Long Live

Chapter 3

Hey, guys! Hope you enjoy this chapter! Happy reading!

"Do you have any idea who the other knights might be?" Elsa asked on their way to the front gates of the kingdom.

Jack shook his head. "No," he said."But they must be good if they were picked by King North to go on this particular quest."

Elsa nodded.

"Ooh, I can't wait to meet the others!" Anna squealed, skipping ahead of them. "I could meet a new friend there!"

Elsa sighed. "Anna, this is serious. We have to stay focused on the task at hand. We can't distract ourselves."

Anna rolled her eyes, sighing exasperatedly. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. But you can focus on the quest and make some new friends at the same time. What's so wrong with that?"

"Nothing. It's just that-"

"If you're going to say anything around the lines of 'Well, the duty of a knight comes first before anything else' then I'm seriously going to bang my head on that tree over there...."

"Guys," Jack said, halting the two sister's squabble. "We're here."

The three stood in front of the huge, iron gates that separated the kingdom from the outside. Jack looked around, scratching the back of his neck in confusion.

"Strange," he murmured. "I thought that King North said that the others would be waiting here for us."

"Wouldn't want anything to happen to us, would ya?" a voice piped up, a curly redhead girl popping behind him.

 Jack screamed, immediately grabbing for his sword.

"I wouldn't resort to that, lad," the redhead laughed. "Wouldn't want a knight getting killed when the journey hasn't even started, hm?"

Jack dropped his hand, gaping at the girl. "You're the knight? You're the knight that King North requested for?

"Well this might be a problem," Jack grumbled, rubbing his temple. "If this is how the rest of our journey is going to be, with you popping out of nowhere all the time...." he cleared his throat, moving on to another topic. "And weren't there supposed to be more knights joining the quest? Or maybe did you scare them all away," he said sarcastically.

"And here I thought that you'd have a lot more faith in us," another voice said. Out from the shadows of a nearby tree, a brunette male emerged, chuckling. "Really? You'd think we'd back out just because of her?"

"Hey!" the redhead retorted.

"Well, at least your entrance wasn't as heart-stopping as Ms. Scare over here," Jack smiled at the other knight.

The male chuckled. "Aw, but I like my entrances to be over-the-top and memorable," he joked.

Jack laughed along with him. "So," he said, "is it just two of you?"

"Nope," Hiccup shook his head. "There's five of us altogether." 

"Oh? And where exactly are they?"

A scream came from Anna and Jack whipped his head around. "Anna!" he said.

But her scream wasn't of terror, but of excitement.

"Oh my gosh!" Anna said, touching a girl Jack hadn't noticed before - seriously, what was up with these new recruits and appearing out of nowhere? - long blonde hair. "Your hair is so pretty!"

The girl blushed. "Thank you. Although it does tend to get in the way most of the time. While I do prefer it loose, I usually just keep it in a braid."

"That's three," Elsa said. "Where's the other two?"

"Up here," a voice said. Jack eyes wandered up the tree and saw two girls sitting on the highest branch. One of them, a blonde one with two ribbons on either side of her head, skillfully jumped down the tree. Once reaching the bottom, she dusted herself off.

"Took you long enough," the girl teased. "All of us were starting to think that you chickened out."

Jack's cheeks turned red, prompting a giggle from the girl. "Never."

"Okay, so that's it?" Elsa asked. "No more surprise guests?"

The girl with the ribbons laughed. "Not that I know of. Unless someone here...you know..."

"I did not scare anyone away!" the redhead exclaimed exasperatedly.

The girl with the ribbons laughed before turning to Jack. "I'm Hannah," the girl with the ribbons introduced herself, extending a hand. Jack shook it.

"I'm Merida!" the redhead grinned.

"Hiccup," the male nodded.

"I'm Rapunzel!" the girl with the long blonde braid chirped.

"And who's that?" Jack pointed up to the tree where the other girl who had shockingly deep blue hair still sat perched.

The girl, noticing all eyes on her, jumped down and extended a hand in front of Jack. "Galaxy," the girl said simply. Other than her hair, Jack could barely make out the girl's facial features, for it was nearly concealed by the hood of her black cape. 

Jack shook the hand of the girl and smiled. "I'm Jack," he said to everyone. "And this is Elsa and Anna." he said, gesturing to the two.

Elsa smiled. "It's nice to meet you all."

Anna squealed and pranced up to each new member and gave them a hug. "It's soo nice to meet you all! I can't wait to learn more about each and every one of you while on our journey!"

They all chuckled. "So I guess that I have to start writing my autobiography for her, don't I?" Hiccup jested.

"Perhaps," Elsa giggled.

Merida looked up at the sky. "It's already getting to be evenin' already. We might want to start scurrying out of here and start walking."

The others nodded. Jack strode ahead of the others to open the gates. Standing in front of the towering, intimidating structure, he took a deep breath. This was it. There was no going back now.

"Well," he said. "Here goes nothing."

AN: I wanted Jack meeting the others to be...interesting. Sorry if this is so short! As far as introductions go, I wanted to make this kind of short, but also add some detail in it. And, as you can probably infer, Hannah and Galaxy are my original characters. Well! Thanks for reading and see you in the next chapter!