The Stars are Eternal

Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Thanks for taking the time to look at my story. It means a lot to me. Anyway, this is going to be a hopefully very long project. When I first started looking at Hetalia fanfiction, I was sure that everyone and their mother had written a Revolutionary War fanfic, but to my surprise, I didn't find very many. So, here's my own rendition. I tried to make it deep without sounding super pretentious, but we'll see how it goes. I've rambled on enough, so please rate and review, and enjoy!

Oh! Almost forgot! I really had fun doing research for this story, and wanted to show off my knowledge, so I've included some historical notes for things that I mention in passing. Feel free to read them if you want!

"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend..."

― Neil Gaiman,

Chapter One

The Journey

April 11th, 1683

The waves on the never-ending ocean crashed against the hull of the sturdy galleon, which swayed in the wake of the flowing water. Arthur hung from the ratline, the braided knot of rope that ran from the deck of the ship to the crows nest above, hanging by his feet, held securely in place by the rope which he'd tangled around them. He breathed in the warm afternoon air, salty on his tongue. Yes, the "Pirate's life for him" was certainly the proper phrase to describe the pure bliss that he was feeling right now. Technically, he was a Privateer. He flew the King's flag, and plundered in his name. But that was fine, because he still got basic free reign of the boundless sea, and got to raid that bastard France's ship at his leisure.

For the first time in many years, there was relative peace in his empire. Everything, he'd thought, had been going pretty smoothly in "Merry-Old-England", until there was that nasty business with Oliver Cromwell and the "Commonwealth of England" (1). It had sprung up out of practically nowhere and plunged Britain into a ten-year-long stint as a Republic. This had, of course, not ended well, and eventually Charles II was declared King of England, Scotland, and Ireland on top of that, and everyone, most of all Arthur, tried to forget that the last ten years had ever happened.

Arthur had been a bit agitated after that, he supposed. Part of it must have been the obvious shock associated with suddenly going from a Monarchy to a Republic, and then back to a Monarchy just as quickly, but part of it had also been the (What was it now, five?) groups of Christian denominations that had been making a big stink about just who was the holiest lately. The Irish were Catholic, the Scottish Presbyterian, and then there were these radical new groups, the Puritans and the Quakers, to shake things up, while all the while the Protestant Church of England tried it darndest to keep its ever-weakening grip on the populous. All of this together had caused Arthur to go through a bit of an identity crisis, he supposed, and so good old Charlie had suggested that Arthur take a short break from being the Anthropomorphic Personification of a whole bloody country and just try to be Arthur Kirkland for a while.

At first, he'd been a little confused by the question. He already was Arthur Kirkland; it was impossible to be anyone one else. The King explained what he meant: "You need to take a holiday, Arthur. Your mood has been making it difficult for me to run your country"

"I am not being difficult!" Arthur interjected, mouth agape, but then promptly shut in when he realized just how ironic that statement combined with his usual testy tone of voice was.

Charles had laughed, then. Strained, tired as it was, it conveighed just how difficult it must have been to rule the empire in its present state. Arthur probably wasn't helping much with his whining and constant diatribes about his bloody empire should, could, and would be run. Maybe the King was right, he should take a holiday.

"Why don't you go sailing?" The King suggested, and continued on when Arthur visibly perked up. He'd always loved sailing, from the first day he'd set foot on a fishing boat as a little lad. Such a long time ago, that was. "I could set you up with a ship and crew, and you could go privateering for a while. Destroy some French ships", he added hopefully, knowing very well that Arthur detested his perverted cousin. "Blow off some steam?"

"By jove, I think you might be onto something". Arthur had practically beamed at the thought of being on the open sea again, much to the King's maybe too obvious relief. But Arthur let it slide. He had been a bit of an uptight wanker recently. And maybe it would be nice to take a break for a few months.

Which had, by one way or another, led him to where he was now: dangling by his feet on the ratline, breathing in the ocean air and rocking in the waves. He wondered, briefly, what would happened if he simply never went back to Britain at all; if he simply wandered the sea forever. But he pushed that thought from his mind. He'd have to go back eventually, the empire would fall to bloody ruins without him there to keep it all in order.

