My parents were in an accident and they have at least four broken bones between the two of them. My mom's awaiting surgery in the hospital to repair her arm, and my dad's at home with two broken elbows and strained ribs, so he can't do anything beside sit and watch TV, so I have a lot to do around the house, and I start uni in two days AND I'm working fourteen hours a week.

Basically, what I'm saying is, I have no idea when I'll be able to update next. Taking care of my dad, even with my siblings' help, is a full-time job, not counting a full semester of classes, and work. I'll try to update as soon as I can, but it might have to waiting until later November or even Christmas before I can write again.

I have a few more pre-written chapters, but after that, nothing.

I'm really sorry, but my family and my education come first.

I hope you all understand.

Arthur left sometimes, far more often than François had. It took Matthew months to get used to the suddenly silent house, how it seemed so still without Arthur's imposing presence.

He would be gone for weeks, months, at a time, sailing to far off lands Matthew has never seen, looking for colonies to claim or watching over the ones already established. He brought them back gifts - embroidered silk cravats and handkerchiefs, leather-bound books of both fact and fiction, exotic spices to line the shelves of the larder - as apologies for being gone for so long. He liked to spoil them, to spend time with them, but it came with a detached sort of familiarity, as though Arthur couldn't balance his country's relationship with the colonies and his own desire for a family with those who lived in his household. It was different, living in the manor without the empire there, but the rooms were filled with the other colonies, and the servants made sure they wanted for nothing. The older colonies, the ones that had been around for forever, weren't always there - especially Hamish, the colony of Nova Scotia, who spent more time with Alasdair than not - but Matthew knew they were just a letter away if he needed them.

Most stayed, though, especially on nights such as this. They'd lit a fire in a ring of stones some hours before and it had slowly burnt itself out to a pile of flickering embers. The younger colonies had gone to bed but Matthew and Alfred stayed outside to watch the fire.

Connall sat up with a grunt. "I'm goin' to bed, b'ys, and you should think about headin' in soon, too."

Alfred nodded in concession to Newfoundland, but they laid on the cool grass in silence until the brown-haired man left.

It was just the two of them, alone in the twilight. The full moon was partially hidden by an overcast sky, but the stars twinkled between the gaps in the clouds. A cool breeze danced in the sweet air, carding its ethereal fingers through Matthew's curls, urging him to join them in swaying to a song only the wind could hear. Alfred looked up at the stars, gazing longingly to a place where Polaris should have been if not for the cloud cover. His azure eyes seemed to change to a dark, deep blue, reflecting the few stars visible that night. "Do you - do you ever wonder about those no one remembers?"

Matthew followed his brother's gaze to the sky. There was an impossible pull, a part of his very soul, that was drawn to something he couldn't see. They hadn't called it Polaris, then, but it was undoubtedly that which had sparked his brother's question, much like it had so many centuries before. It was the place where they had always been told their kind went when they were no longer needed, a final resting place for the Nations history could no longer be bothered with. Most, Matthew was sure, had gone well before their time, unfairly destroyed by those who never cared about the aftermath, the ramifications of their actions. His heart ached as he thought about how many Nations must reside there now. He and Alfred were certain that their mother was gone, had only really realized it when they'd met each other again, and the pain of that realization hadn't yet healed, had barely started to scab over. They were supposed to have died centuries ago when Skandia abandoned their colony, but instead fate dealt them another hand. They'd been allowed to live at the expense of their mother's life. Matthew wondered how many of his siblings knew that their mother had Faded. In retrospect, the sister she'd left him with certainly had known, and he now understood her tears on the day he'd last seen his mother. Matthew wondered how many of his siblings, both Faded and not {because he certainly knew that some were gone, many before he'd even gotten to know them}, knew what had happened to her. He wondered if she'd had a hand to hold as the light faded from her eyes, someone to sing her softly to sleep, to promise to watch over the children she'd so lovingly given her immortality for.

{He wondered if their siblings blamed them.}

As though sensing the change in the air between them, Alfred sat up. His hands drifted up to his neck to fiddle with his amulet. Like Matthew's, his amulet had begun to show signs of wear. The iron face of Modi had lost it's sharp features, the iron smoothed down around the god's nose and chin. There were nicks in the metal, too, remnants of the time that had passed since they'd gotten them. It had been more than seven hundred years since Skandia founded the colony of Vinland and they were born, and yet no one knew that the vikings had ever made it that far. History had forgotten them, just as it had for so many.

"You know, the ones who are now lost to time because they never did anything worthwhile, the ones who are just footnotes in our lives?" Alfred's voice held a bitterly wistful tone. "I mean, look at us. No one remembers that we were born centuries before they said we were simply because… we failed. The colony failed and we were abandoned by Skandia, and no one else knows where Vinland was, like we weren't worthy enough to have anyone even attempt to remember our colony."

Matthew followed his brother's lead and sat up. The dewy grass clung to his hands and sleeves as he pushed himself off the ground and he knew that they would stain, but he didn't mind much. A few grass stains were a small price to pay for the peaceful nights they stole when Arthur wasn't around. "I don't know, Al. Maybe… maybe it was for the best. We're already expected to be everything Arthur and François weren't, to be better than they ever were, to be the beginning of a new age." He shook his head. "I don't know if we could ever be seen as us if we had to live up to the legends of the vikings, too. If that happened, I think we would become the forgotten."

