In the silence of his cabin, Matthieu could hear the waves lapping against the hull. He sat curled up in his hammock, tucked away in the corner farthest from the stairs that led to the door. It was a large cabin, much larger than the ones he'd seen on his way in, but still cramped in the way that all dark, dank rooms were. Pushed against the wall opposite him was a single bed, with a dresser at its foot and a table in the center of the room. It was nice enough, Matthew supposed, but he didn't have the energy to care.
The hammock had been brought to him by a kind-faced Midshipman who'd hung it up and then asked him a question he didn't understand, before frowning and leaving the cabin only to return a few minutes later with a pillow and a thick woolen blanket.
Matthieu was thankful for this stranger's kindness. The Nation who'd brought him onto the ship hadn't paid him a second glance before leaving him in the darkness of the cabin and returning to the deck. That didn't bother Matthieu very much; he needed time to process what had happened only hours before.
In the span of mere seconds, everything Matthieu had known had been destroyed. It seemed the only thing he was destined for was to be cast aside and forgotten the moment he ceased to be useful.
Skandia had left him the moment the colony began to fail, left him with only an amulet and an impossible legend to live up to. His brothers and sisters began to push him away as they became caught up in their animosities, uncaring that he wanted to be neutral, that he wanted to love them just the same. Soaring Eagle vanished the second some man arrived on his shores, promising fame and fortune. His mother handed him off to another sibling without any final words, any final goodbyes, without letting him know that she was dying and couldn't Matthieu see that everything she'd done had been for him? The sister, he'd never seen again, and he had no idea what had happened to her - if she still lived or if she'd Faded like the Ancients François had told him about.
Bitter bile rose in Matthieu's throat as he thought about François.
The man had promised to be the father Matthieu had never had, to be there for every moment and guide him on his path to becoming the most powerful colony in the French Empire. He promised to love him and protect him, and he'd just thrown him away.
Thrown him away the moment he became too expensive, too big, too much trouble to deal with. As though a child was something one could cast aside upon changing their ideas toward parenting. As though Matthieu was expendable, no more than a pawn on the chessboard of life, where the empires reigned king and Matthieu was just a necessary sacrifice to fall into checkmate.
But that was exactly what Matthieu was. He didn't know why he'd been fooling himself for all those years. François had only kept him because the trade had been useful, not because he'd truly cared for Matthieu. If he had, he wouldn't have left him lying in a pool of his own blood.
Matthieu's mother had said he could be the harbinger of a new age, he just hadn't realized it was the age of Loneliness and the Forgotten. Just like the frozen winds of his winter nights, everything he touched withered and died, and he was left alone. No matter what happened, no matter the road he took, the circumstances that brought him to his destination, he would always end up here: alone and cast aside, a child living in the shadow of legends.
He sniffled and wiped his nose with his sleeve, a frozen sort of anger pooling in his chest. He would shed no more tears for François, for the life he might have had. It was over now, and there was nothing Matthieu could do to change it.
Scrubbing the tears from his eyes, Matthieu reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out his amulet. He ran his fingers over Magni's metal face, smoothed down slightly from centuries of doing so. It was a comforting gesture, almost unconsciously done whenever he was in distress. Matthieu didn't know why it calmed him, only that it did. It made a rush of warmth flow through his chest, easing the knots in his tense shoulders and letting air flow unencumbered through his lungs.
Someone knocked at the door, and then, without waiting for Matthieu's answer, eased it open.
It was the man from before, the one who'd taken him away. Matthieu curled back farther in his hammock and glared at the Nation in the darkness of the cabin.
He set a tray of food down on the table, then turned to Matthieu. "What's your name, boy?"
Matthieu glared at the man and remained silent. Though the man spoke the universal language of the Nations, Matthieu was under no obligation to answer him.
The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "This will go much smoother if you tell me your name. I'm Arthur Kirkland," he added, by way of example. "The personification of England and the representative for the British Empire."
Matthieu was silent for a moment more, gauging the man with narrowed eyes. He looked harmless enough. His sword was tucked into its scabbard and he'd taken off his tricorn hat, which incidentally also removed several inches of his perceived height and left a short, blond man with obnoxiously large eyebrows in his place. There was no hint of the cool, calculating empire François had told him about, or of the man he'd seen outside the office, strong and unyielding and uncaring for anything that didn't pertain to him.
