Meet Me At the Halfway Point

Summer Bliss

(Year two), Beginning of summer (Day 2)

Hiccup let the arrow fly from his bow, but still with no luck it missed the target dummy and landed on the tall grass next to it. Hiccup groaned letting his shoulders drop, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Try it again," said Merida.

"Merida, you know I'm better than this- it's just so hot today," he said facing her, wiping more sweat from his face than last time.

Merida tried her best to not let the heat get to her and crossed her arms. "Again viking," she said with a stern.

Hiccup rolled his eyes at her, but did what he was told, grabbing an arrow from his quiver. Placing it on the side of the bow, he pulled the string back and brought it up just close enough to his lips.

"Fix your stance." She called out.

"Alright," he said in a low manner, spreading out his legs a bit more. Eyeing his target, pulling back the string once more.

"Don't forget to bend your elbow a bit," she added.

Hiccup huffed threw his nose, but adjusted his elbow, closing one eye to focus.

"And don't focus on the heat -only the target."

"MERIDA!" he shouted looking back at her with annoyance building up inside him.

Merida raised her hands up and tightened her month, okay now she was done.

Hiccup looked ahead at the target, drew a small breath and released the bow.

It missed.

Out of pure frustration Hiccup tossed the bow down to the dirt, kicking the grass around him, cursing under his breath.

While Hiccup had his little freak out, Merida raised her arm to block out the sun as she examined the sky. It really was a scorching hot day. Not a single cloud in the sky, and no wind either. No escape from the thick humid air can make one feel suffocated. Even Toothless was resting under the shade to escape some of the heat.

Merida walked over to where Hiccup threw the bow and bent to pick it up, then calmly stepped alongside him.

Hiccup was hunched over breathing heavily, just finished taking out his anger, and stared absurdly at her.

"Are you done?" she asked.

Hiccup pulled on his shirt collar and cleaned sweat off from his upper lip, "How can anyone do anything in this heat? Let alone shoot this stupid thing!"

"You are overreacting," she commented, not daring to wipe the sweat that was slipping from her forehead.

"I bet you can't even make that shot, can you?" his eyes narrowed towards her pointing to her sweat rolling down her cheek.

"Hiccup - don't."

"See! See I was right, it's so hot- no one can focus-"

Hiccup spoke too soon, because in less than 4 second Merida grabbed an arrow from behind him, pulled the arrow back on the bow and shot the target dead in the middle.

Hiccup's jaw dropped at disbelief, Merida didn't want to give a satisfied smirk, as she shoved the bow back into Hiccup's arms.

"If all your gonna do is complain, then at least let's head towards the river 'n' work on something else."