Warning: This contains cursing, biased history, at least implied homosexuality, people getting sick and tired of researching the Hundred Years War, and things being entirely too long to be completely accurate. Because fuck short things.
000
Spirals
000
Gallia did not like this island.
He did not like the way the hills rose up into mountains and he did not like the way the sky broke open in constant rain. He did not like the cold and dreary mist that suffocated the mornings and he did not like the darkness that blanketed the earth, as though the trees somehow blocked the sun from the soil.
Most of all, Gallia did not like Britannia. And he did not like Britannia's face, and he did not like Britannia's voice, and he especiallydid not like Britannia's crying when Gallia refused to go northern on his island.
Gallia also did not like being so far away from his mother and home. If his mother had been there when Britannia began to weep, shewould've know how to make him stop without giving into his silly Britannian-ish demands.
Gallia wasn't a hateful person, really. He loved life and everything in it, especially the sun and the children of his mother. His mother had many children, as did Gallia, even though to look at Gallia, one would've seen a young child. Despite his youth Gallia had many children, just as Britannia had many children, but Rome had the most children of all.
Rome had the most, because he said that Gallia's children and Britannia's children and the children of Iberia and Lady Greece and Lady Egypt were all his children, too.
(Gallia could sort of see how that worked. His mother's children became his children too, when Rome cut off her head, just as Britannia's children were also his mother's before they were his. But his mother had more children that weren't Britannia's.
That was why Gallia was lost in the woods and mountains of beyond-the-wall. Britannia's mother's other children's lands. )
Gallia wanted his mother back. She would know what to do. She would know how to get him home quickly and stop Britannia from crying when Gallia tells him he hadn't found the one the boy described.
The boy was avoiding him. That had to be it, for he certainly knew Gallia was here.
Rome did not own this land, and Gallia could not find a nation who didn't want to be found within another's land— and even worse when the land was the hiding nation's own. Gallia had wandered for days, back and forth through forests and rocky mountains. He'd lost his horse somewhere in the middle of the night and lost his way some time before then.
Gallia decides: to walk wherever he felt was the only thing to do.
He heads in the direction he believes will lead him to the wall, because of the call of his home. If he hits the wall before he found Caledonia, then he will simply cross over and tell Britannia there is no hope, and if Caledonia finds him before he hits the wall, well, Gallia decides he will deliver the message.
Gallia had wandered for two weeks to the North when he first arrived, another week to the East and was going on three days South when he hears the slightest rustle of leaves in the bushes behind him, no louder than a breath of air.
"Hello?" he says, and turns to the sound.
For a while, the chirping, chittering, whistling sounds of the forest swallow up any sound made by a human, but Gallia's gaze remains steady.
Long moments pass in relative silence before a child with hair like fire emerges from the bushes, a bow pulled taunt and an arrow in place. His limbs are gangly and muscled, his jaw soft and round, and his clothes filthy, as though he's been crawling along in the dirt.
He is blue. His skin is covered from head to toe in swirls, circles, dots and patterns in blue paint. His eyes are outlined in it. His cheeks are swirled. If Gallia squints, they seem to dance on his skin.
Caledonia looks exactly as Britannia said he would.
"Who are you?" Caledonia says. He does not lower his arrow. His paint dances as his lips deform the images.
"I am Gallia," Gallia says.
"You are one of Rome's," he says, "Did he send you?"
"No."
"Then why are you here?"
"Britannia told me to send a message to his brothers," Gallia says.
Caledonia's bow lowers.
"Cymru is closer," Caledonia says.
"I don't know Cymru," Gallia says.
"Cymru cares more," Caledonia says.
"I don't know Cymru," Gallia says.
"Who are you?"
Gallia repeats name, and even though he already knows, "You are Caledonia?"
"I am Alba," the blue child says after a long moment of silence, frowning. "And I am also not one who helps those who stab my back before begging to be saved."
Gallia regards Caledonia— who is also apparently Alba. He cocks his head to one side and then the other, looking the boy up and down. His hair blazes and his cloak, blue like his skin, billows in the wind. He imagines Alba in battle, pulling back his bow or running with a sword. In his mind, the patterns on Alba's skin change, spin and flicker, and when blood strikes him, they look much more like a part of his skin.
"You're a lovely person," Gallia says, meaning it, because the things he sees in his mind are always rather lovely to him, "Do you try very hard?"
"No, and I don't wish to be lovely," Alba says, a frown fixing over his features. The patterns bend with his face—alive. "I wish to be left alone."
"But I like you," Gallia says, "and I think you're a lovely person."
Alba says nothing.
"I do. I only think really lovely things are lovely, so when I say you're lovely, I mean it."
"Albion ran and built a wall to keep me away," Alba says. "I could not help him if I wanted to. I could sneak into Rome's house, but I won't risk myself. I have children to remember. And Rome will not spare them. I heard about Boudicca. I saw what he did to my mother. I am not Albion— or Britannia, if you prefer, and I do not fool myself by saying how nice Rome will be."
Gallia smiles. He knew all that. He knew all that from thinking what Alba must be like in his mind, and he likes that Alba looks like exactly what he is, even if he remains frowning after he finishes speaking.
"I like you better now," Gallia says.
Alba's scowl deepens. "What was Albion's message?" he asks.
"Save me, Rome said he'd be nicer and I miss mummy," Gallia says, straining to make his voice high, squeaky and mocking.
Alba's scowl can't get deeper, "Go back and tell him what I've told you. I can't help him. Nor do I want to, anymore. I could have, but he chose Rome instead of me, and it was his own choice to be a slave."
"I didn't choose to be a slave," Gallia says.
"If you don't have another message, leave," Alba says.
"I can't find my way back. It was hard enough finding you in the first place. Can't I stay a while? What do you eat?"
"Romans," Alba says.
Gallia waits for him to say he's joking. When Alba doesn't Gallia thinks about it, and decides Alba is probably serious. "Well, while I'm here I'll cook you food as thanks. How about that? I'm sure you'll like it, I'm told I'm very good at making things taste nice."
If Gallia had blinked, he would have missed it. Because he didn't blink, he sees Alba's scowl drop for just the briefest moment as his eyes roll back in his head.
Gallia smiles, "What can I call you? Besides Alba. Or Caledonia, since you don't like it. Do you have a name?" It's a dangerous question, he thinks. Britannia told him himself; names have power on this island.
