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Once, there was an ancient kingdom.
In this kingdom was a young princess, beloved by her parents the king and queen. The princess was a strong and strong-willed lass, quick of wit and keen of eye. She loved horseback riding, being out of doors, and, most of all, archery, at which she was exceedingly talented. So talented was she, and so proud her parents, the king and queen, that her fame spread throughout the kingdom, and a whole generation of young women came of age thinking of archery as an only slightly less ladylike pursuit than embroidery.
In the princess' honor, the annual clan gathering added a female-only archery contest to their games. The princess took first place the first year, as expected, but the second year, to everyone's surprise, the princess was outshot by a young woman from Dingwall, the very sister of the young Dingwall who sought the princess' hand in marriage.
Seona of Dingwall was a serious-looking lass as tall and thin as her father was short and round, as focused and serious as her brother was distractable. She nonetheless smiled as she accepted her prize from the King's own hand: a new bow made of yew, with leaping fish carved all down its limbs. Just before Seona turned and raised her prize to the crowd in victory, she and the princess shared a brief, warm grin, as of two sisters sharing a gleeful secret.
"'Twas sheer luck," Seona said later, as they cradled their cups. "You're a much better archer than I, that's for sure."
Merida just laughed and said, "And you think that the whole splitting-an-arrow-in-twain WASN'T?"
Seona nearly choked on her mead, and the princess laughed harder, and their laughter joined the general din that was a feast day in Castle DunBroch.
Seona and Princess Merida became fast friends. The princess offered Seona a place in the castle, ostensibly as a maid-in-waiting, and when the Dingwall clan left the games that year, it was without their second-eldest daughter.
The two young women were inseparable, even as the princess royal duties increased. Seona was to always be found by her side, quiet and solemn, until she and her lady could escape. Then they raced to the stable, where they saddled and mounted their steeds and tore out the gates for the hills and forest. Often they would bring back a brace or two of rabbits, which the kitchenmaids would cheerfully clean and pop right into the stewpot or over the fire for the pleasure of the royal table.
The princess and the young Dingwall lass were more than lady and maid, however. Best friends and sisters in spirit if not in blood was a better description, and often would the princess ask Seona's advice on one thing or another, particularly when she felt the walls of duty closing in.
"It's just...he's...." Merida fidgeted as she perched on the edge of the benchseat."Odd?" Seona suggested, helping herself to a final scrap of venison before the platter was whisked away. "Simple? Dull, like a blunted sword?"
"Well, I mean...look at him."
Seona glanced over, to where the young Dingwall heir had finally been distracted from watching Merida by the arrival of dessert. He was inspecting the pastries with a single-minded determination.
Seona shrugged. "He's not the brightest lad ever, I'll give you that. But I do have to say that he has several very important qualities that I would look for in a potential husband, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his sister."
"What qualities?" Merida asked, her hands fidgeting with a dinner knife as her eyes slid to the side to inspect the Dingwall heir unobtrusively. She snapped them back to her very interesting cutlery as soon as he looked her way.
"Well, first of all, he's not bossy. Which, as you might have noticed, is a bit of a THING with men." Seona glanced pointedly at her father, whose argument with Lord Macintosh was rising in volume and was likely to escalate to inter-table violence shortly. "I doubt either of us'd like having a husband who insists on telling us what to do, and Blane surely isn't going to do that."
"Well, of course," Merida said. "Like my mum and da. My da might be king and all, but we all know who runs when who calls."
"Exactly." Seona nodded in satisfaction. She had great respect for Queen Elinor's husband-wrangling techniques and studied them well in preparation for the day her father would remember where she was and that she wasn't married. "Which leads me to the second thing that makes Blane an unterrible choice: he's very trainable."
Merida laughed. "You make him sound like a horse."
Seona considered. "Aye. Just like."
Merida stared at her for a long moment, and then they both burst into chortling laughter that turned every head at the table. Blane of Dingwall's lips quirked up into a dreamy smile at the sight.
"So..pffft...anything else?" Merida asked, wiping a tear from her eye with the heel of her hand.
"Well, he's NOT a pompous arse, NOR is he already in love with a lass back home."
They both glanced over at the Macintosh heir--who was holding court in a manner that rivaled the king and queen--and at young Macguffin--who was nodding and laughing at something his father had said. Had she been pressed, Merida might have admitted that she'd been disappointed when hearing about young Macguffin's hopes to marry his childhood friend. He'd been her first choice, as he'd seemed sweet and funny once she learned enough Doric to understand him, and he reminded her a bit of her da. She'd fought too hard for the right to marry who she wanted, though, to try to deny another the same.
"Also," Seona said, head tilting as she bit into the last of her venison, "Blane's actually not a bad fighter, 'specially if you count the biting, and...well...." She gestured vaguely and pointedly not in his direction. "...he likes you."
"Well," Merida said, considering. "...there is that."
Seona of Dingwall was to be but the first of a steady stream of young women archers to Castle DunBroch. Another joined the princess' retinue after the next year's games, and then two after the next, and another presented herself to the princess at the annual holiday festivities, and so on and so forth, until the princess who most disliked fancy dresses and embroidery and other such pastimes had the largest retinue of maids-in-waiting that the castle had ever seen. Princess Merida welcomed and taught them all, even as she took over more and more duties from her parents, whose health steadily declined.
Elinor opened her eyes from a nap one sunny afternoon, felt the heaviness in her chest, the cough curling in her lungs, and said, quietly, "Merida...."
