She was born in a fire. She died in one too, but she did not know that. All she knew is that she woke up in the smoldering ruins of a castle.
Her eyes blinked open and she gulped air in through her mouth. She stood and brushed the ashes off her red and gold dress and red-and-gold cloak.. The sky was gray and smoke curled into the air. Her fiery red hair bounced slightly as she looked around. Her pale blue eyes swept over the land like a hawk. It was the first place she remembered and the place she would always return.
"Home," she breathed, her voice thick with a Scottish accent.
She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. She felt a warmth dance across her face and opened her eyes again. A sliver of sunlight appeared over the horizon, illuminating the world around her. She stared in awe. She blinked in the sun and spun around, relishing the feeling of warm air on her skin. When she stopped twirling, she looked up to the newly risen sun.
It blinked a few times and a voice whispered something behind her, soft as the rustling of the leaves on the trees. She turned, unafraid, and searched for the source of the voice.
"Merida," it whispered.
Merida. It seemed right. It seemed to fit her. Of course it fit her, it was her name!
"Merida," she said, letting the name roll around on her tongue. "Merida. Merida! MERIDA!" she said, her voice rising to a joyous shout. She began to run, kicking up ashes and cinders behind her as she went. She laughed and ran and laughed some more, until she came to the edge of the ruins. Her laugh abruptly stopped, and her eyes grew wide.
A field of emerald shades glittered in the early morning sunlight. She pulled a foot out of the ashes and placed it gingerly on the grass. The cold dew seeped through her thin shoe. She shifted her weight and placed the other foot on the grass. As she stood, the sun glinted across her face and warmed her skin. She grinned, and began to spin. She relished the feeling of the warm morning air on her face.
As she spun, her fiery red hair began to smoke. Merida was oblivious to her smoking hair, until it burst into flames. She stopped dead and began to frantically bat at her hair. She brought her hands down to her face, expecting blackened hands. But they weren't.
Merida felt her heart calm down and felt her hair again. It was still on fire, but it didn't burn. It was more of a tickling sensation. A trill of excitement ran through her. She could create fire!
She could create... fire.
Fire, a destructive thing of pain and heat, capable of taking out towns and even forests in a matter of minutes. The thrill of excitement was replaced by a prickle of dread. Her hair smoldered down as she grew more and more afraid of her newfound power. Calm down, she told herself. Maybe lots of all people had them. Maybe her powers weren't all that different. And maybe they were.
He was born in the leaves. He woke up in a clearing in an autumn forest covered in leaves, their musky scent filling his nostrils and their crackling texture scratching against his skin. Still on his back, the boy gazed up into the gold and crimson leaves hanging on skeletal branches above him. The light flickering through them dappled on his freckled face. He sat up and propped himself up on his elbow. The leaves slid off of his torso with a slight crackling sound.
But a crunching sound from the bushes behind him made him stand. When he did, he realized that he had only one leg. The other was a metal contraption from the mid-calf down. From the bushes, a pair of bright green reptilian eyes stared back at him. The eyes were so achingly familiar, yet so very foreign to him. A black scaly face emerged from the bush and with it a pair of shoulders and a then a set of black leathery wings. A name struck his mind immediately. Toothless. Toothless the dragon. Toothless' eyes lit up at the sight of the boy, and he leapt into the air and tackled him full on, pinning him down to the ground and licking his face like a friendly dog would to his master. "Hey, hey Toothless! Yeah, I missed you too, bud." the boy spoke, trying to lift the dragon off of him. Toothless hopped off his rider and got low to the ground, his hind quarters in the air. He wanted to play. The boy picked up a large stick and prepared to throw it, when a voice, soft as the wind, whispered something . The boy stopped dead and listened to the wind. "Hiccup," it whispered. Hiccup. A funny name. "Hiccup." the boy repeated. "Hiccup." Toothless was getting impatient, so Hiccup threw the stick as far and hard as his skinny frame would allow. Toothless darted after it, disappearing into the foliage with a swish of his tail. Hiccup walked over to a tall tree and leaned against it. But when his hand made contact with the bark of the tree, the bark began to peel off. Hiccup yanked his hand back in surprise and watched as the bark peeled and spread around the tree. Hesitantly, he reached for a still-green leaf hanging above his head and watched as it turned a dark crimson at his touch. "Well, this is great," He muttered. "My hands kill stuff."
She was born in a meadow.
That much she knew. Flowers tickled at her cheeks and brushed against her arms. They tangled in her extremely long golden hair. Her emerald eyes fluttered open and looked into the robin's egg sky. A few puffy clouds drifted lazily across the blue, and the bright sun warmed her face. she sat up leisurely and stretched her arms, as if waking from a deep, long sleep. She smiled as a flower petal fell from her hair. Her purple silken dress rippled like a creek when she stood, and her bare feet tickled with the grass. She looked around, her surroundings amazing her. A creek ran along the edge of the meadow, and into a forest. The leaves on the trees were a pale green, and birds roosted on many of the branches. Something darted from under a bush. The girl jumped a little and bent down, searching for the source of the movement. Suddenly, a small and scaly green lizard hopped out. No, not a lizard. A chameleon. A name stuck in the back of her mind. "Pascal?" She asked the chameleon. His scales flashed a happy yellow and he nuzzled up onto her shoulder. She laughed at her funny new friend and sat down amongst the flowers. They seemed to sing to her, a gentle melody. The words were strange, though.
"Rapunzel," They sang. On a hunch Rapunzel raised her hand and traced the pattern of an ivy trail on the wall of a tower near her. The ivy shivered and followed her finger, even as she pulled it away. She moved her hand in a serpentine motion, and the ivy followed, creating a dark green figure eight. "Huh." Rapunzel mused, observing the ivy figure. This was a strange new ability, but an interesting one. She would have to practice though.