"Captain!" One of the Swabbies down on the deck called up to him. He was young, maybe only six- or seventeen, with dark, freckled skin from working in the sun all day. Arthur opened his eyes and, still upside down, turned towards him. "There's a ship approaching starboard", he pointed off to the right side of the ship.

"Really?" Arthur asked. He grabbed the ropes and, with a little effort, managed to untangle his feet from the rigging. He flipped right side up and jumped the few feet down to the deck, his bare feet making a hollow thump on the rough wood. They hadn't seen another ship for weeks. The ocean was vast, bigger than one might think, and Arthur had been getting antsy. What would it be this time? Portuguese? Spanish? He hadn't tangled with Antonio in a while, might be fun to mess with the tomato-loving bugger.

He glanced over the starboard side of his galleon, and sure enough, a small schooner was bouncing over the small waves towards them. Arthur deflated. That one simply wouldn't be worth his time, his trained plunderer's eye could tell that right away. It would be low on defenses, hard to fit a big cannon on a small ship, and easy to take with the larger ship, but because of it's minuscule girth, there was almost no chance of valuable cargo.

Arthur waved it off. "It's too small. No point", he told the Swabbie, and was about to climb the ratline once again for a few more hours of totally meaningful contemplation when the Swabbie tapped him on the shoulder.

"But Captain, it's coming right towards us."

Taking a second glance, Arthur realized quickly that the Swabbie was indeed correct. The schooner was closer now, and what was that? One of the small figures was pulling the rigging, and the British flag came into view above the ship. "Oh", Arthur said, "We'll wait for them, then".

By then, most of the crew had heard the commotion and had begun to gather on the deck. Word travelled fast on a ship. They were a rag-tag crew, mostly ex-navy men and boys too young to yet join the said establishment. They had always thought that there was something strange about their Captain; he was a little too young to be such an expert of the sea, and his wounds healed a little too quickly. But that was really all part of being a Nation. Arthur had looked twenty-five for the last two hundred years, and he couldn't really be killed by the normal means in which a man met his end. The crew knew none of this, of course; it was the world's best kept secret. But sailors were birds of a feather...err, well maybe fish of a scale was a more apt expression, but either way, sailors stuck together. They were able to overlook their Captain's oddities due to the fact that he simply a damned good Captain.

"Be so good to reef the sails, aye lads?" He commanded the crew, who obeyed without question, setting off a few, "Aye Cap'n!"s as they did so. This was exactly why Arthur preferred piracy over the navy. In the navy, it was all formal and stuffy. You obeyed your superior because, well, he was your superior. But on a Pirate's crew, you did what your Captain told you because there was a bond of mutual respect between Captain and crew. Because if your Captain was a wanker, you could always just kill him and elect a new one. Luckily for Arthur, there were no signs of mutiny on his boat. It was a sense of pride for him that someone trusted him not because of who he was, but because of what he could do.

The crew got to work right away, yanking ropes and chains this way and that, and soon the sails collapsed against the mast. The schooner was approaching quickly now, it's small size enabling the wind to blow it over the water much faster than the galleon (which Arthur had named Old Bess) could ever have moved. Arthur ran across the deck and retrieved his black, leather boots from where they'd been lying on some ropes, and stuck them on haphazardly. He wanted to be prepared in case this encounter went sideways.

Gliding silently through the water, the schooner pulled up alongside Old Bess. The crew all stood on the starboard side looking down on the boat, an intimidating force to behold. Arthur himself stood at the front of the crowd, one hand on the thin blade tied to his waist. "Who goes there?" He asked the figures on the smaller vessel.

"Captain Arthur Kirkland?" One of them asked, shielding his eyes against the sun which rested behind the galleon.

"That would be me", Arthur smirked.

"The King requests an audience", the man on the boat said. Arthur heard the crew behind him break into whispers. The King wants to meet with our Captain? Kirkland must be a pretty important guy to talk to the King of bloody England.

