These are just a bunch of short little stories from when Canada was still living under England as his colony. These aren't meant to be historical, just little insights into what I think his day-to-day life would have been like at certain times.

Minnows at the Beach

"Aren't they pretty?" Canada had asked, staring down into the water at the minnows swimming close to the shore.

The only reply England could think of stayed in his head. It was a reply to himself, after all. For the first thing that he had thought of after Canada had asked him the question was `what is he talking about?' His reply to that thought wasn't a very good reply either.

`What a strange thing to ask.' He had thought. `He is such a strange child.' It hadn't been much of a reply to himself either, it had been more of a statement than anything else really, and it really hadn't answered any question that had been asked.

Pigment

England knew that Mathew had a fear of looking into a mirror, but he could never quite figure out why. The day that he had forced Mathew to look into one, he figured it out. His First Nation side was showing through then. Mathew hadn't wanted to look into the mirror because his skin tone bothered him. It bothered him enough that his still dominant population at the time was able to influence his thoughts even more than usual.

Mathew had a meltdown in front of the mirror that day. He went stark raving mad, screaming at England, and himself, that he was a ghost, and not human with his skin looking like that.

Then, England had a small bit of hope light up inside himself when Canada had seemed like he had calmed down; but, he hadn't.

England had shown a rare sign of affection, and had wrapped his arms around Canada, whispering to him as he did so, "buck up, lad."

When Canada had started muttering, England had moved back to hold him at arms length. It was then that he had realized that Canada hadn't heard what he'd said. That was when he'd realized that Canada was off in his own little world.

"It's wrong." He heard Canada mutter. "So so wrong. It's not the right colour."

He had started to scratch himself while still staring at his reflection in the mirror, entranced by the sight of it. Dragging his nails into his arms he had started to shriek when England tried to restrain him by grabbing his arms. In that moment, England's only thought had been to stop Canada from hurting himself.

When that didn't work, England had screamed back at Canada.

"Mathew! you're hurting yourself!" He'd said as close to Canada as he could get with the boy trying to shake him off.

The light had returned to Mathew's eyes, replacing the vacant stare off into nowhere that he'd had before. He had looked up at England in confusion. Then he had looked down at his own arms in horror.

England had let go of Canada and had quickly thrown a blanket over the mirror. That blanket wasn't removed until England had a human come in to move it away a week later.

Babysitting

It took just a day longer than he had been told England would be gone for Canada to realise that England had forgotten about him...again. What was surprising was that this time, England had forgotten about Australia too. It had almost made him laugh when he'd figured out that the "day" he'd be babysitting Australia for would instead be a week. It was a sad kind of laughter though, because the reason he was laughing was because he'd thought, 'I guess my forgetableness is catching, must have been when I sneezed around Australia.'

Riot

It was during Mathew's rebellious stage when he had ran out of the house, and straight into a mob of people fighting in the streets. No matter what he had tried to do, he couldn't break free of the throng of people around him. He had quickly regretted the surge of anger that had made him run out of the house in the first place, all he'd wanted then, after a few moments of useless struggling against the crowd, was England's forgiveness.

Then he'd been shoved to the ground under somebody else's body weight. His protests at this had stopped as soon as he'd seen that the person who had knocked him down was England, and he'd stopped talking entirely when he saw the large rock a few feet away from him. In that moment, he knew that the rock had been thrown at him, and that England had saved him from a painful reincarnation by pushing him out of the way.

He made sure to be the "perfect child" for many weeks after that. There was no more rebelling coming from him, England figured that out in those weeks after the incident when Mathew was all smiles and "yes, sirs", and Canada had known that in those few moments after he'd been pushed out of the way of the rock and had realised what had happened.

Eastward

"Sir, I believe we should do this route instead." Canada said as he pointed with his finger a path across the map spread out on the table in front of England and him.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because it will be easier for the men to walk side by side through the brush, instead of them all walking around willy-nilly across the hillside trying to find somewhere to go."

England had smiled up at him at his remark, and that next week saw them standing side by side. England leading the way slightly across the land, and Canada standing by the side.

That next week also saw the start of Canada being included in England's war planning sessions; because, as England had said, "You can think for yourself now. You don't need an adult telling you what to do all the time, and I'd like to hear the thoughts that you can come up with on your own."