I have my first uni class in a few hours and I'm both terrified and excited.

Alsoooooo

Prussia has entered the story!

(Oh boy...)

For once, Matthew's ability to stand forgotten in the background was seen as a blessing, not a curse. He didn't know if it was an ability he'd picked up in his many centuries of existence or if it was something he'd been born with, but his footsteps had always treaded lightly across even the most finicky surfaces and his aura of otherness - the one that came with being an immortal - had always been subdued compared to his brother's. He had a forgettable face, which often worked against him but was not without its benefits.

When Arthur handed him a musket and a ticket to the Thirteen Colonies, Matthew didn't ask questions. He was the logical choice; he didn't have a distinctive accent, could speak both French and English well enough to communicate with the colonials and their allies, and he looked enough like Alfred that he could go most places unnoticed if he kept his head down and didn't draw attention to himself.

And after Alfred's men tried to invade him, he accepted the assignment with relish.

{He still couldn't believe his brother had invaded him.}

Even still, he'd spent months shivering and hungry as he warmed his frozen fingers by the meager flame of their spluttering fire. He particularly hated patrolling the Valley Forge, where the biting wind cut through his nondescript brown coat like it was made of paper. Vast as the Thirteen Colonies might have been, the Continental Army seemed to have a particular talent for choosing the wrong places to make camp.

Matthew didn't mind the cold, but it became increasingly hard to weather when suffering from malnutrition and the aftermath of an invasion.

{With a start, he realized that he'd only ever felt the cold like this once before: in Quebec, when the British had laid siege to the citadel. And even then, only the nights had been crisp and he'd had warm blankets and his father's arms to curl into.}

But Matthew understood loyalty, even if Alfred didn't. Days slipped into months that slipped into years as he stayed in the shadows and passed information on to Arthur's vast network of loyalist spies spread across the Thirteen Colonies. It was a lonely few years, ducking into the shadows when officers passed, avoiding any mention of his brother like the plague, and keeping proverbial walls erected between himself and the other recruits. It reminded him far too much of those days at sea with Arthur, when he had been too angry and upset to cooperate and Arthur had been too stubborn to try to bridge the gap between them.

When word came that the Continental Army had signed a treaty with France, Matthew almost burst into tears. Amidst the celebrations and the toasting, he offered to patrol outside the camp, where he could be alone with his thoughts in the silence of the forest.

His papa - no, François, Matthew corrected himself. He'd forfeited that privilege a long time ago - was here. In this little stretch of land that was struggling to even keep its own troops alive. This was where François chose to fight. Not for Quebec, not for Acadia, not for la Nouvelle France. François had forsaken him without so much as a goodbye and yet here he was, in the New World once again but fighting for a colony he'd never met.

Matthew sniffled, but he was no longer a child. Now coming on sixteen, it was no longer appropriate to scream and cry every time he didn't get his way. With a sigh, Matthew loosened his grip on his musket and let himself sit heavily on the ground. A million emotions warred within him, each one trying and failing to establish a hold on his mind.

He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against a tree with the softest thump. He felt most at ease here, surrounded by the forest. The chirping of the animals and the trills of the birds faded away in silence until only the sound of the wind rustling the trees remained.

It was peaceful and calm and, if only for the briefest second, Matthew could pretend he was home.

Footsteps crunched the grass near him and Matthew opened one eye to observe the approaching figure.

"I thought you were supposed to be patrolling?"

Matthew opened both eyes at the harsh Germanic accent and looked up to see a young man with shocking white hair approach him. The man wore the Prussian blues but had his jacket slung over his shoulder and his hat was nowhere to be seen.

"Um, yes, sir," Matthew scrambled to his feet and picked up his musket. "Sorry, sir."

"Relax, dummkopf," the man set his own musket down and sprawled out under the shade of the tree Matthew had just been sitting against. "They're all so drunk back there that even an advanced warning wouldn't be enough to save them."

Matthew breathed out an awkward laugh and hesitantly sat back down again.

They sat in an uncomfortable silence until, "Gott, you Americans have hot weather."

Matthew had noticed that too, but it was still preferable to the freezing cold of the winter previous. When he voiced this, the Prussian rolled over to face him. "You've been here long, then?"

"A few years." He kept his answers short - clipped, even.

The Prussian hummed and threw an arm over his eyes to shield against the speckled light that broke through the leaf canopy.

Matthew ignored him and watched a sparrow hop from branch to branch above him. It let out an almost-mechanical trill that Matthew copied, pursing his lips to return the bird's call. Listening to the birds, he could almost pretend he was back home, back in a time before Europe ravaged his shores and killed his mother and pit him against his siblings.

He could almost pretend it was Alfred who was sitting next to him and that any moment Matthew would hear his brother's laughter that reminded him of safety and comfort and love.

