Another WIP
Dec. 11th, 2009 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
historizeTitle:
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
historyblitz, kept track of at historize
Character(s) or Pairing(s): Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, America, Denmark, Ancient Rome; Denmark/Ireland, implied Ireland/Scotland
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, violence, sexual implications (dub-con)
Summary: This is another bit I started some time ago and want to be inspired to somehow finish. I RP Ireland with my friend (she does Scotland and England) and I have come to really adore developing her character.
So not everything in this is explained really, especially her relationship with Scotland but that's coming later---I just wanted to write about Ireland, bits about her, the Vikings, Rome, England and coming to America.
Also, the use of Ireland's and Scotland's modern names during Ancient Rome's time is historically inaccurate. I am aware of that. I'm just using them until I decide if I want to mess around with the changing names business.
Ireland gazed off the boat. There were people crowding around her, some of them were her people, some were Scotland’s, some Wales’. Many from all over the world, heading for the promised melting pot of opportunity.
The United States of America.
She saw a city, a very large city. Dirty and loud and bustling; New York City, it was called. People on the ship were calling excitedly to each other, hefting children on their shoulders and pointing, yelling in Polish, German, French, Russian, Dutch, Italian and so many others—just a din of noise. Just like America’s city.
Ireland huffed. She was not coming to America’s land to live here. No. But she was interested in seeing the place. The only one of her siblings not taken by Rome (just a few monasteries and such in her southern land), she had never left the British Isles. Just a toddler, England had been taken—which was a shame, he’d been so sweet as a boy and now he hardly remembered the years he had spent with them. Quiet, solemn Wales had been captured next—though she and Scotland had tried to protect him—and he had become a scribe. He had never been as big and burly as Scotland and never as fiery as she was. His gray eyes hid everything. When he had finally been able to come back, he had gone home and not come out. He had seen too much.
Scotland had been the last. On a battlefield in his southern land. They had fought together so seamlessly, so hard, so desperately…
"Will you just listen to me for once?" Scotland snapped, "Trust in me!" He didn't want to be angry at her, but they didn't have time for her to throw a fit, "Go! Right now."
Scotland tried to pull away from her, despite how his heart tore to do so, he looked at his enemy and raised his sword. "Come on then."
"Gladly boy." Rome grinned darkly and came at the two of them.
She flinched back from him. She couldn't--not him too...not...
She looked back at the battlefield, where the Roman soldiers seemed to suddenly renew their strength and the tide was turning...
She took a stumbling step back, watching Scotland and Rome. "I will be a coward if I leave you here alone...I can't..." she was speaking barely above a murmur, watching them fight. She sword trembled in her hand. "I can't leave you..."
So she couldn't move, couldn't make herself run. She trembled and stepped forward.
…and she had woken up in a forest with broken arms, beaten senseless. And she had been alone. Scotland taken from her. And she had spent the next few centuries alone until the Germanic tribes sacked the city of Rome…and by then England was so different…completely changed. The little boy she had nestled to her collar when the four of them traipsed through the snow was gone, replaced with a hard-eyed young warrior.
She shook herself, the boat had docked and Netherlands was standing beside her. “Coming?”
She looked at him and nodded. “Aye…” She turned away from the bow, throwing her bag over her shoulder.
Catholics had a hard time of it in the United States. The general populace was suspicious of them, seeing them as being loyal to Rome and Catholicism first and their new country second. But Catholics put up with the discrimination and made lives for themselves, banding together in little neighborhoods. It would not be until after World War II and the escalation of the Cold War, when Catholics would stand ahead of the anti-communist movement and the election of John Kennedy that Catholics would be integrated into society.
Ireland only paid half an ear to this bickering. Her old druids and Gods were long gone and she had hardly a thought for the Christian God. Ireland still had her faeries (who hid themselves in her hair and clothes) and she mostly did not believe in any Gods anymore at all. Her long years alone had killed her faith and buried her kindness.
She’d even been apathetic about her humans for a time…for a long time. She fought alongside them, of course, when Norway and his Vikings came…but then Denmark had come…and she had been grateful for the chance to go up against someone like her. Thrilled at the opportunity to fight someone whose eyes flashed and fought with a ferocity equal to hers. He’d captured her once though, took her back to her house—
Denmark was sitting in her chair. He’d lit a fire in her little hearth and had a pot of something going over the flames. “Now see, I don’t get that. You are one of the Old Nations. And I respect that. Your problem,” he said, pointing her own dagger at her and getting up to get some of her alcohol, “is that you never went anywhere. You’ve spent your entire existence on these two islands. Rome took your brothers to Italy. Why didn’t you ever go with them? You have all this age but no experience. Why do you think me and Sweden and Norway all came over here?”
She just stared at him. “Are you lecturing me? Fuck you! You self-righteous little bastard!”
He poured whiskey in one of her cups and drank it. “Better to be self-righteous than not righteous at all. Your apathy towards your own people is pathetic. And let me remind you, you’re the one tied up on the bed. So lay off the insults, darling.”
“I don’t need anyone else but--!”
“But your brothers?” He smirked. “Or just, your brother. Scotland. He has a life, y’know? Why are you so obsessed with him?”
No one had ever asked her that before. In the thousands of years she had been with Scotland, no one had ever challenged her about him. Her possessiveness of him and even jealousy when he was with others…
“Who the hell are you to judge me?” Ireland snapped. “He’s my brother. Of course I love my brother.”
“This is just me,” said Denmark, happily pouring himself more whiskey, “but I think you like him a little too much. You don’t know any other way to define yourself. If you’d bother getting to know the rest of Europe—as big a pain in the ass as they are—“
“I know Gaul!” she spat at him.
