I don't own Hetalia in any way, shape or form.

Thanks to Mary Queen of Scots for reviewing with some suggestions, to everyone who faved and put this on alert, and to Edelstein especially offered to translate this story into Chinese!

000

He nearly kisses Arth when Rome withdraws troops from the island. It's the first time in years—years— that he's seen a part of his family.

It's such a short time that they have to see each other, though. It's been months at least, possibly years, since Rome left. Movement takes time. He understands why it took Arth so long to come and find him. He understands why he had to hover beside the wall for weeks at a time in order to finally meet one of his brothers once more. He'd been so tempted to build or buy or steal a boat, or just to throw himself in the ocean and swim across the sea to Áed. He wasn't sure if he should enter Arth's lands on his own, or if he should just wait for him to come. He wasn't sure if he could traverse Arth's land to visit Lugubelenus— who he knows to have been struggling— or if he should have just tried to sneak along the shoreline.

He hadn't been very sure of much, lately. He and Aéd had stopped attacked some time before after being driven back by Rome again. Instead, Beithe waited for news. Waited for years for news, and disliked what he heard each time it finally arrived.

He'd heard of warlords and in-fighting. There were rumors that Vortigern is reigning supreme but the wars are not yet over. There are rumors that Rome has completely abandoned their isle to its own devices. There are rumors that Rome is falling.

Beithe thinks it all over as he perches on the very top of the wall; he watches his brother's lands, waiting for something he finds difficult to clearly defining.

One day with a strong breeze and heavy clouds, his wait ends, and Arth comes to the wall. Arth comes with horsemen and he comes with workers.

He comes and shrieks when Beithe throws himself off the wall to wrap Arth in a tight embrace.

He doesn't pay attention as the men Arth brought with him all jump three feet in the air and pull out their swords and daggers. Of course they would. Arth's people were fighting for the Roman's against Beithe's people for so long, it would be a habit for them to draw at the sight of spirals. In a moment, Arth will tell them that it's all right, that Beithe is family and won't hurt any of them as long as they don't touch the rest of the family. Beithe is certain he will, and waits for it.

Arth doesn't tell them to put down their weapons. He remains stiff and surprised in Beithe's arms. Beithe thinks that perhaps he should have a made a little more noise so Arth would know he was coming.

"I missed you," Beithe mutters into the top of Arth's head, pressing his lips to his brother's scalp to calm him. With one final tight squeeze, Beithe releases his younger brother and takes a step back, "You're not badly hurt, right? He's gone for good? Did he do anything permanent?"

Arth is scowling. He might have been ever since the hug began, but Beithe doesn't entertain the notion for very long. "The wall is permanent."

Beithe rolls his eyes, "We can tear it down."

The men who still haven't put down their weapons shift uneasily and mutter. Arth steps back farther away from him.

"I'm here to build it," Arth says.

Beithe takes a step towards Arth as Arth takes one more step away.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to see you."

"You came right to where I was, Arth, you're not fooling anyone. It will all be fine. Rome isn't here anymore, right? You don't need to worry about us fighting if he's not even here."

Arth yelps when Beithe grabs his arm.

"Go away!"

"Arth, I know it's been a long time, but—"

"My name is Artorius," Arth snarls. A moment later, adds on, stutters out what seems to be an attempt at authority, "B-but you will call me Britannia."

Beithe laughs and waits for Arth to laugh with him, and the joke will be over with, so Beithe can help and it will all go back to how it was. He's certain, in just a moment, Arth will laugh.

Arth doesn't laugh.

000

On the day Arth doesn't laugh, a man who is usually a farmer skewers Beithe through the stomach with a dagger just moments after Beithe realizes fully what it means that Arth went to Rome.

He crawls back into the woods a few days later when his stomach wound knits shut. He travels to his farthest, harshest north to entreat the Picts and other tribes before hiking south with them to a different point on the wall. A place on the wall where Arth hadn't brought his men to rebuild and guard as well.

Beithe sees the cracks and breaks in the mortar, sees the places where the stones are a little worn down and the top a little lower than the rest of it. Sees all the imperfections in the wall that has kept him and his little brother separate for so long. He sees a boat to send a message to Aéd, calls across the sea to bring him over with the Scots help in teaching their youngest brother a lesson.

