Dated Oct. 19th, 2013: What every proper princess wishes...

[followsthewisps]

The mist easily reminded her of home, but Merida still treated it with caution as it spread, along with the whispers of what lay within. If it hadn't been for the fact that she enjoyed her life quite a bit, all things considered, she would have run right into the thick of it to see her family again.

As it was Merida found herself swallowed by it as it crept about the tree she had been napping under. The sun felt less oppressive in it's heat and the slight chill woke her. Instead of large white gardenias hanging overhead, the sight of ripening apples and shedding branches greeted her. Along with a green gown and familiar face, ready to scold her as she tried to sit up.

"Merida! You can't possibly be sleeping out in the open in your condition! Ye'll catch your deaths if there were no one here to look for you!"

She had expected to see her mum again were she to wander into the mist , but Merida was confused with what more she saw. She tried to shake off her sleepiness, registering the endless mountains and cliffs in the distance beyond her father's castle instead of huts and plains and dunes that gave way to beaches. She could hear the bustle of the kitchen staff, Maudie's voice ringing out over all of it, most likely at her brothers. Smell the decay of autumn leaves, traces of sheep that must have grazed not far from her resting spot, breads and pies baking from the direction of the castle kitchens. It was all too real. Was this the dream the island had for her, or was the island and all its inhabitants the true illusion?

Attempting to rise, Merida noticed another development. One in the vicinity of her swelling belly.

"Really, Merida," Elinor huffed. "I know you value your free time, but you can't carry on like a girl when you're going to be a mother."

She screamed.

Comments

[talking_fishbone]

Hiccup, meanwhile, could smell the woodsmoke of the meeting lodge and just barely hear his father's advice. There seemed to be applause and, when Hiccup walked forward, it was all for him. Well, him and the other trainees. They'd saved Berk, brokered a peace with the dragons, and gotten the people around them to realize that sometimes you needed a small and skinny guy with a brain.

Just as Stoick was clapping Hiccup on the back (nearly knocking him to the ground), Hiccup heard a familiar voice.

"Merida! Where are you!? Are you okay!?"

[followsthewisps]

Elinor had been telling her to calm down when Merida heard her viking suitor call out to hear. If her mum had heard Hiccup at all, she made no note of it beyond telling her not to run so as a pregnant young queen as she dashed off to the sound of his voice.

Queen. The idea that this version of the world was without her father on top of wishing her knocked up with heaven-knows-who for a husband was all the more alarming.

That was, until she crashed into the solid wall of Fergus's chest. The comfort of seeing him still well, if quite a bit more gray and a little tired looking, was short lived.

"Aye, don't be in such a hurry, lass! Yer king will find ye well enough."

Merida could feel her face pink and she bit her lip, wondering what exactly this could mean. Other than this clearly being Hiccup's fault.

[talking_fishbone]

"Hiccup," Stoick shouted, boisterous and thrilled. "We're sending you on a journey. You're to be ambassador to Scotland." Hiccup's heart swelled as his father looked down on him.

"I'm proud of you, lad. There's no one else I trust to do this." With one slab of a hand pressed into his back, Hiccup let himself be guided through the mists.

"King Fergus!" Had Stoick always been so loud? Yes. Probably. "I've brought my son to act in my stead. He is wise and will speak for the Hooligans of Berk."

[followsthewisps]

"You!" Merida screeched, the rosy complexion from her embarrassment turning red in fury. She didn't care that the clans were watching now, that her parents and his were a witness to her temper. Only that there was a baby growing in her belly before she felt ready, no matter how much she longed for a family her own someday from all the missing of her own she's been doing.

"This is yer doin', innit?!"

It was a lucky thing that the laughter of vikings and highlanders over the din of blaring bagpipes drowned out her angered tones. It would not do well for the people to see such a start to an alliance.

[talking_fishbone]

"I–What!? Merida, you're–"

Oh. That was what she was blaming him for. Stoick's demeanor hadn't changed a lot, still grinning down proudly at his son. "You've done a great job, son. The peace treaty. The marriage. The lovely firecracker?"

Hiccup winced, "Oh gods, Dad!" Then he turned back to Merida, "I don't know what's going on!"

[followsthewisps]

"Yes, I'm–" she mocks back, pushing against his shoulder, but not as hard is it normally would be in full anger. Either Merida was calming down with the joy of seeing her friend and love back home or it was the baby's moods affecting her own.

"Three months away from me, and I'm. What exactly do you have to say for yourself now?"

[talking_fishbone]

Merida was like a flame, shifting from full anger to sudden joy. And it was kind of terrifying, all the more when she had a second life to feed her energy.

"You're–!" he said it again, this time rolling nervously along with her teasing. "But I'm back."

[followsthewisps]

"Aye, that you are, my darling," she breathes out, taking her husband's hand and placing it over the space of her belly where their child is growing.

Merida may not have wished for a husband for so long, but she did want a family that was safe, healthy and growing. And if she must marry, at least it was with a friend that she adored rather than some suitor claiming her as a prize that she followed out of duty.

It helped that Hiccup was a wise lad who knew to fear her, even when she was with child. Their child.

[talking_fishbone]

It was so strange, the games the island played, but looking out into the crowd he saw proud faces. Stoick and Gobber were there, conversing with Merida's parents while clans and vikings mingled.

And he and Merida stood at the front of it all, respected and accepted and, apparently, happily watching united in more ways than one.

"This isn't bad, as things go."

[followsthewisps]

"I suppose it isn't..." Merida agrees quietly, leaning in to kiss him.

She hesitates. There's still a nagging in the back of her head about the things that are off, about what is missing. The other family she had started to feel for. The heat and sand. Months that are surely missing, more than the three she had said Hiccup gone. The unerring love of her freedom, which this is not, no matter how Merida secretly longs for a family and future like this some day when she's ready.

"It isn't real, is it?"

[talking_fishbone]

Slowly, looking out over the happy crowd, Hiccup let Merida's words sink in. He tried to ignore the strange trips in logic that had sent him from the Island to Berk to Scotland or the fact that he couldn't really remember the wedding. But logic won in the end.

"I don't think so."