"Alright", Arthur nodded, trying to act non-chalantly, but secretly beaming with pride because his crew thought he was important. Which he was, it was true. But most of the time, he didn't really care what the common herd thought of him. His crew though, they were the ones he really wanted to impress. "We'll just head back to Merry Old England then", he continued, about to turn back to the crowd to give the order.

The man on the boat interrupted. "The King thinks that it will be faster if you come with us". He sounded grim. Because by faster, he really meant safer. The empire had made a lot of enemies in its day, many of whom would like to see Arthur out of the picture entirely.

"Sounds fine", Arthur shrugged. And with that, he patted the side of his ship ("Goodbye old girl") and was about to jump onto the schooner, when the Swabbie interrupted "But what about us? What will we do now?"

"You elect a new Captain and keeps going, mates. You're a fine crew. You don't need me. It's simple", he grabbed his tri-corner hat, the ostentatious one with the huge white feather in it that he'd earlier discarded on the top of a barrel. "Here, you be Captain", he said, placing the hat firmly on the Swabbie's head. The replacement wouldn't last, he knew that. A Swabbie of all people wouldn't make a good Captain, but he wanted to make an unforgettable exit. How else would they remember him?

"Cheerio, chaps", Arthur used the stunned silence of the crew to jump onto the schooner without any hindrances. He waved as the schooner pulled away and began to move back towards land.

Arthur smiled. It had been a good holiday, what with the sword fights and swinging from ropes across the deadly sea towards a foreign vessel, but now it was time for him to get back to work.

"How long have I been gone?" He asked the man at the helm, who seemed to be in charge of the whole operation.

"About two years".

Two years? Arthur could have sworn that it had only been a month or two, tops. Time certainly did fly when you weren't thinking about it.

"Where are we headed?" Arthur asked.

"To London, Mr. Britain", the man replied. "You do have an audience with the King, after all".

Slowly, taking their time as rich people often did, the most influential lords and ladies of British society left the throne room. Their voices echoed off of the walls of the hollow space, which were covered in tapestries and murals done by some of the finest artists in the empire. Most depicted great battles and victories from the past, most of which Arthur was present for, or remembered hearing about at the very least.

A few of the distinguished guests nodded at Arthur, or conversed briefly with him before taking their leave, but overall, he didn't attract much attention. And that was the way he liked it. The less people noticed him, the less likely they were to wonder about his incredible longevity.

"You know, you look just like your grandfather", one of the older lords of some place or another commented as he past Arthur. Luckily, he was completely senile, at least he gave that impression when he was talking to birds or insisted in the middle of dead winter that he wanted to go out on a stroll, but in this case he was right. Arthur did look like his Grandfather because technically, he was his own grandpa. He had been posing in the British court scene as a member of the Kirkland family for centuries.

"Spitting image, really", the old man muttered as a younger relative guided him away with an apologetic look on her youthful face. Arthur waved her off. She looked relieved, and ambled over to the great double doors leading out of the throne room with the old man in tow.

It was too bad, really, that the old man had gotten to be that way. Arthur remembered when he was younger, a jovial man, and a wonderful person to nip down to the pub with for a few drinks when the weather was especially bitter. That was one of the drawbacks of being a nation, Arthur supposed. As long as his country thrived, Arthur would never grow old, or die, like all of his friends and really, everyone around him, leaving him powerless to attempt to join them. That very reason was the cause of why Arthur tried not to get close to anyone, because they just had to go and die on you anyway. So what was the point?

Arthur had arrived a little early, though court had officially ended at half past two. It was now three o'clock, and the room probably wouldn't be completely empty until quarter to four. But while he didn't get attached, Arthur still loved to observe. These were the finest people of his country after all. He wouldn't be very much of a personification if he didn't take an interest now, would he?

