Nanowrimo 3/30
Title: Untitled.
Author/Artist: jencatd
Character(s) or Pairing(s) in this part: New Zealand, Australia. Mentions of Hungary, Germania, Prussia, Austria, Germany and North Italy.
Word Count: 1874
Overall Rating: PG
Overall Warnings: Character Death (England, before the start of the fic) and occasional swearing, I guess.
Overall Summary: Human AU. When William's Father dies, his family gather at his house in England for the funeral, and learn more about their Father and their family than they expected.
Next Part: Nanowrimo 4/30
Previous Part: Nanowrimo 2/30
From the Beginning: Nanowrimo 1/30
CAST
New Zealand - William Kirkland
Australia - James Kirkland
After dinner William sat with James out on the back deck. It had gotten dark now, and the dinner dishes had been long cleared away. Elizaveta had dragged Peter and Wendy upstairs to get ready for bed, and Maman, Uncle Ian, and Uncle Gareth had also made themselves scarce. He couldn’t remember if he’d seen his other Uncle, or if he would be arriving tomorrow like Al, Matt and possibly Angie.
“Will, I can’t believe Liz pulled a frying pan on me before we left for the airport.” James took another swig of his beer. “Why do you let your Mrs. carry a lethal weapon in her handbag? Don’t you worry that she might use it on someone if she got mad at them?”
“Nah. It’s like someone who carries a gun in their handbag or in their pocket for self-defence. Just because they have it doesn’t mean they’re going to use it on anyone. Why do you ask?”
William put down his empty beer bottle and picked up another full one. He opened it and started drinking while James gathered his thoughts. His brother had already told him something he hadn’t told anyone else, and William wondered if this might prompt something similar from himself this time.
“I don’t really think Liz is a violent person or anything, but at times your relationship seems kind of volatile. You argue, get mad at each other, and even play-fight on occasion. Do you ever worry that Liz might attack you with her frying pan someday?”
“No. Most of our play-fighting is over silly things like who gets the TV remote and sometimes other things. She may threaten me with the frying pan every so often, but as far as I know she’s only ever hit one person with it and it wasn’t me. That time was purely in self-defence.”
“Yeh? Why did she do it?” William drank a little more of his beer before continuing. He hadn’t told this story before. Not necessarily because he was embarrassed or ashamed of Elizaveta’s actions that day, but because no one had ever asked before now.
“This happened when Thomas was about four months old. Someone had been going around the local farms scaring livestock, and I’d gone out to try to protect my sheep from whoever this was so Liz was home alone with little Thomas. She told me that she was feeding Thomas when two teenagers broke into the farm house. One had silver hair, and the other had dark brown hair. Liz called the police, and the two of them backed her into the kitchen and ordered her to hand over whatever money she had. She told me later that something inside her snapped when the silver haired youth tried to get right up close to her and Thomas.”
“Mother bear instinct.”
“Yeah. She grabbed the nearest object she could reach which was a frying pan. We couldn’t afford stoneware ones back then so it was a basic metal frying pan. Anyway, she bashed the silver haired teenager in the head with it to get him away from her and Thomas. Broke his nose, gave him a concussion, that sort of thing. The other teenager ran away when Liz started swinging that frying pan, but the police got him, and they got the silver haired teenager as well. They decided Liz was defending herself and her son so she wasn’t charged. The two teenagers were charged with Breaking and Entering, attempted robbery, and so on. It turned out that they were the ones who’d been scaring everyone’s livestock. Apparently it was school holidays, one was visiting from the city, and both of them were bored.”
“Was the kid okay after being bashed? I mean, no lasting injuries or anything?”
“No. A couple of hours after those two kids were taken away, another kid turned up on our doorstep. He couldn’t have been more than say 10 years old, had short blond hair, and blue eyes. It turned out his name was Ludwig Beilschmidt, and he had turned up to apologise for his older brother’s actions. His brother turned out to be the kid with the silver hair, and was called Gilbert. Ludwig explained that their Mother had been sick for a long time, and now she wasn’t well enough to look after or discipline him and Gilbert. Ludwig coped with their Mother’s illness by helping out around the house, and Gilbert coped with their Mother’s illness by going out into the community and causing trouble. The second teenager was their cousin from the city who was staying with them, Roderich Edelstein. Liz was quietly impressed by Ludwig’s strength, and invited him in for a snack before he had to go back to his Father’s farm.”
“What happened after that? Did Gilbert ever bother Liz again?”
