A/N: Here's the written version of Chapter 2. Still a bit shorter than other chapters.

News Feed

Chapter 2

Conspiracy Time

Ottawa (UTC -4) 7:34 a.m

Canada sighed, pushing the pan upwards and making the pancake fly up and fall back on the pan, while staring blankly at the wall in front of him. In his kitchen, he had a small TV on the counter behind him, where a disaster of epic proportions was being discussed.

"-cuments' allegations affirm that these 'embodiments', 'Nations' as they call them, can't be classified as human, but were said to appear wherever any type of government was established with a population of any scale, so what do you think?"

He couldn't find the strength to panic. It was one of those days, unfortunately.

"I think it's strange and bizarre, but… what these affirmations are saying is that they appear whenever a new country is 'born', so, if they are as 'immortal' as it claims, they must still be around, eh? Maybe as part of our own government, and we never even knew-I mean, what do they even do? Do they tell 'the humans' what to do? Can they start wars if they want? What are we to them? This is all very dangerous thinking…"

"We'll keep you updated, but we ask for caution-"

Canada winced lightly, feet in bunny slippers rubbing the back of his calves anxiously. He turned off the stove and flipped the pancake behind his back, where it fell on a semi-neat pile.

"It seems the Americans are in a flurry about this, no word from anyone in charge-No word from the Prime Minister, either,"

Of course not, his Prime Minister wouldn't say anything until Canada bothered to show up in front of him, which quite honestly, was a bit of a task now. Canada sighed once again at the thought. He would much rather stay and work at home... He hoped his boss would visit instead of call, have some benevolence for the fact that his Nations hasn't been feeling all that energetic recently.

He knew his citizens were growing somewhat tired of his Prime Minister's Conservative Party. He knew they wanted something more... progressive. Canada has been feeling these small spells of laziness and apathy, and while his boss has expressed concern, he didn't seem to know what was causing it. Canada just quietly hoped the next Prime Minister would be able to fix it, even if indirectly...

He muted the TV, brows furrowing together. He could just hope. That aside, he had other problems to add to the pile, which he didn't feel active enough to face.

He grabbed the little bottle of maple-syrup while opening the laptop he'd left on the table earlier, scrolling down the forum he found without looking at how much syrup was being sprawled on his pancakes. There's no such thing as 'too much maple-syrup'. He found often that sugar was the best remedy to his occasional cases of indolence...

When he first heard about the leaked documents before, though, he'd figured that it must have been running wild online before the News Stations picked it up. He was right, there was a lot of chatter online.

However, this particular forum was pretty old and somewhat active before, now it was on fire, questions and new users flocking in to check the contents.

An American archaeologist and historian by the name Steve Edgegard had been active online, claiming that his books were being snubbed by the government for uncovering a centuries-old secret… Sounded like your run-in-the-mill, paranoid conspiracy-theorist, except the man was right.

This was a shady sub-forum in the depths of the internet, where the first users were all very paranoid and secluded from the world in a way. The author found old pictures, letters, portraits in a tireless campaign across the world, surprisingly piecing together the truth.

Mind you, many of his theories were wrong, connecting to unrelated things and events, the only consistent theme being that there were people out there who 'never died'. It was basically the only proven thing the man has said. Anything else was speculation with no real proof.

The Great Wars of this past century had plenty of Nations caught on camera, as no one was too focused on keeping their presence a secret.

Across the most obvious evidence, Canada could see old pictures taken during the last wars, old and new alike. He could see his brother in those pictures from the First Great War, along with a few modern ones where America was undoubtedly caught on camera by coincidence in the midst of his war on Iraq's territory.

'He looks so angry...' Canada noted absently.

Moreover, there were a few portraits – Canada knew they were most likely taken without permission – of old European Nations with their monarchs, one of England, noticeably younger, besides the just crowned Elizabeth I, and pictures of him again near the current queen or during the recent wars.

Other old European countries had letters, maybe stolen from all kinds of people, written by humans who knew and were terrified or fascinated by Nations.

The man's trip to Egypt had also given him more clues, glyphs of the same woman serving different pharaohs were seen many times over. Again, pictures were probably taken without permission…

It was filled with similar content and the answers to said content were astounding.

