҉

I knew right away by the tone of his voice that this was not going to be good. With the realization that dragons weren't the enemy, my dad was becoming a bit softer. Now, his voice held all of the cold, harsh, roughness that it used to.

"Hiccup, we need to talk," he stated matter-of-factly.

I nodded. "Alright, so talk."

"Alone," he amended, looking straight at Astrid who was sitting beside me.

Even she picked up that this wasn't going to be good. She packed up her things and with just a quick peck on the cheek, she was out.

"What's so important, Dad?" I asked, a little more than ticked off.

He sighed and sat down across the way. "Hiccup, we received a letter from the Queen."

"What did she want?"

"The princess has come of age," he told me as if that were supposed to mean something. My lack of reaction prompted him to continue. "The laws of the land state that the first born of the great clan leaders must be presented as suitors for her betrothal."

That I understood.

"So what? Because this girl turned a certain age, I'm expected to leave life in Berk behind to parade around in front of her like a show pony? I thought we didn't answer to the crown, anyway."

"The King and Queen don't bother us with trivial matter," he told me. "This is much more than trivial, Hiccup. Whoever marries the princess will be King one day."

"Great," I snapped sarcastically. "So let one of the other clan leaders' sons become king/"

"I will not have some idiot sitting on the throne."

"So you expect me to leave Berk? Leave Astrid? Leave Toothless? Dad, we're tasked with keeping an eye on the dragons and making sure they don't travel to the mainland and towards the palace. Dragons aren't allowed in DunBroch. How could you expect me to just forget about everything here?"

He grumbled something before looking at me sternly. "I have already sent word back to the Queen that we will be in attendance. I will not go back on my word and I expect you to do the same. We leave tomorrow for DunBroch and that is final."

҉

"Suitors? Marriage?" It all sounded so ridiculous. She expected me to get married to someone I didn't even know.

"Once there was an ancient kingdom," she started. Everything always turns into a lesson with her.

I sighed and slid down onto the bed. "Aw, Mum, ancient kingdom?"

She continued as if I said nothing, as usual. "It's name long forgotten, ruled by a wise and fair king who was much beloved. And when he grow old he divided his kingdom among his four sons; that they should be the pillars on which the peace of the land rested. But, the oldest prince wanted to rule the land for himself. He followed his own path and the kingdom fell to war and chaos and ruin."

"That a nice story," I quipped sarcastically. Did she honestly think that a tale like that would change my mind?

"It's not just a story, Merida," she said calmly. "Legends are lessons; they ring with truths."

She went on to tell me that I couldn't do anything to change the fact that the lords were coming. I just had to accept my fate. I don't know how she can expect me to just sit by while she ruined my life.

Lord Macintosh, Lord MacGuffin, Lord Dingwall, and Lord Haddock were all coming to present their sons to me. Well great. Four men I knew nothing about and want nothing to do with. And I have to marry one of them. I swear, if I have anything to say about this, a wedding will not happen.

I decided to go out and take care of Angus, maybe that would get my mind off of what I was being forced into.

҉

We arrived at DunBroch the next day around the same time as the other clans. They were all a bunch of chest pounders. Reminded me a lot of home, to be honest.

I looked up to the castle as we sailed closer. If I won I would have to live here. No more Berk, no more vast ocean, no more dragons, and that all meant no more Toothless. There was no way I wanted to win this competition.

We marched in with the other clans and stood our ground. My father stood at the front of the group, I was right behind him, and somewhere among the crowd were my friends. Well, all but one. Astrid hadn't talked to me since I told her the news. I tried to tell her that it wasn't my choice but she didn't want to hear any of it. That Viking stubbornness was a real pain in the butt sometimes.

I took a moment to look over the royal family. On the left sat the three princes, though I really couldn't tell you which one was which. Next to them, looking very prim, proper, and put together was the queen. Judging by the state of everyone else, she was obviously the one who kept the castle from crashing in on itself. The king was a big burly man whose size rivaled that of my own father. If he wasn't a Scot, I swear he could be a Viking easily. He even had the whole one leg thing going on that Gobber and I sported.

