This is the last of the prewritten chapters. Sorry guys, but I have no idea when I'll be able to update next. I have tons of ideas swirling around in my brain, it's just finding the time to sit down at my computer for four hours and write them into existence.
But, it's a long chapter to make up for it, so there you go!
Everyone, please stay safe!
"Ah, Griffiths, right on time with the post, as usual," Arthur dabbed at his mouth with his serviette and held out a hand for the pile of letters the butler presented him with.
"They consist mainly of correspondence from His Majesty, my lord," Griffiths, their ageing butler, said, bowing and handing the envelopes to Arthur. His salt and pepper hair was unpowdered and pulled back in a tight tail at the nape of his neck."There is also an answer to your earlier query from Prime Minister Pitt, and a letter from Master Séamus addressed to A Fecking Caffler. I took the liberty of burning it for you."
"Thank you, Griffiths," Arthur said, already rising from his seat with the intent on retreating to his office, leaving his breakfast half-eaten. His eyes locked on the letter Griffiths still held. "And that one?"
Griffiths' grip on the letter tightened. "Forgive me, my lord, but this was addressed to Master Matthew."
The sudden silence at the table was deafening. All conversations halted and forks hovered where the hands holding them froze. No one, not any of the colonies, got letters. Any messages from their territories that needed immediate and experienced wisdom went to Arthur; the rest were sent through the Parliament. Every one of them had cut ties with their previous empires - if they'd had one - and their only interactions with Nations were with each other. Even Hamish, who'd grown up with Alasdair and frequented between his house and Arthur's, never wrote to any one of them specifically. If he ever had anything that needed to be known so urgently as to pay for a letter, he always addressed it to all of them, never one, and he'd often forwent that in favour of filling them in the next time he saw them.
So it made no sense as to why Matthew was receiving a letter so important that Griffiths refused to let Arthur see the handwriting on the envelope. Was it François, finally so drunk on imperialism that he made the awful decision of writing to Matthew for the first time in forty years? Surely having your head chopped off by a guillotine for serving one regime only to be revived into being the puppet of another wouldn't be enough to make the Nation completely lose his common sense? They were at war, sacrament! Did François really believe him to be so foolish as to accept his gesture with open arms? He'd been abandoned without a goodbye, for fuck's sake, and no amount of grovelling would make him forgive or forget.
Matthew set his fork down and stood, reaching for the letter. Griffiths handed it to him, but not without a stern look of disapproval and… pity?
Mystified, Matthew broke the unfamiliar wax seal on the envelope - an eagle perched on the branch of an oak tree. It definitely wasn't François, then, because that was not what his signet ring was engraved with. It wasn't Hamish either, nor Alasdair, Owain, Séamus or Éireann. Connall and Dorian were both seated at the table, so it couldn't be them, and he hadn't heard a word from Gilbert since he'd seen him last in Yorktown.
He slid the paper out and unfolded it. The black ink glistened in the light of the crystal chandelier, making it shine with a blue hue. The date at the top put the letter's creation at nearly two months before.
His eyes scanned down the paper and his hand began to shake.
Dear Mattie,
I know we ended things on an unfortunate note, but as your brother, I would like to
That was as far as Matthew got before rage welled up in his chest and the letter crumpled in his grip. He hadn't felt this kind of fury since the revolution had ended. Like Arthur, he'd been healing and putting the past behind him, and even the days when the sight of Dylan in Alfred's bedroom sent him spiralling into what-ifs and what could have beens had become less and less common as other things took precedence in his mind - namely the war with France.
But this letter - this fucking condescending letter that his brother had the gall to write - had uncovered all those repressed emotions. Much like he'd buried Alfred's amulet in the back of his sock drawer {no matter what, he still couldn't bear to throw it away}, he'd locked all the fear and guilt and loss away deep within his heart and refused to let it get in the way of his life. Alfred had made it very clear that they were no longer family, blood as they might be, and Matthew was only too happy to return the feelings in kind.