He climbs to the top of the wall again, and gazes out across the fields of his brother's land.

And Beithe invades.

Vortigern, who Beithe can only vaguely remember hearing of along with the word 'tyrant', turns out to be the closest thing Britannia has to a king. A little voice in the back of his mind chastises him for not listening more closely to some of the rumors, and Beithe waves it off, unsure if the whisperer is a fairy or his own mind. There are more important things, he supposes.

Beithe and Aéd invade with their warriors, their vim, their vigor and their rage, and they overwhelm their enemies.

Then, Vortigern calls the Saxons.

000

It isn't long after the Saxon brothers are hired that Beithe and Aéd are forced to flee again over the wall, panting and unfulfilled.

They hear word from the south that Britannia gives the Saxons a wide, toothy smile and an island in gratitude for chasing off his family.

There's a sick sort of satisfaction when a few years later, the Saxons invade, too.

000

It's around 460 when Britannia asks for peace.

The Saxons invite the scattered nobility and blood flows throughout the Night of Long Knives.

Voltigern is taken, and Britannia is kingless.

000

Years into the carnage, there are rumors of a savior.

Beithe has never met him, but when he sees Lugubelenus for the first time again in a brief calm between battles—and though Cymru was never taken by Rome, Arth's reaction has made Beithe wary, and instead he names Lugubelenus as 'Cymru' when they speak— when he sees Cymru again for the first time, Cymru is enthralled.

"He's one of Britannia's, but he was raised in my lands. Britannia insists that Rome sent him to save us, but I know better. He's the estranged son of one of Britannia's kings. Uther, I think. There's a lot of changing rumors so it's hard to all make out. But most of them say he's the king's son raised by his uncle, is what I heard last. He's met one of the old wizards our mother told us about and took over his father's kingdom when he was slain just recently. And he fights like something other than a bloodthirsty fool."

Cymru is just an inch taller than Brittannia, his hair is nearly as long as Aéd's— Éire's—Aéd's, his face smattered with unattractive freckles, but their features are just as rounded and his eyes glow with the same childish glee that Britannia's do when they speak about this savior to fight the Saxons. When Cymru continues to tell the rumors, it's his accent makes it sound as though he's singing the praises.

"Have you met him?" Beithe asks.

Cymru's face falls just slightly, the glint in his eyes fading just-so. "Not yet. But I'm certain I will, soon."

They part ways peacefully and pick up their dead to bury and burn, for though they are brothers and still speaking cordially, Cymru has sided with Britannia this time, and Beithe has not.

000

The cities fall. The people are slain.

There are fields of twisted, mangled bodies that smell like shit, iron and decay. There are hardly enough people left in the countryside to bury the dead. There are scores of fields like that, none exactly the same.

Britannia cries for their mother under a yew tree while Cymru holds him in his arms and sings soothing songs until he calms himself and they return to their castles. They begin to call each other Artorius and Lugubelenus again once Britannia's people flee to the safety of Cymru's border.

When they aren't distressed and rushing to battle, there's a slight quirk in Cymru's lips that reveals he may just be enjoying himself. If he realizes Beithe or a spy is watching, the quirk becomes something more like a gloating smirk, and Britannia never notices a thing. They are each other's last allies, though it's a loose alliance. They keep it loose intentionally, as Saxony only has eyes for Britannia and Cymru is confident in his mountains and defenses far more than his offenses.

Beithe and Saxony have spoken and arranged a loose alliance of their own over the years. While Aéd's men have either died or returned home, Aéd has also vanished somewhere between the battle of the River Bassas where they buried King Caw and the Celidon wood where Aéd came back shaken from a meeting with a hermit fleeing into the trees. Aéd was never fully devoted to the war or confronting Britannia, Beithe thinks.

Instead, only Beithe remains.

000

Britannia calls for Rome time and again, and Britannia must learn eventually that help will never come for creatures like nations. Beithe learned that battling Rome, and by all rights, Britannia should have learned it too.

Beithe sits by a fire one evening, debating painting himself again— though is falling out of style despite his current Pictish company— Beithe decides that he must be the one to teach Britannia that lesson, and hope there was never a need for it again.

000

"Gallia is my brother," Saxony says as they stir the evening stew and the men divide it amongst themselves. It's meat stew. There's beef from slaughtered cows and chunks of chickens just recently beheaded, as well as a few grasses Beithe added. He's not used to so much meat every day as he's becoming accustomed to with Saxony.

