Thanks to all the readers for reading and if you return, for returning. Hope you all enjoy.
Note: Words w/o AN - 5,474. Words w/o AN - 5,522
(Edit: Gone through and fixed error's I didn't notice when posting the chapter. No major changes.)
=Merida=
We sat at St. Mungo's Hospital outside the waiting room, my parents, Astrid and several others I didn't expect. Like Snotlout and his father, no clue what his name is. A beefy and kind looking guy named Fishlegs a boy that had been Hiccup's friend back before Hiccup had been taken in as an apprentice blacksmith and lost all his time to play. Or so they thought. Gobber was also here, pacing back and forth mumbling to himself before Stoic walked out of the room and looked at us all. "He's not dying on us today." He said revealed. I jumped up from my seat and he laughed as I ran into the room to see my best friend. Toothless his faithful Night Fury was curled on the ground next to Hiccup's bed. The Dragon refusing to leave his side, so the nurses had to make an acceptation to the, as everyone's calling him now, Dragon Tamer. Or Beast Tamer, or destroyer. Depending on who you asked. Hiccup smiled when he saw me and I tackled him in a hug.
"You had me scared to death!" I scolded him pulling away. Astrid was next to me, a revealed and angry expression on her face. She punched his arm.
"That's for almost getting yourself killed." She said as he rubbed his arm, then she leant down and kissed his cheek getting him to blush redder than a tomato. "That's for saving all of us." She pulled back before wrapping her arm around my shoulder.
"Uh... thanks?" He asked, unsure and embarrassed.
"Hiccup, that was amazing the way you tamed those Dragons then took on the Red Death." Fishlegs pushed through to stand at the end of the crowd.
"The what?" He asked, his eyebrows knitting together.
"The Red Death, that's what everyone's calling it." He said. "It was all huge and going to destroy us all but you three faced it without any fear, it was awesome!"
"I wouldn't say without fear." Astrid commented.
"Yes it was quite terrifying." I agreed.
"But you saved us all lad." Gobber stepped in. "The three of you are town hero's and your story's all over the Prophet."
"I saw that, they got absolutely nothing right. Accept our names." Hiccup noted to the newspaper sitting on his bedside table.
"Well," Mum spoke up and I turned towards her, she had been extremely distressed after hearing about what had happened, behind Stoic, Astrid and myself, she was the first to arrive at St. Mungo's, she had been overly relieved to find me safe and untouched but distressed upon hearing about Hiccup. After calming down she told me that the first thing she was going to tell me to do was to stop hanging out with Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, which earned a laugh from Astrid, Gobber and my dad who had arrived moments after her. I would've joined them in the laugh because nobody addressed Hiccup by his full name, not even during the sorting ceremony on our first day of school. The boy had only told me his full name after he had seemed comfortable enough with me to be friends.
Eventually my mom had agreed to allowing me to stay friends with Hiccup after much convincing by Astrid, my dad and myself with the winning rule: he had saved my life. My father explained that any boy, or man as he used in this case is worthy of our friendship and shall not be shunned by the family if they save a life of someone in the family. That, and she had to agree that Hiccup, though clumsy and small was a Village chief's son, being apart of royalty himself (which never occurred to me until that moment) he couldn't deny their friendship for it might bring them into war with the Vikings.
"The most we can hope for," Mum continued. "Is that the rest of your vacation won't be as eventual." Hiccup's eyes widened.
"You'll still let me come?" He asked, shocked.
"I had thought about not letting you, if that's what you mean. Putting my daughter's life in danger-"
"Mum!" I protested as Hiccup shrank back into his bed.
"But you are from a Viking tribe," she sighed. "That is your way to show that you care for someone is it not? I believe Stoic and Gobber beat each other bloody to test their friendship."
"Good times," the two said together.
"But yes Hiccup Horr-"
"Don't use his full name." Dad chuckled.
"Hiccup." She corrected herself. "You are allowed to come for the rest of the summer. As originally planned." She takes too long to say things.
"Can Toothless come too?" I asked innocently. This startled both my parents and they looked at the Dragon laying like a dog next to the bed.