Except his brother had written to him, out of the blue. After more than twenty years, Alfred had finally deigned to open correspondence with the boy he'd left standing in the pouring rain, but it was too little, too fucking late. Alfred had chosen liberty over family, had chosen to revoke his claim to Skandia's amulet and their mutual history. He'd given up a future with Matthew by his side, a future where they grew higher than the Old World ever had, in favour of a handful of fleeting moments of glory.
And yet Alfred seemed to think that could be changed with an apology - not that the letter was much of one, anyway.
Before he'd even registered what his hands were doing, he'd torn the paper in half, then quarters. He ripped the paper until it was nothing more than scraps in his hands, and turned and threw them in the giant fireplace near the table. The flames greedily licked their way up the paper, devouring Alfred's patronizing words and empty apologies. They burst and cracked with renewed fever, sending sparks up the chimney, hot air bursting in his face to blow back the curls of his hair.
The room was still silent. And everyone was staring at him. Even Griffiths, who'd undoubtedly had an inkling of who had written the letter, was staring at him, face expressionless but his eyes widened marginally.
"Matthew, are you alright?" Arthur rose from his seat and reached for Matthew's shoulder, but Matthew was faster.
"I need to take a walk," he said, stomping out of the dining room. Where he was going, he didn't know, but he needed to leave, to go anywhere that didn't hold memories of Alfred.
He ignored Arthur's calls as he slammed the doors shut. The echoing shudder shook the building.
oO0Oo
The letters keep coming. Regardless of the fact that Matthew never replies to them, regardless of the fact that he watches them burn in the hearth, watches with grim satisfaction as the flames devour Alfred's empty apologies and turn them to ashes.
He only gets half-way through letter two before he burns it.
No matter what Alfred says, Matthew does not understand why I had to do it, Mattie. It was my destiny.
{Matthew had been his destiny, once. But he'd forfeited that when he left the amulet lying in the mud.}
Letter five comes with empty threats of cutting contact. Matthew wouldn't mind if he did that, and Alfred always had been far too stubborn to admit defeat. He rips it up and throws it in the fireplace, and returns to eating his breakfast.
{He ignores the glances the other colonies share and Arthur's concerned looks. This was none of their business. It was between him and Alfred only.}
He doubts the letters will stop coming.
{He's right, of course, but it still irks him.}
Alfred changes tactics in letter eight. It's been several years since his first letter, years in which the War of the Third Coalition rages strong and tensions run high across the empire.
C'mon, Matt. You know what Arthur's doing to me is wrong. You could leave him, too, if you wanted, and join me
Matthew makes a noise of disgust and throws the crumpled ball of paper in the fire.
Letter ten is vaguely more threatening. Alfred's lost his pleading, youthful tone, and thinly-veiled threats are woven throughout the lines of the paper. Matthew just rolls his eyes. His colony is barely five-hundred thousand people to Alfred's seven-and-a-half million. He's just not worth it, not worth the trouble. His brother knows he has nothing to do with Arthur's blockades and trade license, and really, if he'd stop trading with a dictator, there'd be no reason for hostilities to continue.
Letters eleven, twelve, and thirteen come, and Matthew doesn't bother to even open them. He throws them in the fire the moment he sees the looping blank-ink scrawl on the envelope.
He's done entertaining Alfred's futile fantasies.
{The colonies keep looking at him like he's gone mad. Really, Matthew doesn't understand what has them so concerned.}
Griffiths stops giving him the letters after that. Matthew notices that any letters he holds back when delivering the post to Arthur he throws in the hearth as he exits, relieving Matthew of having to get out of his chair to do so. Matthew watches the coals stir to life and burst into foul-smelling flames as they consume the ink-saturated paper, as though they were stained with the taint of betrayal that lingered on the envelopes. It gives him a dark sense of contentment to see Alfred's condescending words crumble to ashes in the fires of the hearth.
