Adventures of the Golden State (Hetalia)
Author: Ashynarr
Summary: Under much protest and complaint, I've decided that since I have nowhere else to put these, I'm going to share some of my state OC drabbles to see how people like them. Mostly focused on California, but will feature other states.
Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine.
Warning: State OCs
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The thing about a low-level restriction on visits to the Stargate, Isabel thinks, is that someone like her (or Ben, she concedes) only needs to see it once in order to really comprehend what she's witnessing. It's the beginning of history, the first wave of a gold rush that will put her own to shame in good time once word gets out.
Soldiers hem and haw, tell her she can't take pictures or sketchings due to security risks, and she simply smiles and goes with it, never letting them know she's a good enough memory to sketch it from her mind's eye later, in the safety of her house. They think she's just a supplier, a friend of Alfred's who is just harmless enough that they can take her camera and feel confident in their continued security.
They can never know to just what extent her calculations are extending, how ready she is to strike out first into the vast new, untouched worlds that will provide so many new people and resources and possibilities that she's already close to drooling over it all.
All it will take, fortunately, is the opportunity to pull an Alfred and get offworld long enough to make a trade agreement with a new culture.
All it will take, unfortunately, is the opportunity to pull an Alfred that everyone will be on guard against, because if he died on what was supposed to be a simple mission, how long would they last?
But Isabel, the girl who started with nothing and came out with everything, isn't afraid of a bit of patience. She knows she'll know her chance when she sees it, and it's better to spend time preparing so she can jump on it right away rather than scramble over a quickly closed window. She also knows Ben is considering something similar, and thinks that, for once, cooperation will be in both their better interests.
If their trade talks after the next State's meeting goes on a bit longer than usual, well, that's not too unusual, all things considered. They've long been known to debate over every detail of a document two pages long, and they'll have extra pages today.
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There's very few things in life that can catch Ben off guard, and it's doubly uncommon for him to show it where others can see it. He figures, and rightfully so, that he has a good handle on the general habits and personalities of his fellow States and a good chunk of the Nations he interacts regularly with, because he has to in order to be as good as he is in economics.
However, Isabel has always been one to defy his expectations just when he thinks he has a handle on her, and today is no different, seeing as she's somehow gotten into his apartment despite it being locked and in his land, already nursing a glass of the (thankfully cheaper) wine he'd hidden in his cupboard for long weeks or cooking. Her gaze flickers up to his, and he's more annoyed she doesn't look guilty than he is concerned about the unusual frown on her face.
"Is there a reason you're ruining my couch?" He asks her, grabbing the bottle from the counter to put away before she drinks any more of it without at least paying for it.
"Ginny's gotten together with Sue," Is all she gives for an answer, taking another long sip of her drink while he goes completely rigid.
"But I thought she was with that hi- southerner." He corrects at the last second, mind whirling at the absolute brain tilt he'd just had shoved in his face.
"Ginny's also gotten together with Sam," Isabel replies casually, and Ben stares at her for even longer before heading to the kitchen, grabbing another glass, marching back to the open end of the couch and sitting down in it.
He had a feeling it was going to be a long explanation.
As they work their way through the bottle, he's gifted the first definitive news of what, exactly, had gone down during the Fourth of July birthday party at Alfred's place. Naturally, Ginny had been there first, with a visiting Isabel there to help start the longest roasts. By the time they were getting to the rearrangement of furniture to fit some seventy-odd people (the states, Al, and Matthew and his provinces), Sue and Sam had arrived to offer help since the latter had been at the end of his visit to the former anyways.
Apparently, Isabel had left the other three alone to handle some calls from the other states who would be arriving late and needed to be picked up. By the time she'd finished up, she'd peeked into the kitchen, caught Ginny locking lips with his sister (an image he vowed to scrub from his head with as much alcohol as needed) while Sam pressed them both to the counter with a wide-ass grin.