Then Matthieu caught a glimpse of the man's eyes. The candlelight of the oil lamp hanging by the stairs flashed against emerald, and for the briefest second, Matthieu could see something otherworldly in Arthur's gaze.
His eyes were fractured, miniscule cracks in his mask that had been shattered and welded back together over many, many years. François had the same hollow gaze on nights where he lost himself staring at the fireplace and drank enough to kill a mortal man. It was the gaze of someone who'd already lived for centuries and knew they would live to see the end of forever. Those eyes had seen empires rise and fall, kingdoms that blew away like ashes on the wind in what seemed to be a single heartbeat. They'd seen everything the world had to offer and yet there was a void in the soul, a longing for something lost to dust.
And they were tired.
Matthieu wondered how long it would take for his eyes to begin to look like that.
He wondered if they already did.
"Matthieu," he said after what was probably too many moments of tense silence.
The man shook his head, oblivious to the way he was being analyzed. "Matthew. I will not have you walking around as a proper English gentleman with a French name."
"Matthieu."
"Matthew."
Matthieu glared at him. If this man wanted him to change his name for the third time in his existence, it wasn't happening. "Matthieu."
"Matthew!" the man seethed and a muscle in his jaw jumped. His face had purpled slightly, but he took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Matthew is the English equivalent of Matthieu," he pronounced it haltingly. "You will be going by that name from now on, and that is final. Am I understood?"
Matthieu scowled and retreated farther back into his hammock. He pulled the blanket over his head and blocked out the noise of the world.
{He hoped Arthur couldn't hear him crying.}
oO0Oo
Matthieu spends the weeks at sea learning how to become Matthew.
He finds that everything and yet nothing has changed.
He's different, of course, no longer la Nouvelle France but instead the colony of Canada. Just like before, this new Nation spends his every available moment in the cramped cabin below, teaching him an entirely new language. He no longer understands what the men on deck are saying, and the few that do try to include him in conversation are met with blank stares because he can only say yes and no and hello, my name is Matthew with true certainty, and he doesn't think they'd been impressed with that.
And yet, every now and again, he'd hear a snippet of a word he can vaguely recognize as one of French origin and he's reminded at how interconnected the world is. The breeze off the sea and the salty spray still feel the same on his face, and the sailors sing sea-shanties with familiar melodies that cause his chest to ache, even if he doesn't understand the words.
For the first week of the trans-Atlantic journey, Matthew stays holed up in the officer's cabin he shares with Arthur. He even refuses to get out of his hammock for the first three of those days, only leaving when his stomach could no longer be silenced by the crashing of the waves against the hull. Arthur tries a few times to lure him out of the cabin in vain, and after the fifth day, gives up all together. They only see each other at night when Arthur returns below deck with dinner and a chalk slate, determined to drill more vocabulary and grammar rules into Matthew's head.
Matthew listens to him speak and his eyes trace the words Arthur has written, but he never makes any move to copy them down on his own slate. He has yet to say a word to Arthur since their argument on the first day.
Eventually, Arthur gets frustrated and storms upstairs, rejoining his men around the brazier on deck.
It's the same routine every night.
Matthew doesn't care. He doesn't even bother to change his clothes before he pulls the blanket over his shoulders and closes his eyes.
He's miserable, and he's not above making Arthur feel that way too.
Things change during his second week at sea. During that time, Matthew has changed his clothes only twice and been on deck once, and even that was only to find the Midshipman and thank him in a dejected tone for the blanket and pillow he'd given him.
Arthur finally snaps one night and throws the chalk down so hard it snaps in two upon contact with the wood floor and the halves roll out of sight in the darkness somewhere.
"I don't care if you're right ticked off, you will not be getting any special treatment. Up!" He tugs on Matthew's collar. "We're going above deck."
Matthew follows him listlessly up the stairs and out the doors, into the salty night air. The breeze sends goosebumps prickling across Matthew's bare forearms. He shivers slightly and makes to undo the buttons that prevent his rolled up sleeves from falling when Arthur stops him with a short jerk of his head.
"Hawkins!" he barks. A gangly man starts slightly in response. "Bring the bucket over here!"
Before Matthew finished translating the words, Arthur roughly pushes a heavy wooden bucket into his arms. The pungent stench of stale salt water in the bucket nearly makes him gag.
