Disclaimer: Hetalia belongs to Hidekaz Himaruya and to any and all other respective owners. I do not own it or Wingtalia - it, too, belongs to its owners.
Arthur has never flown.
He has wings, but they had been deformed and crumpled when he was born, and so they always remain limp behind him. They are shrivelled little things, twisted at strange angles and with sparse feathers. When he was younger, they earned him glances from passersby; some, pitying, and some, disgusted; everyone saw him as a cripple or a freak, a worthless Avem that can't fly. He quickly learned to cover his wings with a baggy cloak or the like so that people assumed he is human. However, the humans he meets all know something is different about him, so he doesn't quite fit in with the Avium or the humans. He is left alone, and he is fine with that. He would have been a loner anyways.
He has never had an inclination to fly, either. He is perfectly happy on the ground, letting the Avium carry things to distant lands or whatever it is they do. It doesn't interest him in the slightest.
That is what he tells himself, at least.
Eventually, Arthur grows wary of the poisoned glances of the townspeople, so he gathers up his meager belongings and heads into the forest outside the gates. He builds himself a house in a clearing, enormous trees towering regally over its thatched roof. There is a small creek that passes beside it and he even digs a quaint garden and plants all manner of flowers and shrubs.
Arthur isolates himself. He hardly ever leaves the forest and never accepts visitors. In a way, it is incredibly blissful, but in another way, it is unbearable; Arthur loves having only animals around and most definitely does not miss the villagers, but, as he muses whenever he is unoccupied, it is all too empty in the forest. He tells himself that he doesn't really mind.
Until Arthur sees a Avem male land in a meadow of daisies close to his home.
Until Arthur sees how serene he looks, his great wings spread out behind him and the sun playing with his flyaway hairs and turning them to gold as they ripple in the light breeze.
Until Arthur sees the splendour of his wings, burnished cream with dapples of black and iridescent accents shimmering in all manner of colours in the fading light of the sunset.
Until.
It is the first time Arthur has ever wanted to fly.
He sinks into a raspberry bush, his jade cloak snagging on the thorns. There is a blush decorating his cheeks, though he refuses to admit it, and emotions ranging from objective admiration to shock to lust fly through his mind. They are all soon washed away by ravaging tides of jealousy.
Arthur scowls at the man from beneath his cover of leaves, and turns and heads back to his house. Frankly, he couldn't care less about the Avem that landed in the meadow of daisies.
And yet, on a whim, Arthur returns in the cover of night.
He creeps through the flowers, belly to the ground in case the male is still awake. Avium can be ferocious when disturbed.
Arthur hears the cry of a haunted voice, hollow and battered like the wind, and he stiffens. There are a few more mumbled words, and Arthur realizes that they are not directed at him. He takes a steadying breath to calm his racing heart. This feels so...forbidden.
Arthur draws nearer and crouches beside the man. His face is ghostly pale in the moonlight, Arthur sees that he is curled in on himself, wings wrapped tightly around his body. Arthur finds the remnants of a dying fire still flickering within charred logs.
The man is shivering.
Again, the Avem male calls out, his voice worn and tired like a soldier recounting the details of battle, and there are tear stains on his cheeks that mar his otherwise porcelain-perfect skin. They glow eerily.
His hair pools on the ground around his head like an elixir of pure gold, and the shade matches the colour of the insides of the daisies around them, swaying slightly in the breeze.
He's so perfect, Arthur thinks, and he tells himself that it's resentfully.
He sits there for a while, forcing himself to resist the urge to reach out and tuck the man's hair behind his ear, before his shivering registers and Arthur bites his lip as he contemplates whether getting the male a blanket is worthwhile. He finally decides that yes, it is, and runs back to his house to get something warm.
When he returns, a thick knitted blanket in his arms, the man is gone.
The next time the meet, it's by accident. Arthur recognizes him immediately, but the Avem male does not remember him. Arthur glares at him as they pass each other on a back street, whereas the man just furrows his brows in confusion and moves on. The din of the marketplace is faded in the background and the man enters a tavern, a bright smile lighting up his face when he sees someone he recognizes.
Arthur scoffs and keeps walking, his mood suddenly much more sour than it had been when he arrived.
The third time, it's raining.
Someone knocks at the door, but Arthur pointedly ignores it. He has never accepted any visitors into this house, and he is not about to start.
There is another knock, harder this time, and when he still doesn't answer, there is knock after knock after knock in quick succession. Arthur groans and gets up from his chair, opening the door with as much anger as he can muster, but it fizzles away when he sees who it is.
It's the Avem male.
He is glancing over his shoulder warily, and Arthur can hear shouting in the distance. He looks at him, eyes wide, and Arthur can see that all colour has been drained from his face and that he is trembling. He is drenched, his hair stuck to his face and his feathers dripping.
"May I come in?" he requests, voice quivering. Whether it's from the cold or the fear glinting in his eyes, Arthur doesn't know.
The shouting grows louder, and the man glances towards the treeline where shadows are shifting among the trunks. He looks so different from the regal person Arthur first laid eyes on.
