Waterloo, Belgium; 18 June, 1815
Cracking against flint, a match sparks and burns, breaking the deathly silence.
Prussia brings the flame to his pipe, lighting the tobacco, watching it glow red before he inhales that woody, calming scent, letting it fill his bloodstream and permeate his mind. It doesn't do much to dull the throbbing ache of his muscles, bruised and overtaxed, pricking in sour protest of every shift and gesture, but it quells the final itch of caution, a nagging leftover from the battle, dying out at last. Shutting his eyes, he exhales, long and slow, then turns to gaze upon the shattered countryside.
The field of victory is never a pretty sight.
Belgium's rolling hills are riddled with bodies, military uniforms dotting the landscape in navy, crimson, and black. A few fires are smouldering here and there, dark smoke billowing off of charred grassland and wool fabric, torn flags rippling from the heat. Among the dead, like phantoms, riderless horses stand quiet, their heavy heads hanging low; sad statues lost without their masters. Dusk soaks the scene in a strange, muted haze, with clouds catching the sunset and blazing as they sink below the earth.
It's a familiar view and Prussia idly wonders how many battles he has witnessed in his abnormally long life. Hundreds? Thousands? The uniforms and weapons may change, but in his memory, the conflicts all blend together in a sea of blood, a churning stew of grisly images stretching back to the Crusades. The shock and horror long ago morphed into tepid acceptance, better suited for survival, because when staring down a brigade of stampeding dragoons, there is no time for doubt, and the field of failure is a far worse sight than this.
Turning his back to the sullied terrain, Prussia puts his hand on a short, crumbling brick wall, barely more than a fence now, and hops, throwing his boots over the side to perch atop it. His tendons sting, a mild jolt of pain shooting up his wrist, but he ignores it; he rarely listens to his body, anyway.
"You look like shit," Prussia tells his exhausted ally.
Barely upright, England is sitting on the ground, leaning against a broken cannon wheel that got stuck in the rubble. Coat draping his shoulders, he holds his bandaged side, red seeping through, and still manages the strength to glare up at Prussia, putting those impressive eyebrows to good use.
"And whose fault is that?" he grunts, voice dry and hoarse.
"My best guess would be France," Prussia teases, popping the pipe between his teeth.
It certainly isn't his own fault; Blücher had him awake and on horseback before dawn, in near-darkness, marching with fifty thousand armed men at a relentless pace. With a glowing pride behind his ribcage, he witnessed their discipline and how they shoved away exhaustion. They trudged past swollen rivers and muddy swamps to reach the battle in time and hurl themselves at The Emperor's army; leaping into death's jaws for duty, glory, and all the inspiring nonsense their superiors shouted about.
"I've been fighting since eleven, this morning," England clips.
Prussia shrugs, a leisurely roll of his shoulders that cracks his joints. "You can't pin this on me, not when I gallantly saved your ass and won the fight."
"Gallantly?"
"Besides, I started marching before sunrise."
England's eyes go wide and, ever the storm cloud, he blusters: "Then what, in God's name, took you so bloody long?! If you had arrived even 30 minutes later, Wellington's entire force would've been routed and we'd have lost the damn continent a second time! Can you imagine what would've happened if-…. Agh..." He grimaces, eyes squeezing shut, and folds over his injury.
Sniffing, rolling the pipe stem over his tongue, Prussia gives his companion a moment before replying. "Calm down, old man. You'll tear your stitches open."
With an annoyed groan, England slumps against the wheel, head tilted back. He's not in any shape to be shouting; a crumpled mess in the grass, sweat and dirt caking his freckled cheeks. The dark cherry smear is wide, probably from a sword, reaching around his bandaged belly from front to back in a half-circle, a nasty slice that would've quickly slain a mortal man. Leaning in, Prussia gestures at the wound. "Did you at least get him back for that?"
England cracks one eye open, an adamant emerald cutting through his dishevelled features. "'Course I did," he croaks. "Just who do you take me for?"