Gallia remembers his own magic words, and wonders why so precious a thing as a name would be put into the balance. But maybe they couldn't help it? Gallia didn't choose his own magic words, after all.
"I have many names, and names have power here," Alba says, then pauses another long moment. "…but with my children, I am Beithe."
The word sounds familiar, and Gallia listens closely to the sound it makes and matches it with another word in his own language. Birch, he thinks. "Like the tree?" he says.
Beithe nods. "I was born beneath one," his face softens for a moment, and again the swirls on his cheeks change, slackening, then tightening again as his youthful face hardens once more. "And you? Do you have another name? Or has Rome taken it from you?"
Gallia smiles and puts his finger to his lips, "You can't tell anyone," he says, "because Rome might hear and then he'd get mad at me," he creeps close to Beithe and just as the blue child is about to twitch away, Gallia whispers, "Franciscus. Because my father will reclaim me when Rome falls."
Beithe's eyes are wide and green, green like the forests and fields during the rains Franciscus had to plod through to find him, and he will plod through him again to return to Britannia with dismal news that his brother has given up hope in him. And Britannia will attack over the wall that Rome erected to keep his brother out, and Beithe will throw him back out to keep Rome far away.
And Franciscus knows when Rome falls, it will hurt, but he as much as he wants to return to his home and his fields in the golden sun of the south, he wants to stay here in the rain and wet forests with Beithe and his spinning blue paint.
He wants to watch it come alive on that lovely blue child, see it fuse with his skin.
And Beithe wishes to hold him, because he's been alone for so long, separated from his brothers by Roman invaders and scared to leave his lands in case they're stolen from under his feet. Franciscus knows it. He can see it in his mind, and in front of him, written in paint on Beithe's young face.
Franciscus will stay for a while, he decides. To keep Beithe company.
Because Franciscus is lonely without his mother. And no matter what Beithe says, Franciscus can tell, he is lonely, too.
000
Rome falls and the Franks take Gallia.
It hurts. It hurts so much Franciscus screams and flails, and his brothers have promised their father to keep him alive but they never promised to not beat him first for giving into Rome like Britannia and Iberia— and the children of Lady Greece and Lady Egypt are so small.
But Franciscus' father picks him up and loads him into a boat, and tells him, "You're not Gallia anymore. You're Francia."
Soon, Britannia is screaming obscenities at him, thrashing with his little fists and it just makes Francia want to knock his stupid little head in until he stops.
So he does.
It takes years and years and he hasn't seen Alba for years, so Francia climbs over the wall and perches at the top carefully, so to not upset him by passing into his land uninvited, and calls. "Hello? Beithe? I'm sorry about all the nobles!"
Alba sits in a tree— the patterns on his skin are different, but still there— and calls him by his old name, and Francia hopes Alba hasn't forgotten, his name or if it's just that he's shy after not being together for so long, but whatever it is, Francia thinks perhaps he should have returned the favor. He hadn't thought of it at the time.
"I'm alright, Gallia, Just not too many more, or I will be upset with you," Alba says.
Alba's frown is different, and Francia can now see the child hidden in it. "Good. But my name isn't Gallia, anymore. I'm Francia now."
"I'm Scotland," Alba says. "Are you still Franciscus?"
Franciscus smiles. "I am! Are you still Beithe?"
Beithe nods. "I am."
Franciscus isn't entirely quite when it happens, but somehow he's not in charge of Britannia anymore and Britannia is calling himself Angleland now— land of Angles. Or angels. It would make Franciscus laugh, because Angleland is hardly an angel, but it hurts too much where he's been fighting.
Time passes at some point, he's sure, but it's always a little hard to tell as a nation, seeing it through so many eyes of his children at once and then his own old eyes together.
He did know two things with absolute certainty when seeing through thousands of eyes at once. He knows that Beithe changes his name to Barclay sometime in the 1100s, saying he just has more trees than before and smiling as though it's a joke. Franciscus follows suit in the 1200s when he was feeling a little less Roman and a bit fonder of Assissi. François also knows, for he remembers quite clearly, that in 1295 Barclay's king John Balliol is humiliated, and a fleet is sent out. Barclay comes to François, damp from the trip but and after a short talk and mustering all sorts of courage he says, "If you help me when England attacks, I'll help you if England attacks."
François beams, "A wonderful idea!" and later, "Was there another thing you would like to say?" because with how Barclay's looking at him, there's most definitely something more.
Barclay pauses and thinks and looks like he's about to speak again— then shakes his head and blushes, and not another peep is wiled out of him.
The spirals aren't present when they speak that day, but François smiles and imagines them dancing over his skin and that blush, anyway.
000
François hadn't particularly thought that Barclay would get into a war immediately after signing the treaty, but he supposes that given Barclay even felt the need for one, he should have expected something to happen.
It almost makes him feel guilty, the eagerness with which Barclay fights with his brother. François' memories have a bit of fuzz about their edges, but he is sure he never took such pleasure in fighting his own kin, nor is he entirely sure how the war started in the first place. He thinks it began with two families with claims to the crown and looking to the nearest person to help mediate to avoid a civil war, and of course England would come help talk things over, but only if Edward I were made Lord Paramount, so naturally his army was invited to the mediation.
François honestly feels worse about his lack of guilt over his lack of support than he feels bad about the lack of support itself. Barclay hasn't mentioned it directly. Instead, he merely writes long, winding letters about the situation, and has discovered a fondness in dropping little mentions of how nice help would be, how he wishes for the war to end quickly so he can see his siblings outside the battlefield, and how desperately he wants to rip England's head off. He writes of how he pines, as nations do, after a man named Wallace. Wallace, one of his citizens, is his favorite citizen, even though Andrew Murray is doing so much for him as well, Wallace has the sort of inner flame that makes Barclay's fingers twitch and breath quicken in anticipation for something no one's exactly sure of— so François discerns thought the letters, in any case.
François hears stories of human-skin belts, and decides to not inform Barclay that his favorite seems to have just a bit of barbarian in him. Whether Wallace speaks Greek and Latin or not have little weight on the debate, as far as he is concerned.