Arthur hands him a mop and turns away, beginning to walk back to their cabin. "Wash the deck. We'll see if a little hard work couldn't straighten you out."
"Va te faire enculer," Matthew mutters, then freezes when Arthur stops mid-step.
"What did you just say to me?" Arthur asks, his voice quiet and cold, his back still to Matthew.
"Nothing," Matthew says and winces as his voice cracks on the tail-end of the word.
Arthur hums and continues his stride. "Wash the deck, then you can come back and resume the lesson."
Matthew waits until Arthur has closed the door behind him before throwing the mop to the ground and letting out a wordless yell. A few sailors turn to look at him, but Matthew ignores them.
He screams into the night air, screams for everyone he's lost and everyone who'd left him. He screams for the puckered scars that tug at his torso and the bloody scab around his bicep. He screams for Soaring Eagle and his mother and the unknown fates they'd met.
Most importantly, he screams for himself.
All the emotions he'd buried deep within himself since the war started come flooding out in a choked half-sob. He screams as he falls to his knees and clutches his head in his hands. He screams because he doesn't know who he is anymore.
He's no longer French but he's not quite English, either. He's changed his name three times in less than three-hundred years and yet none of them seem right. Silent Warrior, Matthieu Bonneyfoy, Matthew Kirkland. They just don't fit.
He's not a man, but he's certainly not a child. He's lived through far too much to be considered a boy, and yet his body had barely grown into its early teens. Seven hundred years he'd lived in this world, and he still looked twelve.
It made no sense and it wasn't fair.
He tilts his head back up, letting the tears run quietly down the arch of his cheekbones, and looks at the sky.
The stars shine in a way he hasn't seen for hundreds of years. No longer blocked out by the lights of Versailles or Québec, the night sky was infinite and eternal just like it always was in his memories. Dark blues and indigos and purples and reds swirled to be inked across the sky that was not black but somehow deeper and darker than he could describe. The stars are scattered across the sky like fairy dust and galaxies pulse in the far beyond, shimmering rose golds and silvery cobalts. He can see the constellations he'd spent hours inventing stories for and something warm settles in his chest, soothing the sharp edges that the war had brought.
The cool night breeze is crisp and salty against his skin. It whips his curls around his ears, his locks dancing with the wind. The stars shimmer in response, laughing and dancing in their own way, frozen in time and yet seeming to be everywhere.
The night sky was beautiful and endless and immortal.
And so was he.
oO0Oo
Matthew is reunited with his brother after more than a hundred years, but they've become strangers.
They stand in the doorway, staring at each other, yet neither moving. Arthur has one foot on the step behind Matthew and is frozen, glancing between the two of them. Matthew wonders if it had just occurred to him how similar they are.
His brother has grown. They still appear the same age, but Soaring Eagle has a good few inches on him and his shoulders are broader. The last time Matthew had seen him, they'd both had copious amounts of baby fat rounding out their features, but that was no longer the case. Soaring Eagle's face is now all hard angles, much like their mother's was, and his natural tan was paler, likely due to the lack of consistent sunlight in Arthur's northern estate in York. But the cowlick in his hair remained and his eyes were the same sparkling blue Matthew remembered.
"Silent Warrior?" Soaring Eagle's voice was breathless, as though he couldn't imagine what he was seeing.
Matthew can't summon the words to speak, can't say anything of the things he'd always imagined he would, can't believe that his brother was there.
"Do you already know Matthew, Alfred?" Arthur asked, his brow furrowing.
"He's my brother," Soaring Eagle - now Alfred - didn't take his wide eyes off Matthew. "My twin. I - I didn't think I'd see you again."
He spoke in the language of the Nations, which Matthew is thankful for. Eight weeks was nowhere near enough time to learn a new language, even if much of it had roots in other languages Matthew already knew.
Matthew smiles shyly, the though his words still feel jumbled up in his throat. "It's - it's been a long time, hasn't it?"
Somewhere, up above, the stars twinkle brighter as Gemini fades into the night sky. Castor and Pollux have returned once more.
oO0Oo
"The dinner tonight is to introduce you to the rest of Arthur's colonies. I think his brothers and sister might show up, too," Alfred says as he leads Matthew down another staircase.
"Does he have a big family?" Matthew asks. He'd bathed for the first time in weeks and now, dressed in a clean suit, feels more composed, more prepared to face this new reality.