Saxony likes meat and mead, and talks fondly of the large halls for feasting he has back home. He hopes to build some in Britannia's land, once the invasion is over. There's never even a hint of doubt in his voice as he speaks of victory, despite Artair. The Artair Lugubelenus calls Emrys Wledig— Aurelius Ambrosius. Britannia calls him, ironically, Artorious. Saxony only calls him a setback; a delay. Saxony never records his losses in his otherwise immaculate records, but in every battle Artair is involved in, there's another defeat and a growing possibility that Artair will never be recorded by Saxony and instead kept as a memory to be placed in a far corner of the mind and forgotten.

"Your brother?" Beithe says a moment after swallowing a spoonful of the meaty stew. He thinks for a moment more. "Is he small, with very soft blond hair and blue eyes? He was taken by Rome?"

Saxony nods. "He is one of my distant brothers, but I know him."

"Is he well?"

"No. Rome has fallen, and my closer brothers are disciplining him."

Beithe spoons his stew silently. Something a little bit heavy and a little bit squirmy settles deep in his stomach, a cold weight.

Distantly, he thinks of a tree with old nails in it and a woman's skeleton. He thinks again, closer in time and space, of a little blond boy with hair that is unruly (not soft like lamb's ears) and green eyes (not nearly blue) and he thinks of disciplining that blond, green-eyed, smiles-with-crooked-teeth boy for being taken by Rome.

"I understand," Beithe says.

The stew honestly has far too much meat in it and the mead hasn't fermented properly. Beithe continues to eat his portion silently while Saxony boasts.

"How do you know him?" Saxony asks suddenly. Beithe manages to suppress his startled descent back to the present into what looks like a twitch, instead.

"Who?"

"Gallia. You're not very close to each other, and you were never taken by Rome. …I don't remember you being taken, in any case." Saxony's voice is boisterous and teasing, but there's something in how his eyes glint in the day's dying light that looks dangerous.

Beithe tries to keep the meat down and wishes it were raining. It's usually raining, but not right then when he wants it to be. Maybe his throat wouldn't feel so hot and clogged if it were raining. He straightens his back and narrows his eyes and wishes he wore war paint.

"Gallia was lost and I tended him until he was able to return to his home."

Saxony nods, his braids falling around his head as he does so. He sips another cup of mead. Beithe feels sick watching. Once he returns to his own lands, Beithe will spend several years in fishing villages, he is certain.

"I bet you tried to get him out really fast. A nosy little bastard, he is. Got it from the Romans. Father won't admit he's not one of us so we're not allowed to kill him, either. It's because of who his mother is, I know it. Father won't admit Rome sired him and Gaul was a whore."

Beithe gives up on holding down the meat. He says something about Saxony being a poor son, exits the tent, and pukes in the bushes by the woods. He sleeps there that night, completely outside, vulnerable under the stars, and the rain never comes to drench him.

000

Britannia falls.

Beithe and Saxony dispute— very briefly— over the fate of the small blond boy who's spent the last decades being battered, bloodied and beaten around. Cymru has retreated back into his lands without a word, taking Britannia's refugees with him, and while Beithe knows that when it comes to strength his only match on the islands is Aéd, who has been on his own island for years, he also knows that he cannot defeat Saxony.

As a result, the dispute is brief; so brief, it never grows into anything larger than a fistfight.

Beithe is shorter than Saxony, only just as wide, and the few men he had who haven't died are on their way home, leaving Beithe alone in what was once Britannia's lands, but he still manages to pin Saxony to the ground and give him a lovely bruise under the eye.

"Arth will live."

Saxony's knee catches his abdomen, but he manages to stay put even as he gasps for breath.

"Britannia?" Saxony says just before tangling his hand in Beithe's hair and giving a yank. Beithe shouts and sinks his teeth into Saxony's collar.

By the end of it, Beithe lets Saxony have Britannia— all of Britannia, from Hardian's Wall all the way south to the coast; whatever isn't Cymru's land, which Beithe has no say in regardless. All of it, Saxony's, Beithe promises, on the condition that Britannia himself is alive. That no matter what happens to his lands, Artorious will be spared from swords, daggers, poison, execution, boiling, dismemberment, disembowelment, feeding to wolves and hungry dogs, never starved or left for the birds and fairies to peck at—

Saxony agrees to it. No harm shall reach Artorious' body, and Beithe shall let Saxony have nearly all of the spoils of war.

