About one year later, Monsieur Poivre suddenly turned up again, after a longer than usual absence. Having seen the ship coming into the bay from her usual strategic cliff side view, Seychelles quickly scouted out the best place to hide, right by the beach so that she could eavesdrop and remain unseen at the same time.

Crouched behind a large rock, she soon discovered that Monsieur Poivre had returned because of poor growing conditions on Ile de France, and had come to see how well the crops were faring on Mahé. And indeed they were flourishing.

(Haha, my island's better than the other guy's!)

During the past year, the Frenchmen had begrudgingly extended the 'gardens' she had heard them calling the dirt rectangles to make room for the quickly growing plants and vegetables. Monsieur Poivre seemed ecstatic at this news and started going on and on about the potential for growth in the archipelago and how strategic its position was considering all of the travelling around the West Indies, according to Rochon and Grenier, and how they would now need to make time for building –

Seychelles' jaw dropped. Building what exactly? Like, building an actual settlement? With, with people and everything?

With her ears ringing uncomfortably, she slowly and silently slunk away to her cliff to think about the enormity of this development.

I I I

Nous l'avons! Nous l'avons!

The response to the piece of paper flapping around rather harshly in the hand of the newest flamboyant French captain was composed of a raucous cheer by the rest of his crew. Finally, almost twenty years after the first official colonization attempt, the government had granted them a royal warrant to start Séchelles' first settlement.

Seychelles shook her head in utter disbelief as she watched from a distance. No sooner had she just begun to accept the changes to her island, not to mention her entire life, then another change would take its place, bigger and scarier than the one previous. Now she was to have a settlement?! Full of the buildings France had told her about, full of her own people?

She clenched her fists as she remembered that dream she had so long ago – the only dream that she had ever remembered, full of foreign objects and bustling civilization. Were the images in her dream finally coming true? Would she be subject to the drastic changes of an actual population of living, breathing people?

Well, of course she would! She was their Nation-to-be, for goodness sake! She would have to be there for them…just like France had been there for her. Had the roles, then, changed? Was she to be the mentor now? Was she even ready to be a mentor to these people?

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and shut the babbling French voices out of her mind. She pictured France. Pictured his longer blond hair, stubbled chin, and his playful eyes. She heard his, dare she even give him the satisfaction, charming voice, kindly and not so kindly telling her what to do, teaching her, supporting her…arguing with her. She thought of the last time they had seen each other and how different it had felt when he walked away that time, leaving nothing but the recorder in her hands and the lingering trace of his gentle fingertips on her cheek.

I suppose…I do care for him. Very much. More than I thought possible.

Despite his eccentricities, he had taught her language, kindness, and what it meant to be a Nation.

But it was she who taught herself resilience and perseverance. And this was her responsibility now.

She steeled herself and opened her eyes, the real world flooding back to her.

Several months later, the settlement of St. Anne was born.

I I I

Merde.

So the settlement wasn't even on her own goddamned island.

When Seychelles had first discovered this, she had beaten the ground in frustration, doing everything she could to hold back her cries of utter disbelief that the first settlement she could ever hope to see wouldn't even be on Mahé. And it wasn't like she could just hop on a French rowboat and have a jolly good time with the rowers on the way to St. Anne – she still had to lie low! It just wasn't fair!

After almost tearing her hair out, and having to re-fix her (tattered?) ribbons several times, she finally calmed down enough to realize that there would still be many Frenchmen staying on Mahé, considering this was the biggest island with the most supplies. She would most certainly be able to eavesdrop on the sailors when they made their reports to their captains, or even when they just talked amongst themselves.

She sighed dramatically, quickly stopping herself when it reminded her too much of France.

I guess this'll just have to do.

From what she managed to pick up over the next several months, at first, St. Anne prospered. A total of twenty-eight people inhabited the settlement, living comfortably with the abundance of healthy vegetables and other sources of food around the island, and Seychelles vowed that when she was able to move islands without arousing suspicion, she would do whatever she could to help it stay that way.

She spent the days imagining herself flitting around about the petit little buildings, secretly helping out wherever she could: she would have fixed damaged property; would have made sure the gardens were properly watered, and, of course, would have eavesdropped on various conversations. As much as she wanted to know what was happening on St. Anne, she never wanted to miss out on an opportunity to listen in on the current situation with France itself.