"We'll think about it." Dad informed me, winking so mom wouldn't see. I could tell that he was all for wrestling with a Dragon, he does with bears and the triplets. Couldn't be any harder right? Stoic cleared his throat.
"It'll be a few days before he goes anywhere though." He said patting Hiccup's shoulder. "Has to get used to his new leg."
"What?" Snotlout joined in on Astrid, Fishlegs and my own shock. We all glanced at him.
"What? He is my cousin." Snotlout said at our confused looks. "And common, who wouldn't be shocked at that news." Hiccup was rubbing the back of his neck like he always does when he's nervous.
"The explosion tore off part of my leg." He explained, moving the blankets so show the prosthetic. It was Berk work, that's for sure. "The nurses had a field day when I said I didn't want to grow it back. It's too painful, then another when I said I'd like to stick with tradition. But they let that slide a little more."
"Looks good on you." Gobber commented tapping his own peg leg, though Hiccups was mostly metal, looking like his own invention.
"We match!" Dad said to Gobber showing him his own peg leg, they grinned at each other.
"Boys," Astrid said under her breath.
"Tell me about it." We laughed. I liked her, though we never talked much outside of classes when we were rarely partnered up. Or the occasional nod in the hallway because we were in the same house. But as I got to know her, in the short hour before the events went public, she was extremely nice. A little violent and territorial, but loyal and seemed like a good person. I don't know if the bond we formed over the last few hours will hold, but there's something about facing a monstrous dragon that seems final for making a good friendship.
The rest of the afternoon slipped by and then it was time for us to head home. Hiccup would be staying the night in the hospital, to make sure there weren't any more side effects from fighting the Dragon then spending a few days back home in Berk where he would most likely be greeted with a much better attitude than he had weeks before. While I would be staying home in DunBroch catching up on a month worth of Princess studies I had been neglecting while I spent time with Hiccup.
This had been one of the conditions that had originally allowed me to stay in Berk for half of the summer. I said I wouldn't protest or fight too hard against my Princess studies. Which meant, for the remainder of summer, I would have to dress properly during these sessions, and act in the manner my mother saw fitting, at least in front of her during lessons and the public when necessary. While Hiccup got to sleep in, or hang out with my brothers and dad, or go flying on Toothless if he can come, or hangout with my brothers, dad and Toothless while I was doing lessons until noon. I sighed in defeat when it started the next morning, my mother waking me at the crack of dawn by opening the windows and shining the sun directly into my face.
The next week seemed to take ages. Instead of normal morning lessons, and to make up for lost time, I had to participate in lessons that took all day, from the time I woke up to late in the night where I would just fall into bed exhausted from cramming all this information into my head. In this time, we focused on walking, presenting yourself, proper dress attire, proper speech, posture, eating, (which she expects me to do during our meals.) She introduced me to books based on magic from our ancestors which I would be expected to study and learn in Hogwarts along side all my other classes. Then there was quill use. As if I didn't know how to write with one!
She had me perfect my handwriting line after line, using the excuse that she had a complainant from some of my teachers about my poor handwriting in class, they couldn't read everything I wrote. I didn't always mind this part. I was able to write to Hiccup and sent him a letter afterwards. I would complain in most of these letters. Explaining what my mum put me through each day. Then I would ask how he is, how his recovery and learning how to walk with his new foot was. And when he would be coming.
Hiccup's replies to the letters were generally the same, he said he was sorry about the lessons, wished he could help but starting next summer he would be in a similar situation. Learning to be the chief of his tribe. Then he would tell me how he was doing fine, and Astrid said she'd like to get some letters to her as well, then wondered how we had managed to become friends. He said walking was still a challenge, his prosthetic was much smaller than what he had been used to walking on and he would have to figure out how to adjust Toothless's harness to work with it. That's what he had been mainly working on. Eventually he would say that he'd be there a week from when the first letter was sent.
