eachdraidh | ( ✈ first flight; VIDEO, both courts — forward-dated to 1st, post-feast )

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( ✈ first flight; VIDEO, both courts — forward-dated to 1st, post-feast )

[ What the viewer first witnesses is a foot. Not a real foot, thank goodness, because it happens to be detatched from its wearer and currently being stolen; that is, until a book is thrown at the thieving imp, lamping it on the head, and the locket is placed down on a table as a young man hops over to retrieve his prosthetic, muttering as he does so. ('Steal my foot, will you? Nasty little ... Yeah, you just enjoy your time-out, bud.') Pegleg re-attached to a left leg, the tall man picks up the imp by the scruff of a leathery neck, strides out and tosses it into the arms of its awaiting (disappointed) companions. ]

Try it again and I'll show you what the ice-pick is for!

[ He sits back down with a sigh, twiddling the locket around. ]

Anyway, hi. Sorry about that. My name's Hiccup and apparently, monsters aside, this necklace can help me find people without cursing me or also trying to steal my limbs. Great! So.

[ Hiccup has very clever green eyes, almost too many freckles to count, and a slight gap in his front teeth; as well as being ~~weedy~~ slender, you wouldn't think he was the sort of person to be so confident with an unknown audience, but he certainly is. If anything, he's eager to talk, at least five years older at twenty than he was the last time anyone in the Drabwurld saw his younger incarnation ... not that he's aware of that. ~~Baby boy grew up and then some.~~

Those of a keen eye will notice he's broadcasting from an Unseelie princely estate room, contrary to the state of the battered leather armour he now wears. ]

I'm looking for a girl about my age, tall and blonde. [ Wait. ] Not just any girl! That would be weird. Really weird, like ... girl-shopping, or something. Sorry, let me rephrase; I'm looking for a tall, blonde girl called Astrid, whom I happen to actually know. [ THIS IS GOING SO WELL, ahhh. ] Don't just call me back if you happen to randomly fit that description. [ Okay, fuck it, moving on.] I'm also looking for my mother, and she's ... [ He rubs the back of his head with a chuckle. ] Uh, she's an unforgettable sight, just tell me if you see a masked, armoured person with spikes poking off their helmet. Oh! They'll also have their dragons with them.

[ Casually throwing that out there as a genuine afterthought. ]

If you see a black dragon with big green eyes, looking sort of nocturnal? That's Toothless, my Night Fury. Tell him Hiccup is at Caer Scima, he'll understand. He won't hurt you if you don't hurt him first — obviously attacking a dragon is a phenomenally stupid thing to do, under any circumstances, so hopefully no one will opt for that course of action.

[ Sitting back, he puffs a breath that ruffles an auburn fringe and raises his brows invitingly. ]

I'd love to get to know more about this place, I've never even dreamed of being anywhere this incredible. Magical. Does anyone know where the nearest dragon nest is? I want to find something to ride until I can find my own and horses aren't really my thing. Stirrups, hard ground, you can see where I'm going with that. These lockets are incredible, has anyone opened one up and looked inside? Uh, and lastly — I promise I'll shut up soon — where can I get some decent, detailed maps of the terrain?

Thanks in advance! Nice meeting ... whoever you guys are.

( ooc: forward-dated to the 1st after the welcome feast, after which he'll lose his optimistic verve as he gets to know the world a bit better. )

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[She nods in approval when he gets it right, looking a little surprised. Most people she knows wouldn't care to learn another language, and she only knows a couple others aside from her native Gaelic because of her lessons (even if her German is rusty).]

Thank ye. An' I'll let you know if I hear of an Astrid or see your dragon friend around.

[Peace offering.]

Edited 2014-09-29 01:48 (UTC)

[ It's accepted with a nod. He pauses, voicing something on his mind as he takes in the decor behind her on the locket's screen. ]

I doubt either of us will find Astrid in this particular castle. If the old stories are true, she'd be over in the kingdom full of lawful folk, with the more cool-headed of the aelfen.

[She takes in his words, remembering the tales her mother had told her about the unseelie and seelie courts, the faeries at work there. Merida nods, leaning back against something with a small sigh.]

If anythin', that's where my mother probably is too, with th' seelie folk. She's th' peacekeeper an' law maker among th' clans, makes th' decisions that would benefit th' kingdom. [Including marrying her daughter off without asking if she's okay with it.] She can walk through a hall of brawlin' men an' make them stop just by lookin' at them.

I think my mother would just hit them over the head with her staff and quieten down a room that way.

[ Valka, yo. ]

That's more my dad, honestly. Though it didn't quite work out that way during th' recent gatherin'...

[Her mother would probably frown at his mother's actions. 'A princess does not place her weapons on the table' and all that.]

[ Telling Valka not to put her weapon on the table is so laughable, really. She'd probably fly off on Cloudjumper and eat fish somewhere where her ~free spirit could have as fewer manners as she pleased. ]

Oh? What happened there?

