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.

Seiðr

The princess was the last person Hiccup expected standing outside his door. She grinned up at him, hair heavy with damp and darkened to a dusty rose. The mahogany brown of her dress brought out the ruddy red in her cheeks and the sunlight in her skin. There was a bowl with a pale yellow ointment in her hands.

"Are you alone?"

"Um, yes. Why?" He squinted at her suspiciously. Though they'd come to an understanding in Queen's Tooth, he hadn't appreciated the way she'd laughed at him when he fell off ten minutes later. The cuts in his hand still stung and burned.

Merida came in, the sheer force of her presence enough to make Hiccup back away before any physical contact could be made. "Oh good. You're already clean. Sit down."

"Hey! You can't just walk into men's rooms and boss them around." Hiccup whipped around and tried to spot any extra pieces of underwear or clothing lying about. The Queen had installed the Viking party in their own dormitory. The beds lying in neat, precise rows around him were unmade. Pieces of armor were strewn across the room.

If Merida noticed the disarray, she gave no sign. She faced him, hip cocked and a smirk on her lips. "Actually, I'm the princess. I can do just that if I like."

"But it's my bedroom!"

"You're very observant." She dragged a small stool over to the one neatly made bed but for the open sketchbook. "Is that a view of DunBroch from the lake? That's not half bad!"

Hiccup snapped the book shut and sat on top of it for good measure. "What do you want?"

"I'll tell you if you roll up your sleeves and puts your hands on your knees palm up."

He scowled at her. She smiled back at him.

"No one's ever said no to you before, have they?"

"I could wrestle your sleeves off one at a time." Her blue eyes swept over him up and down. She put a finger on her lower lip, head tilted to the side. "You're taller than me, but I'm quicker and I've wrestled with the wee devils all my life."

"You wouldn't," Hiccup frowned. She probably was quicker than him and wrestling with her siblings gave her some experience, but she wouldn't actually—

"Bet I can have you on your back in 30 seconds." Merida rose, putting aside her bowl.

"All right!" Hiccup yelped. With that mental image burned in his mind, Hiccup hastily began rolling his sleeve up. Apart from the squeaking of the stool as Merida sat back down, the room was in complete silence. Hiccup coughed and held out his right hand. "Happy?"

"Very." She set the bowl down in her lap and gently cupped his hand. Her fingers ghosted over his cuts and scrapes.

Hiccup twitched. It was first time she had ever touched him, he realized, though not the first time she had been so close. Her touch was surprisingly delicate as she turned his hand this way and that, frowning.

"It's worse than I thought." She peered so closely into his hand he felt her breath like the barest breeze tickling against his palm. "I should have come sooner. I'll have to make a proper job of it now."

"What's worse? What job?"

"Your hand." Merida straightened up and set his hand against her knees. She kneaded his wrist gently and with her other hand began rubbing the ointment into his palm.

That was almost worse than Merida wrestling with him. He pulled his hand away but the grip around his wrist became steel. Face flaming, Hiccup blurted, "I'm not hurt. This is unnecessary."

"You've got scrapes and cut from when you fell off the Queen's Tooth."

"I've had worse. Trust me." He thumped his prosthetic leg for good measure.

"Not from the Queen's Tooth. There's a," she frowned, then, to his surprise, used a Viking word, "seiðr about that place."

His hand stilled in her own. "Where'd you learn that?"

"Humor me," she shrugged.

"Princess."

"Don't be daft," she snorted and shrugged her hair to the side. "You know my name."

"But—"

"Do you like being called Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the III, son and heir of Stoick the Vast, dragon conqueror of Berk?"

He stared at her. Ok, she had a point. But his title was a lie. Mostly.

"Och, don't tell me you're one of those uppity types who makes their friends call them by Lord Freckleface Grumpkin great rescuer of sheep and slayer of pumpkins." Her voice deepened to a precise, booming tone. It was an uncanny imitation of someone, Hiccup could tell.

"Merida," he smiled.

"How dare you address me by my perfectly functional name, you presumptuous peer, instead of my ridiculously long title some bard was forced to make up while he was soused and bored to death and couldn't find anything that rhymed with pumpkins!"

"Merida!" he laughed.

"Doesn't that sound better?" she grinned. "Now let me get on with it before someone catches me."

"Where are you supposed to be now?"

"Spending time with Lady Helen of the perfect face and the perfect hair and the perfect smile and the perfect manners." Her voice was distracted as her fingers continued their ministrations. "It's high treason to have the princess dress herself you know."

"Naturally. I have six attendants at home not just one." Without thinking about it, Hiccup relaxed at her touch. She was very gentle and, despite his words, the cuts had burned. The ointment helped take away the pain. "What is that ointment made from?"

"Honey and Greamh mac feidh."

"Grim what?"

"It's a fern. Very difficult to find or grow, but good for burns. You have to prepare it right so that you can mix it with the honey." She held up his hand and blew on his palm gently.