Instead, François writes Barclay back with condolences, well wishes, and confidence that Scotland is doing better than anyone has been giving him credit for. After Sterling Bridge, François convinces himself he feels no more guilt, and writes out his long, eloquent congratulations, condolences for Murray's death, and promises a treat the next time they see one another. In Barclay's reply he writes enthusiastically about the knighting of Wallace as Guardian of Scotland, and his hopes to visit François soon.
François' responding letter only contains cheer.
Barclay will need it when he hears that François is pulling out of the war he was just barely involved with in the first place.
000
As it goes, Barclay nearly kills himself fighting in the first War of Independence. There is a brief period of rest at least, when another war starts just as quickly as the first one ended in 1332. Barclay's clans are arguing over inheritance again, and he has too many clans swarming around in his stomach so when they start fighting each other and allying with England, well, it's just so easy to be invaded by your neighbors.
François knows that quite well.
That's why this time, François does threaten to invade England on behalf of Barclay, and then it all goes foul and all of a sudden England thinks he holds stake in François' lands and the nobles are as always raring to go to war, so François — oh. Well. Why not?
He regrets it one hundred years later as Barclay is standing between him and England again, with France on the ground, covered in mud, blood, puke and piss, and Barclay and a little girl are his last line of defense against the blood-thirsty maniac who thinks he owns him.
François doesn't mind Barclay defending him. Barclay is quite pretty, really, with his face smeared with mud and blood and shouting things at England, who's stumbling backwards for what feels like the first time in years. It's quite enjoyable to watch them fight, even if François can't quite keep his eyes open. Even if he's about to collapse in on himself from exhaustion and plague and siege.
He doesn't mind Barclay cradling him in his arms at night, muttering quiet words when he thinks that François is asleep. It's sweet, the way he tries to run his fingers through François' hair yet fails miserable due to fat fingers and the tangled mats that have become François' tresses.
No, he has no problem with the Scots. The one François has the problem with is the little girl from Orleans, who doesn't realize she's just another casualty waiting to be had.
François finds himself vaguely wondering what must go through mothers' heads when they send their children off to war, and when their children come home not carrying their shields but on them.
000
It's 1560, and Barclay has changed.
He's taller, now. Wider. His muscles are more developed, even though he's thin from hunger and bags are under his eyes from stress. He's no longer blue, he hasn't been for a very long time, though he still loves the color. It's on his flag. The flag he's had for— what? Sixty years? And he swearshe'll never change it, he likes it so much. He doesn't break his oaths.
Not usually.
François misses the blue child he knew, once upon a time. He will also miss the beautiful, tall man that child's grown up to be, because Barclay is doing what he sworehe'd never do, and is signing himself away to his little brother through the Treaty of Edinburgh.
"I can't believe you," François says.
"I'm sorry," says Barclay. "But it's my religion and I like it as it is. You didn't care back when I worshiped trees."
"That's because I worshiped trees, too," François says. "That, and you're named after one. Birch? Really?"
"I'm sorry I allied with England, but you attackedme."
"Your Regent asked me to. The mother of your Queen, asked me to attack you. You might as well have tried to start a war over yourself because you asked me to attack you and you asked your brother to attack me while on your soil. Sometimes I think you lovewar a little too much. Has she been tempting you again? Hasn't it only been two centuries since you convinced England you weren't part of his little collection?"
"It's hardly a collection, and you know I've never been able to control my leaders," Barclay scowls and rolls his eyes.
"His collection is larger than yours, and it's that way because his leaders are practically begging to kiss his filthy little derrière. You know, actually, I'm beginning to see why you asked him to come save you from your best friend. He's obviously figured something out."
"Francis, stop it, will you?" Barclay leans on one hand and covers his eyes. He has lovely eyes. Now that François has seen his brother Ireland, he knows that Barclay's eyes aren't the brightest of greens—they're actually rather dull in comparison to his western brother, but they're lovely eyes. And François still finds him a lovely man.
He's just infuriating sometimes.
"Why should I?" François says.
"Because it's my religion," Barclay says, "and it's the exact same as yours, I just don't like Latin. I've never liked Latin. Latin and Scottish have never gone together well and I just have always hated Latin and Mass, and I don't want to go to Mass anymore. I don't like confessing how many people I've killed or how often I still talk to the Morrigan, or leave milk for goblins and the fae, because people look at me like I'm crazy and I'm not. And my children want to be protestant. You know if they didn't, I would put up with all that fucking Latin, but they hate it too. I believe, Francis. You know I do. You've seen me pray, and I've got miracles in me."
François has seen. And he sees it in his mind, clear as day, Barclay muttering under his breath in the midst of a brawl. He's seen blood splatter and carve patterns into his friend's skin, and he's seen Barclay and his brothers tear each other apart and watched as the patterns became a part of him.
"I know, I've seen," François says, and remembers how he hates Huguenots, "and I do not want you to go to Hell because you might be doing it wrong. There's always that chance. I don't like chances, and you know it. Reconsider. For our friendship, if not your soul."
François sees a woman in his mind. Blond, bobbed hair, in men's armor. Across the table, he sees Barclay snort; Not take chances? Remember Jeanne, and how I held England off long enough for her to arrive and save you? Remember cross-dressing and how hot the fire was when she went to heaven? Remember how that was your only comfort that your taking-a-chance killed you and saved you all at once at the same time? And how is that supposed to work—
Across the table, he sees Barclay snort. And the woman is in his mind's eye and Heaven and nowhere else.
François wonders, sometimes, why things are always so clear in his mind. Then they happen in real life, and things like this happen. Complicated things. Looking back, it seems obvious to him to let Jeanne stay, but Godhow he'd wanted to laugh at her back then.
"Your mother's in Hell, then," Barclay says. "Mine too. And I want to see them again someday, but I'm not giving up what I believe now."
"What do you believe?" François asks, his mouth set in a firm line. He can feel the blood leaving his lips with how hard they're pressed together, and waits. Waits for Barclay's lips to move and imagines swirls on his cheeks, changing with his face.
"I believe," Barclay says, "that right now, you hate me, and I believe that England will always hate me. So I'm probably getting what's coming to me. I just wish I'd done something to deserve it."
François' sigh comes from low in his stomach and tumbles out his mouth, heavier than the air around it.
He stands, turns, and leaves Barclay, telling him, "well, we're through, and it's your loss. You can fend for yourself from now on," before he storms out of the room and the house. And he storms all the way back to France with his troops, to France and the Huguenots and cursing them out in his sleep.
