It was late. By all means, Arthur should have been asleep already. But there was one thought that kept tumbling around in his head, coming back to the surface again and again no matter how much he tried to scrunch it down.

Darn that Alfred.

Arthur rolled over on his bed so he was facing the ceiling. He wiped his bangs off his forehead, ran his fingers back though his short blond hair as he let out an exasperated sigh. Honestly, what had gotten into that boy since that day so long ago? Over two hundred years had passed and the boy still didn't seem to be any brighter than when he was a newborn. In fact, Arthur had so much preferred Alfred when he had still been so young, when he would follow Arthur around like his shadow, when Arthur had been the most important thing in his life…

Arthur let out another sigh. He had been bringing up these bad memories more and more lately, even though all he wanted to do was rip them out of his mind, throw them in a chest, lock it, and throw the chest into the depths of the sea. Ah the sea. Maybe that could help calm his racing mind.

He threw off the covers and sat up, turning on the light and blinking at the sudden brightness. Then he got up and went to open his window. Ah, the cool sea air at night. If only I could be back on the sea again, going wherever I wished, doing whatever I pleased… Maybe then Alfred would finally stop tormenting his mind. The bad thing about being the personification of a country was, you had a long memory. And those memories did not like to fade with time. No, instead they stayed as vivid as if they had just happened the day before, as if Alfred had only just now launched his attack on Arthur…

No. No. He wasn't going to think about these things anymore. The Revolution was over and done with. Lingering on old memories wouldn't, couldn't change the past. But try as he might, he couldn't hold back the force of the memories that yearned to be played over in his mind. Sighing for the third time in under five minutes, Arthur leaned against the windowsill, laying his head on his arms that were spread on the edge. It was no use after all, huh? He slowly closed his eyes, his long lashes brushing against his arm. And he braced himself, waiting for the emotions to overpower him like they always did, even after so much time. But strangely, this time, unlike all the times before, it was not an old memory that he visited in his mind's eye, but a much more recent one. Why, in fact, this had only happened a few days ago, why would this come up now…

"Iggy!"

Arthur turned around and sighed as he saw Alfred tearing down the hallway towards him. What did that git want now?

"Alfred, I told you to stop calling me that infernal nickname."

The man in question pouted. "Aw, c'mon, don't be like that! You know you like it!"

"I have never once been pleased by you using such a stupid name for me."

"Whatever. Say, aren't you coming back to the meeting? Ludwig says we need you back for the next discussion!"

Arthur leaned against the wall. "It depends, in all honesty. Is that stupid git Francis still acting crazy?"

"What are you talking about? He's acting like normal."

"That is exactly my point."

"C'mon, Iggy!" Alfred pulled on the older man's arm. "Stop acting so stubborn and come back to the meeting! I need you to be there while I give my speech!"

"Stop it, you git." Arthur yanked his arm out of the man's grip and glared at him. "I just needed a breather from that madness in there; I will be back in just a few minutes. What do you care if I'm there, anyways?"

"Because I'm totally the hero, so everyone has to listen to me!"

"Alfred, nobody is going to agree with that stupid plan to replace police officers with gun-wielding robots."

"But it's an awesome plan! It could totally work!"

Arthur shook his head. "Honestly, I cannot believe that I raised you, with you acting like this all the time. What on earth happened to all that culture that I gave you?"

"Psh, Iggy, you were a total buzz kill back then! And your culture sucks."

"Stop bloody calling me that!" Arthur snapped. "And besides, what would you know culture? You obviously didn't learn much."

"Hey hey hey, at least my culture didn't involve constantly taxing people until they revolted!"

"Alfred…" Arthur warned.

"I mean, seriously, what the heck was with that back then, anyways?"

"Alfred!" Arthur's hands clenched into fists, his anger rising.

"What? Is something wrong, Iggy?" Alfred seemed surprised that Arthur was getting angry.

"For the last time, STOP BLOODY CALLING ME THAT!" Arthur roared into Alfred's bewildered face. He turned around sharply and marched down the hallway, leaving behind the stunned America and going out of the building rather than back to the conference room.

