What Goes Around
There was a stool in his home, crafted by hand from oak wood and steel axes and knives, sanded, but not stained. He created it centuries ago with his hands. In his youth, he’d been proud of that three-legged stool, showing it off to his brothers Scotland and Wales and his sister Ireland. Though their relationship wasn’t one of Hallmark cards and afternoon TV specials, Scotland patted the boy’s head and praised him for his craftsmanship. Ireland wanted to etch designs into the legs, but he wanted to keep the wood’s integrity. Why ruin such a lovely piece of wood? She called him a brat, he called her an foolish imp. Wales laughed.
The first time he met Normandy, he was still small, only reaching Scotland’s waist in height. As a small Nation, he wasn’t difficult to capture during the raid and was tied to a pole outside one of his burning villages, guarded by humans who knew what their kind were and what they were capable of. He wanted to know where his brothers and sister were, but his requests were not met. His guards statues.
That’s when Normandy sauntered in. Normandy was unlike anyone he’d encountered on his island home: taller, leaner with muscle (not from lack of food), blonde hair the shade of afternoon sun (his more like moldy straw left to rot in the dark) and eyes like sapphires (where his were the shade of forest moss). The language Normandy spoke was eloquent and fancy, smooth and calculated. The older Nation leaned into his face, gripped his chin in his hand (hard), examining the sprite. Normandy said he was going to be his older brother and as such, he was to be addressed as Francis or Normandy.
He didn’t like this, and told him so by spitting in Normandy’s face. He already had brothers, brothers who thoroughly angered him with their teasing, but they were his blood regardless; born from the same mother (Saxony, though he wasn’t as sure on the name anymore in his age) and father (Rome). Francis hadn’t appreciated the gesture and had the smaller Nation sent to a place where wooden planks were arranged to keep some of the rain and wind off a person.
The ground mud and grime and filth, the straw rotting and dying. In his captivity, colder and hungrier than he’d ever been, he reminded himself that Francis was not his brother. So he escaped one night and roused rebellion wherever he travelled: Kent, Mercia, Exeter. He was not the one who slaughtered Robert de Comines, but he was there that day, grinning manically in the shadows and whispering the hopes of his beloved freedom and Britannia to his people.
When his rebellions had been crushed and he’d been beaten and reduced to a dirty face, nailess fingers, whipped back by the hand of a foreigner, Francis took his stool, sat in it for a few days before torching the thing. He was forced to watch the yellow-orange flames consume the stool, the only physical remainder he had of the better times.
***
Centuries later, he found himself on the shores of the New World, face to face with a new Nation, though that was probably the wrong word to define the sprite. The little thing couldn’t have been much taller than three feet. So he called him America, remembering the name of an explorer who’d found the place years past. The little blonde, hair like gold, eyes blue like the Pacific he’d heard so much about from Spain and Portugal, took to him easily and looked up to him as a child looks up to their father.
Since all he could remember with Rome was fights and skirmishes, and the only memories Normandy-now-called-France left were of blood and conquest and fire, and his brothers and sister had more or less disowned him, he decided to treat the sprite differently. Instead of ropes and poles, pitchforks and torches, riots and rebellion, he patted the gold hair, smiled and called him “son.”
They built things together: a home in Virginia, a residence in Massachusetts (through the entire eastern seaboard), furniture, fences, roads. His first task to America (who needed a human name, he often mused as the little-well, perhaps it was cruel to say little anymore; oh, where did the months go?) when he’d returned again after years and years away, was to build a three-legged stool on his own. America, whose appearance and attitude was caught between boy and man, scoffed and said he’d been building stools for years. Questioned why he had to build one now.
He’d never explained the reason, saw no reason to, just asked as a father would ask their son to fetch some water in the afternoon heat. America smirked, and it was kind and playful, not sarcastic or mean spirited. He said he’d do it and he did; America’s result put the scraggly thing he’d made centuries past to shame and back. It was a handsome stool, smooth to the touch, finished and stained a bright cherry red. Embellished with symbols of his caretaker, his signature etched under the seat.
He noticed the curly letterings, Alfred Jones and asked his colony when he’d received the name and who’d given it to him, angrily thinking it was France and his influences. The boy shrugged and said he’d picked it for himself. It was simple and rolled off the tongue nicely. He added the last bit with a smile and asked his caretaker if he’d liked the name, or better still, had liked the stool.
He said nothing about the name, but complimented the craftsmanship of the stool and was first to sit in it. America beamed, happy he’d made his Papa happy. He invited Amer-Alfred-to sit with him and share a cup of tea. He watched the boy over the rim of his cup as a father observes their growing children. When had the child’s shoulders widened? When had his voice deepened? When had he started growing fuzz above his lip (so faint you could only see it if he were in proper lighting)? When could he look at the boy’s eyes without gazing down? When had he grown so old?