At the far right, closest to the Clan of the Vikings, sat the princess. She was all tucked away in her proper little dress, sitting at attention, waiting for the suitors. This was probably the day of her life. Four men competed for her hand. They got to live in her castle and continue on with her life afterward. She looked like she trained her whole life for this. I swear, if I was stuck marrying someone like that I would scream. I was into adventurous girls, girls who could fight, girls who didn't really care what they looked like. This was going to be a long competition for me.

Once the four clans were settled around the hall, King Fergus stood to address the group. "So, here we are! The five clans! Uh…gathering…uh…for…"

Obviously, King Fergus was not very eloquent. He stumbled and stuttered to find his words as Queen Eleanor stood up to take over. "The presentation of the suitors!" she finished for him. He copied her words right after her as if he knew what he was supposed to say all along.

"Clan Macintosh!"

There was a loud roar of "Macintosh" back from the clan itself. Once the noise died down, Lord Macintosh stepped forward, his son at his heels. "Your majesty, I present my heir and sire, who defended our land from the northern invaders and, with his own sword, stabbed and vanquished thousands foes!" Young Macintosh swung his sword about, showing off his muscles and hair as he did so, trying to put on a show for the princess. I was pleasantly surprised to see the princess showing little to no interest as she pulled her headpiece down over her eyes.

"Clan MacGuffin!"

Again, a roar from the clan. "Your majesty, I present my eldest son, who scuttled the Viking war ships with his bare hands. Vanquishes two thousand foes." You MacGuffin nervously snapped a log in half with his brute strength.

I heard my father scoff loudly at MacGuffin's accomplishments. We had an agreement with the land due to the dragon situation but that didn't mean that other Viking tribes weren't fair game to the Scots. If it weren't for the dragons even we wouldn't get along very well with these Highlanders.

"Clan Haddock!"

The tribe sat mostly silent, no roar of clan pride like the others. My father stepped forward and I stood reluctantly by his side. I had no show of skills for them so I kind of just stood there as he talked about me. "Your majesty, I present my son, who turned around the dragon problem all on his own and trained the beasts to obey us rather than we fear them."

The other clan leaders turned their heads in disgust. It was obvious they didn't believe the tale my father was telling. But nobody was willing to call Stoic the Vast out on lies.

"Clan Dingwall!"

Once again, they erupted with an echo of "Dingwall!" Scrawny Lord Dingwall gestured to the big burly man beside him. "I present my only son, who was besieged by ten thousand Romans and he took out a whole armada single handedly. With one arm, he was…" He stopped and looked angrily at the man next to him. He reached behind him and pulled out a kid even scrawnier than I was. And that's saying something. "With one arm, he was steering the ship, and with the other he held his mighty sword and struck down a whole attacking fleet."

"Lies!" someone in the crowd shouted. They had no problem calling him out, however.

"What?! I heard that!" said Lord Dingwall, angrily searching the crowd. "Aye! Say it to my face! Or are you scared simpering jackanapes afraid to muss your pretty hair?"

I could easily see where this was going and it wasn't anywhere pleasant. Nor was it unfamiliar. Eventually, everyone was in on the scuffle. King Fergus had tried to tear them all apart but was just drawn in himself. It ended with Queen Eleanor dragging my father along with the four other leaders back to the front of the hall.

"Now then," she continued. "Where were we? Ah, yes. In accordance with our laws, by the rights of our heritage, only the first born of the great leaders may be presented as champion." I saw the princess sit up a little straighter at this news. I looked curiously from her to the queen. "And thus, compete for the hand of the princess of DunBroch. To win the fair maiden, they must prove their worth by feats of strength or arms in the games. It is customary that the challenge be determined by the princess herself."

