Hamilton Historia

Summary: This was done for the Dare's Forum for the Hamilton Class Dare! This is a pre-ToT classroom story, putting the bachelor/bachelorette characters at around 6 to 7 years old...

Warnings: None, some foreshadowing to the events of ToT or even AP but mostly creative speculation.

All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon.

~Voltaire

"Now, now, everyone! Settle down."

The hallway well-trodden to the only room labelled as "classroom" was filled with the short clump-clump of decisive footsteps. The rowdy children who stood out as the ones not seated properly at their desks scrambled like cockroaches, until there was only one.

The footsteps reached the doorway and a hand shot out, class roster clasped inside the tiny fist readily.

"All present and accounted for ."

Mister Hamilton deigned to smile, "Thank you Gill," it took every measure of willpower not to cover the boy's head with a palm and mess his well-combed tresses with tenderness, but he knew better than to provoke a scolding later. "You may be seated."

Gill did as he was told, his youthful yet morose face joining a handful of others. From his podium at the front of the room Hamilton could study the array of expressions: eager, studious, sleepy, bored, and somewhat preoccupied… Hamilton relished each one.

"You may close your books, children." He spoke cheerily, enjoying the way his voice bounced off of the four humble walls. "Today we're going on a field trip."

Some expressions changed, others voiced their excitement, and another merely yawned.

"S'cuse me, but where can we go that we haven't already been?" an intrepid blonde asked- that was Kathy, the bartender's daughter. Hamilton chuckled.

"A fair question, but you'll just have to wait and see, dear one!"

The boy sat beside Kathy made a derisive noise through his nose- Chase- while on the opposite side another who was known to be a bit wild, the habit of constantly getting himself in and out of scrapes meant he had a plaster as a near permanent fixture across his nose. However his smile was devastating.

"Sounds awesome!"

It didn't take them long to collect their shoes and necessary paraphernalia. As it was summer there was hardly the need for much more than the clothes on their back, but the more shrewd children were reapplying sunscreen to their more vulnerable skin.

"Do you need some Mister Hamilton?" Maya asked sweetly, offering from the puddle of goop in her hand.

"Yeah, you missed a spot!" Luke, the smiler, ran by grinning.

"-A bald spot!" little Owen added, chasing after him.

Hamilton's smile faltered momentarily, "H-Hey! Slow down there!"

Chase was sluggish, taking two steps and then stopping to cast a glance back and beckon after Toby, who meandered behind him.

"No…you two could perhaps go a bit faster…" Hamilton tried.

Once a single-file was established they moved through the settlement, Hamilton at the back and Kathy leading. Waffle town was quiet, but what other villagers that were wandering had waved them on good-naturedly. Some were parents, some merely family friends, but without a doubt on first name basis with everyone else. The sun was warm but not heavy in the earlier hours and there trek was completed without much complaint.

"EXTREME!" Luke called when they were there.

"Not…the word I might use." Anissa admitted solemnly, looking only a little disappointed but still as lovely as a flower. Her hair swished silkily when she tilted her head this way and that.

They were stood at the church gates.

"I thought this was meant to be Math Class," Chase quizzed.

"No silly!" Maya folded her arms, "On Tuesdays it's Art!"

"That's Thursday Maya…" Kathy reminded gently.

"Ohh~!"

Mayor Hamilton cleared his throat in a most teacherly manner- the kind that drew all the kid's attention after the third time lucky.

"Today's class is…History!" he announced proudly. He was rewarded with little reaction.

"History," Gill interjected helpfully, "an established record of past events." Hamilton contained his amazement at his son for the second time today.

"That's right Gill," the rest of the kids seemed to sigh, "and in many places history is passed down by telling stories."

"We came to the church to tell stories?" Chase quizzed again.

Maya stared up at the steeple with a mixture of horror and dark curiosity, "Ghost stories…"

"Churches aren't haunted." Kathy exhaled.

"Ohh…"

"Well...at least not most of the time."

Ahem, Ahem, Ahem. "Class, let's move inside." Hamilton nudged Toby awake and Chase took his arm.