“Gaul—oh, France? Have you seen him since Rome left him? I’d watch out if I were you. He may come visiting over here some day. But anyway,” he waved a hand, “it is nice to meet a female nation. I was interested when I heard about you. Not many female nations around anymore. Greece and Egypt, the ancient ones, disappeared and left boys in their place. There’s Belgium but she’s small—nice little thing. But you—I am intrigued.” He laughed and drank again. “Or is no one allowed to be intrigued with you? I heard Rome didn’t spend a lot of effort trying to get you because you were either too wild or not worth it. I’ve heard both.”
She kicked at him, making him spill his drink. “Stop drinking my whiskey.”
That made him laugh. “Sorry, guess I should have offered you some.”
“Fucking…” She jumped up—her feet were unbound—and she rammed into him. He flipped backwards out of the chair and landed on his back. She hopped back and he whirled around, grabbing the chair up and smashing it down. It broke over her back and she dodged in close and bit his arm. He struck her again, tearing open the congealed blood on her face. He slammed her front against the wall of the shack. “Gods, you could be Freya.”
“Who the fuck is Freya?”
He grabbed the leather binding her wrists behind her back with one hand and slipped the other around her hip to settle on her abdomen. “She’s our warrior goddess of the Valkyries. They decide who dies in battle.”
She turned her face against the wood. “I’m sure it’ll make you feel better if I pick you.”
“One day, but not today. I have a lot more living to do.” He slipped his hand down her thigh. “Now, I’m not going to take over your island, per se. Mostly because that would be hard—Norway can’t decide if he wants to settle here or what. So he occasionally fights me for it. But I like being here. So I—“
She seemed to realize where this was going. “No!” She struggled, put her feet against the wall and shoved back.
“Now, now, hey!” He slammed her into the wall again and pushed his hip into the small of her back to keep her still. “I’m not going to rape you. My Vikings get their kicks from that sometimes—yeah but y’know, there aren’t many female nations and I’m too strong for human women. I’m not going to be like Rome. I’m sure he was really brutal to you. Is that all the experience you have? Just Rome?”
She glared at the wall.
“No? Someone else? Your brother Scotland, maybe? He’s the only one that’s old enough, right? Or maybe France?”
“Never Gaul,” she snapped.
“So Scotland then? Hey, hey--!” He had to grab her as she lurched back against him again. “This won’t hurt if you don’t want it to. C’mon.”
She froze when his hand went under her shirt. She was expecting terrible force. She was suspicious of everyone except Scotland and Wales. Any other nation, no matter what they did—she hadn’t let Norway near her…she strangled a sound. She could not be afraid. Take it bravely. He’d leave when he was done and next time she saw him, she’d kill him.
But strangely, he did not. He didn’t tear her clothes or hit her. He slipped his fingers into her trousers and skimmed down between her thighs to touch her. “There, now, see?” he muttered in her ear, nipping at the lobe, “That doesn’t hurt at all, does it?”
It didn’t. He was clearly experienced, his fingers deft and sure. The hand on her bound wrists left them and drifted up under her shirt, touching her breasts. She squirmed against the wall, biting her lip.
“How does Scotland usually do this?” he muttered again in her ear. “He’s a big guy—does he—“
“Stop asking me weird questions,” Ireland snapped. “You fucking stupid Viking. Just get it the fuck over with!”
Denmark chuckled and kissed her ear. “I’ll bet you top him, don’t you?”
She turned her head, glaring at him.
He kissed her temple. “You do. That sounds fun. You should stop glaring at me.”
“Oh, shut the fuck—“ she jerked and turned her face away, feeling his fingers suddenly dip in to explore and tease at her.
He scattered kisses along her throat, smiling as he listened to her try not to enjoy it.
He kept murmuring things in her ear. And she tried not to hear it but—his actions and then his words and it struck something odd. She and Scotland never really spoke and certainly not like this. It was…dirty and strange and….
When he finally got around to doing it, he kept her up against the wall. She had never done it like that before. Her cheek against the wood and both of his hands on her breasts now and he pushed into her. She could do nothing, physically restrained and body falling into rhythm with him and wasn’t this like betrayal? She shouldn’t like it…but not having to…well….
She tried to clear her brain, her thoughts were scattered and it did feel good. Really good.
When it was over, he laid her back down on the bed and loosed her hands.
Every time she fought Denmark, she always went at him with the intent to kill and he did the same. There was no dismissal like Rome had done and he never submitted to her. On the battlefield, they were equals. Sometimes she won and sometimes he won. Sometimes, their people would fight and he would go home with her. She would offer him a drink because she did not know how else to have a conversation with him.
He was just as interesting to her as she was to him.
She loved fighting him. He was powerful and agile and cocky and his eyes flashed like hers did. He told her about other parts of Europe, about Norway and Sweden (who she heard was with England and Scotland sometimes but she’d never met him herself) and mad little Finland. He went with Sweden sometimes—though his country was not a Viking nation. Sometimes, his people just liked to go along. He was a sweet young man, Denmark said, until he got a weapon and then he’d go mad and kill everyone in sight.
Though he was mostly her enemy, she learned much from Denmark. She looked forward to fighting him and she was so separated from Scotland (who had become a real distinguished kingdom recently and so had other matters to attend to)….
Denmark showed her many other things as well. Other methods of cooking, weapons and clothing, food, art, fighting and fucking. And the last was something she could not admit to. He would do strange things but they were interesting….and…and one time, after he had won a fight with her, he tied her up and kissed her in places she wasn’t aware that you could. And her startled gasps had made him laugh.
But on the battlefield, it was different. They did not cut any slack to each other. They were brutal and when he sacked Tara…she retaliated ferociously. She banded with her Celts and they eventually fought them back. And then a Norse leader married an Irish princess…and when her king sacked Dublin the power of the Vikings had bled out…
The Vikings had assimilated fairly well with her people, though. Norway and Denmark had given her hell and she had returned it and made a strange sort of…friends with them, especially Denmark.
