Ukraine knew about the Magic in the world. The ancient, bone-deep knowledge of rituals and spells that some of them were born with and some of them learned. It seemed there was always a touch of Magic in things nations did: England's best Magic came from the books of his people, and China's Magic lived in his blood and rivers where dragons dwelt. Ukraine's Magic was in her skies, where the weather bowed to her when she truly wished it to and the first snows of winter left her trembling with power.
She didn't know where Canada's Magic dwelt until she accepted his invitation to visit his cabin. It was a smallish cabin, he told her, clearly not built for the electrics that were added later, but a nice enough building, smelling of wood and smoke. There was a good-enough kitchen and a bedroom made for withstanding the worst winter could offer. Blankets were tucked in every imaginable corner and it only took one or two good shakings to get rid of spiders that might have made a home in them.
It had been a long time since she'd been to see Canada properly, so perhaps the visit was intended to be friendly. But then she saw him at a summit in Cyprus, a month ahead of her visit, and he ran up to her. He told her he was eager to be a proper host, that he'd missed her since she'd left, decades back, to take care of her family. There was no bitterness; how could there be when he would have done the same in a heartbeat?
When he had to leave, he took her hand softly, running his thumb across her knuckles. With blush high on his cheek, he said at last there would be time enough, and she understood his intentions completely. Her anticipation soared.
Ukraine came to visit Canada at the first blush of autumn. Some of the trees had stayed green, standing out amongst the red and gold and brown. Canada drove first through the country roads and then on no road at all, and Ukraine pressed her cheek to the window and watched everything go by while they listened to a cassette tape America had made. The meandering of the acoustic guitar produced no songs in the traditional sense, but the warm chords and slow pace created an inviting soundscape.
They had to hike the last leg of their journey, climbing up a hill so they could see the lake. Canada was dragging their foodstuffs behind him in a wagon, and he joked about it being so easy compared to climbing the Chilkoot in pursuit of Klondike gold. The word Chilkoot snapped like ice and Klondike chimed in the air, and Ukraine could hear the heavy clinking of gold under his words. She wondered if that was where Canada's Magic lingered: under words made sacred by the depths of their history.
They arrived at the cabin with the sun still high enough in the sky that it did not blind them when they crested the final hill and looked west across the lake. Near the water, just out of reach should the waters turn stormy and try to claim the shores, was the cabin. Ukraine saw it and felt comforted; it was not entirely unlike her own oldest homes, hidden away somewhere simple and still wild.
The generator came alive with a tremendous roar and the flow of electricity briefly made a tingle go up Ukraine's spine. Canada re-entered the cabin dusting off his hands and together they shook the spiders out of the blankets and swept away the worst of the dust. They stored the food and made the bed and pumped water from the groundwater well. The only modernisation had been the generator and electric lights it seemed, and Canada explained that everyone had to have a few modern conveniences in case of emergency nowadays.
At suppertime the wind went from a whisper to a roar and Ukraine could feel the heavy air. Maybe this was where Canada's Magic dwelt, she thought, in the vastness of the wind and atmosphere. They stayed inside and ate until they were stuffed. Canada tuned a battery-powered radio to CBC and they listened to a little radio station that only existed for the sake of lonely travellers.
At night they shared the bed and listened to the wind rattling the trees late into the night. When the wind calmed the rain began and Ukraine succumbed to sleep.
Canada woke her before sunrise, already dressed and drinking coffee from a tin cup. "Trust me, this will be worth it," he promised. He was smiling the way he had when he'd been a very young man and they'd met for the first time with a language barrier still between them and only a handshake to bridge the gap. Ukraine knew what it meant now: he hoped to impress her, was eager to show off something he thought would make her smile or gasp.
They dressed in light jackets and warm jeans, and Canada took her to the lakeside. There was a canoe, clean and ready for them. He showed her where to sit, on the bow side of the yoke, told her to hold off on sitting in the proper seats as long as she could, and knelt in the stern. In the pre-dawn quiet they went out on the water and Canada rowed them into a deep, calm section of the lake. As the sun lit colours across the horizon Ukraine felt stillness. Not just an absence of noise, but proper Stillness, as though everything was in the muzzy moment between waking and sleeping. Her ears rang without any noise to fill them and she stopped moving, afraid to disturb the Stillness. She tried to turn around to face him and winced at the horrible noises she made as her clothes scraped the bottom.