{After all, the hearth meant home, meant family, and Alfred had forsaken all that when he left.}
After nineteen, no more come. Arthur's brow furrows in confusion when weeks pass without Griffiths keeping any letters from him, but he's far too occupied with François' annoying little emperor and his whimsical idea of European conquest to do anything.
{Matthew was pretty sure he was determined to not be conquered and ruled by a French king again.}
In retrospect, however, Matthew wished he had read those final letters. Perhaps he would have gotten a warning for Alfred's next, foolishly impulsive decision.
But Matthew doubted that would have made the pain of being invaded any better.
oO0Oo
Matthew bounced from war to war. It seemed one was barely over before another began. It was the way of the Europeans, he knew, and yet he wished they would take a moment to breathe. It was exhausting, declaring yourselves allies one moment and enemies the next, but Matthew knew he couldn't blame himself, nor the other Nations. It was just in their nature to follow the fantastical wishes of humans, to push aside their own feelings and ambitions for the sake of their nation, for the sake of their people. It didn't matter how many friends they left behind on the other side, or how many unwitting allies they found themselves sitting next to.
Just as Matthew currently did.
He hadn't seen his brother in more than two hundred years, but Shawátis hadn't changed from the version Matthew saw in his memories.
Well, that wasn't completely accurate. The personification of the Mohawk nation was different, yes - wore different clothes and he spoke French along with Kanyen'kéha - but his eyes still sparkled like Matthew remembered, and the calluses on his hands reminded him of long-dead memories of holding onto Shawátis as he lifted him up to touch the stars.
Seeing his brother, seeing him alive and not Faded as Matthew had feared, was like breathing a breath of fresh air for the first time in forever.
He was terrified of seeing him. As much as Matthew yearned to speak to his brother, to see him again after centuries, the fact remained that he didn't know if his brother would see him. Matthew was no longer the boy he once was, no longer the child who'd watched the northern lights in wondrous silence and raced small leaf boats down the river. He was no longer an outsider with his pale skin and golden hair and amethyst eyes. He blended in with the Europeans now, could be mistaken for any one of them with his English name and accentless speech, and the cool, cultured way both English and French curled around his tongue. He'd adapted to his European roots far more than even he'd expected, and now he could have been any one of a number of Nations across the sea.
Because his father had been Skandia and his mother had been First Nation, and he was the best parts of the Old World and the New, but had grown up under war, and had been brought to maturity in the arms of unforgiving empires.
But after that night's feint, Matthew was done avoiding Shawátis. He was done with waiting for the man to approach him. He wanted - he needed to speak to his brother, to remind himself that he still had family who hadn't renounced him.
{Matthew wondered if Shawátis knew he'd killed their mother. He wondered if he would disown him when he found out.}
Hesitantly, Matthew approached his brother. Shawátis' back was to him, and the light of the campfire cast looming shadows along his person. His mottled green coat was nearly black in the darkness, and Matthew couldn't see his face, but he could hear his booming laughter as he drew closer to the fire.
"Um," Matthew cleared his throat and resisted the urge to fidget with his fingers. It was not gentleman-like. "Shawátis? Could I - could I have a word?"
The laughter stopped. The stars twinkled overhead. Shawátis turned to face him, and Matthew forgot how to breathe.
His brother was here. After more than two centuries, his brother was here. It was like coming home and leaving a safe port all at once. His long black hair was braided behind his head and his dark eyes shone brightly, just like Matthew remembered.
No - no, that wasn't right. These eyes were now guarded in a way Matthew had never seen. It could just have been that he'd been a child the last he'd seen Shawátis, but -
"Can I help you?" Shawátis' voice was cautious, and all the conversation around the little fire had fallen silent. Matthew could see the other men eyeing him with far too much suspicion.
Matthew stayed silent, digging the toe of his boot in the dirt. He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to start a conversation with someone he hadn't seen in more than two hundred years.
But apparently Matthew didn't need to worry. Shawátis' eyebrows drew together, studying Matthew, before his face slackened and his eyes widened marginally. "Oh. Oh. Yeah," he jumped to his feet, taking in every inch of Matthew like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Yeah, we need to talk."
