Happy 7th birthday to this story! I've been waiting for this day solely so I could publish this chapter.

Funny enough, I've been listening to "Out of the Woods (Taylor's Version)" on loop for about a week or so, and realized it's a fitting song for this arc solely for the title.

Chapter 222: MojoWorld Season 2 - Part Two
"The Great Hunt"

MojoWorld, The Great Hunt

Instantly, Merida snaps an arrowhead from her quiver and tazes Apollo. As sparks fly, he laughs as if she was only tickling him. Iqadi smiles as the electricity fizzles and Merida discards the arrowhead into a nearby bush. She frowns, creasing the warpaint on her face as she glares at him. Her expression doesn't budge against his beaming grin, even when he puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and shakes her a little.

Merida swats his hand off. "Oh, of course, you two freaks are happy to be here with The Great Hunt."

"You weren't with Blake, were you?" Apollo asks. "I'd hate it if I interrupted a moment with you two."

"No, he's in Switzerland for Christmas with the family and then he's heading to France for New Years with one of his sisters who lives there."

Apollo sighs. "Oh, to be European."

"You didn't join him?" Iqadi asks her.

Merida shakes her head. "No. Can we get on with this stupid hunt thing?"

Merida marches ahead through the trees before Apollo and Iqadi can respond. They glance at each other before following her.

-o-

Producer: You three have worked on a team before?

Iqadi: On a recent mission.

Merida: I didn't want a couple on my team and the others wanted gossip on my boy-friend and Apollo's fiancée.

Apollo: How is the boy-friend?

Merida: Oh, we're fighting.

Apollo: What?

Iqadi: What?

Merida: I told you about it already!

Iqadi: I didn't know it escalated into a fight!

Merida: It was not a fight!

Apollo: You just said you were fighting.

Merida: It's maybe reconciled but I'm just saying it was a fight. It was more a revelation that I was petty about.

Producer: Given your name, Half a Present Romance, what do you know about being in a relationship?

[The three of them look at each other to see who would respond first. Apollo turns to Iqadi and Merida follows his gaze. Iqadi narrows her eyes at them before smiling at the cameras.]

Iqadi: I'm married and still figuring it out. It's balance, in my opinion. That's the advice I received from my mother and it still holds to this day.

Apollo: I've watched all of you for twenty-something years.

Merida: Ha, that's what I told Blake.

Apollo: I think I have relationships managed. My fiancée loves swords so I asked her to marry me with one. Then we went to some restaurant on Asgard where they served kebabs on swords after we fought giants. Sigyn was third-wheeling us and now she understands how I felt with her and Xavier during high school. I think Freya loves the sword more than me.

Merida: I mean, I do.

Iqadi: Same. It's beautiful.

Producer: We're delving from the topic at hand.

Merida: What topic?

Iqadi: Your fight that turned into a petty disagreement.

Merida: When were you so invested?

Iqadi: Since you said you didn't go home with him for Christmas.

Merida: Blake and I were in California and he took me to work with him, kinda. He had to write a story on an event happening at a regatta so we dressed up and went because I love boats. He told me he thought I was a mermaid, something his nieces and nephews believe. I asked why and he said that I like sharks and boats, my hair is bright red, and his nickname for me means sea in French. I prefer Sexy Grim Reaper and he said that I couldn't say things like that to him in public … can we cut that? I'm gonna say all this was fabricated for views.

Producer: We'll see in the editing hours. Was this your fight?

Merida: No, not at all. I'm digressing.

-o-

The Fight Turned Petty Revelation

Merida sits on her bed with a bunch of her arrows spilled in front of her. She's been up since dawn with a hankering to tinker with her arrows since her quiver needs a refill. Dumping a box of arrows on the bed awoke Blake, but he went back to sleep to the sound of her adjusting arrows before rising to go to the kitchen.

"You don't have any food in here," Blake says as he opens the fridge. "Should we go out?"

"We could," Merida says, leaning over to the side. She opens her bedside drawer and pulls out a Swiss Army knife. "The brunch place a block over is going to have bottomless mimosas starting in an hour, but I kinda want some freezer-burnt waffles to pass the time."

"I'll check the—"

Merida's head pops up the moment Blake stops talking mid-sentence. Her heart jumps. She didn't hear a window break. He couldn't have been sniped. Merida leaps out of her bed, arrowheads in both her hands picked at random. They could be electrified or putty-based; she'll find out in a moment.

She turns the small wall that makes a small division between the kitchen and bedroom in her studio apartment, expecting Blake to be dead on the floor, but he's standing with his back to her and his phone to his ear. An online translator's voice is repeating a word to him as he turns around to face her again.

"I forgot a word in English," Blake explains.

Merida exhales out of relief, putting the arrowheads down on the counter. "God, I thought you were shot. What word?"

"Gefriertruhe."

"What's that in English?"