Prussia cannot help the grin that splits across his face. Even in such a state, England isn't one to go quietly, not ever, and certainly not against France. At Villinghausen, he took an artillery round to his right arm, and instead of lying down, he hastily shed his scabbard belt and made it into a tourniquet, snarling as he tied off his mangled limb. He fights death with every iota of his being, clawing at it with his bare fingers when he has to. In him is a tenacity, a brilliant refusal to comply with fate.
"I wouldn't expect anything less," Prussia says, and England grunts, in the typical way that he does when accepting a compliment. "Do you know where you're headed next?"
"Not at the moment. I'll need to drag my bloody arse back to camp for a briefing."
"If you'd like, I can bring you a cane." England frowns, a deadpan look that tickles the corners of Prussia's mouth. "Or maybe, I could take a cannon off its wheels, fashion a wheelbarrow, and cart you over there."
"If you're going to continue to mock me, you could at least offer me your pipe."
Snorting a chuckle, Prussia obliges, sliding off the beaten wall, pebbles and dust shifting in his wake. He crouches down to his knees and passes his pipe, ignoring the rusty odour that drenches his companion, the pungent taste biting past the tobacco. England takes the piece, a languid thumb smearing blood on the bowl, and Prussia sits back, plopping onto the grass.
"We should get drinks again," he mentions.
Lips curled over the stem, England sucks in a deep breath, then exhales. "Hm. Tempting."
"Did you know that you get drunk faster when you've lost a lot of blood?"
"I do, unfortunately. Learned that in the Middle Ages. But I'm in no state for drinking tonight."
Of course not. It won't happen, not tonight and probably not tomorrow. Nothing less than total destruction will do; Wellington and Blücher will have them chasing after Napoleon Bonaparte like hounds on a hunt. It could be weeks before they can relax again, as they did after the last war ended.
"In Paris, then. When all this shit is over."
England smirks. "Fine, but it'll be on your coin."
Amused, Prussia's eyebrows fly up. "Oh ho! You're going to burn through my wallet? That's the thanks I get for saving your army?"
"Think of it as restitution for arriving late."
"Arschloch."
"Twat."
Prussia smiles, forgetting the world for a moment, until his back twinges and he has to flex again, twisting his lower spine with a crack and settling lazily, chin resting in his palm. He threads his free fingers in the blades of trampled grass, and if he concentrates, he can imagine it still thundering with horse hooves. He'll write about this day, scrawl it into his journal and preserve it, violence and agonising victory. Another monumental event whisked away by time.
"I'm guessing this campaign will last a couple weeks," he murmurs. "Maybe a month, at most."
"Quite likely."
"The Thief of Europe doesn't have much time left."
England squints. "Why do you sound disappointed at that?"
Prussia sighs, plucking a dry weed from the dirt. "He's... different from other humans. People like him are only born once a century, and when he's gone, that'll be it. God, I wish I'd arrived earlier today, witnessed his genius strategies from start to finish."
"You admire Napoleon Bonaparte?"
Prussia nods. "As a tactician, yeah, I do."
England balks. "He ruined your army not ten years ago."
Prussia tosses the weed aside, sees it land on a pile of smouldering fabric.
Those weeks were as startling as they were cruel; he watched, appalled, as his mighty military was obliterated in just 19 days by a damn Corsican. Cold hate knotted his stomach and he wished to cut the general down himself. But, when Bonaparte entered Berlin, he visited the tomb of Frederick the Great and instructed his marshals to remove their hats, saying, "If he were alive, we wouldn't be here today." And the sight seized Prussia like a pair of iron tongs grabbing coal, immediately seeing the similarities between Old Fritz and this new ruler, igniting respect and melting his bitter anger.
What a loss it is that Bonaparte isn't of Prussian lineage.
"Flawlessly," Prussia declares, passion stirring in his chest. "Nearly every action he takes is flawless. How he rallies his troops, the speed of his attacks, the level of cunning he uses to out-manoeuvre his opponents...!" He releases his fists to the sky, shoulders high and back straight. "Bonaparte might be insane, but he wages war like he was born for it."
