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Author's Note: So my headcanon has it that Tasmania is actually deceased as there is almost nothing left of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture, language, no full-blooded members of the tribes, and such.
Parlevar was an Australian Aboriginal word for Tasmanian Aboriginal peoples, or so my textbooks inform me (haha), Parley is a shortening of this, also meaning peace.
Loarinna is one of the Aboriginal Words for a thylacine though dialect escapes (as with Parlevar which I personally think is a european corruption).
Aotea is a maori word referring to cloud and is a shortening of the first name applied to New Zealand as a whole.
Ngadyung is a Ngunnawal word for water (Gula being Koala, but anyways) and this dialect was chosen as the Ngunnawal tribe lives in the Canberra area... which is the capital... and yeah.
Sentinel.
Australia nimbly hopped past and about the weaving crowd, tiny shoes hammered on the floor, and pulled at the ragged subfusc that all but fell off his small body. Crashing and tumbling through the sea of company, as the dinner party rocked about him in waves of laughter and politeness, Australia searched around desperately for England. Several times there were snaps of displeasure when a person almost fell over him, or he almost ran into them, but largely the little colony was left alone. Canada glanced at Australia's increasing frustration as he combed the crowd, and finally he reached out, catching the passing colony, and Australia thumped forward to headbutt Canada's leg lightly. "Hey," Canada smiled uncertainly. "England's over there," He bit his lip. Australia copied the gesture. "What were you after?"
Australia steadied bright green eyes on Canada's face, and furrowed his brows.
"I miss my brother." He finally spat out, as if reluctantly deciding to trust Canada. Australia buried his face in Canada's trouser-leg for a moment.
"Me too," Canada mumbled, gently rubbing a few circles in Australia's hair. "Which brother do you miss?" For the life of him, Canada was sure the only significant loss the British Empire had suffered at all was the loss of America, but then, perhaps he had missed something.
"Parlevar." Australia looked to the side. "But maybe it doesn't matter..." He added, looking at Canada's baffled expression. "He doesn't live with us." Australia concluded.
"How is England to know where he is then?" Canada's eyes widened slightly; so Australia's brother was not part of the Empire. Canada had certainly never heard of a Parlevar.
"I want to go home." Australia muttered in disgust, curling tightly against Canada.
Ngadyung and Parlevar had once been the only people in the whole world, well except Aotea. However, the last time they had spoken, Ngadyung had wordlessly pointed out the long-white sails of ships as they rounded the head, and Parlevar stroked between the curved ears of Loarinna, his thylacine, gaze considering and lingering over the cloud-like colour of the sails. Pupils thickening cautiously.
They said nothing, and watched in silence. Eventually, Ngadyung left, to investigate these strangers. Parlevar wordlessly felt his heart leap out for Ngadyung, but could only nod, encouraging, wishing the best.
That was the last Ngadyung had seen of Parlevar.
And then Ngadyung had taken a new name, so that was that.
Awe-stray-lea-yah,
He tested the sound cautiously on his tongue, and nestled further into the undergrowth and Loarinna made a blurred noise beside him. Parlevar patted Loarinna upon the head, and then returned his attention to his brother who stared up from the muddy rocks at the boat-person. Parlevar was coloured like dried blood, and his hair was the coughed-up ash after a fire. He was the deep nettled shadows and rocks of his home.
This new one, however, was the green of muted saplings, that grew in his eyes, the colour watery and vivid, like rain that flowed like a heartbeat, steady and slow. Conquering rain. His hair was a tired colour, that slept in the mornings under curling, half-light. His skin was pale like never enough light, always too much rain; healthy and pink.
He looked like Parlevar's brother, from the overgrown eyebrows, to the forested eyes, to the ghostly skin.
Parlevar swallowed, and found he could scarcely breathe around the tightness all down his chest. Found his smooth earth-dust skin marred with pebbles. Found the sun boiling under his skin. Found fire and brimstone in each corner of him. Loarinna whined, a long, hung-out-to-die sound.
The stranger picked Australia up, and Parlevar's eyes dropped to the soles of Australia's feet, across the unnatural flush in his copper skin, dampness of the rainforest-earth hair that matted on his neck, and the flared and flushed, sickened green of explosive monsoon growth. The quick, sharp, flood rain pants Australia took. His beautiful skin dotted with pinpricks, spots, speckles, like a lizard drenched in blood. The boat-person rubbed Australia's back, tucking him into the crook of his neck, and walked back to the shore, holding the hacking, coughing, shaking, burning-up Australia closely.