Saxony agrees, swears on his pinky finger, and orders Artorious bandaged and tended for. As he leaves Beithe and stalks towards the door, Saxony rubs the bites on his shoulder and mutters, "Good match for Gallia. Overdramatic whoreson."

'Whoreson' is the word that hangs in the air even long after Saxony has left.

In 804, the satisfaction when Francia cuts off Saxony's head is palpable on all sides of the Wall and the channel.

Artorious takes Saxony's place as Angleland. Beithe changes his name to Alba officially, has a king and—

And Franciscus is making an Empire in Europe, his Frankish conqueror nowhere to be seen, and wearing the title smugly on his brow.

Beithe watches from afar how the contours of the continent's maps change year by year and the way the sun comes up over the curve of the horizon whenever there's a morning without rain.

He doesn't see Gallia—who has since changed his name— and Angleland never stops cursing him from the other side of the wall. He can't see Cymru for Angleland's interference, and the only friend he could see peacefully with any regularity was Aéd.

The Picts die without any notice and the contours of his own map change. It's a lonely change and a gradual one, and the idea of having a uniting king is still new and a fragile notion in his lands.

Beithe never met Artair, he's never had a savior before, and frankly he still doesn't think there's any need for saviors who don't fulfill their purpose, so he settles down in the woods once more and gives up on painting his face entirely.

He builds a small shack to sleep in when he doesn't want to enter his villages or sleep exposed to the elements, and all of this only happens when he feels the crushing need to run from his nobility and recover from his new world of politics for several weeks. When he sleeps in his shoddily built shack in the middle of the damp and chilly woods, he sleeps alone.

Each morning he climbs alone, sometimes barefoot, to one of his peaks. There, he watches the curves of the rising sun, and Beithe tells himself that things will never change— and he's perfectly fine with that.

000

I'm not the happiest with this chapter. It feels like a filler and I kept find new things that kept uprooting what I was thinking trying to write.

I'm leaving for a few days and have no guarantee when I'll be able to write. Visiting relatives with cancer, be back by the 9th or 10th, so I'll probably be slow replying to anything. Thanks for understanding.

This chapter really sucks, because there are too many ways to interpret the history. Which usually I'd have a field day with that, but since I'm trying to make this historically accurate, it's just been one huge bitchfest for me to try and put this together, butit's King Motherfucking Arthur timeso it's not like I could justskiphim. He's going to be super important to Wales down the road!

and just let me say, the Welsh have a bigger crush on Arthur than the English. If I'm remembering right, they have an entire university library dedicated to him. Almost all of our records of Arthur come from the Welsh. He might have been raised in Wales.There are like like a billion books, poems and songs about Arthur. Whenever someone has a billion books and songs and poems about them, Wales needs them. This is also why he had a bit of a thing for Shakespeare (iambic pentameter) and currently has a crush on Harry Potter (who he mostly loves for the musical groups dedicated to them, but yeah) , but he'll only admit it once a century or two have passed.

Next time, we hit up the Norman invasion, the beginnings of the Alliance, Ireland, and Ireland's absolutely sucky history. Because seriously, oh my god Ireland. Get new neighbors. Ireland and Israel would be best friends because oh my God their neighbors.

Next time might take a little while, as I'm off to visit relatives and have a job interview on the 11th so um… busy summer, uuugh.

000

Bucket Load of Notes

Let's start with the short things:

What's Happening to Francis?: The Frankish invasion is what's happening. Rome is attacked by barbarians (Germania) and Gallia is currently a part of Rome. The Franks and a few other clans are the ones who take Gallia. Gallia falls hard. He's still alive, though, just apprenticed, sort of. He survives by adapting to Frankish rule, intermarriage, Christianity, and eventually he grows into the Frankish Kingdom and gives birth to HRE. Then he'll invade England and he and Scotland will meet for the first time since they were kids.

Francis killed Saxony what: The Saxon Wars (771-804) France kills Saxony on the mainland. Francis really loves this era, because he has a kickass EMPEROR called Charlemagne.

