Darkest Before The Dawn

Hey, guys! Yeah, please don't hate me for starting a new story, I explained why in my profile. Now I'm doing this to regain what little skill at writing I have. England is my favorite character in Hetalia, and, ever since I discovered him, I've been wanting to write something about him. Thus, this story: a collection of one-shots based around the 100 prompts table from livejournal (I think). My current favorite band is Florence + The Machine, so a lot of these one-shots will either include or be based (somewhat) on her stuff (and stuff from other bands). The title of the series itself comes from her song "Shake It Out" (which is one of my many theme songs for England).I'm going to do all of the prompts, but it will involved a lot of head-canon of mine. I'll explain all of it at the end of each chapter, just hope you decide to stick with me for the ride. Some (read: many) Historical liberties are taken. So, let's get going!

Arc I: Beginnings – When It's Over, You're The Start

In the beginning, there were five of them: Eire, Alba, Cymru, Kernow, and Albion. They were the essence of the Old Ways, and the wilderness ran strong within them. They were family, yet not, and always at war, always invading.

Albion was the youngest. His family named him Brethoc, and he knew their names were Báetán (that is Eire), Mór (Alba), Bledri (Cymru), and Guencen (Kernow). There was also Picti, but Albion did not know him and called him by the name the Romans gave him, and left Alba to deal with him, since she would suffer no one's help.

Bledri's son was the eldest of the children, and they called him Dafydd. They knew he would be kind like his father, with wide green eyes and great tumbles of black curls. But for now he was small, and the raven wisps of his hair were soft to the touch and waved when his father bounced him on his knee, laughing into his son's eyes and encouraging him to smile as well.

Guencen's son was the next, and his mother named him Grifiud. The black wisps of hair made him seem almost to be Dafydd's twin, but the blue eyes made him an individual. They grew up together, Dafydd the indulgent older brother, who grew fast and strong, and Grifiud the adoring younger brother, who tried hard to keep up.

Dáire became the name of Báetán's son, and he was the most handsome of them. His auburn hair, dark green eyes, and charming smile drew the attention of any and all who looked his way, and his father prided himself that only a man such as himself could have begot so beautiful a child.

Iamys was Mór's brawny child, and she declared there would be none so strong nor so big as to defeat her boy. Iamys trailed after Dáire, and the two were nigh inseparable. Iamys stuck out the most, with his hair being a vibrant red, his eyes pale green, and, of course, his voice. He iwas loud, loud enough to shake the leaves from the very trees and to rock his mother's house down to its very foundations.

Brethoc himself did not have children. He longed often to have one, prayed for one, even. But there was no child for him to love, not for a very long time. It was when Iamys was a toddler and Dafydd near ten that Brethoc saw her. She appeared to him as though from a dream, a lioness of a woman, with wild, gold locks and laughing blue eyes. She was near as tall as him, her body strong and muscled.

She was the Saxon Tribes, having come with her husband, Saxony the Elder, to trade. She was called Adelais, and Brethoc found there was no beauty in all his land who could compare to her. Alba and Kernow scoffed at him, declaring he would find nothing but pain if he followed her, but their warning fell on deaf ears.

She came to him one night and beckoned him to come with her. Brethoc obeyed, mystified by her presence and feeling some pull towards her, and Adelais led him to the small encampment that her people had set up. The tent she dwelled in was in the center, and firelight glowed inside. When they entered, Brethoc could not help but stare at the man seated before the fire. He was Eorl, Saxony the Elder, and he, too, was beautiful. His hair was a lighter blond than his wife's, and his eyes a paler shade of blue. He wore the long locks tied back into a pony tail, with two long braids framing his face.

Those blue eyes focused on him as Adelais walked around the fire and knelt behind Eorl, her arms wrapping around his shoulders as she smiled at Brethoc. Albion had turned nineteen but a month ago and the touch of both woman and man was still foreign to him. He shyly shuffled towards them, seating himself about a foot away and keeping his gaze on the fire. Why had he come here? There had been something about them, something that made him feel as though he ought to meet them. Maybe it was just that he found Adelais attractive...