There was a heavy pause as Alfred pondered that. The cool breeze blew around the fire, breathing life back into the smoldering coals. The charred wood sparked to life once more as sparse flames licked their way up the ashy logs.

Alfred bit his lip and tore his gaze from the sky. His eyes found the spluttering campfire and he stared into it, unseeing, transfixed. He didn't respond for a long moment, then: "I don't want to be forgotten, I can't. I want to live my life, Mattie. I want to be myself, to find out what that actually means. This place," he swept his hand around the estate. "It's suffocating. Too much pressure, too many expectations, and yet there's nothing in it for me. The colonies aren't represented in the grand scheme of things. We're always living in England's shadow, and I'm tired of it.

Alfred drew his knees close to his chest and rested his chin on them. In the dancing light of the fire, he looked so young, so much like the thirteen-year-old he should have been if fate hadn't cursed them with immortality.

His face was pale as he pulled his knees impossibly closer. "I'm just - I'm just tired of it all. I want to be seen, Mattie, I want to be heard. I don't want to spend my entire life bending over backwards just to be a passing mention in the history of the empire who owns me."

Matthew scooted closer and put a hand on his brother's shoulders. He had no answer for that, couldn't make sense of his own conflicted feelings about Arthur and empires and his brother, so he squeezed Alfred's shoulder in silent reassurance.

"I love Arthur, I really do," Alfred whispered and hugged his knees tighter. "But I want to be remembered for being me."

oO0Oo

Matthew found books to be his escape in the years following the Seven Years War. He devoured the volumes Arthur kept in the library and frequently slipped into his private study to nick forgotten texts from dusty shelves. He found himself enamored with the works of William Shakespeare and Henry Fielding, and returned to reread Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe on several occasions, each read-through providing endless hours of entertainment and distraction from the reality he faced at the estate.

The tension in the air was stifling, so thick one could cut it with a knife if they dared to acknowledge it. It wasn't uncommon to see the servants flit to a different room when a Nation - any Nation - appeared, and even the colonies found other places to be when Arthur and Alfred's furious gazes locked on each other. Matthew did his best to bridge the gap between his brother and the empire, but the issue went beyond personal vendettas.

As months turned into years and Matthew and Alfred grew faster than they ever had, Matthew found his brother slipping away from him. They'd been apart for more than a hundred years, and even the years spent together hadn't been enough to return their bond to what it once was.

Part of it, Matthew knew, was nobody's fault. They were growing up, growing older, leaving their endless childhoods behind as the world barrelled into a new age. After being sheltered from the world for more than six centuries, Europe had arrived in their most influential years, a time when they were still so bright-eyed and naive to think the world was inherently good. They'd been raised apart, raised by warring empires who differed greatly in the way they brought up the colonies under their care.

Alfred had been raised as Arthur's pride amongst the nobility of the British Empire. He'd watched as the Civil War tore Arthur apart, watched as his father-figure's loyalties became divided between the Roundheads and Cavaliers, had watched as executions brought an end to royalty in England and Cromwell's Parliament reigned supreme. He'd seen how rapidly things changed and then rebounded back, and had watched as the very notion of the line of succession was challenged.

He'd taken all that in and internalized it, looked to the future with starry eyes and envisioned a world led by the people. He saw how much power the masses held when they banded together toward a common goal, how much influence the sharp edge of a bayonet could give them.

Matthew, on the other hand, had been raised in the French aristocracy, the heir to one of the most powerful empires of the age. He'd been sheltered inside Versailles for most of his childhood and rarely ventured out of the palace until he was much older and aching to see the world he'd been hidden from. Even then, it hadn't been until he'd returned to Québec that he'd truly been allowed to explore his surroundings without François hovering anxiously. That wasn't to say that Matthew was raised any better or worse than Alfred, but simply differently. He'd grown up in the Golden Age of Versaille, had been nurtured and allowed to thrive under the reign of the Sun King, and France had watched with breathless wonder as what had once been a hopeless colony grew to be one of the most powerful in the New World.

So while his brother resisted Arthur's guidance and closed himself off from the rest of the household, Matthew hesitated. He'd seen what a powerful empire could do for a settler colony like his own and Arthur's people were already making strides to create an understanding with the original French colonials and the Roman Catholic Church, even if Arthur had adamantly declared his own country to be Protestant. His colony was recognized as French and yet a different culture in and of itself, and it was the first thing Matthew could truly call his own.

In wake of that revelation, Matthew had thrown his lot in with the empire. Matthew knew it would never make him satisfied until he was his own country and he'd stop at nothing to make that dream realized, but he also recognized his youth and inexperience. He'd been in the European circles for less than two centuries and there was still much that confused him about these old empires, how the ones who were remembered lived for so long and why the forgotten ones crumbled far too easily.

He also knew what happened when you gave into hubris. He'd studied enough historical texts and mythological tales to know that the prideful always met a lonely end.

So he would stay with Arthur and the British Empire and watch from the sidelines as his brother forged his country in fire and blood, as teenaged ambitions were realized with a quill and ink, and a single snowball forever altered the balance of power around the world.