Beithe gets his first king: Beithe officially changes his name to Alba when he becomes the Kingdom of Alba in 900, right around the time the Vikings show up and start fucking up all his new shit. Also, he's never been very good at politicking.

Night of the Long Knives: theoretically the Saxons invited the British nobility to have peace talks, massacred them, and made Voltigern into their puppet. If this happened, it happened around 460, and would be a great way to unclutter the potentially rebellion leaders so King Arthur could have his start at all.

Speaking of Arthur: If he existed (and I would just like to say that we have in fact found a round table in a castle that might have been his dating to about the right time period SO YEAH UM) he fought twelve major battles, won every single one of them except the one where Mordrid stabbed him. Also, Arthur might have actually been several different leaders brought under the name of one (Artorious) , considering he would have had to have lived around 100 years to do everything he did.

PS - Launcelot was a France self-insert fantasy. Just so you all know.

The Timeline: This chapter spans like several hundred or so years. (410 – 900 (barely) ) Don't worry, if I don't rewind a bit next chapter, there'll still be an extra Viking story or something in here

The Roman Empire withdrew from Britain in 410 following a series of fights with invaders, small peasant revolts from Britannia itself, and having the Germanic barbarians forced into Roman lands by the Huns. By which I mean Germania started attacking Rome because there was less land for the two of them. Rome fell about a hundred or so years later, leaving Mama Greece in charge of the Byzantine Empire, aka the Western Roman Empire. Saxony's invasion of England also lasted around 100 years.

Unfortunately, without Rome, England was kind of weak, needing others to defend it when the people from the North of the island invaded, which brings us to…

The Saxon invasion of England (this is the VERY LONG) there are two different suggested ways this could have started that I know about. The one I'm using is that Vortigern (the warlord who rose victorious during a civil war in England which followed the power vacuum created by the absence of Roman authority. A power vacuum basically means that Rome was top dog, Rome is now gone, so all the dogs who have been under Roman rule are now fighting for position of top dog. It happens a lot if a government falls. Vortigern won top dog and the title 'the tyrant' so, uh… yeah )

Anyway, once Vortigern took power, the Scots (who are currently actually Irish) and the Picts (who are the super far north Scottish (who are not Irish)) and possibly some other Scottish clans which my sources refused to name— all of them invaded England again. The last time they invaded was before 410, the year Rome left, so it's the first time we know that Arthur had to deal with that completely alone. Vortigern hired the forces of two Saxon brothers to help fight the Irish/Scots, Picts and other clans, and as a reward he promised them the island of Thanet, as well as supplies to help the settlement. The Saxons got the island and supplies, but eventually asked for more supplies. Vortigern decided this would be a good time to snub the people who repelled the motherfucking Picts and Irish/Scots, and didn't give them anymore supplies.

And that's one reason why the Saxons might have invaded England.

A second theory is that the Saxons came to England in exile from somewhere or other. Jutland, maybe. And they come begging for work I think? And Voltigern is all "Sure, kill those northerners" and the Saxons are like "alright cool" and attack England afterwards, again because Voltigern is a dick (I assume that's why, anyway)

Either way, the Saxons invade.

Right after the Saxons invade, the Picts and Irish/Scots and some of the other clans go back into England. And they vanish.

Seriously. I couldn't find anything about what happened to the Picts, Irish/Scots, and those other guys after they crossed the wall again. I had two sources claim there was a Pictish-Saxon alliance and the Picts and Irish were fighting with the Saxons against the Welsh and Britons/English-to-be, and one source that said the Picts and everyone were fighting with the Britons/English-to-be and the Welsh against the Saxons in a good old-fashioned family smackdown that totally failed. I went with the alliance.

Anyway, somehow, the English-to-be hold off the Saxons for about 100 years until a theoretical King Arthur (who may have in fact been several kings who sort of blurred together into one idol) dies. The Welsh, Scottish territory and the Irish are mostly unaffected except with an influx of English-to-be immigrants. The Saxons take over and pretty much repopulate Britannia.

And that, kids, is why Arthur is more closely related to Ludwig than he is to his actual brothers.

This was my main source, if anyone's interested:

www . vortigernstudies . org . uk/artgue/guestsheila2

Also. I think Scotland has some Christians by now but fuck it I don't know for sure.