Of course, he did have actual business to attend to. His audience with Charlie was scheduled right after court, but they couldn't very well discuss top secret affairs with a horde of loose-lipped nobles around, waiting for the juiciest piece of gossip to fall into their laps. So Arthur contented himself with observing the crowd. It was so hilarious to him how all of these people were so far into their own little worlds that they worried about things like which dress or tie would go best with this hat when their were bigger problems like colonists over in the New World getting slaughtered by savages and starving to death. It amused him more than anything. Maybe, in his old age, he was becoming curmudgeonly. He didn't really know.

Gradually, the chatter and noise died down as the mass of people with nothing better to do left the throne room. Arthur didn't hold it against them, never could. They didn't know that a top secret meeting would commence just as soon as they decided that it might be time to leave, so felt no need to hurry.

Charles II (2), King of not just one or two, but three countries, sat utop his ornate, bejeweled throne. Arthur thought privately that it looked really uncomfortable. He looked tired, even more so than when Arthur had left, with great bags under his eyes highlighted by the many creases and folds that lined his aging face. Arthur had seen this happen to many a monarch; his, France's, everyone's really. Eventually, the toil and labor of running a country caught up with a monarch, who then grew old and died. Just like everyone else. They were only mortal after all; Sometimes Arthur forgot that. This one still made him sad, though. Charlie had been a good King as far as King's go. He was certainly no Queen Elizabeth, but then again, Arthur was sure that never in a million years would anyone be able to top Old Bess in Queenliness.

"Hello, Arthur", the King said to the empty room, and Arthur emerged from behind a marble pillar where he'd been semi-hiding/skulking. "It's been a while, my old friend. Did you have a nice holiday?"

Arthur nodded. "Most certainly. I find that a little sea air will do anyone good". He approached the throne, and bowed deeply before the King.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Kirkland! You of all people need not bow to me. Frankly, I'm sick of all the bowing and scraping before my excellence all of the damn bloody time". The King rolled his eyes.

Arthur smiled and stood, one man alone in front of the great throne, the symbol of British superiority. "Yes, my liege", he smirked, for sure that he was getting under the King's skin.

The King graciously ignored the jibe. "Now as much as I've missed your antics, it's time to get down to business. I called you back for a reason, Arthur".

"I figured as much. Having fun without me, eh?"

"Actually, it was quite peaceful not having someone hanging over your shoulder all day", the King confessed, shrugging. "But anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the colonies lately. Have you ever been to the colonies, Arthur?"

"Briefly", said Arthur, "Maybe ... sixty years ago?" That had not, Arthur would freely admit, been very fun. He hadn't gone for England, or the empire. Plymouth had only loosely been a British colony at that point, and the Nations had all been very interested on if the venture had succeeded. So Arthur had hired a ship and traveled with Spain, the Netherlands, and, he thought with a shudder, the Toad (France). They had started in the early spring, and reached Plymouth in May.

It hadn't been pleasant. The colonists had frankly been idiots. They hadn't brought enough food to last the winter, and more than half of them had died from either starvation or cold. The whole settlement smelled of death, and many of the corpses hadn't even been buried. Needless to say, Arthur hadn't gone back to America since then.

"Now, I don't know much about your kind. You Nations", the King continued. "But I'm wondering something". He paused then, as if pondering how to continue. "How is it that you are ... born?"

Arthur stopped mid breath. He didn't know much about that either, if he was honest, but he tried to be helpful. "We aren't really ... born per say. We just kind of appear? Sorry", he added, "But I'm just about as clueless as you are".

"Maybe you can't really help me, then", the King said, trying to hide his disappointment. But then he became thoughtful, and seemed to decide something. He continued. "But just hypothetically, what do you think of the odds that a Nation might 'appear' in one of the Colonies?"

Now it was Arthur's turn to pause. The thought had never even crossed his mind. It didn't really seem possible. The Colonies were an extension of Great Britain, an extension of himself. A Nation could never actually appear there, could it? He almost replied with a resounding no, when a thought occurred to him: Why not? If countries could have personifications, why not colonies? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.

Why not?

"I don't know", Arthur replied truthfully, "But I certainly don't think that it's impossible".