And what she heard wasn't good.

Apparently France had indeed lost Canada to the British after years and years of fighting. The British had taken several French colonies along the Caribbean (where was that?!), and much of Europe was devastated by all of the fighting that had occurred there. France's power in India (where was that?!) had disappeared as a result and it was becoming more and more costly to send ships out to the islands on the Indian Ocean.

Seychelles' concern for the well-being of France at this point was growing greater and greater with each piece of information learned. What if he was unable to obtain passage to her islands? What if the imbalance in his country and those surrounding it started another war? Would she see him again within the next ten years? Twenty? Fifty? It was almost too terrible to think about.

And what was worse, after only a year, the prosperity of St. Anne had dwindled, its inhabitants having no choice but to return to Mahé due to 'lack of funding,' according to their leader, Monsieur Barré. The future of her colony seemed to contain nothing but spice gardens, as far as she could tell, as Monsieur Poivre diligently watched over his nutmeg.

Seychelles could no nothing but watch the French colonists struggle in vain to make a decent colony out of her tiny little chain of islands, and in turn, watch it all go astray. She might not have been fighting a war for land and territory, but she and these few brave Frenchmen were fighting their own war of sheer, desperate, almost impossible survival…

…Which, after another ten years, was made even more impossible due to the sudden presence of British ships.

I I I

Seychelles watched her colonists intently from high up in her usual spot, fingers gripping the side of the cliff face intently. She silently cheered them on as they finally (finally!) sprung into action after years of doing nothing (was France lying about all of his stories about the strength and versatility of his people?) seemingly spurred on by the sudden appearance of the enemy's ships.

Success started with the establishment of a Royal Settlement on Mahé itself, led by Jean-Baptiste Philogene de Malavois, meant for military planning and populating the settlement to give it more of an official sense.

The young Nation's eyes widened in happiness at the sight of actual babies emerging from newly built hospitals and homes. Did she look like that once? Come to think of it, how did she even come to exist? She didn't have parents…

She flipped a ribboned section of hair over her shoulder and remembered that particular question for France the next time he came to visit. Taking his sweet time about it, geeze.

Sighing again, half in contentedness and half in despair, she let her mind stray once more to what France might be up to. There were British ships lurking around, for goodness sake, shouldn't the loud-mouthed flirt be here to stop them?

But she couldn't allow herself to think of him as her hero anymore…

She frowned. She was starting to feel like she was getting too caught up in her own matters. As if she was drifting further and further away from the man who had change her life so much for the better.

But that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, right? Right?

I still need you.

I I I

So, apparently she had her own Constitution now, considering the colonists seemed to suddenly hate their own monarch. Huh. This meant that the colonists had spontaneously cut off any rule whatsoever from her/their neighbour, Mauritius, which was practically screamed independence, something Seychelles was all for, but also deemed slavery acceptable, which Seychelles didn't care for as much.

Geeze. Seychelles grimaced at the recent events that had just occurred, the eavesdropped conversations accompanied by the usual French profanity. If her colonists were making their own constitution all the way out in the middle of the ocean, she could only imagine what was going on in the actual country.

La Révolution Française…

It sounded both terrible and beautiful, but which was it? Terrible or beautiful? Seychelles had no way of knowing. Also, she mused, if the French citizens were in an uproar about their own country, was France himself safe? Was this really his battle to fight?

Whatever was going on, she hoped no part of it would come to her. She wanted nothing to do with the tragedies of war.

I I I

After a while, she began to notice a change for the better within her small, but thankfully prospering colony. And that change began with Jean-Baptiste Queau de Quincy, the only truly decent Frenchman Seychelles had really ever seen. She was starting to grow more and more suspicious of the validity of France's heroic stories…

However, when Quincy took command, he managed to increase the amount of French ships that would stop by to resupply, as well as organize the colony with a great degree of efficiency. Seychelles liked him. She liked him so much, that she decided to take an unbelievably great risk for him. She was tired of sitting around on her cliffs days after day, doing nothing but watching, waiting. So, she made a plan. She would make contact with the Commander.

