Author's Note:

Hey folks, sorry this chapter took so long. I lost Hiccup's voice and this chapter had to be told from his perspective. I ended up writing a series of drabbles to get my pen back to him. Things are flowing a lot better now, so hopefully back to our regular scheduling.

I don't own any of the characters or Worlds, this is purely for fun and not profit.

Hiccup felt a jolt of excitement strike him as he grasped hands with Merida. He had been worried yesterday what would happen moving forward, the last thing he had expected was for her to decide to take her fate in her hands and challenge him openly. He was relieved that he could convince her of his good intentions, before she decided to kill him that is.

After a moment he realized that he was still holding her hand. They both let go and an awkward silence fell over them. He cleared his throat, "Well, now that we are being a bit more honest with each other why not take this time to get to know each other better?"

She seemed a bit hesitant still, although Hiccup didn't blame her. They had spent the past week dancing around each other; and she had spent nearly a month pretending to be mute; the sudden straightforwardness would take some getting used to. They took a seat by the rock face that led out of the valley; Merida brought her bag with her and automatically searched for her rations and offered half to him. The small gesture of familiarity to their routine helped them both relax. They sat in silence for a bit as they ate, Hiccup spent the time searching for a topic to start with.

"So… You're a princess!" He said: feeling stupid the instant the statement came out of his mouth. She offered him a small smile and nodded, obviously still used to responding without talking.

After a moment she cleared her throat and spoke in Norse, "Yes… I princess" he tried his best to keep his expression neutral as he watched her face grow as red as her hair. Her accent wasn't as bad as it could be, but she was obviously without practice when it came to speaking the language out loud.

Despite his best attempt at decorum a small chuckle escaped his lips: he couldn't help it. She pouted at him, which drove him to cover his mouth in an attempt to hide his smile. He took a deep breath and gave her an apologetic look, but she was now glaring at him. "I'm sorry, honestly, but for now why don't we just speak in Gaelic."

Merida stared straight ahead with a stubborn set in her jaw. "I speak what I want." She responded slowly. Hiccup raised his eyebrows feeling slightly bewildered by her persistence, but then again, she had shown many signs of her nature over the time he had spent with her.

"Well, I'll continue to speak in Gaelic." She merely nodded in response.

He sighed, remembering the brief glimmer of hope he had carried that communication would be easier now. He looked up at the pond and watched the Terrible Terror that followed Merida around attempting to fish. It tried to wade slowly into the water so that it wouldn't scare the fish, but the fish were too deep and he ended up floundering about the moment he couldn't keep his head above the water. Hiccup felt his heart go out to the small dragon: he felt his pain.

"Now that we are talking, mind telling me how you actually ended up ship wrecked?" Merida nodded, but remained silent for a time, most likely trying to find the correct words to use.

"I… was traveling…My father on a…" he was patient as he listened to her recant the tale of her journey; he drew his knees up and found himself carrying a small smile at the little frown line that appeared between her eyebrows. But the smile fell when she mentioned Yngvild, although he had known that the Viking lord had assailed the King of Alba, it made him angry at the man when he listened to what had happened from Merida's perspective.

She moved along from his part in her tale and onto how they had gotten shipwrecked, she started describing the dragon. Hiccup perked up at the mention of it, although some of the sailors that had been attacked had claimed it to be a dragon, none of them had gotten a clear look at it.

"There was… an… energy? Lightning! There was lightning around it."

"A Skrill!" He whooped, startling Merida. "Sorry, it's just that I've been trying to figure out more about the dragon in that stretch of the ocean for a while now."

"Has it been… causing… trouble long?"

He sighed as he leaned back against the rock, "it has been almost two months since we started hearing reports of a dragon between Berk and Alba. It was unfortunate for Berk and the surrounding villages as we were going to begin treaty talks with the Orkney Isles, it seems that Alba beat us to that because of the delay."

Merida frowned "Wait, ye were going to be treating with Orkney as well?" She had switched to Gaelic, obviously finding this topic too important to use for Norse practice.

"Yes, Berk, as you may have seen, doesn't have much in the ways of natural resources. We either depend on the mainland or we find others we can trade with. When our ships left to make the journey they were waylaid by a vicious storm, after that we began to hear the rumors of other ships being attacked."

She stared at the lake for a while, fiddling with a lock of her hair. Hiccup thought about that unfortunate event. It had been dragon-nesting season, so he had left with them on their migration. By the time he had returned to investigate the issue the window of opportunity with Orkney had passed, leaving Berk to depend on trade with the mainland.

