The woman leaned against the splintery wall of the barn. She rubbed her pregnant belly, looking down warmly. Her hair, dark, smooth black, flowed down her toned shoulders. The midwife regarded her casually, waiting for the baby that promising to be born.
"Do you think it'll be a boy or a girl?" The midwife asked.
"I think two boys," the woman laughed, her words heavily accented, "I feel so heavy."
"What with that man running off with you baking some bread in that oven, I wouldn't doubt it. No wonder, he wanted to run away from two children—it's enough having one!" The heavyset woman laughed shortly, keeping her eyes pinned on the soon to be mother's drawn face. Her brown lips were taut and her eyes screwed shut. A wave of pain attacked her. She huffed, drawing each breath desperately. The baby, twins, squirmed in her belly.
Within the next two hours both of them were in her arms, bawling, red, strained. She smiled, giving them names that would be forgotten in the following month. The smaller one, with docile, almost scarlet eyes, was given a name that meant "Soft Snow" and the other "Wild Horse". She held them tightly to her breast. She felt a false sense of safety within the abandoned walls of the barn. Moss clung to the corners. Hay never given to horses was stacked in one corner. The loft overhead held rusted axes, pitchforks, and other farm supplies. The midwife left through the tornado passageway, so not to be seen outside. She didn't trust the shade of night, which had fallen heavily since she arrived that warm morning.
The mother cradled her infants for some time, trying to figure out where she was to go next.
The following three years she grew sicker, with the plague brought over to her secluded plantation, painted with tears. The infants, white, were given offhanded friendliness by the others there. The women refused to help her, the men felt ashamed to have the ancient enemy near them, and the children were terrified. But the mother strived on. Despite her growing sickness, the welts on her skin, and the hot pinpricks of pain, she tried her best to feed and clothe the two babies. One of them, the smaller one, was hardly any trouble. He was quiet, almost forgotten, but she loved him tenderly and deeply, even if she had to divvy up a greater portion of her attention to the rowdy, ambitious bigger one.
At the end of those three years, when she was bedridden, a strange man visited her in her tiny wooden home. The door opened and the man, older, but dressed in an ink black suit and accompanied by a sheaf of papers stepped in as if he owned the place—which he now did. He looked from the bed, where the woman stared at him, wide-eyed.
"What do you want?" She said.
"You speak English?" he said in a deliberate slow voice.
She scowled. "You cannot take my children." Her voice faltered and she was seized at once by a fit of heavy, burdensome coughing. The man frowned in disgust.
The two children, three years old and already exhibiting distinguishing characteristics, hid behind their mother. She shook with coughs, blood spilling into her hands. The children gawked in fear. The bigger one, with a head full of straw-blond hair, wanted to attack. The other, mousy, grabbed his hand and began to cry. The man rounded on them when he heard the stifled sobs.
"Lookee what we got here!" he whistled and two other men, dark-haired and with brown eyes that could have been friendly stepped into the house. Guns were strung across their back. They leered at the woman.
"She's sick, think we can still use her?" one asked.
The other shook his head, "it's probably nasty down there."
"Stop your yapping and take a gander at these two fellows. Come here, boys, what're you doing with this Indian broad? Did she steal you?"
The boys looked wide-eyed at them, without understanding. Neither spoke English. Their mother refused to teach them based on some ancient grudge, a fault of hers.
"Mute, dead probably," the man in the black suit said, his belly bulging against the imported fabric. "Filthy bitch, you stole them from some good white family?"
The smaller one began to weep, tears falling like the snow he was named after.
"Shh, my baby," the mother said hoarsely in her native language. The babe shook his head, clinging to his brother desperately. The brother's eyes were wide with anger. He didn't understand what the man said, but he could tell something hostile had been going on.
"Well, I'm afraid that you have to be off this land, is what I came to tell you personally. I came because I heard you were sick. It's an act of kindness, isn't it, boys?"
The mother watched the two younger men nod, something like fear imprinted in their eyes. They weren't friends with the fat man, she could tell, they feared him. He had power. He could take them, their wives, their children, and not be even remotely admonished for his actions. The man radiated a bloody, villainous power that made the mother sick. She drew her children to her, whispering to them to be quiet, that everything will be alright. The children shivered in her embrace.
The man gave a long-drawn sigh and stepped forwards. He grabbed her shoulder roughly and pulled her against the bed, causing her head to smack against the wall. Searing pain ignited in the base of her skull. She felt consciousness being tugged away from her. She grabbed her babes regardless, begging the man hysterically to let her keep them, even as her jaundiced eyes threatened to close at any minute and never open again.