She studied Quincy for weeks, noting his movements and how important his work was. She would sneak into his cabin to try to read his letters and to see with whom he communicated. It was because of this that she accidentally learned the phonetics of the French language: how the 'hs' were silent, and how they used little ticks to separate 'le' and 'la' from words with vowels.

She wanted to laugh at herself; she had been doing it so wrong! Sesel wasn't how her name was spelled at all! That France had forgotten to teach her so many important things!

Those weeks, she absorbed more information that she had in decades. She tried her hardest to learn how to read and to write, practicing daily. Her recorder lay abandoned on its rocky shelf. She learned, succinctly, what had happened during the Seven Years War within Europe, North America, and South America, and of the French Revolution happening currently. She found maps, archives, scrolls, letters, everything! She discovered locations like America, England, Austria, and most importantly France. She then, after quite a while, managed to find herself.

She had never really understood just how secluded she was.

Shaking off the feeling, she decided she had learned enough. From what she had learned, she knew Quincy was a powerful figure. But was he important enough to know about France? For better or for worse, she was certainly about to find out.

She took a small piece of scrap paper, dipped one of Quincy's expensive looking quills into its inkwell, and wrote:

Savez-vous Francis, La République Française?

She made sure the paper sat right in the middle of the desk, as plain to see as possible, set the quill down, and slipped out into the bright sunlight to wait for his response.

The next day, there was an answer, written on the same piece of paper, in the same position as she had left it. She wrote a final response, trying desperately to keep her hand steady.

Savez-vous Francis, La République Française?

Je lui sais. Qui es-tu?

Je m'appelle Séchelles. Rencontrez-moi par le grand jardin à 0900 heures demain.

She nodded to herself, satisfied. Now, it was just a matter of waiting. Waiting for contact with her first human being in over forty years.

AN - two in one day? Waaaaaat. Thanks for the quick support, guys. :) Just a heads up, this chapter and the next will be very historical. France and England don't show up for a while and I need time to write about how Seychelles actually grows as a country, and as a character. I know some people like the history, and some people like characters, so bear with me.

Translantions: Nous l'avons = we have it!

Merde = shit

Savez-vous Francis, La République Française? = Do you know Francis, the French Republic?

Je lui sais. Qui es-tu? = I know him. Who are you?

Je m'appelle Séchelles. Rencontrez-moi par le grand jardin à 0900 heures demain = my name is Seychelles. Meet me by the big garden at 9:00 am tomorrow.

Sorry the translations are so awkwardly spaced... Haha!

Historical notes : As I said before, a lot of the actual chapters will be historical, so I'll keep these short. Pierre Poivre was a Horticulturalist who planted foreign species on different islands. He did this on both Mauritius (Ile de France) and Seychelles; Seychelles fared better, so they planted more stuff there. I.e - cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.

Rochon and Grenier were two French navigators who realized how much easier it would be to re-supply at Seychelles when travelling from India to Africa. They told lots of people, therefore, Seychelles became more well-known among French ships.

On August 12, 1770, Brayer de Barré brought 28 people (Indian, Black, and White) to settle on an island off the coast of Mahé, called St. Anne. He stayed in Mauritius to get funding for the settlement. At first, errything was good, but funding didn't come, and erryone was forced to go to Mahé/back where they came from.

In 1771 and 1772 and probably longer, people planted spices. Whee!

The chapter describes (very vaguely) what happened with wars n' stuff. I refuse to describe the French Revolution, because that would take forever. Shit goes down, big time. But I guess I can say: because the French people wanted to separate themselves from the monarchy, the peeps on Mahé took the war as an excuse to make their own rules/constitution.

Pirates-ish (kinda like French Privateers) were using Seychelles as an advantage to sneak their stuff around, which caused the British ships to show up.

There were two Jean-Baptistes: Philogene de Malavois, who assumed command of the Mahé settlement, who didn't really do much except protect tortoises, and Queau de Quincy, who took command in 1794. Big jump in time, sorry. Not much happened other than building and settling. But this guy was good. We'll find out more about him later/this chapter and the next will describ him pretty well. ;)

Lotsa history! We're officially in 1794, right in the middle of the French Revolution, but that doesn't concern us. Stick with me, guys, and thanks so much!