Who Are You?, a hetalia - axis powers fanfic

Who Are You?

By Laura Schiller

Based on Hetalia: Axis Powers

1534 – French settlers establish a colony along the Saint Lawrence.

"Who are you?" was the first thing the creature said.

Mathieu Guillaume slipped on a patch of ice, fell on his backside, and stared up in shock. An enormous white bear was looming over him. A talking bear. He wanted to run, grab his crossbow, anything, but he couldn't move.

"Who are you?" the bear repeated.

Only then did Mathieu register that the animal didn't sound threatening at all. Its deep voice was merely politely curious, as if meeting a stranger at a dinner party. It spoke a foreign language, throaty and complex; if Mathieu had been human, he wouldn't have understood a word.

"I'm New France," he said, picking himself up and bowing. "Pleased to meet you. What – who are you, if I may ask?"

"I am what you are." The bear came a few steps closer, sniffed him, and made a low rumbling sound of recognition. "This land has many names. Mine is only one of them."

"You mean you're - a nation?" If Mathieu had been shocked before, now he was simply startled. "Then how can you be an animal?"

The bear's laugh was so deep, he felt it through the soles of his boots. "And why should I not be, little one? Do you think you two-leggers are the only ones with power? I thrive in weather that would kill the likes of you. I am what my people aspire to be."

The animal threw back its head, exposing its long fangs. Its white fur gleamed in the dazzling winter sunlight. Mathieu thought he had never seen anything so beautiful.

Then a bullet came flying over his head and hit the bear squarely in the throat.

It moaned and collapsed, spraying snow everywhere, so that the boy had to scramble back. Blood flowed from its neck, the red impossibly bright against the white. Mathieu screamed.

"Don't move!" Francis Bonnefoy came running across the ice, shouldering his gun, his fur coat streaming behind him. "It's all right, you're safe now!"

As soon as he reached Mathieu, the older man picked the little boy up and gathered him into a hug. "Thank God," he gasped, rubbing the child's back. "I thought I'd lost you. Never, ever wander off like that again, do you hear me?"

"You killed it." Mathieu was too numb for tears. "Why did you kill it?"

Francis' blue eyes widened with hurt at the accusation. "That was a wild animal. It could have eaten you!"

"No, it wouldn't. It was one of us. We were talking."

"Really? How odd." France poked the motionless bear with the toe of his boot. "I knew the natives of this land were savages, but I had no idea. Ah, well … in that case, you shouldn't worry, hein? If it's anything like us, it will survive. And if it tries anything funny, my soldiers and I will be right there."

Mathieu stole a glance at the massive mound of fur lying on the ground. He remembered those fangs. Would the bear have hurt him? France was so much older, he knew so much more than his little colony. Mathieu would be helpless without him in this vast, cold place. He shivered.

"Oh, you poor dear. You'll catch a cold." Francis kissed him on the forehead. "Come on. Let's get you someplace warm."

Mathieu stared at the bear over his guardian's shoulder for a long time.

1763 – France gives up Canada to England after losing the Seven Years' War.

"Who are you?" The bear asked, in a flat, accusing tone that made Matthew Williams back away.

"I'm Canada." He meant to say it proudly, but it came out almost apologetic. "That's what Mr. England – my new guardian – calls me. I guess you don't recognize me … I've grown taller since we met."

He had, in fact, expanded his territory, but that didn't make much difference to his personal size. He barely came up to England's shoulder. The bear, who had been so huge, shouldn't have suddenly looked like a plush toy in contrast.

But it did. Worse yet, it was thin, and its fur was filthy and matted. Flies buzzed around its head. It curled up sullenly on a pile of straw, not even deigning to carry on the conversation.

Matthew hurried out of the Aboriginal Zoo as quickly as was compatible with the dignity England was teaching him. On the way, he passed other animal spirits, all caged, all unhappy: a caribou in a stall too narrow to turn around in, a wolf that snapped through the bars as if thirsty for Matthew's blood, a beaver gnawing obsessively on a stick that never seemed to break, and many more.

He stared straight ahead, refusing to look.

He flung the doors open, burst out into the open air, and almost bumped into Arthur. The taller man caught him by the shoulder to slow him down, peering at him with concern from under his bushy eyebrows.

"What's wrong, lad?"

"Why do they keep getting smaller?" Matthew burst out. "The animals. They look terrible. Some of them even disappeared."

"Disease, mostly, I suppose." Arthur looked stiff and uncomfortable. "How were we to know that their people don't have the same immunities as ours?"

The word "mostly" didn't escape Matthew. The other cause of death, he knew, was violence – on both sides, but when the one side had heavy artillery and the other arrows … "Why can't we just let them go?"

Arthur sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, as he did all too often.

"You're so young," he said. "You have no idea how this works. But let me tell you, when more than one nation tries to share territory, it neverends well. I learned that to my cost with Scotland and Wales. If there is ever to be peace, or progress, one of you must be the master."