"Now, we'll take these boys to a nice home. They'll get food. Hey, we might take you too. You aren't bad looking, we could make a profit."
She spat at his face. He grunted, wiping off the white spot of wetness from his nose. "Get her."
In a second the boys were ripped free from her grasp and the cold barrel of a rifle was pointed at her temples. Her heart quivered, but not because of the guns pointed at her head. Instead she felt an immense grief only a mother knows swallow her whole. The other two guns were pointed at her sons, between their eyes.
"No," tears trickled down her cheeks. She shook with another cough, blood dribbling down her lips.
"Let us take these white boys, or we kill them. Move and we kill you, but we'll let them stay with you. This is your last chance, slimy Indian bitch."
She nodded silently. The man holding the gun to her head looked from the fat man to her. The fat men drew the boys away, the guns taken away from their faces. They stayed looking after their mother, wailing in fear of separation. "My babies," she said, "don't forget your true mother, don't forget me. Mother loves you more than you can imagine. She'd give you all the pretty little horses if she could. She'd give you the world."
The babies bawled even more hysterically, flinging themselves against the men's hold and waving their arms for their mother. The mother bowed her head. "Be good, for me."
"I'm sick of sappy stories," the fat man said. "Shoot her."
"You promised!" The mother cried out, but the trigger was pulled.
"She was sick anyway. We took her out of her grief." The fat man shrugged, starting out of the cabin while pocketing several of the jewels he caught lying around the vicinity. The boys, unable to understand what was happening, could only stare as the gun was fired at their mother's temple. Her eyes widened and her mouth open. More blood spilled, running between her teeth. Her eyes rolled back and red mist sprayed out the opposite. Chunks of white and red painted the wall behind her. She fell, limp, skinny, sick, dead.
That was the last the boys saw of her. The next moment they were tossed on a truck, in the front seat. The back, an open area, was filled with others from their plantation, holding all their belongings close. A blind old man was in the far back, his arms tied behind his back, marks scratched along his skin. The boys sat in the front, next to the fat man who drove them on.
"Well, boys, your life is about to improve now!" he laughed and pulled two pieces of candy, giving it to them both. They remained oddly quiet. Children hardly understand death. It is a concept beyond the reaches of their understanding, an outlandish thing as far as the outer planets. Soon they would forget what had happened. All that would remain in their minds was a familiar face and a warm, but sick, grasp around them. Their mother would recede to only a single stroke of a paintbrush on a great canvas.
They bounced along on the tractor, yellow plains rolling out before them to touch the azure sky. They giggled when they were thrown a good distance. Behind them the rest remained stoically silent, saying goodbye to the land they were born on.
Later the boys would learn that the fat man had bought the space cheap to build a factory and the people in the back, if they were lucky, were thrown into impoverished lives. The others would die of hunger, and some, the children, were given to orphanages. Neither boy would ever remember riding in that truck.
After a long truck ride, the fat man stepped out and took the boys into a gray building. Another man took hold of the truck and drove away, continuing the sad journey akin to the one the people's ancestors faced about a century ago. The fat man, taking both boys in hand, took them into the cool air conditioned building.
"Get them out of these rags." He said sharply. A woman, in cleaner clothing than anything they had ever seen, rushed forwards. She took the children, with a faint look of disgust, into a backroom. She gave them each a clean cotton shirt, underwear, pants, and shoes. They dressed quickly and silently, sucking on the sweets the fat man had given them. The woman washed their faces with a cloth. She had a cold look on their faces, almost unfriendly. Her womb had been unkind to her.
Back in the main room, a tight office space where two strange men sat, the boys were seated.
At the front desk a small man scribbled something on papers. "What are their names?" He said.
The fat man, ready to leave, looked suddenly perplexed. "Some Indian bullshit, probably. Let's give them some new names, eh, boys?" He gave them a kind smile. The man had a liking to children, which was why he even bothered helping the Native American children get into proper homes, at least as much as he could without denting his money or reputation.
The two strange men, seated on uncomfortable chairs and gazing anywhere but at each other, focused on the boys before them.
"Matthew Williams," one of them said. He was a handsome Frenchman, with golden curls collected in a red string at the neck. He nodded at the smaller boy. "Come here," he said, in French.
The small boy didn't want to leave his brother, but the man's calling was so natural, so smooth, so loving that he was drawn. He gave his brother's hand a squeeze and padded over, wobbling. The man took the boy's shoulder in his arms. "Yes, Matthew Williams."
The small man with the papers, cast his exhausted eyes at the Frenchman, "Name?"
