You know that commercial where one person starts out helping someone, which in turn makes the person being helped become the person who is helping? And it turns out that the person who started the helping chain was the last person who was being helped at the end of the commercial? Confusing? Anyway, this is Merida's part where she will be helping one of the big four. Then Jack's part, the Hiccup's, then Rapunzel's.

So here's Merida:

Carelessness ~ Merida ~ Part One

Merida always had the propensity for doing whatever it was someone had specifically told her she was incapable of doing.

This had come from the onlookers at the archery tournament. This had come from the clan's people who whispered about her when they thought she couldn't hear them. This had even come from Maudie, their personal castle maid, one day when her father had agreed to take her out for falconry. The comment was along the lines of Fergus now having sons, should leave the more athletic tasks to the boys and let his daughter become a true and noble woman. A tomboyish and strong willed princess is a princess not worth having, most people reasoned. A girl's one treasure is her beauty and her ability to marry well. Therefore a demure, quiet, and content princess would bring DunBroch true happiness and prosperity.

So you may understand why when they said that ladies were unable to master a bow, Merida taught herself to hit every target. When told that princesses shouldn't go beyond the protective boarder of the village, Merida set out to chase spirits into the wilds. And when told that fair maidens would meet their downfall at the hand of a witch, Merida ended up bargaining with one.

Now don't get her wrong, it wasn't like Merida was purposely trying to be unruly, and it wasn't like she didn't want to serve king and county. She just wanted to be more than what fate had allotted girls in this day and age. She wanted to be more than the unmanageable tangles of red curls, more than the petite young woman she was growing into, and more than the princess that everyone thought she should be.

She wanted to fulfill her role on her own terms. It was her nature. It was the nature of a redhead. She couldn't help but push past boundaries and limitations. She'd been like this since she was an infant, and will be like this unto her dying breath. Anything less from her would be untrue.

So it was no surprise to anyone when Merida disappeared one late afternoon. It had been a while since she'd turned her mother (and accidentally her three younger brothers) into bears, but sometimes she felt like the incident just happened yesterday. She just couldn't get rid of that feeling; the feeling of coming so close to losing all that she knew and all that she held dear.

When those feelings became so strong that not even the reassurance of her mother could drive them away, Merida would set out to the stone circle. She had felt a mysterious and powerful force aiding her that day when she stood between her father and mother, warring off his attempts to kill the bear she knew to be his wife. She displayed strength that she didn't think she had.

Merida couldn't really explain what she felt when she'd gaze up at the large stone pillars, but whatever magic haunted those grounds seemed to have found favor in this young girl.

It didn't take her too long to arrive there on Angus. And so when that fated blue flame sprung up from the ground and danced a little nearer to her before slipping away, leading off deeper into the forest, Merida did not hesitate to dismount Angus and follow it.

But this time was different, she thought as she raced through the dense branches and underbrush. Loose twigs grabbed at her hair and clothes. This time the wisp moved fast, flitting about as a solitary flame rather than a group of wisps lighting the way. The forest shuttered, Merida could feel it by the way the air became chill, and the once soft breeze of summer turned colder, picking up in speed and intensity, and howling through the branches.

Something was wrong.

At one point Merida had lost the trail of the wisp altogether, and had begun calling out, "wispy? O will-o'-the-wisp, where are ye?" before she found it again a yard or so behind her. She turned to go after it, but a root caught her foot. She stumbled and teetered for a moment refusing to fall like some lost and frightened damsel. She knew these forests. She knew the bushes and the barriers and the rocks and the roots. She had learned to work with the flow of the forest, and to listen to its words that fell like rain and soothed all of Alba (Scotland). So what had caused her to stumble?

She looked down.

Snow.