“Well. Before Ludwig went home his Father turned up to collect him. He said his name was Aldrich Beilschmidt, and he apologised for his son’s actions. As it turned out he’d apologised to several farmers that day after the police caught his son at my place. He thanked Liz for giving Gilbert such a fright and some much needed discipline his own wife was no longer well enough to provide. She had cancer, and like in Dad’s case the cancer was winning. He also asked Liz for a favour: if Gilbert could work on our farm, and for the two of us to give him that firm structure and discipline he needed that neither Aldrich nor his wife could provide. Aldrich was splitting his time between working and caring for his wife so he couldn’t spend as much time with his sons. He also said that Roderich could work too until he returned to the city at the end of the holidays. Gilbert turned out to be a very good worker when he had the structure and discipline to do so, and Liz was very pleased by how well he was handling the tasks we assigned him to do around the house and farm. She was a lot less pleased with Roderich, who acted as though the tasks he was told to do were beneath him.”
“Oh god, not one of those superior types.”
“Yep. In the end I took him out with me since he didn’t seem to respond well to Liz. I soon worked out that Roderich had been spoiled all his life, and never had to do anything for himself. He disguised his lack of practical skills by acting like he was above it all. He also seemed to have a general dislike for anything that meant he’d have to get his hands dirty.”
“How’d you get around that?”
“I had him follow me around the farm while I worked, and taught him all the jobs I was doing that day. By the end of the first week he could help an ewe who was having difficulty giving birth, he could skin a dead lamb and put the skin on an orphaned lamb so the dead lamb’s mother would look after it, he was learning the basics of shearing sheep, how to chop down a tree safely, how to change a car or truck tyre, how to saddle a horse, and the list goes on. At first he was a little difficult, but after a day or two he was starting to learn things, and I didn’t laugh or tell him off if he made a mistake. I just showed him how to handle it right, and his confidence seemed to grow. I have no idea if he remembers any of those lessons now, but back then they were incredibly useful when he visited Gilbert’s family. He could help out around Aldrich’s farm with confidence.”
“You said the kids’ Mother was sick. Did she survive or pass on like Dad?”
“She passed on a few months after we met their family, and all three of them spent time with us after she died. I don’t think Aldrich ever really stopped grieving for his wife, and he passed on a few years later. Liz was almost like a second Mother to those boys, and we learned how to handle teenage boys before our oldest child was even out of nappies. When Gilbert was old enough he went into the Army, and served with them for a few years. He left the Army when Aldrich died, and after attending the funeral he took over the farm. Ludwig was going to quit university and look after the farm, but Gilbert insisted that he stay in school.”
“Do you still stay in touch with Gilbert and Ludwig now? What about the other kid?”
“I wouldn’t have a clue what Roderich is up to these days, but Gilbert is still running the farm, and when our older boys were growing up he’d come over and visit and play with them. In some ways he still seemed like a big kid at times. Ludwig finished university and became an engineer, and now he travels all over the world helping with various major building projects like bridges and dams. When I talked to Ludwig at his father’s funeral he told me about his room-mate from Italy who was here studying architecture. Ludwig was forever helping him correct his designs to make them structurally sound without ruining the overall character and shape of the design, and he complained about how messy Feliciano was but he also admitted Feliciano was a really good cook. I think he eventually took a liking to Feliciano. Not necessarily a romantic one, but he mentioned looking out for Feliciano like an older brother would look out for a younger one.”
“Sounds like those kids turned out okay after all! Will, do you want another beer?” James handed William another beer bottle.
“I think I’ll hit the sack after this one.” William said. “If Maman’s right, Al, Matt, and Angie will be arriving tomorrow. That means Matt’s kids will be here, and they took a liking to me last time they saw me. I’ll need my energy to deal with them, and I think Al’s relationship status on his private Facebook changed to being in a relationship recently so his partner will probably be coming as well.”
“A new partner? I thought he was dating some bloke called Mathias last time we chatted.”
“He might still be with Mathias and things might’ve gotten more serious between them.” William got up and started gathering up the empty beer bottles so he could rinse them and add them to the recycling sacks Maman had in the house.
“True. Will, I’m gonna stay out here a bit longer so you don’t have to worry about cleaning up my bottles. I’ll take care of them myself when I go to bed.”
“Night James.” William said and opened the door to the house.
“Night Will.”
William rinsed out the bottles and walked upstairs to the room he and Elizaveta were sleeping in. He noticed she was already in bed and left the light off as he got ready for bed and joined her. He could tell by her breathing that she was already asleep, and curled an arm around her protectively and drifted off as well.
