I know this isn't how the discovery of Canada actually went and that it involved a lot more comings and goings and failed settlements, but I'm lazy and claim artistic licence.

When his mother placed him in the arms of his sister, Silent Warrior thought nothing of it. She would often leave him with one of her other children while she travelled great distances, explaining that it was too far for a child to roam. He thought nothing of it when his mother and sister hugged each other tightly and for longer than they ever had. Silent Warrior didn't realize anything was wrong until he was snatched up by the blue-eyed man at the river.

Silent Warrior didn't know that he would never see his mother again. He didn't know that she had entrusted him to his sister, one of the nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, so that she could fade as she had come into the world - completely alone. Silent Warrior didn't know that his mother's tears were from the pain she was in as her immortality left her body. He didn't know that the last thing she would see was the sky, tears slipping out of her eyes as a puff of gold was blown out on her final breath. He didn't know that this was her sacrifice to him: dying so her youngest sons could live.

If he had known that, he might have held on tighter, might have shed tears, might have thanked her for everything she had done for him.

But he didn't know.

He didn't understand why he suddenly got a chill that crept down his spine, why he suddenly glowed gold and his body hurt as everything snapped into place.

Silent Warrior didn't know why his sister started crying when she saw him.

He didn't realize that he'd just felt the death of a Nation, and came into his own because of it.

{It wasn't until he saw Soaring Eagle again that he realized what had happened that day - that he realized why they hadn't disappeared when Vinland fell}.

He didn't realize because he didn't know their kind could die. It had never occurred to him why his mother stopped talking and looked to the distance when he asked about his siblings far to the south.

So Silent Warrior never gave it a second thought. When the ship sailed up the river, he ran to meet it, having never seen anything like it before. He didn't know why his sister was so wary of the men that disembarked or why she demanded that he stay out of sight.

But he was a curious child and slipped out of the village the first chance he got.

The man who met him at the river bank was tall and had hair even lighter than Silent Warrior's. His eyes were blue, too, but not the same as Soaring Eagle's - more the colour of a clear sky than a deep river.

When he caught sight of him, the man's eyes widened. He made noises with his mouth that Silent Warrior couldn't understand but assumed were words. Silent Warrior just tilted his head, bemused and curious over this tall man who spoke this language nothing he'd ever heard and seemed to possess a god-like nature that he'd only ever seen in his siblings. Finally, seemingly understanding that Silent Warrior didn't understand him, the man gestured around to the village he'd come from.

Oh, Silent Warrior realized. He doesn't know where he is.

"Kanata," he supplied. Our village. "Québec." Where the river narrows.

The man made a happy noise with his mouth and beckoned to another, repeating what Silent Warrior had said with flourished hand movements.

The man made another noise and pointed to Silent Warrior, then to himself. "François."

Silent Warrior blinked. Was that the man's name?

"Silent Warrior," he said after a moment's hesitation.

But the man - François - frowned and shook his head. Without warning he scooped Silent Warrior up in his arms and cradled him close to his chest. "Matthieu," he said.

That's how Silent Warrior became Matthieu, son of la Nouvelle France, and how he would soon come to be known as Matthew, personification of the British colony of Canada.

As the man carried him away, Silent Warrior didn't notice his sister crying in the background, weeping for the loss of her younger brother, for the child her mother had entrusted to her.

{And if Silent Warrior noticed and asked François about it, and the man lied to him, well, he didn't know any better}.