A/N: Well, this is a small miracle all by itself. For a while, I feared that I would never get around to actually posting this chapter, much less finishing it! But here we are. The first in what I hope will be sequential updates. Maybe every other week?...
Might wanna skim over the previous chapter just to refresh your memory, since it's been a while. Crossover elements are finding their way into the story to a considerable degree. Right now, it's mainly Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons: Frozen edition. Frozen has only just started showing up, so I don't know how deep that rabbit hole is going to go. I think this is the part where I reassure you that I've got A Plan. This is story isn't about the destination, but the journey, so enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I do not own How to Train Your Dragon. I do own an assortment of OCs, a few of whom are trying to make me regret creating them.
How to Train Your Marching Band
Chapter Fourteen: Blurring the Difference
"Wow, the band's bigger." Jack commented, finally taking in the increased multitude of people roaming the commons and the cafeteria; the crowd made bigger by the families and friends coming in.
"Yeah, we got like thirty rookies this year. It's crazy." Hiccup commented, scratching an itch on his head.
Jack whistled. "Band's gonna be screwed when that lot graduates."
"Nah, not all of them are eighth-graders. One of my rookies is a freshman."
"Oh, one."
"Shut up, it's more than just her." Hiccup said, taking a half-hearted swipe at Jack, the older teen just barely dodging. "We've got a couple of sophomores and juniors too. It's more even a spread than it looks. We're not gonna be completely screwed in five years."
"Still, you'd better hope the haul's good for next year too 'cause that's seventeen of you gone next May." Jack pointed out.
"Ugh, don't remind me." Hiccup groaned. "I just hope the juniors will be ready to step up."
"Speaking of, how are your rookies holding up?" Jack asked. He had heard a few things from their Skype chat on Thursday night, in between Hiccup complaining about things in general. "Marie said something about you being the big, bad section leader."
"Erg, how often do you talk to her anyways?" Hiccup asked, shooting a tired glare over his shoulder. "Collaborating with her in any way is probably the worst thing you can do. You know that, right?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you've told me that a billion times in the last six years. Marie is hazardous to my health and my continued well-being and if I'm not careful, she'll rip out my entire respiratory system and play my lungs like bagpipes."
"Actually, she'll crack open your skull and feast on the gooey innards like it's a Cadbury egg."
A frown crawled slowly across Jack's face. It was one of those frowns that combined worry and curiosity; the one where the listener wanted to know, but at the same time, didn't want to know. The odd friendship between Hiccup and Marie had always been a source of curiosity between all of Hiccup's non-band friends. They weren't sure how it started; they weren't sure how it kept going; and lastly, they weren't sure if they even wanted to know. Even though he stood on the inside, Hiccup had no answers for them either.
"You have gotten very little sleep these past few days, haven't you." Jack deduced, taking in the slightly pale cast to Hiccup's skin, underneath the lobster-pink sunburn and new growth of freckles.
"Jack, buddy, I don't know what I'm operating on right now. Probably a combination of sugar and adrenaline and some weird airborne pheromone that Gobber leaks into the water supply. I don't know how I'm still functioning coherently. And I have to pull an all-nighter tonight." Hiccup reminded him, backing into the auditorium doors, pushing them open. "Besides, it's not a lie. If you talk to Marie for too long, she gets this weird power over you and you start agreeing to do things you normally wouldn't do."
"Really, I hadn't noticed." Jack muttered dryly, but still bobbed his head in agreement. "Let me guess, that's why I should stop talking to her? Before I become absorbed into her miasma of psychosis like angler fish balls?"
"You're betting against me in her crazy little betting thing, so yes. You should stop before you become nothing but a pair of angler fish balls. You're a traitorous best friend and I hate you."
"What? I'm betting for you!"
"What difference does it make?" Hiccup asked, setting the bags down on the clarinet bench. "You're exploiting me! I'm just lucky Astrid was more annoyed at Marie than she was at me."