Inside he assembled the children in the pews as they would have sat in the classroom. Thankfully once inside their attention seemed easier to draw.

Owen hand rose, strangely timid, "Sir, this isn't going to be like Church right?" he shuffled his booted feet. "Because I'm here every Sunday and I don't think there's anything new you could tell me that I don't already know." Anissa, Renee and Luke nodded gravely in agreement. The Mayor of course was very aware of his own sermons submitted every Sunday and of his regular attendees.

"No, no," Hamilton smiled kindly once again, "this is about history. I chose the church for our field trip so that you could see ours."

Now, Hamilton could not be considered a wise man; it was well-known by most that he could be impulsive and naive perhaps at times even bumbling. His timing could hardly be called prudent and his ideas were often wildly imaginative. But perhaps today he had considered all the available facts appropriately; perhaps today his timing had been correct. Because at the very moment he stepped up to the altar, like he would his podium in the classroom, the morning summer sun blanketed the hills and hit the stained glass windows just right. The colours rained down on the children's faces and the long aisle was lit up like a kaleidoscope. There was a varied chorus of ooh's and ahh's, followed by some glances that, dare he believe it, were filled with a newfound reverence.

"Is he a magician?" Maya squeaked, finding the link between her mouth and her thoughts a little short today, and Gill nudged her quiet. The seamstress sisters, who until this point had kept to themselves fairly well, were whispering and the eldest girl turned a shade of tomato that had Hamilton hastily checking his mental record of their supplies for water.

"Yes, well, as you can see," Hamilton fumbled, losing his handle on his perfect moment, although the children didn't seem to mind. "This church is among the oldest buildings on the island, erected by our oldest ancestors when they first settled here."

"Who is the lady, Mister Hamilton?" Renee supplied helpfully, shrewdly guessing that their presence here might be related to her effigy and also understanding that their teacher was usually in need of prompting.

"She looks like Candace!" Luna declared boldly. The girl in question visibly shuddered.

"N-no...she doesn't..."

"Ahem," Hamilton continued, "Our ancestors came here from the mainland during a time of avid exploration. There were an even older people who lived here before us but disease and malnourishment all but wiped them out. The remains of their culture can only be seen on our neighbouring islands in the East."

"The lady?" Anissa probed and Renee nodded emphatically.

"Which brings us to the lady," he nodded. The girls amongst the pews grew readily fascinated.

"The lady built into our most humble place of worship is in fact a Goddess, older than the tribes before us, older than the mountain-"

Hamilton was turning gracefully into the blue light that shone from her robes when Luke interrupted, "She doesn't look very old..."

"A goddess..." Gill said with certainty and a little irritation, "is immortal."

Although his classes were often in a state of perpetual discussion, Hamilton chose to ignore the questions and carry on with his lecture; their answers would come in due time. "The Goddess we can see here, in fact lived amongst the people before our ancestors. They worshipped her for her beauty, and brought many gifts that they thought to bring her favour."

Though some of the boys still looked bored, and Toby displayed his usual fervour for learning with a dazed look, the sense of attention from the class had peaked, and Hamilton did not need to pause for further questions.

"It was unfortunate that at this time the Goddess and her people suffered a great drought. Crops died, sickness struck the villages, and the seas were wild."

The mayor could not help the tremor in his voice.

"At that time the Goddess was merely a girl, and there was no way for her to help what became of the tribes...

She wept for their loss, and her tears rained down across the land. It was that burgeoning power that gave us the land we know today; she cleansed the fields and the ocean, and in the end when she was too exhausted to move she became a tree on the plateau of the mountain."

The children watched him with terror-like awe.

"That's...not a very happy story Mister Hamilton," Maya sniffed, and for a moment the teacher and mayor wondered if he hadn't burdened these young budding minds with too much.

"No, it's not," He admitted sadly. "But it is a story of hope."

"Is the tree still up there?" Kathy asked carefully.

"Well, yes," Hamilton nodded, finding himself unwilling to say much more.

