Author's Note:
I do not own the characters or the Worlds, I am not profiting off of this story.
Hiccup woke up just as the sun was beginning to crest over the water. He fed Toothless and told his friend that today he would be traveling without him. Toothless looked disappointed, but after being bribed with his favourite foods, he became more forgiving. Hiccup then strolled out of his house in order to make his way towards the kitchens: he had to make sure he got there before Merida came to collect her supplies.
"Hiccup!" He stopped in his tracks and turned to see his father walking towards him. He frowned as he observed dark circles under his father's eyes, and Stoick seemed a bit hunched, as though a great weight had landed on his shoulders.
"What's wrong dad?"
Stoick stopped and opened his mouth, an attempt at words seemed to get caught in his throat. He closed his mouth and looked down at a piece of paper in his hand, frowning in concern. Hiccup felt himself go cold, he didn't know what was wrong, but he knew it wasn't a small thing, he couldn't remember the last time he had seen his father look so hesitant.
"You know, I can't remember what I was going to say…" Hiccup rolled his eyes at the biggest lie he had ever heard. Stoick looked back up at him, plastering on a fake smile. "Where are you off to?"
Hiccup wanted to push him for more information, but there was a part of him that was scared of what it might be. "I'm going to the kitchens… I was going to ask Olaf if he needed him with collection today."
Stoick gave him a flabbergasted look, as though he had just witnessed Hiccup turn into a talking fish. "Err, you're going to help with collecting game? That is… good, just…different." Stoick stroked his beard, a sight that usually meant he was trying to work out a puzzle. Hiccup felt a twinge of fear, perhaps he was making it too obvious that he was going to try and spend time with Merida. If she really was from Alba, he wanted to help her get back home, not be used as a pawn. That meant that he had to find out the truth before anyone else in the village.
After a moment a gleam of life flashed in Stoick's eyes, he gave Hiccup a cocky smirk. "So, going to help with collection right?"
Hiccup felt warning bells ringing in his head, but he nodded, "Yes, that is correct."
"Going to help the new girl…what was her name… Merida?"
"Well… I believe she is helping Olaf in that capacity, so yes."
Stoick threw his head back and laughed, clapping Hiccup on the shoulders, "it is about time you started showing some interest in another girl, I thought you were heartbroken all this time since Astrid found someone else!" Hiccup felt his face burn as he realized what his father was assuming.
"Ahh, umm, no, that… That isn't it at all!" Stoick frowned at him.
"Well, if that isn't it, then why are you helping?"
"Because… I should! I should know every job out there so that I can become a better chieftain… Isn't that what you want?" He tried to sound confident. A cloud passed over Stoick's features; he looked down at his hand, still holding the crumpled paper.
"Aye, I do…"
The two of them stood near each other in silence, awkwardness began to grown about their feet. Hiccup cleared his throat, "Umm, yep, so… Are you sure you didn't need to talk to me about something?"
Stoick looked as though he was about to say something, but he shook his head and gave him a light squeeze on the shoulder. "No, no, it can wait for a bit. Go help Olaf and Merida."
Hiccup watched his father make his way back into their house. Part of him wanted to follow, to push him for more information, but he glanced towards the sun and saw that he was running out of time. He needed to solve this Merida problem, that way he would be able to help his father without being distracted. Turning around he began heading towards the kitchens again.
He looked around the village as he walked, squinting at the hut that the two stray "Vikings" were staying in search of any sign of Merida, but he didn't see her. When he reached the dining hall he turned towards the side and pushed open the heavy oak door that led into the cooking area. The kitchen looked cleaner than it had when he had been here the other night. The worn stone floor was swept; and the abused thick wood table in the middle was cleaned and clear of any food. He glanced in the direction of the small counter where game was cleaned, somehow expecting Merida to be there, but the knives were hanging on the wall and there was no sign of any mess from the work that had been done yesterday. He looked towards the fire pit to see Olaf pulling his apron off a hook; he seemed to have arrived just after the head cook.
"Hiccup, what can I do for you lad?" The larger man asked. He was tying his apron around his massive waist, how he saw past his long, bushy grey beard would forever remain a mystery to Hiccup.
"Hello Olaf, I happen to have some free time today and I was wondering if I could help with collection?"