It was strange to hang around a nation that wasn’t Scotland. But it was interesting to…make friends.
A hundred years later, she got a letter from Denmark, where he gleefully told her about a nation he’d met recently, calling himself the Teutonic Knight. He’d taken over the Old Prussians, who, Denmark explained, had come from Latvia. This little white-haired devil had conquered them and was laughing his way through blood. He finished off by saying perhaps they could meet the little monster one day and have a drink with him.
“Ireland?”
She blinked, realized she was staring at a mug of beer. She looked up.
America smiled down at her. “Hi,” he said. “Can I sit with you?”
“Your bloody country,” she muttered, moving a chair towards him with her foot. “How’d you know I was about?”
“I felt your presence,” America told her, smiling again. Always smiling, he was. The little bastard. “I don’t think we’ve ever formally met. Just—once or twice in passing?”
“It’d be hard not to know who you are, lad,” Ireland said dryly, taking out some cigarettes and offering him one.
America took one but did not light it. He had the grace to look sheepish. “Well, you introduce yourself to me then! Scotland is always visiting Canada, so—maybe we could be good friends?”
She lifted her eyebrows, watching him. “I see. Well. I’m Ireland. My common name is Caiomhe O'Connor. I’m not my own country,” she said, bitterly, with an implication of yet, “But I’m working on it.”
He nodded. “I think it’s interesting, what you’re doing. And—with the turn of the century—you could rise to really take your—“
“Don’t waste time on fancy speeches of freedom to me, lad. I’m too old for such tripe.”
“Old?” America looked her over. Ireland certainly didn’t look old. Her long, thick red hair was vibrant and bright. Her skin smooth, pale, freckly. She didn’t resemble any of her brothers in the slightest. Except for those green eyes, she and England shared those brilliant green eyes. She was short and lean but as dangerous as a wolf when riled. Scotland, with his calm, reserved nature, had been the only one who could temper her fiery constitution. “You don’t look that old.”
The line made her crack a thin, cynical smile. “Don’t judge a book by the leather, lad.”
America raised a couple fingers to the bar tender, gesturing for a beer. “No one ever listens to me when I say that.”
She supped at her mug. “That so, boy?”
“Mmm,” America said, nodded and thanking the bar tender, taking a drink from it. “They all say I have no culture and no history. Russia is the only one who seems to be okay with me.”
“Sounds like they’re a might jealous—you’re getting thousands each year from Old Europe, coming over here for a better life. You and your brother—more multicultural than the old world can pretend to be.” She smiled again. “Y’likely can’t understand it—given how young you are—but to leave everythin’ behind like our people are doin’ to come and participate in your experiment—no matter what any of ‘em say—“ she shrugged, “You’ve got somethin’, lad.”
America blinked and stared at her.
She glanced at him. “What?” she snapped.
America smiled. “You’re really great, y’know?”
She scowled. “Shut up, you maggot.”
He laughed and clapped her on the back, nearly sending her face first into the table. She elbowed him in the chest and grumbled.
He and Ireland had a strange sort of friendship. She stayed in his land for a long time. He took her out to see several of his States. England hated this, which might have been reason enough for both of them—and England sent repeated summons for Ireland to return to the British Isles. All of which, she promptly ignored.
She liked Boston, Massachusetts. She found the Midwest temperamental in its weather. The South was too bloody hot and damp.
The south west, with its dry, hot states of Nevada was bright and sunny. And Ireland burned something awful but she enjoyed it. Her hair pulled back with a strip of leather and dressed like a man in trousers and boots and shirt and vest. She had never seen a desert.
“There’s land to the east I’d like to made states sometime,” America told her, pulling down the edge of his hat to shield his face.
“Land looks fuckin’ uninhabitable,” she said, leaning in close to a red cactus flower. Her fae peered out of her hair, examining the flower too.
“It cools off at night,” America told her, hands in his pockets, looking around his land. And when it did get dark, they stayed out. He pointed out the snakes and scorpions and deadly spiders and other creatures, which she peered at with some mixture of revulsion and interest. Her fae were scared of the scorpions and refused to look at them.
But she loved the state of Oregon. She never said it but America saw how her eyes lit up at the deep forests and mountains.
When they finally made it back to the east coast, England had sent more angry letters.
They made paper airplanes out of them and flew them into America’s fireplace—after, of course, a show of reading them as dramatically as possible, which ended with Ireland flopping onto the couch and America laughing, pulling her to him and hugging her. It had set her to struggling a little and then awkwardly allowing it, leaning back against him.
She really wasn’t that bad, America told himself and couldn’t understand why England got so vexed with her.
Of course, almost twenty years later at the Olympics in London, the Irish refused to participate as British citizens and Americans refused to dip their flag to King Edward VII.
Ireland had been proud of her people for refusing to participate under the British crown but, unfortunately, she had been forced to come anyway. She sat with tall, barrel-chested, dark-haired Scotland on one side and smaller, leaner dark-haired Wales on the other. Scotland hadn’t been able to fight the tiny smile entirely. Wales showed no reaction at all, lifting his eyes from his deck of cards and flipping the top one on the deck (Jack of Clubs). Ireland laughed and applauded.
She was one of very few who were amused and she made a point to go down and have a laugh about it later with America.
He was glad to see her. She didn’t mock him like the others did. They laughed and had a drink together. And oh, oh, how it enraged England.
“He’s just like Rome,” Ireland said, smoking, taking a drink of some strong tea. “People say you’re like Rome? No. Hardly at all. Rome went around conquering and picking fights to gain power. England does the same thing. You’d rather just keep to yourself. And one day, like Rome, England will get what he deserves.”
