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The Crowns of DunBroch - Merida

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Merida and Her Crown

Merida found her Mum sitting at the big table. It was time for princess lessons but Mum was just sitting there looking at the crowns that were sitting on the table.

The way Mum was staring at the crown was odd. Merida had gone out to get it yesterday, it was so odd seeing Mum without her crown, like something was out of place, it had taking her a while to figure out what it was that was wrong, then she finally noticed that Mum didn't have her crown on.

They had grown so close after Mum's furry little problem was solved. Things were calming down again now that the clans had gone home and Merida was expecting the normal routine to return and princess lessons to continue.

"Uh, mum are you okay?"

Elinor shook herself and then smiled at her beloved daughter and held out her arms. Merida rushed over and they hugged and kissed. It felt so good to both of them.

"Now then, a new lesson today. I learned something very important while I was a bear and it is something you ought to know. Look at your crown."

Merida did as she was told, because she loved her mother so much, but was wondering how her crown and her mum being a bear were related.

"What do you see?"

"Ah, my crown?" Merida said awkwardly.

Elinor rolled her eyes. "Look closer."

Merida leaned in. Her mum's crown and her own were next to each other on the table. Her crown was a thin circlet, with a large emerald at the front and white gems around the band, some nice little carving was around the emerald. Mum's crown was thicker with larger jewels, but many of the details were the same.

"It's just gold and jewels and carvings."

"Good, and that is all it ever should be to you." Elinor said emphatically.

"What?" Merida was very confused.

"A crown is nothing more then an object like a sword or a candlestick."

"Yeah." Merida said, thinking what else could it be.

"A crown is also seen as a symbol of power, like a sword. You are to do what I say because I have and own the crown." Elinor said gently, remembering how saying pretty much that same thing had caused them to say and do terrible things to each other. They had fought with words and actions and had hurt each other as deeply as they could. They had healed their bond after that but the cost had been so very high.

"You don't know this because so much of it happened before you were born. But I had to become more then what a queen is expected to be. I had dreams of marrying for love when I was a child, but I was the daughter of a clan lord, I was the only one of age when Fergus united the clans and fended off the invasion. I was ...given to him as a way to build peace between the clans. The clans have fought each other for as long as memory lasts."

"So I did as my family, the clans and the kingdom wished and married Fergus, putting my own dreams aside. I had my reservations about that. Your father is a great warrior and I was worried I was being married to a brute, but I learned that is a good man inside too. We did fall in love afterwards."

Merida put her arms around her Mum. Her eyes felt so wet and her heart so tender. Her Mum had sacrificed so much for the good of the kingdom.

"Thank you, dear. But it also became obvious that while Fergus is a good man and good at waging war, he is less good at dealing with peace."

Merida nodded about that, that was obvious.

"Once you were born, I put aside my dream of having many children and helped Fergus run the kingdom. The clans were getting restless and quarrelsome again. I didn't want the kingdom to fall to war again. So I started by helping Fergus, giving suggestions, and advice. He knew it was good advice, but he couldn't always remember all of the details, he's just not detail-oriented. He can give a rousing speech to rally the clans when they are outnumbered and motivate them so much they would win. But he forgets everything when the stakes are low. He started to have me do the explaining and he would enforce it by punching people who didn't listen to me."

"No!" Merida's eyes were all big under her curly red hair.

"Yes." Elinor's eyes sparkled with mirth.

"I found people would listen more readily if I was wearing my crown and a fancy dress. So I took to wearing it all the time. But by doing that I sacrificed something too important and almost lost the most important thing of all: Myself." Elinor looked away.

Merida gasped, she had thought her mum was going to say she almost lost her family but losing oneself would be even worse.

"I became queen so much that I forgot to be your mother. I'm sorry."

"It's okay mum, you're back and we're all safe." Merida threw her arms around her mum again.

"I know, dear. I know," said Elinor, giving her baby a kiss.

"So you will have to wear your crown, but be very careful not to become your crown, or lose yourself to something else, like your bow. I also have to tell you how proud I am of you. You brought peace to the warring clans and you didn't need your crown or even anger. You were serene. You did something I've never been able to do, you were truly majestic."

"Only because you taught me and showed me, you are majestic too." Merida said, encouragingly.

"Thank you, dear." Elinor was not convinced.

"You have to understand, Merida. That the world wasn't like it is now when I was married to your father. My sole duty as queen was to have babies so the kingdom could have an heir. It would have been enough for me, I would still have had time to make tapestries. But once we had prevailed over the invaders peace came, and then we ran into problems. Fergus is a good man, he cares deeply and is a great warrior, but he has a hard time with the peace. He is a man of action and sitting around arguing over how to do something is not in his nature. He hunts the bears because it makes him feel alive and real and himself again."

