Elizabeth Kirkland- England

Marcelo Estavao Fernandes Cordeiro-Portugal

Francis Bonnefoy- France

"word"- speaking— 'word'- thought— "word" –translations—any other italics is for emphasis or sarcasm.

Chapter One: Of Frogs, Portuguese Knights in Shining Armour, and Very Annoyed Brits

Elizabeth Kirkland knelt in the back garden of her small cottage, surrounded by rose bushes and lavender plants. The air was filled with the sound of bees buzzing through the air, the quiet chirping of birds in the woods behind the back fence, the scratching of chalk and… language that would make a sailor blush. Elizabeth's long dark blonde hair was pulled back in a long braid, falling over her shoulder as she sketched a large circle on the ground.

She knelt in the centre, surrounded by several concentric circles, radiating out from where she sat, writing quickly in Celtic runes around the innermost circle. Sitting back, she observed her work with a small smile and a nod of approval.

Elizabeth was proud of her magic. She was good at it, so long as no imbeciles interrupted her, but that was true for everyone. Her own mentor, a powerful, very skilled warlock called Garrick, had made a very severe mistake once when page had interrupted him, Garrick had summoned a swarm of rather annoyed wasps instead of a flock of birds. Garrick was not amused.

She stood up, brushing the dirt off her knees, when she heard a call from the front of the house.

"Oi! Artur! Você está aí? Oi, Arthur! You here?" She tensed up, before recognising it as her Portuguese friend, Marcelo Estavao Fernandes Cordeiro, known otherwise as Marco.

Clearing her throat, she called back "Eu estou no jardim! I'm in the garden!" Her voice was deeper and sounded like a young man's. Marco opened the tall gate and ducked under the arbour until he was level with her.

"Hey, Liza," he smiled giving her a hug. She smiled. She always felt comfortable around him. And he was one of the few people who actually knew her as Elizabeth Kirkland and not as Arthur Kirkland, the twenty-year-old wizard with a fiery temper and… well, rather large eyebrows. (Not her fault! For some reason, she always had those monstrosities on her face as Arthur!) Marco knew her before she discovered her talent with magic and helped her every step of the way to become the first ever, fully qualified female wizard. Yes, she had to cross-dress, perform a spell to change her appearance every morning she went to the Academy, but it was worth it.

Marco grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards the house. "Might I inquire as to where the hell are we going?" She snapped, trying to pull her arm back, to no avail.

"We are going to get you out of the house, that's where we're going." Marco beamed at her over his shoulder. "But, before that, we are going to get you out looking like a girl!" And, ignoring all Eliza's protests, dragged her into her house.

"I hate you, Marcelo. I really do."

"I love you too, Lizzy!"

"I've told you before, Marco, don't. Call. Me. Lizzy!"

Marco and Eliza walked down the high street, Marco holding onto Eliza's hand to prevent her from running back to her house. Eliza was pouting, using her free hand to pull down the hem of her skirt, and trying to ignore the looks guys were giving her. 'This is so humiliating! I forgot how awful these guys are to girls!' Eliza thought, edging closer to Marco when she noticed a man smirking and looking her up and down.

"Marco, can I please go home? Men are looking at me oddly," Eliza muttered. Marco looked around and, for what seemed to be the first time, noticed how people were looking at his friend. He glowered darkly, a frown quickly replacing his normally cheery smile.

Instead of answering her, he instead put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side, glaring at anyone who looked at Eliza wrong. She looked up at him, surprised by the move, but didn't attempt to remove his arm and leaned into him slightly instead.

The two walked down the high street like that for some time, before Marco suddenly pulled her into the main square, where the weekly market was. Eliza protested briefly, but gave in. 'I did plan to come here this week anyway…' she thought.

The Market was the highlight of the year, only lasting from spring to early fall, and dominated the city. The sound of musicians playing on the small stage erected next to the fountain in the centre of the square could be heard several streets away and the scent of spices, roasted nuts, fruits, and meats covered the other smells of the busy town. Eliza personally loved it, though she often had to make two trips during a single day; one as Arthur, when she bought the supplies needed for any particular spell or summoning she was working on, and one as Eliza, when she could do her shopping as a bookkeeper. It got tiring, but a girl had to answer too many question if she went to Market for magic goods. So, she just dealt with it.

Marco, despite being the older one of the two, was the one who kept running around from stall to stall, dragging Eliza along by her hand. She tried as hard as she could to act annoyed, but she really was enjoying her day out with Marco and slowly began to laugh and smile along with him. Eliza began to lead the way sometimes, pulling Marco along when something caught her eye.