America looked at her, thoughtful. “You really think I’ll be okay…?”
She didn’t look at him, focusing more on the program of events she was flipping through. “I think you’ve got a chance to be something great. You don’t have all our experience, lad, but it means you don’t hold our grudges either. My people will certainly never give up on going for independence.”
“The Irish are a tough crew,” America agreed. “They put up with a lot—even here and always make the best of it.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, lad,” Ireland grinned down at the pamphlet and then raised her tea and drank it fast.
“You must be joking.”
America perked a little at the table and looked at England. “What?”
“What are you writing?” There was a curl to his lip, a sneer, saying he was already well-aware.
“I’m writing a letter to Ireland…”
England scoffed. “Why?”
“What does it matter to you? What business is it of yours?”
“Do you like her? A scrubby, insubordinate, belligerent woman like her?”
America bristled. “She’s a helluva lot nicer to me than you are.”
England stiffened. “You are not becoming friends with her!”
“That’s not for you to decide.” America stood up and turned to leave.
France huffed. “Excellent work, England. Keep this up and he may never join us in the war with Germany. He’ll just continue to watch from his coast—“
“If Russia has a revolution—“
“I would not count on any certainties from Russia. He is always one to surprise you. His boss, Nicholas II is—“
“Shut up!” England snapped.
England dared to be angry with her. He dared to during the Second World War.
"You are practically siding with the Nazis by maintaining your neutrality! You have a responsibility!"
She bristled, hackles rising. "Do not presume to matter on at me. I barely have a military to offer, no thanks to you."
England scowled. "I--"
"Did you think I'd forgotten?" Ireland laughed. "Hard to forget several hundred years of oppression and genocide!"
He knocked his glass of beer over, jumping up, striding towards her. "I did what I had to--!"
Ireland's chair flew back and she was up, meeting him, getting in his face. "And I'm doing what I have to! I will not fight under your flag! A pity should the fucksprouts take the rest of Europe but I would gladly hope they take you!"
England struck her, open-handed. She staggered, growled and whipped back to retaliate--
--and then Scotland was there, getting inbetween them and holding England's collar and Ireland's wrist. "The both of you, stop."
England jerked back from him. "I will not--"
"She will not come with you. She hates you. There's nothing you can do about that. Now leave off." He looked to Ireland. "Calm down."
Ireland glared up her eldest brother. "How can you stand this?"
Scotland's face, quiet, craggy with lines, was solemn. He reached out, touching the side of her face slowly, gently.
She made a strange sound and jerked back from him, scowling and walked away.
Scotland watched, wanted to follow her. The sweet child he had met so long ago was gone...
She couldn't recall when she had been born.
One day, she had simply become aware of rain, and brilliant green grass and blue lakes and the faeries.
She was tiny, running about on itty bitty legs, avoiding the humans. They acted strangely when they saw her; wanted to take her, talk to her, sometimes they prayed to her--but she could not go with them--because she...well...
The land was calling to her.
She could hear it. A low whisper, a patter of rain, a song. She felt a sort of hole in her little body when they picked her up to carry her off. And not all of them could see the same things she could see. It confused them. So she left. And wandered.
Sometimes she reached the ocean, and stared at the vast expanse and felt a strange little twinge. Like maybe someone was looking back. There was something beyond that watery horizon. She could never quite explain it...but...she felt the pull.
But it was a strange feeling and one she could not follow. The idea of leaving her land was scary...
Even right now. Being chased.
She did so hate being chased because she was so little--sometimes the humans chased her and hurt her--and sometimes, like now, mighty snakes did. A fire-breathing monster, clever and old--maybe older than she was--she wasn't sure.
She ran through the wet grass; her magic, wild and untamed, sparked and burst, thrusting up between them. She stumbled and fell in the mud, got up and turned. Her faeries chittered and squealed at her (Oh, run! Run! He will eat you!). She brought up her tiny hands, wild hair sparking and blowing back--she would try and face this thing she feared so.
And then the boy had appeared. Dressed roughly, wearing charms and a string of wolf teeth. Her eyes met his and she felt that little twinge again...someone is looking back...
And then the monster reared, screamed at her magic, went at her--and he was suddenly dashing forward, throwing his spear. It slammed into the monster's gut and she was suddenly up and in the boy's arms. They ran away from the monster. She had struggled a little at first. She'd been frightened of him, a tiny little wild-haired thing...
...but then he had offered her food and she had eaten strips of meat from his fingers.
"My name is Alba," said the boy, "What's yours?"
She had hesitated and whispered, "Eriu..."
"This is you, isn't it, Eriu?" the boy asked, as if tasting the name, trying it out. "You're this land, aren't you?"
She nodded, cringed...
"You're like me then! I live over the water to the north! I'll look after you, okay?"
The little girl had stared up at him, thinking of the families she sometimes viewed from a distance. "Are you...like my brother?"
"Yes--we're the same, so we must be family..." He reached down and took her hand.
Scotland watched her, thought of all this in a flash. That little girl had been eager and loving. She had refused to be separated from him. She stayed with him always. When they found Wales, she had even been a little jealous at not having his undivided attention. But they had worked together to help raise Wales....
And then when they found England...just a tiny thing...
Scotland looked at the grown-up England, who was also so different...
They had found him sleeping at a place called Stonehenge. As if he belonged there, the tiny boy napping near the Stones. And from then on...all four of them together...
There might have been four of them to these two islands and their tribes fought sometimes but they all traveled together, helping each other...until Rome came.
Until Rome came....
-
...that's all I have so far...