The princess shot right out of her seat and shouted "Archery! Archery!" We all looked at her, a little dumbfounded. I chuckled to myself. Well at least she has spirit, for a moment. She looked around the room at all of us before standing at attention and folding her arms in front of her before repeating calmly, "I choose archery."

The queen nodded before turning to the rest of us. "Let the games begin!"

҉

If the first born could compete that meant that I could compete as well, didn't it? Young Macintosh was far too arrogant to ever win my love. Wee Dingwall was just odd. Young MacGuffin had an interesting strength but you couldn't understand a word he said with that accent of his. And then there was Young Haddock. He didn't say a word or show off his skills. Honestly, you're in a competition and you don't even try? That or you don't have skills. Either way, how could I love someone like that?

We sat in our thrones as the archery tournament began. Mother and Father announced the start as they Lords' sons lined up to take their shots. There were four targets set up a fair distance away from each of them. Wee Dingwall was playing his bow like it was a harp. Honestly, one of them were supposed to marry me? I don't think so.

Young MacGuffin shot first, hitting the far outside rim of the target board but missing the real target itself. "I bet he wishes he was tossing cabers," I joked to my father.

He laughed and agreed. "Or holding up bridges." Mother smacked him as the arm but that didn't stop our chuckling.

Next was Young Macintosh. Before firing he flipped his hair, making the girls behind him squeal. Good, one of them can have him. I'll have nothing to do with him. He fired and hit the target on the third rim, throwing a tantrum in missing the center. "Oh, that's attractive." He threw his bow far back into the crowd, resigning to defeat. Honestly, with Dingwall and Haddock left, he might actually still have a chance.

Wee Dingwall was next. He dumped out all of his arrows just to get to one, and it took him a while to get the arrowhead to stay on the bow. Father got rather impatient but it didn't pay off well for him. As he snapped at Dingwall, the arrow went flying and hit the middle target, just barely missing the center.

We all groaned as we knew that was probably the best that anyone was going to get. We had an alliance with the four other clans but out of them all, Dingwall was probably of the most annoyance.

Finally, we were down to the last suitor and almost time for my plan to go into action. But Young Haddock was sitting on the ground with a book and pen. He was scrawling a bunch of things down before finally picking up his bow. I'll admit, it intrigued me enough to stay in my seat and watch how it panned out.

He raised the bow, felt the wind, and in one slightly awkward pull of the bow, he managed to hit the dead center of the target. How, I may never know. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad to give a man with archery skills a try.

Still, why chance it?

҉

Using math actually paid off. After successfully hitting the center of the target, I looked over to the royal family only to notice the princess slipping out of her seat. Not a few moments later, a cloaked figure appeared on the field, closest to Young MacGuffin. She threw back her hood and revealed the princess, her hair now a fiery red mess all around her.

"I am Merida!" she announced to everyone. "First born of the Clan DunBroch. And I'll be shooting for my own hand."

The Queen looked on in disgust and quickly went to reprimand her daughter. Merida, deciding her dress offered limited mobility, bent over and ripped it at practically all of the seams, effectively getting rid of any ideas of her being a 'proper young lady'. She shot at MacGuffin's target and easily hit the center of the target. She moved on as the Queen followed her, trying to catch up. The princess again shot at Macintosh's target and landed in the dead center. She moved on to Dingwall and did the same, all the while, being chased by her mother.

She got to my target and stood nearly right next to me, her wild mane almost touching my face. This close, you could see the focus, determination, and concentration on her face. She was like no princess you'd ever read about in a story. Clearly she takes after her father more than her mother. With a deep breath she aimed at the target and let the arrow fly. We all held our breath as the arrow drew nearer until finally CRACK! dead on, splitting my arrow in two.