When I got that letter my anticipation had gone up. A whole week, why would it take so long? When I asked all my questions in the second letter his response seemed to laugh it off. His father had thrown together a congratulations on surviving party party for him, he wished she could be there because it was as much of his party as it was hers. Then he explained that they needed to have a different way of transporting Toothless to DunBroch, floo powder scared the dragon so they were traveling by either car or broom, in his case Dragon. He and his father would be coming, his dad as a guide but when he would get here Stoic would be returning via floo powder. Then on one of the last days before school, Gobber would come to pick Toothless up to bring him home.
On the day he arrived, around noon so they both were hungry enough to join us for lunch, as well as just in time for my lessons to end. Mother had told me of an ancient clan from the deep north were going to visit for a few weeks, she expected Hiccup and myself to be on our best behaviors and for me to act properly, or as well as I could muster, while in their presence. Mum explained this to Hiccup after Stoic had left, and she suggested to keep Toothless away from them. For fear of frightening them.
"Don't worry Queen Elinor," he addressee her politely. "I'll keep Toothless occupied so he doesn't get curious."
"Well, they may want to meet you." She noted, pleased by his polite way of speaking. "After all you did become a legend overnight." Hiccup blushed. "And you are royal as well." She noted, he rubbed the back of his neck, nervous.
"Well, I don't consider myself to be." He said awkwardly. "And for a while my dad had thought I wouldn't be fitting for it." Mum raised her eyebrow.
"Well of course you are." She said, dismissing the idea of him not taking over the village when he's of age. "You're clever and kind, smart. Not all leaders are body builders." She noted to her husband like he was one. The man pretended not to hear her. "Now then, off you two go. I'm sure you have a lot to catch up on." She shooed us out of the dining hall and I gave him and Toothless the grand tour of the castle. After, we hung out in the guardian where Toothless was jumping around merrily and exploring everything. We laid on benches opposite each other and looked up at the clouds.
"So, you're a prince?" I asked.
"I guess, or the equivalent to one." He responded. "Never really thought about it," he said honestly.
"Well, at least we're on the same level." I laughed, in the beginning of our friendship I had been wary about being his friend. We were in different social classes, different houses, how would this work? What should we expect. But the more we got to know each other the less I cared about it. He was my friend, what else mattered. While we both lay there watching the clouds drift by and listening to the wind brushing against the leaves and Toothless making dragon sounds, what else should I call them? They don't really have names and he wasn't growling. I thought about how we first met. It had almost been a year ago, on the third day of classes when I was rushing about trying to find my way back to the dorm so I could dump my stuff on my bed and get dinner. I was standing on a staircase, looking up as some of them changed and trying to remember what floor to get off at when a ghost popped in front of me and I instinctively punched it.
What I hadn't seen was that a boy had walked down front the stairs, following the ghost and had been right in the line of my fist. I hit him right above the eye and he stumble backwards. 'Oh my gods I'm so sorry!' I squeaked rushing forwards to help the first year back up. I remembered him from the sorting to be the Ravenclaw boy with the odd name. Hiccup Haddock. He had been so nervous as his name had been called that the boy next to him, who I would later find out to be Hiccup's cousin Snotlout Jorgensen, tripped him. Making him fall, it took him half a minute to get back up, his robes being too big on him as he was probably waiting for colostomy tailored ones to be mailed any day. 'Hiccup, right?' I asked as he held onto his head looking at me confused.
'Do you have a grudge against me too?' He wondered, his voice sounded sad and lost. 'I'm sorry, I don't know what I did but I didn't mean too.'
'No!' I said almost immediately. 'The ghost startled me, I didn't see that you had been behind it. I wasn't paying attention.'
'Oh,' he seemed to relax with the knowledge that I didn't have a grudge against him.
'I'm Merida, Merida DunBroch.' I introduced myself.
'Hiccup Haddock.' He returned the greeting.
'I'm really sorry for punching you, is there any way I could make it up to you?' I wondered. He looked around nervously.
'Um... well... I don't know.' He answered quietly. 'C-Could I... come back to you on... on it?' he wondered.
