If Only: Chapter 3 - Alboin?
Scotland stands frozen in his kitchen doorway staring at his kitchen sink. Well… more like the child standing in front of said sink putting a steady dent in the amount of dirty dishes he owned.
"Albion?"
He finally asks, though there was no question in his mind the identity of the preteen boy who stands there hard at work.
How he wished there was…
The expressionless boy that turned to face him but had his eyes trained not on him but at the now dirty floor underneath his feet could not be his youngest brother Arthur Elizabeth Kirkland, the proud personification of England.
If there wasn't something screaming in the back of his mind that yes this was indeed the Kirkland family runt Scotland knew without a doubt he wouldn't have believed such a thing.
It could be truthfully said that a corpse had more life in its eyes than this child. Said eyes were, of course, green. However, they were a far cry from the shining innocent emerald of Albion's and instead of finding himself lost in them like he usually was they made the older country want to vomit. These eyes were the unnatural and revolting glowy-green color of nuclear waste.
His hair is ragged and messy. NOT like the wild hair possessed by all of the Kirklands which seemed to have a life of its own and was untamable by nature (Proven courtesy of France to the displeasure of England) but a different kind …The kind that came from neglect and bad hygiene. The hair that SHOULD have been golden blonde and slightly stubborn was a tangled mess that went down to the boy's elbows held back from his face unsuccessfully with a fraying piece of rope that looked ready to snap apart at any second. There were streaks of crimson locks in his hair, the blonde now the brown color of a field of unfertile soil that hadn't produced life successfully in centuries.
The hands Scotland had known to be soft, dainty, feminine, little things with very little to no callouses were gone without a trace. Replaced by hands that are hard, rough, and heavily calloused. The fingernails chipped and caked with dirt, grime, and blood the skin dried and cracked so badly they were bleeding slightly.
Dark circles due to lack of sleep have made their home under his eyes a long time ago and his complexion isn't the attractive pale it had been for as long as Scotland could remember but a pasty ghost-like white that had no chance of being considered healthy to any stretch of the imagination.
Lastly was the state of his clothes.
Ripped, dirty clothes that should have not only been thrown away but burned years ago hung off of his severally starved stick figure frame. The articles so big it was ridiculous he even tried wearing them. His t-shirt slid off his boney pathetic shoulder and down an arm so weak and thin that it could easily break from simply the act of him bracing himself while tripping over a pebble (Albion was always so clumsy it was hilarious. And the way he always threw a fit afterwards, not his usual rant, was absolutely adorable) all the way to his elbow. His pants were similar to the pairs Scotland had seen in one of his drawers but centuries older and way more bloodstained. It was held up by a cord of rope that was in the same condition as the one that held his hair back. The ends of his pant legs were rolled up so someone with a whole lot more accomplished sense of balance and height could have a chance walking with them on. Albion would have looked cute, like a toddler wearing her mother's clothes, had it not been so obvious that this was far from a child's harmless game of dress up.
As he finishes studying the boy and noticing all of his un- or ill- treated injuries he realizes two things.
1: The boy had yet to move from his place in front of the sink. He was just standing there like a puppet whose strings had been left at attenchine, waiting for its master to give it another command. Scotland tried to push away the little voice in the back of his head that sounded way to much like his Albion saying that this Albion had simply replied to his presence in the room. NOT someone saying his pre-Roman Invasions name.
2: This Albion had yet to speak to him… or even truly acknowledge his presence beyond standing at attenchine looking straight at the floorboards in front of him.
The door swings open as Seamus walks inside from the woods and Albion moves so quickly it's as if the Irish coffee simply appears in Seamus' hand on its own.
"Finally decided to get up I see."
He says to Scotland completely ignoring the youngest in the room. Who, in turn, doesn't seem to care he was being brushed aside.
'Just what the bloody hell is going on here?'
Hello again, told you the net update would be soon. A few errors about the last chapter, First of all it is Chapter 2 not Chapter 1 but I don't think that would throw anyone off at all. Second, I had Scotland wear all the steel so that he was protected from the fairies in the area stealing him away from the world. I did this in a moment of memory lapse please do not be offended if it is actually supposed to be iron. I am but a lazy American and would rather do something wrong and apologize for it in a footnote later on than take the time to review my notes on the subject again. Also do to that reason I am not going to write the accents into everyone's speech because I know for a fact I will mess up horribly and they deserve a lot more than that. However you will find the occasional foreign word and in most of these cases the translation (Most likely supplied by my dear friend Google) will be put right above my usual ranting footnote. I really hope none of this subtracts from the story and if it does I will actually take the time to fix whatever it is to fit the majority of my reviewers… as the author I still possess the right of artistic license though so if it doesn't happen please don't form an angry mob. The chapters should be getting a little longer and things should start to gain speed after this. I apologize for the length of my chapters so far. I guess they should really be called installments instead of chapters. Oh well, whats done is done.
Until next time…
Bye!