Her daughter looked up from the figures she was calculating for the food needed for the upcoming summer gathering. She looked at her mother for a long, expectant moment before her expression slid into understanding. She stood, setting aside her slate and gathered up a blanket from the back of her chair. She laid it over her mother's lap, hands smoothing over the stylized motif of three young bears folicking about an indulgent mother bear. "I've a message to send to Dingwall today," Merida said quietly, "I've accepted Blane's suit."
Elinor's sigh ended with a cough that nonetheless became a smile. A sad smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Are you sure?"
Merida tucked a spring of red hair back behind her ear, her smile lopsided and unsure but oddly charmed. "He writes me poetry."
"Does he?" Elinor chuckled, carefully, around the tickle in her throat. "Is it any good?"
Merida grinned. "It's terrible. And he needs to find more red things to compare my hair to. But he tries."
"Sometimes," Elinor said, smiling, "that's all we can ask for. And you might be surprised...how often it's more than enough."
Time passed, as did the king and queen, and Princess Merida became Queen Merida of DunBroch. She was beloved of her people, wise and generous, but she was also, of course, rather too busy to run off with her maids to go rabbit hunting. Nonetheless, it was still customary that the winner of the annual lasses' archery contest join her retinue. As said retinue trained and practiced almost as much as the castle guard itself, the castle denizens often joked about how safe they felt, guarded by the queen's arrows and the king's teeth.
Then came the Northmen.
They swept along the coast like the wind that filled the sails of their great ships, plundering as they went and leaving fire and death in their wake. They set their sights on Castle DunBroch, knowing that the old king had died not soon before and that the new king was young and inexperienced. They thought to sack the castle quickly and easily.
They were wrong.
They landed and marched on the castle largely unopposed, their confidence growing with every step. They came within sight of the castle walls and there was no army waiting for them, no resistance to be seen, merely barred gates and the ramparts seemingly empty except for one woman with a bow. Her long red braid a banner in the wind, she said, "I am Merida, Queen of DunBroch, and I give you one chance. Turn back now, and return to your ships. Sail away, and you will live. Take one more step on my land, and I shall kill you where you stand."
The Northmen snickered and jeered and made lewd comments. They surged forward.
And suddenly the ramparts bristled with archers. Men of the guard stood shoulder to shoulder with the women's maids, cobblers and masons with kitchenmaids and laundresses. Noble and commoner alike stood in firing stance, those too young to draw a bow waiting patiently with more arrows to fill the archers' quivers as needed.
The drawing and release of bowstrings was a single, low note followed by the whistle of arrows and the splash of blood on the ground as the arrows found their targets.
The Northmen screamed, enraged, and the queen screamed back, her great black bow in her hands, her arrows finding their mark every time.
"You want my castle, you sons of whores? You just try and take it! Come on! I'll stick you so full of arrows you'll never hit the ground! I'LL USE YOUR BOLLOCKS FOR TARGET PRACTICE AND DANCE IN YOUR BLOODY ENTRAILS, YOU BASTARDS! COME ON!"
The Northmen charged and fell, charged and fell, but the DunBroch archers were too skilled, the approach to the castle too narrow: they fell in droves simply trying to reach the walls. In one last, great push they moved, shields locked above their heads to protect them from the deadly hail, only to meet the king and his men, charging from the castle gates with a great war cry.
All was noise and confusion, and he had lost his horse somewhere along the way, but his hands were full of steel and shield and his teeth were stained with blood, and as long as he stood, as long as he could hear his queen's voice and bow singing death from the battlements, he would keep fighting.
And at the end of the day, the Northmen fled, arrows taking down the stragglers without mercy. The invaders fled down to the docks, they fled onto their ships, and they fled back over the cold sea.
He stumbled as the gate closed behind him, the trembling high of battle fading and leaving him empty and aching. He leaned against the wall, the cold stone seeping warmth from his flesh, and nearly fell into sleep, would have, indeed, fallen, were it not for hands on his shoulders, shaking him once, then again, harder. He opened his eyes, and there was a voice, a beloved voice shaking even as it berated him, even as those hands were pulling off his armor for some reason. Something to do with--
"--good god, is any of this blood yours? Are you hurt? Blane? Blane! Stop woolgathering and answer me!"
She shook him harder, his head lolling, and the king of DunBroch blinked, slowly, and smiled. "We won."
The queen of DunBroch, who apparently had satisfied herself that he wasn't wounded in any great fashion, stilled her hands on his shoulders, her mouth opening and closing. "Bloody...idiot," she whispered. Then she let out a long breath and sagged, her arms winding around his neck, heedless of the blood and worse all over him and immediately transferring to her dress, heedless of the dozens of eyes around them.
Blane wrapped his arms tight around her, tight enough to feel her bones shaking in reaction and relief. He buried his face in her firebright hair and let her chase the chill away.
Seona, meanwhile, planted herself to guard the niche they were huddled in and intercepted the captain of the guard, a chamberlaine, and no less than three advisors, telling them in no uncertain terms that the king and queen were not there and she had no idea where they'd gotten to.
And so did the young king and queen lead their people to repel the northern invaders. The Northmen fled all the way back to their cold homeland, where they told cautionary tales for years about a demon queen with a magical bow and a blood-thirsty king who ate the flesh of his enemies. It would be nearly a generation before the Northmen returned to challenge the king and queen's kingdom again...but that is another tale, for another time....