'Of course.' I had smiled at him. And he did come back to it, several weeks later when I caught him, literally caught him, stumbling out of the bathroom soaking wet. Some of the other students were laughing while a prefect from his house came rushing over, asking what had happened. I helped him bring Hiccup to Professor Fay the house head and waited in her office while Hiccup went to get showered and changed. About a half hour later he returned, now clean and in dry clothing that didn't fit him any better than the last pair had. He had explained that his cousin and friends were bullying him, as they had since the start of term and will continue to. He had been given a swirlie as Snotlout put it. I explained that I happened to be heading to a see a teacher for help and passed the bathroom as he walked out, and caught him then we proceeded to bring him here. Afterwards the two of us were dismissed and we walked to a secluded part of the school.
'Could you be my friend?' He asked, shocking me. He hadn't looked up at me, clearly nervous. 'Or pretend to, you don't have to be if you don't want too.'
'Of course I'll be your friend.' I responded but I was questioning how it would work with different social classes. He looked up at me and gave me a shy smile. 'But don't you have other friends?' I wondered, watching as his eyes drifted away and his hands twitched nervously on his lap.
'One,' he responded. 'But he's not human.' I felt extremely sorry for this boy. Then sympathy, I hadn't been able to make any friends here either.
'Alright then,' I said confidently. 'Let's be friends.' He looked up and I smiled at him, and from there we took turns telling each other a little bit about ourselves. Hiccup was an only child, I had three devilish younger brothers. So on and so forth.
"Mar?" Hiccup said dragging me out of the memory. I sat up, and looked at him. He hadn't moved but Toothless had came up beside him and laid down, his hand absently rubbed against the Dragon's scales.
"Yeah?" I asked, adjusting so I wasn't twisting the dress too much.
"Thanks." He said, as if he had been remembering the exact same thing I had. I waited a few moments before responding.
"No problem," I said, he looked over at me and there was an silent understatement. A small smile came to his lips and he looked back up at the clouds. "Hay, Hiccup." I said suddenly, he hummed, saying that he was listing. "Don't ever stop being my best friend." His smile grew and he sat up.
"Alright." He agreed, holding out his hand, pinky outstretched. It was a silly gesture, one that muggle children used to make promises. I reached out and linked my pinky with his. "I, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, promise to always, no matter what happens between us, be your best friend."
"And I, Princess Merida Elinor Dunbroch, promise to always, no matter what happens between us, be your best friend." We shook then pulled back, he looked at me skeptically, as if I were a project he was diving into.
"Your mother's name is your middle name?" He asked, holding back laughter.
"It's tradition." I stated, holding myself boldly. "What about your middle name, Horrendous."
"Tradition," he responded, we both broke out into laughter. Toothless looked at us, apparently we disturbed his sleep because he looked annoyed. "Honestly, Viking traditions are so weird."
"I agree," I laughed some more. "I mean, your leg!" I pointed at it.
"I did that for dad," he said honestly but laughed along with me. "I mean, it's the 20th century, we can get better prosthetics than wood or metal. But our stubbornness issues don't like us leaving the past unforgotten."
"I don't think the past can ever be forgotten." I said. "My entire kingdom's built on it. Literally."
"The five brother's story?" He wondered. I nodded. "Sounded important when you told me, and all new information is good information."
"Your book worm is showing." I noted and we laughed again. Toothless huffed and got up, walking away from us. We laughed some more. "Think we disturbed his sleep?"
"Yeah," he nodded a smile still on his lips. "I think we did."
The next few days were spent like this. Rudely woken up, Princess studies, breakfast, princess studies, lunch. Following lunch was a ton of spending time with Hiccup, showing him the village outside the castle, then the grounds, we flew to some of my favorite places and made it back home in time for dinner. After dinner we'd stay in the garden or when it rained in my room or the sitting room near a warm fire. After, we slept. This routine continued for about a week, then the guests arrived. At first it seemed like everything would be okay, I had to meet with their leader and several other affairs we had to do, of course Hiccup joined me at their request.
Then after about two days of this there was the feast where all of whom had been invited joined us for a grand meal. That's when I realized why the leader's, or whatever she was called, last name was so familiar. Jack Overland-Frost was brought to our attention. The Prince, as Hiccup and I had learned, and his adorable younger sister Princess Isis, or as she preferred to be called Izzy, would be staying with us until the group left in a few weeks and mum expected Hiccup and me to accompany them. Not that I would mind letting Izzy join Hiccup and me, but Jack? No.