Merida's eyes widen and her hands twitch, wanting to grab the arrowheads when she hears Blake talking in a German accent so thick that it's natural.

"Come on, Mer," Blake teases, still talking English like a native German, "we're practicing your German."

"What- what are you doing?"

"What?" The accent continues.

Then it clicks for Merida. "You've had an American accent going the whole time?"

Blake smiles a bit from the corner of his mouth. "You thought I didn't have an accent?"

Merida doesn't respond. She wonders if he was always speaking with a German accent and she just never registered it. Or if he didn't notice the swap cause his mother tongue is German. Her voice does alter when she speaks a different language, and he does seem linguistically confused at the moment. But he was born in Switzerland … he had to have a German-esque accent. Did she never think of that? Clearly.

"You told me you lost the accent while living abroad," Merida says.

Blake clears his throat and then his voice swaps back to the American accent she knows. "When?"

"At the Academy. You found out I spoke German, spoke some to me, and I said your accent sounded natural. Then you said you lost it abroad while gallivanting Europe and then coming here."

Blake puts his phone in his pocket and looks at her, shrugging. "... I did? I mean, I kind of did."

"Wait. I'm confused. Speak naturally."

"I love you?" He says with his German accent.

"Were you lying to me?"

"Mer, of course not." His voice cracks between German and American before settling on the latter. "Look, I'm sorry. I really am. It was a dumb white lie I'm used to telling people by not telling them. It's just ... English is my third or fourth language and it's easier to make a footing here with one. When I finished my Master's, I had a dumb idea to achieve the American Dream. It was naive, sure, but it got me here. For a country that brags and gloats so much about diversity and immigration, it's fucking hard. It's easier to work and live around here with an American accent. They hear a foreign accent link it with incompetence. I have a Master's and speak five languages fluently so I think I know my way around things. And then over time, my voice just … it is what it is. I don't even know what my accent is. Look, I'm sorry. It was dumb and to be honest, I wasn't sure when or if I was even going to tell you. I'm sorry you had to find out because I forgot the dumb translation for Gefriertruhe."

"Freezer," Merida states.

"That." Blake groans. "You know, I almost cracked when I met you and first introduced myself."

"Another dumb lie was when we first met."

"I came clean about that one quicker."

"Okay, fair."

Blake pauses. "Are you mad? You look mad."

Merida's brows relax. She didn't even know she was tense. She takes a breath and leans against her countertop.

"No, it's just ... I'm really impressed?" Merida says. "You kept it for so long, even when drunk. We've had classes in the Academy about this shit — faking accents and spotting them. I'm more mad at myself for not picking up on it sooner."

"I do have a knack for amazing you." Blake leans forward and kisses her forehead. "So what happens to us now?"

"Nothing? No, wait. No more accent around me. Keep your accent, or voice as it's supposed to be, okay? Accent to me but the real and authentic voice for you. I like it better. It suits you. God, it's almost like Britney's actual name being Sigyn so we had to shift to calling her that. No more masking things."

"I meant if you wanted your frozen waffles or brunch." Blake grins. "So you would still kiss me with my German accent?"

Merida crosses her arms. "My boy-friend is a German-speaking Swiss man. I'm not kissing you with that American bullshit anymore, that's for sure."

"You're really easy to say 'I love you' to." Blake swapped back to his natural German voice for that. "I'll try to talk more like this around you, maybe in German as well."

"Save the German for when I have a drink in me."

"Like a real German!" Blake claps. "We should grab some beers. Okay, wait, speaking of my homeland, I'm heading back home for Christmas."

Merida nods.

Blake clears his throat. "Merida, home home."

"Oh…" Merida mutters. "Switzerland and not California, right, I got that. What about it?"

Blake smiles, muttering in German in disbelief. Merida isn't sure if she caught his exact words but, then again, she hasn't had a drink yet.

"Would you like to come home with me?" He asks.

-o-

Apollo: You said no?!

Iqadi: It's Switzerland! It's beautiful there! Especially during Christmas. Blake told me he's from a small commune so you know it'll be magnificent there.

[Merida fiddles with an arrowhead, shrugging one shoulder as she avoids eye contact.]

Merida: I don't want to meet his family. Not yet.

Apollo: He met yours after knowing you for a week. Said he loved you another week later but knew at that week.

Merida: What? You making a timeline now?

Apollo: I came back after seven years and you have a boyfriend. So sue me if I want to be up to date now.

Merida: He became my boy-friend way after you came back! You prep your space lawyer too. I'm going after you for defamation.

Iqadi: Both of you, shush.

Producer: I sense some tension on the hunting grounds.

Merida: Well, gee, I wonder why.

If you've been reading this story or any of my other fics for a while, then you would be aware that I usually do weekly updates. Sadly, I have not finished this arc yet. I'll be updating it when that project (pun intended) is complete.