Author/Artist:
historyblitz, kept track of at historizeCharacter(s) or Pairing(s): Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, America, Denmark, Ancient Rome; Denmark/Ireland, implied Ireland/Scotland
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: language, violence, sexual implications (dub-con)
Summary: This is another bit I started some time ago and want to be inspired to somehow finish. I RP Ireland with my friend (she does Scotland and England) and I have come to really adore developing her character.
So not everything in this is explained really, especially her relationship with Scotland but that's coming later---I just wanted to write about Ireland, bits about her, the Vikings, Rome, England and coming to America.
Also, the use of Ireland's and Scotland's modern names during Ancient Rome's time is historically inaccurate. I am aware of that. I'm just using them until I decide if I want to mess around with the changing names business.
Ireland gazed off the boat. There were people crowding around her, some of them were her people, some were Scotland’s, some Wales’. Many from all over the world, heading for the promised melting pot of opportunity.
The United States of America.
She saw a city, a very large city. Dirty and loud and bustling; New York City, it was called. People on the ship were calling excitedly to each other, hefting children on their shoulders and pointing, yelling in Polish, German, French, Russian, Dutch, Italian and so many others—just a din of noise. Just like America’s city.
Ireland huffed. She was not coming to America’s land to live here. No. But she was interested in seeing the place. The only one of her siblings not taken by Rome (just a few monasteries and such in her southern land), she had never left the British Isles. Just a toddler, England had been taken—which was a shame, he’d been so sweet as a boy and now he hardly remembered the years he had spent with them. Quiet, solemn Wales had been captured next—though she and Scotland had tried to protect him—and he had become a scribe. He had never been as big and burly as Scotland and never as fiery as she was. His gray eyes hid everything. When he had finally been able to come back, he had gone home and not come out. He had seen too much.
Scotland had been the last. On a battlefield in his southern land. They had fought together so seamlessly, so hard, so desperately…
"Will you just listen to me for once?" Scotland snapped, "Trust in me!" He didn't want to be angry at her, but they didn't have time for her to throw a fit, "Go! Right now."
Scotland tried to pull away from her, despite how his heart tore to do so, he looked at his enemy and raised his sword. "Come on then."
"Gladly boy." Rome grinned darkly and came at the two of them.
She flinched back from him. She couldn't--not him too...not...
She looked back at the battlefield, where the Roman soldiers seemed to suddenly renew their strength and the tide was turning...
She took a stumbling step back, watching Scotland and Rome. "I will be a coward if I leave you here alone...I can't..." she was speaking barely above a murmur, watching them fight. She sword trembled in her hand. "I can't leave you..."
So she couldn't move, couldn't make herself run. She trembled and stepped forward.
…and she had woken up in a forest with broken arms, beaten senseless. And she had been alone. Scotland taken from her. And she had spent the next few centuries alone until the Germanic tribes sacked the city of Rome…and by then England was so different…completely changed. The little boy she had nestled to her collar when the four of them traipsed through the snow was gone, replaced with a hard-eyed young warrior.
She shook herself, the boat had docked and Netherlands was standing beside her. “Coming?”
She looked at him and nodded. “Aye…” She turned away from the bow, throwing her bag over her shoulder.
Catholics had a hard time of it in the United States. The general populace was suspicious of them, seeing them as being loyal to Rome and Catholicism first and their new country second. But Catholics put up with the discrimination and made lives for themselves, banding together in little neighborhoods. It would not be until after World War II and the escalation of the Cold War, when Catholics would stand ahead of the anti-communist movement and the election of John Kennedy that Catholics would be integrated into society.
Ireland only paid half an ear to this bickering. Her old druids and Gods were long gone and she had hardly a thought for the Christian God. Ireland still had her faeries (who hid themselves in her hair and clothes) and she mostly did not believe in any Gods anymore at all. Her long years alone had killed her faith and buried her kindness.
She’d even been apathetic about her humans for a time…for a long time. She fought alongside them, of course, when Norway and his Vikings came…but then Denmark had come…and she had been grateful for the chance to go up against someone like her. Thrilled at the opportunity to fight someone whose eyes flashed and fought with a ferocity equal to hers. He’d captured her once though, took her back to her house—
Denmark was sitting in her chair. He’d lit a fire in her little hearth and had a pot of something going over the flames. “Now see, I don’t get that. You are one of the Old Nations. And I respect that. Your problem,” he said, pointing her own dagger at her and getting up to get some of her alcohol, “is that you never went anywhere. You’ve spent your entire existence on these two islands. Rome took your brothers to Italy. Why didn’t you ever go with them? You have all this age but no experience. Why do you think me and Sweden and Norway all came over here?”
She just stared at him. “Are you lecturing me? Fuck you! You self-righteous little bastard!”
He poured whiskey in one of her cups and drank it. “Better to be self-righteous than not righteous at all. Your apathy towards your own people is pathetic. And let me remind you, you’re the one tied up on the bed. So lay off the insults, darling.”
“I don’t need anyone else but--!”
“But your brothers?” He smirked. “Or just, your brother. Scotland. He has a life, y’know? Why are you so obsessed with him?”
No one had ever asked her that before. In the thousands of years she had been with Scotland, no one had ever challenged her about him. Her possessiveness of him and even jealousy when he was with others…
“Who the hell are you to judge me?” Ireland snapped. “He’s my brother. Of course I love my brother.”
“This is just me,” said Denmark, happily pouring himself more whiskey, “but I think you like him a little too much. You don’t know any other way to define yourself. If you’d bother getting to know the rest of Europe—as big a pain in the ass as they are—“
“I know Gaul!” she spat at him.