"Is this it?" she whispered, her voice becoming ripples in the still air. "Your Magic?"
"Almost," he answered. His voice was low, but Ukraine felt it as though it was a wall of noise. He seemed to be getting too big for his skin, and Ukraine felt tiny sitting across from him in their canoe. She knew this feeling well, when her fellow Nations seeped out of their skin and into the land itself, and she felt more human than ever, frightened by the way her friends and neighbours became fae things.
But Canada never quite left himself, perhaps because he was still so young as a Nation. Ukraine knew how it felt to leave her body and be something Other, and she remembered how frightening it felt when she came back to herself and felt so compressed. She reached out and touched his hand, trying to call him back. His eyes focused on hers and he smiled hesitantly.
"Do you like it?" he asked, gesturing out over the water. The belt of Venus was bright and reflected off the trembling water into his cheeks. It was endearing and she couldn't help the way she leaned in towards him. He bent down, blocking out the sky and the sunrise as he kissed her.
Now it felt so much better, Ukraine thought, lifting taking her hand from his and sliding it against his cheek. She remembered his shy, incomplete courtship from a century ago, when he'd taken her to an idyllic island with red roads and held her hand. She'd been leaving, then, to return to her family in a time of upheaval. He'd been shorter then, not yet tried by horrific wars and tension, just shy of the manhood he'd grown into. And on those red roads, he'd taken her hand in his, run his thumb across her knuckles, and promised that one day there would be time enough for this. At last, she thought in joy, they had time.
Canada pulled back from the kiss and turned his cheek into her palm so he could lay another kiss there. Carefully, he shuffled back and helped her over the yoke, sitting almost perfectly still while he let her gently pull his hair and tilt his mouth where she would. "You can move," he whispered between kisses. He sat down properly, letting his legs stretch out in front of him. "I'll keep our balance."
She liked that quiet assurance he had, that he would keep them from capsizing no matter how she pitched them, and so she settled herself into his lap and moved his hands to the gunwales. From there she kissed him and opened her jacket at his request so he could kiss her breasts around her bra. She unzipped his jeans and lowered hers and rocked against him slowly as he hardened. No matter how she moved, the canoe held steady, and his hands never left the gunwales.
His head tipped back when she teased him and he groaned. She could see his arms trembling, but she never felt the canoe quiver. She sucked on the skin of his neck and massaged his scalp and felt the noises bubble and burst from his throat when she finally sank down on his erection.
His hands left their position and he held her waist and hip through her clothing instead, and Ukraine grasped the gunwales in his place. He laughed without any teasing and kissed her firmly with his mouth closed. "I've got us, it's fine."
He helped her go up and down on him slowly, and she let him guide their pace. Her hands slowly left the gunwales and set them on his shoulders, gently dragging her nails across his back and shoulders. It felt good to trust him absolutely, to know that she could let him keep them steady on the water.
Her climax came slowly, and it didn't overwhelm her mind-and-body, but she felt good and relaxed. When she zipped up her jeans and carefully moved back over the yoke she could see the bliss written on Canada's face even as he tidied himself.
That night he made love to her in bed and proved he was capable of sending her to the stars. In the afterglow she teased him and asked why he wanted their first time to be in a canoe.
"It's a Canadian thing," he laughed. "That a Canadian is someone who can make love in a canoe without it tipping. And it kind of is my Magic…"
"Your Magic is having sex in canoes?" Ukraine asked through a gale of laughter.
"It's the waters," he said, trying to hold her from behind while she bent in half laughing. "Moving waters. Oceans, rivers, lakes, all of it. The sex is just a nice bonus from it."
She stopped laughing eventually, kissed his nose and wriggled free of his hold to sleep. She heard his breath slow as he began to slumber, and she traced his veins and named them: St. Lawrence, Athabasca, Saskatchewan, Fraser, Columbia…