Olaf squinted at him, obviously suspicious. "I can't remember the last time you came here looking for something to do…" he stared at Hiccup for a moment and then blinked, a large smile growing. "Oh I get it! You're interested in Merida ain't ya? I was wondering why you came by yesterday asking about her, but I figured it was just curiosity about the new comer. This makes a lot more sense though!"
"What? No! Why does everyone always assume that?" He exclaimed running a hand through his hair. He paused, despite the fact that he didn't want to lie; going along with the accusation would stop people from questioning his reasons for wanting to hang around her. He didn't want people to think he was suspicious of her.
"Don't lie to me boy, I've lived a long time, long enough to see your father pull this same stunt when he was interested in your mother" he said slapping Hiccup on the shoulder. Hiccup grinned awkwardly in response.
"Okay, you caught me" he sighed, dropping his shoulders and raising his hands in surrender.
"Good on you Hiccup! Merida seems like a fine lass, however I wouldn't trust her in a kitchen if I were you. Otherwise she is strong and despite the claim that she is slow in the head, I would disagree: she is smarter than she acts." This comment caught Hiccup's attention.
"What do you mean?" He asked casually. Olaf glanced around, checking to see if anyone was around.
"Well, during her brief stay in the kitchens I got a chance to get to know her. She does tend to act stupid when she is around a larger group of people, but when it was just the two of us she had a tendency to let her guard down. She is quite expressive and easy to read honestly. I don't know why she wants people to think she is slow, but she hasn't done anything suspicious around the village, so I guess she finds it easier to have people leave her alone that way." Hiccup cocked his head slightly.
"Why do you think she would want people to leave her alone?" He asked as innocently as possible.
"Being mute must be hard for her Hiccup! Keeping up a conversation is probably tiring, even if her gestures are simple enough to understand. " Olaf picked up a carving knife and began sharpening it as he continued to talk. "It'll be good to have someone try and befriend her at least, all I ask is that you don't rush anything boy."
Hiccup looked away at this comment, blushing. "No sir, I wouldn't. I just want to get to know her. Yesterday I-"
He was cut short when the very woman they were talking about walked in. She was smiling, but stopped short, her joy dropping, as she stared at the two of them. He read shock on her and some worry.
"Merida! Hiccup will help you today" Olaf said slowly. Merida's eyes opened a bit wider, but she seemed to recover and nodded briskly before going to gather her supplies.
"Olaf, thank you again" Hiccup said quickly. Olaf nodded and handed him some hard bread and cheese wrapped in a cloth. Hiccup placed the items in his own pack and made his way to the door when he saw that Merida was ready.
She moved quickly out the door and on her way towards the woods behind the village. Hiccup picked up his pace in order to keep up with her. He considered how he could get her to slip up. Yesterday he had been making his way to his small pond with Toothless when he had heard singing drifting up from that very spot. He realized the words were Gaelic in origin, but just as he was trying to angle Toothless to look at who was singing it had stopped. He thought he had seen Merida's curly locks, but with Toothless landing his vision had been blocked by his friend's wings.
He knew someone had been there, on the stone he used as a seat he had found wood shavings, but when he looked around he hadn't found much else. He knew there was only one change at Berk that could have explained the situation and he had rushed back to confirm his thoughts.
He had gone straight to the kitchens when he got back, but Olaf said that she usually didn't get back until late. Just as they had been talking she had shown up. Although he had looked to see if there was anything amiss about her appearance, he hadn't noticed anything. It wasn't until the confrontation in his workroom that he had begun to confirm his suspicions. Although he hadn't meant to scare her, he had taken advantage of the fact they were alone to see what would happen if he spoke to her in Gaelic. He had seen a reaction, he swore he had, but he knew it wasn't enough. He needed her to respond and starting today, he was going to try and make that happen.
"Do you enjoy the woods? You seem to blend in easily, despite your hair colour that is." He said. Merida jumped slightly and turned to look at him, forcing a smile and a tight nod before returning her gaze forward. Hiccup pursed his lips in disappointment. He had thought about how to get her to talk; there was force; but Hiccup scoffed at that: he wasn't someone that enjoyed the thought of torture. Instead he decided to try and get her to trust him. So, he started trying to talk to her; in Nordic though; not wanting her to be too suspicious of him, but so far she had spent most of their time together ignoring him completely.