“Gaul—oh, France? Have you seen him since Rome left him? I’d watch out if I were you. He may come visiting over here some day. But anyway,” he waved a hand, “it is nice to meet a female nation. I was interested when I heard about you. Not many female nations around anymore. Greece and Egypt, the ancient ones, disappeared and left boys in their place. There’s Belgium but she’s small—nice little thing. But you—I am intrigued.” He laughed and drank again. “Or is no one allowed to be intrigued with you? I heard Rome didn’t spend a lot of effort trying to get you because you were either too wild or not worth it. I’ve heard both.”
She kicked at him, making him spill his drink. “Stop drinking my whiskey.”
That made him laugh. “Sorry, guess I should have offered you some.”
“Fucking…” She jumped up—her feet were unbound—and she rammed into him. He flipped backwards out of the chair and landed on his back. She hopped back and he whirled around, grabbing the chair up and smashing it down. It broke over her back and she dodged in close and bit his arm. He struck her again, tearing open the congealed blood on her face. He slammed her front against the wall of the shack. “Gods, you could be Freya.”
“Who the fuck is Freya?”
He grabbed the leather binding her wrists behind her back with one hand and slipped the other around her hip to settle on her abdomen. “She’s our warrior goddess of the Valkyries. They decide who dies in battle.”
She turned her face against the wood. “I’m sure it’ll make you feel better if I pick you.”
“One day, but not today. I have a lot more living to do.” He slipped his hand down her thigh. “Now, I’m not going to take over your island, per se. Mostly because that would be hard—Norway can’t decide if he wants to settle here or what. So he occasionally fights me for it. But I like being here. So I—“
She seemed to realize where this was going. “No!” She struggled, put her feet against the wall and shoved back.
“Now, now, hey!” He slammed her into the wall again and pushed his hip into the small of her back to keep her still. “I’m not going to rape you. My Vikings get their kicks from that sometimes—yeah but y’know, there aren’t many female nations and I’m too strong for human women. I’m not going to be like Rome. I’m sure he was really brutal to you. Is that all the experience you have? Just Rome?”
She glared at the wall.
“No? Someone else? Your brother Scotland, maybe? He’s the only one that’s old enough, right? Or maybe France?”
“Never Gaul,” she snapped.
“So Scotland then? Hey, hey--!” He had to grab her as she lurched back against him again. “This won’t hurt if you don’t want it to. C’mon.”
She froze when his hand went under her shirt. She was expecting terrible force. She was suspicious of everyone except Scotland and Wales. Any other nation, no matter what they did—she hadn’t let Norway near her…she strangled a sound. She could not be afraid. Take it bravely. He’d leave when he was done and next time she saw him, she’d kill him.
But strangely, he did not. He didn’t tear her clothes or hit her. He slipped his fingers into her trousers and skimmed down between her thighs to touch her. “There, now, see?” he muttered in her ear, nipping at the lobe, “That doesn’t hurt at all, does it?”
It didn’t. He was clearly experienced, his fingers deft and sure. The hand on her bound wrists left them and drifted up under her shirt, touching her breasts. She squirmed against the wall, biting her lip.
“How does Scotland usually do this?” he muttered again in her ear. “He’s a big guy—does he—“
“Stop asking me weird questions,” Ireland snapped. “You fucking stupid Viking. Just get it the fuck over with!”
Denmark chuckled and kissed her ear. “I’ll bet you top him, don’t you?”
She turned her head, glaring at him.
He kissed her temple. “You do. That sounds fun. You should stop glaring at me.”
“Oh, shut the fuck—“ she jerked and turned her face away, feeling his fingers suddenly dip in to explore and tease at her.
He scattered kisses along her throat, smiling as he listened to her try not to enjoy it.
He kept murmuring things in her ear. And she tried not to hear it but—his actions and then his words and it struck something odd. She and Scotland never really spoke and certainly not like this. It was…dirty and strange and….
When he finally got around to doing it, he kept her up against the wall. She had never done it like that before. Her cheek against the wood and both of his hands on her breasts now and he pushed into her. She could do nothing, physically restrained and body falling into rhythm with him and wasn’t this like betrayal? She shouldn’t like it…but not having to…well….
She tried to clear her brain, her thoughts were scattered and it did feel good. Really good.
When it was over, he laid her back down on the bed and loosed her hands.
Every time she fought Denmark, she always went at him with the intent to kill and he did the same. There was no dismissal like Rome had done and he never submitted to her. On the battlefield, they were equals. Sometimes she won and sometimes he won. Sometimes, their people would fight and he would go home with her. She would offer him a drink because she did not know how else to have a conversation with him.
He was just as interesting to her as she was to him.
She loved fighting him. He was powerful and agile and cocky and his eyes flashed like hers did. He told her about other parts of Europe, about Norway and Sweden (who she heard was with England and Scotland sometimes but she’d never met him herself) and mad little Finland. He went with Sweden sometimes—though his country was not a Viking nation. Sometimes, his people just liked to go along. He was a sweet young man, Denmark said, until he got a weapon and then he’d go mad and kill everyone in sight.
Though he was mostly her enemy, she learned much from Denmark. She looked forward to fighting him and she was so separated from Scotland (who had become a real distinguished kingdom recently and so had other matters to attend to)….
Denmark showed her many other things as well. Other methods of cooking, weapons and clothing, food, art, fighting and fucking. And the last was something she could not admit to. He would do strange things but they were interesting….and…and one time, after he had won a fight with her, he tied her up and kissed her in places she wasn’t aware that you could. And her startled gasps had made him laugh.
But on the battlefield, it was different. They did not cut any slack to each other. They were brutal and when he sacked Tara…she retaliated ferociously. She banded with her Celts and they eventually fought them back. And then a Norse leader married an Irish princess…and when her king sacked Dublin the power of the Vikings had bled out…
The Vikings had assimilated fairly well with her people, though. Norway and Denmark had given her hell and she had returned it and made a strange sort of…friends with them, especially Denmark.