It was Matthew's turn to sigh. He didn't feel like anybody's master.

"Do you want those animals to run rampant over your land and wage war on your people?"

"Of course not."

"Then I'm afraid this is the only way."

Arthur was not openly affectionate the way Francis had been, but the way he patted Matthew on the shoulder spoke volumes about his good intentions.

A wolf howled dismally from inside the Zoo. Matthew winced.

1867 – Confederation: Canada forms its own government. The Indian Act is passed in an attempt to integrate aboriginal people into Canadian culture by sending their children to residential schools. Many of these children were abused by their teachers, and the repercussions continue to this day.

"That's disgusting," said Matthew. "Why can't you eat like a civilized person?"

The bear, who was tearing into a pile of raw seal meat, snarled. "I could ask you the same thing. Your food makes me sick."

"And why can't you speak French or English? Your human keepers don't understand a word you're saying."

"Why should they?"

Matthew clenched his hands into fists to stop them shaking. It wasn't like him to lose his temper, but the creatures in the Zoo infuriated him like nothing else. If he were older, he would understand that his rage was misdirected guilt; but he was a new nation, self-governing for less than a year. His independence, though it was not quite complete, still terrified him. How could he be a nation if he couldn't control his own territories?

What he did next, he was going to regret for centuries. But he didn't stop to think of that.

He pulled a whip down from the wall and cracked it.

"You will obey me," he said, in a snarl as savage as the bear's. "One way or another."

"Your old masters taught you well," was the last thing the animal spirit said before it was in too much pain to speak.

1995 – Canada's government produces the Aboriginal Right to Self-Government Policy.

1996 – The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples comes out, a report that calls for changes in policy. The last residential school closes.

"I'm hungry,"said the bear, in English, standing over the bones of a seal carcass.

"But that's all the food I have for you today!" Matthew threw up his hands in irritation. "How can you eat so much and stay so skinny? Where does it all go?"

"You always have plenty for the South."

"Yes, well, the southern provinces actually work for me. All you ever do is drain my resources." Matthew raked his hands through his sandy hair. "I send you millions of dollars in subsidies every year. The least you could do is show a little gratitude."

"Gratitude?" said the bear, falling back into guttural Inuktitut as the only language expressive of its rage. "Tell me what, exactly, I should be grateful for! Losing my land, being locked up, beaten and starved? Seeing my children taken away from their families and forced to forget their own language? Who are you to speak to me of gratitude? No, really – who do you think you are?"

"Then why don't you just go?" Matthew flung the cage door wide open. "Go and chase penguins on an ice floe for all I care!"

"I can't!" There was an alarming hint of a sob behind the bear's roar. "I can't, damn you. You made me forget how to hunt."

As it spoke, its fur bristled to twice its usual size. For a moment, it seemed to swell, until Matthew could see the shadow of its magnificent former self behind it. Matthew remembered setting eyes on this creature for the first time, out on the tundra, and how his breath had caught in terror and admiration. Now that same creature was reduced to a small, sulky pet. And it was all Matthew's fault.

Who, indeed, did he think he was?

What had he done?

He turned away, half-blinded by the tears fogging up his glasses, to stagger out the door. The bear's bitter laughter echoed behind him.

As soon as he got back to Ottawa, he marched into the Prime Minister's office and slammed both hands onto the desk, sending papers flying.

"You need to do something about that Zoo," Matthew ordered. "It's a disgrace. I can't stand it any longer."

Chretien, who had never seen his nation like this before, nodded with uncharacteristic humility. "I'll see what I can do."

2008 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper issues a formal apology to the First Nations.

"Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm and has no place in our country."

Matthew blended quietly into the wood-paneled Parliament Hall as he listened to his leader speak. Tall, silver-haired, dressed in a precisely ironed navy-blue suit, formal in his speech, uncomfortable in front of so many cameras, Harper reminded him of his old friends England and Prussia. Maybe that was why Matthew respected the man, even if he did favour Alberta and was something of a miser.

If a stiff-necked Conservative like this one could bring himself to apologize, perhaps there was hope for Canada yet.

Matthew could see the Aboriginal representatives, some in ceremonial headdresses. Even some of their spirit guides had shown up, wearing human shapes so as not to alarm their white neighbours.

"He doesn't sound sorry," came a cutting little voice from behind him.

Nanuq, the bear, had transformed himself for the occasion into a black-haired, round-faced little boy dressed in white leather. He listened to the speech with folded arms.

"That's just his way." Matthew shrugged. "He's not much for showing his feelings."

"Saying sorry is all very well, but I prefer actions to words. You can tell that man I want a functioning economy, and I want it soon."

Matthew, who was about to list all the logical reasons why that was impracticable right now, caught the glint in Nanuq's slanted black eyes and shut up.

"It's the least I can do," he said instead. "You are my conscience, after all. Whenever I forget who I am, I'll look to you to remind me."

"Oh, believe me." For the first time in three centuries, Nanuq's young/old face wore a trace of kindness. "I will."