She'd quite sensibly excused herself upstairs to check on the guest rooms while they'd been busy, and had set herself the tasks of picking up the slack of ordering people through cleaning up, to rooms or sleeping bags after they'd disappeared later that evening. He'd wondered at the time why she'd ended up in charge of that, and now he regretted his damnable curiosity once again.
"Why aren't you happy for them?" He'd finally asked after she'd gone quiet, contemplating the last of the bottle still swirling in her glass. "Aren't you all about happy ever afters and romance?"
"Because I did so well last time Sam and Sue got together, right?" She'd replied quietly, giving him a knowing look that had him blushing more than he liked in embarrassment at her directed reference.
"Why me, then?"
"Because Al's not around, and even if we annoy each other, you did help last time. I'm not planning on making it a habit, if that's what worrying you, I just figured we'd both feel better handling this mess if we weren't sober."
"Fair enough," He conceded, waiting for her to finish her drink before taking both their glasses to the kitchen to be washed and set to dry. "You're still sleeping on the couch."
Ben was even forgiving enough to ignore the half-hearted flick of her finger in his direction before she was temporarily out of view.
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"Come on, you greedy beasts, help me drag this in so we all can eat."
The dragonets obliged, the golden one screeching at the others to grab hold of parts of the wonky science experiment bird that was somehow still edible despite all logic of alien ecosystems claiming that should be unlikely.
Isabel wasn't going to complain, however, because the meat would be a nice reprieve from fish and fruit and what roots and mushrooms she could tentatively put down as edible. Even if her supernatural constitution made poisoning more a discomfort than a problem, she wasn't fond of wasting an afternoon hating her life, so she stuck to what was safe unless necessary.
After a few more tugs, the bird was clear of the underbrush and the small trap she'd put together just to catch something like it. The dragonets broke away, landing on trees or the ground while she pulled out her swiss army knife and started hacking away at the body. The belly was carefully torn open, guts pulled out and thrown to the waiting party, each quick to snap up whatever came near them. Next came the muscles, her own meal once she got back to camp and started cooking it all over a fire, and these went into her specially repurposed carry bag.
Finally, she went back to the head, carefully tapping the skull before bringing the butt of the knife down enough to crack the bone, using the knife end to tear open the skin and pick apart some of the thin bone. The gold dragonet, recognizing the now familiar offering, swooped down and got to work pulling more shards away, stuffing her face into the opening to get at the rare treat. The others of the flock followed, tearing into the remains of the bird she hadn't taken as she moved away.
Shaking her head in amusement, Isabel turned and started walking back to the beach, humming under her breath. For someone who'd been away from civilization for nearly a month, she'd been doing surprisingly well for herself despite her early worries. The fruits were plentiful and varied (and mostly safe to consume), the seas abounded with fish, and the trees provided shelter and resources to put together the basic tools she hadn't had with her when she'd first arrived in this place.
Surprisingly, she'd also ended up with company, something she'd stressed over since she'd first noticed the connection to her people felt... muffled. It was still there, but she couldn't get any sort of information from it besides the fact that her people existed, and it'd made it hard to focus those first few days.
Then the dragonets had come across her, observing her traps and shelter before deciding that she was apparently safe enough to work with.
Needless to say, she'd been shocked when she'd seen more than a dozen small dragons herding a panicking bird right into her net, a clearly intelligent and cooperative plan that provided enough food for everyone by the time it'd finally been stripped to the bone and feathers. It'd been a hearty meal, made more memorable from how strangely alien the creatures were with their faceted eyes.
They didn't always stick around after that, but she usually saw them several times a week, either gliding around and diving into the ocean or basking and rolling around on the sands. She even watched how they fished in turns, or how they carefully tended to each other in elaborate grooming rituals that seemed to point to some vague hierarchy within the flock.
The gold was obviously on top, followed by her favorite bronzes. After them seemed to be the greens, with the browns and blues at a vague bottom that might have just been something peculiar to this group and not a firm thing. She obviously couldn't be positive without running into more groups, but she hadn't seen any others yet, so for now she contented herself with what her flock would tell her.