"Francis Bonnefoy. I can be here legally, do you need my papers?"
"No I believe you. You've both filled out these papers and have waited a while correct?"
Both men nodded.
"Good, we can get this done quickly. Now you are the legal guardian of this boy." He slid several papers across the desk. Francis Bonnefoy, holding Matthew's tiny palm in his, went to the desk and wrote out in elegant handwriting all his information.
"I suppose you can be an Alfred Jones," the other man said with a smirk. He was British. His brows were heavy under his messy blonde hair. He beckoned the bigger boy over. He refused flatly, sticking to the chair. He watched Matthew gaze in awe at his new guardian. Maybe things could work out that well for him as well, his three year old brain thought, so he ambled over to the Briton, named Arthur Kirkland, and became his "child".
That day the feminine presence in their lives was effaced for a long time.
Although Francis and Arthur refused to interact, Alfred and Matthew were allowed by some kindness to see each other.
They were ten years old. Matthew sat next to a lake, watching it glitter in the golden sunshine. He held his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around them and his head resting on the soft muscle there. His hair was curly, the color of fennel seeds. It rippled in the wind. Alfred walked up behind him. He was so young but already he walked like a man, with burly shoulders, a powerful chest, and a thick head. His hair, cropped, blond, was considerably shorter than his brother's. Now they hardly considered themselves brothers.
"My friend…" Alfred once used to refer to Matthew and received a hard slap across his face from Arthur, whom he called Uncle. Alfred yelped and rubbed the red spot. The slap was heavy, only just so that it didn't break the skin. Yet it stung.
"You will not address your brother by such an impersonal title," Arthur said. He was notorious for his short temper and his upholding of morals and respect. "He is your brother. You had the same mother. You fed on the same breast, were kept in the same womb, so do not ever forget who your brother is. Family comes first."
Alfred, indigently staring back, refused to acknowledge how true those words were. He swallowed his tears and didn't apologize, earning himself a punishment of no sweets, which were possibly the only edible thing that Arthur could make.
Matthew looked up at Alfred, tearing his eyes away from the sea of jewels before him. The grass was dewy and soft. "Yes?" He whispered.
"What's bothering you?" Alfred asked, plopping down beside him. He picked up a rock and tossed it across the lake. It skipped once. Matthew picked up a pebble and tried it to. It skipped nearly eight times. Alfred felt green jealously rising inside him. He pretended not to notice. He tried again, but it didn't even skip once. Instead, it plunged into the lake.
"No, do it softly." Matthew took a pebble and skillfully skipped it. "Choose smaller rocks. Don't use your muscles…"
Alfred tried five more times and on the fifth trial he gave up.
Matthew giggled faintly. He turned back to the lake. "How did you know something was bothering me?"
"You always go somewhere alone and you sit like that." Alfred said.
"Oh."
"So what's bugging you?"
"It's just at school, when you were with your friends… No it's nothing, please don't worry about me."
"Were they calling you names?" Alfred asked. Matthew nodded once. They dropped the subject. Since Alfred scarcely referred to Matthew as his brother, most people didn't know they were related. They knew Matthew was born Native American and they took every chance they could get to tease him, about anything, because he was helpless. They did it because he hardly fought back, they felt powerful, like holding a magnifying glass to an ant and watching it burn.
"Hey you Indian!" the placed their hand against their mouth and hollered, chasing him around ruthlessly. The leader was a blue-eyed brunet, big, burly, and troubled. His parents paid him a dollar to leave them alone for an hour. Sometimes they beat him. "Hey you Indiannnn," he cried. Matthew held his books to his chest and sat down quietly in the park, trying to disappear. "Hey I heard your mom was fucking raped, is that true? Is that why you're white? It doesn't hide that dirty, savage blood! I bet you want to scalp me?" He laughed. His words sounded estranged on his young tongue. He had picked them up from his mother's boyfriend, who always left him and his mother with bruises down their thighs and stomachs. "Why don't you make a teepee with my skin?"
Matthew ignored their cries. He pulled his book out to read. One of the leader's friends snatched it and looked through it. "Hey, what kind of mumbojumbo is this?"
Matthew knew better than to answer. The book was in French.
"It's French," the brunet said, grabbing the book gruffly. "Can't you tell? His faggot father's French. You've seen him around, haven't you?" He howled with laughter. His mother's boyfriend abused him.