He sees it in his mind: Barclay, right where he left him at the table, Auld Alliance ripped like a ring off his finger and alone for the first time in years.
But that's not right, is it?
François vaguely acknowledges the sudden increase export of French wines and contents himself in self-mutilation until religion is merelythusand he doesn't care for the others' any more.
Then, not noticing the red-eyed child to the east until it's far too late, François tastes power in Europe, alone.
000
The next time he sees Barclay, two more centuries have passed.
Matthieu is clutched in his arms, crying and sniffling and rubbing his runny nose all over François' shirt. It doesn't bother François, not in the way a snotty, runny nose normally would. It bothers him, but because it makes it so much more difficult not to cry himself.
He refuses to cry, though. At least not in front of his son. Not his child, but his son—a foundling and so beautiful. His skin is white as snow and his hair, golden and curled like ancient grasses. He holds Matthieu to his chest, buries his own face in that soft, lovely hair and shushes him, chanting his names like a reverent prayer.
"Matthieu, oh Matthieu. Kanata, my little frozen wasteland, oh God, I'll miss you, Papa will miss you, mon fils, mon pauvre, pauvre fils, j'ai regret, je suis trés désolé. Mon lapin, mon chou, mon fils. Pauvre Matthieu, Nouvelle-France, je suis désolé —"
And Matthieu sobs into his shirt as their carriage pulls up to the front gates of a mansion. The sky hangs low and overcast, the air is as still as it is cold. François tries to say the Earth itself is in mourning for his little boy because pauvre pauvre Matthieu mon Matthieu echoes in his mind, but he fears if he opens his mouth to do more than just whisper, he'll breathe too deeply and begin to cry too early.
He doesn't want to cry when it might be the last time he sees his son. God only knew what England did to his colonies. He'd seen America, lovely, lively little America during the war. He'd seen the child trip and stumble and drag himself through the mud to hand England a new musket to shoot with.
He'd seen how England hadn't had the time to notice the beaming smile from the muddy boy at his heels. England only had eyes for François, and François' son. America's brother-of-the-North.
(He'd met America and Canada's mother. She was strong and beautiful androaredso loudly at the sight of America that England flinched away and now tried to halt America from following her into the greater parts of his lands.
He saw in his mind: his friend Antonio. He saw Antonio dragging America's dead aunt behind him by her ankle and holding a child by the scruff of her neck and saying, "look, look, Francisco, I finally have a friend for my little Romano!" and how all he'd seen was his own mother's headless corpse and felt being picked up by Rome and hearing, "Romano, Veneziano, I got you a new toy!" before being thrown to the lion cubs.)
Now, François does his duty and delivers his child who'd been won away in battle. For the moment, he simply cannot fight anymore.
François' ribs are showing under his shirt and he felt ill, his face gray. His people are hungry, his monarchy is fat, and no matter what Louis XV does, he will never be his father.
So François drags himself out of the carriage, through the gate and to the door. He sets Matthieu down on the path, kisses his forehead and says, "Remember, I love you," and straightened his clothes.
He pulls the string until the bell rings.
The door opens without as much as a squeak. François was expecting a servant or England himself, or anything really, except for the sickly off-white door opened to blazing hair, dull green eyes, and a pale face devoid of blue and life.
"France?" Barclay says.
François winces at his formal name, but it rolls off easily on Barclay's tongue like he's been saying it for years.
François supposes he has. After all, it's been fifty years since the Lean Years and he'd of course heard of how Barclay got on his hands and knees and crawled to England for money to feed his people. He'd heard of how England grinned and took him in, because Barclay was a sucker for sweet-talking nobles who convinced him he needed England more than he needed his pride and England didn't need Barclay, but turning up his nose at such a tasty morsel as his eldest brother would've been foolish, and there wouldn't be invasions and it was all just so political…
François imagines Barclay in chains as he stands in the doorway, awkwardly staring at the floor as he lets François in. Matthieu clutches François' hand. He's such a small boy. He has such a large home.
"I'll tell England you're here," Barclay mutters, and turns to go, when—
"That will be fine, Barksy."
The voice echoes through the halls. Barclay's hands twitch into fits momentarily, then slacken. François can't seem to find his voice again.
England is smug as he saunters through his house, half dressed with his vest unbuttoned and neck ribbon hanging loose, grinning like a wretched cat and not bothering with politics or procedures like greeting the guests or offering drinks. Those are for lesser immortals.
England rules the world. And the lies of friendship are below England.
"Thank you for bringing him, France. It's just such a terrible trouble to send a ship over for him, so, sincerely, thank you for delivering him on your way home." England's smile is wide and treacherous. François thinks of poisoned arrows and lightning storms that have no rain.
"It's no trouble," François says. He squeezes Matthieu's little hand before nudging him forward towards his new colonizer.
"What's his name, again?" England says, monstrous eyebrows raised like birds of prey, perched on his forehead.
"Matthieu," François says.
"Matthew," England says, nodding. "Fine name. I'm mildly surprised. I thought it would be something… ridiculous. Like Eudes. My apologies, I must've somehow overestimated your lunacy."
François says nothing. Matthew stands before England, head held high and proud in the face of the young empire. François sees his son: wild and dashing in the snow, winter wind thrashing about him and lifting him up and up like a dance with Winter himself. His little Matthew is like Russia, a wild child, but with a mother, while Russia only has a grandfather.
He's considered the idea that Winter is Matthew's grandfather, just as he is Russia's, the same as Germania and Gaul were to Franciscus.
Beithe is standing beside him, red hair, stoic face, and takes Matthew's hand ever so carefully into his own large and calloused one, even before England says, "Barksy, get him a bed. Spit-spot."
Barclay leads Matthew down the hall, muttering quiet comforts that François can just barely make out.
("Hey, hey now, don't cry. It's not so bad here once you get used to it. I'll even help you rebel if you want— oh, uh, okay. Not that kind of colony. Sorry. Want something to drink? It'll cheer you up, promise, no, really. There now, you're a handsome kid when you're not crying. You're gonna be fine, runt. Buck up. Come along.)
As the two disappear and François turns to leave without a goodbye or a punch in the jaw, he happens to turn and glance between a door. Cracked open just-so, he catches a glimpse of a little girl with red hair. It's hard to tell, but from a distance, she seems to have bright emerald eyes. Brighter than England or Barclay or Wales. She's very pretty, despite the freckles, and has Ireland's face. Hardly older than a babe.