"Really?" Asked the King, clearly intrigued. "But if that's true, isn't that Colony more likely to rebel against us, to want to become an actual Nation?"

"... Possibly", said Arthur, trying to sound knowledgeable, although he himself was beginning to get completely lost. A Colony had never gotten a personification in the past, at least to Arthur's knowledge, but it wasn't like these things had rules. They just kind of happened. Although, if they did have rules, they were incredibly complicated and esoteric to anyone not in the know. Arthur was not in the know.

But it did make sense. If in fact a Colony could have a personification, then by extension that meant that that person would probably try to become a Nation. It's what Arthur would have done. And having a revolution in the Colonies was the last thing that the empire needed right now.

"And if this was possible, one would think that we would want to get this nation on our side. Make him proud to be part of the empire, wouldn't we?" The King asked.

What was he getting at? There must have been a point, or he wouldn't have been talking about it in the first place. Charlie was a very professional man, he didn't bring up philosophy for philosophy's sake; there must have been a reason. "Yes", Arthur replied cautiously.

"I'm glad you agree" The King smiled. "Because you're going to the Colonies to find out".

And there it was. The punch to the gut, the whole point of this conversation was brutally driven into Arthur's skull. He wanted to get rid of him again. "What?" He sputtered. It wasn't simply that easy to find a Nation, the King must have known that. Arthur didn't know the first thing about finding a Nation, let alone persuade it into being complacent in its role as a Colony. The last time he'd checked, Arthur was not the most persuasive person he knew.

"Yes. And I know the perfect place to start", said the King with complete confidence. "A colony was founded in America just two short years ago, right after you left actually, by a man named William Penn. It's called Pennsylvania (3)".

"Penn's woods (4)?" Arthur asked, using his extremely limited knowledge of Latin.

"Exactly", the King nodded. "A city's going up there now. Philadelphia. It seems like the perfect place for a Nation to appear, wouldn't you agree?"

No was what he wanted to say. Finding a Nation simply wasn't that easy. One would think that a new Nation would be drawn to his or her people, but usually they were actually quite shy. But again, Arthur really didn't know. Every case he'd ever witnessed, which was not many, was completely different. But he knew that once Charlie had made up his mind, there was no changing it. And he could do whatever he wanted. He was the King of bloody England, after all.

So Arthur simply shrugged and said "Sounds like a fine plan. When do I leave?"

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean would take a little more than two months, and had left barely a day after Arthur got back to London. It certainly didn't leave much time for Arthur to rest, and Arthur wondered if the King would have gotten him on the ship regardless to if he'd actually agreed to the plan or not. But time was most certainly of the essence. Charlie wasn't young anymore. He didn't have much time left.

So, after saying a very brief hello and goodbye to his capital city, Arthur found himself on a huge merchant ship, packed in with as many colonists heading to the New World as it could possibly fit. The King had insisted that Arthur go under the guise of a merchant, so that the people on the boat wouldn't think too hard about the amount of money a simple colonist could possess, but also so that he wouldn't be so important as to attract too much attention to himself.

This was all fine and well, he supposed. He got his own cabin on the ship, which was more than most colonists could say. They were packed as tightly as sardines in the hold below deck. Arthur tried to avoid going down there. It was hot and crowded, and the smell of too many bodies packed into too small a space hung in the blistering air. Most people ate in the dark so they couldn't see what was crawling on their plates (5).

There wasn't much to do on the ship. Arthur helped the sailors when he could, but they mostly insisted that he was a gentleman, and shouldn't be brought so low as to have to do the manual labor that the sailors had been hired to do. He'd tell them that it was really no trouble, but they laughed him off, or would tell him to go back to his cabin and "count his money". One would think that something close to a thousand years worth of life would imbue one with incredible patience, but even Arthur was chafing from the inevitable boredom that set in.