"Please," the man breathes, practically begging.
Arthur nods and lets him in, telling him to hide. He prays that that the male can find a good spot; Arthur's one-room cabin doesn't exactly have many hiding places. Arthur stares out the window at the silhouettes that move like water among the trees, and perhaps a minute later, there is another rap at the door.
Arthur opens it, and a few men of the Royal Army are standing there, imposing and malevolent as their vermillion coats ripple in the low whine of the wind. Arthur forces a terse smile for them, dread pooling in his stomach.
"What can I do for you gentlemen?" he inquires, and they hastily explain that the Avem male is a fugitive.
They ask him if he's seen anything. He answers no and they do a routine search of his house but do not find the man. When they leave, Arthur releases a breath he doesn't know he was holding.
Yes, the Avem male is a criminal, but he is also shaking with terror. Arthur is sure he heard a prayer in a foreign language after the man left; the Royal Army doles out brutal punishment for any fugitives caught, and for this reason (along with the fact that Arthur still holds onto threads of desire that appeared when they first met), he lets him stay.
He shudders to think of what they would have done if the male had been found.
Over the course of the months the man stays with him, Arthur learns that the Avem's name is Francis Bonnefoy and that he was born in Gaul. He hears of a sister and a brother, Michelle and Mathieu, respectively, but that's about it.
He is graceful and elegant in everything that he does, and Arthur grows increasingly more jealous of him for that.
They fight a lot, constantly bickering about meaningless nonsense, but they still fall into a routine, and Arthur comes to value Francis as a friend.
One day, they are lying in the meadow that they first met in, flower petals providing a delicate canopy and a late August breeze tugging lazily at their hair and Francis' feathers. It is on this day that Arthur finally asks why Francis was running from the Royal Army.
Francis' answer is vague at best, and Arthur doesn't push it after he appraises the sad look in Francis' eye and how he hasn't truly done anything so far to warrant Arthur's suspicion, despite their regular arguments.
They sit in silence, staring at the sky where fluffy clouds float slowly across a pristine blue backdrop. After a while, it begins to darken and a brisk, biting wind makes the daisies' leaves rustle.
Francis turns to him.
"Arthur, have you ever seen someone die?" he asks, devoid of any emotion.
Arthur shakes his head. "No."
Francis looks back at the sky.
"I have," he sounds distant, detached. "It is a horrible thing. You watch the light leave their eyes, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot save them."
Arthur can't help but think how strange and foreign these words sound coming from Francis' mouth. Arthur turns to him in a silent request to continue.
"They burned my wife," Francis whispers. "They burned her at the stake. And I had to watch."
The atmosphere shifts like the wind, becoming dark and cold and secretive. Arthur can see a woman engulfed in flames reflected in Francis' eyes, hear the screams of agony he did, feel the tears that ran like rivers down his cheeks.
"What was her name?" Arthur breathes. His throat is tight, and he strains his mind as he tries to imagine someone who would want to hurt Francis.
"Jeanne," Francis answers. "She was strong and brave and kind and beautiful. I loved her."
Arthur looks away. He doesn't miss the slip of Francis' tongue. Doesn't Francis still love her? Why has that changed?
Why does it give me butterflies?
After a while, Arthur finds something to say that will break the heavy silence that has settled over them.
"I'm sorry."
"Do not be," Francis sighs. "It was not your fault."
They don't speak of it again.
They kiss for the first time when Arthur finds Francis crying uncontrollably in the forest, the only sound among the stillness of the trees Francis' gasps between silent sobs. Arthur approaches cautiously; he never was good with comforting people. He can blame is brothers for that. He sinks to the ground beside Francis, unsure of how he can help.
Arthur grimaces, nervousness twisting his stomach. If he can't think of a way to help Francis, what kind of friend does that make him? A terrible one, probably.
Arthur thinks of how strange crying seems for Francis. He seems to have remained joyful and unbroken, even through the death of Jeanne. He seems to be able to smile and laugh and love, and the wrongness of his tears spurs Arthur on.
Arthur remembers what his mother would do before her death when he cried. She would kiss the top of his head and tell him that mummy's here, love, and he would instantly become happy. If it worked on him, why can't it work on Francis?
Arthur leans in and kisses Francis on the cheek, a tiny peck, and Francis' bloodshot eyes widen. And then Francis captures Arthur's lips in a hard, passionate kiss of his own and for the first time in his life, Arthur flies.
"I love you," Francis tells him one day.
Arthur finally had shown Francis his ruined, puny wings. Francis had not ridiculed him as Arthur thought he would; instead, he traced his fingers over their arch and through their sparse feathers and kissed their jutting bones. Arthur had shivered. He was pretty sure no one had ever touched them, let alone like this.
"They don't…you don't think I'm worthless for these?" Arthur had asked Francis, voice barely above a whisper.
Francis murmurs into Arthur's skin that he loves him and that they could never change that. Arthur always thought that those three words were only in bedtime stories; no one had ever said them to him.