He bites his lip as he leaves Barclay and Matthew behind, knowing he can't turn back anymore. He has no say in who they're with. He has no say in who claims them as belonging.
He has no say in where they might want to belong.
France goes home. He curls in his bed in Versailles with his door locked, three bottles of wine and he cries and cries and cries.
000
François cries until 1775, when he personally lands in Boston Harbor and takes the one thing he can take from England. The one thing he will never get back. The one thing that will make England cry.
He steals it in every way he can. He brandishes it on the battlefield, he molds himself into the language, slips himself in schooling and in weaponry. He leaves his mark on America, freeing him from those chains he sees when he thinks of England. He does it on the streets and in battle, and he does it in bed with a virgin.
When he returns home, his victory attained, he crumples to the floor. His eyelids droop, his tongue goes slack, and he finds it so easyto just follow where his people lead him.
He follows them in a daze and half-aware, from La Bastille to Waterloo, and all the way to Moscow, Vienna and back.
It's the best he's felt in centuries, and gets hardly a smack on the wrist for his trouble.
Though his aches and pains are worse than usual, he recovers beautifully and recites poetry and philosophy for decades, humming on his merry way through minor wars and revolutions, and finds he once again just loves to be alive.
000
In 1903, François remembers the Auld Alliance exists in part and that England has Scotland on a leash, so François says that Scottish citizens aren't French citizens anymore, and French citizens no longer will be Scottish.
When he closes his eyes, he sees Barclay's heart break and clatter to the floor. A little voice in the back of his mind wishes things were different, and is muffled.
He feels the tension building up in Europe. All the nations do. They've felt it since Prussia defied the status quo and won three wars with his new method. It seems war has changed once again, to use guns and quickly, efficiently and cutting causalities.
François hopes this war he feels coming happens soon. He wants to see the blood again, anywhere, anywhere but on a blue face where paintings fuse in to the skin.
The other nations agree with him. It's been too long since they had a brawl. As they load up the trains to the border, his children go singing.
000
It's 1916 and The Great War is not the small-scale stress reliever François thought it would be. There's more mud than he's ever seen before, and he remembersAgincourt. The artillery bursts above their heads like cruel, metal fireworks that vaporize men where they stand and maim those that are unfortunate enough to stand too far away but not far away enough. The gasses burn his men. His skin rots and peels in his boots. His coat hanger is the half-buried arm of a corpse, stuck in the wall.
It's one of Barclay's men.
Today, England is leaving the trenches because Ireland is revolting in this desperate hour. Above them, the skies are black. In Ireland, François is sure it's raining. It's a guess, but he thinks it's an accurate one. He'd rather guess about the weather in Ireland (raining. They were such rainy islands it poured and poured like the sky was crying, just for that wretched little family.) than listen to Barclay and England, both away from their troops. Because England is leaving. But England is not leaving Hell without its inhabitants causing a fuss.
"Leave Aodhàn alone, damnit, you're going to hurt him! He's been nothing but miserable with you, just let him go!"
Barclay claws at England's leg while he begs. François remembers the girl in England's house and remembers Ireland's eyes on her face, and he sees what is going to happen years from now after bloody, bloody war.
He never thought it possible, but he's tired of war.
François is so, so tired of war.
"No one rebels against me and gets away with it," England is screaming, twisting and thrashing and trying to break Barclay's hold on his legs, mud covers their uniforms so completely that there isn't a splotch left clean. It dribbles down their faces and infests their hair.
There are no spirals on Barclay's cheeks, not even in François' mind. Not in the mud and not in paint. Not even his spirals can dance, here.
"This is about America, isn't it?" Barclay says. "He's not coming, he doesn't want this war. No one wants this war. We don't want another war while this one's happening. Let Ireland go! Aodhàn wants nothing to do with you, let him go!"
François sinks into the mud as well. It oozes up around him and wraps his legs in their cold, clammy grip. His mother is beneath this mud. His children sleep beneath this mud. He never asked where Barclay's mother went, and America and Canada's is on reservations, fenced in by her unforgiving sons. But François' mother's bones lie beneath this mud.
"He's not coming back! America isn't coming back and you need to learn to let people go!" Barclay shouts, "Let Ireland go! Please, don't hurt Aodhàn, just let him go!"
There is no silence. Guns fire and somewhere down the line, shells fall. England is all teeth and claws and beats Barclay's face into the mud, but his legs still aren't free and Barclay drags England down with him.
François sees the tears in England's eyes.
"I won't! You all want to leave me— why? Why does everyone leave me? I never meant it, damnit! I didn't want to hurt you, but I can't let you go! You're the ones making me hurt you! I can't let you go! I don't want to be alone!"
François wants to hold England.
He wants to hold the empire. He wants to pet his hair and sooth his cries and say, "It's alright. It's alright. I never wanted to make them leave, either. So stop crying, Britannia. You're not alone. The war will end. All wars end, even if it takes a hundred years and a dead saint to do it."
But François just watches and holds his breath as England lunges at Barclay, tears him to bits and leaves him open and bleeding in the trench's mud.
One year later, America joins the war, but it's already too late, and no one remembers what they were fighting for.
They're so tired and sore and starved for someone to blame that when they negotiate peace, they forget to take precautions against having it happen again.
000
François gasps through the 1920s and 1930s like a fish with no air. His economy didn't crash as suddenly as the other's but half his children are dead and his soil is plowed up like a field before planting, but his seeds are secretly bombs. He sees Hitler reviving Germany and hopes against hope that the war debt will be repaid—
And then Hitler starts a war and François remembers the leniency the other nations had on him when Napoleon ran rampant. How they blamed Napoleon and not him, not his children, and let him thrive.
François remembers Germany's weak "but I didn't start the war, Russia declared war on me!" and feels ill.
He can't fight for long, not with outdated Great War weaponry, and he can't modernize quickly with his economy in shambles, and he can't rely on manpower with half his population wiped out.
So François lies back and does small inconveniences to Germany while protecting his people the best that he can. He feels the traitors on his skin and can't hate them but mourns the children he loses to them, even as he's beaten and locked up alone for days on end in an empty room to suffer.