The ointment, which had been soothing before, became cool to the touch. She held up his hand close to her lips and blew on the ointment twice more. The burning and stinging sensation on his right hand slowly receded leaving him hyper-aware of her closeness. Did she have no sense of space with everyone or just him? She was always coming just shy of too close. Her fingers pat then spread the ointment carefully on the scrapes and burns. Her other hand massaged the stiffness away from his muscles. He was uncomfortably aware of her gentle breathing, the frown on her face and the tickle of her hair on his arm as she bent over her work.

Suddenly, Merida looked up at him. They froze. She blinked and gave him a shy smile, returning to her work.

Alarm bells started ringing in Hiccup's head. Breath quick, he tried to think of something to say. "You weren't this concerned about me when I fell off the Queen's Tooth. In fact, you were laughing your head off."

"You didn't fall off. You slid down the last five feet," she smirked. "Yelping like a wounded hart as you went."

"There you go again, willfully misinterpreting me. For your information, Merida, that was a manful Viking warcry of landing."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I hadn't realized Viking warcries were so... high pitched," she laughed. But the laughter wasn't derisive. It was just gleeful. Hiccup begrudgingly forgave her for laughing at him.

Merida switched to his left hand. Hiccup flexed his right hand experimentally. No pain or stiffness. Highland medicine was good. He turned his attention back to her, curious with the process.

His left hand was stiffer and more badly scraped since it was his dominant hand. She was careful with the cuts and took the time to pull out the knots in his hand. This time, he was ready for the cooling sensation from the ointment when she blew on it. The sensations were pleasant and oddly... sensual.

"How'd you get that scar?"

"That was when I was Gobber's, the blacksmith's, new apprentice." Hiccup flexed right hand flexed again but mostly he was paying attention to the girl in front of him. "I wasn't paying attention and the iron slipped... I have a lot of scars like that."

"From daydreaming?"

"Gobber might have thought I was a little slow." Hiccup shrugged and cursed himself internally. Smooth, Haddock, just keep making yourself sound like an idiot.

"Could you hold up your hand?"

"Is that a request?" He smirked at her as he held up his hand. She made a face at him and laughed. She held her hand up to his, palms almost touching. Her hand was smaller than his, daintier.

"The dragon that gave you that bite must have been enormous. The teeth marks cover most of my palm and fingers." She pulled down her palm and tugged his hand back in place.

"Most dragons are really big. Most Viking tools are really big."

"Bigger than Highland tools, I'm sure."

"What? I don't know." He peered at her suspiciously. Her tone held the same asperity it had the first time she found out he was the "dragon conqueror of Berk." "I hadn't thought about it. Some of them. Maybe."

She grinned at him and he relaxed back into his slump. She pulled up her left sleeve. "See that little area that's a slightly different color from the rest? That's where the bow string kept taking the skin off 'till I learned proper form."

"It must have taken you a while to learn, to form a scar like that." Hiccup traced the scar below her wrist with his eyes.

"Ages. I was the slowest learner my teacher's ever had, he says. Of course, I'm the only pupil my teacher's ever had."

They smiled at each other over this shared trait. Merida patted his hand and he pulled it back.

"So," he asked, flexing his left hand. Like the right, the pain had become nonexistent. "You make a habit of going to cursed places?"

"I make a habit of going to challenging places," she smirked. "Haven't you ever looked at some impossible place and wondered—what if?"

"The sky," Hiccup said almost instantly. "Everyday."

It was Merida's turn to stare. Hiccup blushed. He shouldn't have said that. It slipped out without him realizing. It was nice being with Merida. It had been so long since he had a proper conversation with someone he genuinely liked. It was almost like being with his friends back in Berk.

The bells rang for dinner.

"That's my cue." Merida gathered her things. She stood up and went to the door.

"Merida," Hiccup bit his lip. She paused at the open the door. "Thank you. For, um, the ointment but especially the Queen's Tooth. That was..."

"I know," she grinned, then hesitated. With a little blush, she swept him a curtsy. "Ah, thank you for the story. I... prefer it over all the other Viking tales."

His heart gave a little thump at that. The words burst out of his mouth before he could stop himself, before he could even consider whether it was a good idea. "Would you do it?"

"What?"

"Would you ride... I mean, if you could, would you ride a dragon?"

"Anything can happen."

Author's Notes: I always thought Merida and Hiccup's friendship would be rocky from start to finish. How they compare and contrast to one another, the similarities and differences, and how it pays off in dividends from a dramatic standpoint is my favorite part of their relationship. This snippet takes place right after Merida and Hiccup's first adventure. Let me know what you think!

As for Crossing the Horizon, Merida and Hiccup will be meeting in the next chapter :)

Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the previous drabbles! Your words of encouragement really help buoy me up and get the writing done faster.