Matthew continued to say nothing. Alfred watched from across the playground, paralyzed. He could have just walked over and told the boys to shut up and leave his brother alone. Then that would mean revealing that Matthew was his brother. He felt sudden shame for thinking those thoughts. He still didn't move. The school bell rang. The brunet slammed the book shut, "Fag, go back to your fag dad. Don't come back to school." He threw the book at Matthew's head. Matthew ducked, taking the book—L'étranger—back in his hands. He read far above his grade level. His teachers knew he was remarkably intelligent. They didn't make the connection with his brother, who was also smart but had more ambition in sport, either because they didn't share the same family name.
Alfred watched the lake, remembering what had happened. As far as he knew Matthew didn't realize that his brother was watching the whole thing unfold and, like a coward, had cowed. Matthew looked over at his brother, seeing the field of flowers just beyond, painted yellow by the fading sunlight.
"I'm sorry," Alfred whispered.
"It's okay." Matthew whispered back. Alfred hugged him tightly and stood. "Let's go."
When Matthew turned twelve he finally cracked and told Francis, whom he called Father, about the children.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" Francis asked. Where Arthur would have blown up in rage, Francis quieted into melancholy. He hugged Matthew and kissed his forehead. "Don't pay attention. Those who treat you badly are probably treated worse at home. But, I didn't know how to tell you this before, but we're moving."
Matthew was happy to leave that wretched school. He was devastated to leave Alfred.
That winter they moved to Quebec, Canada. Alfred didn't say goodbye. Arthur had said "Good riddance, that old frog's finally gone." That night Alfred heard Arthur quietly cry in his room.
Later Alfred understood that Arthur loved Francis. Francis was his best and one of his only friends. Arthur had only been in love twice: the first time with Francis and the second time with a woman whose picture he kept in his room.
"Who is she?" Alfred once asked, pointed to the colored photograph of a beautiful woman with rolling brown curls and a strong, lovely face.
"The one woman I ever loved." Arthur said. It became one of the few days he didn't lose his temper and was, for the most part, tender. "I'm sorry for losing my temper sometimes," he told Alfred, "She wouldn't have wanted me to."
That same day a word gained a new, frightening meaning. That word was Cancer.
Alfred was a true hero, all right. He rocketed to the top of his football team in High School, he had top grades. He was everyone's friend. He was handsome, loud, friendly, and trustworthy. He received letters and emails occasionally from Matthew. In the summer they visited. Arthur had smiled genuinely at those visits.
"Your hair is in even bigger disarray now, Arthur!" Francis said, patting Arthur's shoulder. Arthur shrugged. "I guess so."
Before Alfred could graduate, a month before, he came home and found it eerily silent. He entered the house, setting his backpack against the wall. He looked around the house and found Arthur in his room, covering his face. The test from the doctor's office to see if that tumor on his stomach was malignant had come back positive.
Arthur wiped his tears, looking already gaunt, already dead.
Alfred, for the first time in a long time, found tears trickling down his own cheeks. He hugged Arthur, his uncle, his feisty, good-hearted, mean, rude, kind, loving, and wonderful uncle. Arthur hugged him back.
The next month Alfred graduated and instead of taking that sport's scholarship to go to none other than the top school he got a job at a gas station and stayed with Arthur. He watched Arthur lose his hair, his body mass, and gradually his will to live. Arthur moved around less, covering his head, rarely cried, and refused to allow Alfred to throw away his life for him.
"Take the bloody… damned scholarship…" he breathed.
"Who will take care of you?" Alfred shot back, pulling the covers over the frail body before him. He thought back to summers when Arthur took him to the mountains. His body had been strong then. They hiked, camped, Alfred secretly made love to a stranger he would never see again. Now the body was nothing but bones and illness.
"Francis," Arthur responded.
It was settled then. Alfred went to college and Francis stayed with Arthur. He called Alfred often, telling him about Arthur's help.
"You know, I really think he's getting better!" Francis said one snowy night.
"Always the optimist," Alfred laughed, "I sure hope he does."
"He yelled at me this morning for quote-on-quote 'poisoning' him with my delicacies. Really, how can you not like French onion soup? It's good during the winter. He even wanted to put vinegar in it!"
Alfred laughed. Francis refused to believe that Arthur would die, and Arthur seemed to believe him. For a year Arthur actually got better. The year following he was "clean" of cancer. He had grown his hair back and could walk around and yell at Francis for refusing to go home and lead his own life.
"What life do I have without you?" Francis asked.
Arthur blushed. "Don't lie to my face. What about Matthew?"
"He's fine! The best, actually, he'll be the top scientist for sure. He wrote a book, actually. What a lovely book. It was about a man whose only friend was a cat. He takes after you, my poet."
Arthur had written thousands of poems and hundreds of stories in his lifetime. He smiled with pride, though he knew none of his blood ran in Matthew's veins.
