In Another Lifetime

Chapter 16 - The Protector

Rapunzel nudged Merida who was struggling to draw her horse, Angus.

"What?" Merida said, irritably.  Rapunzel pointed silently to the woman's self-sketching pencil and Merida yelped. 

"Ssh!" Rapunzel and Jack panicked, but it was too late. The grey haired woman's head snapped up like a shot and spotted her pencil. She snapped her fingers immediately and the pencil fell upon the desk, lifeless.

"That pencil -" Merida gasped, "was moving, by itself!"

"Oh no dearie," she said, picking up a piece of wood and a chisel. "I'm just a humble woodcarver."

"You said you were a helper at this summer camp," Hiccup stood up, advancing. The woman looked scared and picked up her carving again.

"I - I AM, but I carve too! Bears, you see, they're my specialty -"

Rapunzel screamed. The pencil was moving again, sketching a perfect drawing of a bear.

"It did it again!" Jack yelled. The woman motioned them to be quiet, and said -

"Look! I'll tell you the truth if you don't tell anyone!"

"It depends," Hiccup folded his arms and raised an eyebrow quizzically at her.

"Give her a chance," Merida said, the woman looked almost familiar to her somehow. Somehow Merida knew she meant no harm in what she was doing. "I for one want to hear what she's got to say."

"Fine," Jack groaned, glaring at Merida.

"Look," the woman began, "I'm only here because of you four."

"What?" they all said in unison.

"You must have made a mistake," Rapunzel started.

"We're not special," Merida jumped in.

"And why would you need us anyway?" Hiccup added.

"There's nothing interesting about any of us," Jack finished.

"Ach, you're wrong, all of you," the woman smiled, one eye growing wider than the other. "It's true, I admit it, I'm a witch. And I'm over one thousand years old."

"That figures," Jack grinned at Hiccup who snorted with laughter.

"Shut it you!" she yelled, silencing Jack in an instant. "I'm here to protect you."

"Why?" they all said in unison again.

"You don't remember?" the witch asked, baffled.

"Remember what?" Merida almost screamed.

"Who you were!" the witch replied, "Your past lives! The Big Four! Your kingdoms! You've forgotten it all?"

These words were followed with an outcry of a multitude of voices:

"What?"

"Past lives?"

"Who were we?"

"What's the Big Four?"

"Kingdoms?"

"We were dead?"

"Did we know each other?"

"What the heck?"

"SHUT IT!" The witch screamed her last words at the top of her lungs. "I'll tell you now, you need to know, but it's a long story and you'll probably miss your next session. But I'll take you back in time so you can redo it, don't worry."

She sighed, reclined in her chair and began her story, the four of them hanging on every word.

            * The Story of the Big Four *

Rapunzel of Corona was a princess. She lived in the palace until she was stolen by Mother Gothel who wanted her hair for the magical properties it possessed. In the tower she was kept in she was isolated from the outside world, until a boy climbed her tower wall when Gothel was away. His name was Jack Frost. He fell in love with her and helped her to escape. They ran away together and Gothel never found her. She eventually died because there was nothing to keep her youthfulness.

Merida Dunbroch was also a princess, the princess of Scotland. She was going to be forced into a marriage against her will, but she rebelled and refused to go with the traditions of her lands. She met a young boy in a clearing near the Fire Falls one day where she had been climbing, and they quickly became friends, despite her being a Scot and he being a Viking. They, too, fell in love, even Merida who had sworn that no man could stand in the way of her freedom. She realised that he wouldn't take that away from her and he supported her every decision.

They met Rapunzel and Jack in the kingdom of Corona at the festival of the Lost Princess, where they discovered that it was Rapunzel and that Gothel had been lying to her all these years. She was finally reunited with her family, and the four of them travelled the world together. However none were brave enough to express their romantic feelings for one another. This would prove to be their one weakness. The group were known as 'The Big Four' due to their huge bond of unlikely friendship they held, but their days of happiness were short lived.

Mord'u, the demon bear king, heard of these people spreading happiness and good to the lands and decided they must be broken apart. He sent a messenger to kill them off with a curse, which he did. But before they died they vowed to find each other again, in another lifetime. And that led us up to today, where fate has brought them together at last.