Nations had no idea these many people believed this long before this leak... The responders were mostly people theorizing or trying to debunk it. To a normal person, all of this would look crazy and deluded, but to Canada, this was very unsettling.

The newest threads were made by the younger people who flooded the forum just last night.

'These psychos were right. I feel stupid.'

'This looks like the kind of shit I would usually find everywhere on youtube, why is this theory so snubbed?'

'Government conspiracy. Learn the pattern. Read in between lines.'

'Lost count of how many times I've read the word 'nation' in many quotes everywhere in history. You can even find it in the bible!'

'Really? The fuck? Was everyone talking about these guys all this time?! Even GOD?!'

Canada blinked, then squinted as the thought hit him. Now that he thought about it, this was a weak link in their secrecy... He looked away from the screen and ate away his breakfast, now covered in maple-syrup.

It's not that everyone who used their natural denomination – the word 'Nation' – knew who they were, it's more like their name gained a whole new meaning to people who didn't know, and it started being used as such…

He heard pattering coming from the living room and Canada leaned to the side, seeing a small polar bear cub by the doorway. "Oh, hi." Canada greeted sweetly, leaning closer. "Want some breakfast? I made pancakes."

The bear seemed shy, but trotted over to the chair where Canada had left a small set of stairs so the cub could climb and sit on a pile of books. He pushed the pancakes onto another plate and pushed it to the bear.

It glanced at him, sniffed the food, and started eating.

Canada tilted his head. "Now what do I call you..."

Chepi was old and died a few months ago… Canada didn't like to live alone, so as usual, he found another cub to take care, one that lost its mother and had no one else. He didn't have to worry too, he lived away from the cities. He just liked being close to nature.

The cub finished eating – Canada figured he would have to give it a bath later – and it glanced at him. "Who are you?" It was the first time it spoke, and now he knew it was a boy.

Oh, how many time he's heard this from cubs, they didn't have the best memory yet... "I'm Canada. I'll be taking care of you now." He was ready to be asked about his mother, but it never came, the little bear just sniffed his plate again and Canada gave him a few more pancakes.

If a human were present, they would have heard a bear making bear sounds. Canada never had this issue.

It's not that he heard English words from them, he just simply knew what they meant to communicate. Just like they understood what he meant, despite the fact that he was using English to articulate his ideas, it's not that they understood English itself...

"Nanuq." Canada suddenly thought, nodding to himself. "I'll call you Nanuq."

Nanuq didn't seem to mind, which was good. Canada smiled softly and glanced back at his computer, smile dimming. Today would most likely be a big day for him, certainly. If Canada took too long to show up, he had no doubt his boss would come knocking.

Suddenly, he just felt exhausted, with a strong need to go back to bed and wait for this to go away...

A/N: Chapter also light on references. I made the News Feed universe a bit more solid here, adding the conspiracy theory author, who is going to appear again.

But here are a few interesting points:

I mentioned Stephen Harper, who was Canada's Prime Minister before Justin T. and who was apparently pretty hated by a lot of Progressive people. He was Conservative, so obviously, the Progressives hated his guts on principle, and the man was there for 10 years, it seems. I want to write more about that in another chapter, as well as Canada's next Prime Minister, a man I'm not exactly a fan of, despite being a soft Center-Left (I'm not crazy like 'those' people, I swear). My info on Harper is relatively low at the moment, though, mostly because I'm rushing a little to finish writing these three chapters, but the guy seems pretty okay, as far as politicians go.

Anyway, I have this idea that the Nations don't have an immortal pet, they die and the Nations find themselves another one if they want. Along with the idea that humans can't understand these animals, only certain Nations can... There's also NO reason why Canada would ever give a pet bear a Japanese name, I mean why would he? So I picked an indigenous name, as Canada has a better connection to them compared to America and he likes the phonetics of their names. Nanuq is a name I've seen in another fic, but for the life of me, I can't remember which one. D:

I also mentioned RELIGION! I'm going to say it now, I'm Christian, and I won't bash anyone who follows any particular religion, BUT, I will question the ways some people use religion as well as what certain religions teach in their core principles, and consequences of said principles (yeah, exactly what you're thinking). At best, you're getting critiques on ideologues and ideologies. At worst, characters who don't care and who might say things that make people cringe... or want to kill me for 'thought crime'.