He's swollen all over, especially in one eye. His leg is broken so he lays on his one-person bed in an empty room, motionless, late at night in August of 1944.
It's during one of his stints of isolation, where food is left on his table three times a day and he's taken out, handcuffed and guarded to use the toilet twice a day. When he last read a newspaper, there were troops on Normandy's beaches. Since he'd seen the headline, the uncomfortable feeling of invasion spread across his limbs. Just a short while later, it surrounded his heart.
So François lay on the bed, motionless, and waited.
He holds his breath until he can't hold it any longer. He picks at his wounds and rubs his injured eye. The anxiety is worse than hearing the bullets outside. The bullets are just bullets, but anxiety reminds him that he doesn't know whose bullets are hitting.
The shots get closer and the shouts get louder, louder, until he can hear them just outside his door and—
Englandknocks the door off its hinges and bursts into the room, gun at his shoulder with a huddle of American soldiers behind him.
A quick look left and right, and England is at François' bedside.
"France?" he says.
England's eye is black and bandages peep out from the collar of his shirt. François looks him over with the eye that isn't almost sealed shut and manages to overcome his swollen throat to ask, "Why are you here?"
England's smile is tiny, brief, and lacking all the smugness François has come to expect. "I'm not here on record. Only Americans and French. They were going to pass over Paris, but… not all of them wanted to."
François considers this for a moment, finds he doesn't want to, and his jaw trembles as he asks, "but why are you here?"
England's frown is just as small and brief as his smile. "Saving you, dolt."
He takes one look at François' leg and opts instead to drag François off the bed and swing him over his shoulder. François almost shouts, certain he will fall, but England holds him steady. If not for his broken leg, François might almost have been comfortable, despite how sharp and angled England is in the shoulders. "This will pang a bit on your leg, but we've got to get you to a medic, love. Just try to stay quiet, all right? We're still blasting Krauts."
And England carries him, just like that. Slung over his shoulder like a sack.
England carries him through his broken heart— his capital— and all the way to a field hospital near the edges of the city. Two more soldiers (perhaps actually medics, though François finds he can't quite see the crosses) carefully lift him from England's shoulder and lay him down on a cot.
As François' head hits the feather pillow, England stumbles forward and falls to his knees, cursing loudly. A tall blond who François assumes (through squinted eyes) is a medic dashes over. This time he does make out the red crosses on the man's shoulders and the glasses perched on his nose. He kneels beside England and says, "Is it the Blitz?"
François realizes: the medic is one of them.
England nods slowly, coughing. "Just stressed it a bit and they opened again. Nothing to worry about. Really."
America scowls, "Arthur…" and sighs. "Lie down and rest. I can't use too many more supplies bandaging you up right now… maybe after the battle, or once there's another shipment," and America turns to François and beams.
"Hey," the golden boy says, helping his conqueror to a cot beside his liberator. And now they're both liberators, aren't they? "You still breathing, Frenchie?" America smiles and pulls out what looks like a tube of paint, "I guess I can skip the sulfanilamide…"
"What's that?" François asks.
"This? Morphine," America responds, showing the paint tube, which apparently isn't filled with paint. "I don't think you want me setting your leg while you're conscious, and this is what I have. Don't worry, you'll wake up in a hospital and they'll get you away from the battles until you're better."
His smile is blinding, so François looks away as America breaks the seal on the paint-tube-morphine-container and pulls up François' shirt to expose his waist.
England lays on the bed to the left, clutching bloody bandages on his chest and breathing harshly.
As a pinprick of pain penetrates François' side, England looks over and smiles a tiny, but honest smile. "Arthur," he says. "Er… that is, my name. Since Alfred already blurted it out, I figure it does no harm to tell you straight-up."
"François," François says as Alfred clips something to his collar and pulls his shirt up more until the bruises are visible. The young nation looks him over. François hasn't seen Alfred since the last war. He was so shy back then, always standing in the back of the room and waiting for orders, isolated. It's strange to see Alfred, a medic, and laughing. With another country that wasn't Russia.
(In the 1920s, François recalls how Russia closed his embassy to the United States. He recalls telling Barclay in 1903 how the Auld Alliance trulywasgone. He watched as he crushed Barclay's heart in his hand, and whispered to Russia to defend the Balkans from Austria and Germany in 1914.)
In centuries of heartbreak, disappointments, and uncomfortable truths, François, like all the others, has mastered the art of pushing the worst of unpleasant thoughts out of his mind.
The cot he lays on is warm and soft, as are the hands that run over his chest. A pleasant buzzing sound fills his ears as regular noise (the rustle of the wind through the trees, the hiss and bang of guns and gunpowder and shrieks of gulls and dead men on his shores) fade into the background of his mind as the medicine takes effect.
His swollen eye is already as closed as it will get, but as his other eyelid begins to droop, he realizes some of the buzzing in the background sounds like laughter. His eye flutters groggily opens again to find Arthur smiling widely and snickering into his hand with Alfred above him beaming like a searchlight.
(Years ago, farther south in the trenches, Barclay is shouting "you've got to let people go" at a man who does not listen to reason. )
François finds wants to watch them longer, but it's too late, and before he can blink his eye open again, the drug has already pulled him down to sleep.
As promised, he wakes in a hospital, a few hours from being shipped across the channel and his leg in a cast.
He's still alone. Alone in a hospital room with no way of independent movement. Instead, François grips the cross that a nurse gives him, clutches it close to his heart, and prays that it all ends soon, the world or the war, for better or for worse.
He's not sure exactly which ending he expects. He's seen enough dramatic reversals in his time to know that it could be either.
Hell. It could be both.
000
It's VE Day and François is in London, sweeping the English women into his arms and kissing them full on the lips.
Arthur probably feels it, but François can't bring himself to care. Arthur won't blame him, anyway.
He's probably sweeping little Veneziano into his arms, because Veneziano gives love to any who ask for it, and Arthur would rather die than ask Alfred. They'll probably go drink their little hearts silly.
And, well, François reflects, that doesn't sound like half a bad idea.
000
It feels like VE Day stretches into VE Week, and then—
They hear Japan's scream all the way on the other side of the world.
In a room in D.C., Alfred is as impenetrable as a stone wall when he orders the drop of two bombs and incinerates whole cities in moments.
Japan speaks. He accepts defeat and all the aid America (for he is no longer Alfred, Alfred was a medic, and that was not the work of a medic) will give him.