"I have a question for ye Hiccup, and I want an honest answer: does the village of Berk take part in the summer raids?"

Hiccup looked at her, there wasn't suspicion in her eyes, just a look of acceptance, as though she couldn't think of a reason why they wouldn't. He kept his eyes on her, to allow her the chance to read the truth from them. "As a whole, the village of Berk does not take part in the summer raids." She sighed and smiled, Hiccup's expression however, remained somber, causing her grin to melt. "As a whole no, but I will be honest with you, there are some that do."

He gave her time to take that news in, knowing that he was entering dangerous territory. She had every right to be angry, he had heard the stories of victory from other Vikings, his people, and knew the reality for her people was not so great. He watched as she stared up into the sky, her expression forelorn. He felt a stronge urge put his hand over hers in comfort, but he clenched his hands together to resist and turned his focus onto the Terrible Terror who was sauntering over to them.

"Hello Terror" she said to the dragon.

"I've seen this guy following you around, does he have a name? " He asked, trying to veer the conversation away from the raiding season for the time being. Merida smiled as she stroked the bright green scales.

"No, ye'll probably laugh, but I was trying not to get too attatched to anyone or anything in Berk, so I just kept calling him Terror and in the end that feels like the best name for him."

Hiccup did smile a bit, "I must have been annoying, trying to get you to becoming attached- Not that you're attatched to me, just that I... invited you to dinner… and followed you around..."

He knew his face must look as red as it felt, so he tried to hide it by looking away from her. When she responded though he heard the smile in her voice.

"Seemed! I was convinced that ye were purposely following me to out me. How did ye figure out that I wasn't a Viking? It can't have been in workroom, ye spoke in Gaelic to me there first."

Hiccup felt a bit of pride in himself for figureing it out, he looked back at her "your names, they aren't really Viking sounding."

"Oh and I suppose Hiccup would have been better" she smirked.

"Ha, I'll have you know that my name helps me fight against trolls!"

Merida gave him an alarmed look, "Ye have trolls too?" She asked as she looked around, surveying the valley.

"No, no! I mean, at least not that I know of. You don't have tales of trolls where you come from?"

Merida frowned at him, "oh aye, we do, I just feel as though I've walked into another realm what with dragons being real. Though I guess magic shouldn't be that foriegn to me, I did turn my mother into a bear when I was younger." She gave him a sideways glance, obviously positive that would get a shock out of him. Hiccup didn't let her down; he stared at her as though she had gone mad.

"A bear...?"

"Yep! Thanks to a witch woman who gave me a spell."

He ran his fingers through his hair, "well when you say it that way, of course it makes sense." She stuck her tongue out at him with a smile.

"Did ye want to hear that tale?"

He let out a breath and leaned back against the rock "M'lady, I don't think I could move until I hear this tale, besides I've already told you mine."

She gave him a soft smile "aye, ye have."

After that the two of them made their way back to the village. Merida slipped back to her hut so that she could change. Along the way Hiccup had mentioned his concerns about other people learning about who she really was and they both agreed that she should keep up the act while in public.

Hiccup went to his place to find Toothless; he had offered to take her flying again. As he walked he thought about the various solutions to getting Merida off the island, but almost all of them still involved a ship, and until the long ships returned from the mainland he didn't have a lot of options. He looked up in time to see Peadar making his way towards him. Hiccup felt himself immediately tense up, he wasn't sure how much the man knew of Merida's plan this morning, but he was sure it was most of it.

"Hiccup, out for a walk in the woods?" Peadar was giving him a studied look.

"Yes, I ran into Merida… We… uh, well she went back to the hut to change." Peadar smiled then and clapped him heavily on the shoulder.

"Good then! Anyways, I wanted to invite you over to our humble dwelling for a meal tonight, if you were interested. I have some interesting news that involves the three of us."

Hiccup nodded, "sure, sounds good. I'll see you tonight then."

"Where are you heading off too now?" Peadar asked.

"Ah, I was going to go see Toothless, ask him if he was interested in giving Merida a tour of the island" as the words were leaving his mouth he felt his face go red. He realized that it sounded like he was courting Merida.

Peadar laughed loudly at his apparent discomfort "It's alright boy, off with you then" he finished, turning to walk back towards the shore. Hiccup watched him leave before turning back towards his house wondering what news he had.