Author/Artist: jencatd
Character(s) or Pairing(s) in this part: New Zealand, Australia. Mentions of Hungary, Germania, Prussia, Austria, Germany and North Italy.
Word Count: 1874
Overall Rating: PG
Overall Warnings: Character Death (England, before the start of the fic) and occasional swearing, I guess.
Overall Summary: Human AU. When William's Father dies, his family gather at his house in England for the funeral, and learn more about their Father and their family than they expected.
Next Part: Nanowrimo 4/30
Previous Part: Nanowrimo 2/30
From the Beginning: Nanowrimo 1/30
CAST
New Zealand - William Kirkland
Australia - James Kirkland
After dinner William sat with James out on the back deck. It had gotten dark now, and the dinner dishes had been long cleared away. Elizaveta had dragged Peter and Wendy upstairs to get ready for bed, and Maman, Uncle Ian, and Uncle Gareth had also made themselves scarce. He couldn’t remember if he’d seen his other Uncle, or if he would be arriving tomorrow like Al, Matt and possibly Angie.
“Will, I can’t believe Liz pulled a frying pan on me before we left for the airport.” James took another swig of his beer. “Why do you let your Mrs. carry a lethal weapon in her handbag? Don’t you worry that she might use it on someone if she got mad at them?”
“Nah. It’s like someone who carries a gun in their handbag or in their pocket for self-defence. Just because they have it doesn’t mean they’re going to use it on anyone. Why do you ask?”
William put down his empty beer bottle and picked up another full one. He opened it and started drinking while James gathered his thoughts. His brother had already told him something he hadn’t told anyone else, and William wondered if this might prompt something similar from himself this time.
“I don’t really think Liz is a violent person or anything, but at times your relationship seems kind of volatile. You argue, get mad at each other, and even play-fight on occasion. Do you ever worry that Liz might attack you with her frying pan someday?”
“No. Most of our play-fighting is over silly things like who gets the TV remote and sometimes other things. She may threaten me with the frying pan every so often, but as far as I know she’s only ever hit one person with it and it wasn’t me. That time was purely in self-defence.”
“Yeh? Why did she do it?” William drank a little more of his beer before continuing. He hadn’t told this story before. Not necessarily because he was embarrassed or ashamed of Elizaveta’s actions that day, but because no one had ever asked before now.
“This happened when Thomas was about four months old. Someone had been going around the local farms scaring livestock, and I’d gone out to try to protect my sheep from whoever this was so Liz was home alone with little Thomas. She told me that she was feeding Thomas when two teenagers broke into the farm house. One had silver hair, and the other had dark brown hair. Liz called the police, and the two of them backed her into the kitchen and ordered her to hand over whatever money she had. She told me later that something inside her snapped when the silver haired youth tried to get right up close to her and Thomas.”
“Mother bear instinct.”
“Yeah. She grabbed the nearest object she could reach which was a frying pan. We couldn’t afford stoneware ones back then so it was a basic metal frying pan. Anyway, she bashed the silver haired teenager in the head with it to get him away from her and Thomas. Broke his nose, gave him a concussion, that sort of thing. The other teenager ran away when Liz started swinging that frying pan, but the police got him, and they got the silver haired teenager as well. They decided Liz was defending herself and her son so she wasn’t charged. The two teenagers were charged with Breaking and Entering, attempted robbery, and so on. It turned out that they were the ones who’d been scaring everyone’s livestock. Apparently it was school holidays, one was visiting from the city, and both of them were bored.”
“Was the kid okay after being bashed? I mean, no lasting injuries or anything?”
“No. A couple of hours after those two kids were taken away, another kid turned up on our doorstep. He couldn’t have been more than say 10 years old, had short blond hair, and blue eyes. It turned out his name was Ludwig Beilschmidt, and he had turned up to apologise for his older brother’s actions. His brother turned out to be the kid with the silver hair, and was called Gilbert. Ludwig explained that their Mother had been sick for a long time, and now she wasn’t well enough to look after or discipline him and Gilbert. Ludwig coped with their Mother’s illness by helping out around the house, and Gilbert coped with their Mother’s illness by going out into the community and causing trouble. The second teenager was their cousin from the city who was staying with them, Roderich Edelstein. Liz was quietly impressed by Ludwig’s strength, and invited him in for a snack before he had to go back to his Father’s farm.”
“What happened after that? Did Gilbert ever bother Liz again?”