Matthew hesitated again, unsure of how to proceed with the humans around him, but Shawátis took care of that. With a few unsubtle suggestions, the handful of men who'd been sitting around the fire dispersed in the night. Where to, Matthew didn't know, and at that moment, didn't particularly care.
He took a seat across from Shawátis and stared at his brother's face. Now that he was older, he could see the subtle similarities they shared, the way they were definitely not identical, but had enough features in common to be related.
It was in the shape of their ears and the dip in their chins. It was in the way they moved, treading the earth so lightly they hardly made a sound. It was the way they looked at the evergreen forests and the towering mountains and knew exactly what lay beyond.
"We thought you were dead."
Shawátis' tone was blunt, but his eyes were sorrowful, and Matthew furrowed his brow. "What?"
"Mother was gone, and suddenly you'd been snatched up by a strange Nation - a nation who took over the land and bastardized it," he clarified. "We thought you'd Faded, too."
"Oh, no," Matthew shook his head. The conversation was painfully awkward. Shawátis was still staring at him like he was a ghost. "I, uh, I adapted, I guess? Became something else."
Shawátis hummed. There was a long silence as the fire popped. The stars twinkled overhead, mocking him in their pulsing, consistent dances. "So what do I call you, then, Silent Warrior? Who are you to me, now?"
That gave Matthew a start. He'd heard that name only once in the past fifty years, and it had been more than a hundred before that. It caused… something to curl in his chest, but he didn't know what. "I'm called Matthew, now. Matthieu, before, but Matthew now."
"And Soaring Eagle? What of him?"
Sour acid flooded Matthew's mouth. "He was renamed Alfred. He's the one we're fighting."
One of Shawátis' eyebrows rose. "You're fighting him?"
"Don't have much of a choice, do I?" Matthew said bitterly. "Alfred gave everything up when he became independent."
Shawátis pursed his lips, but he didn't seem all that surprised. "He always did have big dreams."
Matthew nodded wordlessly.
The fire snapped as they sat in silence. Neither of them knew what to say, but the silence wasn't uncomfortable any longer. Nor was it relaxing. It teemed with a tension of sorts, but whether that was normal after a failed attack or not, Matthew didn't know. He'd only been to war once, and that hadn't truly been a good example of what war was actually like. The American Revolution had been fought on paper; this war was being fought with blood.
Matthew's mother had always said he was star-touched, that he was destined for great things beyond what could ever be accomplished in one lifetime. He didn't know what that meant, hadn't known it then and still didn't know it now.
But he didn't feel like he'd accomplished much worth noting, anyhow. He'd driven two fathers away and had gone to war twice with his brother, and he couldn't even keep it together at the estate.
"Where's the empire?" Shawátis' voice was almost a sneer, but polieter, more curious. "Did he not deem you important enough to protect?"
"No," Matthew shook his head even as something cold and heavy churned in his gut. "He's fighting another war overseas."
Shawátis seemed to understand the things he could not - would not - say, and didn't push the matter. Instead, he reached across the fire to lay a hand on Matthew's knee. The touch burned, but when it left, after far too long, {far too soon}, Matthew found himself wanting to chase after it.
"We'll be with you the next time they attack," Shawátis said, breaking the silence that had fallen over them like a suffocating blanket. He looked into Matthew's eyes, wondrous black night to swirling purple galaxies, and he could see the determination that shone in them.
Matthew nodded. In times of war, that was all he could ask for.
oO0Oo
Brock was dead.
Through the gunsmoke and the blood rain, the Americans advanced, unstopped by the militia that they slaughtered in their wake.
Matthew huddled behind the damaged trunk of a hemlock, frantically reloading his musket. Grooves where bullets had missed him sliced through the bark of the tree, the forest's silent sentinel forevermore bearing the mark of mankind's foolishness.
Brock was dead, and Matthew was shaking.