"Sorry about speaking Gaelic yesterday, your appearance just reminded me of some folks I met in a settlement near Alba. I learned how to speak Gaelic from this family. I had been tracking a pack of Nadders that were causing trouble there and ended up making some friends. A man, Machar was his name, took the time to teach me. He already knew our language, since his village was near a Viking settlement, so it made things a bit easier." He finished, however she continued to ignore him.
He sighed, but decided to finish his story about learning Gaelic. He stopped talking when she paused to glance towards a bush. He looked at it, but didn't see anything amiss.
"What are you looking at?" he asked. She seemed about to gesture, but simply shook her head and motioned for them to continue.
Boredom crept up on Hiccup. He had never actually helped with collection or hunting before. There wasn't a lot of Vikings that did the job, since most of their food came from the sea or from their herds. However, Olaf liked treating others every once in a while with rabbit stew or roasted venison. Helga usually took care of this, but it seemed she had welcomed the chance to take her boat out and leave the task to the new comer.
He watched Merida as she moved through the woods; she seemed to fit in easily here. She was silent when she moved, but alert to the world around her, he wondered how she had been trained to hunt. Did she teach herself? Or had her father taught her? He started thinking up a dozen questions, and then whittled them down to the ones he thought were the most important.
The thought of getting her to trust him brought him back to reality. While he was confident enough to think that he could do it, he knew there wasn't much of a chance of that happening while she ignored him. He needed to move this forward without pushing her to reveal more about herself, after a moment he decided to tell her all about himself instead.
"Did anyone in the village tell you how we befriended dragons?" He waited to see if it would get a reaction out of her. She did pause, turning to look at him. There was a spark of curiosity in her expression, she shook her head and continued to look at him with an attempt at hiding her eagerness. "Great! Because I can tell you the actual version, some of my friends have a habit of, how should I put this, embellishing the tale."
She granted him a quick smile at this comment, and Hiccup felt his heart skip a beat. She cocked her head to the side, her hair flowing with the movement. The sun streamed between the trees causing her locks to glow like a bright fire, her sky blue eyes, full of emotion, contrasted her hair, making her seem almost otherworldly.
Hiccup blinked and smiled awkwardly. "Well! I will tell you the story while we walk!" he said stiffly. He motioned for her to move forward, she gave him a wary look but then turned and continued walking.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and began to tell his tale.
The sun was just beginning to descend when they returned to the village. Merida gestured to her pack and showed him that she would finish up the job of cleaning the animals. Hiccup thought about protesting, but he realized he would probably hinder more than help in that area. He at least insisted in walking to the kitchen to drop off his own bag. Her shoulders slumped slightly, but she didn't respond except to begin walking quickly towards the kitchens.
He sighed and followed, keeping his pace even to allow her room to move ahead of him. While there had been small moments in the day where she seemed interested in communicating with him, for the rest of it all he got was a cold shoulder. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he tried to consider different courses of action. While he was patient, the sooner he learned the truth about her, the sooner he would be able to do something about it: without anyone else learning.
He greeted Olaf as he placed his pack on the hook. He glanced at Merida, but her back was to him as she worked, Olaf gave him a sympathetic smile.
"You'll be here again tomorrow right Hiccup?"
Hiccup looked at the man, he seemed to be trying to say something in his expression, but Hiccup wasn't sure what Olaf was implying. He knew that he needed to spend more time with Merida though, so he nodded.
"Yes, I will be here again tomorrow."
A bit of a shorter chapter. I am so grateful for the reviews! Thank you so much for reading my story and letting my know that you are enjoying it, it really helps with motivation! : D I am in the process of writing the 3/4 mark of the story right now (I already wrote the ending) and am struggling to make the characters work with me.
Sometimes I'm not sure whether it is Merida or Hiccup that need to let their thoughts out in a chapter so I end up writing two versions, one from Hiccup's perspective and the other from Meirda's, but the story needs to flow forward, so that is why I only post one version of the events. Originally when I wrote up to chapter 5 I continued on with Merida's p.o.v, but when I re-read the previous chapters I always felt that something was missing. This chapter was born because I realized that Hiccup had somethings to say before Merida's next chapter.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading! : D You peeps are the best!