Alfred snorts. "I don't know if he considers us family. We're just his colonies."
That takes Matthew aback. His brother had never been so cynical, so distrusting when he'd last seen him. The brother he remembered had looked to the world with shining eyes and a grin on his face, and now he wouldn't meet Matthew's gaze.
{Matthew didn't know that he was feeling his citizen's upset at the Seven Years War, didn't know that things were going to get worse when taxes were raised the following year. He didn't know that he would have less than twelve years with his brother before everything fell apart with a single shot heard around the world.}
"We're here," Alfred says, and gestures for Matthew to open a large set of double oak doors. He seems to be at a loss for what else to say.
With a deep breath and one last glance at his brother {he still can't believe he's there}, Matthew opens the doors and steps inside.
All conversation dies when the occupants catch sight of him. Matthew can feel Alfred hovering behind him, waiting for him to enter the dining room, but Matthew feels glued to the spot. There's dozens of eyes on him and somehow they feel like hundreds more.
"Ah, Matthew, Alfred," Arthur stands up from his seat at the head of the table. "We were waiting for you."
He gestures to a set of empty seats beside a tall copper-haired man. Matthew feels like he's hardly breathing as he approaches the table, his back ramrod straight as he slides into the empty seat nearest to the door out of the two. Alfred sits next to him and nudges him with an elbow.
"Relax," he whispered. "It's just dinner."
The man next to Alfred reached for a jug on the table and poured some cider into Matthew's glass. His auburn hair curls delicately around his ears and freckles are smattered across every inch of bare skin. He's big and broad, in more ways than just physical. The man had an air about him, even more so than Arthur, like he'd lived a thousand lives and no longer feared the inevitability of eternity. It made Matthew feel small, though he was over seven hundred years old, and he felt every muscle in his body tremble as he curled his hand around his glass.
"Thank you," Matthew said softly, taking a delicate sip. "It's good."
"Aye," said the man and Matthew almost dropped his glass. "It's nice tae meet you, Matthew. Alfred's mentioned you quite a lot."
His accent was a thick and rolling brogue that had Matthew struggling momentarily to discpher.
"O-oh," Mathew stuttered. "Hello. I-I don't believe we've met."
The Nation grinned, his blue eyes laughing. "I'm Alasdair Kirkland, Arthur's older brother an' the personification of Alba - that's Scotland in English." There was a bitterness in his tone that Matthew filed away for later.
"I see," Matthew said, at a loss for words. He glanced around the table at the other Nations at the table. There were several dozen of them, all eating and chatting quietly. "How did you know who I was? Even Alfred was surprised to see me."
Alasdair chuckles, a deep, hearty laugh that seems to come from the back of his throat. "I was married tae yer father many years ago, and we still keep in touch sometimes. I was one of the first tae hear about his new colony, ken? And yer brother also wouldnae shut up about his twin, so when ye showed up, it didn't take a genius tae figure everything out."
Matthew just nodded in silence, taking another sip of his cider. He didn't want to think about François less he broke down at the table. Beside him, Alfred dug into his food, oblivious to the conversation going on between the two Nations on either side of him. He cleared his throat. "Alfred said that everyone here is Arthur's family…"
Chewing his roast in thought, Alasdair didn't respond for a few moments and Matthew wondered if he'd said the wrong thing.
"Well, only a few of us are kin," Alasdair said, pointing to several older Nations. They all sat near the end of the table like Alasdair was, but Arthur was the one who sat at the head. "Ye already ken our wee brother, but Owain is the second-oldest," he gestured to a blond man who was dunking his bread in his cider, much to Arthur's disgust. "He's Wales. An' the twins come after tha'. Séamus and Eireann share Ireland, which is only a client state, but Arthur asked 'em tae come tae dinner anyhow." He motioned toward a set of red-haired twins, a man and a woman who, despite their close proximity to each other, were tense and spoke to each other curtly.
Matthew frowned and nodded in understanding. He glanced at his plate and cut his venison half-heartedly. He missed French foods, with their rich meats in thick sauces and their flaky pastries and warm, fluffy breads. The roast before him looked good enough, but he'd always been told that the French palate was much more refined than the English. He missed home.
"And the rest?" he asked after another moment of hesitation.
Alasdair didn't respond for a long moment, then, "Arthur has a lot of colonies."
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