"How's Alfred?" Francis asked, taking a sip of wine. They sat next to the lake on a blanket. Couples passed by. Francis smiled broadly at them. They found themselves smiling back. Francis had that kind of compelling grin.
"He's doing great. I don't worry about him. He's the kind who, when he falls, will climb back to the top regardless." Arthur explained, taking a sip of whiskey, which he preferred over bitter wine.
Alfred was doing well. He graduated college, became an engineer, and settled down in a house in the Rockies. He traveled across the states, sometimes visiting Matthew. At work he met someone who would become his best friend.
The man was sitting comfortably in his desk, jotting down notes and examining blueprints. He wore a white lab coat, his name on the front; Kiku Honda.
Kiku Honda noticed Alfred looking at him and gave him a brief smile. His face was round, giving absolutely no hint at his age, and his hair was the color of a raven's feather. Their friendship, built on jokes and a liking of the same sort of media, grew into a warm sort of love. Eventually Alfred asked Kiku on an official date, not a trip to the bar or a camping trip, but an actual date to a fancy restaurant. Kiku accepted, much to Alfred's surprise.
That night was one of Alfred's fondest memories. They ate expensive veal and drank cognac, both with a good deal of money in their pockets. Next thing either of them knew they were in Alfred's apartment building, in the elevator, exchanging sloppy kisses. When they reached his room they undressed, made love, and the next morning decided they would be a couple. Their love affair, became the focus of Alfred's life, blocking out the rest of his family.
Never forget your family.
Alfred did. But Kiku became his family fast enough. They got hitched, threw a fancy party, privately, and moved in to a nicer house.
Then that word came back into Alfred's vocabulary. It came like a bullet, like a buzzing, poisonous insect. It rocketed, propelled itself in Alfred's head.
Arthur suffered a relapse. His days of drinking whiskey with Francis under the sun were gone. His days of staying up late and cherishing freedom were buried. Arthur was once again tossed into his bed, being eaten away by mutated cells multiplying too quickly. Alfred wept when he heard. Kiku hugged him tightly. Their love became a spot of light in their lives. Perhaps the only one.
Matthew didn't appear for a long time in Alfred's life. They called each other, updated one another on their lives in a way that suggested it was a mandatory act. Their brotherly affection hid beneath the layers of life and was almost forgotten, a sleeping animal coated in snow, hibernating unaware of the cold.
They were pulled together inevitably when they met at the funeral. Francis sat by the door, crying silently, his head bowed, his pure heart shattered into a thousand untouchable pieces. Kiku tried to comfort Alfred but Alfred was distant, his eyes far off. He was older now, reaching his forties. Matthew stood by him. Alfred vowed never to forget his family again. They tossed dirt on Arthur's coffin and he returned to the earth from whence many origin tales claim he came.
"I love you."
Matthew said those words to his bride and kissed her. She hugged him to her bosom. She was a beautiful woman from Eastern Europe, named Katrina. Later her little sister married her girlfriend.
Matthew told Katrina he loved her by saying "I hate our friendship. I hate being nice to you when I walk by you at work. I want to ruin it. I want to destroy it. I want to be your lover."
Katrina burst into tears and hugged him, kissing his cheek. Now they were married. Matthew couldn't have been happier. They had three children, all raised with Matthew's love.
When he held them, two girls, one boy, he felt happiness swell in his chest. "I'll get you all the pretty little horses," he said. He pulled those words from the back of his memory, faintly connected to his mother.
Time had to erode his memories. Brothers forgot brothers. Children forgot mothers. Arthur was left behind and the world moved on. The mother's blood was washed from the walls. Old names were forgotten. The Wild Horse ran away. The Soft Snow melted.
Kiku was killed in a car accident. Shrapnel pierced his heart. Alfred thought he couldn't face tragedy anymore. Lovers passed. In French they are called passants. A Russian man named Ivan kissed his tears away. A woman hugged him tightly. He buried his hair in her mass of blonde hair. Lovers passed by, quickly, flitting like the pictures in a roll of film.
"We'll meet you again, soon."
"Where?"
"Who knows where? What's important is that we'll meet again. Then we can have all the pretty little horses."
At the end of his life time seemed to be going by too fast. Everythingseemstobecomeblur.
Years pass like seconds.
I do not own Hetalia.
Thank you for reading.
The title of this story is in reference to the song All the Pretty Little Horses. My personal favorite version of this lullaby is by Becky Jean Williams. Which you can watch here: (YouTube)/watch?v=AWoPsyY8CZY
Their mother is Native America.