Oblivious to this essentially life-changing mistake, Seychelles tore her gaze away from the ship shrinking into the distance and made her way slowly back to her cave, already wondering what adventures would be experienced the next time France showed up. She eventually decided that the next time he was here she would impress him with all of her new-found musical and lingual talents.

She grinned and laid the recorder and its instructions carefully down onto a lip inside her cave, covering it with dried foliage, so that it would neither dry nor moisten too much. She then exited the cave and ran down to the beach once more, deciding to make headway on her spelling.

She crouched down on the wet sand near the beach, not wanting to spend time looking for a stick to make the outlines. Those clouds on the horizon looked heavy with rain. She glanced up once more in the direction of France's ship, hoping the weather wouldn't hinder him.

She shook her head and looked back down to the innocent patch of sand in front of her. Mocking her. Stupid sand.

Hmm.

Seychelles… Now how would one spell that? Well. Clearly the first letter was 's.' That was a start. Um. Right.

She scribbled a hasty and messy looking 's' on the sand at her feet.

"Say… Sehh… Seh." Eh sounded like ay, didn't it?

So Seychelles wrote an 'e.'

This went on for a far longer time than the young woman would have liked. Why did languages have to be so hard? She sat back and looked at the final product of her name staring back at her.

Sesel.

"I am Sesel." She thought for a minute; added two letters to the end. "And my people will be the Seselwa. Like the Québécois that France keeps talking about in Canada."

And then the skies opened and the rain poured down, relentlessly drenching the sand around her and obliterating her hard work. No matter. She had all the time in the world to try again. And so she would.

But for now, Seychelles just sat. Letting the monsoon drown her hair, her clothes and – as much as she didn't want to admit it – her spirit. How she wished she were not alone.

I I I

Over time, Seychelles was able to spell many more words, the majority of which from memories of past experiences on her island. Lesyel and bezwen and larmoni and lanmour and presye and touzour and leternite and… papa.

She refused to relate these words to France…even though…no. They were just words.

I I I

Two years passed and Seychelles, having learned Frère Jacques off by heart, still practiced it every day, as well as some other tunes she had made up in her head. It was now scratched and scraped, having rested on bare rock for many a night and constantly played day after unchanging day.

Unchanging, that is, until she rounded the corner to see an ornate French vessel sitting just off-shore which was apparently captained once again by Monsieur Morphey. With the entirety of the sailors standing on the beach listening to him speak.

Oh.

Seychelles immediately removed the recorder from her lips lest she make it squeak and ducked back behind the cliff face, straining to hear the captain speak. Who was actually alarmingly close by. But where was…?

But the next words spoken by Captain Morphey's thick French succeeded in removing every thought from within her head.

"By the name of King Louis XV and the French East India Trading Company, I hereby name this chain of islands: Séchelles, official colony of La République Française. May it flourish under our rule and never fall prey to those awful British."

The convoy was silent for a minute and, all at once, they started babbling on about duties, colonies, and errands needing to be run. But Seychelles had long since ceased to listen, having slid down the rock face and onto the soft, sand; her legs couldn't find the strength to support her anymore.

She–

(Where was - ?)

She was finally a–

(Where…?)

Seychelles stared off into the distance, out towards the open ocean – the waves never changing, or were they always changing? But she shook her head, willing herself back to reality, back to here and now. A colony! If there wasn't an entire fleet of French officers and if her legs had actually been strong enough to hold her, the young lady would have danced for joy. After all these years, she was finally a colony – finally France's!

But speaking of…France...

The joy she had been experiencing seconds ago took wing and flew away quite rapidly. If France was here, he would have found her – sought her out a long time ago. He would have been with her, to stay with her through such a momentous occasion. But…he wasn't, plain and simple.

Seychelles crossed her arms over her chest, hugging her shoulders and refusing to accept the truth. But…

I might not be around when you think you need me…

Seychelles gasped at the recollection of these words, spoken just before their big fight, two years or so ago. Every time she had needed him, he had been there for her – a mentor, a caretaker, a friend, a figure she could relate to. But this moment – when the official beginning of her history with France came to be…said Nation wasn't there.

"H-he's not here…?" Seychelles' breath hitched, but she didn't cry.

Why?

(I need you.)

I I I

Years passed. And they had never passed so slowly.

Despite her so recently updated status as a French colony, nothing seemed to happen. It was like everyone who had ever meant anything to her (basically France himself; who was she kidding) had up and left, ditching her for more important matters. For over these years, (after the fifteenth she had decided to stop counting), she would see ships, French ships, passing her islands. Passing them and doing nothing. It was like their focus was set solely on the other young colonies like Ile de France and any others that existed on this wide, empty, lonely ocean.

There was that word again: lonely. The feeling hadn't struck her this hard since that time when she first discovered it as a small child. It wasn't like she had never been through this solitude before, but seeing all those goddamned ships pass her by without a fleeting thought kinda stung a little.

But, hey! She was officially a colony now, and that said something. A colony without people or growth… Oh well. She was almost beyond caring now.

Every once and a while she would think about France and how he was faring through that war of his. How he was faring with Canada.

Seychelles sighed, circling the beach for lack of anything better to do. She was too big to sit comfortably on her Thinking Rock anymore. Which was sad. France's absence was sad. Everything seemed to be outgrowing her which was sad too.