Parlevar spat out a mouthful of burnt out blood.
Tazz-may-nee-yah, the sound was cautious on dry lips, accompanied by the crackle of cracking skin.
Australia bounded off the boat, running straight forward, and plunging himself down onto the earth; rolling about in the dusty mud. He rolled, over and over; feeling the land. Laughing; giggling, and screaming in triumph. Until the dirt caked him; gathered in his hair like dew or sweat.
England curled his lip into a thin line, and Australia rolled to his knees, planting his palms on the ground and digging his fingers in, still smiling.
"I didn't bring you here for you to play in the mud." England commented wryly. "You're here to work for your people; this is a punishment." Australia fixed England with a look that said,punishment is your excuse, but thank you, I'm very happy, and he got to his feet like a gingery bird. Australia neatly tackled into England, like a wave crashing to shore, wrapping his growing arms around England's waist, and snuggling his stomach.
There's no place like home, no place like home.
Australia flopped under the shade of a tree, and a coo-ee came from above him. Lazily he looked up at New Zealand. "Zeze," Australia reprimanded. "Have you found him?"
New Zealand's grin fell off his face, and landed in the dust.
"No..." New Zealand looked to the side. "What did he look like again?"
"Dark-skinned, black hair, eyes the richest of browns."
"I'll keep looking." New Zealand promised, settling up to look across the horizon with worried, puzzled eyes. He didn't think they'd find Australia's lost brother, but it's hard to tell that to a person whose eyes are all unshelled and open. The worry and terror naked and revealed in them. It's hard to tell that to a person you care for, when they're expression makes your blood sing with borrowed unhappiness.
Australia kicked at the side of the river, and a young bunyip popped up and tipped its head at Australia. "Why are you so unhappy?" The Bunyip demanded, bobbing over to Australia with great bulbous eyes bulged wide, yellow and golden, flashing in the sunlight off the water.
"I can't find my brother." Australia gnawed on his lip in aggitation. "I've been looking for months; has he gone walkabout by your river?"
"He's not down here." The Bunyip splashed the water idly. "Go away." The Bunyip grinned a mouthful of razor teeth at Australia, and weakly, he grinned back. "Ask Rainbow Snake, maybe." The Bunyip suggested, and gave a huge splash as it twisted away to inquire its kin about Parlevar. Mercurial bunyips could be, but cruel they were not; prone to saying things at diametric odds to what they did, or meant.
Australia stared mournfully at the rippling water where the Bunyip had disappeared - he'd asked Rainbow Snake first, of course, but Rainbow Snake had informed him that there never had been a Parlevar. Rainbow Snake said Tasmania, and prodded Australia in the sternum sternly.
One day, Loarinna came to Australia, jaw slack, and sniffed at Australia's hand, before curling up across his legs in the lamplight of the fire. The thylacine was thin, and its ribs poked out awkwardly from its body. The juts were vicious; not gentle; harsh.
Australia bit his hand, at the pad of his thumb and tried his best not to cry.
But the rains always came, an inevitable truth that Australia's patience (as hard as the earth, waiting, and waiting) had found. And they poured down Australia's cheeks. Feasting on his expressions, leaving his eyes hollowed out as though wedge-tailed eagles had plucked them clean.
He scavenged the slightest hint of a wail, and swallowed it up.
New Zealand sat next to Australia, arms wrapped about the small sheep in his arms, and Australia's drop-bear settled next to the sheep on his lap. He petted the soft merino wool, and the koala pushed its steel wire fuzz into his other hand. Australia sat off to the side, his own arms wrapped tightly about his knees, and eyes hard as sun-cooked earth, stared out at absolutely nothing.
In front of them lay the sordid remains of a thylacine, and Australia broke his stoic pause to blink away a few stray tears. Rains came, and sometimes they didn't after all.
"Aww, Benjamin." Australia muttered. "Bloody going belly-up on me like that."
New Zealand said nothing, well aware Australia had inherited, along side the devil drink, and brightly-painted language, an inability to verbally express his emotions from England. Instead, he reached out and laid a single hand on Australia's upper arm. Felt the muscles bunch, and tighten with tension.
Australia watched with feigned dispassion as his government discussed the forests that had drawn the shadows in Parlevar's eyes and skin. The forests that had added layers to the way the sun caught on his skin. Then gave him the richest, strongest brown eyes Australia could remember.