It's not Japan, but Russia, who trembles as the allied forces meet. Poland is in a wheelchair and Lithuania's beside him on crutches, while Estonia stands behind them, one hand on the wheelchair and the other arm broken in a sling. Ukraine is holding Latvia tightly to her chest and slowly, slowly backing away from her little brother, towards the wall behind them.
Russia stands in front of them in Paris, ruined Paris, but not as ruined as ruined Russia. His face is sunken, his eyes ringed with sleepless nights and skin as pale and taunt as death. His bones are not broken, or if they are, he hides their cast beneath his thick coat, forced smile and hard glare.
Russia was not told about the bomb before it was dropped, he found out on his own. With spies in the project and with the citizens of the world, at the drop.
François remembers a frightened little child running from his grandfather's wrath. As he looks at Russia, he sees that child again, running from his warmer, closer, sweet little friend that he'd found in America, and pulled away from with ideological differences.
"He can't have that," Russia says. "America should not have that, what if he uses it on us— I'm next, can't you see? He hates me, I'll be next! First Japan, next me!"
Lithuania can't reach him before it's too late. The crutches slow him and his voice is soft from years of service, and before he can comfort his old nuisance, Russia is turning and storming out the doors like a windstorm blowing past in all its fury. He leaves no damage in his wake, except a quiet uneasiness in the room as the remaining inhabitants glance at each other, each silently daring another to speak.
Arthur glances over at him, wide green eyes tinged with something that is most definitely not smugness.
Arthur's empire is falling beneath him as the days go by. François' smaller one is following his example. Chipping away, like rocks in a river of time.
That evening, in a hotel room near the Opera, a short blond child with bright blue eyes and fidgeting hands peeks into Arthur's hotel room in Paris, ruined Paris. His small, youthful voice says, "Dad? I was wondering if—"
"No, you're not leaving!" Arthur roars.
The child shrieks, "I wanted to know when you wanted the soldiers back!" and cowers.
Arthur does not move towards the child, but stares at him as though he's as foreign as the food in Asia.
From down the hall, a mop of red hair and white skin appears. Barclay scoops the child up into his arms and gives Arthur a glare to make lions shrink back as the little blond curls into his arms.
"Jerk!" the boy shrieks.
Barclay doesn't spare a glance at François when he walks away. Dully, François feels something sting inside him. It may be his liver. He's been drinking enough as of late.
Arthur doesn't look at him. Not even many long minutes later, once he finally breaks the silence that descended like nightfall.
"Sorry," he pauses to cough, "I used to be better with children. And now somehow he's got it all figured out, so I bring him along to take care of all the runts…"
François nods, "I see," he says. But he doesn't.
He doesn't know how people can possibly change so much that they're unrecognizable. He decides that somewhere, part of them can't change, but the rest can, and all that can shifts around that part that can't.
Franics is in Paris, ruined Paris. His capital. His heart.
But it doesn't feel like home.
He had thought that part of him in his center would never change, and so, he deems it obvious it must not be his beating heart that stands resolute.
000
Matthew is his own man when François goes to visit him.
He stands in a field just outside of a residence when François finds him, and the air is just starting to nip: a sign of Matthew's brutal winter creeping ever so slowly into the cities and homes, through windows and cracks in the walls and into their beds and livelihoods. It happens each year. There's something beautiful about it, no matter how cold it gets.
Matthew stares at him when he approaches the edge of the field. A beat, two, pass between them.
"I thought you forgot about me," Matthew says.
François huffs. "I'm not that bad."
"You were, sometimes."
It's quiet again for a moment. Only the wind blows and the grass whispers, and François is reminded that this is such a new land. He shouldn't waste its youth with silence.
"I heard about what you did," he says, his throat dry, "during Operation Overlord."
Matthew blushes. "It wasn't that much."
François gapes and scoffs at him, "You modest little thing, how— what— no. Really. Matthew, really."
And Matthew smiles a shy little smile.
François plods his way through the field and hugs him; holds him tight.
000
François plods his way back across the Atlantic.
Russia sets off his first atomic bomb just as François sets foot back within his borders.
François turns on his heel, changes direction and travels North.
He reaches the channel.
He does not cross.
000
His daughter Suong says, "Let me go," with all the fury François said during 1793, when Louis XVI sobbed and said, "I'm trying."
He fights it, at first. Then Suong surrounds his troops and— Hell. He has to let her go.
He does.
In the helicopter airlifting him away from the jungles and carnage, he wonders if that was what it was like when America surrounded England, all those years ago. If so, he knows what the people surrounding him felt like, and can't be but so bitter.
So he congratulates Suong and wishes her well. He smiles when he shakes her hand 'goodbye,' to let her know he means it.
And then America panics and attacks her for trying to go Red. And Russia attacks her too, because America's attacking her and any chance to fight is a good one.
Arthur stands firmly beside America, even though he hates what he sees as a god-forsaken jungle country and François wants to hiss, "if you don't like it, leave her alone, don't hurt her, just leave her alone!" —at which point he remembers that part of the United Kingdom is actually favoring Russia.
François doesn't want to watch Suong fight herself through America and Russia. He doesn't want to listen to America's children screaming at him "Let her go!" and "Peace, we want peace!"
He can't watch Russia or Russia's children instead. The news is always of dubious sources, and the bits that sound realistic sound horrible.
He's faced it before, of course, but never so possibly— never so realistically and definitely— has François ever faced the end of the world.
This time, when he reaches the channel, he crosses it with a steel resolve.
…Crossing the wall takes longer. But he does it, in the end.
000
"Barclay?" François says as the door to the isolated cottage opens.
"France?" Barclay says back, eyebrows dangerously close to his hairline. He seems shorter, or maybe François has just grown.
"François," he corrects. "Has it changed? I mean, are you still Barclay?"
Barclay nods, "but if you hear Arthur say Berkeley, he's talking about me, too," and steps aside to let François in. "Why are you here?"
"Because I missed you," François says. "And I wanted to know if you missed me, too."
Barclay hesitates. His dull eyes flicker to the side for a moment. François follows them and finds a news paper on the table there. 'TROUBLE IN IRELAND' read the headline.
(François sees Barclay in the trenches, "Don't hurt Aodhàn!" and Arthur's mud-stained tear-streaked face)
"It's kinda lonely, I s'pose…" Barclay mutters, and scuffs his shoes together.