He, ah, wound up getting involved himself. My mother pinched their ears an' dragged them into submission an' back to the subject at hand.

Sounds like my dad. What was the gathering about? The last was five years ago for us, they don't happen very often.

[She kind of sinks back a little and purses her lips together, scowling off to the side.]

My hand in marriage.

[ Pffft. ]

Sounds awful. Who did you choose?

You have no idea. I didn't have a say in it.

[She lets herself smirk.]

So I beat them all in a contest meant to prove their worth by shooting all three targets directly in the center. Split the last one's arrow in half.

[ One thing really sticks out. ]

How can you not have a choice in who you marry?

Och, it's this stupid tradition.

[Merida rolls her eyes.]

Th' first born of each of th' great leaders are presented an' challenged in a feat determined by th' princess. Then a betrothal is set between th' winner an' th' princess. Mum an' my dad were betrothed th' same way.

So you don't fight any of them yourself and pick the strongest guy you want?

[ Because that's the Viking way. Astrid knocked him on his ass plenty of times before he showed her his (inner) strength concerning Toothless's safety, earning her respect. ]

Where I come from, girls beat guys up all the time to see if they're worth dating, let alone marrying. No woman would go along with a tradition just because, not over ... that.

No. Or at least we didn't until I followed th' rules an' stepped up to shoot for my own hand.

[Just. Gaping. Because really, she'd have loved it if that had been the way.]

Now, see, that's my kind of betrothal. I would've agreed to that an' then th' whole accidentally turnin' my mother into a bear mess could've been avoided!

[Oops]

[ Merida. ]

I thought you said a witch turned your mother into a bear.

[Oh shit.]

A witch did turn her into a bear, but it wasn't like I asked her to do that! I just wanted to change her mind about th' marriage. [She buries her face in her hands, then slides her fingers up to her temples, brows furrowing sadly.] I dinnae ask for that to happen to her...

You asked a witch to change ... not her mind. Just to change her? [ Whoaaa, what. ] You asked a witch, a notoriously untrustworthy source of confidence to begin with, to mess with the woman who gave birth to you?

... You've got to admit, you should've seen the screw up inherent in that decision a mile away.

[Yeah yeah, just keep telling her what she's been thinking the whole time. Merida's accent grows thicker with her combined annoyance and frustration.]

I was desperate! She wasn't listenin' t'me an' I ran away an' followed these wisps that led me to th' witch's cottage...

[She rubs the bridge of her nose, trying to calm herself. When she thought about it, she really did screw everything up, didn't she?]

I know I screwed up. I didn't mean it.

Understanding you messed up is the first step to fixing things, so at least you're well on the way there. [ He's made some stupid decisions of his own in the past, so he doesn't needle her too much. It is her mother, after all. ] I know what it's like not to have a parent listen to you.

[ ... Eh, he may as well admit it. ]

My dad talks over what I'm saying a lot.

[The first step to fixing things, but she still has a long way to go to fully admit that she was in the wrong. The witch is still the one who didn't understand what she was asking ~~even if she didn't directly say 'I want to change mum's mind'~~. Still, she smiles a little bitterly when he says that.]

How can they expect us to take over when we're older if they don't listen?

Edited 2014-09-30 10:52 (UTC)

I don't, actually, have much of a yen for the whole 'taking over' part. [ Accompanied by a little hand gesture of pzazz, for added glitz to the notion. He rubs the back of his neck and itches a cheek as his hand slides forward. ] Chiefing is his thing, it's not me.

[ Hiccup shrugs. ]

He'll understand that someday, maybe.

[ One can only hope. Maybe now Hiccup has a mother again, Valka can talk to Stoick on the matter; she could, right? And his dad would have to listen then, especially if Hiccup and Valka went through with their plan to change the world for all dragons. He could have a ... a place.

It all feels oddly like a pipe-dream. ]

Aye, I'm much th' same, but my mother's been preparin' me to take over since before I can remember.

[Even if she did doodle and fall asleep during lessons, seeing the destruction of the old kingdom and knowing the truth behind Mor'du's legend now made her understand her mother's fears. Besides, the triplets would be right terrors ruling the kingdom together.]

I've never had much of a say in th' way of things. I'd much rather be huntin' or ridin' with my bow.

[ Wasn't ever a sure thing I would take over, which is probably why he's so thrilled and completely deaf to my protests now. He's so happy for me, and I'm ... ]

Obviously it's in our best interests to unite both our lands and get hitched. There, the fairyland solved all our problems.

[ Couldn't be more sarcastic if he tried, you're welcome. Evasion? Avoiding talking about his father? Don't know what you mean. ]

[She actually laughs a little at his words, the giggles coming from her a mix of good humor and sarcasm herself.]

Wouldn't that just tickle mum silly if she's here. I object to marriage only to get hitched to a stranger I just met.

[Not that she knew the young lords, not really. But her point remains.]

( ✈ first flight; VIDEO, both courts — forward-dated to 1st, post-feast )

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