(Sometimes, she couldn't help but wonder if they were studying her as well. For a wild species, they were certainly curious and bold.)
By the time she reached her camp, the sun was starting to sink towards evening, and her fire was still smouldering enough that it only took a bit of encouragement and fuel to get it back to a comfortable flame to cook her meat over. Her makeshift pans were laid out, meat strips carefully set across them before she banked the flames and set the meat-bearing rocks on top of the embers to cook slowly.
Several dragonets popped into existence overhead, spiralling down to a lazy landing nearby and settling themselves in for a nap. Two layers of eyelids closed over their eyes, wings stretched out to absorb the sun while it was still high enough to provide heat. They were almost like cats, really, only the dragonets were even nosier around her stuff when she wasn't there to shoo them away.
By the time the meat finally finished cooking, she was about ready to drop off herself, despite it being early. She'd certainly gotten out of the habit of being on her feet all day lately, hadn't she? Still, Isabel made certain to eat as much as she could before packing the rest away as carefully as she could so it would last over the next few days. After that, she crawled into her makeshift tent, adjusted her worn jacket so it cushioned her head, and fell asleep almost immediately.
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The missionaries had always known she wasn't quite human, having arrived from the wilds as she had, so Isabel had never thought there was reason to keep quiet about it. Only one of them had ever disliked her for it, and he'd been pulled away soon enough and made to apologize after a long talk with the head of the mission. Even the indians working on the missions knew who she was, and if everyone knew, it couldn't really be a secret, could it?
(Mr. Spain and Ms. Mexico had never stayed long enough to notice such things, and the missionaries had never thought to mention it, because she was just a child, and a properly baptized and taught one at that.)
When the Americans came, trickling in along the coast and settling in, she didn't think much about being honest about her nature, because she'd never had reason to believe otherwise. They justified her belief in their amused tolerance, sharing tales of the not-quite-human people like her back east they'd known growing up in exchange for a message or goods delivered.
As such, Isabel was kept on her feet quite a bit, because she'd never really known Spain or Mexico, not in the same way she was getting to know New York and Virginia and Tennessee and Maine and even America himself. One day, she was certain, she would meet these people for herself, once she was old enough to obtain passage on a boat or wagon. After all, the others had grown up soon enough, and she was just a bit younger than they'd been.
She was surprised, but pleased, when Alfred came to her, leading an army through to officially claim what had already pretty much been his, and she only felt a bit sad when some of her people got hurt in the process. He was kind to her, even if his face tightened a bit when she had asked why Mexico and Spain had needed to look after her, because she'd always been meant to become self-sufficient eventually, so why wouldn't they wean her off as soon as possible?
When she showed him gold, everything started going too quickly to properly take in. Towns sprung up, her body ached with sudden growth and puberty and even the trip back east to confirm her sudden statehood had been unexpectedly harsh and overthrown her expectations on what to expect of the others like her.
But her politicians promised she was safer this way, and Alfred had said much the same, and all these new people were looking to her to help them realize their own dreams, and so even if her own had been tarnished for the moment, she rolled up her sleeves and went to work, because she was going to prove that she was fully capable of being a State like the rest, no matter her youth or inexperience in politics.
Besides, it wasn't like she could head east too often, so she had time, and her own government had a lot of issues to work out anyways.
(God damn that railroad - it had created far more problems than it'd solved!)
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AN: Just a couple of random AUs I've been thinking about lately. Might expand on them, might not, depends on future moods and stuff I guess.
The first is, obviously, my Stargate x-over, the second is something of a joke/semi-serious thing Kait and I have been tossing around occasionally where VA/NJ/TX becomes a thing, the third is a Pern insert which I might be expanding on at some point, and the last is another AU I plan on exploring, where the American and Canadian personifications are public knowledge and, like, it's not a huge deal to anybody.
I always have so many projects in the works... T-T