"You don't really mean that," Arthur huffs angrily. Francis is probably toying with his heart. He seems like the type to do that. "People don't love me. I'm wrong."
Francis looks at him, eyes shining.
"I do mean it," there is firm conviction in his voice. "I love you so much, Arthur. You're so perfect."
Arthur smiles, and that night, they share a bed.
When Arthur wakes the next morning, sunlight filtering through the window, Francis' limbs tangled with his, his wings wrapped protectively around the both of them and his nose buried in Arthur's hair, Arthur whispers to him that he loves him too.
Weeks later, Francis goes into the forest without Arthur and does not come back. Arthur alternates between terrible anger and gripping sadness and goes into complete isolation. He curses Francis for leaving, curses himself for being so dumb and curses Fate for tearing them apart, but most of all, he curses the fact that he never told Francis how he feels to his face.
Months after Francis left, Arthur emerges from his home. He needs supplies; fabric, salt. He heads into the nearby town, praying that it's a market day, but as he passes through the gates, he is greeted not by vendors selling their wares as he had hoped; no, in the village square there stands a stage. And on that stage is…a noose. A man clad in black stands stoically beside it and a crowd is gathered before it as a squire reads from a scroll.
"…hereby sentence Francis Bonnefoy to be hung by the neck until death for treason against the Crown."
Arthur lets out a strangled gasp and pushes through the mob, forcing his way to the front. A man is being led to the stage, a sack over his head. He wears a crisp white tunic and brown trousers, his appearance purposely fixed up for the show, and he is human at first glance, though Arthur knows better.
Arthur can see holes in the loose shirt, made for the jagged stumps that jut out from the man's back. Dry blood clings to the feathers, and the fabric around the place where grand wings had once been is stained with red.
What have they done to him? Arthur wonders desperately as the bag is yanked off the man's head to reveal Francis' features.
His cheeks are sunken and he has dark smudges beneath his eyes; his skin has taken on an ashen pallor and his hair hangs limply around his face. Despite it all, his gaze still has the same proud spark to it.
The noose is placed around Francis's neck and a priest turns to him.
"Any confessions before the eyes of God?" he asks, far too calmly for this situation.
Francis looks at him and hesitates before nodding.
"Arthur, I love you," his gaze sweeps the crowd as if searching for someone before he looks over the houses and to the distant forest as if he can see the cabin there.
Francis doesn't notice that Arthur is standing almost directly in front of him.
"I love you so much, my little rabbit. I am sorry that I left. I am sorry that I didn't tell you why I was running. I was scared. I was scared that you would hate me; Albion is your country, after all. I am so, so sorry. I love you," Francis' voice never wavers; it remains clear and true.
He nods once as if in confirmation and stares intently at the forest, something flashing in his gaze. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes briefly before opening them again as the executioner double-checks the security of the noose.
Arthur cannot tear his gaze from Francis' stricken face, and he repeats the Lord's Prayer over and over and over under his breath. He hopes that Francis will go to Heaven. Arthur knows that he's kind enough and selfless enough and loving enough and good enough to.
The floor drops, and then it's Francis bouncing lightly, suspended by the neck, his body limp.
The crowd cheers, and Arthur chokes back tears; he cannot cry here. He finally understands what Francis meant by the horror of being forced to watch the light leave somebody's eyes and being unable to do anything about it.
He turns and runs out of town and keeps running and running and soon, he reaches the meadow that they first met in.
The daisies are wilted and brown.
He sinks to his knees, and his body shakes with the force of his violent sobs, his gasps echoing through the field. His cry is a deep, grieving one that doesn't relieve him.
He eventually falls asleep there, but it is nightmarish and fitful, and when he wakes up, there is no Francis like he half expects.
On the second night, he locks his door and cries himself to sleep again, clutching a bundle of blankets that lack the warmth and the passion that Francis provided.
At first, Arthur drowns his sorrows in alcohol, lamenting and mourning. Then, when he runs out of rum, he starts to see things that aren't there: unicorns, flying bunnies, fairies, and worst of all, Francis. Today, he swore he heard Francis humming a merry folk tune from the hearth, swore he caught a whiff of one of his pleasant culinary experiments.
Arthur can't seem to smile, can hardly bring himself to eat. Whenever he closes his eyes, all he can see is Francis, hanging by the neck as the crowd cheers, the flash of agony in his eyes, the release of his final breath when he falls.
The fact that Francis' last words were to him is cold comfort.
Arthur, some time after Francis' death, decides that he cannot take it anymore; the guilt, the grief, none of it. He supposes that that makes Francis a stronger man than he.
And when someone finds the body of a young man with misshapen wings in the forest, they don't care. He's worthless, after all.
They don't care that he has never flown, except with Francis Bonnefoy.
I wrote this because I discovered how amazing Wingtalia is - and then I searched it up and it turns out I was way off the mark on the societal and anatomical aspects of it. I mostly just made the characters have wings. I suppose that makes this my interpretation of Wingtalia? Sorry if you signed up for the real thing. I totally diverged.
Thanks for reading! Reviews - especially critiques - are appreciated.