This was not how she pictured being a colony would turn out.

She kicked at a rock on the beach and missed. She carried on.

I I I

They came during the middle of a blazing hot day, several ships flying French flags. Seychelles stood warily behind the tree line, studying them. Oh, great; she was turning into France.

Several men made their way quickly and efficiently from the ships to the shore, after they had successfully secured their vessels. Seychelles knew at once from their demeanor that these French men meant business. Which was strange, considering how lazy all French sailors had been in her experience. But they looked like they knew their orders and knew exactly what had to be done and how fast to do it.

This intensity, as opposed to their usual drunken celebration could only mean one thing – bad news to the east.

Seychelles shook her head and retreated quickly back into the trees, so that the men could do their work.

Their work, as it turned out, terrified her.

They began by clear-cutting several of her palmiers (my special trees!) with sharp, evil looking weapons, throwing the wood onto large piles, which were eventually hauled back to the ship, included several whole, uprooted ferns and wild species of plants.

The clear-cut sections were very precise, Seychelles noted with mounting uncertainty from behind her hiding places. They began to dig holes in her land, undisturbed for, well, ever, and put little bits of things into the holes, filled them back up with dirt, and sprinkled some water on them, fresh, not salty.

"Okay, les gars, back to Monsieur Poivre. I know he's an ass and making us do all this work, but just be thankful you're not all killing yourselves in the war overseas. Let's go and get this over and done with."

The worker's words were met with a chorus of 'oui ouis' and French profanities before they all packed-up their things and trudged off, leaving nothing but destruction in their wake.

Seychelles stood, rooted to the spot, the one phrase coming back to her in waves: 'be thankful you're not all killing yourselves in that war.'

'All killing yourselves…'

France was in that war, she was sure of it.

And that left her with one burning, horrible question she had never thought to ask before because it had never really had anything to do with her.

Could Nations die?

But no, she thought, beginning to pace frantically back and forth, they couldn't, because that's what France had said that one time, right? That Nations lived on even when their countries only became memories, right? Yeah.

But what if they were shot? Or, or, terribly wounded in battle?

What if France was –

No. She couldn't think like that. Not when she had no clue how long France would be gone. She had stressed the 'when' in the 'when you come back,' hadn't she? So France had to come back. He would be fine. He had existed for hundreds and hundreds of years, anyways.

Okay. She was worrying about nothing then.

But an unknown feeling of dread still lingered in her mind, refusing to be shaken off.

Please come back.

I I I

The ships stayed for months, some coming and going, but always leaving at least two to supervise the island. Some of the bastards even took her giant tortoises from their home on the island, intending on doing who knew what with them. The workers relaxed once the primary work was finished, and eventually returned to their stereotypically 'oh hon hon hon' French-y selves, drinking excessively and listening to their ship-mates' stories about their long distance girlfriends.

As much as Seychelles appreciated the switch back to familiarity, it made her heart hurt (oh come on, you haven't seen France for years, lighten up) to be reminded so often of the blond- headed buffoon who had made his way so easily into her life.

There was no use pouting about it she supposed. Not that she was pouting, or anything.

Over time, she noticed that what she had first thought of as just destruction turned out to be life as well. Small, unfamiliar plants were growing out of the little holes the French sailors had made, and they were growing bigger every day. Every month or so, Monsieur Poivre, the leader of this entire expedition along with Monsieur Dufresne, would harvest these plants, cutting them down to little bits of green only to have them grow large again and repeat the process.

Where were they taking them? Ile de France, maybe?

It was all rather bizarre, Seychelles thought huffily. What irritated her even more was how elusive she needed to be now that there were several loud and obnoxious French people swarming her island…

And she had been so used to solitude.

She looked down on the hustle and bustle from a cliff off of the beach and realized that this was the start. The beginning of the end of the life she had known.

She should have been happy. This was all she had ever wanted – to be recognized and appreciated.

Instead she put her head in her hands and silently wept for the first time in decades.

AN - I'VE DONE IT. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA TWO YEARS AND YOU HAVE A NEW CHAPTER!

I am so sorry. For those of you who still care, you're the best. 3 I WILL finish this fic if it's the last thing I do. Can you notice the place where my writing style has changed in two years? ;)

Translations: 'Okay, les gars' = okay guys

Historical references:

Seychelles was officially claimed in the name of King Louis XV on November 1, 1756. The important bits in the Seven Years War in Canada occurred between 1756-1759, so France was obviously fighting England at that time and couldn't be there for Seychelles. Tears.

Not much happened for years after colonization, because the French East India Trading Company went to shit and couldn't afford voyages - oops. But, the guy in charge of Mauritius/Ile de France came to Seychelles to introduce foreign plants/food to the island, while taking stuff from Seychelles and bringing it back with him. There was also this French guy named Nicolas Dufresne who came and stole some tortoises in 1768 cause he's cool like that.

What else...? The official language in Seychelles is French Creole, which is basically based off of phonetic French. Ie - l'harmonie became larmonie, and Seychelles became Sesel, just because the language was based solely off of the sounds, not the words. I incorporated Seychelles not knowing the written language into her basically inventing the Creole - haha!

For now, that's about it! Let's breathe some life back into this story! :D :D :D