-Merida, best beloved, and Father-of-Saille."
The spell on him broke. His eyes lit up, and he got to his feet. When he pushed at his door, it opened, and he jumped down, to fall on her and kiss her, again and again. "My brave lass! My wonderful wife! You did it, you saved me!"
Their happiness was interrupted by the Nightmare King's howl of rage. He appeared before them, tall and terrible, and his eyes glowing like embers. "That was cheating," he said.
"'Twas no more cheating than a bridle of black sand," Merida replied. With her husband beside her, she had nothing to fear.
The Nightmare King pointed at them and said, "You will pay dearly for cheating me out of what is mine. Watch your Saille, your babe unborn. Now get out of my realm!"
As he said that, the realm of nightmares collapsed around Merida and Hiccup, but they held fast. When all was still, they found themselves in the forest they knew, just a little ways outside of DunBroch Castle.
Hiccup hugged his wife close. "I don't know how I'll ever thank you enough," he said, "for rescuing me."
She too rejoiced, holding him fast and safe. "Just don't leave again," she asked.
Hand in hand, they returned to DunBroch. The Dowager Queen welcomed them with gladness. There were celebrations for a month and a day, and Jack Frost himself arrived on the last day of it, bringing with him laughter and the music of his sad flute. And when the spring began to turn into summer, and the Willow tree budded and stood tall in the forest, Merida gave birth to a baby girl. And she and Hiccup named their daughter "Saille," for the willow tree, and to complete her father's kenning, and to remember the trick that Merida had played on the Grey King.
(Note: I reference the Celtic Tree Calendar, a kind of Irish Zodiac, only based on earth rather than the heavens. J Ivy's time is late September to early October, and Willow (or Saille) is late April to early May. The idea is that Merida needed another kenning to set Hiccup free, one that not even Pitch would know about – so she decided to name their unborn baby after the time of year that they would probably be born. Hope that's clear enough! Another fun fact: "Mind-Tester" is an epithet of the god Loki.)