Blinking, England's mouth contorts in disgust, as if Prussia just blew his nose obnoxiously loud. When he gives no response, Prussia doesn't slump, exactly, but his hands fall and disappointment needles at his heart. On second thought, it may be a little rude to brazenly praise the bastard who slapped the shit out of every army in Europe... including England's, just an hour ago. "Ah, never mind."
"You're vile and you have a terrible taste in personal role models." Although England speaks bluntly, the comment lacks true venom, sounding more like a report on peach farming than a judgement of character. He returns to the pipe, puffing fumes like a London chimney stack.
"I've got amazing taste," Prussia boasts. "That includes my tobacco and maybe my halfway decent sense for allies, too."
England coughs, hacking up a lung full of smoke before he frowns and looks away. The faint colour on his cheeks would be brighter if he hadn't lost blood. Prussia snickers.
Perhaps he is vile, but war is an unstoppable force. It will be here, until the end of days, and it has never done Prussia any good to waste time ruminating over its monstrosities or wallowing in the shadow of defeat. After the punishing mistakes of Jena and Auerstedt, he studied, pouring over accounts of Bonaparte's battles, reading until his eyes were bloodshot, and when asleep, he dreamt of battalion formations scribbled across a map. Every revelation was scratched into his journals, pages upon pages of tactical strategies interwoven with jealous praise, because damn it all, France didn't deserve such a magnificent general.
Regardless, he resolved to find a use for his painful failure, for the eradication of his brave men, and, if this recent victory is anything to go by, he succeeded, climbing over the wall of the dead to return stronger tomorrow.
England shifts, eyes catching something and he slouches. "Christ," he mutters.
"Huh?"
"Here they come, now. New orders."
Turning, Prussia at first sees nothing amiss. A few soldiers on horseback are ghosting over the slumbering site, weaving between bodies, torches held high to light their way in the sluggish darkness. They may be hussars, searching for any injured souls to rush away for medical treatment, but it's more likely that they are commanders, taking vague stock of their casualties to draw up reports.
Then he spots it, a lone rider is approaching them at a trot.
Tall on his mare, shako and red uniform unsullied, the soldier lumbers closer and comes to a halt. He gazes down at them; a pale torch casts flickering light over his stern, olive eyes.
"Netherlands," Prussia greets, waving at the giant. "Good to see you're alive."
"Indeed," Netherlands responds, a deep thrum in the evening air. Aside from his gaunt features, made worse by the wars, his face betrays little. His smiles are rarer than England's, but for that matter, his scowls are just as uncommon. A stony and mild-mannered man; perhaps that's why he found success in commercial business. "I'm here at Wellington's request."
England sighs. "Let's hear it, then."
"I'm tracking down each of us; we are all to meet at an inn," Netherlands explains, gesturing with his torch. "It's just down the hill, at the centre of the battlefield."
Prussia frowns, a knot forming in his stomach. "Did you say you're tracking people down?" He could help; pushing past the soreness in his frame is no issue. However, there are several thousand dead in the field with night falling and he has neither horse nor light.
"How many of us are still missing?" England asks.
"Only a few," Netherlands says. "Most are on their way to the inn as we speak, but I'm still looking for Scotland and Hanover."
Prussia gnaws his lip. "Fuck, I saw them."
Netherlands straightens, his gaze snapping to Prussia. "Were they near a farmhouse?"
"Yeah," Prussia pushes himself to stand, ignores his creaking bones, and points to one of several brick buildings in the distance. "Not the one on fire, but the other one, on the left."
Those tiny spaces saw incredible chaos, a screaming whirlwind of bayonets and musket fire boxed into humble kitchens, spilling out of windows and stable doors. It was no surprise that when Prussia arrived, darting through a gap in the infantry line, he found Hanover broken. Decorated in dust and bullet holes, wounds weeping blood, he couldn't speak above a wheeze. In the heat of battle, Prussia could only stuff him behind a heap of straw, tell him to keep quiet, and scour the arena for a medical officer. He found one only after his men took the building and directed the soldier to Hanover's location.