That bloody git. How dare he bring that topic up as if it meant nothing. Does it mean nothing to him? How can it not, when it still pains me every time?

Before Arthur knew it, he was out in the parking lot, next to his car. I really ought to go back to the conference… Regardless, without another thought, he fished his keys out of his back right pocket and unlocked the car, and then he slid himself into the driver's seat, which was, of course, on the right-hand side where it ought to be. After putting the keys into the ignition, he flipped through his CD collection, pulled out a Beatles CD, and popped it in the slot to play. Maybe some music would help calm him down. Honestly, his nerves had been so frayed lately, what with all the back-to-back meetings and all. There was only so much a gentleman like himself could take of the loud-mouthed American, Alfred, and the French man who molested anything that moved, Francis, before being driven mad. Not to mention having to handle the rest of the batty bunch of nations that all had to attend the World Conferences regularly as well.

Honestly, was he the only sane one of the bunch?

Arthur drove the car out of the parking lot and headed for his house.

…which was where he was now. And had been for the past three days. Not that he really had any reason to leave his house. After all, that had been the last day of the conference, and there had only been about two hours left of it, though he was still kicking himself over his childish behavior, though it was mostly Francis and Alfred's fault. And he had plenty of food and tea stocked up in his house, so he was fine in that area. And even if the American git felt the need to have called him 47 times since Arthur had stormed off, well, that didn't matter if his phone was on silent. Communication was too bloody easy these days…

Arthur closed the window reluctantly and went back to his bed. He would normally leave his access to the wondrously fresh sea air open, but the nights were getting cooler as summer turned to fall. He figured that he ought to try to get some sleep, at least, even if that American git kept tormenting him. And he had squished it down so well up to now, too.

If only there were some way that Arthur could go back to those day before the Revolution, back when Alfred was cute and adorable and loved him like a brother. No, no, those days were too far gone. His relationship with Alfred was too ruined for them to ever truly be like that again. What Arthur really wanted was to have a chance to completely restart his relationship with the American, to have a chance to do things right from the beginning, to respect the man for who he was like he should have done the first time. He snorted, like that could ever happen at this point.

Arthur was about to pull the covers back over his body when he froze. Wait a minute… Maybe that isn't so far-fetched at all…

He leaped out of bed again and rushed downstairs to the basement, pausing only to grab a long black cloak that was hanging on a hook next to his bedroom door. Putting the cloak on as he briskly walked, he tried to remember what all spells he had in that old Book of his. Even he, as the personification of England and the Master of all Magyk, did not know what all the Book contained. Of course, for most of his life, he mainly used the curse section and all but ignored the rest of the Book, but he did try to blot out that fact. Regardless, he had at least skimmed the entirety of the Book, having been completely obsessed with it when he had first gotten it. And he was almost certain that the book may have held the exact spell that he was looking for.

Opening the door to his pitch-black dark dungeon of a basement, Arthur quickly struck a match from the matchbox he kept in the cloak's pocket, and he lit several of the numerous candles that were spread about the room. As soon as he deemed the room brightly lit enough, he shook out the match and dropped it in a bin as he walked over to an overly large tome, which was stuffed with notes and was sitting on a pedestal in the dead center of the room. Muttering to himself, he flipped quickly but carefully through the many pages of the ancient spell book, being careful both to not misplace any of his painstakingly written notes and to read each page carefully to see if it contained the vital information he seeked.

Turn the page. Scan.

"No."

Turn the page. Scan.

"Not here.

Turn the page. Scan.

"Darn it, not here eith-"

Wait. What was this spell?

"A Magik That Lets Thy Things Unsaid Be Said. It's a spell to give the caster another chance, it says," Arthur muttered to himself. "It involves transdimensional magic, but it seems simple enough for me, though time consuming." Not to mention that it would take an awful lot of chalk, but it certainly would be worth it. It would be worth it if he could get the chance to start again.