It did leave him with a lot of time to think though. And his mind kept drifting to just what he was going to do when he got to America and actually began his mission proper. The plan, in theory, was simple: Once he got to Boston Harbor, he'd have a short time to acquire a horse and ride to Philadelphia. He would then take up residence in an empty house there (Ordered by the King himself to be built) and search for the Nation, if it even existed.

This was where it got complicated. Charlie was, unfortunately naïve in the ways of the New World, never actually having been there. He simply had no concept of just how big it really was, and how many people were there. And the Nation could be absolutely anywhere. The mission was, in reality, hopeless, but he hadn't told Charlie that. Truth be told, he simply didn't want to let the old man down. Still, he had no idea how to even begin looking for a Nation. In his opinion, if it didn't want to be found, it never would. It would know the territory like the back of it's hand, which left Arthur at a significant disadvantage. The thought that this Nation might want to be found never even crossed his mind.

"What are you doing?" Asked a high-pitched voice, and Arthur realized that he'd been muttering "Bloody impossible" over and over to himself for the last five minutes. He looked up from the wood knot on the deck that he'd been having a staring contest with and saw a young girl, with big green eyes staring at him from behind a crate.

"Oh, hello", Arthur said, smiling at her. He had always had a soft spot for children. They were simply too young and innocent to bugger things up as their adult counterparts often did. They were also, he had discovered, far more perceptive, and could often tell that there was something different about him. "I was just thinking".

"You must do an awful lot of it then", she said, stepping around the crate and padding closer to him with shoe less feet. His face softened from it's previous scowl, and she smiled back at him. The wind blew her strawberry blonde hair into her face, and she pulled it away, revealing a slightly dirt-smudged cheek. Just where the dirt had actually come from on a ship made of wood Arthur could only guess. "You've been sitting there for a long time".

"He chuckled. "An astute observation", he said. "What are you doing so far from the other children?" He asked.

She rolled her eyes. "All they want to do is play jacks. I'm bored of jacks. And Mummy told me to leave her alone, 'cause she has a headache".

"I think anyone would get a headache being stuck in the hold for this long". He patted her on the head. "Hey", he began, "What's your name?"

"Karen Carter".

"Alright then, Karen Carter. Why don't you tell me why you're going such a long way on this ship?"

"Because Mummy said we can have a new life there. She says we'll make lots of money and have a big house and everything. We had to move after Daddy left". Karen frowned, clearly a touchy subject.

"You know", said Arthur, "I think she's right. It sure sounds like anything can happen in America".

"That's what she said". Karen beamed, happier now.

"Now why don't you go to the other children, and show them just who the master of jacks is?"

"Alright". She began to run to the other end of the deck, where a group of children were huddled in a clump around some bits of metal. Then she turned back to Arthur and waved. "Bye!"

He waved back, smiled. He felt better now, too, like maybe this mission wasn't as hopeless as he'd thought. Because anything could happen in America...

Hope you all liked it. Hopefully I'll get the next chapter up in a week, but they're really long, so we'll see...

Historical Notes:

(1) Oliver Cromwell was a military commander/extreme Puritan who was kind of a crazy zealot in the fact that he believed "God guided his victories". He was one of the major players in the Commonwealth of England, which was a brief period in history in which England was a Republic. After his death in 1658, the Republic kind of collapsed, and Charles II was crowned the King of England.

(2) Charles II was a young man when crowned the King of England, but very quickly lost his crown to Cromwell as the revolution commenced. He lived in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Netherlands for ten years until the Commonwealth of England collapsed and he was invited back as rightful King of England.

(3) Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by William Penn, a Quaker. They were a Christian denomination which believed in a more direct relationship with the powers that be than other groups. Pennsylvania had one of the best relationships with the neighboring Native Americans, thanks much in part to Penn's peaceful ways.

(4) Fun Fact: Sylvania is "forest" or "woods" in Latin, so Pennsylvania actually means Penn's woods.

(5) This is actually true. Because ships were often at sea for months at a time, the food they had brought with them would rot and maggots and other delectable bugs would make homes in it. This was one of the reasons that people were so crazy about getting their hands on spices at the time, which helped to preserve food.