When it came time to vote, the ministers placed their opinions neatly on each table in stacks of decisions and thoughts. Mostly Australia tried to ignore his politics; you couldn't trust governments, but they'd probably do whatever their jobs where meant to be.
However, he made sure to level his eyes with each minister that wanted to rip at the forests. Made sure to drill his hard water-starved green eyes into theirs, and press his silent, suffocating disapproval and disdain right up against them. Watched them squirm.
Australia did not comment on his politics often, passive-aggressive at the best, as he was with England. Occasionally he spoke up, but often with the support of Canada, or America, or New Zealand, or maybe when he was drunk - rum rebellion was a bit too literal for him. Usually however, he only watched with furious eyes, making sure his ministers knew when their country stood with them.
When the children were stolen, Australia walked out. He was white as a snowgum, and pale as a sulphur cockatoo, but his memories were patched out of dreams. Patched together with Parlevar's taciturn affection, and calling out the name Ngadyung across the water to Aotea.
Parlevar strode strongly through his forests, each limb a lope of movement, and swipe of motion. Fierce, proud, and silent amongst the foliage. At his heels his thylacine kept perfect wolfy pace, the stiff tail balancing Loarinna neatly on all fours. Pressing his palms against the trees, he felt the burn of life, and the echo of water, the guarding trees risen high and ferociously towards the skies.
Staring upwards, Parlevar exhaled.
Inhaled, all the secrets of the woods, and all the secrets of the water.
Just as his brother, Ngadyung was the secret of the dust and fire.
Loarinna - Benjamin - coming to Australia all those years ago had been clear to Australia.
Parlevar was dead.
And he had given his lands to Australia. Australia dropped a boomerang-shaped gum leaf into the water, and watched it glide away across the nilotic fabric of the river. He had placed his lands into Australia's care, and the people who lived there now.
But the melancholy that overcame him sometimes, when he visited those people under the sentinel forests that scratched at the sky, nearly overwhelmed him.
Another election, Australia wrinkled his nose, kicking his heels against the floor, as he watched quietly from his vantage point at the fiasco with Rudd and Gillard. Whilst the long hours he'd experienced had been unbearable, and there was some distinct sense of dissatisfaction the centralized leadership method (one that didn't always include Australia, himself) Australia had very little faith in either party.
When America had cheerfully asked him how the election for a new president had been going, Australia glossed over the finer points to the matter. Instead he scowled, reprimanding America for not knowing the correct term (Prime Minister, yank.) and adding some waffle about the First Bloke being a hairdresser, and budgie smugglers. The lack of confidence he felt for either party - not just leader - was palpable. He wondered which way the people would vote, and when England phoned him, not only had his past father-figure sounded tetchy - time difference, Australia supposed - but had warned for a hung parliament.
It was nice to know the old man still cared, even when Australia could practically feel a noose of votes about his neck.
Australia rolled over on the grass of Parliament Hill. It had been years since even Loarinna had died, but legs tucked under him in the grass, Parlevar sat, watching Australia, Loarinna curled up on his lap.
"You said sorry." Parlevar said quietly.
"I miss you." Australia choked on his own gasp of shock. He crawled over to Parlevar and joined Loarinna on Parlevar's lap, curling his face into Parlevar and sobbing in dry, drought-like snarls of air. "I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want any of them in charge, I don't want them."
Parlevar stroked Australia's head, like he would stroke Loarinna's fur.
"I'm so confused, brother." Australia whined. "I wish you were back. I need you." Australia sniffed, the pain testing out the boundaries of his ripcage in sharp beats. "Parley, please, I want you back, don't leave me alone." No tears, no rain, but the horrible clawing sensation in his gut was enough to knock all sense from him. "Please don't go, I'm begging you. I can't do this forever." He gave a whimper. "Don't leave me alone, please, I'll do anything, just don't go away again, not again, don't leave me, don't go, don't, please, don't..."
But slowly, the feeling of Parlevar left Australia. He was left with his cheek pressed into the neat, carefully manicured grass. He lay there quietly, heart snapped in two in his chest.
The Dreamtime, for Australia was a constant fact. It was fluid, coming in and out of his existence. It was placed alongside irish folklore, chinese ancestral worship, and any other influence he had gathered in his inclusive spirituality. It was always there. In ghosts, and bunyips, and minmin lights.
He missed Parlevar. Missed him the way you might miss the left side of your body, the way you'd miss nerves and your fingerprints, and the way your heart flip-flopped, the way you'd miss two plus two makes four, the way you'd miss anything and everything that made sense. Missed the part of himself that was joined at his hip, and missed - no regretted - the fact nobody had ever known that, ever.