"Do you have a spare bedroom?" François says, eyes ripping away from the newspaper and back to Barclay's face. There's fuzz growing on his chin for the start of a new beard as Barclay nods. "Good, show me where it is and I'll cook supper for the week. I've gotten new recipes; I think you'll like them.
The grin is small, like all the grins that appear into Arthur's household. François thinks that should change, but isn't entirely sure how to do it.
François kisses Barclay's cheeks, and they color bright, bright red.
It looks good on him.
000
"They're calling you a coward," Barclay says.
François looks up from his stove. "Hm?" It's been three months since he showed up on Barclay's doorstep, he's still cooking the suppers, and he hasn't seen hide or hair of another nation since outside of newspapers and radio broadcasts. He keeps in touch with his boss via phone lines. Barclay hasn't said a word of tongue nor body against François staying.
The cabin is heated by a fireplace, and each day Barclay sets out to receive the telegram and newspaper clippings that Arthur deems important to send. The locals call Barclay "Ewan," but they're still alone and isolated in the world, up in Barclay's mountains where sunlight is scarce and companionship, sacred.
After three months, François finds he can once again read Barclay like a book. Open him up and lay him out like a buffet, sample his emotions and bask in all the beautiful little secrets and treasures hidden away in this isolated, rainy little corner of the world.
"For the war," Barclay says. "Because you surrendered so quickly to Germany. And then in Vietnam."
"Hm," François says again, and stirs the pot. Succulent aromas creep through the house, inviting hunger that he plans to sate.
"You're not bothered?"
"Not really," François says, "I've had my fair share of spilling guts all over the floor. The more I think about it, the more I realize I didn't like it all that much. It seemed to happen rather often, though."
He's lying, and he knows Barclay know that he's lying without even having to look at him. They don't share people or alliances anymore. They share history, this earth, and for the moment, a house— and that's contentment enough for him.
"I see," Barclay says. And he does.
François turns and smiles, "I thought you might. It's silly, no?"
"Kinda," Barclay says, and looks back at the paper. François frowns as he watches Barclay's brow wrinkle. If he edges just a little to the left, he can peer over Barclay's shoulder and see the article he's reading.
Ah. Yes. Imminent destruction upon them all.
"I don't think we'll die," François says. Barclay's shoulders hunch up, and then relax down again. For a moment, François feels bad about startling him.
"You don't?" Barclay says, voice even and giving little hint of what he may feel one way or another.
"I don't," François says, sounding as confident as he wishes he felt. He does believe his words, though. Perhaps it's because of his improving personal life, despite the state of terror and squalor of the world today that his people and the people of other nations are becoming more and more aware of. Perhaps it's because living in the middle of nowhere with someone he can sit with for hours in silence and still feel comfortable with is a highly conductive atmosphere for philosophizing, even if it's raining much of the time. Perhaps it's simply that he's been smiling more often lately. Whatever the reason, he really does believe his words, and he is really, truly proud that he does. "I've known America and Russia for quite some time. Things may get bad, but I don't think we'll all die."
"It's not us I'm worried about," Barclay says.
"If our children don't die, we don't die. If we don't die, are children are not dead. Relax."
Barclay does not.
François stands behind his chair and wraps his arms around Barclay's neck. The body he presses against is tense; the hairs on his neck are standing up. How long has it been since someone's given Barclay a hug?
When François thinks about it, he realizes it genuinely could have been centuries, and tightens his hold.
"Beithe," he says, breathing into Barclay's ear.
Barclay's face goes bright red, like his name has brought up some embarrassing memory, and when François thinks back, well, it could have been embarrassing for him. "Beithe, Beithe, Beithe," he says. "Think, mon loup. This world is full of fantastic things. There is no man, sane or insane, who would ever consciously wantto destroy it, and so we will survive."
And François pinches Barclay's cheek until it's white. The discoloration lingers a moment, and disappears in a swirl. Dancing, and alive, despite hundreds of years.
000
C'est la fin.
000
Holy crapcakes, Batman. I have been working on this since August, when I randomly felt like typing out Scotland and France meeting each other as children in the middle of the woods. And then I kept writing for five hours straight. And thenI edited it. [/so proud]
This is pretty much my love-letter to fanfiction...
To get something out of the way right now: I know at least one person will take offense to something in here. I'm sorry, it's really hard writing to please everyone, especially when they're personifications. I would just like to take a moment to remind everyone that I'm a character writer, and I tried to focus on the character's relations while in the midst of historic events, not making every tiny, controversial detail right. Also remember that a people and a government are two different things. Thank you.
If you see an inaccuracy, please tell me, but don't beat me over the head with it. Love you all.
This thing is full of how I interpret history(AS A GIANT DOORSTOPPER BOOK WITH LOTS AND LOTS OF MISSING CHAPTERS!), inaccuracies, sentimentality and god-knows what else. I lost track halfway through the cameo of Northern Ireland.
Also. I'd really love to see my Google Search record. I bet it's gorgeous.
The notes in here are monstrous, and I should really just make a whole 'nother chapter for them. Unfortunately, dA won't let me do that so you're stuck with it in the A/N.
And yes. I do realize Beithe is actually a letter. I have a friend named E and there's a certain famous character named L. I don't think calling someone Beithe (which sounds more like a name than El or Ee. ) is too far-fetched. 8\
And if no one could guess, I ship France/Scotland LIKE BURNING -keyboard smash-.
NOTES! SO MANY NOTES THAT THE REST ARE IN THE NEXT CHAPTER! Please go check there before asking any questions. Thank you!
Barclay's name ( "birch trees" ) anglicized it becomes "Berkeley" .
Beithe is an ogham letter and the Celtic word for Birch, a type of tree symbolizing rebirth
François' name (Franciscus means "free" in Frankish Germanic. Germania is François' father, all the tribes are his brothers. Big, unhappy family much? ) anglicized it becomes "Francis," which is how Barclay, Arthur and Alfred would say it
Aodhan (The Irish version of "Aiden/Aidan," which is derived from the old Irish word for "Fire" [Áed or Aodh, the behindthename isn't that clear, but it's one of them] )
New France/Canada, which was named after the native word for the land, "Kanata" (he was very badass during WWII, but you can google that yourself )