[Ficlet] Solace

[deegeeak]

Title: Solace
Characters/Pairing:   England, France.
Rating: PG
Warning: Death of Native America 
Summary:  England has done something foolish, and now France picks up the pieces.

Across the room stood a cradle, never used before, now wrapped in in stained linen cloth, and borrowed quilts. 

The wind outside howled and wept against the walls of the log cabin.  Inside, the flickering lights swayed and twitched.  England knelt beside a bed, his knees pressing into the wooden hand hewn planks of the floor.  The cloth of the bed were stained ruby bright and even from the door he stood in, he could see it gleamed wetly.  

Silently he walked over.  With every footstep, he saw England flinch. Looking down he saw a sight he'd only seen perhaps a handful of times in his long life.  A young woman, still gasping from the effort that brought the contents of the cradle to life, her dark skin damp with sweat and blood, dying before them.  The effort of carrying a nation killed - everyone knew it, it was why such things were forbidden to Nations such as they. 

England, foolish, romantic, England, had sought to change that fate of this girl with his magic born of the blood of a warrior queen and Rome.

He'd failed.

Across the room came the angry cry of a new born Nation, quickly joined by another.    He left England to kneel by the bed of girl he'd loved, to tend to the newborns.  Without help, these newly born infants would fade, and cease to be.  France was not so unmoved by grief of England to let his children die.  His finger ran over the carved patterns, silkies, faeries, and images of all sorts of Fae wrapped around the cradle as if to protect it's precious contents from harm.  Even with his lack of magic he could still feel the magic lurking below the wood.

He sighed at the still grieving England - he'd not taken the time to properly care for these two precious twins, and it would fall to him to do so.  The water was still warm by the fire, and quickly cleaned the pair off.  A bit of digging turned up the buckskin hide that the young Native nation must of carefully turned into these works of art.  He wasn't sure why the sole of the small boots were slit, but there was a sense of Tradition about it.  He slid them on and then turned back to deal with his greatest beloved enemy.

Somehow he pulled the Englishman away from the cooling body and forced him into new, cleaner clothes.  Forced him to eat something and then sat him by the fire while he wrapped the now departed Nation in a blanket.  Time enough to deal with that later.

"I thought I could.."

France sighed.  "Mon Ami, only three nations in all our history have done such a thing. And in the end, they too died."

England looked wild and desperate.  "They did, why couldn't I," he wailed.  "She was everything!"

"England," France whispered, "it took the entire power of the Old Gods to give such things.  They are no more, and we are left with only to go onwards with what we have."

"She's gone France."

"Oui.  And it is your fault," France agreed in the fire light, "but you have two newborn nations to care for and raise to be as good and kind as she was."

 

Comments

[nupinoop296.livejournal.com]

D-darn it. ;A; That was very sad and very well done. How did you know this was my potential headcanon?!

[deegeeak.livejournal.com]

I didn't! I didn't want to go the Mpreg route - as fun as it is, there's been a lot of it. Plus, there had to be a reason why none of the Ancient Nations lived on. Saying it was because of Childbirth was a pretty easy route. Childbirth for humans was a horrific experience with huge death rates for mother and child. Just think of what it could have been for nations.