Disclaimer: I don't own Hiccup or Merida, obviously. I'm not making any money off this. Both characters and the movies they come from belong to Dreamworks and Disney, respectively. If you really want to see something to blow you away, go watch the movies. Then think about these two interacting. Then you'll see what I mean.

Extenuating Circumstances

"Is it still following us?" Merida called out ahead of him.

Behind Hiccup, he could hear the furious boar crashing through the undergrowth. Hiccup sped up. "What do you think?" he snapped back, breathless. They had been running for at least ten minutes, Hiccup was sure, and he was grateful that he had spent so much time with Toothless. Twelve-year-old Hiccup could not have kept up with the princess's sprint but a Hiccup who did nothing but ride Toothless for the better part of six years could cope. Still, they could not run forever. If they didn't come up with something soon, they were going to get gored. In retrospect, splitting with the royal hunting party to strike out on his own was a terrifically bad idea especially when the princess decided to go with him.

That was the problem with princesses, Hiccup thought, disgruntled. They did what they pleased, didn't care whose plan they ruined, and carried their own baggage. This princess's baggage came in the form of three suitors who couldn't seem to leave the girl well enough alone no matter how hard she dodged, sidestepped, or flat out ignored them. What Hiccup hoped would be a quiet solo mission to see if the tracks he'd seen the night before came from a timberjack became a noisy party of five with Osgar Macintosh running a commentary on Hiccup's (poor) tracking skills, Niall Dingwall humming a maddening tune that Hiccup just knew would get stuck in his head, and Alan MacGuffin crashing through the undergrowth. Merida hissed at them to keep quiet; Hiccup had long given up on it.

It was only through sheer dumb luck that they found the boar the royal party was hunting.

Hiccup almost welcomed the beast if only to shut all of them up. That welcome quickly vanished when they realized that none of them had the weapons to deal with the beast and the boar was as mean as it was stupid. Hiccup shouted at the suitors to climb up trees while he distracted it, but it was Merida's arrow to the boar's side that finally took the beast's attention from Niall Dingwall. At that point, the only thing to do was run.

"Och, this is not how I wanted to do this," Merida said, before shouting, "Come on. Follow me!" The red curls ahead of him veered sharply to the left. As if Hiccup had any other choice but to follow. The young Viking swore as his prosthetic limb caught on some foliage and he wrenched it free as quickly as he could. Merida didn't wait up. The trees were starting to thin as the ground sloped upward. Hiccup hoped that meant they were near some settlement. Ahead of him, the princess slowed. She took out an arrow from her quiver, attached it quickly to a rope and let it fly. The arrow embedded itself on the trunk of a tree nearly to the top of a steep ridge. The princess tied the end of the rope to a nearby tree and began using the rope to negotiate the steep slope.

Hiccup allowed himself to feel a trickle of admiration for the girl's quick thinking before the boar bellowed behind him. Hiccup ducked just in time as debris from the boar's crashing through the undergrowth sailed overhead. Without missing a beat, Hiccup followed her example. The boar's enraged bellowing grew fainter and fainter the higher Hiccup got. The ground was soft and his prosthetic limb caught more than once. But the thought of the boar's sharp tusks only spurred him faster. Then Merida's hand was there helping him negotiate the last steep climb.

The Viking flopped over the damp grass and soft earth. His limbs burned from their exertion and his lungs took in great gasps of air. A constant, cool breeze blew over his face.

"You all right?" Merida asked, leaning over him.

Hiccup opened his eyes and stared at her in a daze. She really was quite pretty, a distant part of Hiccup's mind noted, ignoring the roaring in his ears at the closeness of her. Even though her hair was windswept, sweat trickled down her brows and her clothes were dirty from their sprint. But her eyes were bright and the ghost of a smile loomed behind her lips like the moon hiding behind some clouds. "You're enjoying this," Hiccup said, wonder and accusation in his tone.

Merida stiffened before walking away. "I… I don't know what you're talking about," she said, crossing her arms and looking down the slope.

Hiccup sat up, gazing at the princess. That was a lie if ever Hiccup heard one. For the millionth time, the Viking wondered at the strange puzzle the princess of the Highlands presented. That strange feeling surged in his chest—dual impulses vying for control. Natural curiosity urged him to find out more, to question, to learn. The sensible part of his mind warned that she burned too bright; she'd blind him if he came too near.

"Uhh, Hiccup, you might want to see this," Merida said.

Hiccup blinked. He'd been so distracted by Merida that he hadn't even realized—the roar of the beast. "Oh you've got to be joking," Hiccup said, scrambling to stand beside the girl. The boar was rapidly making its way up the slow. Its hooves sunk deep into the soft earth and it gnashed its teeth at them. It would reach them in a few minutes. Hiccup whipped around, looking for another place to hide but there was none.

Merida had lead them to a cliffside. The trees that were in reach were far too slender to support either of them much less withstand the boar's tusks. The small clearing they were in sloped sharply downwards to the boar; the other side dropped abruptly into nothing. A roaring river bordered one side that fell away into a waterfall—the biggest he'd seen yet in the Highlands.

"What are you doing?" Merida asked as Hiccup walked closer to the river. "We can't swim. We'll drown!"

Hiccup snapped back, "It was your bright idea to lead us here. You think of something then!"