In that moment, Queen Eleanor was on top of her. Luckily so was my father. He was just as sick of these stupid Highlander fights and rules as I was. He was able to quietly talk down the Queen, a skill I didn't know he had. Instead of the princess possibly getting the beating of her life, her punishment was now to spend a few hours locked in a room with me. Great. How that punishment seemed to fit the crime is beyond me. Maybe they thought that by locking us together she will be forced to face her victor and forced to fall in love with him. Wait, fall in love with me. Wait, I won? Oh this is not good. I got so caught up in the moment that I didn't think. All I could think was to prove myself. I was sick of being the weakling among the Vikings. It backfired however and I won the hand of the fair maiden. If you ask me, the princess seemed as far away from a fair maiden as you could get.

҉

"This is so unfair," she screeched pacing the room. "Why do I have to get married anyway? If war is the issue then let us go to war. We can handle it."

I sat on the bed and just looked on as she ranted. "Look, princess, I'm not so thrilled about this either. I left a life behind in Berk, friends, family, everything I had. And I'm expected to give that all up because of some stupid archery contest."

"Don't call me princess," she chided. "My name is Merida. That's it. None of this princess stuff. I don't want to be a princess anymore. I never wanted to be a princess. It's a real pain in the butt."

I rolled my eyes. "Sure, you're complaining about your life. Back home, I was a laughing stock. Everyone always told me I need to just fix 'this'." I gestured to myself from head to toe as everyone always did.

"You just gestured to all of yourself," she noted.

"Exactly!" I sighed, flopping back onto the bed.

She rolled her eyes at my exaggeration. "Young Haddock-"

"Please," I groaned. "If I can't call you Princess, you can't call me 'Young Haddock'. My name's Hiccup. I know, not the most glorious of names but whatever. It's the one I've got. Son of the feared Stoic the Vast and my name is Hiccup." She giggled at my name. I knew she would. Everyone who didn't know me always did. Everyone in Berk knew me so it had been a while since I'd felt the full humiliation of my name.

"Well then Hiccup, since I don't want to marry you and you clearly don't want to marry me, why are we even entertaining the idea?"

"Have you tried to argue with my dad?" I asked rhetorically. "It never works out in my favor. The conversations are either one sided or just end with more arguing and fighting that is really no good for anyone. Besides, Astrid doesn't want to talk to me anymore. What's the point of going back?" I hadn't really thought about Astrid too much since everything started and that was really starting to worry me. I really cared for Astrid, but suddenly she was slipping my thoughts? Because of what? I was distracted by the prin-by Merida? And knowing Astrid, she'd probably never talk to me again. I sighed even louder as my body began to slink down to the floor.

"Who is Astrid?" Merida asked, sitting down on the ground next to me.

It was hard to believe that she was suddenly interested but I shrugged and sat up, facing her. "Astrid is the most beautiful girl in all of Berk. And, if it hadn't been for my way with dragons, she would have been named the strongest out of my entire class. Granted our class is only six of us but still."

"She sounds wonderful," she sighed.

I just nodded. "She's about as feisty as you are. She would have pulled the same stunt if she were in your shoes."

After a moment of thought, Merida's face lit up with an idea. "Hey Hiccup, since neither of us wants this wedding to happen, why don't we just tell everyone we agree and then keep up the planning long enough that we never actually have the wedding?" I thought about it. If I were engaged, Astrid probably still wouldn't talk to me. At this point, I think Astrid and I were over no matter what happened. I really had nothing to lose except for Toothless. But if we stayed engaged long enough people might forget about the marriage. "Of course, in planning you would have to stay here in DunBroch. But we could find a way to get you home soon."

It was the only plan we had so far so it looked like it had to work. I nodded and we shook on it. That was the closest to a mock proposal as we were going to get.

"I just have one more question," she snapped. "What was with that book out on the archery range?"

I shrugged. "Just trying to figure out some numbers. It helped me know where to point the arrow to get a bull's-eye with my limited Viking strength." I tried flexing but of course it still left no change in my 'muscles'.