Some very special people from all over the world come together for a single purpose: to defend and investigate. Their numbers are few, yet easily recruited, and these people have the ability to see, really see. These people have seen through Their guises and suspected the truth. They want to put a stop to these beings for They are certain to do harm. The Protectors, these people call themselves.
To protect the world against the Nations.
England had decided to himself that day he would spend it alone. Not as in lonely-alone or magical-friends-alone, rather I'm-going-to-spend-today-in-London-and-not-contact -other-nations-alone. He felt he didn't go there often enough, especially since he just couldn't find the time between his visits to the Queen, interaction with other nations, paperwork, business work, and of course quality time walking around in his own history.
Well today he'd found time and today he'd use it.
England found himself smiling as he made his way along the street, feeling very much at home. The people alongside – his people, some corner of his mind thought proudly – were shuffling along and doing their daily business, phones out, jackets jammed loosely onto their shoulders, just moving along with life. Occasionally, a little child across the street would suddenly exclaim something to his mother and point at the green-eyed man, and all England could do was smile and give a furtive gesture of acknowledgement.
Otherwise, he spent the time looking around himself with wide eyes; the shops, the cafes, the apartments, the sites, the railways, the subways, the roads, the buses, the cars, the everything in sight. London's familiar warm greys, blues and reds greeted his eyes as though they'd been waiting for a chance to impress. Oh, how much he'd changed over the centuries, how much he'd aged.
He'd reached the end of the main road. The blond man, with a grimace, decided to go back along his way and have a cup of tea in one of the cafes (it was getting rather frosty anyway) and turned back along the way.
Unfortunately for him, a pole (which most certainly hadn't been there last time he'd checked) appeared to have decided that his face was worth hugging and wrapped its hard steel self into his nose and cheeks. England jumped and nursed his head angrily, cursing whatever God had –
He broke off just as his eyes landed on a particular poster.
He knew the man in that poster. The man was sitting in a posh armchair, hands resting professionally in lap and mouth set in a neutral smile. His posture was stiff and his shoulders broad, yet he couldn't quite cover all of the armchair's area with his frame. So familiar this man was that England could imagine what the picture-man was thinking about. He was an official, a very familiar one at that. England's eyes next went to the text underneath the image.
Have you seen this man?
Call 0745 954 556
He hadn't done something wrong… had he? England'd have been told, surely. How suspicious, this couldn't be left alone.
Ignoring his nose's aching, England firmly clamped his hand into the poster's side and ripped it off the pole, stuffing it none too carefully into his pocket. A few quick glances around the street revealed no one in sight, much to his relief. It would seem too suspicious for a man to rip off a wanted poster – especially his own. He planned what to do about the poster on the way home, all illusions of a nice, calm stroll in the streets of London gone from his mind.