{He could almost pretend his brother hadn't betrayed him.}

The Prussian lying beside him snorted. "You sound just like a - a vogel. A birdie, I think you call it, ja?"

"A bird," Matthew found his lips twitching in the barest hint of a laugh.

They lapsed into silence again, before the Prussian uncovered his eyes and stared up at Matthew. "Why did you volunteer to go patrol right when the good drinks were brought out? You could have had fun, let loose a little."

"Don't know," Matthew shrugged. "Just… didn't want to be around them, I suppose."

The easy comradery he fell into with this man was unsettling, to say the least. He'd felt this way with very few people before and even less of them were human. It didn't do to become friends with someone who wasn't a Nation. Their fragile mortality always disappointed him, in the end. No matter what, they always left him.

"Well," the Prussian sat up and withdrew a bottle of whiskey from somewhere on his person. "I don't see why we can't have our own fun, ja?"

Matthew smiled and accepted the offered bottle. Taking a long swig that burned his throat on the way down, he coughed and passed the bottle back to the other man, ignoring as the sensation made his eyes tear up. "Danke."

The Prussian looked startled. "You speak Deutsch?"

"No," Matthew shook his head as a wry smile appeared on his face. "It's one of the few words I know."

"Ah, well, no problem," the Prussian drank and then passed the bottle back to Matthew. This time, the whiskey went down easier. "I know enough English to get by. Kapitän Gilbert Beilschmidt of the Prussian Army, at your service."

"Private Matthew Kirkland," Matthew shook the Prussian's hand and they lapsed back into silence, drinking and passing the bottle back and forth.

"Although," Gilbert said after a long moment, passing the now half-empty bottle of whiskey to Matthew. "That's not all you are, is it?"

Matthew paused with the bottle brushing his lips. His heart pounded so loudly beneath his uniform he wondered if the Prussian could hear it. "Pardon?"

Gilbert sat up with a grunt and rearranged his jacket into a pillow on the ground, seemingly completely oblivious to the panic Matthew was verging on. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that Nations can recognize each other?"

In an instant, Matthew scrambled to his feet and had the barrel of his musket pointed at the Prussian. In wake of his noisy clamouring, the forest had fallen silent, as though even the wind was holding its breath. Even the sun disappeared behind a cloud cover, the temperature dropping and leaving the forest bathed in shadows.

The other Nation just took another long drag of his whiskey. His pale skin had become flushed over the afternoon as he became increasingly intoxicated.

"Put the gun down," Gilbert said, his eyes snapping to Matthew's. The crimson orbs burned intensely. If François was a weary king and Arthur a land-locked sailor who longed for the sea, Gilbert was a rebellion waiting to happen. He simmered with passion and mischief and something like rage, but was not inherently angry. He was a wildcard if Matthew had ever seen one, unpredictable and alluring, fascinating for his mysteriousness, shunned for his abnormality.

"It won't work," he added and stretched out on his jacket. A lazy cat mildly perturbed by the disappearance of the sun it had been basking in. "You know who and what I am. The Königreich Preußen, here to help the Americans win their revolution," he settled and eyed Matthew with a quizzical eye. "The question is, which one are you? One of Arthur's brats, no doubt, but who?"

Matthew could hardly stop his knees from shaking. The army with a country.

His mouth went dry and he found himself unable to respond.

"You're not Hamish or Connall or Dorian," Gilbert continued as though he hadn't noticed Matthew's silence. "And you're certainly not Alfred -"

"Quebec," Matthew interrupted in a soft voice. "I'm the Province of Quebec."

If Gilbert noticed how he gripped his gun tighter and his voice shook, he didn't mention it.

"Alfred's brother?" Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "And Arthur sent you to spy on your own - Gott!"

Matthew blinked. "You - you're not going to turn me in?"

Gilbert shrugged. "The way I see it, no one else has noticed you're here, and let's be real, you're not doing much anyway -"

Matthew bristed.

"- And I'm interested in how this will play out. Your face is too pretty to have the Americans mess up."

He winked at Matthew, who just blinked in confusion. Hesitantly, Matthew sat back down though he was tense, poised to flee the second the other Nation turned against him.

"Relax, Birdie," Gilbert sighed and patted the grass next to him. "Ich bin fix und fertig. If I wanted to kill you, I would have by now. Let's just… sit for a while."

He held out the bottle of whiskey, the remaining quarter swishing within.

"What the hell," Matthew took the bottle from Gilbert and tipped his head back, letting the burning alcohol pour down his throat until there were only a few mouthfuls of whiskey left when he passed it back to the other Nation.

Gilbert looked at the bottle in his hand and grinned. "I think I'm starting to like you, Birdie."