"Oh, Astrid found out? Hiccup, she's probably plotting your death as we speak." Jack said. He shuffled bags around until he could put a hand over his heart and sniffed theatrically. "I'm going to miss you, my dearest oldest friend. I'll sing a eulogy at your funeral-"
Hiccup whacked him with an open palm and Jack's dramatic tone dissolved into giggles.
"I have a dragon who will run to my defense if he thinks I'm in trouble." the auburn-haired teen said. When he had been younger, the Night Fury had been constantly coming to his "defense", growling at everything from parked cars to squares of pavement just because Hiccup had side-eyed the inanimate object. Not so much with the stupid classmates he'd had to put up with, unfortunately.
"Astrid's not afraid of your dragon. Heck, I'm not afraid of your dragon. I've seen kittens that are more dangerous." Jack said, putting the soda and breakfast supplies down. "My bony knees are more dangerous!"
"Yeah, Marie's ass can testify to that."
"Exact- Wait, why would Marie's ass be able to testify to that? Hiccup, did you do something to her ass?"
"Yes Hiccup, what did ye do to her arse?"
"See, Merida- er..." Jack managed to say before he registered that who had spoken had not done so with an American accent, nor was male. He practically froze on the spot and carefully turned until he was facing the speaker.
Merida Dunbroch crossed her arms and gave something vaguely like a smirk.
Then Jack let out a comical shriek.
"Look out for the evil hair beast Hiccup! It'll suck your veins dry!" he yelled, grabbing on to the younger teen.
"Omigod, it nearly got you!" Hiccup shouted in mock horror, dragging Jack back and taking great delight in the way Merida's smirk melted into a very unamused scowl. "Did you see how close it came?!"
"I was inches away from death!"
Merida's scowl deepened until it was like a canyon. "Ye two are bleedin' hilarious."
"I live to serve, m'lady!" Jack declared, freeing an arm out long enough to move it in a sweeping motion, like he meant to bow.
Merida was a transplant out of Scotland who had taken pains not to lose her thick accent (Gobber's, by contrast, had faded) with a dandelion puff of wild red hair that was nigh uncontrollable. She lived with her parents and her triplet brothers out in the same stretch of country where Hiccup lived. In a straight line (over a persistently muddy field and across something that dared to call itself a creek, choked by weeds as it was), their houses were only about three hundred feet apart. By road, they were somewhere between half a mile to three quarters of a mile away.
Her father, Fergus, was also a dragon hunter, cut from the same cloth as Stoic; preferring bladed weapons and the occasional crossbow over sniper rifles and pistols. The dragon population had been growing thicker in the region over the past thirty years and Fergus had accepted the offer to transfer out of the Scotland Highlands and take up position in the American Midwest. Merida's mother, Eleanor, taught a class on Scottish- something (history, mythology, general lore; Hiccup could never remember) - up at the university and did work for the local RenFair on the side. Her three brothers were due to start school this year.
"But seriously, how many combs do you have to feed it every day so it doesn't feast on the living?" Jack questioned, waving his hand at the wild mass of red hair. "Like a dozen or something? Two dozen?"
"I feel like I should get my dad in here or something. That has to be a really hairy dragon on your head. There's no way all that can be your hair." Hiccup said. Merida's hair truly defied the basic laws of gravity.
"Is there a hairy dragon?"
"Not one that I know of."
"Cut that out, ye two!" Merida snapped, trying to smooth down her hair in a somewhat self-conscious gesture. She was used to not being able to control it, but that didn't mean her two best guy friends had the grounds to make fun of it.
"Sorry Merida, your hair is really easy to make fun of." Hiccup said, obligingly squashing down his smile.
"An' yer jest all this." Merida said, gesturing to all of him. "Isn't that easy to make fun of?"
"Didn't she throw you out of a tree once?" Jack prodded Hiccup in the ribs.
"Didn't she throw you into the creek? Repeatedly?" The auburn-haired teen poked back.
"Ye two done posturing?" Merida asked, already closing in on Hiccup. "Give me a hug, ye scraggly weed. I haven't see yer mug all week!"