Once he got home he found his father seated in front of the unlit fireplace, staring into it. He felt a trickle of fear, immediately knowing that something was very wrong.

"Dad? Is everything okay?"

Stoick shifted in his seat at Hiccup's voice and twisted around to face him. He sighed heavily and turned back towards the fireplace.

"I have something to tell you son, sit down." It wasn't a request; Hiccup took a seat, feeling like a child again.

"It has to do with Yngvild, I wanted to try and handle this situation and spare you, but I can't find a way out of it. Everything has changed so much since we began training dragons: the world feels more complicated. I've never had to deal with the threat of the entire Viking council before." He finished, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Hiccup frowned "What do you mean? Vikings threatening us?"

"I received a letter from Yngvild, after we left the council they took a secret vote: we either help them on the raid with our dragons, or we forfeit our position on the council. He arrives in a weeks' time for his answer."

"No! He can't do that!" Hiccup balled his fists as he looked about the room wild eyed for a proper response to this news. He searched his head for an idea, but then deflated, realizing that the answer wasn't going to come immediately.

He felt responsible for everything that was happening; once again he was a catalyst for problems on the island. He thought about Merida, how he wasn't even able to come up with an immediate solution to her problems either. If he could just get her back to her father…

An odd idea passed through him; so odd he wasn't sure if he should say it out loud. He considered it for a few more moments before looking at his father, excitement building.

"What if we could make a treaty with someone else?" Stoick looked up at his son in confusion.

"Whom could we possibly make a treaty with? We're Vikings, if you haven't noticed many of our people raid other shores often, there aren't many that would jump to our aid easily."

"Ah ha! Yes, maybe not easily, but you agree that it might be an option. We both know that the surrounding villages don't like how Yngvild has been behaving; we could create a defense treaty so that we defend one another. Alone Berk would be in trouble, but united we stand a chance." he smirked as his father grumbled.

"How would we defend each other without using dragons?"

"We're Vikings! We have ships and warriors; you've complained to me that many of the villagers were getting restless for battle."

He seemed to be thinking it over "while it isn't a bad plan, you are asking only four villages to stand up against the possible might of the mainland clans, we are still a small mustering."

"Ah! That is where the second half of my plan comes into play: we treat with Alba." Stoick looked at him as though he had lost his head.

"Even if we could son, how would we make this magical treaty happen within the short period of time between now and Yngvild's arrival on our island?"

Hiccup opened his mouth and then closed it quickly. He had gotten so excited about the idea of a treaty with Merida's people that he had almost forgot that no one else knew who she really was.

"Exactly, the place closest to us anyways is the Orkney Isles and they are treating with Alba or so the rumours go, after the raids that happened last summer, Alba will want nothing to do with us. We are on our own son and running out of time. If Yngvild arrives, I'm sorry to say this, but I am going to accept his terms. We may not be able to convince you, but we have a dragon squadron that will follow my command…"

"No! No, you can't do this! Dragons are not swords you use when you want to threaten people! We can't risk their lives!"

"They are a part of our clan Hiccup, which means they are just as involved with the village as any person is. I don't think of my dragon as an item, he is my friend, and I know that he would do whatever he could to help keep this island safe."

Hiccup stood up, frustration pricking at his eyes. "Don't you understand what will happen if we use dragons to raid the shores of others? They will begin hunting dragons down! It won't be just about our dragons, you are threatening every dragon out there with a new war and a whole new group of people out for their blood!" He looked down at his father, who had remained seated, fury oozed through every inch of Hiccup.

Stoick let out a heavy breath, his shoulders dropping. Although physically he was a larger man, for the first time in Hiccup's life he questioned when his father had begun to look smaller than he remembered.

"Once again you are asking me to choose between the safety of Berk, or that of nameless dragons. Last time I let my rage get the better of me and you proved me wrong. This time… This time I will give the decision to you son."

Hiccup leaned back in surprise, unsure what he father was saying, but fearing he had an idea.

"It is time that you are tested with the mantle of Chieftain, so I give this problem to you since it affects you so heavily." Stoick stood up then, looking every bit the weary yet proud Viking Chieftain. "You will learn what it is like to carry the lives of this village and recognize the that choices you make are no longer only about your needs. Whatever you decide, I will support."

With that Stoick walked out the door, leaving Hiccup standing next to the empty fireplace, reeling with his father's words, he stared into the charred stone for answers to this new problem.

End Note:

Thank you everyone that has reviewed and helped keep me motivated as I struggled with this one! You guys are the best!