Except, Aotea, New Zealand. Who had called over water at him, standing on the edge of long boat, voice wild and curious over the sea.
But Aotea had never known Parlevar personally; the softness, the gentleness of Parlevar's silence was a secret Australia held. And let out of him in great shaking rain floods of emotion in the deep, silent forests Parlevar had left Australia to guard.
England was a rainy land, full of long dark nights with whipping trees that tapped against the windows like monstrously long fingers. Rapping, knuckles tapping, tapping away with each lash of the wind. The air was almost too thick to breath.
So thick; when he tried it clung to his throat and made it difficult to think. Gula – no, Koala – wriggled in his tight arms, as he stared at the crumpled curve of England's sleeping figure. The four-poster bed, draped in crisp finery, intimidated Australia so badly, and how he shook. But the wind was so loud, so insistent; prying and crying through his mind. Barely clothed, limp on his small frame, that barely came up to the mattress he stood besides, and barely breathing, barely taking in enough air. Eyes wide like a sugar glider.
Australia shook and shivered by England's bedside, mouth parted to beg for comfort against the homesick nightmares. But nothing came out.
Rolling over, England's eyes slid open, and Australia took an uncertain shuffle away from his father. England shrugged, green eyes losing interest, shutting them with slow finality, he rolled over, and lifted one arm, and a sweep of duvet for Australia.
Australia felt tears prickle in his eyes as he crawled, scrambling helplessly on the mattress, besides England. Pressing his crying face into England's side, and curling in closely, as he begged in little touches (made distant, so distant by more than just miles) for England to love him.
And it wasn't that England did not love him.
He was prepared to supply food; prepared to trade; prepared to allow people to carve part of Australia into thriving farmland; prepared to provide cattle; prepared, so prepared to. If Australia cried, there was no hesitation in his invitation for Australia to crawl in alongside England (nightmares frightened away by the cold, rainy island nation). But, he would not seek Australia out. He would not initiate anything. He would only answer.
He did not love him enough.
The loneliness struck Australia, even as he was pressed and coiled close to England, and he bit down a mouthful of sobs like he could stop them. Shaking and trembling as he fought to control himself, because England will not, will not, will not comfort him the way-
The way Australia deserved of England; who had taken him away from across the sea and built a home (and a strange, sad, little-big one it is) around Australia. This isn't home. England owes Australia something abstract, grey and shapeless against their breaths – something more. He will not give it. Will not will not give, comfort, offer, love.
Home was an impatient, patient pulse, and hot trickly breath on the corner of his mouth. Home was not here.
The pain just won't stop, and the rain is insistent, prying into his affairs and thoughts, and the tears all but rip down his cheeks, and dampen England's shirt, and he is locked there. Crying, sobbing, and in need; the symptoms are soothed, but the cause is white-hot.
Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar, Parlevar...
Helplessly trapped under the weight of growing too far apart, Australia begs in rainy tears, for more.
He was dying.
Tasmania curled into a tiny shaking ball, the last remnants of european plagues mottling his skin, and the far deeper damage of selective destruction was less easily seen. An internal bleeding. He coughed up a mouthful of blood. It fell, spattered amongst the ever-guarding, ever-stoic forests who had taught Tasmania the art of staying his emotions, and the art of strength, but survival was not an art. Survival was the smallest measurement of time you could have, divided and given out unfairly, but frankly.
Curling his shaking, numb, lesioned fingers in Loarinna's fur, Tasmania pressed his mouth forward to cough out Ngadyung - not Australia, not the new name, only the one that flowed to his fingertips at that moment in time. Loarinna looked steadily into Tasmania's eyes, comprehension already sitting in the deep, inky pupils and Tasmania slumped, eyes shuttering closed with relief, as he let his face press against Loarinna's fur.
He was afraid.
England's gaze dutifully crept up to meet his.
"I miss my brother." Australia says it simply, because no words can communicate the feeling better than to simply punch them out in short and sharp definition. Like being gutted with a single knife jab. England had once told him to simply plunge a knife in, because it did more harm than to try and slice – human skin needed very little pressure to break – and Australia had tried his hardest not to be bored.
The emotions are blunt, stoic, even surly. Sudden, without an inch of measure, or mercy in them.
Deafening loneliness; it drives him mad, and ripped open his intestines, like jabbing, stabbing blows.