Push on, brave York volunteers!
He didn't feel very brave. He was shaking and terrified, and could barely load the powder into his gun. He could barely breathe and the redcoat he wore seemed far too tight, too suffocating.
He wanted to go home, but there was no home to go back to. Not when he was being invaded and -
Shit.
The bullet slipped out of Matthew's fingers and landed somewhere in the grasses of the hillside he was crouched on. Frantically, Matthew got down on his hands and knees. His munitions box was almost empty, he couldn't afford to lose this bullet.
Gunfire cracked and bullets whizzed through the air. Clouds of earth exploded where bullets found their marks in the ground instead of flesh.
Finally, Matthew's fingers curled around the round, and he sat up and jammed it down the muzzle of the gun. Snapping to his knees, he set his sights on a young American struggling up the slope. With a careful exhale, he pulled the trigger, a clean shot right through the heart.
At the crack his musket let off, the American turned. Instead of his heart, the bullet flew up and sliced the side of his neck. The boy - for that was what he was, no older than Matthew himself - let out a gurgled breath and slammed his hand to the spurting wound on his neck. His knees crumbled beneath him and he fell, twitching for far too long on the ground before finally, mercifully, going still.
Matthew's stomach lurched. He'd tried to kill him nice and quick, clean enough that he wouldn't have to suffer. But he'd left a boy to choke to death on his own blood, the fierce red of mortality staining the dying grass.
He'd never killed anyone before, never watched the light fade from their eyes, and he supposed that made him one of the lucky ones. Eight hundred years and a single death on his hands. It couldn't be said for most of the other Nations, many of whom had been bathing in blood and wading through gore since before Matthew was born.
For so long, Matthew had deluded himself into believing he was human. He had pretended that he was just the same as the Dauphin he played hide-and-seek within the halls of Versailles, pretended that nothing but status separated him from the peasant boys who'd allowed him to join in their games of knucklebones in the alleys of Quebec City. Some days, he would pretend that he really was heir presumptive of Bonnefoy and that it wasn't just a courtesy title bestowed upon him as the favoured colony in the New World. It had been fun, Matthew supposed, to pretend that he would ever inherit something, that he would rise, just as François had always said he would, as the leader in a new age - a time of peace and prosperity that would last forever.
{A time where he wouldn't have to shoot boys who were turned into men on bloody battlefields.}
It had been fun to pretend that, just like every other child, he would grow up innocent and with shining eyes, ready to take on the world as la Nouvelle France, as the Province of Quebec, as the colony of Canada, born to breathe in sunset air and bask in the glow of the dawn as it rose above the mountains. It had been fun to drink the cool, crystal clear water of forest streams, and not worry for the possibilities of tomorrow, not worry about how pieces of the chessboard were being sacrificed, and how Matthew was a lowly pawn standing in the way of the King.
And perhaps if he had been any other boy, that is what would have happened. Perhaps he would have grown old in a small cabin in a forest clearing surrounded by a bubbling brook and the bursting greens of the timeless forest. Perhaps he would have had a family unto whom he could pass his stories and his games. Perhaps there would have been another little boy, another brother, for him to play cards with in the candlelight. Or a sister, but it didn't matter either way.
Because he was a Nation, and his only promise was of bloodshed. He couldn't even be given the release of death, for they lived in the fine lines between mortality and immortality, between gods and men. They bled, they fought, they cried and they laughed just as their people did. But they couldn't be killed easily, and every death blow only promised a slow and agonizing recovery as their body stitched itself back together and brought them back from the brink of endless darkness.
And he'd just subjected a boy to it. He'd just shot a boy and let him choke to death without lifting a finger to help because this was war and he didn't know what he was supposed to do. The cries of men below were silenced with each crack of gunfire, each shot seemingly closer than the last.
Lightning exploded in his ribs, and Matthew gasped wetly as the force of it propelled his body back on the ground. Each breath was like inhaling a thousand knives, an awful rattling sound coming from his chest. Pain, hot and sharp, flooded his limbs, emanating from his left side, where the breeze seemed to flow right through him.