Hiccup submitted to the hug with a little reluctance. Merida was strong and her hugs were sometimes bruise-inducing. She was the only senior member of the school's archery club, which had all of five members and was overseen by the school nurse. And she used recurve longbows that were nearly the same height as she, rather than modern compound bows, which meant she had to put more effort into drawing the arrow.
The second Merida let go of Hiccup, Jack came forward expectantly, arms spread to get a hug of his own.
"Don't give me those big puppy eyes, Jack. I spent the entire afternoon with your skinny arse." the Scot reminded him. Not to mention the entire preceding week. Jack had been going through best friend-withdrawal and had been seeking out company wherever he could wrangle it, only to end up complaining about the lack of said best friend.
"But hugs!" Jack protested. "Rapunzel would hug me. Where is she anyways?"
"I lost her near the concession stand." Merida replied, crossing her arms. "I'm not hugging you one more time. You're like a leech at times, I swear."
"I'm horribly unloved." Jack whispered to Hiccup.
Hiccup patted him consolingly.
Jack's manufactured despondency didn't stick around another second when he spotted a tall, gangly redhead standing at the end of the row, who had never let him down where hugs were concerned
"Fred! My friends are denying me hugs!" he shouted, sprinting across the twenty feet that separated them.
"Hug me, brotha!" Fred shouted, throwing open his arms.
The two clashed in a rather spectacular flailing of sharp edges and Hiccup half expected to see their joints slice into one another like hot knives and butter. Both Jack and Hiccup could lay claims to being bony, but Fred had the market cornered on bony and gangly. He somehow defied scarecrow and went straight into the realm of looking likes a knobbly stick man assembled by someone who only had half a notion how the human body was supposed to fit together.
By tomorrow morning, everyone would know who Fred was.
He was Marie's little brother.
Some days, Fred didn't act a thing like his older sister. Some days, he was very calm and rational, acting like he was a normal person and not ranting at length about the mystical properties of rubber Wellington boots or the inherent magic of peanut brittle. But other days, it was very plain that Marie and Fred were indeed brother and sister.
The immediate physical differences sometimes made it difficult for people to believe that they were related at all. It was Fred who insisted that there was some Irish on their father's side, but not much. His hair wasn't a bright, overwhelming shade of red. More obvious than Hiccup's own auburn, but not so obnoxious that your first reaction was to look for a bucket of water. Marie, on the other hand, had blonde hair you could be envious of. The color, more than the volume. Her hair was probably the blondest blonde to ever blonde; it never seemed to be one particular shade. In the sunlight, it was a luxurious gold. Under florescent lights, it came out a silky ashen color and in the dark, it seemed to take up a molten glow of fresh lava.
People stopped being envious of Marie's hair on the hottest, muggiest days of the year, when it would poof and curl as the humidity worked its fell magic.
"Hey Fred, how's life?" Hiccup asked, once Jack and the redhead managed to untangle themselves with all the grace of a slinky.
Fred shrugged. "Eh, I accidentally summoned an eldritch abomination into the utility closet last night. It ate two mops and a dust pan before Marie sucked it into the vacuum cleaner and threatened to tell its mother. It quieted down after that, but we're not sure if it choked to death on the dust or if it's just biding its time. Neither of us have had the balls to check." he said.
Hiccup blinked.
Jack stared.
Merida dug a finger into her ear to make sure it was clean.
"Well..." Jack struggled to keep a straight face. "Sounds like you had a busy evening yesterday."
"Yep. Learned my lesson about playing around with world-gates and summoning runes. They are not toys." Fred agreed sagely. "Anyways, just thought I'd pop over and say 'hi', so hi!"
"Yeah, hi. Your sister's looking for you?..." Hiccup said uncertainly, not sure if Marie had found him.
Fred shrugged. "I know. But she won't find me!" he added in a whispery hiss. "Frederick away!"
And he darted away with leaping steps, arms outstretched like he was either pretending to be an airplane or was really hoping he might spontaneously start flying under his own power. He disappeared around the corner with the distinct jet-noises burbling out of his mouth.
"He doesn't have a driver's license, right?" Merida asked.
"He has a little motorized scooter. Doesn't go above twenty miles an hour."