So he says them simply, because that is how they feel; simple. Pain is very simple.
Ngadyung's skin prickled uncomfortably as he watched the fire sear across his land.
"Is this necessary?"
Ngadyung's green eyes were jade-bright, and ringed with tired, reddened, tear-stained whites. Oh how the burning hurt, oh how it hurt so very much.
"It is how the land will live again." He was told, as gently as possible, but Ngadyung stamped his foot, and tried to stomp out the pain with the violent gesture.
"The land was living already!"
The rainforests gasped; shackled by the wildfires. Domesticated by fire. Ngadyung was saturated with hatred, but mostly pain, and resentment. Put simply, he did not understand.
"The land must be changed."
"I don't want to change."
Ngadyung does not understand that just because you do not want to change, you are still not exempt from changing. Changing, itself, is of course inevitable.
The fires raged, and raged, and Ngadyung raged and raged, until the rains (as they always do – of that, nothing changed, and that is maybe comforting to the poor nation) hiss and smoke about his charred ground, and over his shoulders. Drenched, Ngadyung's rage is quelled, the fire is conquered, and the gasping rainforest produces eucalyptus in great abundance. Different, but, acceptable.
The rains always come.
Always.
Ngadyung is a creature of the earth under his feet, the water that lapped at his shores, the sweet nettling run of plants, and animals, and peoples over his ground. Woven as he is into the ground, he has the same stoic stubbornness of the dirt in these matters.
"Ngadyung, when will the rains come?" They asked him.
"Eventually." He said, and breathed out a sigh through his nose.
"Ngadyung, when will eventually come?"
"Eventually." They can get no better answer out of him, and soon their voices are caked with fear: people die, plants die, animals die.
"Will the rains come?" Doubt.
Ngadyung, like the earth itself, does not move. He allowed the world to situate itself around him, and with the practiced patience of rocks, and weathered ground, blinked coolly back and shrugged. "The rains will always come eventually."
Canada gently continued stroking Australia's hair, and finally, backed away out into an abandoned hallway, Australia still clutching at his leg. Thus alone, and unable to shame The British Empire, Canada dropped to his knees and cautiously, but definitely wrapped his arms about Australia, shushing and hushing Australia who was as silent as a winding tree.
"It's alright, though, we won't be with England forever." Canada finally admitted, voice hushed. "My brother left and so can we."
Canada's brother was not to be spoken about, sometimes. Not currently. When Australia had first arrived, whilst embarrassing, Australia knew England had stooped to trading with the rebellious one. Nowadays though, England favoured pretending the rebellious one did not exist. Australia had heard of rift-like pain.
Parlevar was far away and Australia was near, and Parlevar was not and this was a rift, a dichotomy, a difference so intense and horrible that it made Australia want to vomit.
"I just want my brother back." Australia whined, voice a thin-whistle of sound. "I need him, I wish he were here, I wish I were there, more," Australia's voice gurgled messily, as it cracked. "I can't do this forever."
Canada petted the child, biting his lip and honest to a fault. "Yes you can," The elder colony mumbled. "Nations live forever."
Parlevar visited again, which was unusual enough, what was more unusual was the press of Parlevar's body against Ngadyung. He hid his head in the crook of Ngadyung's neck, his cheek against Ngadyung's patient, impatient pulse. Parlevar's voice is little and sad, and is flushly pushed into Ngadyung's ear, whispered entreaties between brothers:
"Ngadyung," Hot, tiny voice. "We cannot live forever."
But of course they can, Ngadyung thought, the crocodiles cannot kill them, and hunger cannot kill them, and even great harm to the land cannot kill them (Ngadyung got used to the fires in the end, though he couldn't admit it) so why shouldn't they live forever?
Unexpectedly, Parlevar's fingers gripped across the smooth pane of Ngadyung's chest, curled on his shoulders and Parlevar drew away. Brown eyes flickered.
Parlevar crushed the air between their bodies away again, his mouth settled on the surprised curve of Ngadyung's mouth. A hot exhalation, and Ngadyung breathed in the air tangled and spiced with the taste of Parlevar's blood, lungs, insides. Warm, a little damp, flavoured breath.
And then Parlevar is away from him again, and they are still just little kids, hot with too much sunlight and skin uncomfortable against each other.
"I am afraid…" Parlevar ground out, and turned his head away and down, and there was nothing Ngadyung knew to say to have Parlevar look at him again.
May your quills be ever sharp.