And so Arthur placed the candles, he drew the Gaelic runes, he mixed the tinctures and poured them so they wound around the entire display. It took him several hours of work, to the point where the sun began to peak its head above the horizon, but down in the secluded basement, Arthur was unaware. Though he expected to feel more and more tired from sleep deprivation as the night turned to morning, on the contrary, he couldn't remember ever being more energized, more full of life. For once, he was going to fix the things he had done wrong.

At last, he was finished. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he stepped back to take a look at his work. The runes, some made of white chalk and just as many made from skillfully poured tinctures, took up nearly the entire basement, vast as it was, and he'd spent a good hour just moving all the furniture and the many delicate potions out of the way. "Perfect," he exclaimed. It was only natural that his work would be flawless. All that was left was to recite the chant.

Arthur cautiously stepped over and around the runes until he was in the very center of the mass of multicolored symbols and shapes, and he sat down with his legs crossed. He began to recite the words he had copied down that would make no sense to any normal person.

San un gli afwarin quin tci glot un loch

Grich en iglo fwari soto en shi

Du e optysh xian lamte su iun salashix

Ic ábene uppan þá ælfena…

As he continued to chant, he felt a light pressure on him, not from any obvious source, but it pulled on him nonetheless. It was the feel of pure, wild magic, the kind that he hadn't used in centuries. Ah, it felt so good to get back to his roots, to have the chance to use real magic again! It was exhilarating, and he would have whooped for joy if he hadn't been so busy with the spell, and if it wasn't an incredibly inappropriate thing for a gentleman like himself to do.

Audle sa ogli nte sabu ente ksay

Fli zagu vilan potu rupyo dulon

Ry un swe!

As Arthur finished the final words of the chant, the pressure suddenly increased upon him with every syllable, as if the spell were trying to force the words from him. Then, as the last word fled from lips that were cracked from drinking nothing for so long, all the pressure went away at once, the invisible pressure seeming to sense that the spell was complete and its presence was no longer needed.

So what now? Arthur wondered, continuing to sit completely still. Nothing happened. Nothing really seemed to have changed. He still felt exactly the same, still had all his memories, thank goodness, and he noticed nothing different about himself or his surroundings, other that the fact that now that he was finished with the spell, the adrenaline flow has ceased and his sleep deprivation was kicking in.

The spell book had said transdimensional magic, hadn't it? Slowly, his muscles stiff from sitting for the near half hour the chant had taken to recite, he stepped over the runes and made his way to the Book. But lo and behold, the spell had completely disappeared!

Curse this book, Arthur grumbled internally. He never really understood the strange things that happened with the Book, but this was the first time that a spell had fully vanished. I must have done something wrong, something to anger the sprites. I cannot think of any other reason that there would be no reaction at all. Usually, there was something that happened, even if it was a puff of colored smoke, or a distinct sound, or one of the Fay tapping his gently on his shoulder to let him know. But this time, other that the missing spell, he could not figure out for the life of him what exactly had changed.

Disappointed, Arthur blew out all the candles and headed back to his bedroom, leaving the runes to be cleaned up in the morning. "What time is it, anyways?" he questioned himself as he worked his way up the long flight of stairs between his basement and the main floor of his house. He really should start wearing a wristwatch; more and more often he was encountering times when he couldn't bring the old-fashioned pocket watch with him or forgot to bring it, though he still refused to discard it.

Still muttering to himself, he barely registered the jet-black night sky visible through his many windows as he promptly made his way up the second flight of stairs to his bedroom. Only the fact that it was earlier than he had thought barely flickered through his sleep deprived mind. He made his way to his bedroom quickly, and laid down to go to sleep, falling asleep practically as soon as his head hit his pillow.

Oh well, the Fay Mint thought. Maybe he'll notice in the morning.

Hey everyone, Zapheil here! This is my first fanfiction EVER right here (heck, it's so far the most I've ever written of a story, at least writing that I'm satisfied with), so please forgive me if I go a little OOC! I'm sure Iggy seems a little OOC already, sorry! Also, I'm writing this for NaNoWriMo, and I have therefore not fully edited this yet, so please excuse the spelling/grammatical errors that I'm sure I have, though I tried to get rid of them as I was writing.

Reviews are greatly loved, since I'm still a rather novice author.