It was strange to hang around a nation that wasn’t Scotland. But it was interesting to…make friends.
A hundred years later, she got a letter from Denmark, where he gleefully told her about a nation he’d met recently, calling himself the Teutonic Knight. He’d taken over the Old Prussians, who, Denmark explained, had come from Latvia. This little white-haired devil had conquered them and was laughing his way through blood. He finished off by saying perhaps they could meet the little monster one day and have a drink with him.
“Ireland?”
She blinked, realized she was staring at a mug of beer. She looked up.
America smiled down at her. “Hi,” he said. “Can I sit with you?”
“Your bloody country,” she muttered, moving a chair towards him with her foot. “How’d you know I was about?”
“I felt your presence,” America told her, smiling again. Always smiling, he was. The little bastard. “I don’t think we’ve ever formally met. Just—once or twice in passing?”
“It’d be hard not to know who you are, lad,” Ireland said dryly, taking out some cigarettes and offering him one.
America took one but did not light it. He had the grace to look sheepish. “Well, you introduce yourself to me then! Scotland is always visiting Canada, so—maybe we could be good friends?”
She lifted her eyebrows, watching him. “I see. Well. I’m Ireland. My common name is Caiomhe O'Connor. I’m not my own country,” she said, bitterly, with an implication of yet, “But I’m working on it.”
He nodded. “I think it’s interesting, what you’re doing. And—with the turn of the century—you could rise to really take your—“
“Don’t waste time on fancy speeches of freedom to me, lad. I’m too old for such tripe.”
“Old?” America looked her over. Ireland certainly didn’t look old. Her long, thick red hair was vibrant and bright. Her skin smooth, pale, freckly. She didn’t resemble any of her brothers in the slightest. Except for those green eyes, she and England shared those brilliant green eyes. She was short and lean but as dangerous as a wolf when riled. Scotland, with his calm, reserved nature, had been the only one who could temper her fiery constitution. “You don’t look that old.”
The line made her crack a thin, cynical smile. “Don’t judge a book by the leather, lad.”
America raised a couple fingers to the bar tender, gesturing for a beer. “No one ever listens to me when I say that.”
She supped at her mug. “That so, boy?”
“Mmm,” America said, nodded and thanking the bar tender, taking a drink from it. “They all say I have no culture and no history. Russia is the only one who seems to be okay with me.”
“Sounds like they’re a might jealous—you’re getting thousands each year from Old Europe, coming over here for a better life. You and your brother—more multicultural than the old world can pretend to be.” She smiled again. “Y’likely can’t understand it—given how young you are—but to leave everythin’ behind like our people are doin’ to come and participate in your experiment—no matter what any of ‘em say—“ she shrugged, “You’ve got somethin’, lad.”
America blinked and stared at her.
She glanced at him. “What?” she snapped.
America smiled. “You’re really great, y’know?”
She scowled. “Shut up, you maggot.”
He laughed and clapped her on the back, nearly sending her face first into the table. She elbowed him in the chest and grumbled.
He and Ireland had a strange sort of friendship. She stayed in his land for a long time. He took her out to see several of his States. England hated this, which might have been reason enough for both of them—and England sent repeated summons for Ireland to return to the British Isles. All of which, she promptly ignored.
She liked Boston, Massachusetts. She found the Midwest temperamental in its weather. The South was too bloody hot and damp.
The south west, with its dry, hot states of Nevada was bright and sunny. And Ireland burned something awful but she enjoyed it. Her hair pulled back with a strip of leather and dressed like a man in trousers and boots and shirt and vest. She had never seen a desert.
“There’s land to the east I’d like to made states sometime,” America told her, pulling down the edge of his hat to shield his face.
“Land looks fuckin’ uninhabitable,” she said, leaning in close to a red cactus flower. Her fae peered out of her hair, examining the flower too.
“It cools off at night,” America told her, hands in his pockets, looking around his land. And when it did get dark, they stayed out. He pointed out the snakes and scorpions and deadly spiders and other creatures, which she peered at with some mixture of revulsion and interest. Her fae were scared of the scorpions and refused to look at them.
But she loved the state of Oregon. She never said it but America saw how her eyes lit up at the deep forests and mountains.
When they finally made it back to the east coast, England had sent more angry letters.
They made paper airplanes out of them and flew them into America’s fireplace—after, of course, a show of reading them as dramatically as possible, which ended with Ireland flopping onto the couch and America laughing, pulling her to him and hugging her. It had set her to struggling a little and then awkwardly allowing it, leaning back against him.
She really wasn’t that bad, America told himself and couldn’t understand why England got so vexed with her.
Of course, almost twenty years later at the Olympics in London, the Irish refused to participate as British citizens and Americans refused to dip their flag to King Edward VII.
Ireland had been proud of her people for refusing to participate under the British crown but, unfortunately, she had been forced to come anyway. She sat with tall, barrel-chested, dark-haired Scotland on one side and smaller, leaner dark-haired Wales on the other. Scotland hadn’t been able to fight the tiny smile entirely. Wales showed no reaction at all, lifting his eyes from his deck of cards and flipping the top one on the deck (Jack of Clubs). Ireland laughed and applauded.
She was one of very few who were amused and she made a point to go down and have a laugh about it later with America.
He was glad to see her. She didn’t mock him like the others did. They laughed and had a drink together. And oh, oh, how it enraged England.
“He’s just like Rome,” Ireland said, smoking, taking a drink of some strong tea. “People say you’re like Rome? No. Hardly at all. Rome went around conquering and picking fights to gain power. England does the same thing. You’d rather just keep to yourself. And one day, like Rome, England will get what he deserves.”