“Well. Before Ludwig went home his Father turned up to collect him. He said his name was Aldrich Beilschmidt, and he apologised for his son’s actions. As it turned out he’d apologised to several farmers that day after the police caught his son at my place. He thanked Liz for giving Gilbert such a fright and some much needed discipline his own wife was no longer well enough to provide. She had cancer, and like in Dad’s case the cancer was winning. He also asked Liz for a favour: if Gilbert could work on our farm, and for the two of us to give him that firm structure and discipline he needed that neither Aldrich nor his wife could provide. Aldrich was splitting his time between working and caring for his wife so he couldn’t spend as much time with his sons. He also said that Roderich could work too until he returned to the city at the end of the holidays. Gilbert turned out to be a very good worker when he had the structure and discipline to do so, and Liz was very pleased by how well he was handling the tasks we assigned him to do around the house and farm. She was a lot less pleased with Roderich, who acted as though the tasks he was told to do were beneath him.”
“Oh god, not one of those superior types.”
“Yep. In the end I took him out with me since he didn’t seem to respond well to Liz. I soon worked out that Roderich had been spoiled all his life, and never had to do anything for himself. He disguised his lack of practical skills by acting like he was above it all. He also seemed to have a general dislike for anything that meant he’d have to get his hands dirty.”
“How’d you get around that?”
“I had him follow me around the farm while I worked, and taught him all the jobs I was doing that day. By the end of the first week he could help an ewe who was having difficulty giving birth, he could skin a dead lamb and put the skin on an orphaned lamb so the dead lamb’s mother would look after it, he was learning the basics of shearing sheep, how to chop down a tree safely, how to change a car or truck tyre, how to saddle a horse, and the list goes on. At first he was a little difficult, but after a day or two he was starting to learn things, and I didn’t laugh or tell him off if he made a mistake. I just showed him how to handle it right, and his confidence seemed to grow. I have no idea if he remembers any of those lessons now, but back then they were incredibly useful when he visited Gilbert’s family. He could help out around Aldrich’s farm with confidence.”
“You said the kids’ Mother was sick. Did she survive or pass on like Dad?”
“She passed on a few months after we met their family, and all three of them spent time with us after she died. I don’t think Aldrich ever really stopped grieving for his wife, and he passed on a few years later. Liz was almost like a second Mother to those boys, and we learned how to handle teenage boys before our oldest child was even out of nappies. When Gilbert was old enough he went into the Army, and served with them for a few years. He left the Army when Aldrich died, and after attending the funeral he took over the farm. Ludwig was going to quit university and look after the farm, but Gilbert insisted that he stay in school.”
“Do you still stay in touch with Gilbert and Ludwig now? What about the other kid?”
“I wouldn’t have a clue what Roderich is up to these days, but Gilbert is still running the farm, and when our older boys were growing up he’d come over and visit and play with them. In some ways he still seemed like a big kid at times. Ludwig finished university and became an engineer, and now he travels all over the world helping with various major building projects like bridges and dams. When I talked to Ludwig at his father’s funeral he told me about his room-mate from Italy who was here studying architecture. Ludwig was forever helping him correct his designs to make them structurally sound without ruining the overall character and shape of the design, and he complained about how messy Feliciano was but he also admitted Feliciano was a really good cook. I think he eventually took a liking to Feliciano. Not necessarily a romantic one, but he mentioned looking out for Feliciano like an older brother would look out for a younger one.”
“Sounds like those kids turned out okay after all! Will, do you want another beer?” James handed William another beer bottle.
“I think I’ll hit the sack after this one.” William said. “If Maman’s right, Al, Matt, and Angie will be arriving tomorrow. That means Matt’s kids will be here, and they took a liking to me last time they saw me. I’ll need my energy to deal with them, and I think Al’s relationship status on his private Facebook changed to being in a relationship recently so his partner will probably be coming as well.”
“A new partner? I thought he was dating some bloke called Mathias last time we chatted.”
“He might still be with Mathias and things might’ve gotten more serious between them.” William got up and started gathering up the empty beer bottles so he could rinse them and add them to the recycling sacks Maman had in the house.
“True. Will, I’m gonna stay out here a bit longer so you don’t have to worry about cleaning up my bottles. I’ll take care of them myself when I go to bed.”
“Night James.” William said and opened the door to the house.
“Night Will.”
William rinsed out the bottles and walked upstairs to the room he and Elizaveta were sleeping in. He noticed she was already in bed and left the light off as he got ready for bed and joined her. He could tell by her breathing that she was already asleep, and curled an arm around her protectively and drifted off as well.