Let Me Be Your Wings (Mericcup Month 2018 HiccupxMerida)

Old Friends

Prompt 4! Old Friends!

Disclaimer: I don't own httyd or brave

---------------

Old Friends

"I wanna marry you." The little boy whispered. The little princess with fiery red hair laughed. They were laying on the grass, enjoying the nice summer weather of the Highlands that wasn't really experienced in his homeland.

"We're too little." She teased him, poking his side. The auburn-haired boy flinched but laughed at her words.

"But we won't be little forever!" he protested. She responded by trying to tickle him, but he rolled out of her reach, sitting up and gazing down at her with an emotion that was too old for a child's eyes. The adoration in his gaze made her blush. He promised, addressing her with a Norse word she didn't understand but let him always use with her. Merida rolled her eyes to hide her quickening heartbeat. She sat up as well, shoving him.

"Ma says I have to marry a Celt." She told him, reminding them both of her strict mother who always stuck to tradition. The little boy wasn't deterred. Instead, he appeared more determined. He reached for her hand, and his touch sent Merida's pulse to skyrocket.

"Then I'll become the greatest Viking ever. That way she can't say no." he stared into her eyes with an intensity greater than someone his age, and she couldn't help but believe him.

Merida groaned, opening her eyes slightly to glare at the incoming sunlight. Her mother fussed around her room, opening every curtain to let in the accursed sunlight. Merida buried herself deeper into her blankets, determined to stay in bed. Queen Elinor wasn't having any of it.

"Merida, lass, I told ye not to sleep in today! Ye know what is happening today." Her mother reminded her, hands on her hips. Merida groaned under her covers.

"As if I could forget. Today's the day my life will be over." Merida barked out bitterly. Elinor wasn't fazed by her daughter's waspish mood, taking it in stride and going over to the lump on the bed, ripping the covers away from her daughter. Elinor winced at her daughter's bedhead, knowing they would have a lot of work to do to make her presentable.

Merida, Princess of Scotland, only glared harder, turning over on her side to face away from her mother. Elinor surveyed her daughter, her expression taking on a softer look and she sat beside her daughter, stroking Merida's wild hair.

"Yer making it sound worse than it actually is. Marriage is not the end of the world, Merida." Elinor tried to soothe her daughter, but Merida turned her head to face her mother with the most hostile glare she could muster.

"I can't believe ye didn't ask me first. How am I expected to marry someone I don't know?" Merida complained. Elinor wasn't fazed, continuing to caress her daughter's unruly hair like she had always done when Merida was a child and was in need of comfort.

"Would ye have said yes if I did?" Elinor gave her a knowing look, and Merida begrudgingly knew her mother was right. She would not have agreed regardless, but she still felt the unfairness of the situation. "Ye never know, Merida. Ye might see a lad ye might like. I was nervous about marrying when I was yer age, but when I saw Fergus I knew he was the one." Her mother tried to reassure her. Elinor kissed her daughter's forehead in affection, giving her a fond smile. "I made sure ye wouldn't end up with a bad man. All the lords' sons are good candidates to be yer husband."

Merida remembered her dream with the little boy promising to come back and marry her. She tried to remember his features but found nothing clicked in her mind. His face was blurry, and all she could recall was how clumsy and scrawny the boy was. She wondered if he would make good on his promise to come back and marry her but shook her head. She must've been making up memories to escape the impending doom of her upcoming nuptials. There was no way she was friends with a Viking boy when she was little...