Hopefully, he didn't succumb to his injuries.
Prussia relays this to Netherlands and the Dutchman gives a firm nod.
"Thank you," he says, turning his horse to the farmhouse. "I must continue searching. Once I've finished, I'll join you at the inn."
"Very well, then," England murmurs.
With that, Netherlands departs, his mare thumping across churned soil and his torch flame receding into the blue dusk.
England hands Prussia the pipe and gingerly pulls his jacket on, his torn shirt and bruised skin taking shelter under red wool. "You saw Scotland, too?" he casually asks, averting his gaze.
"Yeah," Prussia answers, tapping his pipe, removing the ashes and spent tobacco. "Don't worry. He had a few scrapes, but he'll be fine."
"I wasn't worried," England mutters. He glares at the buttons on his coat, wincing as he attempts to close them around his battered torso. Prussia busies himself by wiping a handkerchief over his piece, catching England's subtle glances and the tension in his fingers. "How do you know he'll manage?"
"Because when I asked him if he needed saving, he told me to 'fuck off.'"
England's grimace softens, his lips curling upward just slightly and Prussia can pretend he didn't see that, because relationships between brothers can be complicated, sometimes. Stashing the pipe away in his haversack, he hefts the bag over his shoulders, its firm weight pressing down on his sore back. He huffs, stretching and shaking out his irritated limbs to wake them up. Then, he moves to help England stand.
"Absolutely not," England snaps, gripping the cannon to pull himself up and steady his wobbly knees.
"You're going to walk a whole kilometre like that?" Prussia snorts.
"Shut it." Brow furrowed in concentration, England extends an arm for balance and delicately shuffles one foot forward. He's stable for a moment, until he tries a second step and buckles, stumbling into Prussia, who catches him easily.
Prussia tuts. "Nah. It'll be morning by the time you get down the hill, Herr Eyebrows. Come on, let's go." He swoops a hand under England's arm, the one on his good side, and drags him into a walk assist.
"Oi!" England squawks as his arm is tugged around the back of Prussia's neck. "Just wait a moment, you prick."
Naturally, Prussia ignores his protests and they start hobbling towards the inn. England continues muttering half-hearted curses for a bit before settling into silence. It's another minute or so until he leans on Prussia properly, and Prussia pulls his stubborn companion closer, guiding the awkward steps of their dirty boots through the fouled pasture. He can't help thinking it'd be a lot nicer if he was carrying England out of a tavern instead.
A cool wind carries the scent of gunpowder and other burning things that overpower the rural air. Dim twilight transforms puddles of blood into ink and corpses into obscure, lumpy masses of shadow. Prussia directs their route through the quiet field, squinting in the dark at things that may be shakos or rocks, branches or muskets.
"Look at the state of it," England grumbles. "I'll kill the frog all over again for this mess."
"Yeah, I wouldn't mind breaking military code for schnapps right now," Prussia admits. And then, he has a thought, a twisting queasiness that's probably nothing, but... "Hey, are those drinks still on, in Paris?" Pupils flicking over Prussia's face, England tilts his head and quirks a shaggy brow. Quickly, Prussia delivers a cocksure grin, switching to a more joking tone. "Did I scare you off with my war talk?"
A pause, then England exhales through his nose, turning so Prussia only sees his straw hair. "No, don't be ridiculous. I know what you meant." His fingers curl around the shoulder strap of Prussia's uniform and he glances back, face set in a haughty look, eyebrows up and lids low. "I'll come. Just so long as you shut up about how much you love French generals."
Prussia's barking laugh fades to a sigh and his cheeks hurt from smiling. "All right, I can promise that."
They go on, walking together through hell, burdens made milder in solidarity. Maybe Prussia is a hypocrite, he thinks, aweing at the genius of war, but also wanting it to be done, tiring of it and the stench of decay. How it drives splinters under his skin, bruises his friends and steals their respite, their freedom to while away time as they please.
Regardless, they will outlast The Emperor, his battles, and whatever comes next. They will earn their peace soon enough.
End / Fin