But it couldn't be, because he'd always found Catuvellauni and Iceni attractive, but he'd never done anything about it...so maybe...maybe there was more to it.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to find Eorl staring at him, blue eyes intense and darkened by...by something. The Saxon leaned forward and kissed both his cheeks, and Adelais' hand reached over to run through his hair. He'd always been proud of his hair: it swung below his waist, thick and wavy and as black as Cymru's, but softer. She tugged it gently, smiling at him and speaking to him in a language he didn't understand. It was rough and guttural, but somehow pretty, for she had a voice like thick honey, low and sweet.

Eorl's rough hands grasped his arms and he was speaking too, his voice a rich baritone. Brethoc shook his head.

"I don't understand," he told them, quietly. "I don't understand." Eorl cocked his head to the side, before clearing his throat and looking away, uncomfortable.

"You..." He said, struggling to speak Brethoc's tongue, his accent thick and almost unintelligible. "You...would like for...for to be with us, yes?" Brethoc smiled, nodding and Adelais' own smile grew before she moved from behind her husband to drape over him. Eorl pulled him forward, into his arms and the rest of the night was warm and close as the fire died beside them.

It was nine months later, and Brethoc was back to his lonely life, Kernow and Alba having given him a long speech about how he should have listened to them, shouldn't have gone near Saxony or his wife, for it could only have ended like this. With Brethoc lonely and longing for the two who had left him behind.

He rose early, gathered his sheep, and left the cottage to let them graze in the tall hills that surrounded his home. He sat quietly for a long time, just watching the creatures move about, trying not to be disappointed. What did he expect, after all? They were each other's, meant to be together, and they had simply decided to allow him the privilege of joining them. He was meant to add variety to a couple who had been together for hundreds of years. There was never going to be to it than that.

Which was why, when he returned to his modest home and saw Eorl there, at his door, waiting for him, he was honestly shocked. He ran over to the Saxon, a wide smile on his face, arms out to embrace him. But Eorl stepped back, out of his reach, unsmiling. Brethoc's smile faded.

"Please take," Eorl said, pressing a bundle into Albion's arms. The Celt stared down at the bundle and then back up at Eorl, confusion written all over his face. Whatever it was, it was moving beneath the thick blankets surrounding it. He could feel it pushing against his arms.

Eorl's face was anguished, and he stepped back again, eyes suspiciously bright. "He is...not ours," Saxony explained, accent thickened with pain. "Not yet...but he is yours...so it is for you to look after him...and, when he is ours, we will return for to take him." And then he left, Brethoc calling after him, but finding himself unable to follow.

Brethoc looked down at the tiny bundle again and, shifting it to rest in the crook of his arm, used his free hand to pull the blanket aside. He gasped.

In the bundle was a tiny baby, crying and struggling against the tightly wrapped blankets. His hair was pale yellow and hung about his head like duck fluff, and his eyes were the same green as Brethoc's. His eyebrows were thick and black.

And a smile broke out on Brethoc's face as he looked back in the direction Eorl had gone. Those few days with them had granted him his only wish: a child of his own to love and raise.

In the beginning, there had been five of them. But now, Brethoc had a new beginning: a tiny, half-Saxon child with his eyes and their hair.

His name was Artúr.

Okay, so the first story is out of the way, and I know it's probably a bit confusing. This was always going to be the hard one to do, because I had to figure out how to start off the story and introduce some really weird concepts to you guys. In order to make this a little clearer, I've included notes, and will continue to do so at the end of each story.

Notes:

-It is my head-canon that, rather than having one Celtic nation to embody two islands and a multitude of different, sovereign tribes, that there would be five, just like today, but with personifications for each tribe. I do sometimes, where I deem appropriate, differentiate between personifications of land, and personifications of people.