With a shaking hand, Matthew touched his side and gasped as his body tried to lurch away. The breeze felt like it flowed through him because it was. There was a hole in his side, leaking hot blood down his back and onto the hillside. Matthew breathed in again, breath rattling in his lungs. His ribs stabbed with pain again, small shards of bone like blades digging into his innards.
"Help," he gasped, his voice no more than a croak. Coppery blood foamed at his mouth, which he spit out only to fall in a coughing fit that set his side on fire. Fuck, he must have punctured a lung or something.
Matthew squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He didn't want to die here, not yet, not now. He wasn't even sure what made Nations Fade in the first place, and that was both his salvation and his damnation. After eight hundred years, Matthew was tired. Tired of promises and pain and betrayal and bloodshed. He was tired of human politics and power-hungry leaders and how they, the Nations, were always strung along for the ride. The idea that it might not be forever was… releasing, somehow. The idea that he might get to join his mother and the other Ancients in the afterlife, whatever it might be, was comforting. It was nice to know that there was something at the end of the long, lonely road.
But Matthew also loved his life. He loved his people and his colony and the friends he'd made along the way. He loved Hamish's freckled face and Genevieve's tight-lipped smile. He loved Gilbert's ruby eyes, and the tales Arthur wove by firelight, most of which were far too fantastical to be true. And even though he was fighting them, both Alfred and François were such an important part of his life that he couldn't help but love them too, love François' soft hand in his, and Alfred's booming laugh.
He didn't want to go, not yet. He wasn't ready. So he would fight for what little he had, what little a Nation was promised, and refuse to let go. He tried to sit up, the muscles in his abdomen clenching and his wound screaming. He could feel those shards of bone pushing through his muscles and he wanted to cry out. His head spun and more blood trickled out between his lips. He would take these fleeting moments of happiness and make them stay, make sure they never left him and he never left them.
His vision was darkening at the corners and he flopped back down with a gasp. He loved his mother so much, and he missed her every day with an ache so deep it hurt, but he wasn't going to meet her any time soon. He refused.
"Hush, brother."
Hands pressed him back down against the hard earth. Matthew lolled his head to the side and coughed out another clot of blood. "Shawátis?"
His brother was kneeling above him, warpaint smeared across his face and his musket in one hand. A deep frown creased his face, and Matthew reached out a heavy hand to touch the wrinkles on his forehead. But his head was stuffed with cotton and his hand only made it halfway before flopping uselessly to the ground. His breath rattled in his chest again and the pain in his ribs dulled to a slow throb.
Funny, he couldn't feel his legs anymore.
He tried voicing that to Shawátis, but all that came out another rasping breath and frothing blood.
"Shh," Shawátis prodded his fingers around Matthew's side to find the wound. Matthew could hardly feel it. "You'll be fine, you're going to be okay."
Suddenly, there was the feeling of fingers inside him, and Matthew jerked away with a breathless whine. Shawátis halted his prodding. His frown deepened.
Matthew's tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth, "It hurts."
"I know," Shawátis brushed Matthew's sweaty and bloody hair from his face. "I know, but you'll be alright. You're going to be fine. You'll just go to sleep for a little while, and then you'll wake up and everything will be better."
Matthew frowned, his head spinning. There was something he needed to do, something that was wrong. But his vision was darkening with every second and he couldn't feel his fingers anymore.
There was someone next to him, Matthew was pretty sure, but who? He felt like he should know, but -
"'m cold."
He couldn't feel the sun's rays on him. The blood running down his back was no longer hot.
"I know, it's okay," the voice from before said {who was it? Matthew felt like it was on the tip of his tongue}, "Sleep, brother, we'll defend the heights. Sleep, and wake soon."
Matthew couldn't fight it anymore. He let his head loll back and succumbed to the encroaching darkness.
Yeah, I just killed Matthew.
Sorry, not sorry.
