Following German Occupation of the Netherlands, the Dutch royal family took refuge in Canada. Princess Margriet was born in exile while her family lived in Ottawa. The maternity ward of Ottawa Civic Hospital in which Princess Margriet was born was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial by the Canadian government, thereby allowing her citizenship to be solely influenced by her mother's Dutch citizenship.

- from Wikipedia

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Somewhere safe. Somewhere safe. His heart thudded in his chest and his muscles strained, worn, beaten and bloodied as he tried to think of where to send them. Britain wasn't far enough. They needed to go somewhere he could be sure they wouldn't be killed, even if the war was lost. Somewhere where their protection wouldn't be bartered away if it came to it, somewhere distant – but go too far, he thought, and no one would take them.

His royalty.

Germany was trying to destroy him. He couldn't let that happen. His muscles strained, ached from the dark press of warfare, and his lungs felt like fire in his chest. He was an old nation. It wasn't anything he hadn't felt before, although this seemed somehow… bigger. As if the shadows stretched for further than they ever had. Death seemed too close.

It frightened him, though he would never say as much out loud. The wolves were at his door.

He couldn't keep them out, but he could send the family away. His throat tightened as his mind fell to the only option he had. He remembered a skinny boy with a snowy white bear and a lot of land. Canada. He was loyal to England and helping in the war. He would take them.

And the Netherlands might never see them again, because when this war was done he might be nothing more than the fire he felt in his lungs. Though he would try.

He had survived so many things. To die now would be unforgiveable.

A frown pulled at the edges of his mouth, tugging his expression and making it even darker than it had been before. He thought of the child which hadn't been born yet. The little prince or princess. It would be better to let them go, but at the same time he couldn't help but feel that sharp pang of denial. Part of him railed against sending them away. They were his royal family, they should stay here, not be handed over into the care of a country that was younger than his stubble. What if the child was born overseas? How could he hand one of his leaders to another nation, to come into the world there, to belong in part to another place?

He grit his teeth and his fists clenched, the dry skin tightening over his knuckles and cracking at his wrists. At least the boy – young man now, he supposed – seemed kind, and had Dutch immigrants within his borders.

It could be worse.

He could lose them all.

His heart felt like a dead weight within his chest as he made his decision, and let his anger simmer futilely below the surface, along with the despair. He had a long memory. Germany would regret this, even if he had to come back and haunt him over it.

He was not one to forget things easily.