"So she is too," Maya smiled at her friend, the wetness in her eyes diminishing.

"I hope she's not lonely..."

The sun flickered behind the trees, causing the coloured light caught through the windows to dance mysteriously.

"It's alright, look, she has all those little bugs to keep her company!" Luke pointed. In the flickering the sprites in the glass seemed to fly, buzzing around her with playful expressions and iridescent wings.

Gill sighed, "They aren't bugs Luke, they're harvest sprites."

"Uhh-"

"Harvest sprites," he shook his head, "they do the Goddess's work when she's too far away."

"But she's only in that tree, right?" Chase raised an eyebrow petulantly, but with his round and pretty face he hardly managed to look petulant at all. Gill turned his eyes back on Hamilton, searching, the blue of them as sharp as daggers.

"Dad?"

Hamilton bustled, unable to allow even a moment for the magnitude his son's gaze and question to wash over him. "Since its Tuesday I want everyone to make a picture journal about what you've learned today. I'll give you a minute so try to remember what you can from the windows."

"But Art is on Thursday," one of the children objected, remembering correctly this time.

"School trips are an exception to the rule," he tutted in return.

On their return the conversation turned to other things; games, new ideas, and tall tales- the sight of a certain bug spurning on the challenge to catch the largest one after classes were out. Even Gill seemed to have left the sad story of the historical Goddess and her Harvest Sprites behind. Hamilton noticed this with a measure of gladness and an even deeper longing.

It wasn't as though the Mayor wanted to upset his pupils; this class was precious to the whole island. These children made up the new generation charged with the very future of these lands. No, he certainly didn't want to scare them. But he did want to prepare them.

After all, though history was an ancient thing there were always lessons to be learned from it. While they enjoyed each day with small abundances and joys there were signs to be seen. Hamilton did not enjoy being the one to see them, but as Mayor he could not let them go without warning. Whispers in the village were growing; the children would not be immune to it forever.

The furious scratch of pencil on paper soothed him at his podium back in their single-roomed schoolhouse. The class worked dutifully to recreate the story of a goddess long some luck the exercise might help them to remember...

That history; a story full of sadness but also hope.

And as for their teacher...Perhaps there was more he could do for these precious children yet.

A/N: I ran a little short of time for this! So it ended up a bit rushed, and also a bit more like a prelude to game plot than I expected. Writing a summary for whatever this is was so difficult! I took a little liberty with what I thought might be preached on Sundays and what I imagined the history of the island might've been. It was fun to make it up, although I stuck to a rather common story.

To be honest the kid's interactions could have filled PAGES but this is about Hamilton, so I exercised some control! IN CASE YOU WERE INTERESTED this class consists of Gill, Kathy, Chase, Maya, Toby, Luke, Owen, Renee, Anissa, Luna, and Candace.

Thanks to some rough though-processing I've established the headcanon that at this time Phoebe and her parents are a little nomadic, and have yet to settle there. Toby has lived with his uncle for a few years now. Julius will join the class in a year's time and leave around the same point as Shelly moves Luna and Candace away. Chase will leave on his own for a while, and Jin of course being quite a bit older will move to the island as a young professional while the others are in their teenage years. The same goes for Calvin and he interestingly will uncover a lot more valuable evidence of this past civilization through his research in the mines...

The ending of this fic is meant to foreshadow the Mayor's idea to advertise for the farmland, bringing new blood in, but also bettering the chances of finding help in restoring the island's eventual decline… He's not altogether unfamiliar with the reality of the goddess and harvest sprites thanks to Gill and the quilt, although he does not know for sure that a farmer drawn by his advertisement would be their salvation…

I don't think I've given Hamilton too much credit in this… I wonder if his bumbling and happy-go-lucky attitude hides a rather keen mind in some way. He's always had the best interest of the village in the forefront of his mind; a trait that was no doubt instilled in Gill from a young age.

But all that seriousness aside…. I love writing young exaggerated versions of the bachelors and bachelorettes…. Especially Toby, who becomes basically narcoleptic! Thanks so much for the dare Swingdancer and Violet!