He let America keep the three legged stool; it was his after all. As his visits grew more infrequent, his colony grew more belligerent. Revolution, the child threatened if he didn’t give his people (when had they become American?) proper representation in courts, if his taxes didn’t lower, if he couldn’t expand west like he wanted to, if the law was perpetually set against him. What happened to the ‘rights of an Englishman?’ the child spat. Still a child, he thought, always a child. A child who didn’t understand the way the world and international politics worked. A child who had grown too quickly to grasp fully what he asked for-independence.
He wasn’t going to just let his colony walk away from him and start his own silly little nation. No, he kept the boy under constant watch. Kept him locked in the room upstairs. Kept him away from his people, starved him of the affection they so willingly gave him and for what reason, he wanted to ask. For what reason was this child doted upon, whose name was cried for liberation in the night and by Indians who ransacked his harbor and poured his tea into the mouths of bass and cod. For what reason was the insolent brat gaining strength? For what reason-goddamn it all to hell!
Their battle was long and arduous. He should have won within the first few months, but then France and Spain and Prussia had to interfere, aiding the boy with money and arms and training. He hardly thought they believed in the so-called “American dream,” and was certain they only joined forces against him in order to humiliate him as they’d done before. France lived for any opportunity to humiliate him. Spain had claim to some of the land, and looked to own it all. Prussia was simply a bastard who loved the sport of war and never grew weary of rifle shots and cannon fire.
Fire. He sat the Southern house on fire, the wooden, whitewashed building with glass windows and proud pillars. He threw the first torch from his horse, in the glinting light for all to see and grinned maniacally with whispers of possession and Britannia on his lips. But America was not in the house and was not expected to return for days; he was north, battling forces in New York and New Jersey. Locations named after his lands on his island home so far away. Lands that were still his, damn it! Damn America and his bloody ideals of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
When the house was nothing more than splinters and ash, out of sheer curiosity, he walked the grounds, going through the remains of familiar halls and running his hand over what remained of walls. There were good memories in this place. What had he done wrong? What had he-
Crunch. He moved his boot to examine what he’d crushed. A peg, he muttered into the thick Georgia night. He was thinking aloud for no other reason than murdering the silence this house procured. A fine shade of cherry, he continued to muse. He toed the blackened remains, parts that had been savagely destroyed by fire and torches. There were some parts that weren’t charcoal, like this piece…a wooden plank with something etched into it. He couldn’t read it, so he ran his fingers over the contours, hoping to figure out what had been etched there.
A…l…f…r…
He scoffed and dropped the piece back to the floor. He knew what it was, should have known by the cherry block that had survived. The three legged stool had resided here, here of all houses in Georgia. The three legged stool America built for himself. The handsome three legged stool that put the scraggly pile of sticks he’d created in the tenth century to pitiful shame. The three legged stool France, then called Normandy, burned, the only symbol of happiness and freedom and of his family. The three legged stool set ablaze with Normandy’s brutal grin.
What goes around, he thought. What goes around comes back bloody hard.
There was a snap of shoes breaking wood at what was once the doorframe of the room, he supposed was a study. He turned and was face to face with the boy he called colony. America’s eyes glowered with anger and his lips pinched in a thin white line. He was dirty with soot, head to toe. Dirty with the soils of battle. Bandaged. As a father wants to cure their children’s ails, so too did he when America’s bandaged shoulder came into full moonlight. His chest tightened when he faced reality; America was not his child now and was never really his son in the first place.
His face slid into a cool demeanor, wiping all traces of emotion as he has had to do countless times in his past. It was a tool he learned when he was a child and a craft he had honed.
Are you happy now? The colony asked, gesturing to the remains of the stool.
Oh, Britannia, he thought.
***
Historical Notes:
After the Norman Conquest, British (or Anglo-Saxons at this juncture, I'm not sure) folks weren't exactly happy with thier situation, so they rebelled against the French invaders in Kent, Mercia, Exeter. The French replied by completely annhiliating resistance movements. Though, as wikipedia puts it, "Early in 1069 the newly installed Norman Earl of Northumbria Robert de Comines and several hundred soldiers accompanying him were massacred at Durham."
America's complaints refer to the various Acts posed against the colonists to include high taxes to pay Britain back for the Seven Years/French-Indian War, the inability to move west, Quartering Act, Virtual representation....all the goodies.
You'll probably get a better understanding if you read the Wiki page instead of my quirky endnotes, so check em out! Knowledge is power.
Literary Notes:
I'm not quite sure where this came from. Three-legged is this week's theme at
hetalia_contest
and after about five minutes of plot bunny gestation, this was born. Historical inaccuracies, I'm sure. I wikipedia my information. I'm not ashamed. And no, I'm not quite sure why I have this written from England's POV and his name is never mentioned. I thought it worked for the story. Let me know if it's just weird and you get confused, ok? :) And if you squint, there's theme and symbols in here, but that's just me trying to be fancy with my words. I may do next week's fic if the story comes to me like this one.
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