{UsxUk summercamp} 1
After reading a legend about a boy and his father escaping an island on wings out of feathers- the one with the tragic end, not quite suitable for a bedtime read for a small child- America found his goal in life- it had come to him, curled up in England’s bed after having nightmares about the sun burning him not an hour later-.
He was going to fly.
England half listened to his stories about how he was going to figure out how birds flew around and turned a deaf ear to his requests for the materials.
Although he strictly warned him of the dangers of trying to fly once he tried to jump out of the tree near the house with a bunch of collected feathers glued to his arms and broke his arm and was inconsolable for a week- not because of his broken arm, mind you but because his plan failed-.
He was rather scared of flying, mind you. The whole Icarus thing had scared the life out of him and he couldn’t help but wonder would he have the same fate if he went about the same way of doing it. So using wax and feathers was out of the question then.
England, turning a blind eye to his fantasies most of the time, now and again told him off. Told him that if humans, or nations, were meant to fly, they would have been born with wings. But were they? No.
But America took the ‘turning a blind eye’ thing from England and continued harassing the birds for details on how they flew, and why they always flew away when he tried to ask.
Jeesh, it was only a question.
-x-
Two hundred years later, America had half forgotten about flying. Yes he still got a rush from jumping down flights of stairs and still always wanted his not so well hidden superhero cape to work, but it didn’t cross his mind on a daily basis.
Then two men thought they could invent a flying machine. And this machine would be able to hold a human and fly with them in it, the human controlling it as easily as one would control a bicycle.
When America mentioned it offhand to England, England just scoffed and told him that reliving childish fantasies would do him no good and that what the Wright brothers wanted to achieve was impossible; it was only a trick of their imagination and all their sums were possibly inaccurate.
But, only months after this, the first flying machine was invented. America saw it in newspapers and it had the strangest wings. It didn’t look like what America had imagined it to be at all- but then, America had imagined it to be a humongous, manmade bird that you could climb into and steer.
A decade later, being a nation and everything led to America being able to get his own. The contraption looked easy enough to steer and, in all his excitement, he called England over just to show it to him.
England looked sceptical, asking if the thing really could fly and still looking disbelieving when America assured him it did. After getting proof shoved in his face by America and, by God, newspapers and photographs were proof he supposed, he agreed that maybe it were possible to fly.
“Possible?” America huffed, grinning lightly, “It’s a fact. Wanna take a ride and find out?”