Jack, whom I might add was the first person I met on the train ride to Hogwarts, was one of Hiccups bullies. Okay, so it's common knowledge that Jack doesn't participate in the bullying himself but he just stands by, leaning on a wall or something and watches. In my book, this counts as bullying. I hated him, not just for watching Hiccup get bullied but because he had been the first person I thought of as a friend. Then he blows me off because we're in rivaling houses.
"Ugh!" I paced around my room as Hiccup sat on my bed watching me. "I'm going to strangle her." I hissed. Hiccup, as the wonderful best friend he is, just let me vent. "Making us babysit him." I gripped at my hair, which had been kept tame for the last few weeks due to mum's rules. "She's mad! Completely lost her marbles, she knows about them bullying you why would she do this?"
"Mar you're turning red." Hiccup told me and I turned to my mirror. I was indeed turning red, everything on my face and ears had a pink tinge to it while other places like my cheeks were bright red in anger. I took a deep breath trying to calm myself enough to sit down and vent like a normal person, without injuring my best friend once again.
"I..." I sighed. "I'm just so frustrated." I said, deflating and sitting on the bed next to him. I looked at him. "Why aren't you mad about this?"
"It could be fun," he offered and I raised my eyebrow. "Getting to know Jack outside of school and out of the reach of Snotlout and his gang of horrors." He answered. "Actually getting to know him, and his sister seems nice. I bet she'd enjoy flying with Toothless." I stared at him in slight awe. He's always been able to do this, no matter who the person, or creature he can understand them. See around the bad things and just see them for who they really are.
"You're not crushing on 'im are ya?" I asked hoping that this was the explanation to his madness. For once, I'd like to see Hiccup mad and venting.
"Your Scott is showing." He teased as my accent slipped out more than normal. "But no, at least I don't think I am." He paused. "Could you see me like that?" He wondered thinking of himself as gay.
"You're not appalled by the idea of loving a man?" I asked. He just shrugged.
"I can't say," He responded. "Only one I've ever like in that light is Astrid, my romantic interest isn't high enough for me to know. I'm only twelve." We both laughed. Sometimes, it was easy to forget how old we were.
"Wait a minute, you're distracting me." I said, his smile remained. "How do ya do that?" I asked in amazement.
"You caught me." He put his hands up in surrender. "I don't know. Just a gift." He shrugged it off as if he had long since accepted his abnormalities. Then he stood, "It's getting late," I looked out the window and noticed that he was right. "We have a long few weeks ahead of us. You should get some sleep."
"Alright." I agreed. "You get some yourself."
"Yes Ma'am," he saluted. "See you tomorrow."
"Sea ya." I said and he walked out of the room.
The next few days were stressful, after finishing lessons I would meet up with Hiccup who would be with the triplets, Izzy and Jack in the room. Hiccup would play with the triplets and Izzy joined them as Jack watched silently from the sidelines as he seemed to do with everything else in his life. On the first day, I showed them around the castle, answered all the questions I was asked until dinner where Hiccup and I were free to do as we wanted. Which involved me ranting and him calming me down quite easily. The second day we visited the village and even wandered for a bit outside the city walls, then again after dinner Hiccup were able to have time to spend together. We went flying this time and I enjoyed every minute of it. On the third day, I had ran out of things to do, so we sat awkwardly indoors until Izzy, bouncing with excitement after a game with the triplets ran up to Hiccup.
"Can I meet Toothless?" She asked excitedly and he seemed confused for a moment before noticing the three boys grinning innocently behind her.
"That'd be up to Jack. He is a dragon after all." Hiccup said to her and the girl scrambled across the couch he was sitting on, crawling over my lap to get to the other side and reach out to her brother.
"Can I meet Toothless?" She asked him. He seemed stunned for a moment unsure how to answer.
"Sure?" He asked in return and she squealed in delight scrambling back over me to get to Hiccup.