"But he will get a driver's license one day, right? I think I'm fearing that one day someone crazy enough marks him as a competent driver."
"Hey, Marie has a driver's license and it's not like she hogs the road and uses her truck like a battering ram." Jack pointed out. "Besides, it's not his driving skills I worry about."
"Exactly. Why does he always do that?" Hiccup wondered, throwing up his hands. "Marie is just non-sequiters and off-the-wall commentary. Fred gives outrageous answers to the most mundane questions and acts like summoning eldritch abominations is normal and acts like a five-year old and- and- what was that other thing from last time?"
Jack frowned. "When you say last 'time'?... Because this happens a lot." he pointed out.
"End of last year. During lunch." Hiccup elaborated. "They were going on about this- this dead thing-"
"The blinky thing of death!" Jack snapped his fingers triumphantly. "It disturbs me that I actually know what you're talking about."
"It was a Simon game that apparently opened portals into Hell." Merida replied. She remembered that conversation a lot better than she actually wanted to. "Look, they were prob'ly jest playin' an RPG last night."
"But I've known Marie since sixth grade. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even know a ten-sided dice is a thing." Hiccup pointed out. "And don't look at me like that. I hang out with Fishlegs sometimes." he added, when his two friends gave him identical looks that asked: 'Why do you know a ten-sided dice is a thing?'
"And why is he a redhead?" Hiccup tacked on, because it bugged the hell out of him. There was no way in hell Fred could have red hair!
"You're worried about his hair color when he casually discusses summoning Cthulu into the utility closet?" Jack shook his head. "Hiccup, I think your priorities are a little- off kilter."
"It's against all possible odds of genetics! Marie is a blonde and both their parents are varying shades of brunette. I've seen the pictures! Unless their mom had a fling with a ginger or close to it, there's just no way! It's a recessive gene! It doesn't work like that. I don't think it works like that, at least."
"Clearly, their entire family defies the laws of reality." Merida decided. "Hiccup, why d'ye hang out with Marie?"
It was not the first time Merida had asked that. Marie was okay, in the sense that she would never actively try to screw you over and was genuine as far as people went. But to say that she had a few loose screws was an understatement. So many screws were missing that the engine block was all but falling out.
"I don't hang out with Marie. It's more like the forces of nature inevitably draw us together." Hiccup pointed out.
"That didn't answer mah question."
"Well, you'll have to take it up with the forces of nature."
Band was possibly the one interest they had in common, but for reasons that went beyond his understanding, they wound up crossing paths all too often outside of band. Hiccup could not figure out the magnetic pull between them. Either he would spot her in the distance or she'd be right next to him, tapping his shoulder.
"Ach, I'd never get an answer." Merida complained, scruffing hand over her hair. She grabbed the boys by an arm each. "C'mon ye two, let's go find Rapunzel and get some food. I'm famished."
Exerting her not-inconsiderable strength, she dragged the pair of them back towards the band doors.
"Ow, ow. Merida, you're way too tiny to be this strong." Jack complained, pretending to wince. He tried to tug his arm loose, to no avail.
"Tiny? She's as tall as you!" Hiccup pointed out, the height in question being a respectable five-foot eight. "I'm the tiny one here!"
"Don't belly-ache, Hiccup. You're only sixteen. You've still got some growin' left." Merida reminded him.
"I'm almost seventeen." Hiccup corrected, because it sounded better.
There was something incredibly embarrassing about being the youngest (and shortest) member of the senior class by more than a year and a half. Hiccup's birthdate had been well over the deadline for incoming kindergarteners, but Stoic had wanted to get his son into the same year as Snotlout. He had pushed the matter until the administration had relented. Hiccup had turned five on the same day he had started kindergarten.
He could only hope that Merida was right; that he would do a little more growing in the next year or so, just so he wouldn't be so short. It really was embarrassing to be the shortest of his friends, but even more embarrassing that he had to stand next to Marie who was, in her own words, "five-foot eleven and three quarters".
It was only embarrassing because he had to stand next to her on the field and the marching uniforms just weren't going to do a very good job of blurring the height difference.
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