A/N: Brave, its characters, and its images are ©Disney Pixar.

The Bow and the Stone

Prologue

The land carved by the northern seas could never be mistaken as something tame.

It knew well its own ferocity – the pitiless, ice-cold winds that carved its hills, the ruthlessness of its seasons that sharpened fang and antler of its own beasts. It reveled in its callousness and raged against those who dared tempt its power. It was as wild as its storm-tossed waves and as deeply scarred as its mountains, and it embraced its brutality as only the eternal could.

Yet it also basked in its own vanity. It exulted in its vibrant, stark beauty, gloated shamelessly of its haunted forests and mirror-still lochs. It savored secrets and mysteries as a doe savored the spring growth.

And in the heart of the land, despite its gloriously ill temper, it bore itself as a guardian, as a fierce protector to those who still gladly claimed the fragrant purple heaths and craggy stones as home. The land was its own finest stronghold, a proud fortress of impassable cliffs, deep shadows, and tangled, impenetrable webs of superstition.

But as is the way of mankind, there were those who only saw the land as an enemy to be conquered. Defeated. Subjugated.

And for its people – as fierce and free as the roaming beasts and as tempestuous as winter's storms – they could only meet their fate at the edge of a blade.