"He said yes." She informed him jumping to the ground and pulling him to his feet, then she noticed his leg. "What happened?" She asked wide eyed.
"I lost it in a fight with a dragon." He told her, then slipped into an animated story about the battle between Astrid, himself and me against the Red Death with Astrid's dragon Stormfly, and the Monstrous Nightmare I had ridden on, and Toothless. She stared wide eyed as did the boys behind her. And I swear, I've never seen the three so still. Jack even leaned forwards in his seat, interested in the story. The way Hiccup told it, had been exactly how it happened and not the lie the Prophet posted. I even got to learn of what happened after Hiccup and Toothless vanished into the clouds. "And Boom!" He made the girl jump and the boys drop the toy's they were holding. "Toothless had hit his mark, making the Red Death blow up from the inside," he explained. "But while he was exploding, I fell off of Toothless and lost my leg in the explosion." He explained. "I don't know what happened next though," he said honestly. "I lost consciousness but I think Toothless had saved me."
"Wow," she extended the word so it lasted several seconds longer than needed. "Can you still fly with him?" She wondered.
"Yeah, I take him out every day." He smiled at her.
"Cool!" She jumped up and down, "let's go see him." She tugged on his sleeve and he laughed taking her hand.
"Alright." We followed him outside to the garden that had become Toothless's home while staying here. She looked around, they hadn't entered the garden during the tour because of the fact that Toothless is here but now she could see everything. "Wait here," he told her before moving out further so he could be seen from anywhere in the garden. After a moment's pause, a large black reptile pounced out of some bushes and landed on him. He laughed, petting the Dragon. "Hay bud," he pushed himself up and wiped his face after the dragon licked him. Then he stood, "there's someone that wants to meet you." Toothless looked at him curiously as he walked over to Izzy, he knelt beside her and said some things quietly. Shakily, she put out a hand and the Dragon inched closer pausing a moment to sniff her hand before pressing against it.
"He's warm." She noted petting Toothless, he purred against her touch.
"He is a Dragon." Hiccup agreed. Izzy giggled and Toothless backed up, sitting with his tail wagging behind him and giving her a toothless smile.
"No teeth!" She noted excitedly.
"Hence the name." Hiccup laughed. "I met him like that, almost the same way you just did but I had been alone." He explained. "You see, his tail got injured so he couldn't fly, and he got stuck in a cove. So one day, I went down into it and met him. He didn't like my dagger so I had to leave it behind, and I reached out." He demonstrated, doing the same thing Izzy had done, "looked away just incase he wanted to eat me. Wouldn't want to see that, and he," Toothless bumped his head against Hiccups hand the same way he had done to Izzy. He pet the Dragon. "But it was a while before I could ride him, I had to become his friend first. Each day I would go and visit him, I took a sketchbook I always carried around and some fish we caught earlier that day and I would go to feed him. Then, after he ate he would go and hide. But one day, I was sitting on a rock drawing in the dirt at my feet and he comes up to me, watches me draw his face in the dirt. When I took notice of him, he growled and slipped away."
"He growled at you?" Jack asked, Hiccup looked up at him.
"He growls at everything." He said before turning back to Izzy. "A few minutes later I hear the sound of trees snapping, then I look over and Toothless comes out of a bush, dragging a large branch and drawing in the dirt like I had. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen." He smiled. "Then when he was done, I was trapped in his drawing, so I had to carefully step out. If I stepped on the lines he would growl at me, when I was out he was right in front of me. Looking at me like that." He noted to the look Toothless was now giving the others. Izzy giggled. "I reached out my arm again, without looking away and he let me pet him. That's when we became friends. And when I started designing parts for his tail, so he could fly again."
"Can I see you fly?" She asked. He thought about it.
"Alright." He agreed getting up, he patted Toothless's head and walked away from the group. Don't want any accidental injuries. Toothless readied himself as Hiccup climbed into his saddle. He adjusted his foot so it was properly in place and part of his tail started moving. "Ready Bud?" I heard him ask quietly and the Dragon lowered himself, ready to spring into the sky.