"The kingdom was falling apart, the clans were getting close to making war on each other again. Fergus was worried, but his solution would be to attack and destroy the most aggressive clan, my clan. He knew that was the wrong answer for everyone, but it was the only answer he knew that would work. I pleaded with my husband and my father to work things out and they did but it took a lot of work on my part; it made me become a more active queen and I saw the power I could wield to help the kingdom. Someone had to, it took only a few months before another clan was getting restless."

"We called that clan here to talk things out. I tried to help like I did with my father's clan, but the clan lord disregarded me."

"And you didn't bite his head off?" asked Merida amazed.

"A queen does not bite off people's heads. However, Fergus almost did. He knew what I was doing was for the good of the kingdom and even if he didn't have the diplomatic skills to pull it off, he did get the lord to listen."

Merida thought about that, "With a sword or an ax?"

Elinor smiled fondly, "A sword."

Merida giggled at that.

"I am very proud of you Merida, dear. You did something I don't think I could have under the same circumstances. You were able to walk into the warring clans and get them to listen without your princess dress or your crown. You really are the princess I wanted you to grow up to be." Elinor said with tears in her eyes throwing her arms around her big girl and hugging her tightly.

"Thank you, mum."

"Mum, do I still need to take princess lessons?"

"Yes, dear you do, but the content and intention are going to change rather dramatically. Now we are going to work on the hard things."

Merida's eyes go big, wondering what her mum meant by that!

"Your father told me that you climbed and drank from the Fire Falls, I'm sorry I didn't hear you when you told me."

"Yes, I did."

"Why?" Elinor had her suspicions.

"Well, um, because I wanted to show you that I could do things myself. To prove to you that I was worth something. That I wanted to live up to your expectations of me and become a great queen like you are." Merida was looking down and away. She was admitting things to her mum she realized she hadn't admitted to herself.

"I wanted to prove myself to you, but I couldn't do it your way. I don't know why. I wanted too. I tried so hard, but I couldn't. I didn't know how to feel like myself sometimes. Only going out on Angus and shooting arrows and being away from the castle made me feel like myself again. It wasn't useful in so many ways but it felt so good."

Elinor put her arms around her daughter, who put her head on her shoulder.

"I wanted my freedom, so I could figure out how I could be a great queen, not how I could be you, though you are a great queen. I want to be like you but I can't be you, and I don't think I want to be. But now I am not sure how to be anything at all. I chose so badly, changing you, dada almost killed you and it took everything I had to stop him, but I don't know if I could have stopped him if he came at you again. Even fixing the tapestry was the wrong thing too. I'm sorry but I am such a bad princess and daughter." Merida buried her face in her mum's shoulder trying so hard not to cry.

"No, no, you are not a bad girl. You did make some bad choices, but you tried your hardest to fix what happened. For that you are a good girl. I saw what you did to your father. How did you know? He fights his men so much but they never found that weakness."

"You know about it too?" Elinor nodded. "I found it when I was a kid, I hurt him while playing and I never wanted to hurt him, but I had to protect you."

"It hurt to have to do that, didn't it?" Asked Elinor gently.

"Yes, it was terrible. I couldn't let him kill you, but to hurt him was terrible too. It was the only way."

"I know. And that is what I was talking about when I said we would be working on hard things. You had to choose between hurting your father and letting me be killed by him. You made the best choice possible, but it hurts just the same. This won't be the last time you face that kind of decision."

Merida gasped and pulled back and looked into her mum's eyes and could see the haunted look in those eyes that told her mum had faced that many times.

Merida bit her pink lip. "Does it get any easier?"

"No." Elinor said sadly, shaking her head, her eyes haunted. "You will spend lots of time thinking of ways to find a better solution for next time. There might be nightmares, but next time will be so different you can't have thought of it ahead of time."

"Oh, mum, I'm sorry." Merida cried, holding her mum close, trying to comfort the both of them, as she lost a certain kind of innocence. Her mum had suffered so much, and she had never knew. But now she did.

"There, there. It'll be okay. Really."
Elinor has problems with her crown and she tries to help Merida from having the same problem.

The Crowns of DunBroch
Elinor fav.me/d558r3i
Merida fav.me/d57inif
Fergus fav.me/d5rbta8
© 2012 - 2024 BalunStormhands
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Amaya-Zorifuki's avatar
This story pretty much sums up everything I loved about Brave. Brilliance.