"Bright idea?" Merida repeated. "You're the one who decided to hunt on your own without a weapon but for that silly dagger! We wouldn't be here if you had something that could actually kill a boar!"

"I wouldn't need a weapon for a boar if you hadn't been following me!"

"I accompanied you because you needed protection!"

"Oh swell job!"

The boar bellowed. Merida and Hiccup whipped around to face it. Its nose was peeking over the edge, but it seemed to have difficulty making it up the last few feet. It surged up once, its short legs scrabbling for purchase on level ground before it disappeared over the edge again. Hiccup's heart leapt into his throat and he backed away hastily. Think, Haddock, think, he urged himself. Boar on one side, cliff on the other, drowning on the other side. What would Toothless do if he couldn't fight, couldn't swim, couldn't… jump?

Hiccup strode towards the edge of the waterfall. The water thundered past him and dropped a distance of about 25 meters into a large loch. He couldn't see any rocks below, but the mist could be hiding any number of things. He'd fallen further… but then again, he'd also been much higher up in the sky and accompanied by the fastest dragon known to Vikings.

"You're mad," Merida whispered.

Hiccup turned to her. She was watching him with wide eyes.

"We need to jump," he said.

"No, we're going to fall. Hard," Merida corrected.

"I know it's crazy," he said, throwing up his hands. "But it's either that or a really big, really angry boar. Which do you think you'll—" He stopped short when she placed a finger on his lips. She was grinning up at him, fear and amusement in her smile.

"You talk too much, you daft Viking," Merida said. She rearranged her bow so it hung loosely around her back and stepped right onto the edge with him. "Let's do it."

"Really?" he asked, blinking. "You'll… you trust me?"

Merida rolled her eyes. "It's not like I've much of a choice," the princess said. "If I die and you survive, I'll be haunting you for the rest of your life."

"Deal," Hiccup said. "Just… take a deep breath, jump right from the edge, fall in feet first and keep your arms close to your side. Swim as fast as you can once you hit the water."

"Done this before, have you?"

"In a manner of speaking."

Merida raised a brow.

"There was a thing with a dragon and Gobber's underpants and…" Hiccup shut up when she slipped her fingers through his. They were just as cold and clammy as he felt, but her grin was fierce.

"I bet I can swim out of that water faster than you."

"Are you really going to turn this into a competition?"

"I can't show you up after we've been gored or drowned, can I?" Merida took a few steps backs and readied herself. Hiccup watched her go, amazement and fear now running through him like a fever. "Well?" she asked, brow lifting imperiously.

"I am going to make you eat your words," Hiccup warned, taking his place beside her. Behind them, the boar bellowed as it finally heaved itself up. Together, the two of them sprinted forward and jumped over the edge.

"Where to next?"

"Why are you asking me?" Hiccup asked, irritated. His clothes were soaking wet, he'd lost his pack in the water and he was pretty sure he'd lost a spring in his metal leg by the way it squeaked and groaned with every step. At least neither of them had lost any limbs or broken bones. The Viking brushed sodden locks away from his forehead and took stock of their surroundings. He didn't recognize the trees and the river around them, but then again he wasn't familiar with the woodlands around the castle of DunBroch at all.

Merida had laid her things aside to dry—what little she retained during their swim. She'd kept her bow (no arrows) and her cloak. Hiccup had only his dagger.

If the princess was offended by his tone, she ignored it. Currently, the princess was wringing her dress dry and Hiccup was most definitely NOT staring at the way the fabric of her dress clung to her body. Nope, Hiccup was a smart lad and wasn't as crude as Snotlout say, or even Tuffnut. He was so busy NOT staring that he almost missed Merida's response.

"Because you weren't hunting for the boar, were you?"

Hiccup's eyes snapped to her face.

"It was a good act," Merida said calmly as if she hadn't just called out his deceit, "For a while, I thought you really were just an idiot following imaginary tracks in the forest." Merida gathered her hair to one side, baring a long, slender neck. A trickle of water dribbled from her dark, red curls and splashed down a bare shoulder.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about," Hiccup said. Hiccup couldn't tell if his words came out thickly because he was unnerved, or angry or distracted or some dizzying combination of all three.

"You saw something last night," she continued, sky blue eyes peeking out at him while she combed her hair to some semblance of order. "All the time we were in the woods, you were just leading us in circles. I'm sorry about the boys. I should have known they'd follow me but…" The princess shook her head and her hair rippled around her like a cloak. "Well, now's your chance. It'll take them a while to find us."

"Did you just take advantage of a boar attack to get us away from the young lords?" he asked, gawking. His voice was filled with equal parts astonishment, admiration and fear.

"Impressed?" Merida asked archly. "Now it's your turn. Go on then. Impress me."

Author's Note: This is dedicated to pandolfo-malatesta who wanted to know what the extenuating circumstances were. Sorry for taking so long! Writing it out took way longer I thought it would and it's still not where I wanted it to be. I have a feeling it'll change once I get to this part on the full story. This takes place before all of the other drabbles I've written. Also, I happily ignored the physics of falling off a 25 meter high waterfall unscathed and with bow on your back. It's possible but I'm pretty sure it's more possible you'll break something. Or drown.

Let me know what you think! I welcome reviews and constructive criticism.

If you're interested in more, I have a tumblr account that I'll probably be posting more drabbles/head canons first. My username is nessalk.