#uponagraydawn

It’s a hollow wooden crash and the yowling of a young Gronckle outside that breaks their attention.  Hiccup strides toward the door, purposeful but unworried.  It’s the walk of a man confident in what he’s doing, who needn’t think twice before acting on his instinct.  He’s said, while wearing a self-deprecating smile, that he understands dragons better than people, and based on what she’s seen in her weeks on Berk she cannot disagree.  He doesn’t understand why heads turn after him like sunflowers following the light; he doesn’t understand the effect when he squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and speaks so that all can hear.  He doesn’t understand his own power, let alone the extent of his knee-weakening charm.  He doesn’t know how undone she is by all of it—he can’t know, lest she lose her bargaining power.

And he cannot know how near she is to losing her heart. 

There must be something in her expression that makes Gobber’s eyebrows cease their mocking waggling.  “I’ve known that boy since before he was born.  I know him better than his own...”  He trails off, face sagging for a moment; then he clears his throat and continues, “I know him better than most on this island.  So you can believe me when I say…”  He drains the last of his mug-hand, stands, and leans to murmur in her ear.  “I think our chief has met his match.”

Though Gobber is already lumbering away and doesn’t see it, Merida smiles wanly.  She appreciates his sentiments—Gobber has been a welcome friend here, somehow reminding her of home, though as uncivilized as a Viking ought to be—but doesn’t believe them, not really.  The match of the chief?  Perhaps in rank, but in no other way.  Not when she is so impatient and quick-tempered, and he so self-sacrificing and so very clever.  The first visit to his workshop made her head swim, with the books full of his notes and designs, the litter of things he’d made, the way he’d unceremoniously pushed his sleeves up to his elbows, the quick, sure sound of his voice describing planned improvements for the village; that had been the beginning of her fall. 

Outside heavy-laden clouds are scudding down from the north.  The air is thick and still.  Already sweat is prickling at the back of her neck; she huffs and lifts her hair, lets it fall over one shoulder and down her front.  Though rain is coming her feet take her away from her lodging and toward the sea.  She’s fascinated by it; maybe in watching the waves the lump in her stomach will fade away.  Maybe she can drown it in salt spray and raindrops.  For a while it works as lightning flickers faintly near the horizon and the air starts to move, smelling deliciously wet; she finds herself smiling and feeling light.  Then she hears her name and the weight returns.  When she realizes who is calling the burden doubles.

“I’ve been looking for you.”  At his open, friendly expression her stomach leaps, then sinks.

“Have you?” she mumbles, returning her attention to the sea.  “Why?”

“Well, um, I wan—that is, I…needed to see y—”  His bumbling ends with a quiet groan.  She hears him inhale deeply and ignores the gooseflesh that creeps up her arms.  He begins anew, more steadily.  “You left pretty quickly after dinner.  I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He looks more ill-at-ease than when she’d last seen him, rubbing his palms down the seams of his breeches.  Some mischievous spirit of the coming storm fills her.  “Why?” she asks again.

“Why?”  His confusion is adorable, and her pulse spikes.  “Why what?”

“Why make sure I’m okay?”  She pushes her hair back over her shoulder again.  His eyes flash to the long line of her neck, then back to her face.

Long lashes fan against his cheeks as he blinks.  “I wouldn’t be a very good host if I didn’t.”  The curve of his lips into a smile sharper and warmer than hospitality requires belies the claim.  He bows slightly at the waist.  “I have to do my duty to our honored guest.”

She turns away again to hide her sneer.  “If duty is all that it is, you’ve done it well.”  Her tone is clipped, the dismissal in it clear.  Hurt is welling up inside of her, and anger; she breathes in noisily through her nose, waiting for him to leave, to prove her feelings unrequited.  Only when she is left in the company of the wide water and the storm will she let her weakness show.

Stubborn thing that he is—and it must be stubbornness, as it’s not stupidity—he stays.  There is a long moment of quiet between them, one in which she feels him watching, though her eyes are shut against the wind.  At its end he asks, quietly, nearer than she’d thought, “But if the duty was just a way to talk to you again?”

Her eyes snap open, her head turns to him.  His jaw is set, his hair blows in the breeze; she feels like prey, pinned by the bright, keen eyes of a hunting hawk.  “Why?” she wonders a third time.  “I’m no great conversationalist, in case you haven’t noticed.  Not clever enough to keep up with you, at any rate.”

“Keep up with me?”  He scoffs.  “Merida, you run circles around me.  I don’t know which way is up when I’m talking to you.”  The tips of his ears have gone pink, she notices, and wonders if the flush will spread.  “Do you know how hard it’s been trying to pay attention to the negotiations when all I want is to hear your opinions on everything?”

She snorts and crosses her arms tightly over her stomach.  “You’d think less of me if you heard them.”

“I doubt it.  You’re so lively, and well-educated, and you actually know what you’re doing while I have no idea if it’s not about dragons or making stuff, and you’re beautiful—” and there, his cheeks are red.

“I’m afraid you’re wrong.”  She steps closer, looking up at him, letting her arms drop.  “I’m nothing but lost.”  Fear stills her tongue, stops her from adding more, that’s she’s lost because of him, in him.  Her heart beats painfully hard, though at a word from him it will stop.  She stares up at him, hoping that in her eyes he’ll read what she cannot say, only just beginning to hope that she may not be alone in it.

The clouds pile up overhead and his eyes seem darker than ever, skipping from her parted lips to her eyes.  “I don’t mind being lost if you don’t,” he murmurs, voice so low she shivers.  Between them, his hand finds hers, fingers fitting together like they’d been designed for each other.  “We can find our way together.”