Just as she finished paying for a small bag of toffees to share between the two of them, she turned and walked into the person behind her, knocking her off balance and almost to the ground. Eliza gasped, trying to put her hands out in time to break her fall, but felt an arm catch her shoulder and waist, and pulled up to her feet. She looked up to see who had stopped her fall.

Eliza felt her blood freeze and the colour rush to her cheeks. 'Of all the people in this town, it had to this git,' she thought.

Her 'saviour' was none other than the most annoying person she knew, Francis Bonnefoy. He wasn't a wizard, just a common sailor in the Naval Academy. Well, ok, so common sailor is a bit of an understatement. He was incredibly talented with swordplay, was in fact a Commander in the Royal Navy and liked to bother Arthur for… well, anything he could think of, really. Like, 'his' height, eyebrows, messy hair… Anything.

"Pardonnez-moi, mademoiselle. Are you all right?" Francis asked, concern written across his face. Eliza didn't know what to do with that unfamiliar look on his face aimed at her. Usually he looked at her like she… er, he was something to pity, rather than worry about. She nodded mutely and tried to gently pull herself out of his grip. Francis resisted slightly, but eventually let go. He leaned close to her face, closer than she felt at all comfortable with. His blue eyes looked between her own venomous green ones, almost like he was searching for something in them.

"Um… Sir?" Eliza asked and Francis seemed to jerk out of his reverie.

"You must excuse me, but you look much like someone I am quite fond of." Francis rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit embarrassed. Eliza raised one blonde eyebrow (not thick, thank you very much. Only Arthur had the thick ones… they rather helped with keeping Eliza and Arthur separate) as if to say 'Oh, yes?' Francis nodded. "Yes. A wizard-in-training. He's such a spitfire, I love it." An odd, wistful expression came over his face. "He's so much fun to tease and his reactions are hilarious, especially to jibes about his eyebrows. Ses sourcils! Ils sont énormes!- His eyebrows! They're enormous!" He chuckled to himself, smiling and not seeing the horrified expression spreading simultaneously across Eliza's. 'Good god…He's talking about me! Shite! Where's Marco!' Francis kept talking about his dear friend, Arthur, whilst Eliza tried to keep her panicking in check. 'Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm and carry on, you can survive one conversation with him can't you, Elizabeth Rose Kirkland? No, who am I kidding, I'm going to want to die when I see him at the Academy!'

Just at the moment when Francis seemed to have finally noticed that Eliza's face had gone pale and her eyes were unfocussed, a Portuguese 'knight-in-shining-armour' (or, that's what he had called himself later when the two of them were talking over what happened that day) came to save an English 'damsel-in-distress' (a term Eliza contests with every fibre of her being) from a Froggy Bastard (a term no one apart from Francis would object to using) arrived. Marco draped himself over Eliza's shoulder, interrupting Francis in mid-sentence, with a loud "Lizzy! Aí está você! There you are!"

Eliza jumped at the distraction and tried to pry Marco off, while griping "Dwi'n nid Lizzy! Sawl gwaith y mae'n rhaid i mi ddweud wrthych cyn iddo fynd trwy y benglog trwchus o chi! I'm not Lizzy! How many times do I have to tell you before it goes through that thick skull of yours!"

As neither of them spoke Welsh, Marco and Francis both just stared blankly at Eliza, before saying "Huh?" at the same time.

Eliza wanted to scream.

"Anyway, mademoiselle, it was my pleasure to make your acquaintance," Francis purred, practically, taking Eliza's hand and kissing the back of it with a wink. Marco glowered at him, but his protective nature wasn't needed as Eliza snatched her hand back, giving Francis a poisonous glare. "I hope we shall meet again, Mademoiselle Lizzy." He smiled like a fox, tipped his hat to her and ducked into the crowd before Eliza could hurl an insult at him.

She shook her head. 'Meeting again? I don't think so, frog. I doubt you will ever see Eliza again.'

Author's note:

Yes! I finally got around to writing down the first chapter of a story that's been bouncing around in my head for a while now.

If there are any mistakes (which wouldn't be a surprise) with the Portuguese or Welsh, PLEASE let me know so I can fix it. I used a decent online translator, but I wouldn't be shocked if it was wrong,

Please review and criticise! Thanks to my fantastic proofreader, TigerToa! You're awesome!

The second chapter is written, but it's in TigerToa is looking through it right now, so it should be up fairly soon.

About Marcelo- get used to him; he's probably going to show up in every chapter. I know, I know, OC's are very hard to stop from turning into Mary Sues or Gary Stues, but I shall endeavour to do so! And, as Portugal and England have historically had good relations, I imagine that the two of them get along quite well.