-I decided to use the names of the countries in their own language to differentiate between them and their children. It is another head-canon that Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall will inherit their parents' names, whereas England will reject it.

-Since I am using the Celtic names for the older nations, I will be using the Roman names for the children:

-Ireland will be called Hibernia

-Scotland will be called Caledonia

-Wales will be called Cambria

-Cornwall will be called Dumnonia (may not be the Roman name, but I have found references to a kingdom in the region of Cornwall with that name, so I am using it)

-England will be called Britannia

-In regards to personal names, I am forever indebted to The Academy of Saint Gabriel, a website that offers pages upon pages of names from different countries at different times, all from historical sources. I made use of their website for the names of most of my characters, though there are some exceptions.

-The names for the old Celts were taken from their site: "Mór", "Báetán", "Bledri", "Guencen", and "Brethoc." They are Scots-Gaelic, Irish-Gaelic, Welsh, and Cornish and are (if I did this correctly) period appropriate.

-The name for Saxony the Elder (I see Himaruya's Saxony as being a later kingdom, and mine is his predecessor) is taken from the PASE database which the Academy links to in their pages on Anglo-Saxon names. I realize that the names of the Anglo-Saxons are probably quite different from the names of the Saxons on the mainland. But, I picked the name as a homage to J.R.R. Tolkien, who was himself a professor of Anglo-Saxon history and who based the culture of Rohan on them. The ancestor of the Rohirrim was named "Eorl", which is a real Anglo-Saxon name, and I wanted to use it because it was Tolkien who got me interested in Anglo-Saxon history.

-The names I use for the British Isles are: James (Scotland), Daragh (Ireland), Dafydd (Wales), and Grifiud (Cornwall). "Grifiud" comes from the Academy website and is a Cornish name. I could not find a reference for the name "Dafydd" dating back far enough, but I decided to take historical liberties and use it anyway, because that is the name for him that I prefer. The way I will differentiate between his early, Celtic years and the later, more modern years, is by calling him "Dafydd" in the early years and "Davy" in the modern. I also could not find a reference for "James" because it is not originally a Celtic name. So, I decided to take another historical liberty and use an older version of the name, "Iamys", and that also comes from the Academy. I could not find records for "Daragh", but I did for "Dáire" (but not on the Academy website), so I am using this more archaic version in the beginning, and "Daragh" for the modern era. I found a reference for "Artúr" from the Academy website, but as an Irish-Gaelic name, so I took more liberties and used it.

-Saxony and Saxon Tribes: This is one of those occasions where I decided to divide the Personifications between land and people. Why? Because, after the fall of the Roman Empire, there was a huge exodus of Germanic tribes, including Saxons. Naturally, there were still Saxons in Saxony, so I decided that I would have them be two different personifications: Eorl, who would be the Saxon personification on the mainland, and Adelais, the Saxon personification in Britain. They are married because I want them to be.

-A note on the name for the Saxon Tribes: "Adelais" is not a name from the Academy, so I cannot attest for its accuracy, but it is the name I have been using since before I found the site, so I will continue to use it (yet another historical liberty).

-Pict, Catuvellauni and Iceni: As I said before, I differentiate between land and people where I deem appropriate, and I deemed this another appropriate occasion. There were many, many different tribes in the British Isles way back when (Cantiaci, Regni, Coritani, Votadini, Caledonii, Silures, Dumnonii, Brigantine, etc.), and they were all different, and yet related in some way. So, I decided that while Albion, Eire, Alba, Kernow, and Cymru would represent the the regions themselves, there would be different personifications for each of the tribes.

-To understand, think about it like this: some people have Alfred represent the United States, but have different representatives for each of the states.

-I used "Pict" because that is the name for them that I could find and have people understand who I was talking about. I also used it because we, apparently, do not know what the Picts called themselves, so the Roman name (meaning "painted people") was as good as any.

Thank you for reading and I promise an update in the next couple days!