America looked at her, thoughtful. “You really think I’ll be okay…?”
She didn’t look at him, focusing more on the program of events she was flipping through. “I think you’ve got a chance to be something great. You don’t have all our experience, lad, but it means you don’t hold our grudges either. My people will certainly never give up on going for independence.”
“The Irish are a tough crew,” America agreed. “They put up with a lot—even here and always make the best of it.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, lad,” Ireland grinned down at the pamphlet and then raised her tea and drank it fast.
“You must be joking.”
America perked a little at the table and looked at England. “What?”
“What are you writing?” There was a curl to his lip, a sneer, saying he was already well-aware.
“I’m writing a letter to Ireland…”
England scoffed. “Why?”
“What does it matter to you? What business is it of yours?”
“Do you like her? A scrubby, insubordinate, belligerent woman like her?”
America bristled. “She’s a helluva lot nicer to me than you are.”
England stiffened. “You are not becoming friends with her!”
“That’s not for you to decide.” America stood up and turned to leave.
France huffed. “Excellent work, England. Keep this up and he may never join us in the war with Germany. He’ll just continue to watch from his coast—“
“If Russia has a revolution—“
“I would not count on any certainties from Russia. He is always one to surprise you. His boss, Nicholas II is—“
“Shut up!” England snapped.
England dared to be angry with her. He dared to during the Second World War.
"You are practically siding with the Nazis by maintaining your neutrality! You have a responsibility!"
She bristled, hackles rising. "Do not presume to matter on at me. I barely have a military to offer, no thanks to you."
England scowled. "I--"
"Did you think I'd forgotten?" Ireland laughed. "Hard to forget several hundred years of oppression and genocide!"
He knocked his glass of beer over, jumping up, striding towards her. "I did what I had to--!"
Ireland's chair flew back and she was up, meeting him, getting in his face. "And I'm doing what I have to! I will not fight under your flag! A pity should the fucksprouts take the rest of Europe but I would gladly hope they take you!"
England struck her, open-handed. She staggered, growled and whipped back to retaliate--
--and then Scotland was there, getting inbetween them and holding England's collar and Ireland's wrist. "The both of you, stop."
England jerked back from him. "I will not--"
"She will not come with you. She hates you. There's nothing you can do about that. Now leave off." He looked to Ireland. "Calm down."
Ireland glared up her eldest brother. "How can you stand this?"
Scotland's face, quiet, craggy with lines, was solemn. He reached out, touching the side of her face slowly, gently.
She made a strange sound and jerked back from him, scowling and walked away.
Scotland watched, wanted to follow her. The sweet child he had met so long ago was gone...
She couldn't recall when she had been born.
One day, she had simply become aware of rain, and brilliant green grass and blue lakes and the faeries.
She was tiny, running about on itty bitty legs, avoiding the humans. They acted strangely when they saw her; wanted to take her, talk to her, sometimes they prayed to her--but she could not go with them--because she...well...
The land was calling to her.
She could hear it. A low whisper, a patter of rain, a song. She felt a sort of hole in her little body when they picked her up to carry her off. And not all of them could see the same things she could see. It confused them. So she left. And wandered.
Sometimes she reached the ocean, and stared at the vast expanse and felt a strange little twinge. Like maybe someone was looking back. There was something beyond that watery horizon. She could never quite explain it...but...she felt the pull.
But it was a strange feeling and one she could not follow. The idea of leaving her land was scary...
Even right now. Being chased.
She did so hate being chased because she was so little--sometimes the humans chased her and hurt her--and sometimes, like now, mighty snakes did. A fire-breathing monster, clever and old--maybe older than she was--she wasn't sure.
She ran through the wet grass; her magic, wild and untamed, sparked and burst, thrusting up between them. She stumbled and fell in the mud, got up and turned. Her faeries chittered and squealed at her (Oh, run! Run! He will eat you!). She brought up her tiny hands, wild hair sparking and blowing back--she would try and face this thing she feared so.
And then the boy had appeared. Dressed roughly, wearing charms and a string of wolf teeth. Her eyes met his and she felt that little twinge again...someone is looking back...
And then the monster reared, screamed at her magic, went at her--and he was suddenly dashing forward, throwing his spear. It slammed into the monster's gut and she was suddenly up and in the boy's arms. They ran away from the monster. She had struggled a little at first. She'd been frightened of him, a tiny little wild-haired thing...
...but then he had offered her food and she had eaten strips of meat from his fingers.
"My name is Alba," said the boy, "What's yours?"
She had hesitated and whispered, "Eriu..."
"This is you, isn't it, Eriu?" the boy asked, as if tasting the name, trying it out. "You're this land, aren't you?"
She nodded, cringed...
"You're like me then! I live over the water to the north! I'll look after you, okay?"
The little girl had stared up at him, thinking of the families she sometimes viewed from a distance. "Are you...like my brother?"
"Yes--we're the same, so we must be family..." He reached down and took her hand.
Scotland watched her, thought of all this in a flash. That little girl had been eager and loving. She had refused to be separated from him. She stayed with him always. When they found Wales, she had even been a little jealous at not having his undivided attention. But they had worked together to help raise Wales....
And then when they found England...just a tiny thing...
Scotland looked at the grown-up England, who was also so different...
They had found him sleeping at a place called Stonehenge. As if he belonged there, the tiny boy napping near the Stones. And from then on...all four of them together...
There might have been four of them to these two islands and their tribes fought sometimes but they all traveled together, helping each other...until Rome came.
Until Rome came....
-
...that's all I have so far...
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Date: 2009-12-12 04:56 pm (UTC)Haha, since I rp with my friend--a lot of things influence their relationships and stuff--and now because of historical ties and personality similarities, I totally ship Scotland/Canada now. XD